57 Channels and Only This Is On: May 8, 2022

  

Fear the Walking Dead:  Oh Luciana, why are you lying to Daniel about his daughter just moments after the guy literally murdered a dude who lied about his daughter.  But to be honest, I have no clue what happen to his daughter and part of me thinks she could very well end up in the tower.

 

The First Lady:  I found it interesting that there were multiple wheelchairs in the episode, Betty’s student and Michelle’s dad, but none in the timeline with possibly the most famous wheelchair user.  But I found it odd that this was the marriage origin episode but Franklin did not show up until the scene before the wedding.  Instead Eleanor spends most of the episode at boarding school.  And he was the only actor who played a husband that I actually recognized (reuniting him with his Looking for Alaska co-star who played young Betty).  I wonder if we will get more episodes with the younger versions in future episodes, there are still decades until they move into the White House, but on the other hand, you have Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Gillian Anderson, are you really going to sideline them for multiple episode.  But then again, maybe the reason they signed on for a ten episode season was they would get a few episodes off.

 

I did break my one rule of watching based on real events shows/movies, going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole while watching.  I was stuck that Eleanor’s maiden name was also Roosevelt I just had to look right away to see if she married her cousin.  Later in the episode FDR made it a point to mention they were just fifth cousins.  I kind of forgot Teddy, who was actually Eleanor’s uncle, and Franklin were distantly related.

 

The Man Who Fell to Earth:  Honestly, I am kind of more interested with what happened to Newton when he arrived on this planet.  So the scientists took his eyes, when crazy and killed all but one of them.  When is that flashback episode?

 

The Endgame:  Well, at least we learned why the evil lady hated Elana, but I feel like that reveal should have come earlier.  The president seemed like a more formidable big bad.  To learn he was just a puppet just fell flat.

 

The Girl from Plainville:  Elle Fanning was great in the show, but ultimately, this story was not really worthy of an eight episode series when all you have are basically a bunch of text to base the show on.  If you are going to stretch this story to eight episodes, you really needed to have more musical number / dream sequences. 

 

Moon Knight:  If Layla’s sprit animal is a Hippo, why did she get budget Wonder Women wings?  I guess being really hungry would be a lame superpower I guess.  But again, the blackouts were fun in the first episode was funny, but how do you yadda yadda the final battle?  Did they just do that to save the reveal everyone knew coming for the post credit scenes? 

 

The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans:  Oh Julie, not only are you a bigger mess than when you were first time in New Orleans, you got caught admitting you are playing things up for the cameras.  Number one rule of reality television, do not get caught manufacturing drama for camera time.  

 

Survivor:  So we do not get a reaction from Drea about RocksRoy’s all dude’s alliance.  Oh well.But this seems the episode where you really have to put Omar as the frontrunner to win.  Will anyone realize he is playing all sides before it is too late?

 

The Flight Attendant: Guess my prediction that the two kidnappers were the ones who were found in the lake.  So I guess those two are going to be someone we are not familiar with.  But there are certainly trying to make it seem like Cassie’s handler is a bad guy but I am just not buying it.

 

Under the Banner of Heaven:  Yet another episode over an hour.  They really could have cut the homelife storyline, which adds nothing to the show.

 

Halo:  It was a bit strange to have a whole episode without Master Chief, especially after the bif reveal of The Halo last week.  Well no real Master Chief, just a fever dream of him.  I did like there was a video game homage with Kwan keep on respawning after he kills her.  But I missed where Swhere Soren left the planet, and then just showed back up this week.  But I got a good laugh where he got shot, the bunker that was supposed to protect him from the blast has slits that let the flames in, but still managed to walk out of the bunker all right.

 

Big Sky:  Didn’t Jenny just join the force?  A bit weird she became the defacto leader after the chief got shot.  Is there no one with more seniority?

 

The Blacklist:  I am glad they revealed that Aram was still under the influence shortly after Park died, because I pegged it a dream when he was happily riding his bike  It was weird they kept going from Aram’s dream to real life all episode.  I wonder if Samar will be haunting Aram for a couple more episodes because she was there at the end and it would be strange to bring her back just for basically one scene.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: April 10, 2022

 

 

Killing Eve:  I have no idea why the crazy French assassin killed that one chick.  Simple jealousy?  But it does not seem she knew about her and Eve until she overheard them.  I also have no idea why she tried to kill the chick who gave her painkillers either.  Maybe I should pay more attention.  But with two more episodes left ever, why bother?

 

The Walking Dead:  I called it, the showdown between Daryl and Maggie was not as antagonistic as it seemed.  But what is so annoying about the mustache twirling villain, he was willing to kill an entire settlement to get his weapons back, but now he is bargaining with the actual person who stole he weapons to kill Maggie

 

Billions:  Did Mike Prince really just say “mother husker”?  But anyway.  During the whole succession thing and people trying to figure out why, my first thought was that maybe he was maybe he was dying.  Nope, the show is doing something even bigger, and more absurd, than trying to move the Olympics: he is running for president… in 2028.  Well at least the show will not be on the air by then.  Probably?

 

But the whole Wendy book thing made no sense to me.  How could a therapist think writing a book with thinly veiled caricature of her clients was a good idea?  At first I thought she was trying to get fired, but then she burned the book at the end.  So what was it all for?  It kind of felt like the writers did not have anything else for her to do but had to use her somehow.

