Anisky

The way the zombie brains are manifesting is confusing to me. When Liv eats brains now, it just takes the way the dead person behaved in one particular context, and makes Liv behave in that perfectly-appropriate-in-specific-contexts way in absolutely EVERY situation. It seems that she's either unable to differentiate, or unable to help herself. While they were alive, (at least some of) the people whose brains she ate were perfectly capable of operating like normal people, adapting their behavior to the people around them and the situation. This season, it seems that Liv is unable to do that. Did zombie brains always work like that? I don't think they did. For one thing, I've only started noticing it this season, but it's already bugged me in multiple episodes so far. This one just made it explicit. Like, it first seemed weird when Liv was on Dad brains, and she was treating everyone like she was their dad. I kept thinking, wouldn't this guy just treat his daughter that way? I mean, sure, Liv could treat Major that way, fair enough. But they mentioned that the banker/accountant father was well-liked at his job, and I couldn't help thinking that if he insisted on treating everyone in that paternal way Liv was, it would not make him popular or well-liked at work. Then, the dominatrix episode annoyed me because I have known plenty of pro-dommes in real life, and none of them have randomly started trying to dom random vanilla people while going about their everyday life. I wondered if I should chalk it up to the show just not representing professional BDSM very well. But in this episode, it's absolutely explicit. This guy was a womanizer and an amazing listener, apparently. There is no way that he was getting into all those women's pants by treating them like preschoolers. So why was Liv treating everyone as a preschooler? Why wasn't she able to listen well to the women they called in for questioning, instead compelled to interrupt them in order to speak in baby voices to them through hand puppets? Before, it seemed like Liv was absorbing more general character traits (and when applicable, psychological conditions) of the people whose brains she ate, right? Things like alcoholism and agoraphobia, type A personality, super focus and industriousness, a zest for life, an upbeat attitude, an artistic temperament... those sorts of things. Mannerisms and certain ways of speaking when the person whose brain she ate ALWAYS acted and spoke that way. But why does eating Preschool Teacher brain leave her only able to act the way that person acted in a preschool classroom, when part of the whole point is that he acted very differently in his personal life? I don't get it.

I am interested in Jane/Fabian because they're pretty much one of the most common romantic tropes gender-swapped, and people are reacting to it very differently. The super hot, kinda dumb/not as well educated, but earnest and kind woman. The (ostensibly-)not-as-hot, more intelligent and educated man. He looks down on her at first, but is charmed by her good-heartedness and zest for life. It's an incredibly common trope in fiction (and real life-- just look at the statistics about how many women with advanced degrees marry significantly less educated men versus how many men with advanced degrees marry significantly less educated women). Jane the Virgin just switched the genders of the characters, and voila, the relationship is viewed completely differently. Knowing the JtV writers, this was probably intentional. I'm interested to see how it plays out, both within the show and in fan reactions.

