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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

It’s not every author who could write a sequel to a landmark piece of dystopian fiction and have it land with the force of a sledgehammer, but it probably goes without saying that Margaret Atwood is just such a writer. When The Testaments came out in 2019, I remember being blown away by how chilling and exhilarating it was to return to Gilead, particularly since it seemed that there were many within the nation itself who were fighting for its overthrow. In those dark days of the first Trump administration, I was desperate for any sign that it was possible to fight back against the forces of darkness that seemed to be in undisputed control. I devoured it and loved every page.

On the other hand, I’ll be the first to admit that I couldn’t get through even one season of The Handmaid’s Tale. Not because it wasn’t great TV, because it was, but because it cut too close to the bone in those early, dark days of the first Trump administration. I was therefore on the fence about watching this new adaptation, which promised to be a return to a world that has, in the time since the first season of its predecessor hit our screens, become ever more like Gilead with each passing day. Finally, I decided to watch it and, having now watched several episodes, I’m happy to report that, while it takes some liberties with the novel, it still is an empowering show that makes the most of its young leads and their undeniable charisma.

The center of the story is Agnes, whose voiceover frames the story. The adopted daughter of a Commander and his icy wife, she attends the Aunt Lydia School, a sort of finishing school for both the young women of Gilead–who are called Pinks, Plums, and Greens based on how old they are and whether they’ve had their periods–and Pearls, girls from outside Gilead who have come (or been brought) to convert. Through Agnes’ eyes we get the inside scoop on her world, which is composed of friends like Shunammite, Becka, and Huldah and Aunts like Vidala and Estee. The other major player in this drama is the Pearl, Daisy, who has come to Gilead from the corrupt outside world. Unbeknownst to Agnes, however, she is actually a spy for Mayday, doing her part to bring about the end of Gilead from within.

The first two episodes move along at a fast clip, efficiently reintroducing us to this world and giving these two characters time to shine. Chase Infiniti is perfectly cast as Agnes, a young woman who hasn’t yet started to question the tenets and underlying structures of life in Gilead but who, nevertheless, feels the stirrings of teenage rebellion. Like her friend Becka, who doesn’t seem particularly thrilled at the idea of getting her period and thus being eligible for marriage, Agnes doesn’t seem as excited about her imminent change in status as some of her colleagues at the Aunt Lydia School. One can hardly blame her.

Indeed, I’m sure I’m not the only one who was both grossed out and horrified (though not, of course, surprised) to find the second episode ends with Agnes being ogled by her father’s fellow Commanders, men who in some cases could be her grandfather. This is a society that, as we’ve seen, truly sees women as nothing more than objects to be devoured and consumed and pushed into marriage as soon as they are able. Their avaricious gazes are a gross echo of her dentist, who takes an X-ray as an opportunity to grope her. The young women of Gilead’s upper classes may not have lives quite as miserable as the Handmaids, but their existence is certainly no walk in the park.

Visually, The Testaments is as meticulously crafted as its predecessors. Here, though, the production design aims to show the poisoned beauty that Gilead has built around the upper echelons of power. The purple outfits of the Plums seem to positively leap off of the screen, just as the white, nurse-like garments of the Pearls seem to glare like flashbulbs. As so often in this show and this world, the beautiful and the dangerous go hand-in-hand.

If I have one complaint about these first two episodes of this series, it’s that we don’t get to see more of Ann Dowd’s Aunt Lydia. Dowd is, of course, a powerhouse of an actress, someone who’s capable of exuding a sense of menace without having to say a word. In the first two episodes, however, she’s very much an ancillary character, appearing only to turn Daisy over into Agnes’ care and to induct the latter into womanhood. Those of us who’ve read the book, however, know she’s a key player in the action that’s about to unfold. I hope we actually get an episode or two told from her point of view, not only because this would be true to the narration of The Testaments as a novel but also because it would just be amazing to hear something from Lydia’s perspective. She’s the very definition of a character you love to hate.

While The Testaments isn’t as unrelentingly grim as The Handmaid’s Tale, in some ways that’s what makes it so terrifying. Its lighter tone and aesthetic is a reminder of how easy it is for those in power to delude themselves into believing their own poisonous lies. What I appreciate about this series is the extent to which it probes at the big question of complicity, of how it takes willing participants to prop up a system like that of Gilead. As we saw in The Handmaid’s Tale, there are more than enough women who are happy enough to go along with the oppression if they think they might get something out of it. It’s especially fascinating to see just how Gilead seeks to inculcate that sense of complicity and willing subservience in the first generation of young women being raised under its aegis, and it’s even better to see it start to fail.

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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

Like many other people, I really enjoyed the first season of the Netflix series Beef, which was both bleakly funny and piercingly insightful, shedding light on the extent to which anger–and sometimes downright fury–are always lurking beneath the surface of most of our disenchanted lives. All it takes is for a small piece of the edifice of our lives to crack and the rest of the structure comes crashing down, leaving chaos and destruction and heartbreak in its wake. Few series have been quite as skilled at capturing the brutal absurdities of our modern age as Beef, and I knew that I was going to be sat for its sophomore outing.

The second season–which stars the fabulous foursome of Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Cailee Spaeny, and Charles Melton--is, if anything, even more darkly hilarious than the first outing, shining a glaring light on the various rifts in our world today. Josh and Lindsay (Isaac and Mulligan) are a seemingly happy upper-middle-class couple who run a posh country club frequented by wealthy Boomers and sports stars (even Michael Phelps makes a cameo as himself). While they seemingly occupy the upper echelons of the club’s hierarchy, Austin and Ashley (Melton and Spaeny) are at the bottom, both of them just barely scraping by on their meager salaries.

It’s clear from the very first episode that that all is not well with Josh and Lindsay. Despite the fact that they appear to be a power couple to the outside world, they secretly can’t stand each other, their marriage marred by years of resentment, secrets, and frustrations. All it takes is a few disappointments and the two of them are basically at one another’s throats, and it’s just one such confrontation–that very nearly turns violent–that sets the plot in motion. When Ashley and Austin capture that confrontation on video, they think blackmailing their higher-ups will give them a path to a better life but, unfortunately for all of them, it sets them down a perilous path of self-destruction and chaos.

At first blush, it appears that Ashley and Austin (Spaeny and Melton) are the polar opposites of Josh and Lindsay. They are nauseating in their devotion to one another–I lost track of the number of times they said “I love you”–but it all feels like a contrivance. Indeed, all it takes is the introduction of Eunice (Seoyeon Jang), the assistant to the club’s new owner, for things to start to go awry. Like Josh and Linday, he soon comes to question just how much he’s willing to give up to be with this young woman who is as toxic as they come, and who, as he rightly points out in the finale,clings to him because of her unresolved abandonment issues.

Indeed, as the series goes on, though, it quickly becomes clear that the real conflict isn’t between Josh and Lindsay on the one hand and Ashley and Austin on the other. Instead, it’s about the various cracks and fissures and difficulties that have afflicted both couples, and it’s just as clear that none of these people have ever been able to communicate effectively with…well, anyone, even themselves. Both Isaac and Mulligan are, of course, terrific, and it’s really quite revelatory to see them inhibit the role of a millennial couple coming to realize their lives haven’t been what they wanted and probably never will be. They’re both the right age for these roles, and Isaac in excels at portraying seemingly cocksure men who abruptly discover they don’t have it as together as they thought, just as Mulligan is in her element as a woman who doesn’t know what she wants but is willing to flounder and ultimately lash out in spite.

If ever there was a man who was born to play a gloriously beautiful himbo, it would have to be Charles Melton. He excels at portraying young men who seem somewhat lost in the world in which they find themselves and who, as a result, end up floundering around trying to find their footing (not particularly successfully). To make matters worse, he also struggles to figure out what he feels, and for whom and, of all the characters, his ending is arguably the most tragic. For her part, Spaeny is perfectly cast as Ashley, a Gen Zer who is somehow both incredibly vapid and yet strangely cunning. She makes for a perfect foil for both Josh and Lindsay and, though she can be a bit of a sociopath at times, Spaeny’s tight-rope acting makes her just this side of sympathetic.

On the more chilling end of the scale, Youn Yuh-jung is absolutely chilling as Chairwoman Park. She might look like a kindly grandmother, but don’t let that fool you. She is utterly ruthless when it comes to it and, despite his many failings–which include killing a patient while performing plastic surgery–she remains steadfastly devoted to her husband and is willing to do anything in her power to protect him (up to a point). Yuh-jung’s might just be my favorite performance in this entire season, and there are times when I got the feeling she was in an entire series altogether. Yes, she’s that good.

As with the first season, the misfortune of both couples lies not just in the fractures in their relationships, and not just in the way that they work to destroy one another but, instead in the extent to which their own misdeeds desire to destroy intersects with forces much larger and more powerful than they are. There’s a bitter irony to the fact that Josh only seems to find some measure of happiness and agency once he’s in prison–having taken the blame for an embezzling scheme–and stripped of all of the trappings of middle-class life that imprisoned him while he was married to Lindsay. It’s also ironic that Ashely and Austin are now cosplaying as the very couple they’ve played such a key role in destroying, and one can’t escape the sense that their lives will be similarly miserable.

In the end, Beef proposes that we’re all of us, the wealthy and the middle class and the struggling alike, just grasping for connections and things we can’t really have. Even Chairwoman Park, arguably the one with the most power, finds her marriage in ashes by the end, all of her wealth and power ultimately meaningless in the face of time’s relentless march. There’s a bitter, aching emptiness at the heart of this show that will, I’m sure, make some uncomfortable. Faced with such bleak desperation, the series’ intermittent slapstick moments become all the more hilarious…and depressing.

How perfect for our modern moment.

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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

I went into the season finale of The Pitt with high expectations–I mean, come on, it’s The Pitt–and for the most part these were met. There were some pretty intense moments in this episode, and the central case was one of the most traumatic I think we’ve seen so far. There were also some moments of resolution when it comes to the various storylines, with everyone having made at least some progress on their emotional journeys by the end. At the same time, it’s fair to say this was a rather understated episode and, while this isn’t a bad thing, it might leave some viewers wanting (especially given the extent to which so much of the season has been predicated on cliffhangers from one episode to the next).

Indeed, there are still a few cliffhangers in this episode, including the eventual fate of Al-Hashimi. Robby, as one might expect, he isn’t pleased to find out she’s been practicing medicine in his ER while contending with resurgent seizures and, to be honest, it’s more than a little wrenching to see the put-together Al-Hashimi in a state of gradual dishevelment. Her fate remains unclear, since Robby insists she report on her condition to the administration or he will do it for her, even as she gives no confirmation she’ll do that. As so often on The Pitt, we find ourselves appreciating both sides of the argument, for while it would undoubtedly be risky for her to continue overseeing an ER with her condition, she’s an undeniably great doctor. Regardless of what happens, I do hope we see more of her next season.

The most tense moment of the episode involved the mother who comes in, perilously close to death thanks to her desire to have a “wild pregnancy,” i.e. without any doctor’s intervention. Watching the doctors frantically try to get the baby back from the brink of death was a true nailbiter, and I’ll admit that I exclaimed (and cried) a bit when they managed to succeed. The whole incident is a reminder of the vital importance of medical professionals, as well as how vital prenatal care is to making sure both mother and baby survive the harrowing ordeal that is childbirth. Hats off to the Pitt team for giving this woman and her child the chance to survive.

I appreciate what this episode did with Langdon. I’ll admit that I wasn’t his biggest fan during the first season–his arrogance was, to put it mildly, off-putting–but he has really grown on me this season. This episode, perhaps more than any other, makes it clear that he really has put in the work when it comes to recovery, sacrificing everything from the trust of his colleagues to his dignity (it takes a lot of fortitude to urinate in a cup in front of someone). In some ways, he’s moving forward while Robby is staying stuck, which is what makes their final, tense conversation so brutal and wrenching. It remains to be seen whether, as Langdon puts it, Robby will be able to live up to his own standards, but we certainly can hope so.

