Yeah, case in point: I am finally getting around to watching Agents of Shield. I quit on it during the original broadcast due to a very weak start, but always had heard it got a lot better.

This was a year of many Marvel products having such fresh, promising starts, then rote, disappointing finishes. Including both Harkness and WandaVision (in a highly related way).

My fourth-grader really likes Sk8ter Boi.

O’Flynn’s DC Emma Lancing is one of my favorite characters/acting performances this year. Of course Colman and Thewlis are also excellent, but they have been given the meatiest possible parts. O’Flynn’s sardonic, world-weary, and quite funny Lancing is operating as the perfect foil to the Edwards, grounding scenes in…

She is committed to trying to stop it AND agonizing over it, in part because as Season Five underscored, she feels a lot of personal guilt over her role (or more properly, lack of it) in how Filip became who he is. And I am not sure it is realistic to ask a parent with a child who has become a terrible person as an…

Roman was obviously desperate, but I saw him appealing to her at least much as a former co-conspirator and strategic partner as a quasi-lover (and I note this season, Gerri had really kept it to the former).

I thought this season made clear that by now, at least, Greg is really motivated by status, not material consumption. Of course that is true of all of these characters in one sense or another—they all have far too much wealth already for more wealth to matter in any consumption sense. But striving for/defending status…

I really hope this season was setting up Connor joining fully into the family power contest next season. But I am not sure he will be joining the ill-fated Team Shiv (as Roman called it).

I think the tension you are articulating comes out of the fact this show superficially looks like a corporate thriller which might actually have some sort of happy ending, but it is actually a family tragedy which is likely to end poorly for the main characters.

Yeah, I think the near-drowning truly marks Kendall hitting bottom, and that leads to him confessing his role in the death of the waiter to Shiv and Roman.

Yeah, my guess is Connor is going to be mad they f’ed it up, and that may push him to asserting himself as “eldest son” in more concrete ways.

But Logan selling the company is going to give Kendall what he claims to want, a buyout.

Absolutely. Shiv believes she is entitled to lead, but she does not understand how to get people to actually follow her. And her relationship with Tom really reinforced that, because he affirmed that unearned sense of herself . . . until now.

I actually went back and rewatched the sequence from the phone conversation with Shiv through Tom’s conversation with Greg just to be sure it was all set up properly. And yes, that was because I also had some lingering doubt about whether Tom really had the capability to betray Shiv and then come into the room with an…

The look on Gerri’s face after she watched Roman finally stand up to Logan was just amazing (and a great quick cut). Even better on a rewatch, in fact, because now we know that she knew what Logan had done. She so much wanted Roman to side with Logan, but nope. They then cut quickly back to her again when Logan is…

We don’t for sure, but in the car ride there is a scene were Roman is talking on the phone to Connor and “layering him in,” but not really explaining anything much, because Roman says it is complicated, he doesn’t have time, and Connor is “a little bit slow.” Meanwhile, though, Shiv is on the phone with Tom and giving…

It sounds to me like there was a divorce agreement with a change of control provision for the family company requiring a supramajority. I suspect it didn’t specifically mention the kids, and in the context of a divorce would instead have been understood as protecting Caroline’s interests, as she is also a large…

That may well have been part of Tom’s motivation. I do think his move is explainable by his view that Logan always wins, so of course he sided with Logan when Shiv decided to openly rebel against Logan. But I also suspect he still craves her love, and is hoping that by making himself into a more powerful figure (the…

Yeah, it seemed clear to me it was Shiv taking the lead on organizing a joint rebellion, and she had to first rope in Kendall, and then finally Roman. Indeed, I think she was telling Roman in the car she expected to be CEO.

I loved Caroline on the phone trying to articulate just that. She says in explaining why she thinks her actions were for the best, “I’m not sure it’s been good for you, all the, you know.”