I mean, John couldn't have sat on it very long, though, which both makes it more credible that he did keep it secret, and also makes it less impressive that he didn't leave. Kathryn said that his results were dated a month before the family got theirs, right? I'm not sure how long test results take to run, but there'd be reason for John to keep quiet and not leave even before they discovered the switch. As soon John found out that Bay wanted to get the genetic tests and Kathryn was okay with it, he would have known something was strange, wondered why Kathryn wasn't opposed, when she'd come clean, surprised when they actually got the test and morbidly curious if she'd actually wait until the geneticist told them at an in-person meeting that she was Bay's mother but John wasn't the father? I mean, who would leave the family at that precise point? It's high drama! He probably sat on it without the confusion of Kathryn's seemingly-incongruous reaction for 2 weeks, maybe 3 max. If he went months or years without leaving or saying anything, I'd be impressed. A couple weeks doesn't even give him time to have processed it. It tells me nothing about how solid or not-solid the marriage is. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing-- why is Bay crying, it's not like Regina is moving to Belize, she lives at Regina's place of work, this is weird? I didn't catch the last name. When she mentioned a big-name sports doctor who treated high-profile patients, though, I became worried that she was going to find out that he was sexually abusing his underage patients and/or collecting child pornography, since this show likes to explore contemporary issues and sometimes bases its stories on real events, which would not be the best plot line for a series finale. (I know it's been in mainstream media to some extent, but it's hard for me to gauge how well-known the issue is, since I'm so very saturated in the gymnastics world, but that's what's going on with Larry Nassar, who until recently was the doctor for the USA women's gymnastics national team.) So I was just relieved it was a much more back-to-the-basic-show-premise type of plot point. That would be great, if it weren't exactly the same thing John said to Toby back in Season 1 about why he had trouble supporting Toby's dreams of becoming a musician, and Toby told him that he doesn't need his help, he just needs him to "get it". And while he has decided on a different path now, at this point Toby has been a professional musician for a while now. So, like... John has struggled with this exact thing before, successfully articulated his struggles with it 4 and a half years ago, and has come to terms with this exact thing before. This is a person journey he's already made, and that makes his being a dick to Bay a lot less sympathetic. Hearing him make the exact same sorta-apologetic explanation of non-support in the finale (of a 5 season show!) that he made in Season 1 just made it feel like he hasn't grown at all. I don't think that the writers intended his speech to Bay to indicate non-growth; I think it's more likely that they honestly forgot his identical speech to Toby, and it's just an in-character enough mental and emotional beat for John that they didn't realize they re-created it. But as a viewer who immediately remembered that scene, it was absolutely the effect.

Ice (and thus ice skating rinks) are chilly? That's all I've got so far...

If the brains in the tube are all mashed together, how did the next door neighbor guy know they were brains? I'd think that the mashing-together would just make it look something like hamburger meat, no? I guess I was wrong about Vivian suspecting Clive. I'm starting to believe what people were saying last week, that she/FG engineered their deaths in order to get Clive on their side; Vivian just seemed too smug when she said that her people would cooperate with Clive better than the other police because they know he's on their side. If she did engineer their deaths, I wonder if she just did it by posting Wally's family's location on that message board and a zombie-hating human took the bait, or if she had her own people kill them and she posted the location on the message board in order to cover her tracks? Still relevant question in either scenario: why did whoever killed them take the fingernails? If they were taken post-mortem, it strongly suggests that whoever who actually physically killed them* are human (ie, can't turn people into Zombies themselves), but want the option of being able to turn other people into zombies? I don't know why zombie haters would want to be able to turn people into zombies, but I'm not sure why else they'd take the fingernails-- research on the bacteria, maybe, but then it seems like they'd take other things than just fingernails. The only person I can think of who would want those fingernails, come to think of it, is Blaine. If I run with the Blaine hypothesis for a moment, then there are a two main options I see: 1. It could have been Blaine behind the whole thing, who covered his tracks by posting their location on that board, working alone or with random zombie-haters who aren't significant characters (comes down to the same thing really). Viv's smugness in that case would just be me reading too much into an acting choice, or a red herring. 2. Or, Blaine and Viv could be working together-- in which case I would expect Viv's explanation about what happened to her husband to have been a lie to make sure that nobody thinks she might be working with Blaine. (It could also double as a bit of a loyalty test-- when will Liv & co tell her that they know who "killed" her husband?) Or, of course, it could be something completely different. *as opposed to a situation where Vivian indirectly killed them by pointing others in their direction

I know, right? Silly me, when I read the description of a show about "a lesbian couple and their blend of biological, adoptive and foster children", I assumed it would be, y'know... a positive portrayal? Which for the first season or two, I think it was, but lately... ugh.

