kitkat343

I don't actually care about any of the people on this show, but I finally figured out who I want an update from: Dr Tsao! I always loved watching him take care of Ali, and the patience he had with his parents who really struggled to understand how to take care of her. Who else does everyone miss? How is Barbara doing (I think she was on one of the other Teen mom shows I missed)?

I agree with this. I wrote in last week's forum that although I thought it was a really good thing that Susan was now willing to be more flexible in dating, given her age and the ratio of single men to single women in NYC, I didn't think her chances were great of finding a husband since she's still going to want a man whose at least moderately successful. It's good that she's made this realization but since she didn't make it 15 years ago her chances still aren't great for marriage/long term partnership. But maybe she'll get lucky.

And as I am thinking about this further, dating can be really challenging for people on the spectrum. The additional stress caused by the time constraint that exists when you are trying to find a bride abroad might be too much for Harold to handle. He might be able to be more relaxed and calmer at home in the US if a matchmaker could find a girl who shares his interests. And he definitely needs a more hands on coach who can help explain to him "okay Harold, I'm really glad you found a nice girl. Now please wait 24 hours before you contact her, and wait until she responds to you before you send another message" so he doesn't scare a girl off before she has a chance to get to know him. It seems like Susan might have benefited a lot from her experience on this show and might be able to go home and be a bit more flexible with her dating requirements. Hopefully, if this doesn't work out Harold will at least believe in the possibility that someone could be out there for him and he'll make more of an effort into looking for a girlfriend in the U.S. He seems like a genuinely good man, and would make a wonderful match for the right girl (who might also be on the spectrum or would just have a lot of patience and share his interests)

No one is too busy to respond to a text within 24 hours from the person they really care about. Either she's just not that into him or he's scaring her off a bit with is clinginess. It's too bad - she actually seems like she'd genuinely be a good match for him.

"Michelle's date is brought to tears. Harold prepares to ask Michaela an important question. Noureddine wants to take the next step with Stanika. Mark gets ghosted in Morocco."

I agree with this. But considering the fact that Leah's twins are turning 13, that's really likely to happen soon with at least one of the original Teen Mom kids. MTV really doesn't need to keep broadcasting the boring moms - they can just swoop in with a big fat contract whenever one of the Teen Mom kids gets pregnant and then we can watch them. Jade really had it quite tough with her family. I hope she's in therapy (I don't watch this show closely enough to know if that is happening). I understand her desire to include her mother, but the woman is such a narcissist with anger issues that cutting her off would be the best course of action.

Given Harold and Michaela's relationship and how terrible so many of these dates were, I do actually feel like this is the rare reality show that isn't really scripted (or else Harold would deserve an Emmy if he's playing a character). Given that, I am actually surprised and happy that Susan was glad she went to Colombia. She struck me as the kind of person who is never happy with anyone or anything, so I was glad to see her happy about her decision to hire a matchmaker and go to Colombia. Juan isn't a very good matchmaker, but he is correct in that Susan's standards are too high and that she needs to become more flexible in order to have a relationship, and I hope enjoying time with her last date might help her develop a more flexible mindset that will help her date in the US. IT's going to be tough though at her age, since there are so many more wonderful single women compared to single men at that age (who can easily date 10 years younger anyway without anyone blinking an eye).

"Harold wants to make a big gesture for Michaela. Chad's torn between two Latin women. Susan meets Juan one last time. Stanika finds out if Noureddine's family approves of her. Houda gives Mark an ultimatum."

"Michelle's first date in Prague takes a turn. Nathaly meets someone she didn't expect. Harold's date tests his flexibility. Susan takes it a step further with Mauricio. Stanika meets Noureddine's family."

""Michelle's first date in Prague has a shaky start; Mark worries his date isn't on the same page as him; Juan tries to get Chad to slow his roll; Stanika reunites with Noureddine, who has a big surprise for her; Susan is surprised by her final match.""

