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icepixie"Quest" - Okay, McMurphy/Dodger is such a giant, screaming, visceral NOPE for me that I couldn't actually finish this one. Part of it is that Dodger is my least favorite character, combining the boring combat-y role with testosterone-overload and, at least in this episode, far too much religion, none of which I'm fond of. Part of it is that I still kind of think McMurphy was using him to martyr herself back in the 60s and again in 1976, and while I can also buy that he's okay with that, it's still just not something that sits well with me.
Too bad, because it started out so promisingly with KC and McMurphy meeting up in the US! I wanted them to have another blackly comedic adventure together.
All that said, the ice skating with Dodger's dad in the wheelchair was cute.
"Rewind" - I really liked this one, mostly because we finally got some updates on people we'd been missing. Awwwwwww, Sarge bought that gas station and he and Lila are still adorably in love! So cute. And Beckett as an American history teacher, apparently in some kind of reform school? YES, THAT'S PERFECT.
I'm shocked Karen managed to find McMurphy, since she seemed not to want to be found earlier in the season. Not shocked that she refused to talk about anything China Beach-related, though. I liked that Karen also found her Vietnamese mother.
I don't entirely buy KC as having a sister--she always struck me as very much an only child--and I'm very curious where she managed, at age 18, to make the bank required to send said sister to a boarding school, but whatever. Casting should've won some kind of award for this episode, though, because that actress really did resemble Marg Helgenberger, especially smoking a cigarette in profile.
Boonie as doting dad is still really sweet. Awww.
Man, the interviews with the teenagers were such a flashback to the early 90s, especially the ones in the mall. Oof.
"Through and Through" - Wow, that was painful. Both in the intentional and a couple of unintentional ways.
First off, the fact that McMurphy got out of nursing and is now a hospital administrator saddens me, as did her comment about how she "was never very good at it." Oh, McMurphy. :( I also liked her initial scene with the PTSD group director, where he assumed she was the wife of a vet rather than a vet herself, and she snarked back at him the way I remember from previous seasons.
I'm glad she went to therapy, because DEAR GOD did she need it, but I don't typically think conversations with therapists make very good TV. (Cupid being the one exception there, but in that case the main character was the psychologist, so.) They did an okay job showing some of it in flashback form, but way too much was McMurphy monologuing to the therapist. I was also a little nonplussed by the big flashbacky, PTSD-y event concerning, of all people, Hyers. I guess they had to pick someone who'd died so she could have that last conversation she'd never gotten to have with him, and they have a fairly limited roster of people to choose from, but...Hyers?
I did enjoy the therapist dragging her out of the bar when she fell off the wagon, though. And oh my God, the fact that she goes into her neighborhood bar with some regularity and her "usual" is a shot of bourbon that she sniffs before pouring out is so perfectly McMurphy that I almost had to laugh. If God won't punish her, she'll do it herself in every possible little way.
I don't think any of the scenes with Joe came off the way the writers intended for me, because I'll admit it, I have absolutely typecast Adam Arkin as Adam from Northern Exposure, so every time he was onscreen, my brain was busy going, "Adam would never play racquetball! Adam would never be cuddly! Adam would never live in a suburb! When is he going to start ranting about cooks who stole his recipes while he was in Vietnam?"
ETA: I figured out the other thing that bothered me aboutAdam Joe: When McMurphy picks fights with him, he never fights back. Admirable, perhaps, but not terribly interesting. I assume this was deliberate on the writers' parts--not necessarily the uninteresting part, but pairing McMurphy with someone who wouldn't fight back--to demonstrate how much she's changed, how much her life has changed, since the war.
Richard would've fought back.
One more left.
Too bad, because it started out so promisingly with KC and McMurphy meeting up in the US! I wanted them to have another blackly comedic adventure together.
All that said, the ice skating with Dodger's dad in the wheelchair was cute.
"Rewind" - I really liked this one, mostly because we finally got some updates on people we'd been missing. Awwwwwww, Sarge bought that gas station and he and Lila are still adorably in love! So cute. And Beckett as an American history teacher, apparently in some kind of reform school? YES, THAT'S PERFECT.
I'm shocked Karen managed to find McMurphy, since she seemed not to want to be found earlier in the season. Not shocked that she refused to talk about anything China Beach-related, though. I liked that Karen also found her Vietnamese mother.
I don't entirely buy KC as having a sister--she always struck me as very much an only child--and I'm very curious where she managed, at age 18, to make the bank required to send said sister to a boarding school, but whatever. Casting should've won some kind of award for this episode, though, because that actress really did resemble Marg Helgenberger, especially smoking a cigarette in profile.
Boonie as doting dad is still really sweet. Awww.
Man, the interviews with the teenagers were such a flashback to the early 90s, especially the ones in the mall. Oof.
"Through and Through" - Wow, that was painful. Both in the intentional and a couple of unintentional ways.
First off, the fact that McMurphy got out of nursing and is now a hospital administrator saddens me, as did her comment about how she "was never very good at it." Oh, McMurphy. :( I also liked her initial scene with the PTSD group director, where he assumed she was the wife of a vet rather than a vet herself, and she snarked back at him the way I remember from previous seasons.
I'm glad she went to therapy, because DEAR GOD did she need it, but I don't typically think conversations with therapists make very good TV. (Cupid being the one exception there, but in that case the main character was the psychologist, so.) They did an okay job showing some of it in flashback form, but way too much was McMurphy monologuing to the therapist. I was also a little nonplussed by the big flashbacky, PTSD-y event concerning, of all people, Hyers. I guess they had to pick someone who'd died so she could have that last conversation she'd never gotten to have with him, and they have a fairly limited roster of people to choose from, but...Hyers?
I did enjoy the therapist dragging her out of the bar when she fell off the wagon, though. And oh my God, the fact that she goes into her neighborhood bar with some regularity and her "usual" is a shot of bourbon that she sniffs before pouring out is so perfectly McMurphy that I almost had to laugh. If God won't punish her, she'll do it herself in every possible little way.
I don't think any of the scenes with Joe came off the way the writers intended for me, because I'll admit it, I have absolutely typecast Adam Arkin as Adam from Northern Exposure, so every time he was onscreen, my brain was busy going, "Adam would never play racquetball! Adam would never be cuddly! Adam would never live in a suburb! When is he going to start ranting about cooks who stole his recipes while he was in Vietnam?"
ETA: I figured out the other thing that bothered me about
Richard would've fought back.
One more left.