The episode was mostly another strong showing; TR Knight was a creepy and evil highlight, and the chemistry between Franco and Gadon shined as bright as ever.
There were some pretty glaring issues, though. Bill being distracted by thinking he saw his sister was kind of dumb, but whatever. A bigger issue for me was the big "everybody loves Sadie so they all donate blood for her" scene. Had they taken the time to show anything building up to that, it might have rung more sincere. They should have added an extra episode dedicated to the play; Jake even refers to it in the dialogue, it would have made the students more than just glorified extras, and Sadie and Jake would have had more time to build their relationship with each other and their students.
Another thing that I found to be false was everything surrounding the discovery of the tape. Why was it even in the Jodie house to begin with if Jake was going out of his way to keep his two lives separate? Sadie had no business listening to it, and certainly no business reporting it to Deke. Nor should Deke have asked for Jake's resignation based solely on Sadie's word. This plot development cast both Deke and Sadie in a negative light for me. The falling out between Jake and Sadie in the book felt much more organic and didn't tarnish her character.
Frankly, at this point, nothing about Oswald or Marina interests me. When they cut from the super-intense Jake-Johnny-Sadie scene to spend time with Bill and Marina and Lee, I groaned out loud. The production is stuck by being unable to do anything with the Oswalds that upsets the factual timeline, so their character beats are all small and seen solely through Bill and Jake's eyes, which means they are mostly nothing characters. The one angle of that storyline I thought would be redeeming was Oswald's mother, and she's barely been in the thing.
All in all, it's still well-done and mostly entertaining, but someone should have told the writers that the Jodie stuff is the heart and soul of the story, and to keep the Oswald stuff to a minimum.
There were some pretty glaring issues, though. Bill being distracted by thinking he saw his sister was kind of dumb, but whatever. A bigger issue for me was the big "everybody loves Sadie so they all donate blood for her" scene. Had they taken the time to show anything building up to that, it might have rung more sincere. They should have added an extra episode dedicated to the play; Jake even refers to it in the dialogue, it would have made the students more than just glorified extras, and Sadie and Jake would have had more time to build their relationship with each other and their students.
Another thing that I found to be false was everything surrounding the discovery of the tape. Why was it even in the Jodie house to begin with if Jake was going out of his way to keep his two lives separate? Sadie had no business listening to it, and certainly no business reporting it to Deke. Nor should Deke have asked for Jake's resignation based solely on Sadie's word. This plot development cast both Deke and Sadie in a negative light for me. The falling out between Jake and Sadie in the book felt much more organic and didn't tarnish her character.
Frankly, at this point, nothing about Oswald or Marina interests me. When they cut from the super-intense Jake-Johnny-Sadie scene to spend time with Bill and Marina and Lee, I groaned out loud. The production is stuck by being unable to do anything with the Oswalds that upsets the factual timeline, so their character beats are all small and seen solely through Bill and Jake's eyes, which means they are mostly nothing characters. The one angle of that storyline I thought would be redeeming was Oswald's mother, and she's barely been in the thing.
All in all, it's still well-done and mostly entertaining, but someone should have told the writers that the Jodie stuff is the heart and soul of the story, and to keep the Oswald stuff to a minimum.