Rachel was one of my favourite parts of season four, and I was really looking forward to her return. I was a little disappointed, because I liked her scenes in her season four episode a lot more than the one she had here - it felt under-written. Hopefully she'll be in more episodes.

I love those episodes, but a few Twin Peaks episodes top them all for me.

After reading your post, I feel like I was!

This sounds like the directors said, "Wow, these saps will watch anything! I wonder how far we can push them?"

Oh, he called you ma'am! It's hilarious because women are inferior to men!

Sounds like this guy only knows a few REM hits, and has judged them based on those. For the record, Stipe himself has said that the song is NOT meant to be ironic, and it didn't take long for him to refer to it as "an abortion".

What is this "crème" bullshit? It's spelled "cream".

I think it definitely does. It is at its core the story of a gay relationship.

I'm a fan of Wainy Days. Sounds like David Wain carried that style of humour over from Stella, which I now have to check out.

I love dogs, but those are kind of lame, except the Spiderman one.

Maybe it would help to remember the old-timey origin of the word, which refers to the flickering light of a projector.

Er, Beck made music worth getting excited about after Sea Change. The Information is one of his very best albums.

the show has many, many scenes of characters discussing how valuable
Gabriel is, how critical it is that he be protected, how dangerous it
would be if he went rogue

I wouldn't call Upstream Color obtuse at all. There are one or two things I don't understand about it, but the overall narrative is pretty straightforward (even though it's extremely economical).

I really enjoyed the episodes, but anyone downvoting you for expressing a dissenting opinion in a civil manner is being childish.

I didn't catch the stealth-apology - can you enlighten me?

Amen. This show stumbles most when it tries to have an arc.

B, A-

I totally agree with Todd's grades, but the "questions of self-improvement and healing" he praises is the part of the show I've always found least convincing. So hopefully it goes easy on that from here on out.

Watch the season 4 premiere, which will give you a good idea of the season's tone. If you like it, keep watching the season. If you don't like it, just watch Paranormal Parentage, Herstory of Dance, and Basic Human Anatomy (the only episodes that merited a B+ in my view).