CozyKat

Much to my own surprise, I've become a fan of Johnny/Alicia -- the actor did nothing for me in the beginning, but ever since his shouting match with Eli during debate prep, he's grown on me -- especially since it seems unlikely to become serious, and because I thought the introduction of Love Interest Finn was heavy-handed and Too Soon. Still, hypocrisy alert, Alicia: Your great little "quit banging the help" speech to Peter, with its "gotta-be-extra-discreet-during-campaign-season" thing, seems like it could come back to bite you in a major way now. I'll be kinda surprised and disappointed if the writers aren't setting us up for that.

I might be alone here, but I loved that scene and the way it came almost completely out of left field, and I love that it wasn't Finn -- nothing against MG or the character, but I'd rather watch Alicia enjoy a series of random sparky mini-encounters with more than one guy now than start a clearly choreographed march toward Replacement Will or take a vow of total chastity or, worst of all, go back to Peter for real. It would've made more sense if she could've overheard the great scene between Eli and campaign guy (Johnny? Is that his name? COULD she hear it from the other room?), which I found worth rewatching just for the background pacing and facial expressions of Sarah Steele ("I'm her body woman, not her fluffer!") But his right-in-her-face compliment, which made me stop and go "hmm" for a moment, was lead-in enough for me, given that the kiss never would've happened without her exultation over the news about Cary anyway -- just as her moment with Finn a few episodes ago wouldn't have happened if she hadn't been pissed about Peter and Connie Nielsen's character, whose name I can't remember either. I just like it when background people suddenly emerge into the foreground as romantic prospects and you look at them an entirely different way, whether it's real life or drama. I'm glad the writers are willing to muddy Alicia's romantic waters a little, and I hope she winds up not coupled at season's or series' end, but not asexual either.

I'm rarely one to sweat the details on shows like this if I'm being adequately entertained otherwise, but since I wasn't this time, the holiday/weather thing drove me nuts, especially since the leaves everywhere had the unmistakable pale gloss of May or June. Even Missouri is not THAT far south, and they don't film this in California, right? On a similar note, is Carrie's sister supposed to be married or divorced or what? Was the guy at the end of her pew in the funeral supposed to be her husband? It's Season 4; I feel like I should be clear on this by now. As much as I like Quinn and (to a lesser extent) Carrie/Quinn, that was way too Harlequin-romancey for my taste. Has Quinn or the viewer gotten any indication that Carrie wants out of the CIA? I buy her Mom-motivation for being the way she is romantically, but the convenient timing of this crisis and the ruthless spell-it-out-so-a-third-grader-will understand Psych 101 approach had me eye-rolling, and I tolerate schmaltz pretty well as a rule. I had convinced myself that Quinn would be killed off by episode's end and was yelling at my TV every time another anvil fell to that effect, so at least I have the remote possibility of his survival to cling to.

Thanks and thanks, shapeshifter! I loved that TwoP thread title; if only it weren't so Season 2 and Brody-referential. I'm certainly open to other titles. I was stressing out about this one and kinda wanted to work "stare extraordinaire" in there somehow ...

There are more than enough Quinn fans here to warrant a hangout spot, right? I liked this comment from a USA Today story: This really sums up his appeal for me (i could honestly do without the vestigial facial hair, but it's not a deal-killer). He always seems to be holding so much in, with the occasional explosion. I'm never sure what it all is, or how much of it actually has to do with Carrie, but I like to speculate. I read somewhere else recently that he was originally in for just one episode. I can't imagine the show without him now -- even last season's show.

I don't think it NEEDS to go there or know that it will, but I've enjoyed the subtle, shifting, ambiguous Carrie-related tension that emanates from Quinn. It adds a layer to his character and both of their operational decision-making processes, and as long as it doesn't dominate an entire episode or turn into Brody. 2.0, the reBrodying (which I'm fairly confident it won't), I like it.