I will also admit that that final scene of Robby and Baby Jane Doe was, I think, a bit sentimental, and while this show has always been about feelings–and often very intense ones–it hasn’t usually veered too much into the territory of the trite. At the same time, it’s also fitting that Robby would need a reminder of why life, including his own, matters. As he seems to acknowledge, life really does have a lot to offer, and you don’t have to let the chains of the past bind your future. The question remains, of course, whether he’ll take custody of the little one upon his return, since it’s clear that someone is going to need to take her home. One does get the sense, though, that even if he doesn’t, this encounter with a new life is a reminder of just how precious his own is, and how it isn’t something he should throw away lightly.

Indeed, this episode demonstrated, in large and small ways, just how important Robby is to the various members of the Pitt. From his emotionally wrenching conversation with Abbot to his approval of Javadi potentially pursuing psychiatry to his understated farewell with Mohan, Robby had to face, again and again, the fact that he is needed, wanted, and cherished. Yes, as Abbot forcefully reminds him, he might be fucked up in the head–who wouldn’t be, considering what they face every day?--but that doesn’t mean he gets to just throw in the towel. If working in the Pitt is the only thing that gives his life meaning and value, then so be it. That, in the end, may just have to be enough.

Arguably the most magical moment in the entire episode didn’t actually take place during the main action of the episode but instead during the mid-credits sequence, with Mel and Santos belting out Alanis Morrisette’s “You Oughta Know” at a karaoke bar. It’s just such a gloriously unrestrained moment for the two of them, both of whom have struggled with feelings of alienation and disconnect the whole season. It’s especially nice to see Mel connect with someone who isn’t her sister, particularly since it seems that the latter is determined to forge her own life (and good for her). It’s also nice to see Santos let her hair, and her guard, down just a bit. I hope we get to see more vulnerable parts of her in the next season.

What I particularly appreciated about this episode–and about this season of The Pitt more generally–is its willingness to sit with the ambiguities of life and a shift at an emergency room rather than trying to tie everything up in a neat little bow. We’ve known from the jump that not every thread was going to get the resolution we might desire, and that is certainly the case here. We have no idea what’s going to happen to Al-Hashimi, and arguably Mohan deserved a more in-depth send-off. The Pitt, however, just like life itself, is great because it isn’t afraid of ambiguity and isn’t afraid to not give us the closure we so desperately desire.

Suffice it to say that I really did love this season of The Pitt. It might not have held me rapt or devastated me to quite the same degree as its first outing, but it is still a hell of a season of TV, showing us that there’s still a lot of human magic left on the small screen.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Like many other millennials, my introduction to the acting genius that is Laurie Metcalf came as a result of the sitcom Roseanne, in which she portrayed the title character’s neurotic, highly-strung sister, Jackie. From the beginning Jackie was one of the series’ best characters, and she stayed that way throughout its run and right into the spinoff, The Conners. There was just something intense and authentic and sometimes terrifying about the emotional vulnerability of Metcalf’s performance, and the elasticity of Metcalf’s face–which I’ve often thought is somewhat akin to Jim Carrey’s–allowed her to convey a mix of heightened emotions and, of course, to always get the laugh.

Even if Aunt Jackie had been Metcalf’s only role she would’ve deserved all of the abundant praise she’s received. However, she’s gone from strength to strength over the years, and the 2000s and 2010s (and now the 2020s) have given her plenty of chances to show her range on the stage and the screen. To me, though, Metcalf’s most moving, poignant, and often terrifying performances have been as mothers, and she seems to have a particular gift for digging deep and excavating the complicated humanity and emotional authenticity of even the most seemingly reprehensible of mothers.

Who could forget, for example, her magnificent performance as Mrs. Loomis in Scream 2, in which she becomes an avenging angel, determined to punish Sidney Prescott and all of those who were responsible for her son’s death. Mrs. Loomis might be truly deranged, and she might be the final boss, but my GOD does Metcalf give this performance her all, bringing all of the electricity and intensity that she brought to Aunt Jackie. You simply can’t take your eyes off her, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who almost found himself wishing she might get the upper hand, rather than meeting the fate that awaits all of the villains in a horror film.

In a subtler vein of horror, she also gives one of the best performances in the otherwise misbegotten and bizarrely unhinged Monster: The Ed Gein Story. As Augusta Gein, the mother of the title character, she is nothing short of a tyrant, using her devout religious faith to absolutely terrorize her son and damage him so severely that he eventually does become a monster. In less capable hands than Metcalf’s this performance would have become nothing more than broad caricature, but thanks to her intense magnetism she once again becomes a character who may be as much of a monster as her son, but we still can’t look away.

Metcalf is more restrained, though no less complex, in two other notable screen mother roles: Marion McPherson in Lady Bird and Linda, the matriarch of Big Mistakes. If you can watch Laurie Metcalf in the former and not feel your heart ripped out of your chest, then I can’t help but wonder whether we watched the same film. Saoirse Ronan obviously excels as the title character, but Metcalf’s Marion is the very epitome of a complex mother, a woman who genuinely loves her daughter but is also, quite frankly, pretty horrible to her (in an effort to help her, of course). Only an actress of Metcalf’s caliber could hope to capture all of the fraught complexities of modern motherhood, and we know, even if Lady Bird doesn’t always, just how much her mother really loves her.

It all becomes hauntingly clear in the film’s most pivotal moment when Marion, having peremptorily left her daughter at the airport, realizes how she won’t see her again for who knows how long. For the rest of my life I won’t be able to forget how devastating it is to watch this performance, as she reckons with the reality that her own stubborn pride had robbed her of the meaningful goodbye she could have had. It’s truly a masterwork of performance, and it once again shows the extent to which Metcalf is truly a genius when it comes to the use of her face for the camera. Every shift in gesture, every emotional revelation, is played to absolute and exquisite perfection. I dare you to watch this scene and not lose it.

Her most recent tortured mother is Linda in Big Mistakes, the new series from Dan Levy. Though this is a show that revolves around Levy and Taylor Ortega–who play siblings Nicky and Morgan, who get drawn into a life of organized crime–their mother Linda, played by Metcalf, often steals the show. As with many of Metcalf’s other mothers, Linda is, to put it mildly, a bit self-centered. Or, to be a little more nuanced, she’s one of those mothers who is very conscious of just how much she has been asked (in her own mind, at least) to give up for her children and isn’t shy about letting them know that. This much is clear from the opening scenes, in which she terrorizes both her children and her dying mother with her emotional demands and yet, because it’s Metcalf, we can’t help but just exclaim, “Yes, queen!”

Such is the brilliance of Metcalf’s performance that you really do believe that Linda, in her own abrasive way, does care about her children. In one notable moment, she punches her mayoral opponent when he starts to badmouth Nicky and, when confronted about it later, she spins it as a reason for the town to support her candidacy: she’ll fight for them like she fights for her family. Is her decision to use the incident in her campaign a cynical political move? Perhaps, but one also gets the sense that she means what she says. She’s not going to abandon her children, and she’s going to fight like hell for them whenever anyone tries to endanger them. Once again Metcalf commits one hundred percent to the role, and you can well believe that she is exactly the kind of mother who would love her children unconditionally even as she terrorizes them and resents them more than a little for, in her eyes, robbing of her potential when she was young. Do we, and her children, love her or hate her or both or neither? The fact that the question is so difficult to answer says a lot about Metcalf’s indelible performance.

That, I think, is the brilliance of Metcalf’s performance. It’s not just that she is just so damn arresting that you can’t look away any time she’s on the screen, though that’s true. No, it’s that she manages to excavate the raw and twisted humanity at the heart of even the most abrasive and tyrannical mothers. She’s the gift that keeps on giving and, if we’re lucky enough to get another season of Big Mistakes, I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us next.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

Oof. Just when I think The Pitt can’t hurt my feelings anymore, it goes and pulls out an episode like this most recent one, which was the very definition of a gut-punch. Of course, I knew going in that this episode was going to go for the jugular–particularly given the way the last one ended–but even so, I’m not sure I was ready for it all. Though there were, to be sure, several moments of levity, for the most part this was an episode focused on the deeper, more chaotic emotions that have been churning beneath the surface.

Throughout the episode, both Robby and Langdon find themselves near the end of their respective emotional journeys they’ve been on since this shift started. For Robby, of course, it’s all about his mental health, and how he struggles to find meaning outside of work, even as he’s aware that it’s the very work that’s pushing him to the brink. For Langdon, on the other hand, the pressure stems from his persistent self-doubt, a legacy of his addiction and his hard work getting himself back on his feet (as well as Robby’s continuing skepticism and sometimes downright hostility).

It’s safe to say that this episode was a chance for Robby and Langdon to really grapple with the stresses, tensions, and conflicts that have been brewing both within and between them this whole season. Robby’s conversation with Duke is, I think, one of the most devastating that we’ve seen in this show. By this point we’ve spent almost thirty episodes with Robby, and so we’ve seen the ups and downs of his day, the way that he carries a world of pain and hurt on his shoulders, and to see him finally admit as much to Duke was cathartic, both for him and for us. Or, perhaps not so cathartic for Robby, since it remains perilously unclear just what he’s going to do going forward, particularly once he leaves the hospital for his bike ride.

This episode features one of Wyle’s best performances of his career, and you can practically feel him digging deep to give us a raw vision of a man truly teetering on the edge of self-destruction. Robby swings wildly from wrenching emotional confession to blisteringly sarcastic, and it was really quite shocking to see him take two EMTs to task in front of the rest of the staff, both because it’s unlike him (or, at least, unlike the him we met in the first season) and also because it’s wildly unprofessional. True, the EMTs did screw up, but shaming them is probably not the most effective means of getting the change he wants to see.

Making all of this that much more tragic is the fact that Robby is a genuinely decent and empathetic guy who loves his staff and his patients and that he is a truly talented doctor. Of course, neither of these are defenses against the scourge of mental illness. If anything, it’s precisely his empathy and his gift that makes it all that much worse. One gets the sense that feels guilty about his own depression, which in turn just exacerbates the cycle of powerlessness and mental and emotional anguish. And, to repeat, all credit is due to Wyle, who manages to convey–with his face, with his body, and just his general demeanor–a world of pain. It was honestly hard to watch, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I won’t lie. I loved getting the chance to see Langdon finally get to prove himself again. We’ve seen him struggling to fit back into the rhythms of the ER this whole season, and with his successful procedure–one performed under duress and under the most stressful conditions imaginable–helped to demonstrate to both Robby (and, more importantly) to himself that he’s still one of the best surgeons working at the Pitt. What’s more, seeing Robby show some genuine admiration for him is really a turning point in their relationship, and it lends credence to Ellis’s claim that Robby wasn’t angry at Langdon at all but instead at himself for failing his protege. It’s this kind of emotional authenticity–with genuine stakes and a worthwhile payoff–that continues to set The Pitt apart from many of the other drama shows on the air right now.

Just as revealing in its own way was his conversation with Whitaker, in which the latter takes him to task for his condescension. It’s not very often that we get to see Whitaker really standing up for himself, particularly not when it comes to the senior members of the staff, so this development is quite welcome. However, while I understand where he’s coming from, I’ll admit that I was a bit hurt on Langdon’s behalf, since you can see how taken aback he is by Whitaker’s reprimand. At the same time, as tense as it is, this whole exchange does at least do the important work of allowing both men to really clarify where they stand with one another which, in a hospital where so much seems to lurk under the surface, unsaid, festering until it bursts into the open.

