Huh, I had kind of the opposite reaction, Katie!
But I can see where you are coming from. I was having too much of a good time to sit back and truly analyze it. :-) I do agree that it was basically filler. Lighthearted and fun.. Preparing us for next week when we are certainly going to be crying our eyes out for another year.
I know, right? I'm trying to steel myself up for Sunday...going to be a rough one!
And yeah, like I said, I didn't hate this episode. I had a lot of fun and loved many, many parts of it. Character-wise, it was very strong (again, if we ignore that one section). Plot-wise, it was weaker. I mean, it's hard to compete plot-wise when you've got no Moriarty driving things. So I don't even know if I can fault them for that!
And yeah, I live in a world of critiquing novels, so I can't help myself but analyze shows/books/movies as I watch/read them. Overall, I'm really, really glad they did the things they did in this episode, because I feel like it builds the characters up for whatever is coming next. But I feel like all their effort is going into character arcs rather than plot arcs. I was cool with it in episode 1, because heck, we needed it there. But I would've liked to have seen a more balanced episode 2 in terms of times devoted to character dev vs plot.
But yeah. Despite that.
MY HEART. FOREVER. THIS SHOW.