 

Super Pumped: The Fight for Uber:  Travis was on the Trump economic team?  Yeah, definitely seems like Trump’s kind of guy and helps explain why our economy was in the toilet when Trump left office.  But I am kind of with Travis on the price surging thing, being on the side of the passengers is always the best side to be on.  But the scene with Ariana and Bill just shows what is wrong with this show, trust your actors to be able to convey those sediments, do not put subtitles on the screen.  This show is too much in all the wrong ways.  Well, except in the amount of Pearl Jam songs.

 

The Girl from Plainville:  I cannot confirm nor deny watching the REO Speedwagon scene multiple times.

 

Moon Knight:  If I am being chased by a cult who unleashes a jackal only I can see on me, I am not waiting that long to let the trained assassin living inside out. I would be perfectly fine living in glass reflections for a while if that ever happened.  But now that Steven has taken a backseat, I would be fine if he stays there for the rest of the season now.  I am kind of over his whole act after two episodes.  Give me more of the cool superhero, less of his nebbish alter ego.

 

Survivor: This season opened with a montage that showed Tori finding something.  I assumed it was the dumb phase advantage.  Except someone else on her tribe found that this week.  So what exactly does Tori find and when will she find it?  We are already six hours into the season.  We were already spoiled the results of two Tribals where they made it seem like she would go home, now we are at some buff dropping situation (I wonder if they are going to be split in two again with the odd person out once again getting the dumb turn back time advantage… except there are an even number of people this time) so it looks like she will be going to every Tribal going forward.

 

But Daniel has to go down as one of the worst Survivor contestants ever.  He played last Tribal so bad and then still managed to dig a bigger hole this week.  He even said something to the effect that he added nothing to his Tribe at the Challenge.  He did not even try to not get voted out.  Good riddance.

 

The Dropout:  I was listing to an interview with one of the producers and she said the finale changed after e-mails between Elizabeth and Sunny were released.  The original plan was to have half the episode take place at Burning Man.  The producer claims the finale was better with the change.  I whole-heartedly disagree.  Twenty minutes of watching Lizzy weirdly dancing at Burning Man sounds significantly more entertaining (it is not hard to find photos online and… oof) than what we got.  The final scene was particularly bad with the lawyer, who had to know what was going on and tried to ruin Tyler Shultz’s life, berating Lizzy after the fact.  Probably the right message, but not a great messenger.  Amanda Seyfried recently told Vanity Fair she would love to do Elizabeth again in a season two and I am all for it.  They could easily do a season on her and Sunny’s trial.  Oh, and give us a Burning Man episode.

 

Halo:  So the weird alien chick is special in some sort of way.  Although, if we told why, I missed it.  But not a good sign when your show’s most charismatic character is an AI hologram.  

 

Big Sky:  Oh no, Jinder Mahal was killed by a woman.  Oh well, I guess he can go back to his day job as jobber.  At least he is beat up by men there.  So the father is the one lacing their drugs?  I guess dude is hard up for money.  I wonder how much his white girlfriend was involved in that decision.

The Blacklist:  I did not see whoever the big bad is to kill the guy who actually kill the bartender.  Oh, and he also killed the lawyer.  So whoever is in charged seemingly does not want anyone to know where the black site is either.  But who else even knows of the black site to tell the lawyer?  I wonder if it is someone we have already met.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: April 3, 2022

 

Killing Eve: They really waited way too long to give an origin story of The Twelve to get me to care. And I really do not know why the cvzy French assassin was luring fireman to kill them.

 

The Walking Dead:  So we can now conclude why Stormtrooper Daryl comes to confront Maggie, and and her crew killed a bunch of other Stormtroopers because they killed some of Negan’s people for thinking they stole their weapons, but it turned out Daryl’s ex-girlfriend stole the weapons.  Well, that is complicated.  I still think Daryl is going to side with Maggie.  As for the other Daryl storyline, if the son got caught off and needs the money in the safe to keep his control, how were the Stormtroopers doing  his bidding if he had no money?

 

Billions:   So this very swanky resort has some zen chamber that flashes lights at you, but that chamber has a window letting natural light in and an open waiting room where the next guy can be heard talking on his phone.  How does this chamber not have its own sound proof room? This was a pretty cheap plot devise to inspire Chuck to rededicate his like to taking down douchebags.  And was Taylor really asking out the bland underling?  I took it as Taylor thinking about leaving the whole company, not just the party.  Then the bland chick is showering at Prince’s. Huh?  Being this is the tenth episode, I just this week remembered that Billions still does 12 episodes a season, and with this being such a filler of an episode, maybe it would be best if the show downgraded to 10 like most other shows from this era.  Or, like other shows from this era, not run on forever.

 

Super Pumped: The Fight for Uber:  I was beginning to worry with no Pearl Jam last episode, but we finally got another song for the end credits.   Speaking of music, as weird as it to have Pearl Jam and other 90’s alt rock song primarily soundtrack a show that took place last decade, it almost make ]s sense given Travis’ age, but much weirder to have an Olivia Rodrigo song that is half a decade from being released when that scene takes place.  But of all the actors they could have gotten from Billions to be on this show, she may have been the worst choice.  She is just so monotone it is hard to root for her.  Plus, as I said before, it is hard to take the commentary on the boys club at Uber seriously coming from a writing team that has their own boys club accusations hanging over them.