And speaking of things festering until they burst into the open: how about that cliffhanger? While I will admit that I’ve grown a bit tired of that particular storytelling choice this season, it was still refreshing to finally get some clarification about just what it is that’s going on with her. The revelation that she’s struggling with seizures, as a result of a struggle with childhood meningitis, makes sense, it also feels like just the faintest bit of a cop-out. I do have a lot of faith that The Pitt will be able to explain this in a satisfactory way by the end of the last episode, though.

While I do think this episode fell just a bit short–literally and narratively–it was nevertheless a harrowing episode of TV that deserves credit for showing us how quietly devastating and destructive clinical depression and suicidal ideation can be. The fact that it’s Robby of all people, someone who has saved so many lives and indelibly touched so many others, is a timely and poignant reminder that no one is immune from the dark clutches of mental illness.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

I’m pretty sure most of us have our comfort shows, the TV series to which we return time and again. As I’m sure most people are aware, there’s a unique kind of comfort to be had from knowing how things turn out, of immersing oneself in a world and a story that feels familiar. In these uncertain times in particular such shows are a balm for the soul, giving us at least a measure of escape from the horrors of our daily lives, giving us a glimpse into a world that, if not perfect, is at least a kinder and gentler one than the one that we currently inhabit.

For me, Modern Family is one such show.

It’s a show that’s aptly named, as its three different families–all of whom are related in one way or another–reflect the beautiful, very multicultural future that seemed to await American society as a whole. The series had a bit of everything: an intergenerational couple (and an interracial one, at that); a gay couple; and, of course, a straight couple. There were family conflicts and sibling rivalries, unexpected pregnancies and deaths in the family, kids growing up and moving out, and adults finding new purpose in middle age. It was, in many ways, a little slice of life sitcom that made the most of the absurdities of middle-class (largely White) life in the aughts.

I find myself returning to this show over and over again, but one of the most important and basic is that it is, quite simply, hilariously written and superbly acted. Whenever I’m in the mood to laugh, or just to forget about the world for a precious few minutes, I know that all I have to do is turn on Modern Family, and I’m going to be cracking up. The fact that it was funny right out of the gate–with relatively few of the growing pains that typically accompany even the most beloved sitcoms–is a true testament to the remarkable creative and writing talent involved from the jump. It’s not every show that can hit the ground running (a more recent example would be Abbott Elementary), but Modern Family fits the bill.

Part of the show’s appeal also stems from its characters. I fell in love with these characters from the very first episode, and I loved getting the chance to get to know them and to watch them grow and change as the series went on, all of them finding new depths to themselves that they often didn’t even know existed. Each of them, from the curmudgeonly Jay to the neurotic Claire, from the exuberant and emotional Cam to the wry Lily, feel like something more than just cardboard cutouts; they feel like real people that you might meet in your own neighborhood. And, while they are all very different from one another, and while there’s no shortage of conflict and squabbling and fighting, it’s also clear that, at the end of the day, they love and respect one another. They are a family in all senses of the word, and it’s this welcoming and enveloping spirit that makes the show such a comfort. Sometimes, you just want to spend time with people who genuinely seem to like each other.

At a broader level, Modern Family is also a reminder of just how optimistic many of us were in the years before 2016, back before our national horror show lurched from one disaster to another with no end in sight. It wasn’t one of those shows that tackled politics, or if it did, it did so in the oblique, light-handed way so common in sitcoms of the Obama Era (I’m thinking of Parks and Rec here). There was, of course, the marriage between Cam and Mitch, which ended up being both hilarious and also more than a little touching. For this show, as for many others of the era, its progressive politics were baked into the structures of its stories, and that was the secret to its power.

Indeed, like the very best sitcoms Modern Family was one of those shows that managed to stay true to its central purpose (make people laugh) while also grappling with a changed (and changing) society. For a show that in some ways is the paradigmatic sitcom–i.e., it seeks to attract as many people as possible and thus seeks not to really offend anyone–it offers up some fascinating and often very important lessons about issues that still perplex us today: about aging, about masculinity, about what it takes to be a healthy couple (whether gay or straight) in a world where gender dynamics seemed to be changing every day. One need only look at the way that Jay, the Boomer par excellence and his attempts to make sense of Cam and Match and his stepson Manny–and the way that, in the end, he always responds with love–to see this in action. Jay is the Boomer dad everyone should have in their lives.

And, I’ll admit, there’s also something silly and comforting about seeing myself and my partner in Cam and Mitch. Sure, they may not always be the most physically affectionate couple, and sure they sometimes didn’t seem all that fond of each other. When it came down to it, though, they really did love one another, their daughter, and their life together, and I daresay that this representation of a long-term gay couple is far more realistic than some others out there in the world of pop culture. And, while some also dismissed Cam for being a stereotype, it’s worth remembering that there are many of us out there, including myself, who are very stereotypical in our behaviors. Speaking for myself, I rather like seeing a character like Cam–a rural queer who is nevertheless as queeny as they come–and he’ll forever be one of my very favorite queer characters on TV.

In these dark and terrible times, when we’re all being ruled over by people who are somehow both the dumbest and the most evil that this country is capable of producing, I find it remarkably soothing to go back to Modern Family, to not just lose myself in the hilarity of it all, but also to remind myself that there was a time when America didn’t seem to be so blighted, when we could really imagine that modern configurations of the family could indeed emerge. This show is a reminder of America at its best and most optimistic, and for that I will always be grateful.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

You’ll recall that I was quite a fan of the first season of House of David, the Amazon series chronicling the rise of the biblical figure of King David. While it certainly had its rough spots, I found it to generally be entertaining, though sometimes a bit too stilted to rise to true greatness. I was therefore interested to see how the second season was going to shape up and, having now seen the first two episodes, I can say that the series is as it was: compelling at moments, well-acted for the most part, and rather cringe throughout. It clearly yearns to be something of a Game of Thrones for the biblical set, and while it occasionally comes close, it remains stymied by a rather amateurish aesthetic that is at odds with the epic nature and scope of its story.

The first episode begins with the aftermath of David’s slaying of Goliath. Though undoubtedly a titanic achievement, it doesn’t mean the battle is won, and it takes a great deal of bloodshed and death–including that of one of David’s brothers–for victory to be achieved. Even then, though, the shadow of Saul’s abandonment by God continues to stalk the royal family, and this casts a shadow over everyone involved, a shadow that not even David’s impending betrothal to Princess Merab can lift.

To get the negative out of the way: this show simply does not land when it tries to lean into the action. Its budget is too small, its reliance on AI in large sequences is too obvious, and the choreography and cinematography simply do not have what it takes to make these scenes at all compelling or thrilling. I honestly found the first episode very difficult to even get all the way through, and it wasn’t until the very end that I found myself at all captivated.

Where the show does succeed, though, is in smaller, more intimate moments, moments in which its very talented cast can really show their abilities. Take, for example, the fateful confrontation between Aninoam and Samuel. From the jump both Stephen Lang and Ayelet Zurer have given two of the series’ strongest performances, and they both are at their best here. Ahinoam might be painted as something of a villain, but here she shows her more vulnerable side, even going so far as to speak of the moment when her sister was saved by God’s mercy. Even though she reveals this much in the hopes that Samuel will find a way to get God to restore His blessing, he disappoints her, and she once again proves that she will do anything to save her husband and her family, even going so far as to attempt to have Samuel tortured (which doesn’t work, obviously).

For his part, Lang continues to imbue Samuel with a certain world-weary wisdom. Samuel seems to know that Saul is never going to change his mind and voluntarily abdicate, which helps to explain why his eyes remain full of sadness. I love how much depth Lang brings to a character that could become nothing more than a cardboard cutout in less capable hands. What’s more, the burning intensity in his eyes, and his ability to face down any threat, means he ends up being just about the most formidable character this show has yet produced.

For his part Michael Iskander continues to excel at portraying David. Even though he’s slain Goliath and thus gained the praise of both King Saul and the people of Israel, he soon finds that this is but the beginning of a whole different series of battles. King Saul–still tormented by madness and by the knowledge that God has withdrawn His blessing–is still a canny political strategist. This helps to explain why he’s so willing to bring David into the royal orbit, even going so far as to betroth him to his daughter. He might still be the waifish character that we met in the first season, but he continues to show some remarkable strength. He also has a voice that is both plaintive and piercing, and I’m glad to see the series capturing this element of David’s character.

Just as importantly, House of David offers up a fascinating exploration of the nature of biblical masculinity. It’s safe to say that David–with his lithe, almost boyish form, his beautiful voice, and his curly long hair–is not exactly the paradigm of militant manhood so beloved and respected by the people around him, including both his brother and King Saul himself. It really will be quite fascinating to see how this series grapples with David’s later career, when he’s not merely a great warrior and leader of men but also the kind of figure that will fall so desperately in love with a woman that he’ll send her husband to die on the battlefield. As his violent confrontation with his brother demonstrates, he has a long way to go before he proves himself to the people.

(As a side note, I love the glimpses we get of the bond that will eventually form between David and Jonathan. Obviously this show isn’t going to indulge in the queerness of it all, but I’m sure I’m not the only one picking up on some (b)romantic vibes between the two men).

House of David continues to be an entertaining series, but at this point I’m not sure it will ever attain true greatness. It just doesn’t seem to have the resources or the will to ever really elevate itself above the 1990s made-for-TV movie aesthetic that it’s relied on since the beginning. I find this particularly frustrating given the fact that, if its creators were just a bit braver or a bit more well-funded, they could truly create a series that captures the beauty, the brutality, and the tragedy of the story of David.

I will, of course, give the rest of the season a shot. When it comes down to it, I do enjoy a biblical narrative brought to the screen, and there’s just enough that’s enjoyable and genuinely thought-provoking about House of David to keep my interest piqued. If nothing else, I’m very much looking forward to seeing how David’s fate continues to intersect with the House of Saul, with tragedy for almost everyone involved.

Stay tuned!

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

Time is ticking on The Pitt, and this shift that never ends is really starting to take its toll on everyone, including and especially Robby. This was an especially wrenching episode for a whole host of reasons, not just because of the cases that are brought into the ER but also because it shows just how close Robby has come to totally losing it. In fact, it’s quickly becoming clear that the various conflicts and unresolved issues that have been roiling under the surface of the Pitt during this entire shift are finally reaching their boiling point, and it’s only a matter of time until they spill over, scalding everyone (including us) in the process.

This episode could easily have been a placeholder, since it’s coming after the dayshift has already finished their work, but instead it serves the important purpose of moving some important threads forward. Obviously, there’s the revelation that Orlando has suffered what may prove to be fatal head injuries due to his fall, but there’s also the ongoing issue concerning Robby’s mental health. Tensions are present elsewhere, as Langdon grapples with the reality that he might not be as ready to return as he thought, both Mohan and Ogilvie contend with the death of their patient, and Javadi discovers she might have a future as a neurosurgeon. It is, of course, a lot, but it was yet another terrific episode of The Pitt.

A recurring theme throughout this episode was the issue of the cost of medical care. This has, of course, been an issue throughout this season, and it was a major part of Orlando’s story when he appeared a few episodes ago. In addition to the revelation that he might have attempted to take his own life–presumably to spare his family the enormous burden of his medical care costs–the storyline involving a boy with asthma also draws on the struggles working families face as they grapple with the defunding of healthcare at the federal level. A less subtle and graceful show than The Pitt would no doubt have made this all feel too much like an after school special, but this show knows what it’s doing. More to the point, no medical show that was actually interested in showing what it’s like to be in the field could claim to be accurate if it didn’t grapple with the reality that many working families constantly have to choose between healthcare and various other necessities.

