I thought it was underwhelming too, but for me that was a relief more than an actual disappointment. Last week's ep was heartrending the whole way through, so when they kept hyping the shocks of the midseason finale my expectations were way more scary. So afterward I was like "Oh good, the only major character who…

Honestly, I think that might have been my only disappointment with the episode. He's NOT going to be the Big Boss? Well what's the POINT then! (Not that there needs to be a point. That was just how I felt about it in the moment).

It seriously felt like all the other "okay then"s of the season had just been building to that one.

I am a little disappointed that the Future Mob Boss of season one theory didn't pan out.

"I'd definitely have Mike put on his best Bluth and say, "Well. That was a freebie." Admit it, you can totally hear that in Bokeem's voice already. :D" Yes. Yes I did.

It reminded me of Pink Floyd— which is kind of funny now that I write that, Floyd being one of the characters involved.

A lot of people've lost their mothers to cancer in this show. Peggy, Molly, and Gus's daughter-whose-name-I-can't-remember. Okay, that's three, but that's still relatively a lot.The only other dead mother I can think of is Floyd, so that's three out of four dead mothers as cancer victims. Huh.

AH! That makes more sense. I kind of thought there'd just been target practice happening there once or twice.

TRUTH.
—signed, Unrepentant Martin Fangirl

I replied to someone else that I think the narration kind of made the UFO go down better. If the episode had been played as a straight drama up to that point the UFO would have felt even more out of nowhere and I think more jarring. The narration frames the whole story as something more absurdist (despite the "true…

This— I was trying to figure out what Peggy would have to do to make me happy about her getting her eventual comeuppance, and the only thing I decided would do it would be if she sacrifices Ed. Otherwise, I'd kind of rather see her survive this and go on being crazy somewhere else, California or something.

It highlighted the absurdity, especially in an episode with a blatant UFO encounter— I think the UFO part would have been harder to swallow if the episode had been played perfectly straight up to that point. Instead it places you in a sort of storybook, heightened reality. Magical realism? And the fact that the…

Sounds like a perfect description of Bear coming after him, actually. His name is even BEAR!

His "Okay, then" there was like the best one of the season, like all the other "okay, then"s were just leading up to that one.

I was thinking, as I read this— I kept hearing it in Hank Larsson's voice. I CAN'T REMEMBER what Sam Malone sounded like.

Wonder when that was. I saw McCartney last year and there was a ton of pyrotechnics. :P

I was just thinking earlier how ironic it is that, assuming Bear DID kill Simone, it was actually because he thought MORE of her than Dodd did. He actually respected her, so he knew she was dangerous alive.

I hated him SO MUCH, to see him being so thoroughly tormented was the most fun I have ever had with schadenfreude.

(I did accidentally once)

I'm with you that I don't think the trope or the appearance of it was at all out of place here, but I have to disagree that Coulson didn't get any special motivation out of it— it's clearly more personal for him now, and it's making him a bit more rash and flirting-with-the-dark-side. Which is, indeed, bound to be…