Robyn Bahr

Raising Kanan has developed across three seasons into a quietly compelling family drama, a show that explores lesbophobia and fraternal strife as deeply as it does the explosive dynamics of illegal trade. The first two episodes of Season 4 continue this trend, showcasing new depths and shifting alliances among its sprawling ensemble.

This is all to say that throughout the adrift but watchable first seven episodes of AJLT Season 2, I found myself most compelled by Miranda and Che’s rocky dynamic.

Given its thin and derivative premise, not to mention a protagonist so churlish even her own friends and family can’t stand to be around her, it’s a wonder how The Baby ballooned from a blastocyst of an idea to a fully gestated four-hour event.

Think America’s Next Top Model meets So You Think You Can Dance. ... Lizzo’s emphasis on personal vulnerability, body positivity and fat acceptance is simultaneously heartening and cloying. The empowerment talk can be stultifying, but the sets and costumes awash in galvanizing neons, pastels and iridescents maintain the energy.

Meatier Season 2 delves into Emily’s personal growth. Her emotional progression is gradual and almost imperceptible until the last two episodes of the season, when you suddenly realize yes, she might still be grating to the last, but she’s no longer the wide-eyed naïf she was when she stepped out of that cab in the fifth arrondissement. ... As was with the first season, the most valuable people on screen are Emily’s coworkers.

AJLT is not particularly funny or horny but it’s also not striving to be. It would rather ask the larger existential questions.

Chad is often hilarious, bracing and sweet.

The film is pleasant and watchable, a cheerleading effort to rally support for a purported stand-up sisterhood, but I kept waiting for the personal revelations that would drop my jaw. ... Scope may be Nevins' most conspicuous weakness here. In wanting to capture "women in comedy" as a cultural monolith, she ends up erasing the individualized voices and personae that help these women stand out in their industry.

I question whether preschoolers and kindergarteners, the seeming target audience, would be able to cognitively follow along with Waffle and Mochi's brimming half hour escapades. The loving intentions are clear, but the writers often play with too many lessons at once.

It remains unclear how the new protagonist will impact the show's overall momentum, as these opening chapters work to transition viewers to a new narrative schema. So far, Leslie's character provides some classic "fish out of water" levity to an otherwise self-serious superhero melodrama. That novice energy comes at some cost, however, to the series' established emotional dimensions.