One of the most surprising elements of this episode was Javadi’s unexpected skill at being a neurosurgeon. She’s had more than her fair share of struggles this season–what with her mother bearing down on her, the general stress of being in the ER and, of course, her mistake that almost cost a patient their life–so it’s understandable that she’d be hesitant to jump into a complicated bit of surgery. Still, Robby pushes her to do so and, while he’s certainly got his own fair share of struggles, he’s right: she does end up benefiting from trying something new. She really needed this win, and I’m glad to see she’s received.

While Javadi might be finding her groove, the same can’t be said for Ogilvie. As it turns out, his patient died while on the operating table, leaving Ogilvie both emotionally distraught and sitting outside still covered in blood. Fortunately, Whitaker goes out to talk to him and, though it remains unclear whether Ogilvie will return to the ER or whether he’ll pursue some other, less insanely stressful branch of medicine, one can’t help but feel at least a bit sorry for him. He might’ve been a bit of an asshole throughout the season, but it’s still sad to see him stripped of all of his enthusiasm for medicine. Let’s hope that Whitaker’s words get through to him.

Mohan, likewise, labors under a heavy burden, not sure she did enough to save Orlando from the dreadful fate that waits for him now that he’s suffered a grievous head wound. It’s becoming clearer with every episode that she might want to consider a different medical path. As with Ogilvie, it might just be the case that there are other ways for her to help folks who are in need of medical care.

As so often in this show, however, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Dana and Emma show, once again, why they are two of this season’s MVPs, as they tend to Mr. Digby, giving him a fresh shave and a haircut. This whole scene was remarkable, well-acted and executed, and the tears in his eyes at seeing himself in the mirror–restored to a bit of what he looked like when he danced with his daughter at her wedding–literally made me sob, as did the aching tenderness from both Dana and Emma.. The Pitt continues to excel at showing us why empathy, compassion, and just basic human decency are as important when it comes to the practice of medicine as anything that happens in an operating room.

Indeed, Dana bears quite a lot of emotional weight this episode, as she also ends up having a very tense and devastating conversation with Robby, in which he reveals not only his own troubled history with his mother but also admits he might not come back from his “vision quest” at all. This is, I think, the most wrenching moment we’ve had with Robby, both in this season and in the show as a whole. Since the beginning of the shift (and before), Robby’s been teetering on the edge and, while he’s mostly kept things under control–with a few notable moments of losing his cool–this one sees him come closer than ever to losing it altogether. His confrontations with Dana were some of the most emotionally stressful moments this series has ever produced, made all the more so by the fact that Dana is clearly worried. The looks on both of their faces during this scene…those are going to stick with me long after this season is over.

To say that this episode of The Pitt was an emotional gut-punch would be something of an understatement. I wasn’t quite expecting Robby’s unraveling to hit me as much as it did, but something about the raw feelings on his face really brought home to me how much he’s been suffering for the past two seasons, as well as how little he’s really done to address the huge mass of trauma lurking in the back of his mind. It also reminded us that Langdon is also suffering with angst and doubt, and that everyone in the Pitt, young and old, new doctor and old hand, has their own burdens to bear.

The question is: who’s going to break, and who will endure?

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if there’s a new series starring the one and only Rachel Weisz, then I’m going to watch and, in all likelihood, love it. I knew as soon as I saw the trailers for Netflix’s Vladimir that it was going to be a particularly delicious treat, and I wasn’t disappointed. Weisz is, of course, a delight from the first episode to the last, and she’s surrounded by a cast that’s also remarkably talented. Adding to the fun is a story that is truly unhinged but that, despite (or perhaps because of) that manages to have some interesting things to say about the state of higher ed, about women’s desire, and about how middle age can be a minefield for even the most glamorous among us.

The series opens with our Protagonist–who remains unnamed throughout the show–bemoaning the fact that she is no longer the center of anyone’s universe. Her husband, John, is enmeshed in a scandal for sleeping with students; her daughter ignores her; and her students no longer adore her. What’s a beleaguered academic to do? Why, start lusting after the new professor, of course. Once the young, handsome, and dashing Vladimir steps into her life, the Protagonist’s life, both professional and personal, starts to spiral.

I’ve seen a lot of shows that grapple with the complexities of faculty life, and I’ve seen just as many that deal with the zealousness of students in their pursuit of justice, but few have been as even-handed as Vladimir. Among other things, it makes it perfectly clear that John really did violate some pretty important moral and ethical and professional boundaries by repeatedly seeking out relationships with his students. The fact that John is played by John Slattery of all people–who, if we’re being honest, hasn’t met a handsome douche bag role that he couldn’t play to the hilt–makes the pointedness of the critique all that much more effective.

At the same time, the series also makes it clear that even those who supposedly have the students’ best interests at heart are really more concerned about stroking their own egos. Take, for example, David, who has been appointed interim department chair due to John’s downfall. Played by Matt Walsh, he’s about as ineffectual as you can imagine–Walsh, like Slattery, is an expert at playing douchebags, though his characters are far less dashing–and he has his own history of problematic behavior, including a clandestine extramarital affair with the Protagonist herself. His efforts to put out the fires engulfing his department are both ineffectual and self-serving, and he’s the perfect embodiment of a certain type of university administrator.

It probably goes without saying, but Leo Woodall is sex on legs, as he has been since he first made it big with the second season of The White Lotus. However, because our access to him is always mediated through the Protagonist’s point of view and through her lustful gaze, he also remains a bit of an enigma, a figure of erotic fascination rather than a character in his own right. It takes a rare actor to be able to capture so many different shades of a character who remains essentially unknowable, but Woodall nails it.

The real MVP of this show, however, is Weisz. She’s never met a role she couldn’t sink her teeth into, and her Protagonist is no exception. Rarely has a woman so excelled at playing a middle-aged woman spiraling into batshit, sex-addled delusion with so much panache. While the show leaves no doubt as to the fact that she’s a complete shitshow of a person, there’s also a remarkable depth to Weisz’s characterization. Every so often she allows us to see the woman beneath the mess, a woman struggling to find meaning and fulfillment in a life and a profession that offers perilously little of either. This doesn’t make her any less delusional, of course, and it doesn’t excuse some of her actions, but it at least does make her more human, giving her the kind of depth that keeps her from becoming nothing more than a caricature or a figure of farce.

One of the most refreshing things about this series is just how unbelievably and unabashedly messy its protagonist is. From the very first time we meet her, Weisz Protagonist draws us into her salacious world, directly addressing the camera and letting the viewer glimpse into her troubled–and very horny–psyche. Repeatedly throughout the season the narrative is interrupted by her own visions of what it would be like to be ravished by Vladimir, and while these are often quite titillating, I will say that the device does wear a bit thin, particularly since it happens again and again throughout the season. After a bit I found myself thinking: do we need this many interludes in which the Protagonist starts making out with her love interest?

In the end, things really go off the rails, and it turns out that getting the sex she has so long desired isn’t quite the panacea the Protagonist thought it would be. Indeed, it just seems to raise more issues than ever and, in a strange twist, it also leads to a housefire that consumes her cabin. Of course, the Protagonist assures us that she called 911 and that no one was harmed. She got her writing mojo back and returned to the bestseller lists, Vladimir overcame his writer’s block and wrote a book based on their experience, and everyone seems to get at least some version of a happy ever after.

But is that true?

The season (or series, depending on whether it gets another season or not) ends on an ambiguous note. It’s not as if the Protagonist has shown herself to be particularly reliable when it comes to…well, pretty much any aspect of her life or her desires. It’s a great way to end either a season or a series and, when it comes down to it, I’m always going to watch a show that privileges female desire and grapples with mature questions. While I don’t think that Vladimir is necessarily the most impactful or meaningful show out there, I still find it refreshing that there are still some comedies that aren’t afraid to appeal to the adults in the audience.

If you haven’t seen this show yet, do so. You won’t regret it!

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

Wow. This episode of The Pitt did not hold back. Given that we’re now entering the 6:00 shift, it’s not surprising that quite a few of the doctors and nurses are reaching their breaking point. The only surprise is that it’s taken this long for them to reach this point. After all, they’re now approaching the end of their shift, and it’s been a very long and stressful one for everyone concerned. One can hardly blame them for finally reaching their breaking point.

The episode begins where the last one left off, with Dana rushing to save her new trainee from the aggressive grasp of Curtis Larson, delivering a hefty dose of the sedative Versed and seemingly injuring Larson in the process. This, of course, engenders a very hostile series of confrontations with Robby, who (rightly) reminds her of the risks she’s taking by dispensing that kind of medication without a doctor (even if doing so as to save a nurse from physical harm). She, in turn, takes him to task, several times, for his perilous urges and for a whole host of other unacknowledged emotional and psychological pressures.

We can hardly blame Dana for taking this route with Larson, given that one of her nurses was, in fact, in very grave danger. Not only that, but she also has her own fraught history when it comes to being assaulted by a patient, so it makes sense she’d want to go the extra mile to make sure someone else doesn’t have to go through what she did. We also can’t blame her for taking such a firm tone with Robby. After all, we’ve seen just how much he bottles stuff up, and we therefore know that it’s only a matter of time before all of those traumas come bursting to the surface like they did at several points in the first season. If there’s one thing Dana is going to do, it’s speak her mind, and Robby would do well to listen to her (though we know he probably won’t).

Fortunately, it’s made clear that Larson–arguably one of the biggest assholes this show has yet produced–isn’t going to just get away scot-free, whatever he seems to think about the matter. It’s always satisfying to see an asshole get his comeuppance in a show like this one and, while he might not have known that mixing alcohol and cocaine can lead to psychosis, it’s clear he’s going to have to pay a price for his ignorance and his irresponsible behavior. The fact that it’s McKay who delivers this knowledge is particularly effective, since if there’s anyone who knows the terrible cost of addiction, it’s her.

It’s also fitting that McKay reminds Robby that many of the people she’s known in the past have had something of a death wish, always going just to the edge of oblivion to see how close they could get without falling. Seething under the surface–of both this episode and the season as a whole–is the sense that Robby isn’t quite as well as he seems to want everyone to believe. At several moments in this episode he comes perilously close to losing his cool entirely, and McKay’s admonishment, coupled with Dana’s, reminds both Robby and those of us in the audience, that despite his competence (or perhaps because of it) Robby is a ticking time bomb. His refusal to acknowledge his limitations, or those of anyone else, might be just the thing that pushes him over the edge. What that edge will look like, for both him and the Pitt, is the great unknown hovering over this episode and the season as a whole.

For that matter, Santos also seems to be struggling, with some strong hints that she’s thinking of self-harm again. However, she also has a very humorous encounter with Whitaker, in which he essentially forces her to admit she actually likes living with him. I find their friendship to be one of the purest and sweetest things on the show, and I’m thankful when we get these moments between the two of them. It’s one of those nice reminders that, despite the drudgery and despite the fact that this shift seems to have gone on forever, there’s a life outside the ER.

While all of this was going on, this episode of The Pitt also used three of its storylines to make a larger argument about the state of healthcare in the US today. I loved that we got to see a storyline focusing on the importance of actually listening to older people when they talk about their health issues rather than just assuming they must be mistaken or impaired in some way. The importance of listening as a key component of medical care has been an ongoing concern this season, and it’s a motif that’s increasingly important in the real world, too.

The other is, though subtler and easier to miss if you’re not looking for it, is nevertheless quite powerful. At one point, a son brings his father in, and it’s revealed that their closest hospital has closed, meaning they have to drive even further for medical care. If, like me, you come from a rural area, then you’ll know that the rural health crisis is a real and steadily worsening problem. What’s more, it has been for quite a while now–I can still remember medical schools in West Virginia trying to encourage students to go into rural medicine when I was in undergrad in the early 2000s–and so it’s refreshing to see it brought up on The Pitt. This show has repeatedly proven that it truly does have its finger on the pulse of the medical field, both in terms of the struggles face on a daily basis as well as larger, structural issues.

