“I don’t need every episode to have heavy-duty family drama, or to have a guest star pop in to give a helpful summation of the theme, but the acidic, lacerating self-awareness that defined the series seems to have been given up in favor of settling into a rut of genial shenanigans that have no real edge to them at…

I think there was an attempt by Harmon in season 3 to open the door for the kinds of vulnerable (if not sentimental) character beats that had largely eluded the series up until that point, but it just didn’t work. The foundation was not laid properly by the writers, while the catalyst for those character beats was the…