Who shits on it? In my experience everyone who watches it (admittedly not many) at least enjoys it.

I agree the first half was probably the weakest the show has been this season, but the heist saved the episode.

God, the trailer for the next ep was so gloriously comic book.

Vikings is a good show, but the dialogue has often been a weak point. If previous seasons are an indication, once the story picks up steam this will cease to matter so much.

Fiona needs to wake the fuck up and see what Carl is up to—I have a feeling that storyline is heading somewhere grim.

Interesting that Sammi did a complete 180 on Frank—none of the kids like him except Carl, but taunting him as he is possibly dying is next-level shit, and from the looks of the preview, Frank is pretty pissed.

Now that Boardwalk is over, it absolutely is.

That's operating under the assumption that nominations and awards are predicated on quality, which simply isn't the case. But yeah, top-tier stuff all around tonight.

I've got to hand it to Wells. As pissed as I was about the return of JJS, the fallout was handled masterfully. Fiona is a wreck. And of course the Ian-Mickey stuff was just gut-wrenching.

I'm not quite there yet, but I understand where you're coming from.
As an aside, was Nola wrong when she said Chayton would never kill a Kinaho girl, or was his attack on the deputy inconsistent characterization?

Upvoted for Oz reference.

This reminds me of something I've been thinking about. This show has caused me to coin the term "Banshee characters," the larger-than-life, almost super-powered badasses that most shows have a small handful of at most but the cast of Banshee almost consists of entirely. What characters from other shows would fit in on…

Hmm, I disagree. I think the term is overused, but as I understand it Siobhan's death is a text-book case in which the term is merited: Chayton whacked her specifically to inflict pain on Hood.

Of course it ended up working fine, but that always sort of bugged me: Mike works for Saul, but wait! He works for Gus too. Of course it makes sense and leads to interesting places, it's just that I've always felt the seems show a bit at that point.

To be fair, I think HOC is using it to make a thematic point as well. The real difference is that HOC just isn't very good.

Complaining about A-'s? Really? BrBa is a great, great show, and I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't rank it even higher than I do if there weren't such a vocal contingent that grow surly at the very idea that it has flaws, which may cause me to weigh those flaws more heavily than I otherwise would. I doubt it; those…

Saul countenanced murder in his first ever appearance, and he was still doing it in the final season. I'm enjoying the show, but I think the straining after evidence that Saul's arc is radically different from Walt's reeks of desperation. I'll be thrilled to be proven wrong, but entertaining as it has been, I just…

Yeah, the analysis was excellent, but the themes extrapolated seemed the opposite of bracingly novel.

Yeah, as much as I dig her reviews, I don't really buy that argument about how radically different Saul's arc will be.

I'm liking the show so far, but episode one was all about Saul getting kicked around by life and humiliated until he snaps and decides to do something shady for money, and episode 2 involved the protagonist and a couple of young dumbasses being held hostage by Tuco, who is once again taking care of an elderly…