Lastly, there’s the moment when Joy decides to leave the hospital at the end of her shift rather than sticking around to make sure everything is ready for the night shift hand-off. This was certainly an eyebrow-raising moment, in no small part because it’s the kind of thing that almost no one else in the Pitt would ever do. She does have a point, though, about the importance–indeed, the necessity–of establishing boundaries when it comes to work and one’s personal life. Yet just how this is going to go over with the rest of the staff, assuming we see her again next season, remains to be seen.

This episode of The Pitt certainly had an edge to it–I’ll not soon forget the moment in which Monica derides Javadi for being a “snowflake” and mislabels her as a millennial–and that’s to be expected. Al-Hashimi and Robby are almost certainly going to continue clashing, in no small part because she doesn’t think he can handle the ER on his own and because he kept the truth about Langdon from her. It also remains to be seen what Duke’s CT scan is going to show. Which one of them will crack first?

I guess we’ll just have to wait ‘til next week to find out!

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

Well, dearest gentle reader, another season of Bridgerton has come to a close. While I was originally on the fence about this one, it ended up stealing my heart, and by the end I was deeply satisfied. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I enjoyed this season more than I have any other except the first. The show has finally found a way to balance its central romantic storyline with the various other threads that are always going on in the background and, while not everyone got their fairy tale ending at the end of the season, everyone is left in a mostly good place.

These two episodes prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Benedict and Sophie really are made for one another. After all, they are willing to go through hell and high water in order to be together, and I give Benedict a lot of credit for being willing to put aside his rakish tendencies to pursue Sophie, particularly since doing so could very well result in losing not only his position but also his family. He’s shown throughout this season, though, that he’s not the same man that we’ve met before. Luke Thompson brings out so many lovely depths to his character, and I hope he doesn’t entirely disappear after this season.

Yerin Ha is also superb in these final two seasons, and I particularly enjoyed watching her go from self-effacing wallflower to mistress of her own destiny. It’s not every young woman, after all, who would dare to steal her father’s will from a locked strongbox, nor is it any young woman who could face down the formidable Araminta and then, as if that weren’t enough, come perilously close to lying to Queen Charlotte to her face. If ever there was a Bridgerton heroine that truly deserved her happy ending, it would have to be Sophie.

And whew, lads, does Araminta prove herself to be the absolute worst in these final two episodes. She pursues Sophie with the relentlessness of a bloodhound on the scent, so it’s particularly satisfying to see her finally get her comeuppance. All credit to Katie Leung, though. While she doesn’t shy away from showing Araminta’s uglier and nastier side, there’s a surprising amount of depth to her characterization, and I actually found myself believing her when she said that much of what she did was in defense of her daughters. Nothing, though, excuses her malice, and I’ll admit that there was a part of me that wanted to see her totally ruined.

While these final two episodes were very much about love and its ability to triumph over adversity, it was also about grief, about how losing someone can radically reshape and sometimes distort your sense of who you are and your place in the world. We see this most clearly through Francesca who, in the aftermath of John’s death, reviles herself for her inability to give him a son. She’s not only lost the man she loved; she has nothing to which to cling. Watching her grieve in her mother’s arms was, I think, one of the most heartbreaking scenes this series has yet produced, and I give both Ruth Gemmell and Hannah Dodd a lot of credit for bringing their utmost to this scene. Truly some remarkable acting.

At the same time, there are already hints that the bond between Francesca and Michaela is more than one of cousins-in-law. The homophobes might be setting their hair on fire at the idea of a sapphic romance in their beloved Regency romance, but I for one am here for it. The chemistry between Hannah Dodd and Masali Baduza is truly off the charts, and I simply can’t wait to see how their relationship develops and flourishes in the next season.

For her part, Lady Violet also has a bit of an awakening in these last two episodes. There’s no doubt she has fallen in love with Marcus (and who wouldn’t?) but she also comes to realize that she’s not ready to commit to a marriage again, and she may never be. As she explains to him, she’s spent so much of her life being a wife and a mother, and she wants to figure out what it is she wants. While I’m sad that her romance with Marcus seems to have come to an end, I’m glad Violet has gotten to the point where she’s actually thinking about what she wants. She’s a formidable woman, after all–someone who’s capable of telling all of her children the truth and of staring down someone like Araminta–and so it makes sense she would want to forge her own destiny for once. I can’t wait to see what lies in store!

Speaking of redoubtable matrons…I’m glad that Varley and Lady Featherington have at last reconciled. I know you’re probably tired of hearing me say it, but I could literally watch Polly Walker all day, and I’m just sad we didn’t get to see more of her this season. If ever there was a woman born to play a redoubtable matron with layers of complexity, it would be Walker. (My kingdom for a spin-off where Lady Violet and Lady Featherington go off and have adventures together as a pair of older women living lives on their own terms).

And then there’s Lady Danbury and Queen Charlotte.

We’ve known all season that the moment would finally come when the formidable dowager would at last take her leave of her sovereign and her best friend, and the tearful farewell occurs in the last few moments of the finale. It’s as poignant and heartbreaking as one can imagine, and both Golda Rosheuvel and Adjoa Andoh give some of their best performances to date. It’s a moment filled with laughter and tears, as these two women acknowledge, in just a few words and shared glances, just how much they’ve meant to one another over the years. It’s a beautiful way to say a (hopefully temporary) farewell to Lady Danbury, and I’ll admit that I cried more than a few tears.

Even if there were no other seasons of Bridgerton on the horizon, I’d be satisfied with the way that this one brought everything to a conclusion. However, there’s much to look forward to, particularly since it seems that a new Lady Whistledown has taken up where Penelope left off, much to her chagrin. Whatever lies in store for our beloved characters, I know that I’ll be watching!

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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

I was originally going to just write about the last four episodes of this season of Bridgerton at one go this Sunday but, given just how layered and emotionally powerful these episodes were, it seemed to me that it was worth digging in a little deeper, to more closely examine just what it is that makes this season the best since the first outing. To be honest, I’m a little surprised that I’ve ended up loving this season as much as I have. I think it’s safe to say that, haters be damned, I’m also going to love the forthcoming fifth season (Francesca and Michaela forever and fuck the haters).

The fifth and sixth episodes show us the aftermath of Benedict’s proposal that Sophie become his mistress (oof. Still one of the most embarrassing moments in this show). The pacing in these two episodes is exquisitely poised, as these two continue to go back and forth as to whether they’re going to consummate their desires and whether, having done so, they can use that to build something resembling a future. As so often in Bridgerton, we’re left both aroused and frustrated by the end of things, as well as more than a little heartbroken. After all, how can there be a future for two people so firmly divided by class?

It’s clear, though, that Benedict and Sophie truly do love one another, that there’s no power in the world that’s going to be able to stand between them. Both Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha continue to act the hell out of their roles, and their chemistry is truly electric. I’ll admit that I found myself getting more than a little teary as the two of them had to acknowledge that, however much they might love one another, the social forces arrayed against them may just be too much to overcome (even if we also know that things will turn out alright in the end).

Of course, there’s quite a ways to go before the two of them can really consummate their love and, in addition to the overwhelming disapproval of the ton there’s also our beloved Anthony, who makes it clear to his brother that he will not give his blessing to this union. I mean, we all love Anthony–I mean, just look at him–but we also know that he can be a bit of a prig, and so I wasn’t the least bit surprised when he took his brother to task for being selfish enough to try to build a relationship when it was clear it could never work, if only because their children would forever be social outcasts. Anthony is clearly very invested in maintaining the status quo, even if that means sacrificing his brother’s happiness.

While Benedict and Sophie are obviously the centerpiece of this season, I give the series credit for developing the other stories in satisfying ways. Given that this show has sometimes struggled with its multiple storylines–sometimes allowing side characters to draw attention away from the main story without having a great deal of payoff–I was a bit skeptical. At this point, though, the series really has found its groove, and I found myself genuinely invested in every single secondary story.

Take, for example, the ongoing conflict between Lady Danbury and the Queen. I’ve written before that these two characters are some of the best in the entire show, and I stand by that claim. Who could forget, for example, the moment when, with just a glance, Queen Charlotte frees Danbury from her service? I will not lie to you, dear reader. I shed more than a few tears at this scene. We’ve already seen just how much these characters mean to one another, and we thus know just how much it costs the Queen to finally release her oldest friend from her service. The staging of Lady Danbury’s exit, with her present self juxtaposed to the portrait of her as a young woman recently entered into the Queen’s service, is a poignant reminder of how much they’ve shared and how much this is going to cost both of them.

Equally powerful was the scene in which Marcus finally proposes to Violet and she accepts. The dear Lady Bridgerton has spent so much of the previous seasons committed to her children and to making sure they find their own happiness; it’s high time that she finally finds her own little bit of it. As she has so often, Ruth Gemmell continues to give a truly outstanding performance, giving us a peek behind Lady Bridgerton’s warm reserve to see the yearning woman beneath. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t be just as happy if this whole season was about her, but I’ll take what we’ve gotten so far.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who heaved a sigh of relief when Penelope was finally freed from the burden of being Lady Whistledown. We’ve already seen how much this has cost her, but if there’s one member of the ton with a subtle mind, it’s our dear Pen. It takes some wily manipulation on her part but, as it turns out, she understands Queen Charlotte’s position better than most, which is why she’s able to convince her to finally set her free. After all, who better to understand the crushing weight of a gilded cage than Charlotte?

And how about the ending of the sixth episode? I had a feeling as soon as John said he was going to take a nap that something was wrong and he wasn’t going to make it through the episode, and I’m just sad that I was right. John has been such a magnetic and earnest presence in this show, and I’ve loved getting to see his relationship with Francesca flourish. And Francesca’s wail of grief felt like it was going right through me, and I won’t lie: I’m rather dreading having to see this poor young woman grapple with the monstrous weight of grief. It’s terrible to lose a spouse at any age, of course, but to lose one when one is still young and the marriage itself has only just begun to flourish: well, that’s just a cruel joke of fate.

Overall, the fourth season of Bridgerton continues to meet and exceed all my expectations. While a less polished series would’ve long since lost its luster, this one continues to break our hearts and put them back together, reminding us of the enduring power of love.

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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

I knew going on that this was going to be a particularly stressful episode of The Pitt. I don’t think anything could’ve quite prepared me, however, for just how stressful it was going to be, and by the time it was over I had to let go of a breath that I didn’t know I’d been holding throughout the episode. This show has delivered some knuckle-gripping episodes before, but none, I think, are quite like this one. The drama is heavy, the real-world impact is spot-on, and the whole episode left me both emotionally drained and yet wanting more.

The brilliance of this episode lies in its ability to perfectly convey the sense of dread that settles over a place whenever ICE agents show up. It’s not just the undocumented who have reasons to fear them, after all, but anyone who dares to raise a hand or question them, as Jesse finds out when he’s arrested for trying to help a detained woman. Even more distressing is the fact that the rest of the staff don’t know either where or when he’s going to be booked and this, combined with the fact that the hospital lawyers are still tied up with the cyberattack stuff, means that it’s going to be quite a while before they find out anything for sure.

While this episode of The Pitt undeniably has a political point of view, it avoids falling into the trap of being overly preachy. We are most definitely aligned with the folks of the Pitt, of course, but Robby doesn’t use his valuable time to tell the ICE agents that they are terrible and that their actions are morally reprehensible (though it’s clear he believes they are). Instead, he breaks down into something even simpler: they are disrupting the flow of his ER, meaning that people can’t get the care they need, either because they’ve fled out of fear of being apprehended or because they are just afraid of having an extrajudicial police force in their midst. His words are righteous, to be sure, but the show wisely puts a great deal of the outright condemnation in the mouths of the characters you’d expect, most notably Dana, who has no use for any of this ICE nonsense and isn’t afraid to say so.

