✁

Emily has become a prominent leader, yes. She both hates politics and also plays the game, because she recognizes that by taking on the position of section chief, she can politically protect her team in a way that most other bureaucrats wouldn’t, because unlike them, she prioritizes her people over optics. What about that screams self important career politician. Emily is also still regularly out on the field, working closely with her team, and has not shown herself to become cold or detached, which to me demonstrates that she has fallen very far from her mother’s own example.

for 19x10:

the standout of this episode for me by far was luke. i was so glad that we were finally returning to his storyline again and watching him put himself in danger with a bomb no less genuinely put a pit in my stomach. we've seen him have to endure that sort of trauma over and over again throughout our time knowing him as a character and to watch him deliberately subject himself to that broke my heart. to me it was clearly an act of passive suicidality, not just trying to save a life, but deciding he was okay with the risk of losing his own in the process. i know they make that decision like every day in this job but this instance was way different and it was palpable as we watched him make that choice. i was genuinely fearful for him that entire time but nothing made my heart sink more than what came after oh my god. no part of me was prepared for that but that was one of the most emotional scenes for luke in the series imo. roxy continues to save his life even after she's gone and i think that's such a beautiful way to conclude that loss for him :( watching him leave the building so disoriented and tara's concern for him really moved me bc not only is his angel always gonna be in his heart but we're also directly reminded that he has a village of people who love and care for him. (luke and tara is one of my favorite underrated friendships of the show btw. i know we get a lot of laughs out of them but it's moments like these that really drive that friendship home and i just adore both of them)

next, i'm admittedly not the biggest voit fan and i never have been, but this plotline of his was by far the most moving in his entire run on the show and it made the development of his character feel really earned for us as an audience despite any times i may have been frustrated with his excessive screentime since the amnesia storyline. it really tugged on my heartstrings when he called rossi who immediately knew it was him and the tone the conversation took despite their history, and i also thought it was really sweet to see that interaction between him and penelope as well. what really got me though was everything between him and holly. she knew he was going to show up for her and when he did he was met with nothing but acceptance which i know had to be monumental for him after the guilt he was carrying as this new person with such a disgusting and twisted past. i did genuinely shed a tear watching holly hug him, tell him she loves him, and so easily call him "dad" when she came to know him as a monster and her worldview was shattered. the emotion really did land for both of them because that healed the both of them in a way they really needed. i had a feeling we were gonna see holly snap and go after the fan the way she did and damn that was badass i loved it!! go holly!! she's a tough cookie and i love that kid. and it once again broke me watching voit take the fall for her because even when he was actively evil the thing that mattered most to him was his family. again i'm saying this as someone that doesn't really care for voit, but the way they did this is just really great tv and great tv should make you feel something.

i also really loved seeing emily and jj interact with holly the way that they did. they brought a nurturing and gentle energy to her when she really needed it and i thought it was nice to see that dynamic explored even if it was only for a bit. we especially didn't really get that with emily in the past so i was pleased to see her present for this. on an unserious note the framing of the scene was kind of making me laugh because there was such an energy of holly having jemily as her new adoptive mothers like it was so funny to me i loved it though.

henry's moving in scene was sweet, it really was, but it unfortunately didn't move me very much just because i felt like we got far too many scenes with this exact energy this season. it becomes less impactful when it's repeated as many times as it was. penelope looked fucking adorable though!! if anyone has giffed her in this scene please direct me to it immediately

in that last scene with rossi i literally went "it's gonna whoosh voit away isn't it" and then what do you know it did! i burst out laughing i'm sorry but good for him for closing out that chapter LOL

TEMILY DRINKING AND RELAXING TOGETHER!!! I DREAMED OF HAVING DAYS LIKE THIS AGAIN!!! OHHH BE SO GLAD YOU COULDN'T HEAR ME WHEN EMILY APPEARED ON SCREEN NO ONE HAS EVER LOOKED BETTER THAN SHE DID IN THAT MOMENT WOW. i took so many screenshots of her and forgive me for the shallow lesbian rambling but holy shit the soft shiny shirt the way the buttons were open her hair falling off one shoulder her smile her nose her side profile her hands her energy FUCK everything about that scene was so fucking sexy i need her so desperately. let the poor girl have a real break though omg my baby 😭 i giggled when she was like VOIT?! as much as i want her to rest and relax i do love her indignant pissy attitude about this stuff she's so charming. overall i really enjoyed the closing shot and how they concluded the season. a really strong finale imo!