 

Snowpiercer:  I still do not understand Melanie’s motivation.  What would it hurt to look and see if the Horn of Africa was habitable?  If not, just keep going.  But I was wrong the writers just did this to make her the new antagonist for Layton, instead she turned on Wilford and agreed to split the train and let everyone decide which track they wanted to go.  Huh?  I thought Snowpiercer needed Big Alice because it no longer could produce enough heat like at the beginning of the season.  Then what was that thing at the end?  At first I thought it was a flare, maybe set off by Layton to let Melanie know that it was safe, but then it froze and kind of looked like a missile.  Could that be where Wilford went off to?

 

The Girl from Plainville:  This show is paced weirdly.  I really do not like that they started with Conrad’s death and then set up a duel timeline in the second episode.  With the two timeline, it makes it hard to tell when they are because there are no physical cues to Michelle, you just have to wait to see if Conrad is referenced in the current or past tense.  It really wished this show would have been more linear.

 

Moon Knight:  I came into this show with low expectations so I actually kind of enjoyed the episode.  Plus Ethan Hawke was giving me big Vigo the Carpathian vibes.

 

Survivor:  Why did they show us that Tori eventually finds the dumb phase advantage if they are going to send her to two Tribal Councils with an edit making it like it was her or someone else going home?  Well, of course Swati was going to be the one who goes home.  But that is three Tribal and three people using their Shot in the Dark.  And the third person to not get saved.

 

The Dropout:  Okay, that scene with lawyers at the newspaper was great.  Always nice when you can toy with lawyers.  I have been trying to avoid spoilers, but I will be really interested if the other lawyer scene with the Shultz family actually happened.

 

Halo:  The first episode was a bit of a bore.  They really should have introduced Bokeem Woodbine last week, because he may be the only interesting character on the show.

 

Big Sky: So there is someone selling tainted drugs onder the Indian’s noses?  Who could it be?  It kind of has to be the local drug dealer guy.  Unless they tie it into the storyline with Wolf and Ronald and the sex traffickers are also trafficking drugs.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: March 27, 2022

 

 Killing Eve:   So they went through all that trouble to set up the crazy French assassin just to let her out of prison after one scene with little issue?  Why bother arresting her at all except for a cheap cliffhanger?

 

The Walking Dead:  The writers really got too cute with the nonlinear storytelling.  They should have shown the Aaron/priest scene first because then we knew what was going to happen to the red shirt on the horse.  And I am confused by the timeline.  So red shirt runs into Negann, gets a horse, goes back to get shot, then goes to Hilltop?  Huh?  Feels like something got messed up.  And this is where Negan went?  Are we really to believe this super religious dude who have a wall of evil doer’s skulls was going to is going to let Negan live there?

 

Billions:  What I really disliked about the whole Olympics plot was that its conclusion was obvious, that Prince was not going to be able to move the games to New York since that would deviate from reality too far.  I thought Prince’s attempt to remove Chuck was just as fruitless because there is no show without in a power position.  Well, despite the rousing applause, Chuck still got ousted.  So is Chuck going to go the way of Bobby and be written off the show?  Is Chuck going to be a puppet master to his replacement?  I guess he could always run for governor.  His first run did not go well.

 

Super Pumped: The Fight for Uber:  I am surprised they did not make a bigger deal of Bill getting locked out of Uber.  And while I knew Uma Thurman as Arianna Huffington was coming, I did not know she had a seat on the board at Uber.  But all the boy’s club antics of the show was kind of gross considering the accusation of Brian Koppleman’s other Showtime show Billions.

 

Snowpiercer:  So Melanie somehow had enough juice in her suit to walk to another train that apparently can pierce snow too despite being much smaller, then survived by going in and out of stasis.  Yet this is more believable than her turning on her daughter to rat out Layton’s plan to go to the Horn of Africa.  But I guess with Wilford locked up, there needs to be a new antagonist.

 

The Endgame:  The agents were once again stupid enough to think they got to the bomb in time.  If they knew the tech guy was in on it with the evil chick, they really should have known, that it was an act the caught the bomber in time.

 

Survivor:  Yet another episode where the editors spoil things, at least it was inadvertent this time.  But of course the Tribe that got zero scree time prior to the challenge was not going to go to Tribal.  But really bizarre that in the opening scene of the season they show us Tori finding the dumb phrase advantage yet she is going to be the last on the show to find it. 

 

But, wow, so much bad game play this week.  How do you explicitly tell someone you cannot risk losing your vote and then assume the other people will not risk their vote so you can get an Extra Vote?  Then what exactly happened with the vote?  Did Hai change his last minute from the guys voting for the guy and the girls voting for the girl?  It did not seem like he changed, so did they really go to Tribal without the votes correctly working out for them?  But Hai did the one smart thing and threaten to go the rocks.  Had he switched (and why would he if Daniel was adamant about not going to rocks as the only other vote) then he is clearly on the bottom of a five member Tribe and would be gone at next Tribal.  Not changing mean best case scenario, Daniel switches, his closes ally is safe, and Daniel is the new goat of the Tribe.  Worst case scenario, go to rocks with a one in four change of going home,   three and four chance of someone other than you or your only ally going home.  Really the only thing Daniel said or did this week was that he is not going to win.  I do not think anyone on this Tribe has a chance at this point.

