A Little TLC(w): The New Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre: Season 1, Episode 33 (1986)

*Episode premise spoilers. CW: suicide.*

Another good episode. The relationship drama is off the charts, and even as Zhang Wuji tries to address other pressing issues, the love polygon keeps creeping to the fore.

Zhou Zhiruo has become convinced that Zhang Wuji’s heart belongs to Zhao Min. To be fair, when he heard a lady had come to see him, he did hurry into the room calling Miss Zhao’s name, not realizing that it was actually Miss Zhou. Now he has his work cut out for him trying to convince her that she’s still the one he wants to marry. And he thought convincing people that he didn’t kill his uncle was hard!

For a few episodes now, the story has been getting on the Zhao Min train, so it doesn’t surprise that this issue is rearing its head between Zhang Wuji and Zhou Zhiruo. And Miss Zhou’s distress is very understandable—apart from feeling jilted by Wuji, she’s gone against the oath she swore to her late Priestess for the sake of this relationship, and now she feels like she’s thrown everything away for nothing. (On the other head, she never told Wuji about the severity of this oath.) Once she decides that Wuji loves Miss Zhao, she attempts suicide, which is horrific for everyone involved. It’s tragic that she feels this is her only option, and of course Wuji is frantic when he discovers her, especially since both of his parents died by suicide when he was a child.

Speaking of Zhang Wuji’s parents, he would do well to remember that they were sworn enemies from opposing sects before they were stranded on a deserted island and fell in love. Despite his protests, it’s clear that he has feelings for both of these women, and his insistence on staying with Zhou Zhiruo is in no small part because she’s who he’s “supposed” to want. He obviously cares about her and doesn’t want to hurt her, but in this instance, his nobility and desire to do the right thing is hurting both of them. If he does find himself continually drawn to Zhao Min, it would be better to break off his engagement to Miss Zhou and accept that she should find love elsewhere. By denying what seems to be his heart and sticking with Miss Zhou because he wants to honor his vows, he’s prolonging the problem.

That said, Zhang Wuji is definitely really confused about all this. For someone who’s a preternaturally good martial artist and a noble sect leader, he seems to struggle to fully know his own heart. Zhou Zhiruo tells him, “I know you sincerely want to love me. But you’re bewildered by that demoness.” And honestly, he’s not sure what’s true. He cares for both of them, even though he doesn’t necessarily want to have feelings for Zhao Min. He doesn’t know if he still loves Miss Zhou as much as he once thought, and he doesn’t know if he can really trust Miss Zhao. He knows he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but no matter what he does, he seems to be making everything worse.

Other Doctor Lives: Jessica Jones: Season 1, Episode 10 – “1,000 Cuts” (2015)

*Spoilers for episode 9.*

Just a heads up, I wouldn’t be able to say too much about this episode without discussing what happened in the previous one. After a pivotal episode 9, we’re looking at its fallout here.

Jessica thought she finally got one over on Kilgrave. He was in her custody, imprisoned in a way that he couldn’t compel anyone to do anything without Jessica’s oversight. But at the last, crucial moment, everything went wrong. Now, Kilgrave is in the wind, and the characters are split between those who are trying to scramble together a salvage of the situation and those who are reckoning with their past actions. Jessica has discovered an unexpected ace up her sleeve, but she’s not sure how far she can go in wielding it.

Episodes like “Sin Bin” are the ones that get people buzzing (or at least they did, back in the days when new episodes came out once a week and everyone watched them at the same time—this show came during the early years of the “I’m only up to episode 6, no spoilers!” era.) As such, an episode like “1,000 Cuts” might seem like it doesn’t measure up. It doesn’t match the excitement of Jessica facing off against a caged Kilgrave and his dramatic, last-minute escape. But you can’t keep building the stakes indefinitely. That’s how you wind up with stuff like billions of Daleks in the sky in a Doctor Who season finale—it’s unsustainable. Instead, you need to reel the tension back just a hair.

Not that the episode isn’t tense or action-packed. But rather than an explosion, it’s a series of smaller bursts as characters regroup and try to figure out where they go from here. Trish and Malcolm both work to help in what ways they know how. Between the two, Trish wins this round, as she keeps her eyes on the prize and takes care of some important business while Malcolm makes some guilt-driven rookie mistakes. Meanwhile, Jeri realizes just what Kilgrave is capable of, and an unstable Simpson rejoins the mix as a wildcard presence.

