cynic

This was my least favorite of the nights so far. As soon as I saw that the first episode was juxtaposing Hannah and Emma, I realized what the twist would be. I was impatient for it to actually be revealed, so the three hours felt a bit draggy. When it did finally happen, I was moved though. One thing, as much as I like the actor who plays Cole's dad (And his great head of hair), the big age difference between him and Hannah kinda seemed a bit squicky to me, especially since Hannah comes off so naive in a lot of ways. It just pulled me out of the scene. As for the airport scene, I liked that a lot, but yeah, couldn't help wondering about Cassie being exposed too early in her timeline to make it to the cdc.

I loved hearing Jones and Jennifer show off their linguistic skills. I was wondering why they didn't have Cassie speak French. She spoke French in the Haiti episode. It didn't sound super fluent to my ears, but I wouldn't really know. I was wondering if Cassie was supposed to be fluent and the actress just isn't or if the character was supposed to be at that level or if I just have the wrong impression completely.

Spoilers? I don't get it. Aw, I like that there's so much love for Gale here. He's my favorite guest character. While I'm glad that he got a happy ending by surviving East Berlin, I kinda wish that this encounter happened prior to 1961. I really liked Gale' s allusion to multiple meetings with Cole (that Cole hadn't experienced yet) at that time. It just seemed like there would have been more meetings in between than what we got to see.

"...because the producers got a bulk discount hiring all of those Nikita actors and I'm betting they aren't the best at doing heavy dramatic lifting." Now, just wait a an everloving minute, Nikita was a great show and Aaron Stanford was one of the best things about it. I wonder if the writer ever even watched Nikita, especially the episode where Birkhoff is tortured. AS definitely showed off great dramatic chops in that. Now, Noah Bean isn't my favorite actor from the show, but I've loved seeing Xander Berkeley and Peter Outerbridge here in guest roles. I think overall, the casting of this show has been pretty stellar. Also, Emily Hampshire has been amazing.

As this show winds down, I just have to express my appreciation of Aaron Stanford and what he brings to this role. I love watching his face, his eyes. He manages to convey so much and give such depth and complexity to Cole. The guilt, regret, self-loathing, vulnerability, love, wonder, resolve, and so much more. Cole has done questionable things, even terrible things, which could have been a turnoff as a viewer, especially at the beginning, but Stanford shows the weight and cost of those things and it kept me with him on his journey. As for him being atypical physically for such a role like this, I don't have a problem buying him. I think he moves believably as a scrapper. And yeah, I think he's hot too.

I loved loved loved this episode. I always enjoy the time loop ones. I really appreciate how well thought out they are. Plus, Agent Gale is such a great presence and partnering him up with Jennifer was genius. They were hilarious together. "Are you insane?" "Yes!" LOL I loved each of them realizing that they were the cause of the situation in the hotel room. Cassie and Cole working together was great as well. Cassie's frustration with yet acceptance of ("bullshit") Cole being Cole is so typical of their relationship. Cassie having to basically lose Cole twice broke my heart for her, especially considering how she's grappling with the fact that she's going to really lose Cole if they do ever win this war. She's already lost so much. Cole has always been more pragmatic about what needs to be done and what the results will be. I hope that Cassie doesn't give in to the temptation of the red forest, but it wouldn't surprise me if she did. I'm sure Cole won't have it though. I can't see this show ending in anything else but tragedy for this couple. At least they got a few moments in this episode to...ahem...reconnect. For some reason, I found these few seconds so much hotter than most other lovemaking scenes I've ever seen. It's probably because these characters have really earned this and the actors have shown the depth of their connection in all their other interactions. Btw, I put on season 1 while I was cleaning my house yesterday. I wasn't really paying attention, when suddenly my ears perked up during Shonin. I sat down and replayed the scene. Sure enough, Jennifer says "Climb the steps, ring the bell". Now, I want to binge the entire series again while actually paying attention. So much respect for the writers/showrunner. I may not have agreed with all their choices, but I love all the effort they put in their planning. It never feels like they're just making things up as they go along.

I love that this show is so willing to walk the edge. Yeah, sometimes they end up falling off, but imo, it pays off more often than not. I thought this episode was super fun, despite agreeing that Cassie's dom outfit was kinda eye-rolley. It wasn't enough to hurt the whole episode for me. It also wasn't enough to distract me from the cross shooting as mentioned above. Now, that was stupid. Speaking of gratuitous, what was up with Jennifer's suddenly short skirt and thigh highs showing when she was entertaining?

