TVSallyS

The main problem with the show is that Alicia and Lucca's little firm is just not dynamic or interesting enough to sustain interest. They need a bigger cast around them. And we are just seeing two totally split plot lines every week - Lockhart/Agos, and Alicia. They have zero connection to one another, they don't work together in any way, it's like watching two separate mini episodes of two different law firms jammed into one hour, and as a result everything on both sides feels less developed, important, or engaging. All of Eli's subplots work because they all tie into his relationship with Alicia - his girlfriend screws with her investigator, he is hatching a plot to make her a candidate, he ends up at her house for a drink with a big confession, etc. etc. I just can't figure out why I am supposed to care about Lockhart Agos if they have no connection to the main people on the show at all. We just have a story or case of the week at each firm, with no connection to one another. It wasn't conceived well. And the tension and energy surrounding the struggles at Florrick/Agos was a million times more interesting than Alicia's gig with Lucca. A duo with a humble practice fighting a new case each week does not an interesting hour of television make. It just feels.... small.

I just would like to see Jason suggest how these things should be done when he whines that the whole problem is production sabotaging the movie. The irritating thing is that there was just enough confusion over whether it really could have been bigger if somebody had started doing something sooner.... He is again left with the impression this just wasn't about them being passionate enough to do all they could. I felt really irritated by that brief confusion during that conversation. I wanted to hear more - was this really true? Was it just Jason's crazy interpretation? It's driving me nuts that at every step of the way there has been just enough doubt as to whether they could have done something differently to allow him to continue in his crazy sabotage theory.

Yeah, Marc framing that as "Jason was right! He is smart!" was soooo stupid and was clearly indicative of his underlying anger at Effie for chasing away Farrelly - he knows she is in conflict with Jason and is still kind of irked with her, so he paints this as "score one for brilliant Jason". Um, no. I didn't once hear people on the production team say "a big crash isn't important. We won't give you that because we think it doesn't matter." What I heard them say was "given our money, safety concerns, and time, here Jason is the biggest crash we can do". And I saw Effie scraping for every last time to give him the biggest she could do. I didn't hear anyone running around trying to sabotage Jason or idiotically claiming this crash didn't matter. They just said "here's what can happen." They can't pull more time or money out of their butts. It wasn't like they gave him this version of the crash because they DISAGREED with Jason that it really should be big, and if those idiots had only seen his perspective, they'd have set up an awesome multimillion dollar crash setup. No. They clearly had no options. You know who could have pulled more resources out of his butt? Jason. If he'd picked more days over film. So, Marc could have just as easily said "well, I guess Jason made the wrong choice. Audiences probably won't be able to see the film/digital difference, but this thing crucial to the plot point couldn't be done right. Effie saw this coming looking at the schedule and tried to warn him." Instead, his interpretation of those events was "that smartie was right." Ok. I mean, if it makes you "right" or "smart" to have no foresight, drain resources, and then whine and yell about how you don't have resources to do what you want. Sure, I guess that's one interpretation of these events.

Jason is such a butt. But good grief, why the frit did Effie say she was scraping together money to get him what he wanted and then not clarify this was still NOT going to be a flip??? Has she not met Jason? He doesn't hear no when she says it plainly. She really thought he was going to hear "I'm trying to get you what you want after all", and understand the flip was still off the table? Sigh. Stop giving the dude ammunition.

I also caught that they were moving backwards on the signatures, but since she never sounded certain, I interpreted it to mean she was likely an idiot who couldn't even say for certain how many signatures she had when this one task was the single most important issue for the movie. If they did reverse the order of something to create drama and make it look like they discovered they unfortunately had even less than they first thought, I would be steamed if I was her. Makes her look dumb.

The one thing that does irritate me about Effie is her repeated use of these phrases like "nothing but love, but...." Fyi. Love isn't something you have to announce. If you feel grace and compassion towards the people you work with, it shows when you act that way. People constantly including disclaimers like that are basically saying "you just ticked me off and I'm about to say something that will sound like I don't love you, but I am going to just tell you before I speak that there is nothing but love, so you can't accuse me of being unloving, no matter what I say." Drop the disclaimer and just talk in a diplomatic way. And then take responsibility for what you say and how you say it. Disclaimers don't change what actually happened in a conversation, so they are just irritating.