I read about the rape subplot before I watched the episode and wasn't nearly as outraged as I was apparently supposed to be. I do think Sorkin just tried to connect too many unrelated dots at once and started tripping over the tangled wires of too many "rape-related" side issues. I thought Don made decent points about court-of-law vs. TV vs. website as very different forums -- appropriate or disastrous, depending on the situation -- for airing and resolving grievances. Like Mackenzie with the kid who wanted to come out on-air last season, I think Don had reasonable standing to "deny" Mary based on his professional judgment, gatekeeping role and his years of experience with the medium in question, just as Mackenzie did in her case with the genders reversed. But the whole convoluted device of tracking Mary down and hoping she'd refuse his conditions, and then saying "no" when she agreed to them and then lying about being able to get her, got a little silly; it was almost as if Don were baiting Mary in order to make his lofty points, though TS didn't play it that way and I'm sure Sorkin didn't intend it that way. And Don's whole false-accusations argument left me unmoved. The culture in which women can't be assured of their physical safety while walking into a downtown parking ramp after work during business hours, or while going to a big campus party without two or three sober friends constantly glued to her side, is the same culture in which an innocent guy might get falsely smeared in the court of public opinion if he offends the wrong person, and his options for healing, clearing his name and putting it all behind him are probably better than hers. Nobody gets a promise that nothing unfair will ever happen to us in our lifetime, not even high-IQ white guys with med-school plans. We just get the opportunity to try to make things right afterward if it does. To me, Sorkin's "alleged victim" rebuttal is worse than anything he put on screen. I work for a newspaper, and we've talked in the past about avoiding that phrase in unresolved rape cases because intentionally or not, it carries a skeptical tone, even in the neutral context of a crime story. And in this case, we were supposed to believe Mary (right?!), so Sorkin's thinking is apparently more muddled than I realized from watching the show.

Even aside from the fact that Fara was a pretty woman, which unfortunately was probably part of it, the way Haqqani dragged her right up to the camera and appeared ready to perform a sloppy beheading with that knife made her different from the first two shockingly fast executions, in which he proved beyond a doubt that he wasn't messing around. It was a definite escalation, and I could see why that would be the breaking point for any old guy with a desk job. I was so afraid Haqqani was going to take out all the occupants of the safe room after that door swung wide that Fara's particular death still shocked me, though, even though I knew intellectually why she was the last one Haqqani would spare. I still have last-scene whiplash from going "Quinn, how could you be so stupid to let yourself be tailed with no backup and -- oh right, TV boyfriend, how could I have doubted you?" And yes, of course he would pre-imburse the street merchant.

I think this season is so good precisely because Sorkin is working with an endpoint and a miniseries-tight time frame. All the padding has come out, and nothing has to be held in reserve for later. I'm curious how we're intended to see Jim -- as a crusading idealist who sometimes takes it a little too far (what I think Sorkin intends) or as a bastion of self-righteousness who truly believes he was put on Earth to educate and protect any woman who interests him romantically (the way I've come to see him). It's easy to forget that Don is sorta Sloan's boss because for one thing, their jobs and areas of expertise are fundamentally different -- but more importantly, he doesn't have Jim's "wiser than thou" attitude toward Sloan or much of anyone (despite being a confident smart-aleck; maybe snappy one-liners vs. long gassy speeches is the key difference here). He's been protective of her a couple of times in past seasons, but only because she was having a specific crisis that could happen to anyone; when the crisis ended, they were back on equal footing. With Jim, the paternalism never seems to end. Anyway, I guess now that Maggie's no longer a basket case, it's Hallie who needs to be set straight, repeatedly, by Jim, about whoring herself out to Big Social Media. (Their bedroom debate seemed evenly balanced, but then Jim had the emphatic last word at the correspondents' thingy.) Dude, if you want to date an ethically pure-as-the-driven-snow woman, go find one; don't try to "convert" the one you have. She's all grown up and has a brain and stuff, and people are allowed to have values somewhat different from your own. (I feel like I'm channeling Carolyn Hax here!) It's one thing to disagree with those values, but why does he think he's allowed to tell her which job she can or cannot take? I think a certain minimal number of "Mac wedding" references are necessary to keep viewers from thinking the engagement storyline from last season's finale has been weirdly dropped. They're not taking over entire 15-minute blocks of episode like the Mac/Will relationship angst used to, so they don't bother me a bit. And wow, B.J. Novak sure was creepy. Doesn't seem so much like a Quo Vadimus retread to me, since he's a far more worrisome a suitor than Clark Gregg on Sports Night ever was!

Also: Rebecca to Will on his legal credentials: "And now when you go to work, you put on makeup, just like me." And Charlie to the twins: "I wasn't in the delivery room, cuz boundaries." And best of all, Leona to Reese: "I sold my clothes, dealt a little weed. ... Just kidding; I didn't sell my clothes."

