New Girl 7x07 and 7x08 Review: "The Curse of the Pirate Bride" & "Engram Pattersky" (Teach Me How to Say Goodbye) [Contributor: Jenn]

"The Curse of the Pirate Bride" & "Engram Pattersky"

Original Airdate: May 15, 2018

Well... this is it. It's been an incredible run, and even as I type these words, I can't believe that this is the series finale of New Girl. This show will always have such a special place in my heart. It's a series that taught us all that it's okay to be weird, to fall in love a lot, to make mistakes, to embrace who you are, and to never stop trying. This quirky, adorkable little show grew far beyond those two labels into something genuinely beautiful and representative of what it looks and feels like to be an adult who doesn't know exactly how to navigate life as an adult. We've watched these characters grow from the pilot episode into the people who embark on new journeys in the finale.

I'll talk a lot more about these episodes momentarily, including the incredible character arcs we've witnessed over seven years. But for now, just know that I love New Girl — in its peaks and valleys — and found the final two episodes to be emotional, hilarious, and a fitting end to the series.

"The Curse of the Pirate Bride"

The plot: it's Nick and Jess' wedding day, and everything is set to go off without any issues whatsoever. That definitely sounds like New Girl, right? (You're laughing, because of course everything would go wrong on their wedding day!) But just like the botched proposal in the last episode, the slightly-flash forwarded nuptials are perfect because of how imperfect they are. Jess initially buys into her mother's insistence that she and Nick spending the night before their wedding together somehow cursed the pair. And soon enough, Nick is citing the curse for everything going wrong.

Their wedding day begins innocently enough, but when she slips in the bathroom and scratches her cornea on one of Milo's dog toys, Jess is understandably upset. She's got an eye patch but isn't buying that it's part of some curse. Until Joan shows her the eviction notices that have been piling up in her and Nick's mail for months. Now Jess is freaking out.

Upstairs on the roof, where the pair is set to marry, Nick begins to worry about the curse after a bird poops on his shoulder and his editor turns down his new book proposal. In a move initiated by Winston and Schmidt, Nick confronts his editor... only to be fired moments later. "Curses are real!" Nick yells from the roof. Meanwhile downstairs, Jess is freaking out about the curse and decides to indulge her mother... and may or may not wind up high and eating her own wedding cake as a result.

It's up to the best man and matron of honor to save our pair! When Russell shows up though, it seems like the curse suddenly goes from bad to worse — he tells Jess he loves her and to ditch Nick and marry him instead. And this is where I found the episode to be so refreshing. There is no doubt in Jess' mind that she is in love with Nick. She wants to marry him. She has no doubts whatsoever about them.

Even when Russell hands Jess the cards from "First Date."

Y'all, I freaked out a little bit during this scene. Out of all of the plots on New Girl that seemed to be dropped, I thought this one would be for sure. When Russell tells Nick and Jess to write down what their relationship means on two valet cards, they both do. And Russell's reaction to their notes in "First Date" seems to be one of skepticism. Now — on Jess' wedding day, years later — Jess has the cards in her hand and Russell tells her that neither she nor Nick were ever sure of their relationship.

Of course, Nick bursts into the stairwell where Russell and Jess are sitting and begins to attack the man. The whole gang ends up at the hospital soon enough, mostly because Aly is in labor, and there Nick and Jess discuss their failed wedding day.

It's funny — the proposal last episode was perfect in so many ways to me because of how imperfect it was. And a hijinks-centric wedding day where all the possible things that can go wrong do seems like the perfect wedding for Nick and Jess. (Thankfully, they agree with me.)

Jess then pulls out the cards Russell gave her, on which both she and Nick — in regards to what their relationship was — wrote "I don't know." I'm honestly not surprised that this was the response. These two were so in sync and so scared of it that even when they could've written down vastly different answers, they echoed the same scared sentiment. I remember Nick and Jess from season two. Do you? They were these two kids who had so much passion and care for each other, but were terrified of screwing up what they had. They tried to date and both weren't at the place where they could be honest and vulnerable with each other. They were scared, holding back their feelings and fears.

In season seven, it's beautiful to see how much these two have evolved. No longer are they scared of being together. They're no longer scared of diving in too deep. They now are mature enough to admit aloud to the things they couldn't years ago. They may not have jobs, or a place to live, or a single clue of what comes next.

But they have each other. And that's more than enough for them. There's this beautiful little exchange that they have right before they decide to get married in the hospital:

Jess: "We've both been scared about so many things for so long. I don't care about the past. Or the future. All I care about is right now, right here — you and me."' 

Nick: "I just wanna have a weird, wonderful life together. I wanna get married, and I wanna take care of you. I don't even care about a stupid curse. ... "Hey Jess? You wanna have the weirdest wedding of all time?"  

Jess: "To you? That's all I want, Miller."

So right there, in the hospital where Aly is about to have a baby and where Jess' scratched cornea looks disgusting and where Schmidt managed to find a rabbi and where a nurse plays "Groovy Kind of Love" on his iPad keyboard and where a new mom hands Ruth a bouquet of flowers and where everything is sad but happy at the same time, Nick and Jess get married.

They get married knowing that they can live without rooftop nuptials or cake or flowers or dozens of guests, but they can't live without each other.

And now, bonus points:

• I love that Nadia makes her final appearance at the very beginning of the episode!
• There's a minor plot point about Winston and Schmidt giving Nick and Jess a wedding roast instead of toast, and basically all you need to know is that Bob Day was not amused.
• "But in a real way, Nick sucks as a person y'all."
• I'VE MISSED YOU, JOAN DAY. I'VE MISSED YOU, BOB DAY.
• I love that Jess forgetting to invite Sadie to the wedding becomes an actual part of the plot in "Engram Pattersky." Bless this show.
• "Well that curse can kiss my ass, and you can kiss my face."
• "I don't look like a pirate bride?" "No!" "Never!" "Why are we lying to her?"
• "It's so weak, they call it gun control in America." THEY DID THAT.
• It's the return of high!Jess. The last time we saw her was in "A Chill Day In," right? She's coming around more than once every ten years now!
• "Did I make that sound with my mind?"
• "Why is this how we make more people?! It's a terrible system!"
• "What's the password?" "Ruth1." "Wrong." "Ruth2?" "Wrong." "Ruth3?" "Close!" "Don't do this to me, kid!" "Wrong."
• "You're all so bad at fighting!"
• TRAN FINALLY SPOKE AND IT WAS AMAZING.
• "GROOVY KIND OF LOVE" IS THE SONG THE GANG SLOW-CHICKEN DANCED TO IN "WEDDING" AND IT'S THE SONG JESS WALKED DOWN THE AISLE TO AND I'M AWARE I AM WRITING IN ALL CAPS RIGHT NOW.
• DanBill Bishop, I'm dying.

