atlanticslide

That could be it - it definitely has the feeling of a B or C plot that we're missing the rest of. Every time I catch this episode and that scene comes up I wonder if there's a scene or two I missed.

Chris met her family in the States, but it was definitely her family, not just friends. I agree with this assessment, and I think the ATFR reveal is a good point and would explain why she seems so preoccupied with the possibility of Nick letting it slip that they had sex but not about Shawn (or Ben H) revealing that they spent time alone off camera.

Yeah, that's definitely something that's lacking this season. Her whole time with Cupcake I kept thinking, "C'mon, dude, you've had no screentime! She is definitely leaving you behind on those cliffs," and then wondered what we've been missing of their time together that's convinced him that she was definitely going to come home to meet his family. That said, while it's definitely been a weird season, I'm still really enjoying it, and I still like Kaitlyn, and Shawn, despite his melodrama - I like seeing someone actually calling out how weird this whole thing is and how difficult it really is to develop a relationship and have serious feelings for someone and have to watch them go out with other people and make polite conversation with a dozen other guys about their own relationships with her.

Ahhh, what a bummer about both of them! Especially as I love both the characters (and actresses) as well as their relationships. I don't want either of them killed off, but I also really, really don't want Alicia and David or Eric and Val to break up. Sort of seems like they might be building towards an Alicia/David breakup, though, with David splitting his time between Emmerdale and Portugal and getting caught up in Priya's drama.

I have to say, I'm kind of surprised at how many people are defending Ian and justifying his treatment of Kaitlyn. I found him unbelievably vile. I don't particularly think that he has a point about her - sure, maybe she's here to make out with a bunch of guys, but so what? But even if everything he said was right, there's really no need to say any of it to her except to hurt her. She hasn't done anything wrong to him and if he ever had a problem with any of the dates he was free to leave at any time. His confronting her wasn't about anything except his own bruised ego, and I found it unnecessarily cruel, even if she's a lame bachelorette. And his talking heads - of course there was some editing involved in stringing them all together, but unless they cut words from different sentences together, he still said all of those things.

I'm watching the Season 1 finale episode (Walshes moving back to MN) and man, could Kelly be any worse of a friend? Andrea goes to her for advice about sex, tells her that she and Brandon are going to hook up in the empty Peach Pit, and Kelly decides instead to co-opt their sex date and make it a party? That said, why on earth would Andrea and Brandon think the Peach Pit would be a good spot for their first time (and Andreas first time)? On a different note, Brenda is constantly way too overdressed for the beach. In this episode she's wearing a long-sleeved black dress that goes down to her ankles and looks about three sizes too big.

It definitely is coming back - Season 3 has been filmed and seems to be in the editing stages now - but no one can confirm when the season will start, which is really annoying.

I remember there being an offhanded mention by Josh Richland at the beginning of the student election storyline that the current administration was busted for... something, and had been ousted, hence the emergency election at the start of the 902010 gang's sophomore year and then another election at the end of the same year.

That's it, Laurel's dead to me. It's not just killing Daisy and trying to bury her without telling Marlon, though that was awful, but going on about how "maybe this is a good thing," and about how maybe she needed to kill Marlon's dog in order for her to hit rock bottom and get better was so hideous. Much as Marlon generally annoys me, everything with him and Cain was great tonight.

Oh, that's good. I like Amelia and I can take or leave Dan, but I love Kerri so Dan can stay. Ruby I can similarly take or leave, but I really dislike Ali. I'd be happy if they took Sam and Rachel with them on their way out of town.

Yup. We just saw that on every soap ever, pretty much every year, at least. I could not possibly care less about accidental pregnancy storylines anymore. I have no idea why soap writers are still so married to this trope. It's so beyond tired and played out.

Yeah, I love Aaron but I'm getting a little tired of the constant circle of this affair. It's gotten very stale and neither character seems to be going anywhere. Everything that's happened with Aaron recently - hitting James with the bottle, getting injured and landing in the hospital, running as a new way to self-harm - all feel like they've been events that aren't really about Aaron, but I can't even figure out who or what they're about other than moments of drama. It doesn't feel like we're building towards anything either with the affair or with Aaron as a character, which is disappointing. I agree. James is certainly not blameless in this situation and I really hope Chas doesn't take him back (although it seems like they're already hinting at that) but Emma has been sneaky and manipulative from day 1 on the show. I also agree with whoever upthread said that James doesn't really have the right to lash out at Aaron. He may have been right in some of what he said, but by coincidence more than anything. He doesn't know Aaron, has no relationship with him, and his hurt feelings at being left out of the loop with regards to Aaron are completely about him being jealous of Paddy and have nothing to do with Aaron at all.

To me, there were things that felt stilted enough or awkward enough that I figured they were scenes filmed after PW's death, especially knowing how the movie had been finished so knowing to look for them (I'm actually watching Fast & Furious 6 and recognize several of the lines from Brian to Mia over the phone that were reused for Furious 7). But just looking at the shots themselves, I thought the CGI looked excellent. If I saw the film without knowing anything about the filming or about Paul Walker's death, I don't think I would've noticed.

Definitely not as strong as 4, 5, and 6, but I think it was a combination of James Wan not being as adept with this franchise as Justin Lin and Paul Walker's death. Maybe I noticed it more because I was looking for it, but it definitely felt like there was a shift midway through the movie after which Brian was more isolated and sidelined - we mostly just seeing him in the shadows and running around from behind during the last big action sequence, Letty gets the big emotional scene reacting to Dom's near death, etc. All understandable, and I think they did a really admirable job considering the circumstances, but it did make for a more fractured feel than the previous movies, and also was missing some more of the emotional depth between the characters that I've always loved about these films. I also really found myself missing Han and Gisele, and I have no strong feelings about Mia but they've really sidelined her in the past couple of movies. That said, the ending was really perfect. Perfect way to send the character off and to memorialize PW. I'll keep watching Fast and the Furious movies as long as they keep making them, but it'll be sad not to have him and have the character anymore. The Brian/Dom friendship really was the heart of the franchise.

