It's an odd episode in a very strong series. This is one of the best legal based procedural drama series on tv today. It skews to left a bit more than I'd prefer but it does a decent job of painting both sides of an argument as having having merit. I was so mad when CBS canceled it especially since the tanking of its ratings & decline in viewership wasn't due to story telling but instead of CBS's inability to air it consistently in same time slot every week and having several weeks off and then back for an episode and off for 2 weeks and back for 3 then off again for a month.
The return of season 3 on Own has made me so happy and they've made every strong episode until this one. I especially enjoyed the 2 parter that looks to be setting up a potential multi episode or possibly multi season antagonist for the series in the form of an apparent sociopath who Luke gets cleared of murder charges only for Mark to learn he may in fact be a serial killer but doesn't yet have adequate evidence to charge him.
This episode I have no doubt was fun for the brilliantly talented cast to film. It however didn't fit too well in a series that is so based in a world that looks to be nearly identical to our own. In the preview I suspected the premise was going to be a 'what if' like story in which we were going to see what the lives of our leads would look like had they made other choices in their lives specifically what would Lola's like look like had she and law school boyfriend Dre remained together. However the episode turned out to be dream Lola has after fighting with both Mark & Robin. I don't want to pan the story too much but suffice it to say it wasn't the actors who phoned in their work in this episode. Most of the flaws were the fault of production and specifically a misstep by those in the writers room. While normally I don't have any negative critiques for the brilliantly talented cast I will say the actor who plays Luke was depicted in a way that all I can do is hope it was a joke that merely didn't land however based on some of the very "interesting" character choices that were made it came across as boarderline mocking and offensive. I'm unsure if the character was written to be this way or if the actor made a choice however seeing as how I may never know I'd like to think that it's resemblance to certain stereotypes was unintentional.
Still one bad episode isn't enough to alienate me. After how many hours of entertainment this show has brought into my life I won't be so fickle to turn my back on it due to one bad episode and I just hope OWN picks up a 4th season and even a 5th. I never watched Own till All Rise and I doubt I'd watch if it weren't on OWN.
The return of season 3 on Own has made me so happy and they've made every strong episode until this one. I especially enjoyed the 2 parter that looks to be setting up a potential multi episode or possibly multi season antagonist for the series in the form of an apparent sociopath who Luke gets cleared of murder charges only for Mark to learn he may in fact be a serial killer but doesn't yet have adequate evidence to charge him.
This episode I have no doubt was fun for the brilliantly talented cast to film. It however didn't fit too well in a series that is so based in a world that looks to be nearly identical to our own. In the preview I suspected the premise was going to be a 'what if' like story in which we were going to see what the lives of our leads would look like had they made other choices in their lives specifically what would Lola's like look like had she and law school boyfriend Dre remained together. However the episode turned out to be dream Lola has after fighting with both Mark & Robin. I don't want to pan the story too much but suffice it to say it wasn't the actors who phoned in their work in this episode. Most of the flaws were the fault of production and specifically a misstep by those in the writers room. While normally I don't have any negative critiques for the brilliantly talented cast I will say the actor who plays Luke was depicted in a way that all I can do is hope it was a joke that merely didn't land however based on some of the very "interesting" character choices that were made it came across as boarderline mocking and offensive. I'm unsure if the character was written to be this way or if the actor made a choice however seeing as how I may never know I'd like to think that it's resemblance to certain stereotypes was unintentional.
Still one bad episode isn't enough to alienate me. After how many hours of entertainment this show has brought into my life I won't be so fickle to turn my back on it due to one bad episode and I just hope OWN picks up a 4th season and even a 5th. I never watched Own till All Rise and I doubt I'd watch if it weren't on OWN.