About Last Night…THE EQUALIZER, CELEBRITY WHEEL OF FORTUNE, THE ROOKIE, and More

Let’s talk about Sunday night’s TV!

THE SIMPSONS: The show has done pointed scenes about Ellen, her behavior, and her talk show in the past (notably last year’s “Yokel Hero,” when Cletus became an unexpected star), so I wasn’t sure how cutting this would be. As it turned out, not so much? Yes, it talked about the brutal life of segment producers—and there was the “TMI” expose about terrible treatment of staff, followed by an on-air apology—but the talk show host (Krusty, in this case) was more apathetic, while the producer and the show’s culture at large was the true evil. (They saved the most pointed Ellen-specific joke for the end tag.) It almost felt like this episode needed to either be more generic about the host and speak to the industry at large or go more pointed and specifically say what it wanted to about Ellen.

THE EQUALIZER: Robyn needs, like, one day where she doesn’t have to kick someone’s ass. It was less extreme than the previous two episodes, but even trying to figure out if a dead man was actually haunting his widow and kid turned out to be brutal. (Of course, it didn’t help that dead man turned out to not be dead, and his sister-in-law was obsessed with him. Twisted and messy.)

I wish we had seen more of Vi and Trish’s relationship, though. Even getting a few scenes of them before Delilah was introduced into the dynamic. I’m sure Trish will be back, but it would have been lovely to see any of their reconnecting—and, frankly, Vi getting anything to herself for a beat—prior to other people being added to the dynamic.

THE GREAT NORTH: Oh my God, of course the family goes a little bit crazy when they’re stranded. I almost hope we get a flashback at some point of all the things that led to the strict lockdown procedures they have now.

CELEBRITY WHEEL OF FORTUNE: I’m sorry to Carla Hall, who may never live down calling the Smashing Pumpkins the “Smashing Dumplins” in her guess.

Especially considering this is CELEBRITY WHEEL OF FORTUNE, “Quinoa Salad” is a HARD, pretty BS final puzzle. It’s charity! What are you doing?! Like, I knew the final word was salad before (the absolutely delightful) Phil Rosenthal guessed any of his letters, but even if he had guessed an “A” to make the second word completely obvious, how the heck are you going to get “quinoa” when only ___N_A would have been apparent? And he guessed an “I,” which still made it a mess with __IN__. Kind of a bummer to have such a shoddy word—with four different vowels!—in the final round.

BOB’S BURGERS: There’s a pretty iconic THE OFFICE quote where Michael Scott says, “I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.” Teddy, well, he’s a lot superstitious (I’m rooting for your 30 years of good luck, buddy), and it felt like by the end of the episode Bob…had gotten a little bit stitious.

(I, too, want to hug characters on the screen.)

FAMILY GUY: Well, uh, that’s a way to get out of ever seeing your in-laws again.

THE ROOKIE: It speaks to the tension of the episode that I truly wondered if Nolan would shoot Rosalind or if Bailey would die. (We’ve had a couple of brutal deaths of series regulars, so it certainly wouldn’t be out of the blue for the show to figuratively pull that trigger.) With Nolan, no, I didn’t think he’d kill Rosalind—it took a golden ticket for him to get back on the TO track, a homicide to save his girlfriend would cost him his job—but he certainly could have wounded her/faked things.

But, uh, NOPE. Bailey is instead a total badass and held her breath for four freaking minutes and Rosalind was shot by an accomplice.

I also really appreciated a couple of things about the episode:

• If Nolan was going to be (understandably) reckless and agree to meet Rosalind, I’m glad he didn’t just blindly go and not try to leave hints along the way. Would she be 10 steps ahead and disable things like the hazard lights so he couldn’t signal his colleagues? Of course. But it’s always so frustrating when smart characters do dumb things because the plot requires them to, so I’m glad this was a case where he was smart, but just…of course Rosalind planned on him trying to pull that stunt. (That creepy bear is going to haunt me, man.)
• I’m really glad the show took a moment to let the characters to see Rosalind dead, as morbid as that sounds. She tormented them for years, and specifically Lucy was absolutely…brutalized. (Both with her kidnapping and more recently with Chris’ attack.) If we hadn’t seen her killed in front of our own eyes and watched Nolan sit with her lifeless body, frankly, I would have thought there was another twist to come. But she does seem to be dead-dead.

[For more on the episode, and how the search for Rosalind’s accomplice will play out on THE ROOKIE: FEDS, here’s what executive producers Alexi Hawley and Terence Paul Winter shared.]

Which shows did you watch last night?

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