"Engram Pattersky"

It's time to bid goodbye to the loft and our amazing roomfriends in this hilarious, sentimental trip down memory lane. I'm not good at goodbyes. Neither, of course, is Jessica Day. She tries to tell Winston, Aly, Schmidt, and Cece over a conference phone call that she and Nick are moving out of the loft. But it's too much. So she calls them over in person. The core three — Winston, Cece, and Schmidt — are scared at whatever news Jess has to share. When she tells them, they're all baffled. They made peace with leaving the loft months or years ago.

Nick's okay with leaving, but his wife (who else loved the fact that Nick referred to Jess as "his wife" multiple times?) hasn't even begun packing yet. Jess is so not okay.

And because she's not okay, no one else is allowed to be okay. She locks the front door and demands that the group take a trip down memory lane before they can help her and Nick pack. Nick, meanwhile, takes the group aside and tells them that the only way they'll all survive the night is if they play along with Jess and pretend to get sentimental too. Schmidt, Winston, and Cece reluctantly agree to Nick's demands.

Jess, meanwhile, does the exact opposite of pack: she pulls out memorabilia from the last seven years (try and name all of the references you can! Some of my favorites: the "swuit," Winston's throne, the jam T-shirt that Spencer stole from Jess, etc.), and the group feigns interest/sentiment. Then Jess decides that simply looking at stuff isn't enough; the group needs to DO things in the loft they've never done before!

This is where the patience of the group begins to wane, and soon enough, Jess overhears Schmidt telling Nick that he's getting tired of pretending to be sad over stupid things. Jess is heartbroken, obviously, and tells her friends that they can leave. It's hard when you're the last one holding on. But it makes sense, as Jess notes, because the loft meant everything to her. It's where she found healing from her break-up and friends who became family. It's where she made memories, fell in love, and watched her two best friends get married. It's where she sat around the table for Thanksgivings and played countless games of True American.

To her, it wasn't a loft — it was a home. And a home she's having a hard time saying goodbye to.

After her moment of self-actualization, the group decides they've been a little harsh and agree to help her celebrate the loft in the way it deserves. After, Jess declares that they've finally done everything in the loft she wanted for the last time. Nick is the one to disagree though, and proposes a final game of True American. Winston, Nick, Schmidt, Cece, and Jess drink and laugh and leap around the apartment, cleaning and packing up all of Nick and Jess' stuff. As they clear up memories, we get to see a flash-forward.

See, this isn't the final game of True American after all.

In a scene that left me sobbing the first time I saw it (legit, I was a bit concerned), we get a flash-forward of True American... Kids Edition. Nick and Jess still have Mario, and now a little boy in a Bears jersey. They cheer for him as he chugs root beer, and the camera pans to another room where Schmidt and Ruth encourage her brother Moses to chug some more. Then Aly and her football team of boys leap onto pillows, Winston and his wife close behind them. Cece leaps in from the other room, and the whole scene is scored with beautiful, sentimental music.

Some adults in the flash-forward stand together on a chair... and then the scene cuts back to the present, where every character is left standing together on one cardboard box. The loft is empty. It's time to go.

Seeing the empty loft made me ache, but also feel weirdly okay. At some point in our lives, we all have to move on. We change jobs. We leave our cities. We meet new people. We start new relationships. But if we're really lucky, we'll always have a group of friends who ground us — the ones who are our second families; who our children call "aunt" and "uncle," and who fit just as much in our social lives as in our living rooms.

While the bar was the place the gang often met, the loft was really the place where they became family. 4D was as much of a character in the series as Jess, Nick, Schmidt, Cece, and Winston were. As the gang packs up the memories and heads out, there's one thing left: a final Prank Sinatra prank.

Yes, you read that correctly. As it turns out, Winston pulled off one of his biggest pranks yet. He set up the fake company "Engram Pattersky" (rearranging the letters, it spells "my greatest prank"), got some of our minor New Girl characters to help him pass out fake eviction notices, and had Fawn Moscato personally talk to Jess.

The gang is appalled that Winston pulled a prank THIS big, and they're equal parts angered and horrified. As they discuss how big of a prank this was, they all pile into the moving truck to a song called "Until We Get There," which — if you're as big of a fan as me — was featured at the end of "Winston's Birthday."

One of the lyrics to the song is:

What do you say? Is this the time for one more try at a happy life?

And I think that's kind of fitting. Jessica Day arrived at 4D with no real idea of what was going to come next for her life. She had just been cheated on, and would watch Dirty Dancing for hours on end. She learned how to be a stronger, better version of herself thanks to Nick, Schmidt, Winston (and Coach), and Cece. Nick was a jaded, cynical guy who was still hung up on Caroline. Winston had no clue what he wanted to do with his life. Cece was a model who settled for dudes who didn't deserve her, and was afraid to be vulnerable. And Schmidt? Schmidt just wanted to live his life, uninhibited.

Now they're parents and husbands and wives, and beginning a new chapter of their stories with pranks, True American, and lots of laughter.

The New Girl gang has grown up. But they'll never stop being those people we fell in love with. They're just better versions of themselves. And for that? I'm forever grateful.