It makes sense that your mind went there, I think-- Clive would be the obvious suspect if you didn't know him. The first thing I thought was that the Fillmore Graves CEO would think it was Clive who killed them, and go after him. Clive is a human that she doesn't trust, and she was clearly a bit unhappy about allowing him to tag along to her meeting with Liv and Major and tour of Fillmore Graves. On that tour, he asked her to give his contact info to Wally's mother so that they could get together. Assuming the Fillmore Graves lady did indeed pass on Clive's contact info, then from her perspective, the timeline went: -Shows human she doesn't trust around, giving him the chance to ID lots of zombies -At his request, gives his contact information to a zombie child's zombie mother, who probably indicated she would contact him to meet in person -A day or so later, that zombie child and his zombie parents are dead The ending didn't establish whether she suspects him. So I'm wondering if, moving forward, the gang has to protect Clive from Fillmore Graves and try to convince them of his innocence, because the timing looks really suspicious for anyone who doesn't know that he would never kill a child and understands that zombies are mostly-ordinary people.

Nearly everything in the first 70% of that episode made me cringe nonstop. I adored the first couple seasons of this show... wish it had lived up to its potential. Sadly, I don't think I'll miss it when it's over.

Then she tells him he's a pig and reminds him that they're both married. Saying you're going to have sex with someone does not create some kind of binding obligation to follow through.

Is Noelle actually stealing Bae's work, though? In real life, I'd just figure that Noelle just liked how the bird looked, Googled some more information and pictures, and started drawing it herself. According to Bay, the bird was really common in Chinese mythology. Just drawing the bird isn't stealing Bay's work any more than drawing (or tattooing) dragons or fairies or whatever is copying someone else's work. Mythology is public domain. Does anyone know what would actually constitute one visual artist stealing another's work, when they're drawing the same mythological (or real for that matter) creature? I don't know exactly how it would work; wouldn't it have to involve technical things lines and shading and coloring and whatnot? If Bay had just made up the bird, it would be different, but she clearly stated that she didn't. Of course, just because this is true in real life doesn't mean that it's how it will be treated on Switched at Birth. Rather the opposite, I'd say. I HOPE that this really is a red herring and that the show doesn't actually go down the "Noelle is stealing Bay's work" road, because there are other reasons that doesn't make sense. Bay is working at Noelle's tattoo studio. Presumably, she sees most of the work, either in progress or completed, that Noelle does on people. If she were actually stealing Bay's work, chances are stupidly high that Bay would notice. Noelle has a reputation for having amazing and original work, and at least some amount of her livelihood depends on her reputation. So why would she risk such a high likelihood of her reputation being damaged? Because 20-year-old Bay's tattoo designs are so much better than those of the best tattoo artist in Kansas City that the artist, whose skill and expertise seem more than sufficient for her to run a successful business, absolutely must steal them in an environment where she is likely to get caught, which in turn would likely make her business less successful? Okay, Switched at Birth. Sure. There were men discussing in Chinese their plan to rob the studio at the exact moment that just-learned-Chinese Bay came into the studio to beg for her job back, so Noelle drawing the same common-in-Chinese-mythology bird as Bay might as well be stealing Bay's work despite all the above. Why not?

This show is blundering through this storyline with the same tone-deaf ineptitude with which they treated the campus rape storyline, so I kinda feel like I've already said most of what there is to say back when that was going on. The errors are the same in essentials, only the details are different. So instead, I'd like to take a moment to point out the sheer absurdity of the plot point that was that last scene in the tattoo studio. Bay's recently gotten back from China, made a huge mistake that got her fired, and has come to the tattoo studio to beg for her job back. At that exact moment, three men are speaking in Chinese about how they are planning to rob the studio. As one does. Like, suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far, and I found that scene just too ridiculously stupid to pass unremarked.

This hadn't occurred to me until you said it, but YES YES YES THIS. Especially considering that Petra actually DID at least partially move in those kinds of circles! (Though, now that I think of it, shouldn't Rafael be at least familiar enough with those sorts of social circles that he would notice something off about Catalina's stories? I guess we can fanwank that he doesn't think about it because he's so into her, but still.) But yeah, Petra would have seen through Catalina in an instant, and however she responded, it would have been MAGNIFICENT. (Also once things were in the open it could sort of open up a bitchy-halfway-forgiveness-Petra-style type of comment-- "Apparently you are not only ridiculously inept at judging a woman's character, you also fall for any fake or con artist alive, no matter how obvious the scam. Maybe I shouldn't take it personally that you couldn't tell that Anezka wasn't me.")