 

The Dropout:  My biggest problem with shows about real life people is that I spend way too much time searching if such dumb, inconsequential events really happened.  Like did Tyler Shultz really drop out of college his senior year to go tour with Dispatch?  That was the most excited I have ever seen anyone talk about Dispatch before.

 

Big Sky:  Yeah, I was stupid for assuming multiple died last episode, especially since T-Lock was the only one we got confirmation of.  It turned out Ronald was the only one else who actually died yet.  But much like his brother, Wolf survived a bullet only to be killed by hand latter.  I wonder if there is a triplet out there.  Oh, and Scarlette somehow escaped after being stabbed in the neck.  Umm, okay.  Then it was bizarre that Ren mock the bomber for claiming he had information because everyone says that before dying, but then seemingly believed him after telling her that Stone was cop.

 

The Blacklist:  When the show is doing hot killer sex robot storylines, it is really time to end the show.  But I missed why Red wanted to investigate it when the guy with the ruby neckless was poisoned by his wife. 

57 Channels and Only This Is On: March 20, 2022

  

Killing Eve:  They have done a very job poor job explaining who the new Indian people are.  And now the sister has killed the brother.  Is she supposed to be the new crazy French assassin?  Then after wasting the crazy French assassin at church camp the first two episodes, now they have put her in prison.  This is just another waste of the character.  Though we know she can escape from prison.  But hey, at least they had completely unnecessary title card

 

The Walking Dead:  So the black chick with glasses was the chick talking to Eugene all along, but that chick was using a different name.  This feels like yet another set up.  And I forgot Oceanside was still a thing.  Is there anyone still there that I would remember?  I certainly did not recognize the chick who talked to the head Commonwealth lady.

 

Billions:  I was wondering a couple episodes ago where were all the gratuitous Olympics athlete cameos.  Though when I think Olympic stars, I do not really think soccer.  The World Cup is what makes soccer players stars.  But anyways.  Chuck (and reality) won, the games are going back to Los Angeles.  Maybe?  There are still four episodes left so I am not sure if Mike prince has another trick or two up his sleeves.  Or are the final four episodes just going to be him trying to get back at Chuck.  But what I found most interesting was that Kopelman was not able to get a Jay-Z song for when he performed at the Uber party, but was able to license Jay-Z for his other show.

 

Super Pumped: The Fight for Uber:  Wait; was there any proof that Uber got caught hacking phones and cameras of Lyft’s users?  Whenever an app asks if they can have access to a bunch of other apps, I usually gloss over and blindly click okay when I should be more selective, but there is a huge difference if you access someone else’s app.  That should put a lot of people behind jail.  And if there is no proof, that seems pretty liable.  While the show could not get Jay-Z and Beyoncé, or even their music, did they really get Mark Cuban to play himself turning Travis down?  That is a pretty big get even if he did not specifically turn down investing in Uber.  I have not been following the Uber story (but I at the very least knew Uber was not going to buy out Lyft) so I was petty shocked when Travis locked out Bill.  Travis vs. Bill seems like it will be much better than what the first couple episodes have been.

 

 Snowpiercer:  So the new chick is dead already?  What a waste of what could have been an interesting character.  We barely saw her, she rarely interacted with anyone, and now she is dead. 

 

The Endgame:  So the lasers stopped when they hit the floor.  No one thought to put something they could crawl under between the laser and the floor that they could get through?  But that the evil people went through all that just to back people up so they would find the secret safe was pretty funny.

 

Survivor:  That challenge was confusing, having two pairs from each team on the course at the same time just made it hard to figure out who was who and who was ahead.  It was not until everything was corrected until I figured out what was going on.  But I never understand why people just do not boot annoying people first.  Why do you (potentially) want to spend the whole game with them?  I get you want to sit next to them at the end, but if you are thinking that, so is everyone else.  Best to get these people out early.

 

Resident Alien: Wait, so even if half human, they would still have to worry about baby alien eating other humans?  That is gross.  Though it never actually ate a human.  But I do wonder if the two cops heard that gunshot.

 

The Dropout:  So this week’s notable actors that just randomly pop up are Jack son from Lost and the comic book store owner from The Big Bang Theory.  We still got some Walgreens, so hopefully my hope for a spin-off is still alive.  But poor chemist, killing himself to avoid everything.  Though if you are stuck between an NDA and being under oath in a court of law, doesn’t US Government supersede a private NDA?  At least consult a lawyer.  NDA seem to violate First Amendment rights.

 

Big Sky: Why did the doctor give Ronald the adrenaline he needed just to kill Scarlett?  Give him something poisonous and then kill her.  Oh well, at least they are both dead… I think.  Drew Carey’s brother seemingly died twice only to survive (and maybe will a third time).  Though, at least T-Lock is dead-dead.  I guess we will have to wait for confirmation of everyone else.

