Marianne

Maybe my attention wandered (I find the show kind of slow and repetitive and tend to do other things while I'm watching) but I don't remember seeing the man's face when he broke into Vanessa's apartment. Well, there goes that possible pilot twist. I must think Rory is kind of creepy, I guess.

Random thoughts: Does anyone else here think that it was Rory, not Andrew, who drugged and raped Vanessa? There's just too much focus on Rory and his caring attitude--on the morning after he really wanted her to tell him what happened and and he could have been reveling in what he did just the way Andrew does. And Andrews car tracker showed that the car was not near Vanessa's place on the night it happened. And Rory knew about the juice concoctions she drank every day religiously. Why didn't Vanessa have the doctor test her for sperm and DNA if she thought she had been raped? Too easy, drama-wise? I don't believe someone of Laura's size would have been able to move the dead weight of a large man like Andrew out of the car and from the car to the building.

Haven't started Season 3 yet, but can anyone tell me if there's any difference between the episodes that are being shown on my local PBS station and the episodes that are available on the Masterpiece Channel through Amazon? The Masterpiece on Amazon channel listing describes each episode as "full UK-length Edition". Each is about 57- 59 minutes long. The first PBS episode is 2 hours. ???

Thanks for chasing that down, yourmomiseasy.

I knew the only way I could watch would be to fast forward through all of the Abby flashbacks--which I did, except for the part where she had passed out in the Vegas hotel room and I thought maybe I'd see her die. Did not happen. ( I did end up fast forwarding about 3/4 of the show. ) And the scene in the hospital with Ray pleading with the doc to say it was a "concussion thing" and the doc just standing there ominously was dumb. More Abby next week, according to previews. I'll just say "ditto" to everyone who is sick of her and the retcon. I have to mention last episode's scene in the car where the two of them were talking about what she would want if she could do anything: "open a baaaah"; no, you left Boston so you could get away from a baaaah"; "no, I really would like to open a baaaaah": oy vey, it was like a meta comment parodying their OTT Boston accents. I had a feeling LS and PM had a big laugh afterward. Also, can someone catch me up: seem that this site no longer does recaps of episodes of first run series like this, or Orphan Black or whatever. All I see are post, or mainly podcasts, about BH90210, Veronica Mars, and reality shows? I haven't visited regularly in a long time. Am I missing something? Did the focus here change?

I'm confused. I thought that in the early 19th century, the only rights a widow would have had in her husbands property was life estate in the income from 1/3 of the property. So she could collect that income for as long as she survived, but she had no right to ownership of the title and she couldn't prevent the sale of the assets by the person who inherited under the will or through intestacy. I know the law changed later to be more like the modern approach, where a disinherited spouse would get a forced share (1/3 or 1/2) of the deceased spouse's property. So it just seems to me that the show is wrong on the law, which is annoying. :)

I generally hit the mute button when Helen Weiss is talking. I'm not familiar with the actress, Jeannie Berlin, but apparently she's well-loved and has done great work. Here, to me, she seems frail and stiff and a little sleepy. Her face is unexpressive (compare her to the actress playing Naz's mom, who is stupendous IMO) and her voice is off-putting. I keep wondering if she has a medical condition that contributes to these characteristics, in which case--shame on me for being such a critic. Finally, I hated the way she leaned onto the witness box and hovered close to the defense pathologist when she questioned him. I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be allowed and I found it creepy, although I guess that was probably a director's choice.

This aspect of the plot and dialogue bothered me. The CPA implied that after the mother's death the stepfather was depending on Andrea to give him a share of the estate, and that when she didn't, he harbored a grudge. In fact, wouldn't it be that either the mother left her husband a share of her estate, or, if he were disinherited, he had the legal right to a forced spousal share? (I don't know if in New York it would be one-half--possibly one-third.) The daughter's agreement or not would be irrelevant. The husband would take the share unless there had been a pre-nuptial agreement or perhaps if the daughter or some other heir showed that the husband had abandoned or abused or even killed the mom. Anyway, he would have gotten something without him having to get Andrea to agree to it. Then, the rest of the estate would pass under the mother's will to those beneficiaries (probably Andrea), or if she had no will the rest would all go to Andrea. Then when Andrea died, her estate would either pass under Andrea's will to whomever were her beneficiaries or to her intestate heirs, who would be blood relatives that don't include the stepfather. So there! Phew! But I guess the bottom line still could be that the stepfather was not at all satisfied with whatever he got and he harbored a murderous resentment against Andrea.