The camera crew fight was an odd narrative to include. I think they couldn't resist including because it was simply so heightened and dramatic. But they clearly didn't have time to edit in the remaining scenes that would've made it make sense. We had no idea who these people were and we had no idea what had led to their conflict. We also had no idea how it was resolved. And we had no idea if the conflict and it's resulting resolution had anything to do with Jason and his management style. From an editing perspective it was a poor choice and it was bad storytelling because it didn't fit into any story that they had been telling so far. The deleted boom mic scene fit sensibly into a narrative we had already been exposed to and it would've been better to include. I think somebody saw the footage and just couldn't resist the drama of a huge explosive fight right when the president was walking in so they thought including it would be dramatic.

This is what they need to do more of to handle him, though. He can't believe they can't just do it if it matters. They can't just keep saying no. Jason's whole interpretation of that interaction was that Effie was "looking at him like it didn't matter", and that's why she shut it down so fast. Sort of like film didn't matter to her, so she didn't push, and Jason did. And got it. I know that's not a fair summary, but it's how Jason sees it. So. They have to simply say "ok, if you are saying that might matter more to you than something else, I will compute the cost of the extra man plus mike, and give you a list of the other things that you can cut that would add up to that price, with a brief summary of the implications of cutting those things, and you can make the choice". Stop saying no. Just start smiling and handing him the choice. Let him cut the other thing if he freakin' wants to and deal with the fallout, or let him decide on his own it can't be done.

On the one hand not having time to get signatures is obviously Jason's fault. On the other hand I remain frustrated that the other people involved are just making tiny minor enough mistakes that he isn't ever forced to confront how it's all his fault. It ticks me off. They aren't managing him properly. He's a control freak. The whole film is his baby. That's obvious to anyone watching. So you can't just shout "choose a location now or we won't be ready". You must give the man details. Help him understand EXACTLY what will be sacrificed and why. If they had walked through the likelihood that all signatures would be gotten (and that he'd have to rewrite his whole precious script for day) back then, and been persuasive, he might have picked a location sooner. He hasn't ever worked within timelines and practical issues that he hasn't micromanaged entirely himself. Why can't they pick up on that and adopt a different approach to handling him?! Yelling at him, saying no and "just trust me" clearly was never working and they should have adjusted their style months ago. Then from his perspective, it's them not fighting for the movie. Turn the details over to him. Say "here is the choice". Then it is clear to him consequences are ON HIM. This time around, they did not appear to be TALKING TO HIM about the signature crisis. WHY???!! He seemed, with his inside the episode comments, to be totally in the dark about what was going on. WHY??!! If there was a chance he was going to have to direct it all as daytime, he should have been told immediately at the start of the shoot so he could weigh the probabilities of getting the signatures and make an informed choice as to whether to start shooting day at the start or take the risk and push forward with night. Since he wasn't kept updated, he now feels mistrustful again and somewhat justifiably upset. How should the director not have been told, when he started shooting night, that they didn't know for sure yet he'd be able to continue shooting night???? He's not off base in being a little upset. And once again, it's going to blow up more than it even should have. He's just so entitled I can't stand people around him giving him any excuse to place blame elsewhere. Sigh. I'm frustrated they are. Learn the guys style. Keep him in the loop and give him details. Make sure he has no one to blame but himself. I mean, we all know what would have happened. He would have said "we need to shoot night." Then when it bit him in the ass, his fault. Now they look dumb for not mentioning it. It seems reasonable to say that if it was remotely likely they wouldn't get the signatures, Jason obviously should have been told upfront so he could decide whether to waste time darkening shots on day one. If it happened this way, someone miscalculated the ease of getting this done - which might be an innocent mistake, but once again, gives the egomaniac reason to not trust them instead of working with them.

I do have a question that maybe I missed originally. I don't understand how it came to be that Diane got this evidence from Kalinda's computer without talking to Kalinda first? In Hail Mary, I remember everyone running around on their cells constantly asking each other "do you have anything yet? Anything yet?" It was going down to the wire. They all understood the urgency. Kalinda, last I saw, was in cell phone contact. And she understood the time sensitivity of passing anything on she had found. So what made Diane think she should hack into Kalinda's computer to look for life saving evidence, because it might be there, but Kalinda just had not bothered to call to tell her about it yet?? Maybe Kalinda had temporarily gone out of cell touch frantically working on her other last minute angle because she literally had no time to talk before getting it to the courthouse, but why did Diane decide that meant she had to hack into her computer! If all they needed to save Cary was already on her computer, she wouldn't have gone out of cell touch to keep working on something! She just would have been calling Diane telling her to get it off her computer and bring it to the courthouse. Diane should have had to know that anything she would find on Kalinda's computer, if Kalinda had left the office and gone missing instead of just giving it to her, was still not solid in some way. So I am not clear what Diane was thinking when she went looking for something to use that Kalinda herself had not deemed ready to turn over. This actually does make her complicit in some way. This was shady of her. In light of that, a scene of her saying she had suspicions it wasn't solid when she grabbed it without consulting with Kalinda or asking Kalinda what it was would seem realistic. Her total shock that anything about it wasn't solid (which CB played as sincere shock) was a little implausible to me. If it was totally solid, Diane, why hadn't Kalinda called you about it or brought it herself!!!!