And now, (final) bonus points:

• I've been reviewing New Girl for five years now, and I'm so honored that you all chose to come on this journey with me. I can't express it enough, but I'll miss this show dearly.
• Ruth's little "who are these people?" is hilarious. Also the entire conference call at the beginning of the episode was so on-point with everything we know to be true about these characters.
• "Why do you always think like a character in The Babysitter's Club?"
• I'm really happy that the show did a mid-dialogue credits cut. It reminded me of my favorite Community cut.
• "I'm gonna go open a bottle of wine. Pink okay?"
• It's fitting that the teleplay for the finale was written by Liz Meriwether, and the episode by Dave Finkel and Brett Baer. I'm so glad these three were showrunners together, and I hope they get to work on projects in the future because they just have a fantastic way of crafting stories.
• I love the meta moment where the group looks at one of the places in the loft that's never featured.
• ONE LAST NICK AND SCHMIDT FLASHBACK, Y'ALL.
• "You sweet, goblin-eyed dumb-dumb."
• Cece's baby voice makes a reappearance and I think Hannah Simone should win an Emmy for that alone.
• NICK FINALLY TELLS SCHMIDT HE LOVES HIM.
• The first time I watched the screener and got to the flash-forward, I just started audibly sobbing and could not stop. I've watched it numerous times since, and still cry.
• "You ready?" "Yeah, let's go."
• I love that Sadie, Fawn, Principal Foster, and biology teacher dude returned.
• "Until We Get There" broke me at the end of "Winston's Birthday," and it broke me now.
• I love so much that the final audible line of the series is "ridiculous." It seems so right.

THAT'S ALL SHE WROTE, FOLKS. I'm so sad, but also so happy this show ended on the best note possible. What were your favorite moments? What made you cry? Sound off in the comments below!

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Supergirl 3x18 Review: "Shelter from the Storm" (A Tiresome Tempest) [Contributor: Deborah MacArthur]

“Shelter from the Storm”

Original Airdate: May 14, 2018 

I knew the run of non-annoying Supergirl episodes wasn’t going to last, but it was good while it did. This week, characters return to making idiotic choices at the plot’s behest and I wonder if I could sue the Supergirl writers for any sprains that might result from violent eye rolling.

I CAN’T STAND THE REIGN

The episode opens with James and Lena in Lena’s... office? Apartment? Anyway, Reign busts through Lena’s window searching for Ruby (because she thinks she needs to kill Ruby to kill Sam) but Lena sprays her in the face with some kryptonite pepper spray. The speed of Reign’s turn from threatening force of evil to wheezing and fleeing is so comical that I genuinely laughed out loud while watching.

At the DEO, everyone is ready to send the Legion members back to the future because they all think Pestilence is dead. Brainy gives Winn a little jar of dirt for Winn’s dirt collection (why am I not surprised that Winn collects dirt?) and is quite endearingly goofy. I would gladly trade Brainy for Mon-El, but alas — though Mon-El does indeed join his Legion teammates on the ship to the future, we all know he’ll return to blandly blandificate all over this show yet again. Perhaps forever! Is it possible to yawn yourself inside-out? Asking for future reference and insurance purposes.

Team Supergirl splits up when they learn Reign is targeting Ruby, so they can protect the locations Reign is most likely to visit. Supergirl and J’onn go to protect Patricia, Sam’s adoptive mother. Patricia is not surprised that Sam is Reign, since Sam used to draw the Reign symbol when she was a kid. Huh. So, why isn’t Kara going all self-righteous about that and lecturing Patricia the way she lectured Lena for keeping the same secret? Oh, right, it’s because Patricia must seem sympathetic in the end and Lena must be at odds with Kara/Supergirl to fulfill her role as a villain. I should have known. The quickest way to lay the groundwork for a character’s villainy is to have the hero openly disagree with them.

Reign shows up at Patricia’s and our heroes are unable to stop her. Patricia tries appealing to Sam’s forgiving, good nature, but Reign kills her. My closed captioning informs me that [flesh squelches] is what a Worldkiller murdering an old lady sounds like.

While the others failed to protect Patricia, Alex went directly to Ruby, hidden by Lena in Lex’s invisible mansion. There, Alex spends her time lying to Ruby about where her mother is and trying to distract her from what’s really going on. Since Ruby has no preservation instincts, Ruby swipes Alex’s phone, leaves the mansion, calls her mom, and gets overheard by Reign. Why did Ruby need to leave the mansion to call? It’s a giant mansion, she could have gone to a different room and no one would have heard her. Including Reign, which I suppose answers my own question.

The team finally realizes that the Worldkillers they thought were dead had just been absorbed by Reign, and the Legion learns this because the jar of dirt Brainy gave to Winn had a listening device in it. Much dithering occurs on the Legion ship while Imra and Mon-El debate turning around and I don’t know why, because their trip to the future is pointless now. Pestilence is not dead. If Supergirl fails to stop Reign, the Blight of the future will happen. Every single one of them should return to help and ensure Reign’s defeat, but instead it turns into a “if you love them, let them go” situation between Imra and Mon-El and only the latter goes back to help. This is ridiculous. You were wrong about your success against Pestilence! Stop making things dramatic and “romantic” and turn your stupid, wrong ship back around!

Back at the DEO, Lena lays her kryptonite knowledge out for Supergirl, who is upset about Lena knowing how to make the one thing that can kill her. Lena is defensive, saying that there is an astronomical number of things that can kill people, but humans don’t live in wrathful fear of all of them. I know that I’m supposed to be on Supergirl’s side because of narrative-delineated morality, but Lena’s argument is solid. Supergirl is a god in a world full of soft, flesh-squelching humans and gets mad at the prospect of one thing that could hurt her existing. She would rather eradicate all kryptonite everywhere than simply trust that Lena, a woman who has been on her side since they met, wouldn’t use kryptonite against her.

Kara doesn’t even soften it by saying that she trusts Lena, but Lena’s kryptonite could end up in the wrong hands. Instead, Supergirl is written with an air of paranoia as she makes the blanket assumption that anyone in possession of kryptonite must be out to get her. It’s an unflattering trait to give the hero of the show and only strengthens Lena’s argument that Supergirl wants guaranteed invulnerability. Do the writers want Kara to look like a coward who’s only brave when she knows nothing in the world can hurt her? Because that’s the picture this whole arc paints.

Back at Lex’s mansion, Reign takes a second to figure out that the building is invisible and the obvious metal box with a keypad in it is what’s making it that way, so she breaks the keypad. Side note: The security on that mansion really sucks if just breaking the keypad renders it all useless.