I just don't really see where they're writing Lachlan as in any way sympathetic. Like you said, he's moping around like what he's done is no big deal, and meanwhile we're seeing how Alicia is suffering, how David is suffering, how Chrissie is suffering, how the village is shunning the family. None of that makes Lachlan look sympathetic. The fact that he hasn't shown an ounce of remorse makes him look pretty unsympathetic. I'm not seeing any connected between what he's done and what Robert is doing. I actually think that if they really didn't want to make Lachlan sympathetic and/or redeemable, they should have made him delusional and really believe that he was in a relationship with Alicia and think that their first kiss happened the way he described. Then at least they could send him off to get psychiatric help, maybe. As it is, I'm not seeing anything redeemable about the character and now signs that the show wants us to see him that way.

Nia is such a hateful piece of shit. She basically seems to think that she can act like a maniac and then apologize for it later and that makes it totally cool, no big deal, "we're past the sexual harassment," especially if she explains it all away by saying that she's just super emotional, that's how she is. If Jordan pulled down her pants and grabbed her crotch, I seriously doubt she or anyone else would be all "let it go already!" and laughing it off. And I'm still completely baffled as to why Nia is even pissed at Sarah to begin with. Sarah had nothing to do with Nia and Leroy being in that last elimination.

I really, 100% disagree that the show is trying to make us pity Lachlan. Chrissie? Yes, definitely, we're supposed to feel sorry for her (even though she accused an assault victim of being a pedophile), but Lachlan has not been portrayed as sympathetic, at all. I don't think the Lawrence/Robert exchange was about comparing their offenses but a clunky way to remind the audience that Robert's a shady character who has a secret that's going to come out and rock Chrissie's world soon enough. Alicia didn't chastise Chas about Aaron, she chastised Bernice and then Chas chastised herself. And all of the Alicia/Chrissie stuff seems to me that it's about needing to dial back the isolation of the White family and give Chrissie some connections in the village. The show went a bit overboard with ostracizing the family so quickly after their debut that I think now they're trying to pull back and make Chrissie more likable again, especially as they shift back into the Robert/Aaron affair storyline.

I'd also argue that the situation with Paula was different because she and Johhny were actually friends and had been roommates on the same Real World season. As Sarah pointed out on the After Show, she and Johnny are friendly Challenge acquaintances. If anything, Johnny owed Paula more loyalty back on the Island than Sarah owed Johnny here.

I've never really cared for Jordan until this episode of the After Show. It was great to see that both he and Sarah held their own and didn't back down against Johnny, but Jordan, especially, was spot on in everything he said. He completely has Johnny's number - when you don't work and you rely entirely on one semi-annual reality show competition, you get frantic at the missing out on one cash-in because it's like losing half of your annual salary. To Sarah, who has a real life and a real job, this is all just a fun, cool vacation that she can laugh her way through. Even Jordan, who tends to take the Challenge pretty seriously, can let it all go when it's over. But even months later Johnny really is acting like someone took away his salary. I can't even figure out what Leroy was going on about. What was shady about what Sarah did? Did Sarah actually promise Johnny/Nia she'd never vote them in? Why does Leroy even care? He made it to the final anyway.

Everything about this episode was perfection. Thank you, Nia, for taking yourself out of the game so I could have a clear favorite team to root for in the elimination. I can't stand Theresa, but I dislike her a lot less than Nia. And Nany, Nany, Nany. I liked you! I was on your side throughout the Theresa bullshit! I take it back. Nany and Theresa are equally ridiculous. I was glad to see Theresa beat her, and loved seeing Bananas get spanked. I was rooting for Nany and Bananas to will in Exile and make it back into the game, but their absolute assholishness about being voted into elimination was so over the top. I can't believe Johnny's gall, to complain about Sarah not being "conditioned" and not turning her back on them or whatever. The ganging up on Sarah (and nothing at all for Jordan until he finally stood up for Sarah?) was awful, so it was even sweeter to see all three of those participating end up going home. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to actually get to see Nia's reaction to being told she was going home. I'm sure it was wonderfully insane. I'm certain that's what happened. I also wonder if that's why they waited so long to tell Leroy and everyone else that Nia had been sent home, because they were waiting to see if they could get Theresa.

That, and there's also the fact that just because you can be a nurse anywhere doesn't mean "anywhere" needs you. I have no idea what the demand for nurses in Northwest Iowa (or wherever Arlington is) is like at the moment, but in this economy you can never just assume that "I can get a job wherever I want!"

It has nothing to do with being Muslim. I'd guess it's a Shabnam thing. It seemed pretty obvious that she jumped the gun on the relationship, made assumptions based on conversations she and Kush had about the future and being seirous about the relationship, and told Masood that they were engaged.

Not just that, she even went so far as to suggest that the big champagne toast to her dismissal was prompted by the producers. Because she is really that delusional.

Well, she did say when it was first revealed back when Ashley I was going on about her own virginity, "It's a decision I made" or "it's a decision I made a long time ago," something like that, which I took to mean that it was a decision she made to wait for marriage. Also, for all that she talked a lot about it in this week's episode, she really hasn't made that big of a deal about it before this episode, or repeated it a thousand times.

And if they actually shared any substantive and/or interesting conversation, going for a long walk in a beautiful location might be a really good date. But giggling over monkeys gets old after about 30 seconds.