Media Diary

April & May (& a bit of June) 2026

Life caught up with me big time in April, but that didn’t stop me from watching a lot of stuff. A daily media diary is too much to keep up with (big ups to me) so here’s April (& May) condensed to season reviews and ongoing watches.

Pitt Season 2

Going into this season I was concerned about a few things; How do you make this premise longform? Its structure is antithetical to season long character development. How do you stretch the shift to 15 hours? Last season’s mass casualty event isn’t something that can be repeated every season. Where are these characters headed? The newbies have been thrown into a baptism by fire and survived it. Robbie came head to head with his demons. The supporting characters each had too many moments to count. How can you keep up that intensity in a satisfying way?

Yet somehow, despite all that, season 2 did brilliantly. Despite season 1’s brilliance, I went into this season very cautiously but I’m coming out of it with complete faith in season 3.
I think the structure of this show has something interesting to offer in how we do only see 15 hours of real time development in characters, but we see it juxtaposed against a multiple month jump from season to season. It gives the viewer so much to unpack as we get to know these characters all over again, seeing what makes them tick in the way you get to know a friend through multiple meetings. It makes us constantly second guess what we see and what we don’t see. Robbie is a great example of this in that when he road his bike to work without a helmet it was clear he didn’t practice the care for his own life he preached to patients, but the true extent that he’s been whittled down to the bone isn’t obvious until the end of the season even with the signs there all along. Times this by every character in the show and there is plenty to constantly unpack, and plenty of reason to rewatch this season with a fresh set of eyes.
The mass casualty event wasn’t repeated. It turns out the seasons don’t actually need to be capped off so dramatically; charting, working unpaid overtime, and the workaholic nature of everyone makes extending the shift the rule, not the exception. The timing of this being July 4th, with the impending of Robbie’s sabbatical, works nicely. The cyberattack also added some spice to the sauce, although it is a true testament to this show that I think the stakes would have practically been the same if it wasn’t included…still, it was fun to watch the kids learn how to use a fax machine (they’re my age but I’m just built different, I can fax with the best of them… probably). I’m curious what next season will bring but I firmly trust they will not jump the shark, and I have complete faith in the tension of the premise of the show to be enough to keep it all dramatic for 15 hours.
And finally, where are these characters headed… There’s almost too much to unpack. The standout of the season was most definitely Langdon to me. For better or for worse, I am a source of almost infinite forgiveness. He’s put in the work and I believe he deserves some slack, but I can also completely understand the characters that don’t give it to him. Him being the one to give Robbie the straight talk about where he’s headed was masterfully written, capping off 15 hours of build up. Huckleberry & Santos, also fantastic. Santos' inability to directly communicate her wants and needs, and her explosive nature when it comes the slightest hint of child neglect or abuse, do rub me the wrong way somewhat. However it does so in a way where I love the character, and understand what drives her to be this way. And it makes me all the more excited to see Huckleberry work as a foil to her, and her to him. I truly hope we see them bring out the best in each other. Mel…sweet Mel… I do like that we see the inverse of her compared to season 1. While she may have been on the brink of it being too much for her in that season, in this season it absolutely is. Between the deposition and realising her sister does in fact have a sex drive let alone a sex life, she is just caught between it all. But her extreme empathy gets her through all of it, even if her furrowed brow breaks my heart. I love that she keeps her head on straight and comes out of it better, even if the process does push her to the edge of that.
Now take all of that, and apply it (in varying degrees and inversions) to Robbie. He hasn’t put in the work; his empathy and care for the hospital is driving him to the brink; he cannot communicate it and he cannot ask for help. There is truly too much to unpack, but it is all masterfully executed in how it leads to that scene with the baby. The way he breaks down, opens up, and lays it all out. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. I could rewatch this season a thousand times just to see it all build up to this scene.

Season 3 will be interesting. I’m excited to see all my favourite people again, and to see them tortured down to the core traits of their personality. I am so excited to see how they’ve changed, and how they’ve stayed the same. I’ve left out far more than I’ve included in this, and hope to talk about it much more as I finally get around to rewatching this alone and with friends. Main thing I’ve omitted is the torturous inner turmoil within me of thinking Abbot is daddy as fuck but ACAB.

For All Mankind

S05E01&E02

It’s fine. I do like this show in broad strokes, but the scene-to-scene moments and dialogue always do feel like this show is written by people who are not quite smart enough to write it. You’re gonna knock out guards by depressurisation, then when you go into the cabin with them there you’re not gonna disarm them? Come on man. Still, love Ed and love seeing him old as balls. I also really love seeing Happy Valley as a community. Alex is also an interesting character who I’m enjoying so far, but it can truly teeter either way.