During the fight that occurs at the mansion, Ruby finally sees that her mother is Reign. Kara is only able to stop the Reign’s determination to kill Ruby when she mentions that Reign’s mission is to purge the Earth of sin, and Ruby is without sin (since stupidity is not a sin). The show should have leaned on the “Reign is a moral totalitarian” point a lot more in the episodes leading up to this, because what should have been an “A-ha!” moment sort of flatlines as an “Oh, right, that was a thing” moment instead.

Reign is distracted long enough for Mon-El to shoot her with kryptonite. Weakened, she’s transported back to Lena’s lab and freshly secured in the invisible-walled holding cell. Kara apologizes to Lena, saying that the kryptonite came in handy after all. Lena promises to keep working on a cure for Sam.

In an elevator on the way to visit Ruby, Lena runs into non-Supergirl Kara. Their conversation segues from talking about ice cream to Lena confessing her mistrust of Supergirl, and that latter bit is done with so much fervor that I can’t believe Lena still doesn't know that Kara and Supergirl are one in the same. It is exactly what someone would say if they were passive-aggressively trying to test whether their friend trusted them enough to be honest about their secret superhero identity. But no, it’s played straight because the writers still think Lena has a person-specific case of prosopagnosia.

Lena says that she can’t trust Supergirl because Supergirl sent James to determine whether she had kryptonite, and any trust they had was broken the moment she did. Which I think is perfectly reasonable. Lena doesn’t declare Supergirl her enemy or even imply that their working relationship is over, just that it was no longer a relationship of mutual respect and trust — and the cessation of that respectful, trustful relationship is Supergirl’s fault. Kara’s facial expressions flash between shock, dismay, and... worry? Guilt? It’s unclear, but I hope it’s guilt. Like the kryptonite situation earlier, I agree with Lena over Kara/Supergirl but I suspect the writers want me to think Lena is evil for her choices and Kara is in the right for hers. I certainly hope I’m wrong and all of this will turn into a lesson for Kara on her “no exceptions” approach to dealing with kryptonite, but the hope is a feeble one.

It’s far more likely that this is the first step in Lena’s descent into evil. See what happens when you keep secrets and lie to your friends, kids? They turn into supervillains out of resentment.

Other Things:

• Next time: Putting the Worldkiller plot on pause for a James episode. Whatever.

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Grey’s Anatomy 14x23 Recap: “Cold As Ice” (One Big Scare) [Contributor: Julia Siegel]

“Cold As Ice”

Original Airdate: May 10, 2018

Hold onto your seats, folks! It’s one bumpy road to the bittersweet season finale. With two fan favorite doctors on their way out the door, fates are still up in the air. However, by the end of the season's penultimate episode, it seems pretty clear how we will be losing April and Arizona... unless the finale throws yet another massive curveball.

LIVING ON A PRAYER

A vast majority of the episode focuses on the fallout of a single vehicle crash, which we don’t see occur. Paramedic Matthew Taylor arrives at Grey Sloan Memorial via ambulance as a crash victim and is in pretty rough shape. Before losing consciousness for a second time, he asks Meredith where April is, leading to a wild goose chase to find out where she could be. Owen tells the paramedics to take him to the scene to look for April in case she was also involved in the accident. He finds her a few feet away from the car where she was cold, unresponsive, and had no pulse.

Owen brings April to the hospital, and almost every main attending is pulled in to help try to save her life. As Meredith says, she’s not dead until she is warm and dead — especially since we have seen Meredith survive drowning and being dead for several hours back in season three. Maggie feels that April’s best chance of survival is to put her on bypass while they try to warm her up in order to keep her blood circulating. Jackson finds out about the accident just as the group of doctors stops CPR to start bypass, which almost destroys Jackson. He thinks they are giving up on April and it takes several people to convince him that they don’t plan on giving up at all.

After three hours, April’s body is finally warm enough to attempt to get a heartbeat back. Maggie is the only one to see a small blip on the heart monitor and shocks April a number of times before they get a real rhythm. It is a very emotional moment for the group — and the audience — when April is deemed alive. However, April’s brain function isn’t in the best of shape, leaving everyone waiting on her fate. Jackson is so distraught over April’s condition that he actually prays for her survival, which is a wonderful acting moment from Jesse Williams.

While April is still unconscious, Arizona reveals that April has been seeing Matthew for several months and that they are in love again. This comes as no surprise to me, as I figured that April and Matthew might get back together after his wife passed away. Matthew’s surgery is successful, and he survives. With Jackson still praying over her, April squeezes his hand and opens her eyes. By the end of the episode, it appears that the couple is alive and well, so it looks like April won’t be killed off. The best — and most likely — case scenario is that April will head off with Matthew and leave her life at Grey Sloan behind.

AN OLD FRIEND

The other storyline of the episode brings the return of Geena Davis as Nicole Herman, the former fetal surgeon who taught Arizona how to do fetal surgery and was blinded when Amelia resected her brain tumor. Nicole returns after a few years' absence for an appointment with Amelia because she has been having headaches and fears her tumor might be back. Amelia and Arizona are both a bit unnerved about Nicole’s return, but the visit brings some fun realizations.

Amelia and DeLuca are on the case and find that Nicole has an excessive amount of spinal fluid, which can be fixed with a shunt. They are all happy that there isn’t another tumor — especially Amelia, who still feels responsible for blinding Nicole. When Amelia tells Nicole that she doesn’t want to perform the surgery to place the shunt, Nicole is insulted that Amelia doesn’t trust herself. Nicole reveals that she had seen Tom Koracick for an appointment and overheard a phone call about Amelia’s brain tumor. Even though Amelia cares that her tumor could have caused Nicole to go blind, Nicole doesn’t seem to care. The best moment is when Nicole says that she slept with Tom, because the reactions from Arizona and Amelia are hilarious.

Nicole’s visit turns into something more when Arizona tells her that she is going to be moving to New York and will be resuming a career in pediatric surgery. To say that Nicole is upset that Arizona is planning on giving up fetal surgery is an understatement, launching Nicole into a long speech about how proud she is that Arizona has become a great fetal surgeon. Nicole reveals that she has recently received a big grant and has been keeping up with Arizona’s career, including the carts that she came up with a few weeks back. She feels that her life should be dedicated to teaching others her knowledge on fetal surgery and gives Arizona an offer of a lifetime. Nicole wants to team up with Arizona to build the Robbins-Herman Center, where they will teach (and Arizona will continue to perform) fetal surgery to the nation’s best doctors. Arizona asks if they could build it in New York and accepts when Nicole says that she doesn’t see why they couldn’t.

