The Ones That Missed
Paid subscribers — let’s connect next Saturday for a Live Video Chat.
Bring questions. Observations. Tangents. The usual good trouble.
And — we’re also diving back into a Homicide episode.
But not just some random episode.
I want your pick for the one that made you go, "Huh?"
The episode that didn’t quite land. Too strange. Slightly off. Ambitious but wobbly. The one that may have left you with more questions than satisfaction.
In the spirit of After the Role, let’s examine what happens when something doesn’t fully work — whether we just brush it off, call it an outlier, or it just doesn’t live up to our expectations.
Then, maybe on second thought (or viewing), it becomes more interesting.
Drop your vote in the comments. I’ll revisit the winner with fresh eyes, multiple viewings, and memory excavation.
Saturday, Feb 21. 9am PST / 12pm EST.
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading, this is a good one to jump into.
I can look back at that, but I'm not really a legal guy. Subway was great in my opinion, but yeah, it's like seeing Jaws the first time - makes me skittish near subways. There's got to be one you just kinda checked out on. Like, 'meh'...pass?
The writers' willingness to play with structure, tone and perspective was always one of the show's great appeals, but I agree Wu's on First didn't land. In the same season the Documentary literally showed us these characters through an outside lens, with Brodie as a David Simon-adjacent figure, so to then throw a Sun reporter into the mix in a way that felt so inconsequential felt like a weird swing.
Closet Cases feels like an episode that would have fared better on HBO - I know you've touched upon it before but I'd love to know more about what compromises were made in this case. It always felt unsatisfying that we got that charged scene in the box, good as it was, but we never got to even briefly see Bayliss enjoying a nice glass of red with Peter Gallagher!