nygma619

I might agree with you that Leonard hadn't dreamed about it, had season 11 not revealed he picked out the name "Elliot" and sat on it for years. So he's dreamed about it. But I agree with you that Penny's pushback on this feels more like the result of her being reminded of the negatives of Howardette's kids and being nagged about it Compare this to the Positive Negative Reaction where when Penny was asked about kids she said "yeah" after recently being reminded of the joy of a kid being on the way. It honestly feels like Penny hasn't put alot of thought into her decision and is more a reaction to people around her.

Except Raj has "tempered his romantic idealism" before in the series. Such as with Emily in the season 8 finale. I see no reason to think he won't walk back against someone he has no chemistry with.

That's not how that played out to me. Her dad calling was a result of him still processing it so he called him. After he called him he seemed to process it.

We're talking about the same Penny who in season 8 said she wanted to be a pharmecutical sales rep after bombing an audition, only to change her mind & declare in season 9 that she hates it, that Penny? Unless Leonard agrees to get a vasectomy to seal the deal like Howard last season, I wouldn't call Penny's declaration in this episode a sure thing.

Yes but nothing in Leonard's history shows he was adamant against it either. Even admitted children was something he wanted. It's part of why him accepting in the span of a day didn't feel earned to me.

More like he's desperate, and not thinking straight.

Yeah it played that way to me to. But honestly I can see her changing her mind about this just as much as her changing her mind on whether she hates her current job or not. Penny's feelings felt earned, but Leonard's did not. Given him wanting children for years him accepting this in the span of a day just didn't fly with me. If it's revisited & it's revealed he's still bitter about it, that is fine. If not, it'll be OOC IMO. He was swept off her feet by her game saving gesture, not by Anu herself.

The Honeymooners, Green Acres, I Dream Of Jeanie, Will & Grace & Newhart would like a word with you. (So it only counts as representation if we like it? That's a pretty shallow interpretation.) So characters being flawed, saying something shallow & from a narrow minded point of view is unheard of?

Some people change their minds, some don't. Why is Bernadette not allowed to change her mind anymore than Penny is? They kind of did with Robin & Ted in How I Met Your Mother, and fans didn't care about that representation in the finale.

Another example, even though I don't like The Guitarist Amplification, that episode does have a redeeming grace in showing Leonard NOT backing down from his position in Penny being inconsiderate by letting an ex sleep on her couch for weeks. Even though she was mad at him, he didn't just give in to her just so she wouldn't be mad at him, quite the opposite resulted from that in Penny compromising.

Agree to disagree, Leonard was clearly heartbroken during the rest of the season; just because he was able to function and mend his heart back together doesn't mean he wasn't. So what if it was a backhanded compliment or if he was Passive aggressive in his description (which included kind and funny). That's not proof that he didn't mean what he said when he claimed Penny was all those things he described. Except anytime other things that Leonard likes about Penny besides her looks are mentioned, you move the goalposts in terms of why you think those things are not valid. If you have to move the goalposts to accommodate your interpretation, then that interpretation was weak to begin with. Um, you clearly did mention sex in your first quote: That's YOU mentioning sex as it pertains to their relationship in your first quote. Huh? Penny was never even at the table when he was gloating to his friends. He enjoyed learning that Penny is generally insecure about losing him for the same reasons he is. In the tag of the episode, he wanted her to stop worrying about what was happening with that. Should be, but isn't. Threatening to end their relationship if he didn't sign Sheldon's contract in season 4, RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM is her emasculating him, also her being inconsiderate of him when she went back to India AND when she slept with her ex thinking it wasn't a big deal is being inconsiderate of his feelings. JUST LIKE HIS MOTHER. Penny is further removed than those other women BECAUSE she's not as educated/book smart as they are. She relies more on being intuitive, than absolute logic. What you call throwaway lines (really calling The Maternal Congruence a throwaway line is invalid, since a good chunk of that episode was devoted to making it clear that Leonard and Penny see in eachother the exact opposite of the specific parents who left them scarred) I call just as valid in terms of evidence. Just because they haven't beat the audience over the head with Leonard liking Penny's other qualities DOES NOT mean it is less valid.