It totally reminded me of a moment in the documentary "The Ranch", which was about the USA Women's Team Gymnastics Training Center broadly and about the selection of the 2016 Olympic team more specifically. It had a segment on Laurie and her gym and homeschooling. Interviewer questions about a history report she has to write results in this hilarious gem from Laurie: "Julius Caesar was a Roman pretty cool dude who was stabbed like 10,000 times by Brutus." Adorable/funny? Yes. Lending credence to the above observation? Also yes. True. Being "sharp" in regular situations versus during live TV are two very different things. Drawing a blank in a stressful situation isn't unusual, and I think she may have had especial reason to do so, as I'll explain in a moment. Same! Always exactly the same, lol. My history classes were always supposed to get to the present, but never got past WWII, let alone the 60s. This probably made Laurie feel even more "on the spot" than most would be, because she's probably very cognizant that she's expected to be a good role model to many little girls in gymnastics classes all over the country. Even though theoretically little kids shouldn't be watching this show, she probably still feels a lot of pressure not to say anything that would make her look like a bad role model. Many-- maybe even most-- of the first things the average person thinks of when they think of the 60s are... not very little-kid-friendly. She was probably nervous about not saying something that she'd get grief over later, which would also contribute to her blanking. Ehhhh... I'm not sure that I agree. In a way this sort of goes back to what Gleb saying about how it's not a dance contest, it's a TV entertainment show, and whether or not he'll get in hot water for saying that. Because... yes, in a dance contest, of course someone would be penalized for something they were incapable of fixing. If someone who wanted to be a professional dancer couldn't point their toes, then they wouldn't be able to be a professional dancer, end of story. There's no world where they'd get a pass during auditions because it's out of their control. A good friend of mine who trained to be a ballet dancer her whole life had an injury where the result was that she could no longer lift her left leg above waist level while it was straight. And that was the end of her aspirations to be a dancer. That's just how it goes. While obviously none of the celebrities on this show are planning to become professional dancers, I *can* see how you could penalize him for not being able to point his toes. That said, I mean, he was wearing pretty normal-looking shoes during that dance, I don't know to what degree you could see a toe point inside those shoes anyway. One last thought: kinda rolled my eyes at Bruno, the self-professed fan of Sci-Fi, comparing "Team Future"'s performance primarily to Star Trek. As the dancers and choreographers for Team Future said, most of it was supposed to portray a dystopia. The other judges picked up on that, talking about Divergent and whatnot, so they obviously succeeded. Star Trek is a very utopian imagining of the future-- the exact opposite of what Team Future was doing. It really sounded like he was throwing out Sci-Fi references without having any idea at all what they were actually about.

I agree, and I was thinking the same thing! (About the terrible publicity for backing out at the last minute.) I can't help being a little more impatient with the show's central conceit than I was for the first two seasons, almost entirely because the end of last season was the exact perfect moment to tell the truth. How do you get a better moment than not currently working at the company, not being 100% sure you should return, and having the company decide they valued you so much that your boss's boss tracks you down in New Jersey and begs you to return? If her plan was actually to come clean once she'd established her value, that was the perfect moment. Sorry, I know that rant belongs in the episode thread for last season's finale, but it's really lowered my tolerance for Liza's age drama this season.