It did (as did all the excessive-to-me ranting and screaming by men and women alike for all kinds of reasons in S1, including Will and Charlie), but Sorkin seemed to be framing the men more nobly -- Will having been the cheated-on party who got blindsided by Mac's hiring and Maggie constantly hovering by Jim's desk and flirting even though SHE was the one with an S.O. in the office. And Jim seemed to keep his incomprehensible (to me) infatuation on Maggie pretty well-contained, as least to the point where it wasn't in the face of casual bystanders. I'm somewhat tech-impaired myself and don't link that to my being female, nor do I think it signals low intelligence/leadership ability/general competence, but "reply-all" is a very basic concept that gets more basic when you're dealing with emotionally sensitive material, and Mac totally lost me for the rest of the first season when she sent her email about having cheated on Will to the entire company. I get that it was supposed to be "screwball," but (shudder) just no. If I thought the existence of workplace romantic drama was a failing in characters of either gender, I probably wouldn't watch TV at all! :) There are definitely many ways of handling it, though, without anyone's behaving idiotically. I'm enjoying the healthy, low-key but humorous Will/Mac and Don/Sloan pairings so far this season.

I had a huge problem with that characterization in Season 1, when Maggie and Mac never seemed to stop whining and screaming about their love lives at work. (There were other, peripheral women who acted professional, but, M&M were clearly the female leads, and their constant histrionics took up a LOT of screen time.) It was a pretty stark contrast with the women of Sports Night and the West Wing, who had love interests and complications at work but never failed to snap out of it and FOCUS when an actual pressing work situation arose. I almost didn't come back for S2 because of M&M, but I think Sorkin corrected course pretty well. (Maggie still had problems in S2, but they weren't exclusively boy problems.) The occasional minor digressions into girly stuff like fashion and weddings don't bother me a bit. The whole point of the "nine bridesmaids" exaggeration, I'm pretty sure, was to get us the funny image of Charlie walking each one down the aisle individually. And I laughed, so it worked!

I gasped aloud at that (a flat-out admission that he'd slept with her earlier, presumably much earlier). It's stupid of him to fool around now, but given the marital estrangement, it shocks me less than a nonprostitute, friend-of-family revelation from their presumably happy days. I've been eye-rolling the "Fillicia" setup since it first reared its head, especially since their implausible (to me, at least) 5-minute drinking sessions and all the strained shenanigans to get them into the same office building. MG is 12 years younger than JM (not that she can't be a cougar, but it seems like that should be acknowledged somehow), and can't she go one half-season out of six without an extramarital love interest? That extremely well-acted and -directed scene in his office, though -- uh, yeah, I'm getting on board, at least with MG/Finn. The chemistry and awkward warmth and advance/retreat from both of them felt very real, and so did her Peter-related motivation for going in there in the first place. I could've done without the jarringly quick follow-up scene in Alicia's (WILL'S! c'mon, too soon!) office, though. Finn works better for me as a source of ambiguous random could-be-romantic sparks and not as Official Mandatory Love Interest Guy.

I love Mandy Patinkin and Saul, but on a purely logical and ethical level, his death would have been collateral damage in pursuit of a worthy goal that would at least make Aayan's death at the hands of his last remaining relative (and personal hero) less pointless and senseless. Carrie's whole justification for seducing and effectively killing him just went up in smoke. As a knee-jerk reaction in a horrible situation, I can understand Carrie's desperate need to salvage SOMETHING from this debacle by at least doing what they went in to do, especially since there's zero assurance of saving Saul (or at least saving him from likely torture) either way. Brody doesn't really enter into it for me, especially since neither he nor Saul had Aayan's heartbreaking oblivious innocence. All that goes out the window, of course, when it comes to publicly explaining their decision to kill "a former CIA director" just to avoid a setback, so I think Quinn's reasons for stopping her were sensible and professional, not just ethical or emotional. Interesting how Quinn and Carrie were, in a sense, reliving the scene of Sandy's death (though at a safer distance) and reversing roles while again making impossible split-second decisions. Then it was Carrie saying of their abducted superior, "We just can't leave him" -- this time it was Quinn saying, in effect, "We can't just kill him."

Holy crap, that was devastating.