This is the perfect out for Arizona, as she will get the best ending for her career and her family. Thankfully, it appears that both fan faves will get their happy endings after all.

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Brooklyn Nine-Nine 5x20 Recap: “Show Me Going” (Saving Rosa) [Contributor: Alisa Williams]

“Show Me Going”

Original Airdate: May 6, 2018

What a whirlwind of a week! We got the tragic news that Brooklyn Nine-Nine was cancelled by Fox and then three days later we received the most glorious announcement — the series had been picked up by NBC for season six! But before all of that craziness went down, we had a fantastic episode air, so let’s discuss that, as we bask in the knowledge that we have at least one more season to look forward to (and maybe even a Superstore and/or The Good Place crossover?!)

On the latest episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Jake and Boyle are super excited because they’ve been tapped to join an inter-agency taskforce led by NYPD legend Boomer Maxwell that is set to take down a Fast & Furious-style underground car racing ring. If even half the stories about this guy are true (took down three serial killers in one week, defused a bomb with his teeth because his hands were tied up, etc.) than Jake and Boyle are in for a real treat.

Unfortunately, when they get to the task force meeting, they learn Boomer Maxwell isn’t leading it up anymore. Apparently he shattered both his legs jumping off the Chrysler Building chasing a perp, and now Detective Brett Booth is in charge and he is not a fan of Jake. They attended Academy together years ago where Jake shot him with a rubber bullet that somehow went up and under Booth’s goggles and permanently damaged his depth perception.

Sure enough, Booth walks in, promptly bumps into a water cooler, has a few choice words to share with Peralta (while looking at the guy next to him), and then storms back out of the room, running into the doorframe on the way. Even worse, Jake and Boyle both get kicked off the taskforce. They head back to the precinct and Jake tells Boyle they’ll just solve the case on their own, before Booth’s taskforce can. But before they can dig into the details, they come upon the rest of the team listening in to a dispatch call about an active shooter in a hotel. As they follow the conversation and hear the various officers who are at the scene state their names and badge numbers, suddenly they hear Rosa’s voice. She’s there, too.

Holt finds out that there are two, possibly three, shooters and three dead civilians, along with many more injured. Jake insists they rush in to help Rosa, but Holt says no. The officers on point say they have the situation handled. Rosa happened to be on scene when it went down so she got pulled into helping, but the rest of the Nine-Nine isn’t needed. Jake tries to focus on the car racing case, but he’s too worried about Rosa. They all are. Terry confesses to Holt that he’s terrified for Rosa and is now thinking about his own mortality. Holt, who is the worst at comforting people, does his best but only makes Terry more terrified that Rosa will die and he’ll die, too. Terry calls his insurance agency, hoping to bump up his life insurance plan to make sure his family will be covered if he dies.

The insurance agency sends a nurse to do a health check-up for Terry and is taking his blood pressure (which he says is usually pristine) just as Jake gets the news that there were shots fired at the hotel. Terry’s blood pressure skyrockets and breaks the machine. Jake storms into Holt’s office, who has already heard the news and tells Jake two officers are down, but neither is Rosa. Jake presses again that they need to head over there and help Rosa, but Holts says no again. They’ve been ordered by the commissioner not to interfere, and now Holt is ordering the same of Jake. Jake agrees but immediately leaves Holt’s office and enlists Boyle, Scully, and Hitchcock’s help to cause a distraction so he can check out tactical gear and go help Rosa.

Meanwhile, Amy and Gina have been dealing with their fear for Rosa in their own way. The Nine-Nine’s women’s bathroom toilet has been broken for over a week (thanks to Gina not calling the work order in when she was supposed to). Rosa has been the most vocal in complaining about it, and Amy says it would be great if they got it fixed before Rosa gets back, considering the rough day she’s having. They call a plumber but he says he won’t be able to fix it right away, so Amy and Gina decide to fix it themselves. I mean, how hard can it be? Apparently, super difficult. They make a huge mess and Amy ends up breaking it even worse than it was before.

While Amy and Gina continue trying to fix the toilet, Jake heads down to the armory to check out the tactical gear. Scully and Hitchcock cause a commotion in the bull pen, which causes Holt to run out of his office and break it up. As the armory officer calls Holt’s office to get his approval for Jake’s tactical gear, Boyle slips in and answers Holt’s phone to approve the request.

But their shenanigans prove useless because Holt catches Jake as he’s about to jump in his car and head over to the hotel. Holt reminds Jake that his team needs him. Jake says he tried to distract them from the seriousness of the situation, but Holt says what they need isn’t distraction. They need someone who will listen to their feelings. Jake says Holt should do that himself, but Holt admits that comforting people isn’t really his strong suit.

Jake says he has important things to do, like rescuing Rosa, and doesn’t have time for pointless emotional banter. Jake heads out but before he gets to the hotel he turns around and heads back to the precinct with pizza for everyone and a plan to talk about their feelings. It works and everyone calms down as they wait for news about Rosa. Even Terry’s blood pressure gets back to his normal range, and the nurse sent by the insurance agency can finally leave.

Just then they get word that the hotel shooters have been taken into custody, and they don’t have to wait long before Rosa appears back in the precinct, unharmed and happy to see them all. And Gina and Amy have a surprise. Well, sort of. The women’s toilet is definitely not fixed, but they think Rosa will appreciate the effort they went to, and the hurricane of destruction Amy left in her wake, and Rosa does. There’s hugs all around and the squad is back together!

Bullets on the Bulletin Board:

• “But that’s just a suggestion, right? Like how they tell you to drink eight cups of water a month.” “A day.” “Sarge, come on. This is not the time for jokes.”
• “I can’t help but notice you flattened your mouse.” “Sorry. I get crush-y when I’m nervous.” 
• “You know what would make a great movie? One where the hero sits with his friend and they just talk about their emotions.”