This episode also marked the sad passing of Roxie, who dies shortly after she gets that extra dose of morphine. Of course, we’ve known on some level that this was the point toward which her story was moving all season but, even so, it’s precisely its understated nature that causes it to hit you like a ton of bricks. We like to think that death will happen on our timetable, that we’ll have a chance to say goodbye, that we’ll get the closure most of us, at some level, desperately crave. As this incident shows, however, death works according to its own timetable, and it’s just as likely to snatch someone away as it is to give you a chance to say a proper goodbye.

In McKay’s defense, she was doing the right thing, i.e. taking Ogilvie to help care for a young unhoused woman struggling with an addiction. Of all of the doctors at the Pitt, McKay is one of the most empathetic, and so it makes sense that she would both be a part of the street team and want to help Ogilvie build up his empathy muscles. I’d like to say I have some hope that Ogilvie might get his head out of his ass, but that would be a lie. Who knows, though? Perhaps his oversight that almost costs a patient his life might be just the thing to make him realize how stupid he’s being.

Al-Hashimi once again showed in this episode that she is also a remarkable source of empathy, both for her patients and for the doctors under her supervision. Moreover, not only is she deeply empathetic; she’s also brave, as she demonstrates when she pulls a mother out of an oncoming truck. I’m curious to see where this whole storyline goes, and whether we get any more insight into how said mother’s young son ended up in a hot car (a situation that led to major heat stroke). It’s obviously a very tense and wrenching storyline, and I hope it has some major payoff in the next episode.

Just as stressful, though not as immediately life-or-death, is Mel’s conversation with her sister. It’s been clear from the moment that Becca admitted she had a boyfriend and that they’d had sex that this was going to be something very difficult for Mel to accept, and I suspected from the jump that her issue had to do with the fact that Becca was now proving how adept she was at caring for herself and making her own choices. Dana gives her a much-needed reminder that this isn’t really about her, and I do hope she comes to accept the fact that Becca is her own person with her own desires and that this doesn’t mean their relationship has to suffer as a result (though it certainly will if Mel keeps on as she has been).

Equally impactful is the long-awaited confrontation between Santos and Langdon. Their face-off has been brewing throughout the season, and it finally comes to a head when the latter apologizes to the former for…being an asshole. No mention of the fact that his addiction was a problem, and certainly no acknowledgment that her revelation of said addiction cost her a great deal. Santos, of course, doesn’t forgive him, and she rightly points out that she’s been a pariah in large part because so few of the staff know exactly what happened, i.e. that Langdon was stealing medicine from the hospital. Neither of them emerge from this encounter feeling at all satisfied, and neither do we as viewers. But, then, this is one of those situations that is inevitably going to just get worse, and I daresay it’s going to continue to cast a shadow on both of them.

I’ll admit that I’m a bit split on the ending. While it was undeniably terrifying, I do think that this season of the show leans a bit too much on the cliffhanger crutch. I know that it can be a challenge to find a convincing and compelling way to end an episode, but when the cliffhanger is overused you start to feel excitement fatigue.

That quibble aside, it’s safe to say that I loved this episode. It was everything I love about this show, and then some. I love the relationship between Duke and Robby remains one of my favorite things about this season. I just hope that there’s nothing seriously wrong with the former and that the latter finally gets his much-deserved hiatus.

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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

I have a confession to make. There were a few moments early in the season (and series?) finale of Primal where I began to think that this was all too much. First, there was the tease that Fang might have actually been killed by the panther that was attacking them–yes, I know she appears in the epilogue of the second season, but Spear was also dead, so I wasn’t ready to assume anything–and then they were all forced to compete in the volcanic arena, after having been transformed into monstrous versions of themselves. I literally had to pause it a few times, just to make sure I was prepared for the worst.

Fortunately, it all came out alright in the end, for which I’m profoundly grateful. Primal might be a brutal and violent show, and it might not shy away from the ugliness of its world, but it’s not a cynical show. It genuinely believes in the fundamental beauty and goodness of the human spirit, which is why Spear was brought back from the dead and why the season has spent so much time allowing us to see his transformation from undead automaton to joyful human being again. As such, both this whole season and the finale itself are powerful and poignant reminders that there’s no one who’s too far gone for at least some measure of redemption.

That said, I do think the fight in the volcanic arena is one of the most wrenching and exhilarating and terrifying things ever animated. Yes, it’s a very big claim, but I absolutely stick by it. For one thing, there’s the fact that we have to bear witness to our beloved characters being transformed into the most grotesque and dangerous versions of themselves that we can possibly imagine. For another, we then have to watch them try to tear one another apart, driven absolutely mad by the elixir and utterly devoid of reason, compassion, or any restraint. It’s only thanks to Spear’s quick thinking–and the accidental discovery that burning them can break the trance–that they’re able to break free of what would almost certainly have been a fight to death.

There were many moments during that grueling battle where I was absolutely certain that someone was going to die, whether it was Fang, Mira, one of the younglings, or even Spear himself. I mean, these characters endure some pretty horrific violence during this whole battle, and even for a show like Primal I was starting to wonder just how they were going to emerge from it without at least some significant marring. This uncertainty is, I think, what makes this such a terrific finale. We’re constantly poised on the brink of near-disaster, never quite sure how things are going to go.

Oh, Teej of little faith. I should’ve known that Genndy Tartakovsky wasn’t going to kill his hero, not after having put him through a season’s worth of hell (and then some). So, indeed, Spear not only manages to survive. He also rescues Mira, Fang, and the younglings from their near-certain fate, regains his full humanity, and is welcomed back into the village that had already cast him out. If that doesn’t make for a satisfying character arc, I don’t know what does.

I’ll freely admit that I cried when, in the penultimate scene, Spear curls up next to Fang and the younglings, where he’s joined by Mira and their baby. After everything they’ve all been through together, after all of the suffering and the pain and the bloodshed, it truly is satisfying and emotionally rewarding to see them brought together again at last. Just as satisfying, though in a different way, is seeing their daughter take her place as Spear’s heir, riding one of the younglings, spear in hand, roaring out defiance.

This season has been such a wild ride, and I’ve remained amazed at how effectively Primal manages to be both sweepingly epic and yet deeply intimate and personal and touching. We’re never allowed to lose sight of the fact that Spear–even in his zombified form–is searching for a lost sense of belonging, of something that can only be satisfied by reconnecting with those from whom he has been so disconnected. To me, there is in many ways no more human desire than that for belonging, of wanting to be with your tribe, your family, your kin, even if, as is the case with Spear and Fang (and the younglings) the definition of family encompasses both humans and nonhumans.

It probably goes without saying, but I’m particularly glad that Spear had his moment of reconciliation with Fang. For most of the second half of the season he’s been fighting to get her to accept him, and for it to finally come to fruition…man, it really just got to me, you know? On the flip side, I will also admit that I felt a great deal of satisfaction seeing the volcanic priest and his enablers fall to their doom in lava. Given that they were more than happy to destroy Fang’s family and even his baby, this seems like a very fitting punishment for them.

So, what’s next for Primal? At this stage, I have no idea whether the series will continue–Tartakovsky has certainly indicated that he would like for it to do so–but I would be happy with either this being the definitive conclusion or with things going in a different direction altogether, perhaps with a whole new set of characters navigating this beautiful and brutal world. For that matter, I wouldn’t even mind getting to see more of Spear, Fang, and Mira. At the same time, I have to admit that I was able to heave a sigh of relief, knowing that my beloved characters weren’t going to meet some terrible fate and that, in the end, they got their happily ever after.

Whatever lies in store for this series, however, I have complete faith that Genndy Tartavosky will give us something that’s exquisitely crafted and philosophically rich.

What a gift!

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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

If you know anything at all about my tastes in TV, you no doubt know that I love me a good-natured, feel-good show that is also knee-slappingly funny. We are fortunate to be living in a period in which we have a lot of those shows to choose from. These are the kinds of shows that allow you to just unplug from the stresses and terrors of the world and lose yourself in a fictional place where people are genuinely good and want to do good things, for both themselves and others.

Take, for example, Stumble.

The series stars Jenn Lyon as Courteney Potter, whose cheerleading coach career is turned upside down when she gets fired. Soon, however, she’s hired as a coach at Heådltston College, where she assembles a motley crew of new cheerleaders, with the hope of taking the team to Daytona. The road to Daytona, however, is paved with good intentions, and it takes quite a lot to whip this group of misfits into any kind of shape (even though they do have more than their fair share of natural talent).

One of the most refreshing things about Stumble is just how simple it is. This is, at root, a typical misfits story, and you can’t help but cheer for these delightful weirdos as they discover the pleasure of performance and bodily skill. Each character gets their own arc, and while some of these have more payoff than others, they still feel like young people that you actually know and care about, in all of their silliness.

To me, three of the cheerleaders stand out: Dimarcus (a former football player), Madonna (a cheerleader who has narcolepsy), and Sally (who starts out homeless but eventually enrolls in college). I love seeing a young Black couple getting to find love in the midst of cheerleading, and I particularly love getting to see a young Black man make the transition from football without sacrificing his masculinity. Sally, though, is really something else. Though her character is delightfully daffy and sometimes downright weird, there’s no denying the fact that she’s had a bit of a rough life. At the same time, however, she also has remarkable strength, and she manages to persevere despite all of the things working against her. I loved getting to see her relationship with Boon in particular, since they both clearly need one another. This storyline has genuine stakes, and I was and am here for it.

A lazier, more trite sitcom would’ve seen the team winning Daytona, but Stumble goes in a different direction: not only do they not win the big prize, they don’t even come in second. Instead, they come in third, and while that is devastating for Courteney (at first), for the team it’s a cause for celebration. After all, they essentially started from nothing, and now here they are, on the national stage, actually placing. That’s quite a journey for a group who not only barely pulled it together but also had quite a few barriers thrown in their way.

Stumble also makes superb use of its supporting cast, all of whom are hilarious and truly bonkers. Jeff Hiller never met a weird character that he couldn’t play to the hilt, and that is absolutely true of his Augustus Blimpfh, the eccentric candymaker. Hiller sinks his teeth into the role, and he’s delightful. Kristin Chenoweth is comedy gold as Courteney’s former assistant turned rival Tammy Istiny (pronounced so that it sort of rhymes with “destiny”) is the perfect sitcom villain, both outlandish and slyly malicious. And Ashlie Atkinson is sublime as Miss Dot, the type of vaguely daffy and earthy character who’s right at home in a sitcom.

This is really Courteney’s show, and Lyon is perfect in the role. Courteney is far from perfect, of course, and she’s prone to letting her ambition get the better of her good judgment at times, but she really does care about her team and its individual members. This is obvious in ways both large and small, but I was particularly struck by her efforts to keep Peaches out of jail (no small feat). Lyons is just a remarkable comedic talent, with impeccable timing and the sort of wry and knowing delivery that is perfect for a mockumentary like this one.

Then there’s dear, sweet Boon (whom Courteney affectionately refers to as “Boonie”). Memorably portrayed by Taran Killam, Boon is in some ways the very epitome of non-toxic masculinity. He’s an absolute gem of a man, someone who truly loves his wife and is very conscious of the fact that she is a total badass. This is also a man who is a football coach and a very typical dude. At the same time, he’s also absolutely devoted to Sally, who he basically adopts as his daughter, cheering her on and giving her emotional support at every step of the way.

I honestly think we need many more men like this in our popular culture, in order to show how the things that one typically associates with manliness and masculinity–coaching football, drinking beer, etc.--aren’t incompatible with being a very decent guy who’s not afraid to both talk about and show his emotions. Just as importantly, this sitcom also gives us a middle-aged married straight couple who actually seem to love one another and enjoy one another’s company, a rarity in the sitcom world. If we want our popular culture to do a better job of showing healthy adult relationships, one need look no further than Stumble.