Copied by request from the Week 4 Episode Thread: As someone who took dance for 14 years growing up (became quite serious about it as a teen) and is currently a gymnastics coach, I have to say that yes, the two disciplines are quite related. I mean, obviously, they're not perfectly correlated. But while strength is something necessary in most sports (and thus something that many contestants on DWtS have), the biggest things that both dance and gymnastics require are flexibility (this one is huge), precision of movement, excellent balance, and kinesthetic awareness. Also, all the team gymnasts at the gymnastics training center where I work have several hours of dance class per week; while this varies from gym to gym, I know MG Elite (Laurie's gym) has dance class as part of team practice. Some things that Laurie could easily do that I'd expect professional dancers (especially the women) to be able to do, that most other types of contestants wouldn't: Completely straight splits and straddle. Lifting her back foot behind her and holding it against the back of her head with ease; standing there like that without falling over. Kicking one foot all the way up, with a straight knee, so high that she could hold it in a full vertical split. An illusion turn. A leap that hits 180 degrees before landing. Completing one or more pirouettes with a leg up at or above waist-height, straight or in attitude; finishing in balance and ready to continue to another movement. On both Floor and Balance Beam, at least 3 out of the 8 skills that are added together for difficulty score must be "dance skills", mainly leaps and turns. The higher the difficulty, the better the final score, so an All-Around gymnast like Laurie is highly incentivized to perform at least 6 extremely difficult dance skills (3 of them on a 4-inch-wide beam). One thing that rather disappointed me about Laurie's dance this week is that it didn't utilize more of the abilities she'd have from gymnastics that translate into dance. Besides the obvious aerial cartwheel lift she did with Val, there was also a very high kick she did near the beginning that most contestants wouldn't be capable of, but that's all I really saw this week. In their dance in the first week, Laurie and Val definitely made copious use of Laurie's flexibility and ability to kick super high-- I can't think off the top of my head of any other group besides gymnasts and dancers who would be able to do what she did in that one. In the second week, besides a lift where Laurie got to show off her split, they mostly made use of Laurie's gymnastics-derived ability to spin around a bunch of times without getting dizzy (she's Olympic Silver Medalist on Balance Beam for a reason) and to continue seamlessly into new choreography. They also took advantage of her dance training making things like kick ball changes and grapevines second nature enough that she could focus on other things while doing them. They also had a cool bit of choreo that was a hop-turn-kick, hop-turn-kick that Laurie's gymnastics training would have made really easy. (Besides turning multiple revolutions in a row and having the leg at waist height or full split while doing so, the main form of high-scoring dance element on Floor is a leap or jump that hits a pose-- usually a split or variation thereof-- while packing in as many spins in the air as possible before the gymnast hits the floor. So a dance move that's a hop that spins in the air and ends in a kick as you land would be easy for a gymnast and very challenging for anyone else-- not undoable the way most of her flexibility is, but something that would eat up a lot more training time for anyone else.) The third week they didn't make that much use of it either-- a few kicks, and a few moments where Val drags Laurie or leans her over while her feet are still on the floor or (gasp) lifts her were aided by her gymnastics training. Especially the first two; her body stays super straight and tight because she was reminded to "Keep those legs together, knees straight, body tight!" many times daily from the time she was 5 years old until the time that it became so automatic to her that she didn't have to be reminded. ("Toes pointed!" was part of that too, but she's wearing shoes of course. I guarantee you they were was pointed as she could make them inside those shoes, just by sheer reflex.) (The tightness of the body is probably actually a disadvantage in much of this competition, but it made those particular moves possible and good looking.) All that said, the charisma, the acting skills and facial expressions, natural rhythm, attitude, stage presence-- pretty much all the things that make it hard to look away from her while she's dancing-- that's all Laurie.

