Valley of the Dolls

After 2-3 disappointing episodes where the season felt like it was going nowhere, this episode was a complete turnaround. It went back to the basics of season 1, restoring my faith in the season. The intimate setting (Doreen's house with hilarious creepy dolls everywhere) and the witty dialogue were a refreshing change from the unrealistic events of earlier episodes.

Melissa was absolutely phenomenal. From her first second in the episode, she stole every scene and outshined the other actors-even Meryl Streep! Every line she delivered was hilarious. Her physical comedy (wigs, vodka cups, leopard leggings), comedy timing (every joke landed), and even her movements (she could just stand there and you couldn't take your eyes off her). She brought back the humor of seasons 1 and 2 and elevated the entire episode by multiple levels. Her catfight scenes with Meryl were fantastic, reminding me of the iconic fight between Goldie Hawn and Meryl in Death Becomes Her.

An amazing episode-so glad I stuck with this season! I will definitely rewatch this episode multiple times just because of Melissa to notice further nuances of her performance. I couldn't get enough!

I don't recall Charles mentioning his sister before. Here his brassy sister Doreen is played by a Melissa McCarthy.

Charles, Oliver and Mabel rush to safety looking for somewhere safe to stay. They decide Charles sister could be it. Only he has a strained relationship with Doreen.

Since her kids have left, Doreen has collected dolls. She is a sort of surrogate mum to them according to Oliver.

The safe house is less than safe. All and sundry turn up as Howard cannot keep his mouth shut.

At least Oliver gets to reveal his true feelings to Loretta.

It's an all star cast on this one. Well if you are going to have Meryl Streep appear. It is bound to be contractual that the rest of the guest stars would want to have scenes with them.

There is some knockabout comedy between Loretta and Doreen. The mystery does develop but slowly and with a few surprises.

We have loved this season. Overall, we think that it might be even better than season one, and miles better than seasons two or three. Certainly funnier.

That said, this episode was lousy, and the only stinker of the season so far. Sappy, contrived, and plenty of nothing happening. It had some funny moments early on, and picked up a little bit at the end, but the middle 2/3 was terrible.

The mystery is still interesting, although this episode did virtually nothing to move things along. Just treading water. The real problem was that the humor was largely MIA, and what little there was, was broad and lame.

The rebound flirtation between Oliver and Charles's sister was cringey, and things didn't improve when Meryl Streep showed up to confirm yet again that despite their repeated declarations of undying love, there is absolutely no chemistry between Streep and Short.

This season's first two episodes were good, but from there it has been atrocious. With this episode in particular I struggled to follow the plot, and the storyline plodded along without much happening. Unwatchable. One thing that certainly didn't help this season was the introduction of numerous additional superfluous characters who appear in bursts and then disappear.

This episode completely lost my attention and I looked forward to it ending.

Looking back, the first season was great, fresh and original, but they should have ended it there if they didn't have anything worthwhile to bring to the screen. The show is like a zombie stumbling forward in the dark, soulless and lifeless.

This is even worse than the previous pseudo-documentary episode, which at least had the benefit of being creative. This one is just filler, in which nothing much is accomplished. The storyline is just too thin to fill out a whole season.

So now Charles gets a much younger sister for no other reason than to create this filler episode. I found them completely unconvincing as siblings.

I hope they paid renowned thespian Meryl Streep a whole lot of money to disgrace herself by getting into a stupid catfight.

Hopefully this is just a midseason slump and the next episode will at least be useful and advance the plot.