In the middle of it all is Jessica. You have to admire her tenacity. She’s come up against Kilgrave multiple times now with a variety of different plans, and she hasn’t managed to pull out too many decisive wins. But for all that, she keeps wiping off her bloody knuckles and going back in for more. This is a big difference from the Jessica who wanted to run in the first episode. She’s in a tough position here. Although she’s found a small measure of control she can wrest back from Kilgrave, she still knows how much damage he can leave in his wake. In a classic abuser move, he likes to threaten to hurt other people for “look what you made me do” reasons, and so, no matter how Jessica might be able to protect herself, he’s still a dangerous man to tangle with.

Speaking of Kilgrave, David Tennant once again cleans up hard. His scenes with Jeri in the first half of the episode are really good, and there’s a great mid-episode encounter with Jessica. Man, he’s just so reprehensible. It’s very effective, though, to see how confident he is about his assurance that he’s not the villain here. I know they say every villain is really the hero in their mind, but it’s not often that I see an actor pull that off so convincingly. And, as with so many things involving Kilgrave, it’s at once horrifying and pathetic. Horrifying that he can say with complete sincerity that he’s never killed anyone (because he just compels them to kill themselves or one another, after all,) pathetic that he’s so deluded that he thinks, amid his extortion and emotional torment, that he’ll get Jessica to genuinely love this.

Side note: there’s an odd moment in this episode where Kilgrave says, “Well…”, much like the Tenth Doctor does. It’s weird, because Tennant’s inflection in that moment sounds just like the Doctor (albeit with a slightly posher accent,) and yet, I still see/hear nothing but Kilgrave. Good for him.

Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Gregory Eddie (Abbott Elementary)

Abbott Elementary had pretty much always been on my list of shows to get to eventually. It was critically acclaimed, I liked Trevor Noah’s interviews with different cast members, and it overall seemed like the kind of thing I’d be into. But it was actually autism that finally made me prioritize watching it.

Quick story: I’ve said before that reading people’s autistic headcanons for Ariel and Eric after the live-action remake was one of the final pieces that helped me crystalize my understanding of my own brain. It was as I was searching for more comments and observations about Autistic AF Ariel that I came across a post highlighting Black characters who don’t get enough acknowledgement as being autistic. It included Chidi from The Good Place and Frenchie from Our Flag Means Death, who I already loved, and OJ from Nope and Gregory from Abbott Elementary, who I’d not yet met. I quickly watched Nope, which led to me writing Neurodivergent Alley in the first place(!!!), but even though it took a while longer to carve out some room on my TV slate, I adored Abbott Elementary, and Gregory, so much. I’m all caught up now and ready for season 4!

Gregory Eddie—oh man, where do I start? He has plenty of classic hallmarks for autistic characters. He’s incredibly particular, liking things to go a certain way and ruffled when they don’t, which makes it understandable why he didn’t really see himself as an elementary teacher long-term in the beginning. He acquaints himself well with rules and schedules, always ready to rattle off some specifics when one of his fellow teachers is unsure. He speaks in a relatively flat, softspoken voice and gives subtly panicked looks to the mockumentary film crew whenever he’s uncomfortable in a social situation. He’s super knowledgeable about gardening, which is a special interest of his, although early in the show he doesn’t want to be seen caring about the school garden. He has no idea how to do small talk and doesn’t really see the point of it.

And then, there’s the food. In season 1, there’s an episode where teachers are debating the best pizza place in Philly. When asked to weigh in, Gregory cites a (made-up) pizza place from Baltimore, embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t like pizza. Not that he doesn’t eat it because he only does healthy food, not that he can’t eat it because of allergies. He doesn’t like pizza. In fact, he doesn’t like most foods. Once he’s forced to come clean to the other teachers, Gregory admits that there are only about four or five foods that he really likes and eats. Our man is out here doing an episode about safe foods, and there are fans who think he’s not autistic? Come on.

One thing I love about Gregory is that most of his facial expressions are pretty subtle—he sometimes has to specifically tell people when he’s excited about something, because it’s not always clear—but on the occasions when he does smile, it’s the total opposite of that. His smile is really toothy in a way that looks a little fake, like it’s something he had to teach himself how to do. But even though it looks fake, it always feels 100% genuine. I can feel the happiness radiating off him every time he does it. Excellent acting by Tyler James Williams there!

And look, I will very definitely be talking a lot more about Gregory and Janine sometime, but for now I’ll just say that he expresses his feelings for her in such a beautifully autistic way. He’s honest with her, even if it’s not flattering, because he thinks it will help her. He recognizes the difficulty of getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things, so he acknowledges what a big undertaking it is for her to do that. And the scene where he quietly reveals that he watched Night at the Museum because Janine said it was good is such a moment. “I take all your recommendations seriously—I wanna know why you like stuff,” is so swoonworthy when he says it.