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The Flash 4x21 Review: "Harry and the Harrisons" (Let’s Kill an Hour) [Contributor: Deborah MacArthur]

"Harry and the Harrisons"

Original Airdate: May 8, 2018 

By my count, there are four co-plots going on in this episode: Team Flash wants to recruit Amunet Black to help them take down DeVoe’s brain drain satellites, Caitlin wants Amunet to bring Killer Frost back, Harry and Cisco seek guidance on Harry’s diminishing intelligence from alt-Earth Harrisons, and Iris wants to publish an article telling the world about DeVoe but Barry doesn’t think it’s a good idea. That is too many plots with not enough emotional or narrative payoff for any of them, The Flash. We’re late enough in the game that every moment of screen time should be treated as a precious commodity that furthers something — character development, the main arc, etc. — in a significant way, but this week wastes every opportunity to do so.

AMUNET BLACK

Two of this week’s plots involve Amunet Black, the former black market metahuman dealer. Despite that title, I kind of like her? I think she probably would have made a good primary villain for the first half of this season, rather than extending DeVoe’s villain role over twenty-something episodes. And since she and Caitlin have something of a connection, it would have been especially good as a way to make Caitlin’s arc with Killer Frost seem like less of a baffling afterthought. Caitlin going from really wanting to get rid of Killer Frost to losing Killer Frost and wanting her back has been some story whiplash.

Team Flash’s alliance with Amunet is done at Caitlin’s urging, since she thinks Amunet has a “splicer” device that helped her get Killer Frost under control. The fact that Caitlin lies to the team (playing Amunet off as their best option for finding a non-tech weapon to take down DeVoe) is questionable, but forgivable. At least she’s doing something, which is more than I can usually say for the character. But whatever, Team Flash goes to find Amunet, who says she can’t help them unless she gets her “big” stash of special metal hunks. They’ve been stolen. Along with the splicing device. By that dude with a snake in his eye, also known as the grossest metahuman to ever appear on this show.

So the team plus Amunet goes to get her metal supply, and Amunet admits to Caitlin that the splicer never worked on her — the ability to draw out and control Killer Frost was inside her all along. After chopping Norvock’s eye snake in half, Amunet leaves Caitlin with some parting words of encouragement and a ball of metapower-infused metal chunks she says will help stop DeVoe. Then she surrounds herself with a metal tornado and uses it to fly away, which just seems excessive.

Our heroes think that Amunet’s metal bomb puts them one step closer to stopping DeVoe, but I don’t really get it. That’s only one metal bomb and they need to take down a worldwide network of satellites. How is it helpful?

HARRY & CISCO

Meanwhile, Harry and Cisco have their own plotline going on this episode. I generally love when Tom Cavanagh gets to do his variants on Harrison Wells because they’re usually very amusing, but the Council of Wells fell flat this episode. Like I said in the intro: We are too late in the game for this — pun intended — tomfoolery. I get that the show probably wanted to lighten the mood after killing off a character, dealing the team a series of losses, and breaking up Cisco and Cynthia, but I don’t think this was the best way to go about it.

Although Harry’s consultation with the Council seems to do nothing to help them in the fight against DeVoe or the fight against Harry’s diminishing intelligence, Harry does seem better for the “therapy” session that occurs from it. Also, his renewed connection to his emotions gives him the idea that maybe DeVoe’s wife (i.e., his emotional connection) is their ticket to stopping The Thinker. It’s not a bad idea, but if the show is going to imply that DeVoe really does love his wife and needs her with him (like the last two episodes have done) then why did “Fury Rogue” imply he had zero human emotions or connections left? Sometimes it’s like this show is being written by different people, with no overall story management whatsoever.

BARRY & IRIS

Look, I adore Barry and Iris together, I really do. Grant Gustin and Candice Patton have a unique, charming chemistry that makes the Barry/Iris relationship seem a lot more real and natural than many on-screen relationships. When they’re together you really get the idea of these two people being best friends who fell in love with each other and I’m a sucker for those kinds of stories. So Westallen is a winner in my book... but I can kind of see how some fans aren’t on board with what should be a Grade-A ship, because the writers aren’t exactly doing Iris any favors. She’s so passive in Barry’s life that sometimes she comes off as, I don’t know, a non-player character in a video game or something. She exists peripherally to Barry and his story, but doesn’t have a story herself. The writers don’t write Iris as a person; they write her as a catalyst for Barry.

I talked about this flaw in the writing of Iris a lot during the Savitar plot last season, when Iris was given all of one episode to deal with the prospect of her own death before the narrative reverted back to Barry’s feelings, Barry’s turmoil, and Barry’s thoughts on the love of his life dying. And no, I’m not saying that Iris should be the new main character of The Flash or anything, here. I’m just saying that she should have her own sense of character and autonomy, not exist purely as an extension of or inspiration for Barry Allen’s journey. We never get the implication that Iris has her own friends outside Team Flash, that she has any hobbies, or that she does anything for herself when she’s not on screen.

Which is why I was so excited when the episode opened up with Iris buzzing with inspiration to write an article on DeVoe. It’s the perfect thing for her to do! She just got back into journalism, the public has an invisible guillotine of mush-brain hanging over them, and Iris is compassionate and intelligent enough to get that everyone deserves to know what’s going on. But then Barry rains on her (and my) parade by dithering about whether she should publish it or not, and suddenly Iris’s self-motivated plot line gets handed over to Barry. Iris relinquishes final say on her article’s publication over to her husband despite the fact that she did all the research, wrote the thing, and we have no reason to believe that she would implicate Team Flash or their civilian alter-egos at all. Furthermore, even if she did write something that might affect the team, she offers to let everyone read the article before publishing it, and Barry STILL fusses at her about writing it.

Uhg. Well, in the end, Barry learns that his wife is a genius and he should just trust her judgement more, and I learn that these writers really haven’t learned much of anything about writing Iris. I’m just glad that Iris is vindicated when her article leads to the only interesting bit in the whole episode: Central City citizens, newly aware of the DeVoe threat, create a network of info that Team Flash can use to their advantage. Hee. Team Flash is crowd-sourcing their big villain fight!

Other Things:

• They should do some sort of online minisode depicting what The Flash, the show, would be like if it had the alternate-Wells equivalents for every character.
• It’s really amusing that Barry takes his mask off in front of just about everyone these days, doesn’t do it in front of Amunet, and she figures out who he is anyway.