 

57 Channels and Only This Is On: March 6, 2022

 

Killing Eve:  So the crazy lady assassin is religious now?  Okay, I guess she is still not above feline murder.

 

The Walking Dead:  So who is left back in Alexandra?  We gained from last week, Maggie was still there.  One armed guy is the only other person that I could think of off the top of my head.  Eugene was also conspicuously absent this week, but he was in the “Next Week On” so he was in Alexandra somewhere, we just did not see him.  Then Princess was almost unrecognizable without that puffy jacket.  But how long do we hvve to get to see that confrontation between Daryl and Maggie?

 

Billions:  Episode 6:  If you are in the same room as an instructor, why do you need a screen of the instructor two feet in front of your face?  But anyway.  Almost confusing is a Chinese company having a plant in Wisconsin.  Couldn’t it be cheaper to produce the product in their homeland?  Do they do this solely to slap “American made” on their product?  I am also a little confused to how Chuck is going to use Prince’s alma mater.

 

Snowpiercer:  Well, that escalated quickly. Pike and Layton were fighting Wilford two episodes ago, Pike tries to kill Layton last episode and Layton kills Pike this week.  But Layton kind of had to since Pike had the information of the Horn of Africa being a scam.  But is he just going to kill everyone that lady tells because she really let that slip fairly quickly to Pike.  And of course, people may find out sometime.  Are there really going to find a habitable place in Africa?  It would be weird doing Snowpierer without people actually living on Snowpierer.

 

The Endgame:  I missed how people think the evil lady’s husband was dead in the first episode only to see him talking to the agent’s husband.  How does no one know that someone who is prison is not dead?  Did he fake his death and part of the plan was him to get himself incarcerated with the husband?  What is this plan?  Is she just doing this to expose corruption within the government?  Is she just going to bring don a new official every week?

 

Resident Alien: The only thing funnier than cat murder: octopus murder apparently.  They just drug out that scene until it was not funny anymore and then continued some more until it was funny again.

 

The Dropout:  There is nothing I appreciate more than when shows populate their cast with recognizable actors no matter how small the role.  Sure William H. Macy, Laurie Metcalf and the lady from 24 are big enough for more than two scenes in three episodes, but I appreciate the character work.  Then you got Stephan Fry and the guy from Ghost as lab technicians who I am not sure we will see much of after the initial three episodes.  The dude from the Blacklist just pops in for a couple scenes to ask what fork is going on.  I also spotted Cameron Frye in the “This Season On.”  Having recognizable actors, especially in a large ensemble makes it easier to remember who is who.

 

I have not been following this story very closely, just knowing the headline, but I was not ready for just how weird everything is.  It is interesting to watch this at the same time as the Uber show.  Travis built his whole brand on false bravado, while Elisabeth is just this weirdo with zero confidence, and when she tries to exude confidence, I am not sure she can even convince herself, she certainly does not seem to be convincing anyone else, at least not yet.  But as long as Elisabeth does some white girl dancing in every episode, this show may end up being my favorite show of the year.

 

Big Sky:  Silly me thinking Drew Carey’s brother was dead… again.  He already survived a bullet between the eyes, why would I think having his skull bashed in would be any different?  But it is time to wrap up both storylines; I am getting tired of both of them at this point.

 

The Blacklist:  So they waited until Park left to arrest the Conglomerate because they did not want to put her in danger?  Arresting everyone right after an agent leaves seems like the best way to put a target on her back.  Nothing says set up quite like a raid after someone leaves.  That seemed as dumb as no one realizing that the bug could still be on Lizzy after not finding it on her clothing.  That was the first place I thought of.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: February 27, 2022

 

The Walking Dead:  So Daryl, the ultimate loner, is going to join the creepy futuristic soldiers?  I feel a twist coming a mile away.  He is going to turn out to be a plant to see what the soldiers are really up to.

 

Billions:  For a guy who wants to do everything by the book, bribe the governor with the naming rights to an Olympic Stadium seems very underhanded.  Then you have Bonnie storming out after Prince put the training wheels back on her bike.  Is it safe to assume she goes to her former flame’s firm?  How many more will be there by the end of the season?  Prince has started to stock his firm with his own people.  It was also interesting to see Chuck and Wendy play nice.  Could they mend fences to take down Prince together?

 

Snowpiercer:  So, Pike was one of the few people who sided with Layton against Wilfred and now that he is back, he is already plotting against him and possibly trying to kill him?  Alrighty.

 

The Endgame:  So one of the most notorious international fugitives allows themselves to get caught.  Where have I seen this before?  Though maybe not entirely The Blacklist but female, they really did not really tell up much about what this show is going to be about.

 

Big Sky:  They really put extensions on Drew Carey’s brother just to kill him again halfway through the season again?  But let me guess, there is a triplet out there somewhere that will pop up in season three.  Hopefully we do not find out.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: December 19, 2021

 

Dexter: New Blood:  There was a moment this episode where I thought to myself, is Dexter going to kill the podcaster or is Kurt going to be the one.  Kurt seemingly was going to try and it was surprisingly Dexter who was the one who saved her.  Dexter did get some vital information on the ride home as he figured out it was not her that tipped Angela off to his real name.  But will Dexter ever find out it was her daughter via his son as to how that information got out. 