I loved watching Harold on his date, and if he gets married I'd watch a whole miniseries about them planning the wedding. I find Michelle much more likable as a person than Susan, but it is going to be really hard to find her a match, especially in the Czech Republic. I am seriously becoming concerned about Nathaly's safety at this point, because I really like her and am very worried that she seemed totally unaware of the fact that a guy who announces he communicates with angels on a first date has a lot of issues. She could have benefited a lot from a competent matchmaker, who could have hopefully explained a bit more about men (she seems a bit sheltered and has limited experience dating). Juan's solution seems to be encouraging her to have a lot of sex, which she isn't ready for. Hopefully when she comes back to the US, a matchmaker who does this primarily as a hobby will volunteer to try to help her.

I loved watching Harold on his date, since they both seem genuinely happy together. Susan is absolutely a lost cause because no man will ever be good enough for her (unless he is 6'4, handsome, successful and an industry leader. She probably spent her 20s and 30s rejecting normal men as not being good enough for her, and now the guys she wants to land are going to marry younger and less critical women.) Natalie is a sweet girl who might be able to find a husband. But I'm really concerned that it will be too overwhelming for her to try to learn how to date in another country, especially since her matchmaker seems to suck. Could we send her to Harold's matchmaker? She found Harold a really good match - maybe she could patiently help Natalie find a kind and supportive man.

This is absolutely the case for Stanika's date, Salah, who seems like he needs to be committed. But Mark is pissing me off much more than Soukaina. She seems very sweet and is even willing to work after marriage. She's much younger than him, but I would imagine the average age at marriage is much younger in Morocco than the US. He's upset because she doesn't have the same life experiences as him, but why on earth would you leave the US to date overseas if you are looking for a wife with the same life experiences as you?

I rewatched the series and what struck me upon rewatching was Rachel announcing Sam was her hall pass at the dinner party. The dinner party guests were all of their mutual friends. It's pretty weird that Rachel announced to her friend group that she wanted to sleep with the Queen Bee's husband and didn't get iced out. That makes Sam Rothman's showing up and charming her pretty unsurprising.

In the last episode, Jee Young Han (the sister) was amazing. It's rare to see a well written tv show with so many outstanding actors - Delroy was stellar throughout, and Little Paige and Faly Rakotohavana were wonderful. I'm not much of a Kerry Washington fan, but she's doing a good job in this role. I hope this show gets picked up somewhere for another season, but it seemed to have been overlooked unfortunately.

It has a lot of potential. Margaret is much more interesting when the writers let her be a successful, intelligent character. Todd is much better when he's a grown up, and I'd like to see what kind of life Allison creates for herself.

Even her voice was completely different. I haven't heard her speak lately, but think it was an acting choice. She did portray the judgement Aunt Alice very well.

I also found it totally unbelievable that they ever let a detective who was serving as bait for a date rape case out of their sight. Wouldn't it be someone's job to always watch her and make sure she is okay? How does she just disappear from the bar? But as noted above, there were no hostages or shootings so I guess I'd agree it counts as a success.

Especially when Maurice described them as enjoying their "situationship." I could understand if they were married, or even in a long term committed relationship, but I'm not even sure they have had a discussion about being exclusive. I also really liked Maurice's story about waking up in a package after the UPS holiday party. I think Amber loving the purse Janine hated was a sign that Maurice and Amber would be endgame. Interesting to see it referenced here again (Erica hinting she'd like it for her birthday, since Janine hates it)

The actress looked pregnant to me in the show (I'm not certain). A bag is fine, plus this show has absolutely no concern about continuity. So far, in the Conner Universe Dan's wife disappears for months at a time on tour, Emilio hasn't been seen since he got remarried, we haven't seen DJ in a while, very little of his daughter, and his wife has been gone forever (in the military but still). Andy's disappeared. The fourth Conner baby is at sea or was never born (I can't remember which. possibly both?) Dan's stepbrothers appear to have never been born (we saw Crystal with no mention of her children). How hard would it have been to send Harris off to college for a semester, or an internship or a job in Chicago? She was originally from there, and could have some friends who might be willing to help her launch some sort of career. Given what a pill the character was, I can't imagine anyone would have missed her for a few months. It was nice to see Jackie try to protect her, but I think that's about all we will get in terms of positive story lines about this mess.

