User blog comment:ThatGuy456/A Guy's Thoughts: Season 6 - Richard's Rise/@comment-31194372-20190809025210/@comment-31194372-20190809064855

It's certainly true that there have been some great episodes that have worked indebted to Richard being the character that he is—as Zoe mentioned earlier, there's always "The Job," and you brought up "The Authority"—but as strong as they are, they're also episodes that push him to the periphery while maintaining a more passive role, and they comment more on others' relation to himself than demonstrating him having any actual thoughts of his own. His role of being the "idiot dad," too, is a good, more to-the-point summation of those issues.

Since everyone's chipping in on their disappointment in Season 6, too, I suppose I should just throw in my two cents about it while I can, as I don't plan on writing any standalone articles about it myself. Since its weak attempts at satire and frustratingly on-the-nose grasps at pop culture have been well-documented, I'll write more on the characters.

The focus of Season 6 was a lot like Season 4 in that the primary goal was to run down the Rolodex of the series' supporting cast, and in that sense, I think it was really successful, even if that meant that there was the occasional bit of staleness. There's some disappointment in how cruelly Nicole was treated, getting some prominent roles in some of the season's most disappointing entries (including her final appearance in... "The Web..."), but that's just a part of the compromise in focus. At the very least, Anais got "The Buddy" and more involvement in the series' family-driven outings (one of the handful of good changes brought about by Season 5), and Darwin got to helm two episodes. Let's just be happy that everyone's favorite man-rabbit got to finally come out on top!