 

But it looks like Angela will not stay mad very as she now needs Dexter.  My first thought it was for revenge after finding her friend, but obviously she will want him to use his forensic expertise despite telling her he killed Dexter to get away from that life. It seems obvious to assume Kurt killed her and put her body there, but we only saw Angela find the one body and clearly Kurt killed more.  Plus that passageway seemed fairly tight for the two relatively skinny lawmen and Kurt is a bit bigger.  Though fifteen years ago, I guess Kurt could have been a bit thinner and the reason why there was only the one body is Kurt stopped skipping meals.  But where are the other bodies?  It looked like he was trying to preserve the one he shot through the eye.

 

Yellowjackets:  The episode critics received were named after nineties pop culture moments (do not ask me why Showtime changed them to more generic titles for the official release).  This episode was entitled “Blood Sugar Sex Magic” after the Red Hot Chili Peppers album.  We got a lot of the first and second, not much of the third.  The fourth… well, that is still debatable I guess.  Obviously it was Halloween, but just how real was the “magic” in the earlier timeline?  Why would Shauna spin the knife in an infinity sign on purpose when asked if they would survive?  And Lottie could have been possessed or is just straight up losing it (or possibly both)?  Misty poisoning the coach because she likes him is up there with destroying the black box on the psycho level.  Not to mention, turning off a sick person’s machine just to scare kids.

 

So was giving Nat the owl so she could spy on her?  It certainly seems like she could be behind the postcards, but how would she have killed Travis and draw the signals if she was with Nat the whole time, so I think she really is just doing her best Veronica Mars impersonation.  It also seems like they confirmed Jackie’s death if her parents were giving Shauna her jersey.  We also got confirmation that Shauna is pregnant, but there is no way that could be Callie… could it?  The baby would be born in 1997 which would make the kid twenty-four, but Callie is clearly a teenager, she does have a college fund and a curfew.  So what happens to the kid?  I have stated before that I think there is still a chance Jackie is alive, what if she stole the kid and have been living in the Canadian wilderness this whole time and are working as a team to torment the survivors?  Could one of them be the woman in the window the kid sees?

  

Hawkeye:  I enjoyed Florence Pugh in the Black Widow movie but that kitchen scene was way too far over the top.  I was surprised that it turned out that Clint was the one that killed Echo’s dad.  Sure we know Clint went on a murderous rampage as Ronin during The Blip, but I thought there was going to be a twist where the real big bad of the show pretended to be Ronin to kill off her dad.  The story of what happened that night still seems a little fuzzy maybe there will be a twist in the finale.  But we did learn who the real big bad of this season was and it is a really big dude, Kate’s mom hired Yelena to kill Clint and is working with Kingpin.  Okay, not the biggest reveal, everyone guessed that is who Uncle was (it was either Kingpin or Mephisto) back when we first learned of him.

 

Survivor:  I have long joked that Erika would win this season ever since she broke the Turn Back Time Hourglass because I figured even if she lost; she would break the hourglass again until she won.  This was a joke because she seemed fairly insignificant coming out of the merge.  They spent so much time of the Black People alliance, and yet under-edited when an actual minority won, and the first female of an all newbie season since Michele.

 

But my favorite part of the finale was just how delusional Xander was.  The befuddled look on the jury’s face when Xander was explaining how they did not respect Erika was hilarious.  Then he actually saves Erika so he did not want Erika to have some hero moment by wining fire making and she still almost swept the votes save a pity vote from Danny to his close ally DeShawn.  I do not remember a time someone went into Final Tribal that confident and ended up not getting one vote.  Russell maybe.

 

The Challenge: Spies, Lies, and Allies: Way to reward the cell that lost by letting them pick anyone to be teammates with in the final leg of the final.  Of course Kacee and Kyle were going to pick CT and Tori respectively.  Poor Devin and Emy were then stuck with each other.  Granted, they probably deserve each other.

 

The Challenge: All-Stars: Ooof, poor Tyler, gets passed over by Casey, who is not the strongest competitor this season, being stuck with one of the few weaker females Jasmine, loses because of her, but because of Kendal not being medically cleared, only him, not Jasmine has to compete.  You could actually see his arm wrapped during his confessional, so you could tell things would not go well for him during elimination.  It may be time to retire Pole Wrestling before Laterrian breaks someone’s hip.

 

Now our teams are set for the rest of the season and the Jodi/Brad duo seems like the team to beat.  The only team that could have matched them was Laterrian and Kendal but replace Kendal with Jasmine and that team looks much weaker.  Joanna was the highest placing female last season so maybe she and MJ could be a dark horse.  Or maybe there will be more Brittany Spears trivia so Casey and Cohutta can dominate.

 

It was weird hearing people talk about how close they were to the finals since there had only been four weeks of eliminations up to this point but twelve contestants made the finals last season.  After this week’s elimination, there are fourteen people left so if they do the same, there would only be one more elimination before the finale.

 

Big Sky:  I am supposed to case Ronald killed Cassie’s dad?  We have barely seen him.  But it is long time past Ronald’s expiration date.  The drug cartel storyline is much more interesting.

