Above: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

What a crazy week in television. Most of my shows aired, and they were pretty decent (there was only really one great episode), but a lot of my enjoyment was marred by the finale of How I Met Your Mother. This past week saw a furious split between the positive and negative reactions to the show, so much so that it’s become hard to cultivate an opinion based solely on my original viewing. But let’s not dwell… on to the reviews!

How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother

Well, okay, on to the reviews after a short follow up to the HIMYM dilemma. The Internet reacted in a dichotomous manner, one faction praising the episode for a realistic portrayal of Ted’s true desires, and others whining endlessly (with me in their camp) about how the creators didn’t do the mother narrative justice and cheated their audience. Some folks said that the final moments of the show made sense because the story really did focus on unending feelings for Robin, the mother being a footnote to the drawn out saga. I guess there is some sense to this, but to those thinkers, need I remind you that HIMYM was a television show, and a ridiculous one at that. Making emotional sense should be subordinate to narrative sense, or at least the two should work in tandem. The Mother, as another critic said, was dead for Ted six years, but the audience got less than six minutes total to realize what was going on. It is realistic for a dude to have to reconcile, but it was a weak twist (the story being more about that in the end) for audiences existing outside the minds of the Carter Bays and Craig Thomas.

New Girl didn’t air for some reason, making HIMYM stick in my head more. Curse you, Zooey Deschanel.

Agents of SHIELD
Agents of SHIELD

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was refreshingly epic, the hunt for the Clairvoyant finally coming to a pseudo conclusion (it’s never simple with you, Whedon, never). Last week, the members of Phil’s Bus team, along with other agents (Garrett is pretty badass), continued to pursue Mike Peterson (Deathlok), the ultimate goal being to bring in the Clairvoyant finally. Skye was made an agent (heartwarming, sort of) and schemed up a complex way to track down the psychic villain. Action happened a bunch, and the Clairvoyant was finally found (a dude confined to a chair), only to be killed by Ward when the evil dude made threats to end her. But wait! Twist! Agent May was found out, and the Bus got hijacked and is on its way to the Hub (is Agent Hand the main villain?). This was a much anticipated episode, and I think it delivered for the most part. The twist was not really a surprise, but Ward acting in cold blood was kinda awesome. And Coulson having Western style stand off with May? Very rad.

Community
Community

Community was, for the first time in many weeks, slightly disappointing. Last week saw the study group wedged inside the mind of Jeff Winger, the episode produced to look like a G.I. Joe cartoon. With a few notable exceptions, most of the episode was not up to the current standard, the plot not really all that interesting, and the gags repetitive. But Jeff killing another character in the G.I. Joe universe was really amusing (first death in cartoon history), and the fact that Annie was drawn just as chesty as fans could imagine was straight up, silly fan service (in a good way). Abed was especially fun in this episode, his G.I. Joe counterpart a dude named Fourth Wall, his namesake being broken for comedic effect every few moments or so. Watch the episode till the end to enjoy one of the best credits scenes in Community history. Still worth watching, but not a very strong episode. Let’s hope the next few step up their narrative and comedic games.

Elementary
Elementary

Elementary was fantastically brilliant. Last week, Holmes and Watson uncovered a really enigmatic murder case involving bite marks found on a victim that matched those of a deceased supposed killer. So, there were a lot of fun twists, and some clever writing during dental records matching sequences (Sherlock was just messing with Joan for a major part of the episode) and other mini arcs that turned out to be wild goose hunts. And for the first time in a long time, the end of the episode (the revelation of the true perpetrator) was a real surprise. Some super fun moments include Sherlock donning a gown and outdoing the original version of Frozen to appease hacking wizards, and that turtle appearing on Joan’s bed with a shark fin turtle sweater thing (Elementary having some Internet fun). Overall, it was the best bit of television all week, fully making up for the HIMYM flop and offering the only really solid twist of the many shows airing at present.

The weekend saw the return of Game of Thrones, so get on your Internet machines and start streaming.

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