Tony, you weaksauce. "I'll rip your throat out blah blah zzzz." Dear Carlos Bernard, I suggest you Google "dramatic inflection."

Dr. Sunny looks hotter in her Hazmat suit than in the photo I linked below, which just adds to my ever-growing list of kinks.

The ethics of including the Red-Shirted Ensign/nameless agent when Michelle found out she was clean troubled me -- sort of an exploitative invasion of privacy predicated on his lack of an opportunity for articulation. Voice typically means power, and the denial of his speech creates an almost patronizing moment where the viewer is meant to feel relief that Michelle (unsurprisingly) did not contract the virus, but, "Oh no, that poor underling did, what a shame." (Such a maneuver is more virulently common to reality shows nowadays, which partly explains my discomfort with this particular scene.) That the guy is black doesn't help rescue him from this unprivileged status, and depending on your politics, can be fodder for an even more dour analysis.

Manipulation of another sort -- namely, setting us up to think that Kim was going to be abducted for fourth/fifth time in three seasons (since, after all, the Kim-in-danger quota has hardly been filled this year!), but instead revealing that Michelle is ultimately the victim -- was remarkably effective, no doubt helped out by the startling, "Take our her eye" line. However, it was the belief that something so clichéd and run through would be revisited again, and to have that expectation upended produces a pleasant, if still fundamentally derivative, surprise.