OK, first off: No Becker makes a very sad Texty. But having him out for an ep also gives me all sorts of h/c bunnies, so on balance, yay. ;)
Now to the ep itself...
Honestly? It felt off. The pacing felt slow and disjointed. The script seemed fine (unlike the mess that was 4x03), so this time, I'm blaming the direction. The cast seemed to be trying their best to wrest some urgency and life from their scenes, but there were just too many long establishing shots and taking forever to get from place to place that it felt like the whole thing was on ludes or something. Compared with the heart-pounding zippiness of last ep, there was just no sense of peril or real action, despite what should've been some very exciting set pieces.
In terms of other stuff, Andrew did brilliantly in his scenes with Hannah and Sid. The ending Connor/Abby scene was really nice (with the caveat that I still detected some reticence on Abby's part; honestly, Hannah seemed like she wasn't quite "on" most of the episode. Not sure why.) The best part of the ep for me, however, was the Jess/Lester stuff, which was delightful. Watching Lester try on her shoes was hysterical.
And once again, the Matt and Emily stuff failed to pull me in at all. There just haven't been enough hints of who these people really are and what they're doing to make me care. Which kinda worries me for the future of the show, TBH.
The teaser for 4x06, however, looks utterly smashing. Can't wait!