 

57 Channels and Only This Is On: December 12, 2021

 

Dexter: New Blood:  Holy Angel Batista sighting.  I was not expecting anyone for the original show to show up except the three that were already in the main cast.  I wonder if anyone else will pop up.  Granted, who is still alive?  Masuka and Quinn.  Then there is also Eshter and Cody.  I wonder is Harrison is lying about Hannah.  I also rolled my eyes when Angela gears started going when Batista mention Harrison’s name as that is not a common name.  Though it does makes sense for her to look Dexter up after her kid mentioned that Harrison mentioned that Jim was not actually Jim.  But does she confront her?

 

And Dexter is getting sloppy after so much time without a kill.  First he went after the guy when the police had just as much information as him not thinking they would check out the same diner.  Then he enters the dude’s house then puts on the gloves.  He better hope the police buy his staged overdose and not dust that window for prints.  But how exactly did he get the guy clothed and take down the kill room in time?  Dexter talked about remembering the Code, but he forgot the first rule, only go after people the law could not get.  The police had both guys seemly dead to rights.  Let the law run its course.  Then go after them if they do not get them.

 

Fear the Walking Dead:  I actually saw the news of Kim Dicken returning to the show while watching the show and assumed that was a spoiler that Madison would have a cameo in this episode.  Thinking she would be at Padre.  Except she never popped up.  I guess she was the big surprise guest they hyped for Talking Dead and was also the big announcement.

 

Except Alicia never got to Padre because she absurdly thought the zombie Senator would lead her there.   Oh, and she got bit by said zombie and cut off her arm, but may not have cut it off in time.  Didn’t they already do the Schrödinger’s Cat with Alicia thinking she may have been infected?  C’mon, girl’s just got an infection, no one takes that long to turn into a zombie.  Just get some antibiotics.  But it turns out she is not sick enough to declare war on Strand.  I wonder if Madison is already in the compound or if Alicia eventually finds Padre with Madison inside.

 

Yellowjackets:  I am a big fan of karma, but boy, mocking someone for not knowing if the safety is on or off and then accidentally shooting yourself in the face because you forgot to put the safety on is even a bit much by karma standards.   But my favorite part of the episode was, when all the other girls were wearing athleisure wear that they brought to a soccer tournament, for no apparent reason, Jackie brought along an argyle sweater and was wearing it around the Canadian wilderness.  For this week’s Misty psycho watch, it certainly seems like she trip coach on purpose after she was the only one to raise her hand to cut the deer’s throat but the coach still picked someone else.

 

But finally things start to tie into the past with Taissa and Shauna after meeting in the first episode about the postcards and never talking about it after.  The former was haunted by woodland animals while the latter was actually sees Jackie (in her argyle sweater) and says something very ominous when relating to their time in wilderness.

 

 The Walking Dead: World Beyond:   Pretty blah finale, Huck redeemed herself with a suicide mission, so did her husband.  Evil chick got a promotion.  The outpost just moved into a mall.  Oh… and then then there was the end credits scene.  Apparently there are fast moving, 21 Days Later type variants in Europe.  What!?!

 

Hawkeye:  Well that was a letdown.  We were left with the cliffhanger of Jack putting Clint’s own Ronan sword to his throat only for that to be diffused very quickly.  I was interested with what Kate’s mom talking about Black Widow being able to be killed.  What exactly does the world know about what happened to Black Widow.  We know she was not killed, but sacrificed herself.  Black Widow’s own sister seems to be easily convinced that Clint killed her.  Is it not commonly known that Black Widow scarified herself to get an Infinity Stone that brought back half of them?

 

Survivor:  When DeShawn talked about his truth bomb, I thought he was going to throw Danny under the bus as multi-millionaire football player who would not need the money.  Instead, he bizarrely blew up Erika’s game which was not going to help him in the moment.  But it will lead to an interesting dynamic going back to camp with DeShawn still in the game and Heather now knowing her closest ally planned on dumping her before Final Tribal.  But with so few people left and Ricard still having the largest target on his back, the truth bomb may not change unless Ricard wins the next Immunity Challenge.  After that, it is fire.

 

The Challenge: Spies, Lies, and Allies: How do you get the easiest puzzle quickly and not get the simplest at all?  Tori even gave Emmanuel the cheat code of put five in the middle.  But pretty convenient for Tori to get the strength elimination and Devin to get the brains one.  It would have been interesting had those been flipped.

 

So now we are back to teams with TJ saying you do not want to be on the losing team.  Would he really cut half the finalists in one swoop?  It seems more likely that the losing team will have to go into the area with only two moving on.  This could lead to Nany vs. Kacey or CT vs. Devin could be a Johnny backpack situation, all I know is I do not care who wins at this point.  I am tired of everyone left at this point.  Nineteen ninety minute episodes is just way too much (which does not even count the likely two reunion shows that will follow).

 

The Challenge: All-Stars: Oh Tina, so entertaining, but you cannot just flame out like that even if there was no way you are beating Melinda.  At least go half speed.  Casey at least tried multiple times even though this challenge severely disadvantaged the vertically challenged.  But like I brought up last week, these two alliances that have formed still leave out half the cast.  What exactly are those people thinking?  And at what point do the burn votes of Tyler and Casey end up actually get voted in?  If I were those two, I would be a little worried.

