This is what I keep hoping. Zoom had to be lying. That would salvage SOME but not all of this episode.

I agree. Either Zoom was lying or it feels like the writers changed plans somewhere along the way. I was happy considering that dead Jay was Earth 2, Zoom was from Earth 3, and that man in the mask was yet another Jay from another Earth. I wasn't wild about that storyline—Zoom hunting Jay Garricks from other Earths…

I love, love the "Red Ant" dialogue, especially the ending:

Good point. One of my favorite things about his films is that I don't feel much judgment about the characters in the films. Characters don't fall into neat patterns. It feels very observational and different, without neat moralizing.

I liked the flashback structure in the first episode, with the series of quick cuts of the flashback before completely arriving in the flashback.

I forget who they were, but in some Smith retrospective, other musicians echoed your comment that Smith was an amazing guitarist and that trying to do covers of his songs was really hard, especially the guitar parts.

Sweet Adeline was the first song I ever heard by him. Someone lent me the album. I put it on as background music, had no expectations about it, and that first song stopped whatever else I was going to do. I turned back to focus on the song. It was one of those moments of "Oh, right, music can do that. I almost forgot."

Not a great season finale, but I don't have the hate that others have for it. Yes, it was a lot of driving around, but I liked seeing Rick go from overconfident to suddenly less sure and then a trembling mess. I don't think the tension escalated as well as it should have (the daisy chain of zombies was silly, not…

Season 1 was an enjoyable mini series. In fact, I wouldn't have watched it if it had been a full series. Never had high expectations for it and that was fine. Not sure I'll stick around for two more seasons.

I agree. I didn't miss Jess at all. And I thought Reagan had funnier lines.

With how quickly John Cho and Demetri Martin made appearances and then vanished, I thought I was watching The Good Wife.

Great episode. I was relieved that the A plot was so inconsequential, and I was glad we didn't really have to focus on other characters that much (the Duckworths barely registered, and that was fine). It allowed us to focus on the central cast, and they got to just dig into that silly plot with funny dialogue that led…

I usually don't say this about the AV Club comment section, but it's true this time:

This final season is just limping along, isn't it?

Thanks!

A lot of the "made you cry" moments mentioned by others are really good.

Right, I agree about the "Wah, my mom's shadow" moment. I thought that was such a great way to show his beginning and the kind of thing he was worried about then. Compared to the rest of the episode and how much he would grow and suffer through, the youth of that moment is put into perspective.

That dancing scene was really nice. Showed everyone taking a happy moment between the moments of misery and tragedy that occur on most Thursdays for them. It's also, I think, a reflective moment for the viewer to remember those moments of celebration fondly, even if the cause later ended in sadness.

When the previews came up for this episode last week, my wife and I sighed a little: April and Jackson aren't our favorite characters, and we were happy that Meredith's "sound of silence" episode had managed to move their plot along with little glimpses. So, we were not looking forward to a whole episode that focused…

So glad you covered this episode. I watch this show because my wife watches it, but apart from a few weak seasons, it's always been enjoyable enough. I'm glad to see they can still create episodes like this. A few stray thoughts: