He's always been completely confident in his sexuality. It's maybe the one thing about himself he's never struggled with. But his boyfriend cheats on him with a woman, so he thinks maybe he should check that out? It's so out of character, not to mention offensive and pretty nonsensical. I can't believe they thought…

I don't think I could even say the title out loud without gagging. It is aggressively bad.

Agreed. Everything about the clips of the couple (clothes, hair, furnishings) looks pointedly as if it could just as easily be 1980 as today.

I like the McEwan I've read, but I feel like there's no way I could read this without "hearing" the narration in Stewie Griffin's voice?

YES. Also: LaMont Chu. Avril Mondragon Tavis Incandenza. Ortho "The Darkness" Stice.

How the shit does "he brought an elephant and a giraffe into the classroom and slaughtered them" become testimony in a trial? Even if hysteria is running the show, surely someone on the prosecution would be lucid enough to think, "Hmm, let's maybe not push that one."

I don't get big words. Does this mean "If you don't like it, you're a doodyhead?"

God yes. These people are not idiots. Over the years I think they've proved themselves to be smart, insightful writers, even though I haven't enjoyed all of their choices. So their indifferent-at-best relationship to logic and continuity is bizarre to me. It's totally distracting, and unnecessary. Just…do better.

I'm guessing they were expecting a more positive response to that relationship, though I can't imagine why.

I don't know. I agree that there have always been outlandish moments and subplots, obviously, but there was still some kind of grounding in realism that I think they've slacked off on as the show goes on. The writers seem to disconnect from reality/common sense when those things are inconvenient to getting where they…

Yep. And speech to his boss may have been delivered well enough on an emotional level, but content-wise, it was such lazy, stupid writing. For one thing, it would not be discriminatory/illegal not to hire someone wheelchair-bound to be an EMT, and it's idiotic that anyone would think otherwise. There are physical…

I remember the cop saying he'd be facing some charges, but like oh so many things it was never followed up on.

Yeah, that's true, but what I mean is I think the boyfriend might see Ian's illness as "not a big deal" to a fault. Which is fair—he hasn't seen him in a bad patch—but you can't pretend it away. Lying on the form might get him a job while not necessarily being what's best for him in the long run.

He was also taken in by the police after the incident with Yevgeny.

Yeah. Legally it might be none of their business, and if Ian keeps taking care of himself it's none of their business, but if he decides he didn't need his meds anymore, as people sometimes do, it could become their business in a hurry. It was a weirdly cavalier attitude to take about a job that involves saving lives.

Maybe not in the way it was presented, but that's not exactly true. They can't discriminate on that basis, but they can, AFAIK, ask around a person's ability to do the job in question.