If you want to continue from where the infinitely superior episode "Anne" left off, skip to the last 5 minutes of the show and prepare to be annoyed.
"Misère" is a lookback at what Liz has been doing the last several episodes. You know, all the stunts she's pulled and been complicit in. Like the Chemical Mary thing, orchestrating the almost plane crash, Dembe being taken by Townsend's torture doctor, the explosive expert being tortured and badly beaten, all those innocent people getting killed last week, we get to see Liz's side of that. You see, it's okay that she was a part of all this, because she feels really bad about some of it! It's okay that she has embarked on this path of destruction because she has remorse for Dembe getting grabbed and her "avatar" killing Chemical Mary! She even vomitted once, see how bad she feels!!
Liz is still totally a good person. She's just upset that Red won't tell her who he really is and goes to great lengths to tell more and more extravagant lies and because he killed Katarina. Those things completely justify her recent actions, Liz can kill a puppy and claim it's because of what Red did and she'd be absolved of any wrong doing. At least that's what the writers seem to believe and want the audience to believe. Katarina murdered, lied, and kept things from Liz as well, but it's okay for mommy to do those things because this show is a bloody wreck. They botched everything with Katarina that led up to this nonsense. I'd be maybe 50% less disgusted if from season 7 onward, the Katarina story didn't suck so bad. It would also help if Liz was ever written as being intelligent enough to pull off this level of crap mostly on her own. Does Liz absorb the intelligence of others at will? Does she have a psychic link that allows her to take others smarts and leave them dumb as dirt while she pulls off these grand schemes and master manipulations? Or do the powers that be think so little of the audience who has faithfully kept watching all these years?
Liz is accompanied in her journey by the untrustworthy Skip, who I expect to betray Liz as soon as Townsend is fed up with her. If Liz could buy him off, what's to stop Townsend from doing the same? Speaking of which, the ever annoying Townsend is as unlikeable, psychotic, and obnoxious around Liz as he is without her around, but don't worry! Liz finds his actions detestable, so her good moral standing is still in check. How awful of mean old Red to force her to work woth such a dangerous psychopath. I know Red is no saint, but he is not an unhinged freak willing slaughter massive amounts of people the way this Townsend lunatic is. Red doesn't enjoy murder. He may enjoy revenge, but not murder for the sake of murder. Townsend relishes in it, but clearly, Townsend is the lesser of the evils.
Agnes has been pawned off on some random French (?) woman Liz barely knows. Liz would rather team up with a cartoony supervillain and a personality-free henchman than be with her kid, not all that surprising. Liz's decisions are guided by a hallucination or maybe a ghost of the long dead, Mr. Kaplan. Liz can't stick to her guns about all of this on her own, she needs reassurance from a figment of her imagination. I always liked Kaplan's character, even when she was at war with Red, but her inclusion here felt odd. Very, very odd. Liz barely had any contact with Kaplan after the fake out death escape plan went awry, but she has all this insight in what Kaplan would do. Sure, that makes sense.
It wasn't bad enough that they had Red fall for the half baked stunts she pulled that led to Marvin being tortured and Red's bank account being drained. It wasn't bad enough to devote an entire episode to hollow attempts at showing Liz is still a good person, she was simply pushed too far. It wasn't enough that this episode showed the intelligent, fiery, force of nature Anne being manipulated by Liz and insta-trusting a woman who she met through a fender bender. Nope, we got one last "screw you, dumb loyal audience" from whoever is calling the shots. In the last maybe 3 minutes, the episode picks up where "Anne" left off. Liz and Anne struggle, Anne falls down and hits her head hard on the pointed end of a coffee table. Glass breaks and blood flows. We're left uncertain about Anne's fate, but it does not look good. Who knows if we'll find out next week, we might be treated to Liz playing bocce ball with Townsend while the taskforce mourns over how much they miss their super awesome friend, Liz and roll their eyes at Red. I don't know what to expect anymore, and that's not being said in a complimentary way. When it's good, it's fantastic. When it bad, it can get quite abysmal.
I don't like giving low ratings to any show, especially not one I have stuck with for nearly eight years. Regardless of the story content, the cast and crew did their jobs so I'm giving it a 5. Story wise- it gets a 2/10. Yes, I'm annoyed about what happened to Anne, but that's not the main problem here. There have been plenty of great supporting and short term characters written out in ways that were impactful, but not rage inducing. It's why this happened that ticks me off, the convenience coupled with the stupidity of it all. Utterly senseless. A freak lightning strike would have been better than this.
I don't know what behind the scenes drama is going on, there are rumors about a pay dispute and that's why MB has been gone. Some people are mad at her and say the writers are doing the best they can given the circumstances, but the writers have been failing the Liz character for a while and this episode isn't winning her any new fans. This was a very aggravating episode to endure. The only happy viewers are the people with the twisted view of Liz being a 100% right super genius and the shipping faction that wanted Anne out of the picture. The fan theories about what this episode would be were better than what it was.
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