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Once Upon A Time 7x20 Review: “Is This Henry Mills?” (Reality Check) [Contributor: Julia Siegel]

“Is This Henry Mills?”

Original Airdate: May 4, 2018

It took twenty episodes to get here, but Once Upon A Time is finally back! The third-to-last episode of the series is what any fan should have been waiting for: classic Once Upon A Time trailblazing back into the rebooted final season. While there are only two episodes (which air May 11 and May 18) of the series remaining, the show has found itself again — just in the nick of time. This final three-episode arc is going to bring the emotion, story, and characters full circle and give all of us loyal fans the finale we have always hoped for.

BREAKING THE CURSE

Many curses have been placed on the characters over the seven seasons OUAT has aired, but none has been harder to watch play out than this season’s duplicate of the original curse. The rebooted seventh season has been dull and dragged out an old storyline far too long to be interesting. However, it seems that the the show's creative team has realized their mistakes and decided to right them now. In the previous episode, Lucy helped Facilier clear the dark magic out of Henry’s heart so that true love’s kiss wouldn’t kill him. The long-awaited Henry/Jocinda kiss happened, but the curse wasn’t broken.

This episode picks up with Regina and Lucy feeling helpless because Henry has lost his sense of belief. They spend a majority of the episode trying to convince Henry of the truth that he has been failing to accept. In a last-ditch effort, Regina digs up the Once Upon A Time storybook from Victoria Belfrey’s grave and has Lucy bring Henry to the bar. Regina believes that if Henry touches the book, he will remember who he is and gain his belief back, much like how Emma finally believed in magic when she picked up the book in the first season. Stupidly, Regina and Lucy tell Henry that all he has to do is touch the book to break the spell, which was just lazy writing. Of course, Henry touching the book doesn’t do anything.

Regina is distraught that Henry isn’t her Henry anymore and tries one last time to reason with him by showing him the picture of them together when he was a boy. Henry still doesn’t believe that the picture is real, and Regina goes on to show him the adoption papers that she had signed way back when to prove that she is Regina and his mother. Henry asks that if the stories are real, why aren’t the rest of the heroes with them in Seattle? This is one of the million dollar questions FINALLY asked by a main character in this episode. Shockingly, Regina reveals that the curse not only brought them all to Seattle and wiped their memories, but they were also brought back to a specific moment in time. Yeah, I wasn’t expecting time travel either, and it really doesn’t make any sense at all.

However, the time travel thing does allow for one of the most special moments of the entire series to occur after Regina tells Henry that they, including versions of themselves, are still in Storybrooke, thus why the rest of the original cast is missing. Henry chases a very upset Lucy home and finds that Regina had slipped the picture and papers into his bag when he wasn’t looking. Since he is still curious, Henry takes another look at the papers and sees that Regina’s phone number is listed. The little part of himself that still believes that maybe the whole magic thing could be real wins out, and Henry dials the number to see if there’s another version of Regina out there.

Much to his surprise, younger Henry (Jared Gilmore) picks up the phone. This is a wonderful moment not only because adult Henry is talking to his younger self on his high school graduation day, but it also is what adult Henry needed to wake him up and remember who he is. The moment he hears his own voice, the old Henry is back and has a really nice conversation with his younger self that is definitely worth watching. With Henry’s belief intact, he reunites with Lucy and then runs off to find Regina. Meanwhile, Regina has decided that she must fight Gothel on her own because no one else seems to be able to stop her from recreating her tree nymph world.

Right when Henry arrives to the site of their less-than-epic battle, Gothel knocks Regina out. In a beautiful role reversal moment, Henry goes over to the unconscious Regina and tells her how sorry he is for not believing everything. Henry begs Regina to wake up and kisses her forehead. True love’s kiss breaks the curse exactly like it did in the first season, which is a quintessential Once Upon A Time moment. Everyone gets their memories back and converges to where Regina, Henry, and Gothel are in time to help stop Gothel. In the end, it’s Alice who overpowers Gothel. Alice turns Gothel into a tree and ends that threat once and for all.

WHAT COMES NEXT?

So, the big question is what’s next now that the curse is broken? The last two episodes are going to be very interesting because everyone is awake with their original memories and personas, magic is alive and well, and a version of a character is back to wreak some havoc before the final page is turned. The end of the episode features Rumple finding his precious Belle scrapbook at Facilier’s office. Rumple wants to kill Facilier for taking his book, but since he has become a better person, he can’t go through with it. Facilier is then literally stabbed in the back by Wish Realm Rumplestiltskin, who appears out of nowhere.

Wish Rumple kills Facilier and faces his other self. Essentially, Wish Rumple wants the Dark One dagger and will do whatever it takes to get it. It’s unclear how Wish Rumple broke free of the Wish Realm and ended up in Seattle in whatever timeline they are currently in. Question one for the last two episodes: what kind of damage will Wish Rumple cause?

The other interesting part of the last two episodes is the return of almost every character that has appeared in the series. The penultimate episode will feature a plethora of supporting/recurring characters from the past seven years, while the series finale will feature the return of the original cast/main characters. The second question for the finale episodes is: how will all of these characters come back to the show? With the time travel component introduced in this episode, maybe there will be more time traveling in store for us. Or maybe more Wish Realm versions of characters will come through to Seattle much like Wish Rumple.

I, for one, am hoping that we will simply see this year’s characters travel to Storybrooke in the finale and reunite with the original characters for a happy ending. Whatever happens, I finally believe that it will be everything that the show has always about and will be the ending that the fans and characters deserve.

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Supergirl 3x17 Review: "Trinity" (Confessions Galore) [Contributor: Deborah MacArthur]

“Trinity”

Original Airdate: May 7, 2018 

Hey, Supergirl managed to make things post-Worldkiller team-up really interesting! Color me surprised, since I figured they’d spend at least one episode killing time with filler villain-of-the-week content. Instead, they deliver a pretty solid episode that furthers the main Worldkiller plot and provides a lot of good character stuff for several characters. Is “Trinity” a perfect episode? No — but it does what it needs to do, it does it well, and it supports other aspects of the show while accomplishing its main goal. Frankly, if an episode of this show doesn’t send me into fits of frustration or a boredom-induced stupor, I’ll take it. This one having a bit more than the baseline is just icing.