 

Guilty Party:  So that was it?  Beth and an escaped convict are just going to travel to Wyoming together to hunt down the real killer with possibly a dead person in the back of the van?

 

Big Sky:  If Tonya went to the ranch alone, why did she exit the passenger’s seat?  What a weird continuity error.  And am I supposed to know who the kid of the weird dude was?  I was drawing a black at that reveal.

 

The Blacklist:  I know there was a time jump, but they aged Agnes up way too much to the point it is a little distracting as I spent too much trying to figure out how old she is compared to how old she should be.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: November 21, 2021

  

Dexter: New Blood:  So Dexter killed the son of the local serial killer?  Considering the previous seasons, I should have seen that one coming.  But does that dude, who seeming got pay off someone to take the wrap for something his son did money from his truck stop, also run the shelter?  He does charitably donate supplies to the fire department.  But running a shelter seems like it take a lot of work especially if you need to hide that you are not letting your guest leave before killing them.  But I guess that explains why so many indigenous women wind up missing in the area.  One more thing I found confusing, didn’t Dexter and Harrison drive over some blood.  It looked like Dexter intentionally drove over it, but it does not seem like that would cover it up.

 

Fear the Walking Dead:  The Walking Dead is ten years old, spanning three different show, but I do not remember a zombie death as entertaining as someone giving a tombstone pile driver to smash a skull.  It is a complete absurd and logistically stupid way to kill a zombie but I loved every second of it.  I am struggling to remember anything else that happened this week.

 

Yellowjackets:  I did not want to put any predictions into my review of this show, buy I have a very strong belief that despite there not being an older version of her in the cast, Jackie is not dead.  Not only that, she is number one on my list of suspects of who sent out the postcards to everyone.  If I am right, hopefully they cast one of my nineties teen star suggestions I made in my review.  Keri Russell probably best looks the part.  Too bad Emmy Rossum is too young, as she looks like a dead ringer for older Ella Purnell.  It also look like the naked chick running in the flash… um what do you call something that flashes forward and back to the two main timeline?  But anyways, that really looked like Lottie to me.

 

The Walking Dead: World Beyond:  Hey scientist lady, how about spending less time banging the door to get someone to let you out and spend more time figuring out a way to bash in the zombie’s skull.  How can someone survive that long into a zombie apocalypse and die so easily?  But anyway.  The CRM is just going to kill everyone who is not them for no apparent reason.  Well that is stupid.

 

La Brea:  Well, that is a plot twist; the dad was having visions of the prehistoric era but memories.  That would explain why he was abandoned.   But that just opens a whole can of worms.  How did he get to modern times?  Where did he and his grandfather even come from?  Where, who, are his parents?  Does anyone else get to modern times with him?  It is weird how invested I am in this show after watching it as a joke.

 

Dopesick:  I mostly scrolled by headlines involving opioids because thankfully I and no one I know have been affected by the drug so I was kind of going in blind to the finale.  I know people still refer to it as a crisis so I figured that Oxy never went away.  But it is really infuriating that our government balked at prosecuting anyone even though they were caught red-handed lying to Congress.

 

Survivor:  We have seen a countless amount of times where someone gets targeted early in the episode only to end up winning Immunity, but this was the first time remembering when two people get targeting for split voting and they both ended up getting Immunity. But Xander finally got his bluff called, managed to not play his Idol at the merger after a good bluff, was smart enough to not use his Idol last week when Ricard poorly bluffed telling him he need his Idol.  But without Ricard pouring it on way too heavy, was feeling himself too much by not playing his Idol for Evie.

 

Xander may really regret that (he could have also used his Extra Vote to get out Liane that way and save his Idol).  So now it is Black alliance (and Ricard) with five and Xander on the bottom with Erika and Heather.  What could have been 4v4 is now down two numbers so know you have a one in three chance to properly play your Idol, and the other alliance has two Idols to play with.  So basically Xander really needs than Shan / Deshawn feud to boil over very quickly for you to have a chance.

 

The Challenge: Spies, Lies, and Allies: Good riddance.  And TJ stop saying we will see Josh again.  Please never ask him back ever.  But of course Kyle beat Josh in the Lair, not only because he is uncoordinated and cannot even hit a swinging bell, but we still have not seen that scene from the mid-season promo of Kyle and Devin arguing about the latter possibly sending the former in.  So I guess we will have to wait two more weeks for that scene to happen for the next guys week to roll around.

 

The Challenge: All-Stars: It is time for all the women to be scared of Ayanna.  It looked like she would have dominated both guys in that elimination.  Though, she was the only one smart enough to shorten the chains which makes it resistance less.  You know the old saying, work smarter not harder. She likely will have a free ride to the final because unless she comes in last again, I do not see anyone throwing her name out.  I also do not see anyone mocking the clothes of the winners again either.

 

Guilty Party:  I am with Marco, you just cannot write of naked pictures on someone’s phone as just being a source.  If that is the case, delete them immediately, you just do not keep them around.

 

Big Sky:  So is the marshal going to go back and find Ronald?  Seems like he figured it out.  And it does not seem like T-Loc is long for this world.  I am guessing the cartel will find him sooner than later, but will he turn on the kids and tell them they still have the money?

 

The Blacklist:  Turns I was right agent Park is pregnant, or was.  That was sad.