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Raylan and Mansell show down. That is the official FX description for “The Smoking Gun,” and naturally, it made for some assumptions as to just what exactly this penultimate episode of Justified: City Primeval would entail. The big assumption was that this would be the episode in which Raylan Givens finally shoots Clement Mansell, but that didn’t end up being the case. Instead, the promised showdown was yet another conversation between these two characters embroiled in this series’ strange case of cat and mouse.

A couple years ago Helen Lewis published a piece on the status of women novelists that, to me, came frustratingly close to a novel understanding of a growing gender imbalance before skittering off into well-worn complaints about looks. Yes, it’s true as Lewis says that women writers are judged on their appearance in a way that men simply aren’t, and that sucks. But when Lewis references “an asymmetric value system where men do, and women are,” it speaks to a problem that is now more complicated and harder to detect than women writers being judged for their looks.

Shows like LET THE RIGHT ONE IN need a lot of technical precision to effectively tell the story. It’s a play about vampires, so there must be blood. And sound design that chills you to the bone, whether it’s the spooky entrances or snapping of neck bones. Lights that flicker and pop and accentuate the action are a must, too. Perhaps it was too ambitious to add automated set pieces to the mix, as one rogue platform nearly took out the entire set during the second act of tonight’s performance.

“You sure I’m the right man for this?” “No.” Masters of the Air is, as I’ve noted in past reviews, a show that is essentially standing on the shoulders of giants. Band of Brothers and The Pacific loom large for many viewers as high watermarks of the modern representation of wartime storytelling. (I think it’s safe to say that Band of Brothers is always going to have a bit more of a passionate fanbase, but they’re both excellent series.

“Leaving a lot of good men behind.” Now that we have arrived at the final chapter of Masters of the Air, it’s worth identifying when you have to throw your hands up and accept that baffling creative choices are being made as opposed to trying to figure out why they’re being made at all. In the case of this series, it came with Robert Daniels (Ncuti Gatwa) stating to his fellow Tuskegee Airmen that “We’re in the heart of the fatherland now, boys,” after they and their fellow POWs are marched tens of miles in terribly cold weather (and then transported by train) to Stalag XIII in Nuremberg.

Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of Max comedy Our Flag Means Death, which returns for its second season in October. With Max continuing to shorten its schedule with multiple episodes a week, we figured we’d take the opportunity to reflect back on the first season, so we’ll be posting reviews weekly-ish to fit it in before the premiere. A reminder that all future reviews will be exclusive to paid subscribers, (except the second season premiere) and yearly subscriptions are 20% off until 9/15.

The show must go on, but even as the audience takes their seats it’s clear that Cornley Drama Society are having problems as auditorium lights flicker and cables are woven through the stalls as the stage crew attempt to find an alternative power source. Mission accomplished, it’s show time, and what a show Peter Pan Goes Wrong turns out to be. A laugh out loud full on farce, Mischief Theatre’s take on the JM Barrie classic is a rollicking couple of hours that, just when you think you’ve seen it all, ramps up the mayhem to new eye-wateringly hilarious levels.

“I feel as if I’ve stepped into a time machine.” Do you ever have that feeling where you realize you’re embodying a recognizable meme? Maybe the “This is fine” dog in the burning room, or the kid who’s rocking out to some mysterious tune to the point where he’s near tears. It’s a modern sensation, naturally, but one that hit me like a ton of bricks halfway through “The Orpheus Syndrome.

Is Rick really worth it? That’s the question I kept asking myself during “Air Force Wong,” in part because the episode didn’t really require me to ask much else. Unity, the alien who assimilates entire civilizations, is back, and the President has the hots for Dr. Wong, Rick’s psychiatrist. Much silliness follows, a lot of it pretty funny, but the emotional core of the episode is Unity’s concern for Rick, a concern that drove her to take over the entire state commonwealth of Virginia when he won’t answer her voice mails.