6x10 Blitzgiving

4.5/10. When I was originally watching this series, I'd caught up to the show by this point (happened some time around Season 5, if I'm not mistaken), and whether it was simply burn out from binge watching or a decline in quality, I'm pretty sure it was this episode that made me stop make the show a priority to watch every week and let a few build up before I dove back in.

Which is to say, this is a pretty rough episode. The idea of someone being a "blitz," who always misses the cool things that happen after they leave the group is an, okay idea? I mean, I could see the show making more out of it in the early seasons. But having never seen Lost, I didn't have a lot of built-in good will for the actor who played the Blitz, who didn't seem like he was well-suited to the rhythms of a sitcom or the dynamic of the group, and the Lost insider jokes mostly fell flat to me.

Plus, even on rewatch, I'm just not invested in the Ted-Zoe stuff. I do have lots of goodwill for Jennifer Morison as Zoe from her stellar turn on House, but I also don't think she meshes with the show particularly well either. Plus, the entire development between her and Ted has felt somewhat rushed. Despite the good work done in the museum episode, I just don't buy into them having this slap-slap-kiss chemistry the show is seemingly trying to force on the two of them. Plus, the whole stepmother reveal was pretty poorly motivated and not nearly as a neat as some of the show's other twists in that vein.

The episode wasn't devoid of anything good though. "The Gentlemen," replete with everyone repeating the line for days afterward feels like one of those genuine inside jokes over something silly that friend groups have, and the gang's last cab driver (who plays the main security guard on Community!) had some good, semi-meta laugh lines about needing addresses and not just instructions to "take us home." But overall, this is one of the weaker episodes in a season that's already felt like a step down.