S05E03

Extended send off for Ed which is nice, but also generally doesn’t move things forward too much. But I do like seeing how far we’ve come and being reminded that this show started in the 1960s. Hate to see Ed go but I think this is probably best for his character…he really never learned to stop being a total hardass, huh? The case of who is doing the deliveries at night isn’t too interesting for me. It’s a corporation and the cops are in on it… as a plot point it’s fine in radicalising Boyd, but I don’t understand why the show thinks the audience isn’t piecing it together.

S05E04

Jarret stuff is interesting, excited to see where that goes. Big potential for being annoying but that’s the Stevens family tradition. Dev is so up his own ass it’s crazy, do love his moments with Alex, but generally do not like him much. He’s just liberal Elon Musk. Also no idea what the plan was with leaking the Helios files, Alex. 5 people work there, you asked for access to that file THAT DAY, and your best friend just started interning at the news outlet that broke the story…incidentally where only 5 people work.

S05E05

Thank GOD the mystery wasn’t dragged on too long. Dev knowing it was Alex makes this a lot easier, even if everyone is too dumb to realise it. It would be an interesting plot point if Helios was protecting him but I have no idea why Alex’s coworkers would agree to do so, especially if his manager is the one getting the heat for it. The cop stuff feels like baby’s first cops-are-corrupt story. Boyd’s partner being on the night shift was a little bit of a surprise, but also not really. He’s so openly against the rights of the public and just a stereotype of a cop… Him being Dale from Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is the main thing that blinded me to it a bit. The protest stuff is interesting, but this show constantly being written from a liberal point of view that tries to be in the middle makes it a bit grating. I think the show wants the audience to see the extremes of both, and find a more diplomatic solution in the middle; but I watch this and think fuck the corps, fuck the capitalist governments, and let the people of Mars govern themselves.

S05E06

Writing this like a month after the fact…idk must have been fine I guess.

S05E07 May 31st

I remember being extremely whelmed by the previous episodes, but I think that was in part because I thought this was an 8 episode season. Realising that there’s more runway has given me more patience for the show, and the last episode brilliantly set up this episode which truly had it all. The politicking and fiendish schemes, the interpersonal dynamics, the spacefaring. Kelly Baldwin’s decision to take the Sojourner to Titan despite the captain’s orders is such a brilliant final season bookend to Ed’s Apollo 10 decision that kicked off the whole series. Morally idk if I can agree with her, but it was a risk in the right moment when the success really counted, and I can’t argue with that. Also the whole crew stepping onto Titan on the count of 3 together, amazing, tears in my eyes. This episode reminds me of why I love this show and while the set up maybe could have been better, now that we’re in the middle of the conflict of the season I am having a blast.

S05E08 June 1st

The politicking continues! Love the hard decisions made and the deals being struck, the scrappiness of the Marsies is great but also makes for a lot of risk and room for error which comes to a head with the marine recon team being on the station as the platform blows. Jarret’s screams in the helmet silenced by the vacuum of space as she sees Ruiz’s dead body is amazing horror. Also love the stuff going on over on Titan, I’m glad that Kelly doing what Ed wanted to do on Apollo 10 is having consequences, consequences Ed would be happy to deal with but Kelly less so. Very interested to see how this will turn out when the commander of the Sojourner discovers she was the one who altered the flight path.

S05E09 June 1st

Really great to see this all coming to a head. The ruthlessness of the M6 military forces going full lethal really emphasises how the Earth governments do not care about the people when resources are at stake. The same police force that had been violently enforcing those same private property protections getting their comeuppance with blue on blue both shows how that lethality is also handled with incompetence as well as underlines the brutality of the invasion. Pairing Jarret and Haskell, one anti-Mars marine with one native Martian marine, also works so well to emphasise the different challenges both of them are facing as they go into their first real combat against a bunch of militia peoples defending their home. Their kinship mixed with their differences comes to a brilliant head with Alex shooting Haskell and Jarret putting aside differences to make sure Haskell gets the medical care he needs. This is For All Mankind at its best, complicated positions and opinions being forced into a pressure cooker of a situation. Curious where the cliffhanger of Alex taking Haskell and Jarett to Helios will lead, especially given Dev’s tenuous position between being a friend and being a capitalist. While earlier in this season has felt down the middle of how it portrayed cops and violent authority, I feel like it has been setting up the fact that when chips are on the table they are ruthless and evil. Amazingly it does so while still having characters we care for embedded in those violent groups of oppression.

