mrchrishain

...and in many ways, this episode is the full realization of the 30s screwball comedy vision of Moonlighting.

Yes, the mechanics of the plot are flawed, clunky. But the character beats are so fun and funny that the plot doesn't matter. This is why it's a 9. The kidnapping-ransom plot is a sideshow, like many of the shenanigans of those 30s films. But the banter and character is 10+. And think about how many shows the reverse is true. How many detective procedurals have you seen where the mystery mechanics are a 10 but the character beats are just OK. So many. And yet any mystery fan will eat it up. But Moonlighting is the reverse. It is character and comedy first, mystery second. And from that perspective this episode is strong, very strong.

Definitely not one of the better episodes.

Multiple flaws but the scene where Shauna beats up Charlotte is flat out ridiculous. Way over the top.

It also seemed like several of the characters were different versions of themselves simply for the purpose of serving is episode's plot. Older Natalie didn't seem like the same Natalie. Older Shauna didn't seem like the same Shauna.

And Misty's dream sequence seemed like a terrible departure stylistically from the typical style of the show.

Oh, when the older versions of the girls are hanging out toward the end of the episode, it seemed more like a commercial for alcohol.

... I absolutely love "Dave." However, this episode is terrible.

Dave's initial response to the crowd fat shaming his fan is an interesting setup for the episode.

But the plot escalates with a series of uninventive hackneyed tropes. It's not even terribly funny.

The GaTa sex addiction is in organically forced to thematically fit with the silly plot of anti-dance cartoon Christians ripped off from Footloose.

At least it's a stand alone episode.

Now, as I continue my quest to get more people to watch this show I can tell them it's great, but absolutely skip Season 3, Episode 5.

You should skip it, too.

I thought this was the weakest of the first three, but that's typical for first episodes of a new season -- lots of setup.

However ... there's a bizarre ending to one scene that confusingly transitions to the next.

When Susie goes to visit the Gordon Ford show, she starts wandering around and is observing things and then the scene just sort of abruptly ends.

Cut to ... the TV in the Maisel home on Thanksgiving, but it was confusing like maybe it was supposed to be a match cut or a thematic match cut and the setup was missing.

I don't know, but regardless the point of the Susie wandering scene was definitely not nailed even if there wasn't something missing. It needed the viewer to have something to take away.

In hindsight, we understand that she saw the men go into the elevator and the women are in the hallway, which is a setup for when Susie suggests to Gordon that he put Midge on his staff. However, the scene with Susie in the hallway is way too subtle for most viewers to take this away from it, or anything. Either there was something more definitive planned and it was mistakenly cut, or it was way too subtle to begin with.

... not much new or interesting here yet. Starts terribly slow. Kept stopping it to see how far along it was as the Austin stuff dragged on. Turns quite abruptly into typical, uninteresting zombie apocalypse struggle that ends with the main characters relatively purposeless death. Life in the QT zone in Boston is pretty uninteresting world building with almost not interesting characters or struggles. Boring, typical resistance stuff. Lame, hackneyed contraband stuff. The mystery of the young girl's specialness is clumsily and boringly handled. The inciting incident for Pedro Pascal having to take on the journey with the immune girl is off-screen and never explained. Pretty lame flashback motivates him beating up the soldier. 80s music on the radio hits pretty weakly as unknown "trouble." All in all kind of bad. Very disappointing because I loved Chernobyl.

Wow, the opening scene is terribly written. Zero subtext makes for deplorable drama. What's the saying, 'If the scene is about what the scene is about, you're in trouble.' Very amateurish scene work forced upon two excellent actors.

I've said it before but they really don't have a good concept of Laura Linney's character.

1) Darlene is such a poorly drawn character. Constantly used to escalate with no setup or transition. Shooting the driver was barely rational, poorly set up, and the explanation ridiculous. But much worse was her spouting off about Wendy lying about Ben's drug use. She had no insight into Ben, nor did she have any legitimate motivation for mentioning it to Ruth. It was an efficient technique for bringing it front of mind to Ruth, but there were many other ways that would have had some emotional truth. This had none.

2) Wendy's characterization is also poorly done. She seems to constantly be used simply as an anatagonist to Marty without much explanation of her own motivations. She's another jumping conflict machine.

Disappointing.