My recap of last weekend’s Kings is up at Tor.com, and I turned up the snark, because this show, for all its promise, has made the same missteps so repeatedly that I can no longer pretend it was just part of a growing narrative.

Firstly, David and Michelle. Apart, they’re boring. Together, they’re a level of boring that’s equivalent to a concussion. And it’s not enough that they’re infesting the present – they infested the flashbacks!

Worst of all, the flashback had Michelle almost die, AND THEN GETS BETTER.

Wrong, show. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Don’t tease me with something so great when I already know it doesn’t come true.

The only good thing about that entire subplot was watching two more kickass women run things: Queen Rose, and DEATH. HELL YES, SAFFRON BURROWS. YOU GET IT, GIRL. (Sorry, I’m always just so excited for her when she’s not in a movie about sharks.)

Also, as someone who routinely drops exposition three-quarters of the way through the story, these flashbacks still made me cringe, not because they introduced new information, but because the crux of why Silas is reacting to David the way he is lies in these flashbacks, which means that everything else he’s done about David for seven episodes is a song-and-dance routine that stems from a reveal that’s not even necessary, since we saw in the pilot that God favored David to be king. It’s not as if Silas is suddenly like, “Oh, shit, THAT guy?”

Though he should be, because holy mother, THAT guy?