#they managed to make eddie's breakup compelling and emotional and riveting to watch

[lovecolibri]

I'm enjoying all the flailing, memes, and righteous indignation on Chim's behalf about the guy slated to "replace" him because we know he's *probably* not going to be around much especially once Chim gets back.

However, after 10 episodes of losing Maddie AND Chim, and yet getting next to no info about Hen, Bobby, and the other new character Ravi (who is actually part of the team not some guest star), and instead having to suffer through the focus being on a r*pist (and copaganda), and tay kay's backstory and "investigation" that she added nothing to but yet we lost firefam scenes for, I think it's totally fair to be a little worried/upset about yet ANOTHER side character being added to draw focus from the mains.

5a has set up some good things, and there were some great scenes and performances (Kenneth Choi Emmy WHEN?), but just because the overall story set up is good, does not mean the season has been well executed or couldn't have been handled better.

Personally? I was re-watching season 4 episodes while the season was still airing, but I have zero desire to watch 5a as a whole right now. I'll probably suffer through it at some point doing a full re-watch because I'm a completist, but I cannot imagine anything happening in 5b that will fix the issues I have with 5a. Because the issues aren't with the tension and distance between the mains, or the darker, heavier emotional tone because those are purposeful and until 5b airs, all that will feel incomplete and uncomfortable. But nothing in 5b is going to fix the fact that half of Ghost Stories didn't need to happen. (And not just because it had nothing to do with the mains, I mean that if the reporter never got involved, Detective Lou would have still done exactly the same thing, and still solved the case the same way, so it was utterly pointless to show her doing anything.) Nothing in 5b is going to make suffering through the reporter's backstory worth it, or learning literally anything about Jeffrey Hudson and his man-parts, and his harem.

I just don't like that it seems to be you either think "the whole show is hopeless because I'm not getting what I want now" or "everyone who is upset is just dumb and does't understand tv". It can be a little of both. You can be excited for what is to come and the overall long-form story, and still dislike how 5a was handled and how much it focused on characters outside the firefam that we don't care about, and be worried that 5b could be more of the same. You can understand where the larger story is going and be really excited about it, and still dread that trend from 5a will continue and we will waste more screen time focused on side characters instead of getting screen time for the characters we know and love and watch the show for.