Right..... But he only wants to retire so his kid can have a normal life with a normal dad, not because he had a crisis of conscience otherwise. If someone turns him in first and he goes to prison what's the point of retiring? He's had many many people killed. I don't see why it's remotely unreasonable to fear retribution if she sends him to prison. Again, what's the point of retiring so he can give his kid a life with an absent dad in prison. I think it's reasonable to think he'd sink back into retribution to avoid prison, because being in prison kind of defeats the whole point of retiring. I guess they've all learned one thing. Remember way back when they didn't want to be a firm representing a drug dealer? Then they caved because they needed the cash? How many lives has becoming involved with Bishop nearly entirely destroyed? Yeah. Not worth it.

The difference was that separating herself from Peter's supposedly racist office was a necessary move for her to clarify her own supposed positions on the race issue, as a state's attorney candidate. She wasn't trying to take Peter down for the vindictive fun of it, she was following a campaign manager's logical advice about a necessary position for her to take in order to advance her own campaign and clarify her position on things, should she become State's Attorney. A very interesting theme of this whole campaign has been watching two spouses try to do what they would otherwise view as as wise to do for their own campaign, given a spouse is involved. Hurting Peter was unfortunate, but it was clear it was the sensible advice of a campaign manager. Peter's actions, however, were inexplicable in the sense that they seemed solely vindictive. It was unclear what it possibly gained him politically to sabotage her race for the fun of it. In fact, while Alicia was acting on the advice of her manager, Peter's own chief of staff was UPSET he did it, not for Alicia's sake, but for Peter's own sake. Causing the person he endorsed to lose in this manner was so potentially embarrassing for him politically, he had to scramble around to fix it and to undo the damage he had done to HIMSELF. That's why everyone was sensibly confused. His actions made no sense other than "I want to be mean to Alicia because I am mad at her, and I will even hurt myself politically to do it, because I am two years old". That's not what Alicia was doing.

Ok. You raise several questions here I am interested in because I don't know enough about this crap. Can anyone help? I also remembered that Monica had the seat and I was totally confused because I couldn't see why she'd screw him, even to please her boss and save her own job, so I figured he was safe as long as Monica was on the board. But then I immediately realized I was being stupid and she would not have had the power to save him even if she was in a self sacrificial mood, right? Obviously Monica doesn't personally own or control that board seat in perpetuity no matter where she works - Raviga got the board seat as part of their contract when they invested. Richard just said he wanted Monica to be the representative from the company who sat in Raviga's seat. So they probably made either a personal (or in writing) agreement that she would serve as the rep for Raviga's seat as long as she was an employee there. But if Monica started doing things to sabotage Raviga in her boss's mind, it's probably pretty clear she just would have been fired and replaced on the board with someone else immediately and they would have had a new meeting and voted Richard out anyway with their 3 votes. So, this really wasn't something she could prevent, so I doubt Richard or anyone would care that much about her voting against them since a vote in their favor wouldn't have helped anyway. We might find out next season how it all played out - whether she protested and this fact was conveyed to her and she decided to stay for the time being and cast her vote the way they wanted her to just to at least attempt to help advocate for Richard in some small way by sticking around instead of being replaced, or whether she got so disgusted she quit before the vote even though she had no ability to stop it anyway. They didn't show the full scene to us with her boss and I am assuming we will be seeing more of what happened with Monica and how she is reacting to or handling this next season.

While we may hate Monica's boss for what she did to our boys, she hasn't been painted as dumb in terms of her business decision making. Everyone appears to be talking about how Gavin royally screwed up everything for his company (illegal employment contracts, etc). He's being painted publicly as a disaster and liability. I can't see how she could think it would be a remotely sane or profitable decision to make him the face of of PP. Don't see how they could possibly explain her thinking if she did that.

I adore Jared. I mostly watch for him (both the actor and the character/lines they give him). It's all gold.