What happened with Olivia? That is the only question that matters in the aftermath of her race to the hospital, not that “Feel” bothers to give it that much attention. Rather than actually give the uncertainty of Olivia's pregnancy the weight it deserves, All American wastes an episode devoted to discussing Khalil's issues with his biological parents.
While All American may have wanted to spend time giving more closure and attention to the plot, this was the wrong part of the season to plug in a Khalil-centric episode. The only character who really spends time worrying about Olivia is Jordan, whose present-day screen time is nearly non-existent, and Layla does not show up at all. While Layla is mentioned to eventually arrive at the hospital, not showing her concern over Olivia is certainly a strange decision given the prior episode, “Best Friends,” was entirely about Layla and Olivia’s bond. "Feel” does not even give Layla the opportunity to react to finding out what Olivia is going through, because she is told entirely off-screen.
Another major issue of the episode is how absolutely nobody bothers to answer their phones or messages on a repetitive basis. It is mind-boggling to watch as somehow, someway, simultaneously everyone has decided to just not answer the phone the moment they would be most needed to. This is mostly emphasized with Coop, who, after directly referencing the horror of not answering Amina's many phone calls on the day of the ICE raid and showing an immense amount of guilt for it, proceeds to have her phone on silent.
Why wouldn't Coop's phone ringer be on if she was so upset over missing Amina's phone calls? Will Coop leave the ringer on in the future now that she has missed another set of phone calls from Amina? Instead of giving Coop the chance to focus on Olivia by joining Jordan and Layla at the hospital, “Feel” focuses on dealing with the aftermath of what Amina is going through with the media being around the house, still trying to bring Preach home, and dealing with the remaining issues between Coop and Breonna.
Yet, even after Breonna leaves the house following an understanding that Coop and Breonna’s relationship may need to be put on pause for a little while, Breonna has to be the one to tell Coop that Cassius had been trying to reach out to them to inform them of Olivia being at the hospital. The reveal that no one can reach Spencer is just bonus points on top of an episode that seems entirely based on the premise of awful communication. Forcing the forward plot development of “Feel” to rely entirely on everyone being incapable of reaching each other is a lazy way of moving through the episode, as nearly everything becomes significantly more frustrating.
All American also tries to emphasize KJ being under pressure at the Showcase with both Jordan and Cassius missing, but the emotional investment is severely lacking, mostly because, other than KJ and Khalil, there is no one else at this Showcase who is actually relevant to the audience. Additionally, KJ is too busy with a clipboard to see him perform, which was one of the entire points of the Showcase in the first place. Khalil, while claiming he will eventually reach the Showcase, does not even show up by the episode’s conclusion, as “Feel” prioritizes giving Khalil closure toward forgiving his mother. Khalil’s friendship with Amina also gets officially mended, and he shows forgiveness to his father after all the bad things Khalil had experienced with him. These moments, while meant to be about moving forward, are also very rushed. Instead of giving many of these moments and relationships time to breathe with legitimate payoff, they act more like the show is ending soon and this needs to be addressed now.
While “Feel” wanted to confront the emotional states of various characters, the shadow of Olivia's situation hangs over every storyline of the show, making everything else and every other character insignificant in the face of not getting any real answers about the circumstances she is in. As a Khalil-centric episode, the premise may have worked, but most certainly not in the spot the show places it. Perhaps the biggest issue with “Feel” as a whole is that it is simply put in the wrong spot in the season, especially seeing as there are barely any references to what Olivia is going through.
"Feel," if it was not going to show Olivia, should have at least given more emotional weight to her storyline by making her the center of the story, even if she remained off-screen. Placing an episode with a majority of the characters in a hospital waiting room could have at least shown that everyone was there together, dealing with the weight of wondering why they could not reach Laura Baker or Spencer. Spencer’s mother, Grace, is also not mentioned in the list of people who seemingly decided not to answer the phone that day, and given that Grace would be one of the grandmothers of the twins, one would think to reach out to her as well, at least to let her know that Olivia was at the hospital, even if Grace could not get there immediately.
If Olivia and Spencer were not going to be present in “Feel,” then the episode would have benefited more from making Jordan, Layla, and Coop the main focus as they worry about Olivia and try to get in touch with Spencer. At least that would have been a stronger continuation of how “Best Friends” left Olivia. Instead, while a Khalil-centric storyline in “Feel” may have hit on some of the emotional notes they wanted to leave for his character as the show comes to an end, it was the wrong follow-up approach to leaving one of the show’s biggest fan-favorites in a state of peril.
Directly following Olivia’s pregnancy concerns, it should have been obvious that Olivia should have been the biggest factor moving into the following episode and all of the emotional fallout regarding what that would mean. Jordan lost his father so young, and now his sister and her children are in a state of medical emergency, and there is nothing he can do to help them other than leave it in the hands of the doctors. Layla and Olivia had just made it clear how important they are to each other and how they are each other’s longtime best friends and anchors to each other's childhood. Why is Layla not a focus here? Coop is one of the biggest ties to Spencer, and she does not even know what is going on until the final minutes of the episode.
“Feel” makes the Vortex, a found-family friend group that had been essential to the plot, come across as a discombobulated mess. Where is everyone? Additionally, instead of allowing the lack of direct communication to come across as legitimately urgent in the narrative, it is saved for audience frustration. “Feel” never actually shows Cassius or Jordan trying to reach anybody, and everything very quickly falls apart as “Feel” aims to shoehorn in flashbacks for Khalil’s relationships with his family, while it is very clear that other things are at stake. All American has certainly had some misses in its seventh and eighth seasons, but “Feel” is perhaps its greatest example of what it means to completely miss the mark.
Add us as a preferred source on Google