I don't think it's repeating the lab from season 1-- I think that would be an improvement, unfortunately. The lab from season 1 was an event coming up in their future, which created a sense of urgency. The prison cell is just Daisy's past. Unless the driving mystery actually does end up being specifically why they jump there accidentally, and the answer ends up being important and dangerous, then it's just like... who cares? Season 1, the main characters were in swiftly approaching peril (and the reason for it was directly related to the invention of time travel and their use of it). Season 2, a character we never met before was being kept in a cell, but now she's free? Okay... and? As a season-long plot arc, there's no urgency, there's little at stake, and it's tertiary. It will only matter as far as they make Daisy, a character who they only introduced for the plot arc in the first place, important to the other characters and the viewers. Events from 500 years ago have no relation to the characters except through her. (Unless she turns out to be one of the character's ancestress, though if that were the case then based on the '50s episode someone should be changing appearance or disappearing by now. ) -- Was anyone else annoyed by the "Cyd doesn't have a Thing!" episode? She saw a version of herself from the future with crazy fighting skills kicking butt. She had a Mixed Martial Arts party last season. If she wants a Thing, signing up for martial arts classes is a huge "Duh." Not to mention, with the most recent episode, she can add fencing in there as well.

Same, except we also had a health class in 6th or 7th grade. It covered a lot of topics (as did the high school one), plenty of which wouldn't have been awkward for Corey to cover-- even if he were weirded out by general anatomy or hygiene, it had things like nutrition, CPR and the Heimlich, survival skills, etc. I remember very clearly that in the middle school class we had a series of classes on not being prejudiced. It was 1998 or 1999 but they definitely included homophobia in the series, which in hindsight impresses me; I remember two videos on the topic very distinctly; they made a strong (positive) impression on me. While there are tons of non-gross-out topics they could cover, my high school health class included things like photographs of genital herpes and arms with really bad track marks and stuff like that. My class probably acted pretty grossed out on those days. The teacher didn't, but then, that original gym teacher in this episode probably wouldn't have, either. (Though you wouldn't guess it based on my descriptions of health class in public school, this was actually in a swing state.) Ugh, I know right?? It mostly makes me angry because Farkle deserves way better than that! Farkle's probably my favorite character on the show. I really liked the Farkle/Smackle relationship until they made it into this thing where Smackle really just wants to be with the "normal", sporty, more traditionally handsome guy and is just, what, settling for quirkily awesome Farkle? It really struck me in this episode how much more Maya looks like Topanga's daughter than Riley does. Yeah, a lot of it is the hair, but still! I agree with everyone on all the "Why can't Riley be more likable?", "How did Awesome Topanga do such a bad job raising Riley?", "Why can't Riley learn anything/Why won't the writers let Riley develop as a person?", "What the heck was the point of the triangle and why don't Lucas and Riley act like a couple?" comments. Wait... why am I still watching this show? Weirdly, Lucas and Riley acted much more like a couple on a crossover appearance on "Best Friends Whenever" than I've seen them act on their own show. (And in that episode Riley actually displayed some understanding of the real world; in response to a puzzle a character asks, "Why would there be five locks on one door?" and Riley quips, "Welcome to New York." So very the sort of thing a New Yorker might say, so very not the kind of thing Riley has ever said on GMW.) (Yes, I'm old enough to have gone to middle school in the 1990s and I have a Disney Show problem. Shut up, I'm not lame you're lame.)

You know what's funny, I thought those exact two same things at those exact two same points of the episode. I wonder if that's what they were originally going to have, and then changed it because someone thought it was too dark or something? It seems like everyone read Farkle's behavior the same way. Even worse than that! It went "Riley, I want you to do a report on your family history" "Mom, Dad, what's our family history?" "Don't know. Doesn't matter." and then continued: Riley: "My report on my family heritage is that I don't have one!" Corey: "Riley, this is a terrible report! I'm disappointed in you! You need to find out more about your family history!" "Mom, Dad, what's our family history?" "Don't know. Doesn't matter." It wasn't just pointless, it was scolding Riley for Corey's pointlessness. EDIT: Though of course, in this day and age, Riley could do a lot more than just ask her parents. If she just Googled "genealogy" she'd find plenty of web sites where, using her parents' and/or her grandparents' names, she undoubtedly could have found something interesting from some branch of the family. Like most of you, I was pretty annoyed with Riley's whole "I'm just American!" "There doesn't need to be any American booth!" when, no Riley, unless you are Native American then you are from somewhere else, and also, if there were Native American children at the school then there would be tons of reason to have a [Native] American booth. Also, in the very beginning of the episode, when Corey claimed that everyone coming from different places makes America "so unique." Er, Corey, you're a Social Studies teacher, right? You're familiar with geography? Have you ever heard of this country called "Canada"? It's actually kinda close by... (Though to be fair, I guess when he says "America" he could be referring to "the Americas", rather than the United States.)