While I really loved the first season of this show, I have my fair share of worries that it’s not going to make it to a second one. It’s one of those shows that has really flown under the radar, and much of that is due to the fact that I’ve seen almost no promotion for it. I really hope that this show, like its heroes, finds its own path to success and that it gets the second season that it so richly deserves.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

I’ve written before that this season is a bit of a slow burn but, with each passing episode, the tension is rising, both narratively and among the various characters. That is certainly the case in this week’s installment, which follows the aftermath of the water slide collapse, which leads to several notable injuries coming into the ER. However, as much as this episode focuses on the usual high-pressure situations, it also emphasizes the power and necessity of empathy, even when it’s easier to lash out and respond to crises with aggression and impatience.

Oddly enough, a major centerpiece of the empathy conversation doesn’t revolve around a patient but instead around Samira and Robby. When the former has a panic attack, Robby responds not with kindness and compassion but instead with a stern reprimand, telling her in no uncertain terms that she needs to get her head in the game, forget about what’s going on outside the hospital, and get to work. In many ways, this snapping on Robby’s part is not at all a surprise. We’ve seen time and again how he copes with emotional strain by just shoving it down and out of sight. The problem with this approach–or one of them, anyway–is that those emotions come bubbling to the surface at the worst of times. Robby’s a great doctor and often a great boss, but he sometimes tends to hold people to an impossible standard.

Al-Hashimi, of course, isn’t one to just let this whole altercation go by without saying something and, since she’s one of the few voices willing to challenge Robby and call him out, she does just that. When he remarks that the ER isn’t a place for the faint of heart, she tartly reminds him that it’s not for those without empathy, either. I’ll admit that I was a bit taken aback when she ended up being the one to remind Robby of the power and necessity of empathy, especially given her tendency to do things by the book. She’s shown time and again, though, that there’s far more to her than meets the eye, and that she really does care about both her patients and the staff that will soon be under her supervision.

Even more notably, Al-Hashimi also shows that she is one of the most talented surgeons on staff. Watching her undertake a procedure on a boy so he can breathe is a true marvel, made all the more pulse-pounding by how clearly nervous she is. Once again, though, Al-Hashimi demonstrates her remarkable skills as a surgeon. Her approach to managing an ER might be different from Dr. Robby’s–in fact, it couldn’t be more different–but I’m glad that The Pitt leaves us in no doubt as to her skills as a surgeon. She knows her shit and, even though this is her first time performing it, she manages to nail it.

Empathy also continues to play a key role in the Roxie storyline. The show has been telegraphing for a while now that the upping of her morphine dose is almost certainly going to lead to her death, and both McKay and Roxie herself seem to have made their own peace with this likely outcome. McKay, of course, is one of the most empathetic doctors on staff, so it makes sense that she would be the one both comfort and confront Roxie’s older son, who struggles not just with his mother’s impending death but also with the ravages of cancer itself. As someone who’s had both of his parents survive cancer this storyline continues to hit home in spectacular fashion.

This episode also marked a pretty significant moment for Mel. Though her deposition takes place off-screen, we’re left in no doubt that it didn’t go at all as she would’ve liked, and one can see from the blank, rather abstracted look on her face that the whole experience has taken a lot out of her. It’s thus understandable that she’d be a bit frazzled and disconcerted not just by her sister’s admission that she has a boyfriend–and that she’s having sex!--but also that Langdon can’t share her medical information without her consent. I’m not sure just yet where this particular storyline is heading, but I trust The Pitt enough to go along for the ride.

We also saw some pretty intense tension between Santos and Langdon. If any relationship in this series is as tense as that between Robby and Langdon, it would be this one, and it’s easy to see why this would be the case. After all, it was Santos who got the ball rolling when it came to Langdon’s addiction being discovered, and she’s never been able to forgive him. Of course, it’s not just about his addiction; it’s also the fact that she feels aggrieved about his return to surgery and her own ostracization as a result of her part in his downfall. It is, indeed, a very thorny issue, and one that is clearly going to blight their professional relationship going forward.

And then there’s Javadi. She’s clearly still struggling to deal with the fallout from her screw-up last episode, a process made infinitely more difficult by her mother, who continues to both diminish her time in the ER and also constantly belittle her in an effort to get her to do what she wants. Her mother might be ridiculously competent, but she definitely leaves much to be desired when it comes to her handling of her daughter’s independence. Javadi continues to be one of my favorite characters, and I hope that she finds the ability to really stand up to her mother by the season’s end rather than continuing to tolerate her bullying and demeaning attitude.

The episode ends, appropriately enough, with McKay preparing to give Roxie a heavier dose of morphine. It’s a wrenching way to bring this episode to a close, particularly since I suspect it won’t be too much longer until Roxie leaves us. It’s also a reminder of the importance of empathy and compassion when it comes to end of life care.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this episode of The Pitt. While the water slide didn’t end up being the catastrophe that we’d been led to believe–though the storyline about the father not knowing what happened to his child was pretty wrenching and the girl with her leg sliced neatly off was definitely gnarly–it still leant some immediacy to this episode. I have no idea what’s in store for us but, given that there’s still several episodes left, it seems pretty clear that all of the staff, from Robby on down, are feeling the strain.

The question is: who will break, and how badly?

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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

I can’t believe that we’re almost to the end of the third season of Primal. The aptly-titled “The Hollow Crown” marks the ninth episode of this season, which means that we have just one more episode before it’s all over (presumably). The episode picks up pretty much where the last one left off, with Mira on the hunt for Spear and Spear battling it out with various monstrous figures in the volcanic arena. This time, however, there’s a complication, as he keeps having visions of his child, who usually takes the place of whoever he happens to be fighting at a given moment. Fortunately, he still manages to pull out a victory. Just as importantly, he also starts to recover physical parts of his humanity, thanks in no small part to the fact that, among other things, he’s discovered the power of figurative art.

There’s something particularly poignant about the fact that Spear’s journey back to being fully human leaps forward when he realizes that, in the absence of seeing his daughter in the flesh, he can draw her on the walls of his cave. Given just how much we’ve watched him suffer during the course of the season, it truly does lift the heart to see him with the beatific smile he gets on his face every time he sits in front of his own artistic creation. It may not be the same thing as actually holding his child in his arms, but it’s the next best thing. One also gets the sense that this is Tartakovsky’s little love letter to art itself, reminding us that, even in the darkest of times, even when we seem beyond the pale of humanity itself, we can find our way back to who we once were if we turn to the world of art.

Visually, it’s also remarkable to see Spear’s body slowly returning to its old form. His brains are no longer exposed, and his skin has begun to regain some of its former suppleness. These are subtle changes, to be sure, but they bear a great deal of symbolic weight. Having journeyed into the realm of the pure abject, our hero is slowly but surely clawing his way back out of it, and it hopefully won’t be long before he has returned to full humanity. Seeing him put together a little toy for his daughter is, I think, one of the tenderest and most beautiful scenes that we’ve yet seen in this show, and I really do hope he has a chance to give it to her.

This episode isn’t all sunshine, however. The elder who has repeatedly crowned Spear a champion is not at all happy with the direction his warrior has been taking, his narrowed eyes and pinched brows speaking volumes about his displeasure (once again, Tartakovsky’s team deserves all the credit for giving us characters who convey so much emotion through gesture rather than through dialogue). He soon finds, however, that not even a fellow, very shapely volcano dweller is enough to draw Spear away from his joy about potentially reuniting with his family. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s not going to be happy until he’s either destroyed Spear altogether or done something to make sure he can never escape. After all, no one wants to let go of a champion of Spear’s caliber.

Mira and Fang’s storyline is also a source of some pretty potent and nail-biting narrative tension. To begin with, there’s the fact that Mira’s child takes after her father, and she’s not going to let anything stand in the way of her exploring, even if doing so puts her little life at risk. It’s a good thing that Fang’s nestlings are always right there by her side, competing with one another for the chance to give her a ride on their backs (have I mentioned how much I love these little dino babies?)

This is an episode of Primal, though, and so naturally violence is never far away, and they’re all attacked by a sinister panther with fire for eyes. This panther means business, and he manages to deal some pretty major blows to Fang. No matter how many times it happens, I will never not be upset by something happening to her. I mean, this T. rex mama has been through it, and I keep hoping that she’ll finally get to rest and have some time with her babies. Of course, it says a lot about the strength of this show that it has allowed me to feel so emotionally invested in a cartoon T. rex who remains pretty thoroughly untamed. I’m reasonably confident that she’ll make it out of this encounter alive, but with this show, you just never know (this is a series that brought Spear back from the dead, after all).

The bigger question is whether she’ll ever be able to reconcile with Spear, particularly now that he’s closer to being fully human than he’s been at any time throughout the season. Having these two finally find their way back to one another would be the perfect way to bring this season–and series–to a close, and it would show that, no matter how far into the realm of the abject one may go, there’s always the possibility of redemption, always the possibility that humanity can be regained.

Just as I’d like to think that Fang emerges from this alive, I’d like to think that Spear does so as well, that his absence from the epilogue of the first season was simply because he was off doing something else rather than that he’d forever shuffled off this mortal coil. After everything he’s endured–both as a living man and as a zombie–surely he deserves at least some measure of a happy ending. Besides, it would be a shame for him to have regained so much of his humanity only to be killed in the end.

However this all ends, I know that Tartakovsky will make this journey worth it.

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Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

I’m gonna say it. The Beauty is the best thing Ryan Murphy has done in years. It has all of the bat-shittery that I associate with vintage Ryan Murphy, hitting all the right spots and providing all the pleasures of the very best seasons of American Horror Story while also having just enough of its own personality to stand on its own. The second half of the season is, I think, the show at its best and its worst, and while it doesn’t go completely off the rails (as tends to happen in Murphy’s productions), it nevertheless starts to buckle under the strain of its own ambition.

These six episodes cover quite a lot of ground. We not only get important insight into Forst’s background, including the moment when he seizes the Beauty and proceeds to build his fortune around it, as well as the circumstances that led to it being released into the general population. In the future, meanwhile, our detectives draw closer to their quarry, while the two assassins discover they’ve been duped. As the season draws to a close the shit really hits the fan when the Beauty is revealed to have significant side effects, Cooper ends up being infected and reverts to an adolescent, and Forst’s world crumbles around him.

As was the case with the first half of the season, the second half offers some bits of social commentary, most of which isn’t particularly new or even interesting. Is it really so shocking that people, whether teens or billionaires, would do almost anything so as to be the supposedly perfect versions of themselves? As other reviewers have also pointed out, there’s also the thorny question of casting. Are we supposed to believe, for example, that Jessica Alexander is somehow genetically and physically perfect, while Rebecca Hall is not? More problematically, are we to also believe that Jeremy Pope is somehow the better version of Jaquel Spivey? I don’t think I need to belabor the point in order to show how problematic the casting choices become when followed to their logical conclusion. I’m not sure that The Beauty really cares to dig down beyond the surface level when it comes to this surface issue and, more to the point, I’m not sure that Murphy is a sophisticated enough writer to do the issue any justice.

Still, one doesn’t watch a Ryan Murphy show for sophistication. One watches it for camp and for the grotesque, and in these regards The Beauty more than succeeds. Isabella Rossellini, unsurprisingly, feasts on her role, devouring her co-stars and the entire set. Her every moment on the screen epitomizes the high camp for which Murphy is so known and yet, beneath it all, there’s also a well of strength and even pain. One gets the sense that the snark and the scathing takedowns and the overwrought hats and outfits there’s a world of anguish at being abandoned by a husband who, at some point, must have loved her. And that, my friend, is the power of a truly great camp performance.