I liked the series for the visuals, for Olivia Colman and some of the supporting cast, and also for Tom Hiddleston, who is very pretty and who, I thought, did a pretty decent job of acting. I agree that some of the plotting was weak and contrived, but I generally love a foreign intrigue--international spy--MI5 or MI6 tale, so that was pretty much o.k. with me. My big problem was Hugh Laurie. I have only ever watched a couple of episodes of House, and I haven't seen him in anything else that I can remember. I don't find him to be an appealing actor (o.k., multitudinous Laurie fans here, so sue me!) and I found him completely unbelievable as this Richard Roper character. I found all of his piercing stares at Pine and others to be almost comically lugubrious. Unfortunately, he often took me out of the story because I thought he was such a bad fit. And I get that the character was supposed to be the scum of the earth, but that last racist rant to his Arab customers was so over the top as to be cartoonish. I guess much of the fault for that lies with the writer and the director, but I don't think that his performance helped.

As I recall, this was also SOP a little later for the Crusaders on their way to, and in, the "Holy Land."

O.K., first, I didn't initially express myself well because I was lazy and trying to be sarcastic. My problem with the original comment was the characterization of welfare "people" as taking everything, not producing anything. I think that's an incredibly inaccurate and heartless characterization of modern welfare recipients. Apparently, some see these people simply as lazy "takers" Kind of a Mitt Romney view of the world. In fact, I think differently of a modern welfare system, such as ours, that's part of a social safety net, and I think differently of those people who benefit from it. But then, your present comment is even worse: apparently welfare recipients, like the Vikings, live like rats, tattoo their bodies, etc. Frankly, I'm stunned at these comments. Finally, let me just note that it's religious PERsecution (not prosecution) you don't like. Great! Also, I assume you think religion, not the religious persecution, is a "private thing that should be kept at home."

The "welfare of the ages"? "Produce nothing , take everything"? Not sure that I find your analogy valid. Of course, the politics of the period involve elites enslaving and impoverishing the great masses of people in order to amass power and wealth. Hasn't it always been so?

I, too, am underwhelmed by the designers this season. Random thoughts: East coast surfer dude with the $6,000 cardigan? Yikes! Cannot stand the voice of the Brother Vellies woman. Is that what they call a vocal fry? Too much menswear. All the clothes are boring except for Chromat and the Gypsy sport guy. I like him and hope he wins, but he probably won't since the panel emphasized how tiny his business was and they're looking for some one who's further on their way. Finally, why does this show have to be as numbingly repetitive as Project Runway--same intro with the extensive description of the competition and the prize, same comments multiple times by contestants and judges--winning this is really important for my future, this will help me get to the next level, blah blah. There should be so much detail re the actual clothes that could be shown instead.

--I agree re Lucifer's behavior. I think it was mostly the writing, but also Ellis's acting was a little too over the top, and one-note. It was also obvious that the social worker colleague Doyle was going to be the bad guy. And then the dialogue for him and his acting at the end were bad, almost cartoonish: "I can't afford to show weakness, especially now that I've just taken control!" "Bang, bang"

I totally agree that "kind" is not an adjective I would ever use about Carson. When Robert said it, I couldn't sputtering out loud at my TV: "No, he isn't! He isn't!" The scene with Gwen was annoying for me because I felt that she was being deceptive by not immediately identifying herself to the family. So they never looked at her long enough to remember her face. But now she was being essentially dishonest by agreeing to be a guest in their home without revealing her identity. And it seems to me that given Gwen's personality, history, personal development and especially her affection for Sybil and Sybil's crucial role in Gwen's life, that Gwen should have voluntarily revealed who she was and should have immediately told the family the whole story. She wasn't ashamed of having spent time in service, and her very purpose for being there was to validate the idea of women of her class being able to climb up the societal ladder, as she had done with Sybil's help. I disliked that she intended to keep it a secret and that apparently Anna, the odious Bates, and the other servants--save Thomas--would go along with it. And even former downstairs-er, now upstairs-er, Tom Branson was going to stay mum. This mystified me. I agree that Thomas was being a weasel again, but I did not find it credible that even he would interject himself into the luncheon table conversation, while he was serving, by addressing a personal comment to Gwen (or any guest). He would have found some other way to bring the information to the family's notice before all sat down to lunch. But if Thomas hadn't forced it, would Gwen have bothered to let the family know who she was and how generous and life-changing Sybil's friendship had been?