KrisS-68

This does not feel like an appropriate send off for the first major character death in 8 seasons. This episode, along with the past two, have been oddly paced and rushed. While Angela Bassett did a phenomenal job portraying the grief of her character, the lack of emotional moments for the rest of the characters seemed inappropriate for what was going on and confirmed my fear of the writers not properly allowing the characters to grieve. While Kenneth Choi's character's anger was well acted and realistic to the character, it's incredibly concerning that the writers seemed to hint at him using alcohol as a coping mechanism and displaying addictive behaviors while Bobby was a recovering addict. Going off the shows track record, I fear this will be one of many things that don't get addressed. Additionally, the rest of the cast (specifically Buck, Eddie, and Ravi) seem to have no emotional moments, which seems especially uncharacteristic for Buck. It seems as if any opportunities for grief from the cast were put aside for the B plot that went on too long. While it was a helpful way to characterize Athena's grief, that b plot over stayed its' welcome and took most of the emotion out of the episode. The promo for the upcoming episode seems to imply things will be somewhat returning to normal for the cast, fully solidifying that the writers should not have done this plot if they weren't prepared and able to write actual grieving storylines for all the cast. Overall, Bobby's actual send off seemed rushed and not fleshed out, however Angela and Kenneth gave great performances with the script they were given and the choice to have him buried in Minnesota was touching, although confusing as it also takes him away from his living family in LA.