About Last Night…AMERICA’S GOT TALENT, MASTERCHEF: GENERATIONS, BIG BROTHER, and More

Let’s talk about Wednesday night’s TV!

AMERICA’S GOT TALENT: I guess it’s hard to argue against most of the acts going forward, but I am really bummed Erica Rhodes was eliminated.

MASTERCHEF: GENERATIONS: Oh, the Hot Ones challenge would be an absolute nightmare scenario for me. Like Becca, I would have struggled due to having no spice tolerance. (Becca can cook a billion times better than me, I assume, but still.)

It felt like this might have been the biggest curveball of the season to freeze someone’s cooking for five minutes; if I were competing, I might have tried to aim for a 40-minute dish, so losing that time didn’t absolutely derail everything. And congrats to Becca for surviving it and not even making the bottom round.

The wall challenge always stresses me out, but the teams did pretty well—I did worry/think Adam and Michael might be taken out by it, but they squeaked by. But, man, it was brutal losing four contestants in a single night/two-hour block.

BIG BROTHER: I truly can’t decide if Leah’s gameplay is smart or short-sighted. On one hand, yeah, it’s a vote for her in the jury house and undying loyalty from Angela. On the other, she hasn’t won a lot and she has to hope everyone else has a bigger target and won’t be upset she’s stuck them with Angela for at least another week. We’ll see how this shakes out.

HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET:

“All Through the House”: Oh, I loved this episode a lot. This went up there as one of my top episodes of the season, certainly, but also of the series so far.

I mean, to be fair, these guys absolutely ruined multiple Christmas Eves as they tried to work, but it was great seeing Ed again and

But, arguably, the best part was the subplot of Munch trying to take care of a kid whose father they thought was dead. (Christmas miracle—he wasn’t.) The kid was hardened and clearly struggling to balance the deep hopefulness that his dad would actually show up (figuratively and literally) for him, with a streak of cynicism that surpassed even Munch.

As someone who has watched quite literally hundreds of hours of Munch on SVU, it has surprised me how little he’s played into the show so far—he’s there, but he hadn’t had what felt like a DEFINING episode of the show or a huge arc. (Beyond the group storyline of buying the bar.) This was a really great showcase for him.

Also, laughed at Tim trying to get everyone to play cards with him, with only Al agreeing…which caused everyone else to get FOMO and Al to hustle them. (He put his kids through college playing Hearts?!)

Also loved the team dynamic in this; it felt very old-school, even down to the playing in the snow in the end.

“Nothing Personal”: Oh, ouch: Crosetti’s open cases.

I understand Lewis wanting them all; it makes sense, both emotionally and practically, but I’m glad he didn’t have to bear that burden alone. It’s interesting it felt like most of the cops had a bigger reaction to this—and Crosetti’s name being wiped from the board—than most of what they endured in the immediate aftermath of his death. This must have really made it real in a way they couldn’t really deny or bury.

The Al subplot was gutting, though, and I hope he finds someone who loves him for him; it’s clear the discrimination he’s faced has really done a number on him. (It also felt like almost every character—especially Al and Beau this week—was at their breaking point and almost all of them could be out next. I hope that’s not the case, but…)

(Hey, Dean Winters!)

“Every Mother’s Son”: Sometimes, it’s really helpful to have a light subplot to counterbalance the darkness of the main storyline. This was an instance where it actually felt like the two didn’t work well together.

On paper, both the case and the bar subplot were interesting. And it’s an hour where as soon as it ended, I had the thought I might want to revisit it to see if the tonal juxtaposition felt less jarring upon rewatch. But the case itself was so much…a young Black boy was killed by another young Black boy. We didn’t just see that, we saw their mothers talking—and the horror/grief when the mother of the deceased realized she had been talking to the mother of her son’s killer—and we saw the aftermath of it, as well. There was so much to mine there, so much to dig into. There was so much that was memorable and handled well, even if it was heartbreaking.

But then it kept bouncing back to the lightness of things going wrong with the bar. And, again, balancing a deeply dark plot with lighter moments makes sense. For me, though, on first watch, it was too distracting and ended up taking me out of everything. I won’t have time to rewatch any time soon, but I hope it feels less disruptive next time I can view this hour.

Which shows did you watch last night?

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