I would definitely be interested in a movie about Enfys Nest. I wish there was more of her in this one. I'm wondering if there were script rewrites to her story though. I mean, look, it'd be great if women of color were such a common occurrence in the SW universe that this woman's complexion wouldn't be so striking to me, but her looks kinda made me wonder if her character was meant to be the daughter of Beckett and Val at one point. Like did she grow up in this criminal ring and decided to put her skills to a more noble use? Was Val some kind of a freedom fighter and turned away from that for some reason, like maybe the influence of a man she loved? I guess it's just a coincidence this time around that two major female characters appear to have some black heritage. I'm just a little skeptical that this casting would have happened without a reason given the history of this franchise Hollywood. Then again, considering all the females who star in this franchise are pale brunettes (Leia, Rey, Jyn, Qira), maybe their casting directors just really favor certain types. Speaking of Qira, I feel like they tried really hard to push her story, almost to the detriment of Han's. It was like they wanted to see if they could build a franchise on her. While her story had potential, I just didn't like the execution and feel like Emilia Clarke doesn't have enough charisma to build that kind of thing around.

I had to laugh when she talked about wanting to eat the food she was throwing out. They hid the logo, but those looked like Nutrisystem prepared foods. They're ...not tasty. Then again, I'd balk at throwing out what appeared to be a couple hundred bucks worth of food too. I couldn't stand this woman in her original episode due to her depressive, needy, passive nature. She became so much more likable as she took charge and her mood lifted. By the end, I was positively rooting for her!

When making a $200M+ film, is it really a smart strategy to include major plot twists that will be super confusing to people who have only seen the films? Sure, Star Wars has a huge, dedicated fanbase, but it needs casual fans and new viewers if it wants to continue being hugely profitable. Apparently, Star Wars films already struggle in China due to the OT's lack of history there and with the international market being so important nowadays, requiring such a deep knowledge of Star Wars lore seems like a bad idea. With the disappointing numbers Solo is pulling even domestically, confusing people probably will just make a bad situation worse. On top of that, I've just been running into this attitude while reading various articles on the Maul twist that "real fans" wouldn't be confused. Way to alienate the people who will likely be the determining factor in whether we get more of these off shoot projects. These are people who actually shelled out money opening weekend to see Solo and then put in the effort to research something that confused them instead of just being disgruntled. If they get put off because they don't feel welcome by either the film itself or its "real fans", then maybe they won't turn up for Solo II or Boba Fett or whatever anthology movie is next. I consider myself a huge Star Wars fan. I own all the movies. I show up opening weekend and watch more than once in the theater. I spent over 24 hours in line at Comic Con to attend the Force Awakens panel and proudly display the light saber that I received there in my work cubicle. I've read several tie in books. I just could not get into the animated series though, so yeah, I was hella confused. Guess I'm not a real fan. Thanks for letting me know!

Oh, I know. It's just that they were such a tiny set detail that they meant nothing to the majority of viewers since most of us had never noticed them. It was a random piece of minutiae that TPTB suddenly decided to imbue with all this meaning that wasn't there before.

I watched this in 4DX. I was wondering if that was why the movie was so dark, but I guess it was dark anyway. I liked it okay. Unlike apparently the rest of the universe, I always preferred Luke to Han, so I guess I just wasn't that interested in seeing how Han became Han. He was always enough as is for me. Maybe if I was more interested in his backstory, I would have felt more when the obvious betrayals happened, but I didn't find the twists either compelling nor particularly convincing as the reason for his Han-ness. I also wasn't moved by the movie showing us all the events that I had already imagined when they were explained in the OT. I mean, sure it's fun for the nostalgia factor, but it made the whole thing feel overstuffed and predictable. Maybe this should have been a Lando movie, since it wouldn't have been so pre-written. I really wish the movie had settled down more and just focused too. I get what they were going for with both the mentor and first love thing, but I think I would have preferred just one of the other. (Preferably the mentor, because I am not a fan of Emilia Clarke or the idea of having this major lost love in Han's backstory.) With just the mentor, maybe we could have built up the relationship between Beckett and Han more so it wasn't like they just met when the climax happened. Plus, then we could've spent more time with the rest of the gang. Why even get Thandie Newton for such a throwaway role? Things I did like: the fleshing out of Chewie and Han's relationship with him, Donald Glover as Lando, Rio, Woody Harrelson (always welcome on my screen, even doing a role he could do in his sleep), the Enfys Nest reveal, and the train sequence. Plus, the kessel run was fun in 4dx even if I didn't like how muddy and cluttered the visuals were. Another thing I didn't like: Can we stop with the dice? It was okay in TLJ, though super random since the vast majority of us had never spotted them before. Sure, it was kinda sweet for Luke to "give" that memento to Leia, but now that I know that it was a thing with Qira too, well, blech. Come at me bro: I kinda hated L3. I didn't find her particularly funny, especially considering her issues actually brought up kinda a squicky aspect of Star Wars. Are the droids sentient beings that are enslaved and used for labor/fodder due to their lesser status? Yup, that material is totally ripe for mining for jokes. Plus, the sequence when Lando tries to save her was the one time I really did not like Glover's acting.

