"Dear kkkevin: Fuck you."

Time travel shows always struggle with racial diversity, because many of the places in history you'd want to go, especially in the last few centuries, are hostile to people of color. And then you either ignore the inherent racism of those times, or the story becomes centered around that racism where that's the only…

I'm not a regular viewer any more, but I'll admit the final version of Manny's Julliard video application, in which he defined himself both by what Gloria gave him as a single mother before moving in with Jay and how Jay had helped him grow after they'd moved in, choked me up. And then when the camera shows Jay choked…

I agree with your conclusion, but only because it's a CBS co-production rather than just a Warner Bros. show. Warner Bros. shows have a much higher bar for renewal on The CW than CBS shows do.

My big problem with this show is that only the A plot with Evie and Xavier is working for me.

Agreed that the 180 on the Kara/Jimmy dynamic was the clunkiest part of the episode. Given that we spent an entire season with Kara pining for Jimmy, there needed to be a good reason for her feelings to change, and there just wasn't. Not a bad plot development, since the kind of chemistry that the show wanted was…

In real life, Pamela Adlon's mother is a British woman born in England who happens to be her next door neighbor. So it's just one of the many auto-biographical elements in the show.

Sometimes cloying is what we need. I've got a Y chromosome, but damn that scene in front of the mirror at the department store rang true to me. Sometimes, when kids are really despairing — especially when they're starting to confront adult problems with no easy solutions — parents know exactly the right thing to say…

Really subtle work from Mikey Madison in the guidance counselor scene. As the guidance counselor goes on and on with increasingly bleak news, you see the reality set in even though Max barely moves and barely changes her expression.

Are you a business owner who is male or an owner of a male business? Does your male-ness (or association with male-ness) give you special insight into the squeeness of this casting?

I liked how the episode was bookended by the highs and lows of parenting: The episode opens with Sam exhausted, sleeping in her car, while a sympathetic homeless woman warns her of the perilous road ahead. The episode closes with Sam happy the job fell through, because she's having a moment of connection with her…

I always got the impression that Edward Alderson is Darlene's father but that Elliot's (Indian?) mother is not Darlene's mother.

Lots of old Emmy voters still don't like Hanoi Jane.

On "The Good Wife" they were all American accents, though, so there was no disadvantage.

She's outlasted more presidents than Forest Whitaker in "The Butler'.

It's the American accent. She was destined to come across as flat compared to all of the other characters. She came alive for a second at the castle where Jamie was whipped, when she attempted a Scottish accent, and then not again until she got REALLY angry at Claire.

I'm not sure which was more jarring: Brianna's flat American accent against Claire's precise English vowels and a universe of musical Scottish accents, or a Four Tops song in an "Outlander" episode.

I dunno, my standards are a lot lower when there's little else to watch. There's no way I'd stick with this during the September - May TV season, but right now, sure.

Between the neutered Friday the 13th tropes, the satanist cult tropes and the rip off of John Carpenter's "Halloween" score, this hit the "so bad it's good" target squarely for me. Perfect summer trash.

I kind of would have liked Margaery to survive, only to make it back to the Red Keep and find her husband's body.