Off-Season Week 5

5/13

Who's ready for week 5? Me too - let's go!

DEADBEAT - 3x05 "Weeknight at Skillitz"

"In order to get a meeting with the star poker player Danny Poker, who Pac saw communicating with a ghost to win poker hands, he and Clyde try to get into the club where DJ Skillitz is due to perform. Unfortunately, it turns out DJ Skillitz died earlier performing auto-erotic asphyxiation, and he promises VIP passes if they go to his home and move his body. But even that doesn't go to plan ..."

Deadbeat continues its ventures into on-the-edge topics as DJ Skillitz, a parody of DJ Skrillex, dies while masturbating. Interestingly, Pac and Clyde actually manage to help him move into the light very quickly, which is something the show hasn't really done before, but the second half of the episode was their antics as they escorted Skillitz's dead body to the club - which also paved the way for necrophiliac coroner Carol to return.

   I was wondering how they would conclude this when the clubgoers realised Skillitz was dead, but the funniest scene of the episode was Dead Rat, Skillitz's rival, turning up and putting a dozen bullets into his already dead body. 

VERDICT: Lower on the laugh-out-loud humour, but entertaining nonetheless, and it moves along the Danny Poker arc nicely. 7.5/10

HELL ON WHEELS - 5x12 "Any Sum Within Reason"

* "Fearful that Chang knows Mei's secret, Cullen sends her to Cheyenne. Cullen then suggests Huntington remove the Chinese from the railroad construction and hire Irishmen to finish. Huntington counters by saying China is the future and Cullen should think beyond completing the railroad. Cullen then tries to buy Mei's contract from Chang, who refuses by stating Cullen rejected his previous offer to own a share of the railroad. Cullen gets a telegraph from Mei, who is in Washoe City, Nevada. However, Chang arrives before he does, and Cullen must kill him and the group that came with him. Mei tells Cullen that she will still be hunted and doesn't want that life for him. While he manages to dissuade a Chinese general from looking for her, she leaves to return to China."

Hell on Wheels is proving quite the conundrum this season. One episode it will raise the stakes for our characters ready to set up the coming finale, and then in the next we'll see the complete other half of our characters and the show will provide a drawn-out goodbye for one of them. And that was what we got today. Amid a bit of betrayal, Chang's death and an attempt at heavy emotion, Mei/Fong has finally gone, leaving Cullen heartbroken. That's the third person he's loved who's left him now, albeit the first one died.

   But that was about all that happened. There was no sign of Cheyenne, so no Durant or Mickey or Eva, and Hell on Wheels is just continuing its slow funeral march to the end.

VERDICT: Nothing of substance happened in 43 minutes, and it wasn't a gripping goodbye to Mei either. 5.5/10

THE NIGHT SHIFT - 3x07 "By Dawn's Early Light"

* "Syd returns stateside, and is attending an outdoor concert with Drew and her daughter Riley when banks of fireworks ignite early, causing chaos. A mother and her daughter Darika are badly burned. TC and Topher arrive on the scene, and Topher authorizes Syd to assist in treating the mother and daughter back at the hospital. Soon after, Topher approaches a burning truck that contains fireworks and it explodes. Topher is badly hurt, but he refuses tests and insists on continuing to treat the wounded, over TC's and Jordan's objections. It is later discovered that Topher suffered a concussion. At the hospital, Scott and Syd treat the mother's burns. Impressed with Syd's techniques, Scott offers her a job, and Syd says she'll think about it. Paul and Shannon treat a street artist with a mysterious ailment, and in doing so, the two doctors finally find some common ground. Scott explains his attraction to Annie in a conversation with Jordan, asking that Jordan stay out of it. Kenny and Nurse Jocelyn consider going on a real date instead of just sleeping together. Syd learns that her ex-husband is moving to Washington, D.C. with his new wife and, to avoid a custody battle and stay close to Riley, Syd decides she will also move to D.C."

The episode was largely Syd-focused - as it closes out her arc within the show (barring any surprises) - so there was little in the way of character development elsewhere. Shannon finally admitted to Paul she liked him (called it!) which was the most progressive part of the episode, since elsewhere TC and Jordan's attention was taken up by an injured Topher who kept refusing treatment, and Kenny (who has been vastly underutilised since Gwen's departure) had about three seconds of screen time to remind us he's dating that nurse ... what's her name? Oh, she's a nurse? Never knew that.

   But at least the patients were interesting, especially Shannon's street artist, although I'm starting to see a pattern in the show now. Anything set outside of the hospital is 95% likely to lead to some sort of mass casualty event and someone from the hospital being sent out on a field trip - Topher's mum in the casino, the race riots, now this concert - which is starting to get a bit tiring and dull. Overall, there wasn't anything wrong with this episode per se, it just didn't achieve much here other than to get rid of a side character no one truly cared about anyway.

   Viewers: 5.74m

VERDICT: Whether the show is running out of ideas already as to how to set scenes outside of the hospital I don't know, but they need to start being more creative. A lack of character development rescued only by good patient storylines and Paul's shock at learning Shannon likes him. 6.5/10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK - 4x04 "Doctor Psycho"

* "Sophia gets Caputo’s attention by flooding her cell but he refuses to help her. Healy's past is shown. His mother suffered from mental illness and is seen being discharged from a hospital. She wanted to stop her treatment because it makes her forget. Healy doesn’t want her to stop and upon hearing this, she runs away. After some years, Healy sees a homeless lady resembling his mother. He invites her for coffee and apologizes for not being there when she tried to reach out to him. He then realizes that she isn’t his mother but still offers her to finish coffee with him. Healy forces Judy to lead a cooking class. It is a hit, but Judy asks Caputo to change Healy as her counselor, stating that he has power issues. Alex confides Frieda’s plan to kill Lolly to Red. Red tries to mediate the situation but realizes that they have to kill Lolly. Lolly behaves erratically and Healy counsels her, convincing her that she imagined the killing."

I suppose a Healy-centric episode was bound to be written some time or another, but as easily the most boring OITNB character it sufficed to lower the overall decency of the other plotlines. Expanded on were Piper's panty business (which is now facing competition in Maria, who is pinching all Piper's staff. It was nice to see Piper lose her arrogance, because we all knew the moment someone really hard challenged her she would be too passive to fight back properly); Lolly's instability about having helped kill someone (which seems to be resolved for now, but I'm sure will return and is making for great entertainment); Pennsatucky finally confronting Officer Coates about him raping her, which he denies because he loves her and that makes it different (oh boy, this is gonna explode); and Judy King's, the celebrity chef, incarceration and new start teaching a prison cooking class. Ehhh, Judy's as interesting as Healy and they grouped them both together plot-wise ... quicker this ends the better.

   I don't like Sophia - she's boring too - but at least her persistence in staging personal protests such as flooding her cell and setting fire to her bed were interesting. And as max sec was evacuated from the fire, we saw a glimpse of Nicky Nichols again. Yay, Nicky! Hopefully she'll be back soon and Sophia can stay where she is and get no airtime.

VERDICT: The Healy and Judy focuses dulled the intrigue of the plots around it, but at least things are starting to hot up now. 7/10.

Final thoughts

OK, so it seems this week wasn't a stellar week for the four off-season shows we analyse here, but here's hoping next week can show a big improvement!

Thank you everyone for reading, see you next time!

Sam