okay now for season 19 as a whole:

oh boy. this season genuinely started out so promising and strong and i was so pleased with the first few episodes. like actually over the moon about them. it especially felt like luke's storyline was going to build up into something so powerful that would be maintained throughout the season. and while every single hard hitting moment with luke landed beautifully for me, i'm really upset at how they dropped the ball at that midpoint for him. the momentum was unfortunately lost and i'm not sure why they didn't capitalize on what he was going through on the episodes that weren't necessarily deliberately about him. that being said, those emotional moments that we got were absolutely incredible and powerful and only made me love luke more. he's already one of my favorite characters but i am so glad us luke fans got what we deserved in terms of getting more insight into his past and heart and the way his mind works. he is truly one of a kind and i am so grateful for him and adam's portrayal of him this season. it was genuinely beautiful, raw acting and i really have to commend him on that.

i was really happy with emily's inclusion in group scenes and how much she got to smile and display that charming wit and silliness we know and love so much for her, but as i stated in the past, it felt like they didn't know what to do with her at times and it really upset me. however i felt like they really made up for it in episode 9 and it is by far one of my favorite evolution episodes, if not my all time favorite. i love when they remember to highlight her strengths and dedicate screentime to her outside of case logistics. this is the type of content she consistently deserves and i am so thrilled that they delivered after my frustrations in the previous episodes. it made me feel really validated and comforted to know that people watching that episode will directly see that she's still the emily that we know and love. changing with lived experiences does not make her cold or unrecognizable and i have always stood my ground on that stance regarding evolution emily. while she's disrespected by the way her screentime is utilized at times, she was never ruined. i love her so much and she only becomes more solidified as my favorite character of all time.

i'm sure i'm not the only one feeling this way but i'm really losing hope for garvez. we got such beautiful moments with them in the beginning of the season and i even went into this strongly believing we'd get a kiss or SOMETHING. at this point it feels like we are being teased and i kind of don't understand the disrespect for them as a ship. for one you can't deny the chemistry these characters/actors are so naturally providing you, but i also don't understand the blatant dislike for them as a ship from Certain People, when you literally set the system up? you wrote these characters to be incredibly deeply bonded and romantic and you refuse to let them be romantic? i don't get it. idk i'm sad.

also, i'm really bummed out with penelope's potential being squandered this season. i kind of anticipated a lot to happen for her both in individual storylines and with luke. we got the one episode but even then it was made to be mostly about rossi. just kinda sucks as a penelope fan but i hope they make up for it in the future. she deserves more than to just be the shoulder for everyone to cry on. don't get me wrong, i love that about her and i love when they highlight her strengths as a character and her superpower of empathy and care, but i just wish she wasn't mostly used to prop up jj's storyline this season :(

which brings me to what is quite possibly my biggest critique of the season: how they handled jj. i love her so much and her stuff in evolution made me love her more, but we're losing the plot a bit now. at first the scenes about henry going to college were really lovely and emotional, but when they were repeated so frequently, they began to fall flat. when every single scene of hers is so obviously aiming to be deeply emotional, there's absolutely no novelty to it and it started to feel extremely on the nose which upset me both as a fan of jj's but also as a fan of everyone else. i felt like everyone was done a disservice and sidelined at times so we could watch the same jj scene 20 times. imo the most important scene was the conversation she had with henry over ice cream. we didn't need what essentially made the same point all those other times. i do appreciate that there was follow-through on what she endured last season, but where was that same courtesy for tara? she nearly died and also got married, but we were barely allowed to be reminded of that and i feel as though a huge disservice was done to her and it felt like a major elephant in the room for me. she deserves better and i'm also pretty pissed that we didn't even get to see rebecca much this season too.

LASTLY, WHERE WERE EMILY'S GLASSES? SHE CAN'T SEE WITHOUT HER GLASSES. i'm staying strong and i am keeping this username idc. i am glasses prentiss. i love glasses prentiss. but god please let me see glasses prentiss in season 20. please.

this season was such a strange mix of highs and lows. and I've been thinking about it all morning and how much the first half of the season was SO GOOD. so strong. it set up so much. and then in the back half they delivered on almost nothing. the only story threads that had satisfactory through lines and endings were brian garrity & voit/holly. which were both wonderful and such good parts of this season.

but the insane ball dropping when it comes to LUKE who deserves the world, tara & tebecca, penelope (the utter lack of satisfactory follow-up to the end of episode 6 is gonna live on in my mind as one of the worst fumbles of this show), and GARVEZ!! just make me upset every time i think about it. why did our beloved characters get shafted so hard??

for a long time I thought they were lying up the wazoo about how they loved c**** s***** so much that they rewrote a bunch of episodes to fit him in. that didn't make sense to me, to be rewriting the show when they were halfway through making it. but now that the season is ended and the back half of the season turned out so poorly I'm starting to wonder if they DID hastily rewrite a bunch of the show and that's part of why it faltered so much on the back half?

that's probably me just looking for excuses to explain this haha. because it's just so odd.