I unfailingly remember Forest Whitaker throughout this season with a constant sheen of sweat on him, whether that's true or not—he's constantly under the lights and stressed, and as the one who's supposed to play by the rules, he's arguably under even more pressure than the Strike Team, which doesn't exactly feel…

VAGUE SPOILERS

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Yes! I'd almost started thinking halfway through that the mystery would never be solved, that it was all just an outgrowth of this experience of being in high school, and being a girl, and then it turns out to be about all of that and still do the mystery plot, which is impressive. But I think it's the weird…

I really liked the very unsettling The End of Everything, about a young girl who goes missing and her best friend's complex response to both that disappearance and the suggestion she might have been abducted by an older man. It's got that same feeling The Fever has, where everything is sort of already poisonous and…

I desperately want to get my hands on Academic Exercises. I always feel, when reading KJ Parker stories, that I am reading someone whose brain works exceptionally differently from my own: most of them are just bristling with all these very specific jealousies and competitive pressures, and it's really interesting in…

Oh, please comment back later what you thought of The Fever. I loved it—I'm a big fan of Abbott's near-hallucinatory, up-close-and-hotly-personal style, and I really like her recent "noir with teenaged girls" subgenre. And no one else I know has read it.

That was always my favorite of the series. I was just haunted and blown away as a kid by the idea, in Taran's revolving door of careers, that you could most love the thing you weren't good at it and be good at a series of things you didn't care for. It's a surprisingly sophisticated lesson and I'm glad I learned it…

I loved Gone Girl—Gillian Flynn consistently writes the books I feel like I would write if I were a better writer—but cannot miss this opportunity to recommend Dark Places, her second novel, which turns Gone Girl's unreliable narrators and suspense to something much messier and more rewarding (for me). I like a good…

I also just finished Blood Meridian, and will nod in awe to "dense and horrific and gripping and beautiful" as a description. McCarthy just succeeds at imbuing everything with so much significance that even the most mundane moment feels like a portent. I almost feel like you should read The Road next, to have these…

This is a nice RIP for Army's presence on the team (and the show). Michael Peña (unsurprisingly both because Michael Peña and because of The Shield's great track record with casting) invested him with enough weight that I was simultaneously sorry to see him leave and happy Army was getting out while getting out was…

SPOILERS (MISSING TODD ALREADY)

No show is better than The Shield at collateral damage, especially when that damage is the result of the best of intentions: here, the righteous pursuit of Kleavon only destabilizes and jeopardizes his sister beyond the limits of what Dutch and Claudette can control. It's a great callback to Dutch's interrogation of…

Both episodes perfectly paced within an inch of their lives, but in all of that, we still have one of my favorite subtle comedic moments of the show, which is Lem's temporary role as dramatic critic. We have Shane, with tears in his eyes, and as much clarity as we've ever seen, volunteering to immolate himself in the…

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I would say Shane is capable of contrition—like you, I think he is more desperate here than genuinely sorry for his actions, but I do take his grief and self-loathing after Lem as real, and I think it is notable that his last words (delivered via Claudette) are a pretty accurate and damning self-analysis. In the end,…

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I would watch that. It's such a shame Karnes hasn't really landed anywhere else, although a quick look at his IMDB page tells me he was in Last Resort, so at least Ryan was trying to give him a home. (And Kurt Sutter cast him as the very non-Dutch-like ATF agent on Sons of Anarchy.)

Yeah, that's a great point. Vic's respect for her is a strong indication of his better qualities, and it's a touch that wouldn't be there in a lesser show—Vic's always part of a universe and a hierarchy here, and not always on the top, and we see that with his old partner, with Gilroy, and most meaningfully with…

These are still one of the highlights of my week.