I... what? This was... what was this? I kept expecting this to turn out to be a dream sequence; it didn't make any sense. Did the show suddenly switch genres and this is some form of non-realism? I don't even see how Jimmy could have planned it, like someone above suggested-- how would you include the screaming, panicking family with the kids in bed and the jail? Even if somehow they were actors and called the fake police, how was there a fake jail with a secret toilet entrance to a speakeasy? Just... what?

Well, to be fair, Laurie is actually 3 years younger than any other member of the Final Five. It may not seem like a lot but as far as "cuteness" goes, the difference between 16 and 19/20/22 can be large. Regardless, she definitely has the most outsized personality of the elite gymnasts. I don't know if this has crossed into mainstream coverage, but she's known as the "human emoji" in the gym community; she's just ridiculously charismatic (and energetic/enthusiastic). As someone who took dance for 14 years growing up (became quite serious about it as a teen) and is currently a gymnastics coach, I have to say that yes, the two disciplines are quite related. I mean, obviously, they're not perfectly correlated. But while strength is something necessary in most sports (and thus something that many contestants on DWtS have), the biggest things that both dance and gymnastics require are flexibility (this one is huge), precision of movement, excellent balance, and kinesthetic awareness. Also, all the team gymnasts at the gymnastics training center where I work have several hours of dance class per week; while this varies from gym to gym, I know MG Elite (Laurie's gym) has dance class as part of team practice. Some things that Laurie could easily do that I'd expect professional dancers (especially the women) to be able to do, that most other types of contestants wouldn't: Completely straight splits and straddle. Lifting her back foot behind her and holding it against the back of her head with ease; standing there like that without falling over. Kicking one foot all the way up, with a straight knee, so high that she could hold it in a full vertical split. An illusion turn. A leap that hits 180 degrees before landing. Completing one or more pirouettes with a leg up at or above waist-height, straight or in attitude; finishing in balance and ready to continue to another movement. On both Floor and Balance Beam, at least 3 out of the 8 skills that are added together for difficulty score must be "dance skills", mainly leaps and turns. The higher the difficulty, the better the final score, so an All-Around gymnast like Laurie is highly incentivized to perform at least 6 extremely difficult dance skills (3 of them on a 4-inch-wide beam). One thing that rather disappointed me about Laurie's dance this week is that it didn't utilize more of the abilities she'd have from gymnastics that translate into dance. Besides the obvious aerial cartwheel lift she did with Val, there was also a very high kick she did near the beginning that most contestants wouldn't be capable of, but that's all I really saw this week. In their dance in the first week, Laurie and Val definitely made copious use of Laurie's flexibility and ability to kick super high-- I can't think off the top of my head of any other group besides gymnasts and dancers who would be able to do what she did in that one. In the second week, besides a lift where Laurie got to show off her split, they mostly made use of Laurie's gymnastics-derived ability to spin around a bunch of times without getting dizzy (she's Olympic Silver Medalist on Balance Beam for a reason) and to continue seamlessly into new choreography. They also took advantage of her dance training making things like kick ball changes and grapevines second nature enough that she could focus on other things while doing them. They also had a cool bit of choreo that was a hop-turn-kick, hop-turn-kick that Laurie's gymnastics training would have made really easy. (Besides turning multiple revolutions in a row and having the leg at waist height or full split while doing so, the main form of high-scoring dance element on Floor is a leap or jump that hits a pose-- usually a split or variation thereof-- while packing in as many spins in the air as possible before the gymnast hits the floor. So a dance move that's a hop that spins in the air and ends in a kick as you land would be easy for a gymnast and very challenging for anyone else-- not undoable the way most of her flexibility is, but something that would eat up a lot more training time for anyone else.) The third week they didn't make that much use of it either-- a few kicks, and a few moments where Val drags Laurie or leans her over while her feet are still on the floor or (gasp) lifts her were aided by her gymnastics training. Especially the first two; her body stays super straight and tight because she was reminded to "Keep those legs together, knees straight, body tight!" many times daily from the time she was 5 years old until the time that it became so automatic to her that she didn't have to be reminded. ("Toes pointed!" was part of that too, but she's wearing shoes of course. I guarantee you they were was pointed as she could make them inside those shoes, just by sheer reflex.) (The tightness of the body is probably actually a disadvantage in much of this competition, but it made those particular moves possible and good looking.) All that said, the charisma, the acting skills and facial expressions, natural rhythm, attitude, stage presence-- pretty much all the things that make it hard to look away from her while she's dancing-- that's all Laurie.