On the horror side, the twisty bone gnarling sequences get a bit tired and one-note after a while, but the other instances of body horror are, on the whole, much more engaging and effective. One particularly notable horror show involves a teenage girl named Bella, whose contracting of the Beauty leads to horrible consequences, turning her into a twisted, bloody, and gooey remnant of her former self. This is one of those moments when the series really leans into the body horror of it all, and I literally got chills when her poor mother finds her huddled in the closet, her body unrecognizable, her pleading eyes and raspy voice and futile pleas for help from her mother bringing home the true abject terror of it all.

I’ll admit that I literally cackled when, during the final episode, Forst’s ambitions come crashing down around him as the Beauty is reported to have all sorts of unforeseen (and often very gruesome) side effects. Faced with almost certain ruin, he has no choice but to reverse course and do everything in his power to mitigate the damage, even if doing so comes with major financial consequences. This is one of those moments of billionaire schadenfreude that are vanishingly rare in the real world and, given how absolutely terrible Forst has been from the very beginning, this feels like his just desserts.

Indeed, one of the most fascinating things about this character, particularly in his Ashton Kutcher iteration, is just how absolutely one-note he is. This is a guy who wasn’t a particularly decent fellow before his transformation but who becomes a cartoon villain once he turns into his younger, far more beautiful self. There is, quite simply, almost nothing redeeming about him at all, and Kutcher doesn’t really give us any indication that there’s anything particularly sophisticated about him or his mindset (in that regard, though, it’s a performance that is probably true to life, if the intellectual vacuousness of billionaires like Elon Musk is anything to go by). It’s for this reason that I don’t really buy his abrupt change of heart, but in a show like this one I don’t really expect much character interiority or consistency. It’s all just nuts, and that’s partly why I don’t entirely buy the idea that he’s so devastated by his wife’s near-suicide to change his entire personality. But, then again, we don’t watch Ryan Murphy shows for their character consistency.

I must admit that I’m a bit conflicted about the fact that this season ends on a cliffhanger. I guess I wasn’t really expecting the season to wrap everything up in a neat little bow by the end but, given that you just never know when something is going to be renewed, I found myself frustrated by the lack of closure on literally any storyline. Cooper is still an adolescent, the nascent coup against Forst is still in its early stages, and we have no idea what’s going to happen to Franny. One would’ve hoped that at least one of these stories would’ve had some closure but, alas, ‘twas not to be.

I did quite enjoy The Beauty, however, and I’m really hoping that we get a second season. There’s a lot of room for growth and, while Murphy isn’t always good at building on a strong first season, I hold out hope that this time he might prove me wrong.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

Oof. Not gonna lie. This was a tough episode of The Pitt to get through. Not because it was bad–because no episode of this show has been bad, and I doubt there ever will be one–but just because it was so stressful. Between the ongoing tech problems, Roxie’s conversation with McKay about the nature of death, and the looming possibility that Howard might actually die thanks to a perforated ulcer–as well as the handful of new cases that arrive, including a boy, Jude, who blew off two of his fingers with a firework–I was literally on the edge of my seat. I continue to be in awe of just how much of a well-oiled machine this show continues to be.

Howard’s storyline continues to be one of the most affecting this season, in no small part because–while the show doesn’t shy away from showing the extent to which extreme obesity does come with its fair share of health risks–the doctors continue to treat him with dignity, respect, empathy, and compassion. This is particularly true this episode, when they go out of their way to make sure he has a chance to talk to his sister on the phone before he goes in for surgery (though, as is pointed out, this comes with its own fair share of risk). The Pitt remains one of the most deeply humane shows on TV right now, and it’s in moments like this one that it really shines.

Indeed, there were several demonstrations of empathy this week, particularly from Santos, who shows that there’s always more to her than her sarcastic demeanor would suggest. Not only is she very supportive of Jude while they’re examining his hand; she also advocates for him when it seems he might be separated from his sister and put into foster care or, even more menacingly, be sent to Haiti, where his parents were forced to go after they were deported. We’ve seen this sort of behavior from her before, of course, and she has a particular soft spot for kids who are cut off from their normal support systems. She might be prickly and a bit of an asshole sometimes, but when it comes right down to it she really does care for the most vulnerable among their patients.

This storyline is also a reminder of how this administration’s terrible immigration policies have an impact far beyond the initial deportation, mangling the lives of those left behind. Indeed, Jude’s plight and that of his sister leaves the hospital staff at something of a loss, since it seems that the former’s well-being could be at risk. While it’s impossible to say whether this would’ve happened had Jude’s parents not been deported, at the very least he would’ve had a support system, rather than having to rely on his older sister (who, it’s worth pointing out, gave up her own life in college to take care of him). I give this show a lot of credit for moving forward with this particular storyline, particularly given reports they were pressured to dial it back by the heads of the studio (presumably out of fear of endangering the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros.)

Of course, McKay also has her moment of empathy which, as has been the case for the past several episodes now, revolves around Roxie. This is one of those storylines that truly does break my heart, because when it comes down to it it’s really just unfair that an otherwise young and healthy woman, someone who has never smoked and has a loving husband and family, should be dying of lung cancer. As Dr. Robby says elsewhere, however, a lot of what happens in that hospital isn’t right or fair. In that sense, the Pitt is a microcosm of our own deeply flawed, broken world.

Indeed, this hour proves to be a particularly stressful one for McKay, who also helps a Black female patient with ovarian torsion, who reprimands her for making excuses for other doctors’ oversights. A more prickly doctor than McKay would probably have responded to this reprimand with a stinging remark of her own, but instead she internalizes the criticism, going to the extra mile to make sure her patient is kept for observation, even though it would be easier to send her home and free up a bed. McKay has always been one of my very favorite doctors at the Pitt, and this episode reminded me of why. Despite, or perhaps because of, her own troubled past, she’s always willing to go the extra mile for those who need it.

If there’s one doctor who fares particularly poorly this episode, it’s Javadi, whose oversight–a product of the hospital’s new protocols–nearly kills a patient. Watching Javadi nearly have a nervous breakdown as a result of her oversight is wrenching, particularly given that we in the audience know just how much pressure she’s under and how much she takes her duties as a physician seriously. It certainly didn’t help that another doctor scathingly referred to her as a nepo baby, a comment that is sure to get under her skin, given her own conflict with both of her parents.

There are, of course, several funny moments in this episode, too, because The Pitt remains a series that understands you can’t have unremitting gloom and cynicism. The whole bit with the furry suffering from heat exhaustion is subtly hilarious, particularly Santos’ response. I also appreciated that we got to see one of the Pitt’s former employees Monica Peters step in to help restore some logic and order to operations. Her presence and competence is a reminder that, for all that doctors like Al-Hashimi–as well as the largely-faceless bureaucrats who are responsible for who gets hired and fired at hospitals–might like to think that women like her are expendable and easily replaceable with machines, the truth is that sometimes, you really do need a person. Even the presence of Mel’s sister Becca is handled with a light touch, even if it is overshadowed by the impending hearing.

As always, I emerged from this episode loving this show even more than I already did. I’ve written before that The Pitt possesses an emotional authenticity that, quite simply, grabs hold of you and never lets go for a minute. This episode was everything I love about this show and maybe a little bit more. And, while I know that the cliffhanger endings this season have gotten a bit repetitive, I won’t lie. When I heard that red phone ringing and saw the news alert about the collapsed water slide, I felt the same sense of dread I did in the first season when it became clear there’d been a shooting.

Will this be the thing that finally breaks the staff of the Pitt? I guess we’ll find out!

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

Warning: Spoilers for the series follow.

We’re now closing in on the (presumably final) few episodes of Primal, and it’s no exaggeration to say that I am not ready. This show has been one of my very favorites since I first started watching it years ago, and it makes me sad to think that this might be the end of the line for Spear, Fang, Mira, and all the rest. Still, I can at least take some comfort from the fact that each and every episode continues to be bangers, up to and including the most recent one, “The River of Life.”

When we left Spear, he was standing on the brink of a volcano, facing off with a sinister figure. It soon turns out that Spear has stumbled into the midst of a tribe whose strongest members repeatedly challenge one another for both a crown and a chance to drink from the titular “River of Life.” Spear, of course, manages to win and, after drinking from said liquid–which, we learn through one of his hazy flashbacks, was also used by the ape men in the first season–he becomes an unbeatable warrior. Through the haze of violence, however, he still feels drawn to Mira and, after witnessing the birth of his daughter, he returns to his volcanic home, leading her to pursue him once again.

This episode, even more than the ones before it, is all about juxtapositions. Just as Spear sheds rivers of blood as he is faced by challenger after challenger–all of whom seek to take his life and steal his crown–so Mira faces her own trial as she brings Spear’s child into the world. This is a world, after all, in which giving birth, even for a woman of Mira’s obvious strength and relative wealth, is a dangerous proposition. We’ve seen time and again, though, that Mira is a force of nature all her own. This is a woman, after all, who went in search of Spear even though she was dealing with a critical wound, and she’s also a woman who’s willing to face down a very cranky T. rex. She’s clearly not going to let something like childbirth do her in, particularly given that her child will be a living testament to Spear’s bravery and his extraordinary life. I actually appreciate the extent to which the editing in this episode makes it clear that Mira, no less than Spear, is fighting a battle for her very existence.

At a broader level, I also like that this season has given Mira a lot to do. She’s as complex as Spear, and she has her own motivations and her own story arc, which is honestly kind of a miracle given the extent to which pulpy series like this one usually relegate women to the realm of being either a sex object or a helpless damsel. Mira, though, is a true badass, and to be honest I wouldn’t mind seeing her in her own spin-off.

That said, this episode definitely doesn’t stint on the pulp. Watching Spear cut down every foe that comes against him is a grisly delight, and Tartakovsky really lets his freak flag fly as he finds inventive ways for our zombie hero to slaughter his foes. And, as we already know from previous episodes of both this season and others, he can get very creative when it comes to finding new waves for one character to kill another. This show is definitely not for the faint of heart, but Tartakovsky makes something remarkably beautiful out of death and gruesome dismemberment.

Yet all is not quite lost for Spear, and it’s striking that, in the midst of all of this bloodshed–and despite the fact that he seems to be slipping into the realm of the monstrous again–he decides to go and see what’s happening with Mira and their child together. However much he might be changed, he clearly still feels a pull to the human side, and that’s to the good (we hope). It’s more than a little heartbreaking to see him bear witness to the birth of said child, since we can’t help but be aware that he’s never going to be able to know and raise this child, despite all of his sacrifices both before and after his death.

By the end of the episode Spear has gone back to his brutal way of life but, as has so often been the case this season, Mira is also primed for another journey. She’s never going to be content just letting her former mate–zombie or not–wandering off into the world. One gets the feeling that she’s not going to rest until she’s either brought him back into the fold of humanity or said goodbye to him for good.

Indeed, running beneath this episode–like that black river from which Spear so often drinks–is the ongoing narrative and thematic concern of this entire season. Is Spear still human? For that matter, is his constant consumption of this dark elixir of life further removing him from the bounds of what might have made him human, and will there come a point of no return? It certainly seems that way, at least if we’re to judge by the way that he grows more and more brutal when taking down the various warriors he faces in the arena. Let’s just hope that Mira finds some way of bringing him back from the brink before it’s too late for any of them.

It’s not every show that could keep asking these questions week after week and still keep us on the edge of our seats waiting for answers, but by now we know that Primal is just such a show. I still don’t know whether I want there to be some sort of redemption for Spear or whether I want him to find some kind of release from this liminal existence. At this point, I don’t know which would be better for him, but I still feel confident that if anyone can bring Spear’s story, and this show as a whole, in for a satisfying landing, it would be Genndy Tartakovsky.