Also the fact that Piper is so clearly new and ill-equipped to adjust to prison life, making her an easier target.

Also, I got inexplicably choked up a little bit by some of the pageant scenes.  Even though it's mostly just the actors getting to show off more of their range, it was kind of cathartic getting to see so many of them playing something joyful.

I'm kind of boggled at how much the show reminds me of what I came to hate about Weeds. There are so many little queues like that, or character moments (particularly with some of the guards) that feel like the awful undercutting Kohan did to so many of that show's bit players, yet here they're somehow used to…

While we got a bit of an idea about Crazy Eyes' background in seeing her parents, and the actress managed to imbue her limited screen time with an impressive amount of nuance, I really feel like the show needs to spend more time on her next season.  Some have criticized her role as being cartoonish or reductive, but I…

I can buy that Piper could win that fight, but the staging of the actual fight - particularly the kick and elbow - were incredibly unconvincing bits of acting. 

Yep.

Between this one and last week I'm wondering if they didn't just save all the good ones from this batch for the home stretch.

I have suspicions that "fund a cooking career" is more or less "continue being able to afford hot dinners"

I mean, everything between the end of season 2 and the first scene of season 5 was written on the fly, but don't let that factor in or nuthin'

He's a series regular in my heart, goddamnit.

I don't ever want to see her again outside of Publizity on Kroll Show.

Very interesting. Thanks for providing this info.

There's a whole bunch of typos throughout the article. Makes me wonder if they accidentally posted the draft version of the review without copyediting.

Don't look down/Shove it in your mouth

I AM READING AND SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING THE EMMY MERITS OF THE PRODUCTION DESIGN OF THE MIDDLE. THIS IS A GOOD USE OF THE LATER PORTION OF MY TWENTIES PLEASE I NEED TO BELIEVE THAT

I appreciate the consistency - the quilt in the oven popping up as an extra continuity joke in so many episodes, and other little things like that. Feels like a real house.

That, or a 5th season to cover the campaign.  Either way I think they've given the show a narrative drive that will help them avoid repeating the same material, and putting what seems to be a cap on the number of seasons is smart. 

I actually liked that they chose to explore what a period of sober Jackie would be like.  It's quieter by design, but I appreciated the restraint in not immediately jumping into the most dramatic material.  I was kind of interested to see if the show could move beyond her addiction as a focal point, so I'm a little…

The middle episodes were in no way competitive with the show's best ever periods, as the new doctor characters were distressingly one note (as was the horrendous Akalitus plot) and the Jackie stuff was mostly passable.  It was no way near as bad as the AVC reviews have been treating it, and frankly the finale here…

A lot of the more attentive AVC type of viewers did, but I also ran across a surprising number of people who weren't twigged by the fact that he never spoke to anyone but Travis and kept popping up with supernatural surprise like a damned horror movie villain in just about every one of his scenes.