Which season is Dax Has a Forbidden Lesbian Love Affair, But The Writers Want Homophobia Not To Exist Anymore In Federation Utopia So They Create An Unrelated, Obscure Taboo And Have The Crew Members Talk About How Weird It Is That A Cultural Taboo Would Stop These Two Women From Being Together, But It Has Nothing To Do With Both Of Them Being Women, Honest! ? I liked that one. It was very convoluted. S01.E15 made me laugh out loud. It's so true, and that trope isn't going away; the whole Maquis storyline is pretty much "There Are Some Guys Living Somewhere They Aren't Supposed To And The Crew Utterly Failed To Convince Them To Live Someplace Else". :-D

We definitely don't know if Courtney is okay with Brandon moving in though-- that usually happens way, way later in a relationship-- so I wonder if that's going to be a problem. He just assumed it was OK, but it might not be.

I know other parts of the episode were objectively more impressive, but I loved those four minutes of Dany/Yara/Theon/Tyrion interacting. You can see why Dany would be delighted with them. She has these two people offering her exactly what she needs right now-- well, she's had that before, and it didn't turn out great. But then, as they explain what they want, she realizes that it's not some pompous would-be King who thinks he can walk all over her. It's two people who get it. They're offering exactly what she needs, and what they request in exchange for what they offer is entirely reasonable; more than that, she likes them, genuinely. They seem to be, as Anne Shirley would say, kindred spirits. Especially after getting Yara's word that the Ironborn will stop "reaving, roving, raiding, or raping", Dany can actually feel good about what she's giving in return for use of their ships; and someone you really like and get along with, who shares [some of] your values, who asks for reasonable things in exchange for valuable offers, is a pretty good neighbor to have. In some ways, having Yara rule the independent Iron Isles is likely to be at least as good for Dany as their being part of Dany's Seven Kingdoms while under the rule of Euron. I see the appeal of Dany/Yara, and the show certainly teased it, but what I'd really like to see is a real, strong friendship between Dany and Yara. You know all those extraneous scenes of Tyrion trying to get Missandei and Grey Work to drink and just hang out? What I really, really want is scenes of Dany and Yara drinking and talking and getting to be friends. (Tyrion and Theon can join in, too.) Also: Tyrion, I love you, but given the amount of haha-you-don't-have-a-dick jokes you make, you're being a hypocrite. I also really liked how Theon, immediately after clarifying that he didn't kill Bran and Rickon, added that, "I did things that were just as bad, or worse."

Remind me why we didn't riot?

That sounds like it would be really hard. Based on what happened to Margaery, wouldn't Olyvar know damn well that if he "admits" that he lied while being questioned by the High Sparrow, as Margaery did, that he'll be locked up for indefinitely long? It would be hard to find something to hold over Olyvar's head that would have a worse consequence than that, so how would Littlefinger convince him to do it?