I was starting to roll my eyes at St. Olivia reading the book, interrupting what was one of the best SVU episodes in a long time when I saw the dedication. This episode seemed perfect to dedicate to Richard Belzer, a story about a curmudgeon who is deep down a really good person. I was wondering if this episode was originally scheduled to air now, or if they switched the order to dedicate it to him. It seems like it might be in order due to Valasco's continuing story, and maybe it was just fate. It was also nice that one of the few well done episodes in recent years could be dedicated to Richard Belzer, who contributed so much to the good years of SVU.

I would guess that everyone else is assuming deadbeat dad. But at this point, David is gone (and retconned into a deadbeat dad) and if I recall correctly Emilio hasn't been seen since he married another woman (and must be a deadbeat if everyone else is raising Beverly Rose) so aside from Dan all the fathers seem to disappear. It's interesting to see the contrast between Jackie's husband and Ben; the extended family doesn't seem to be dumping their nonsense on him, and he even stood up to Becky and called her out on how badly she was treating Jackie and the rest of her family.

And it's pretty shocking to see her casually dump the soul sucking parenting tasks on Ben immediately after not paying her portion of the rent. Am I correct in understanding that she's still an undergraduate? There's no way she should be taking in person classes if she can't handle working, being a parent and taking classes. She doesn't have to enroll at the University of Phoenix or another expensive, low prestige for profit school; there are plenty of public universities that have online courses and degrees now. If she has no money, then she needs to take online community college courses, then after two years transfer to the University of Illinois or another public university with online degrees and then maybe for her graduate degree she can study in person if her field doesn't have online degrees. The actor playing Ben looks utterly exhausted and defeated; did anyone think for a second how hard it might be for him to take responsibility for Harris' kid when he is unable to have his own biological children if he stays married to Darlene. It seems pretty unrealistic that a man in his position wouldn't run for the hills, but no reasonable man would have married Darlene given the fact that she cheated on him and treated him like garbage so maybe they'll stay together.

Even if she wasn't going to LA for Sam, its still a pretty terrible idea to take your kids across the country when you are trying to start up a new business. She won't have much time for them, and they will be dealing with difficulties from being separated from all of their friends, Toby and their long time nanny (she didn't get fired until after Rachel went MIA and Toby demanded she work through her vacation which was insanely stupid because this show was set in precovid NYC, where he could have easily called a million nanny agencies and gotten someone to take care of his kids during the nanny's vacation). If she had a business reason to start the LA office, the benefit of the divorce would be that she could leave the kids behind for the summer, establish the office and then come back to NY in the fall and resume shared custody then.

I'm slightly harder on Libby than this. It feels like a lot of Libby's problem is that she wasn't able to advance at the men's magazine. And I really find it hard to be sympathetic about that, because its a men's magazine. I'd be really sympathetic for her she wrote for Time magazine and they gave all the good assignments to male colleagues, but honestly it feels more like "why did it take her so long to realize that a men's magazine isn't going to support a woman?" And I also find it hard to believe she was earning so much as a middling writer at a men's magazine that she couldn't have quit a long time ago and found something personally fulfilling that wasn't financially rewarding. She could become an adjunct professor, teaching classes in journalism, writing or women's studies. Or she could write for a feminist publication or worked as a freelancer (she didn't earn a salary in the previous year and her family was fine from a financial point of view). Her kids are old enough they are not completely dependent upon her, so she should have had the ability to at least try to make her life fulfilling. And if it was depression that prevented her from doing these things, then she should at least have gone into serious therapy to try to work on that. Adam supported her quitting her job to write a novel. And her showing up late for the flight to Disney was pretty awful for the kids who might have been worried about her and the trip, and her forgetting to make reservations for that trip was also awful given the fact that she doesn't work outside the home and it seemed from the family scenes like he was both earning money and being the primary caretaker of the children. He mentioned having planned everything down to the minute, and that kind of planning takes a lot of work.