S05E10 June 1st

I thought this was the final season lmao. Intrigued where this will all go, but excited! Miles as the new governor of a free Mars with his daughter knowing he was an informant for the MPK is interesting, as well as Jarrett changing her name to Stevens and deciding to stay on Mars. The death of Kelly is tragic but beautiful, the shots of her in the bioluminescent lake were transcendent. I’m happy Dev is connecting with the people of Happy Valley but I also feel like there were hints of this show’s middle ground politics seeping in as the destruction of the M6 command meant that the ceasefire couldn’t be communicated…but Happy Valley was defending itself and fighting a war strategically that was started by the M6. I suppose that resistance is not criticised too intensely by the show, and Mars becomes free, so I can’t complain too much. Excited where this will all go and what the final season will be like now that life has been discovered…I almost thought Kelly would meet intelligent life at the lake when the water first rippled, and I thought it would almost jump the shark if she did…almost…but I was more excited by the prospect of it happening than worried, so I think if that’s where season 6 ends I will be 100% here for it.

The Boys

S05E01&E02

Excited to be back. The first episodes of a season always hit me very hard in reminding me how gaudy and slightly gauche this show is, but I truly love it for that. The ad-ridden concentration camp complete with an attached Homelander burger feels ridiculous, but whenever this really tests my suspension of disbelief of just how juvenile the world is, reality somehow always seems to one up it. A-Train’s death and his defiance of Homelander feels so incredibly earned. Not feeling great about Kimiko’s dialogue, she doesn’t quite feel like a real person given how much heart she had in her less vocal performance. Willing to forgive it but it’s a constant reminder of how self-indulgent this show is…a trait that makes me love and hate it.
The Teenage Kix were fun, love that there’s always a new little niche of comics to make fun of. And I genuinely enjoyed that we seemed to be back to being in a location and trying to kill a supe. This show has gotten a bit big for its boots. I sometimes really miss the grounded nature of that first season and the constant tension of just how do you kill these bastards? This wasn’t that, but it was closer to it.

S05E03

This episode was fine. I liked the element of being trapped in the bunker with Translucent’s son, and just waiting for the other shoe to drop. But at this point we know the characters aren’t going to just die (at least not yet) so that tension wasn’t quite there for me. Stanley Edgar is also a son-of-a-bitch and we all know it, interesting to revisit him somewhat but I don’t feel at all curious about knowing more of the character. Liked the scene with him and MM though, just a real reminder that this struggle against capital will be there for MM even when supes are gone. Homelander and Soldier Boy are also fun together. Seeing Homelander put down a peg and in a situation where he (probably) can’t just kill someone who pisses him off is a nice mix up from the constant ass kissing. Keeps things fresh on both ends, uh, so to speak. The Homelander-is-a-god thing also is impeccably timed by that Trump-as-Jesus post. Honestly may have jumped the shark for me but thank god for reality proving to me that there’s bigger sharks to jump out there.

S05E04

This episode was a lot more fun than the last one. Back to The Boys being back in a doggum situation. The setting and reveal of the location was creepy, and I liked the idea of The Boys turning in on each other (although I do feel the writing isn’t quite good enough to really bring out anything too interesting). The reveal of Quinn and seeing Soldier Boy on the cusp of breaking down was great. Felt absolutely no tension as the gang was screaming downstairs while Homelander was upstairs. Cannot help but think of Homelander zooming overhead as they tried to figure out how to kill Translucent in season 1, and how absolutely nerve wracking that was. That’s totally gone now. Still really interested in this world, these characters, and where it all goes…but it is a reminder that this show likely peaked in season 1 for me.

S05E05

This was a really great episode! I loved following the villains individually, and it made me realise that this is where the show really shines instead of following the Boys around constantly (although their segment was great too). The characterisation of this episode is so great because it's a great moment to stop and get to know these characters and see where they're headed and why. Unfortunately tainted by knuckle dragging fans online not knowing what the word "filler" means and thinking if no punches are being thrown nothing is happening, which has never been what the show is about.

S05E06

Interesting consequences for The Deep, Homelander’s conversation with The Legend shows he just wants to be seen as human (even if he really doesn’t), Sage’s failure to predict Soldier Boy giving HL the V could have used more set up

S05E07

Interesting to see Homelander fully comfortable and acting completely untouchable in a way that he wasn’t before. Frenchie’s “I bet you never danced a day in your life” is so poignant. Unsure how the Boys will wrap this up if Komiko’s radiation experiment didn’t work, especially with Soldier Boy on ice.

S05E08

Pretty good, all narrative threads tied up nicely but supe deaths were a bit too quick and easy. Would have loved to really see them get tortured, especially Homelander with the crowbar.