GIMME SOME TRUTH

The episode starts shortly after where we left off last week. Lena is being interrogated at the DEO and no one looks happy about it. Seeing Sam locked in a techno-cage in Lena’s laboratory apparently had an even worse impression on our heroes than I’d originally assumed, since everyone acts like they’ve burned whatever bridges of friendship existed between them and Lena. Doesn’t Kara usually have a stubborn resistance toward turning against friendships? Her mistrust of Lena feels way too absolute. Alex is even worse, as she and Lena snipe at each other throughout the episode. In television trope terms, they act more like the dynamic of long-time rivals forced to team up for a common good than two friends having a fight.

Things especially don’t go well for Lena when she admits that she used kryptonite to keep Reign/Sam under control. I don’t know if I can call out the show for not even hinting at the existence of kryptonite in Lena’s lab. On one hand, it feels like a cheap way to make Lena look more evil and validate Team Supergirl’s total mistrust. On the other hand, I can’t discredit the show for NOT dropping hints with all the subtlety of anvils, which is its usual modus operandi.

Meanwhile, Sam is going through trials and tribulations in that creepy alternate-dimension forest. Julia Freeman, the human form of Worldkiller Purity, is also there, but Grace (Pestilence) gave up immediately and died. The other Worldkillers are trying to kill off their human selves via psychological torture. Not only are Julia and Sam being haunted by the faces of people Reign and Purity have killed, but they’re also losing themselves: Julia struggles to remember her own name or the title of her favorite song, while Sam forgets Ruby’s name for a minute. Sam gets the idea to carve everything they know about themselves into the trees around them, which works to keep hold of their humanity and doubles as some cool, creepy set decoration for the episode. Atmosphere!

I joke, but the stuff in the dark forest is probably my favorite. The concept of Sam and Julia essentially being destroyed from the outside in — as the Worldkillers have control of their bodies, minds, and memories — is a compelling one, made more so by the actresses doing a great job with the panic and madness it induces. Exploring the psychological effect the Worldkillers have on their human counterparts means a character-driven plotline, and focus on character means it never feels like the show is stalling for time, like just about any other kind of story (villain of the week, searching for Sam, interrogating Lena, etc.) would. Yeah, we don’t learn a whole lot about Julia, but I did have sympathy for her and I’m happy she ends the episode a hero. For Sam, it reinforces what we already know about the character’s ingenuity, strength, and love for her daughter, and makes me root for her victory over Reign more than I have during the season so far.

Back in... reality? That doesn’t sound right. Anyway, back in the place where colors exist, Lena calls James and confesses everything she’s just done, from keeping Sam/Reign in her lab via kryptonite to being really sad that Supergirl is mad at her. James listens, but Lena has to hang up and talk to Supergirl before he has a chance to say anything of value. As Supergirl is berating her some more and questioning whether she possesses more kryptonite, an eclipse happens. This sends Kara all screwy because Supergirl, like those dancing flowers on the dashboard of your kookiest aunt’s minivan, is solar powered.

When she passes out, Kara wakes up — briefly — in the forest with Sam. Thus, our main plot of the episode: Kara is able to send her consciousness to the alternate world where Sam and Julia are, so Kara gets Brainy to come up with a way to comatose herself back into the forest (actually a Kryptonian “valley” called Juru). Once there, she can convince Sam to repossess herself and send Team Supergirl a signal they can use to locate the Worldkillers. Lena and Alex sign on as backup, since Supergirl won’t be so super when the eclipse completes and Lena thinks she can get through to Sam.

In the “valley” that looks a whole heck of a lot more like a forest, Lena, Kara, and Alex pause in their search for Sam to bicker a bit. The topic of secrets comes up and for like half a glorious second, I expect Lena to come right out and name Kara as Supergirl. But alas, no. The show still wants us to think genius Lena is too dumb to recognize her friend as her other friend. Sigh.

After fighting off some Kryptonian demons, our dimension-hopping trio finally gets to talk to Julia and Sam. Mentioning Ruby many, many times gives Sam enough strength to take her body over again, break away from the other Wordkillers, and send a signal out from the Worldkiller Fortress to alert the DEO, but it means that Reign takes Sam’s place in the valley. Reign almost kills Lena, insults Kara a little, and drops a little info: Only one of equal strength to a Worldkiller can defeat a Worldkiller, and that does not include Supergirl.

But it does include other Worldkillers! When everyone (well, except Sam) is back on the right side of reality, they go to the Fortress of Eviltude and begin battle. Julia manages to take over her Worldkiller-powered body just long enough to take out Pestilence, but dies doing it. It seems like two out of three Worldkillers are out of the picture, but then Pestilence and Purity glow a bit, the glow goes into Reign, and Reign does a power-roar before flying off.

When everything is over, Lena and Kara have a talk and Lena says that Sam’s secret wasn’t hers to tell, so she never told it. Like the Kryptonite plot point before it, I don’t know if Lena lying about not having permission to tell anyone about Sam's condition is subtle storytelling or the writers forgetting what they’ve written. Sam definitely, specifically requested she get Alex and Supergirl's help regarding Reign, and Lena denied her. Yeah, it’s pretty bad when a show’s storytelling is usually so hamfisted that little hints like the ones in this episode come off as possible continuity mistakes.

While everyone’s confessing things: James goes to Lena and tells her that Supergirl had him go, as Guardian, check the vault in her lab for kryptonite. Considering that Supergirl just got finished telling Lena (based off the false confirmation of no kryptonite) that all is forgiven, James kinda throws Supergirl riiiight under the bus with his confession. I’m all for honesty, buddy, but maybe don’t bring other names into stuff like this? Anyhoo, Lena confesses to James that the kryptonite she used on Sam/Reign wasn’t Lex’s. It was hers. Because she figured out how to make kryptonite.

Dun dun dunnnn!

Also, everyone seems to think that Pestilence and Purity are gone. Did they not notice all the glowy bright lights going from the dead Worldkillers to Reign? They ain’t gone, Team Supergirl.

Next week: Team Supergirl finds out the other Worldkillers ain’t gone. Told you so!

Other Things:

• Haha, Lena's "Okay?" when she's told to help Brainy.
• Alex looks so happy about her new superhero gear. That woman sure likes fancy guns.

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