I've eaten dry ramen as a snack, but pasta noodles seem like they would be way too hard and tasteless. I don't see where they got the idea that she was eating it dry from the program. I did run across a few people saying that some do put extra sugar on cooked spaghetti to make it sweet and they were likening it to any dough based sweet. As for the takeout box, it looked like stir fried noodles to me.

For me, Steven will forever be in a class of his own for the urine incident. As infuriating as Schenee was, she didn't top that.

Just finished watching the supersized version. There was a bonus scene of them with a nutritionist. At the end, they were so proud of how well they did. I'm not sure why, since all they did was watch while the nutritionist threw out the food they shouldn't have had in the house at that point anyway. And clearly they didn't end up following her instructions. Gah, they're delusional. Speaking of delusional, before the episode, TLC ran a rerun of Pauline. Holy crap, I've heard about it, but never seen it. Wow, she was heinous too. Watching these back to back was a rough day. TLC shoulda run some kind of warning!

I look forward to future episode threads when new users will encounter words like knowledged, intelligment, and flustrated and wonder what the heck is going on.

Freddy looks like Bud from the Cosby show all grown up. Run, Bud, run. Schenee (really?) was a piece of work. I'm so glad that Dr. Now called her on her crap. Even Dr. BV gently let her know what's what. I'm not surprised Schenee quit after her blatant manipulation failed to work. She's not interested in learning, changing, or doing anything for herself. She just wants to take what she can from others without expending any effort. Maybe when she gets older she'll have a change in attitude or her body breaks down enough to really force her to seek help again. Too bad that it will be so much harder then...if she makes it that long.

TV Guide says season 9 starts April 1st with an episode titled "Edge of Fourteen", but there's a new episode already available on my OnDemand called "A Date with Danger". Oddly, the episode is dated 6/24/18. I didn't know my cable box was capable of time travel, but I'm just glad to have something to watch.

Halfway through the episode and I kinda hate Antonia's boyfriend right now.

Sigh This 'My 600-Lb Life' Couple Says Weight Loss Allowed Them To Have Sex For The First Time

Apparently, Rian Johnson has basically said that he knows that some people think that Rey and Finn are a thing, but he doesn't see a romantic connection at all. I feel like that's why he had Rose kiss him, to derail the Finn/Rey shipping. And yes, I totally agree that it was obvious that Johnson was uninterested in Finn. I hope that he gets to be back in the forefront in IX.

I went to the restroom before my showing. It was empty, but then some people came in, obviously having just seen it. I started singing to myself to drown out their conversation. They probably were wondering who the loon was singing in the stall, but hey, at least I didn't get spoiled.

No one said that Finn needs to have an ideal personality. I don't have a problem with him being flawed. Heck, most of the characters in this movie are flawed, but most of them are treated seriously by the movie for the most part (even revered, Poe gets most of the resistance killed by his hubris and disobedience and Leia and Holdo write it off like he's just a scamp who is one lesson away from greater things). Finn isn't treated like that. He's treated more like Jar-Jar or C-3PO than one of the main characters. It rankles because, historically, when black actors are allowed to be cast in films, they tend to disproportionately play sidekicks and comic relief and despite the hope when Boyega was first cast, this film does nothing to buck that trend. Having said that, I would have a problem with this character even if the actor was white. I'm just not a fan of the kind of humor employed by TLJ. Most of the jokes are at the expense of Finn, but I also don't like what they did to Hux either. That phone call gag was stupid and made him appear foolish. There were other moments in the movie that undermined his character for a cheap laugh. Between emo Ben and dumb as nails Hux how am I supposed to take the First Order seriously? Who would follow these two idiots?

Yeah, Finn was already treading perilously close to the black comic relief sidekick trope in TFA and this movie just doubled down on it. I saw the way this was going from his first appearance in that leaking med suit. He was in a coma because of the rescue mission that he went on and was instrumental in basically saving the universe from starkiller base, so of course our first glimpse of his recovery is to make him look as clownish as possible. Ugh. Plus, it made no sense to boot. Are there no workers in the medical bay? No one checks on someone that just rips free from all those connections? No alarms alert anyone that dude in coma is now awake and trying to walk around? Not one person noticed and tried to help until he got all the way to the hanger bay? And then he basically spends the movie getting schooled by Rose and getting shocked or knocked out by various people, before getting shallow “growth” and a Big Damn Hero moment that was totally derailed by another one of freaking Rose’s lessons. He was wrong again. Ugh. Not like his story made sense in TFA anyway. He was a stormtrooper trained from childhood to be part of this great fighting force under Phasma, but apparently spent much of that time as a janitor, cuz of course he was ha ha. Well, at least he’ll be alive in the next movie to moon over Rey and provide more “laughs”.

Love Dany's new winter coat. Poor dragon! That was devastating. I really thought Jon and Dany were going to go full Lannister for minute there and honestly, I wasn't mad at it.