That sounds like the services they offer relate MORE to employee's troubles AS THEY RELATE TO the workplace. Even if it was a valuable resource, who says Leonard knows this resource would be available to him? There were things at my work that were available to me that I didn't know about. Two years ago I assumed I only was allowed 80 vacation hours a year, until my boss came up and asked why I hadn't used them all up, turns out no one told me about getting more vacation hours after five years of employment.

I found a quote from someone on AVClub that explains Bernadette and Amy's characters: "Bernadette's was retconned in season 4, by a line where Bernadette says she played naive (for the most part) to Howard to protect his manhood because she's smarter than him. After this is mentioned in her next appearance Howard is threatened by Bernadette's tall ex. Which I presume is when she stopped playing as naive, after their relationship survived that. Later on, she starts showing him her mean streak, that gave us Bernadette as we know her today. It's a flimsy retcon I'll admit, but I can let it slide for the most part, because up until that episode revelation, Bernadette didn't share screen time with mostly anyone except Howard. But Amy.... Most of her outlook was for the most part manufactured sabotage of herself that came from her giving up on having friends (or anything beyond that). At least when we first met her. Once she became BESTIES with Penny (who she perceives as a popular girl) you can see her trying to be clingy and sometimes pushing the boundaries on what she should be doing as a friend towards her. Once her friendship kept growing, she kept opening up, and opened up her mind to more possibilities. The "robotic monotone" in her voice stayed until about the third episode in season 5, then she started talking more normally and expressing more emotions, instead of keeping her emotions bottled up. I think they handled her transition alot better from who she was then to who she is now. Now was that the plan for her to be like that in the long run when she first started making more appearances in season 4? I doubt it, but sometimes you figure out different things about the character(s) when you write them or have them say other things or interact with different characters."

From the Spaghetti Catalyst: "Yes, you will, and she’ll be beautiful, and kind and sexy and funny and everything you ever wanted in a woman." He's referring to Penny in the above quote, but her looks aren't the only things he brings up. Also the episode where Leonard's mother debuts & the 100th episode make it clear that Leonard's infatuation with Penny has ALOT to do with how she is the antithesis to his mother, and the kind of unconditional intimacy he didn't get from her. This interpretation flies in the face of the shows sixth episode where Penny is drunk and feeling lonely and Leonard does NOT take advantage of Penny's emotional state in that situation. If sex is ALL he wanted from Penny, why turn down that situation right then and there? The line "Our babies will be smart and beautiful." indicated that he wanted more than sex from her. Except he never rubbed it in her face.

It was enough to get Casey Anthony acquitted. Even after the trial a couple jury members spoke to the fact that they think there's a GOOD possibility that she could've been responsible. BUT there was little to no hard evidence to support that from their point of view. Same thing here, yeah we have extra context as to how douchey these kids were, unfortunately the jury didn't have that context. Yeah they were painted as arrogant kids but it doesn't prove the baby was legally alive. I also thought Jack's accusation of them dancing as a reaction after the events was an odd way of trying to prove they had no conscious during the events. Different people cope in different ways, a jury could easily infer them trying to escape what happened. As an episode it was sad, one of the biggest downers the show ever did in it's 20 year history. But it happens in real life, just because television is a form of escapism doesn't mean it should avoid depressing moments like this. My favorite moment was Jack's delivery in Mr. Talbert being arrested: "Mr. Talbert, I'm having you arrested pending a contempt hearing. I've had it with him, his daughter, and her boyfriend. If I could indict him as a co-conspirator, I would. This baby is dead. I hope they all go to jail for it. Place this man under arrest and get him out of my office." That moment from Jack PERFECTLY captured the disgust and contempt ALL OF US probably had for them. On a slightly more positive note, the headline this was ripped from had a slightly better ending in real life (well..... none of us in our right minds want this happening to a baby.... ever) the couple pled guilty to manslaughter. Yeah they're both out now, but the public know's they're killers. As opposed to the fictional couple getting to say, "We didn't do it; our acquittal proves it."

I can understand if you find this route of characterization over used, but why is it gross and insulting? I've met a couple of people who were victims of rape, and one of them is ALOT like Abbie in that the event left her a little rough around the edges. Are you telling me it's insulting that someone in real life could turn out like that? Why do we have to ONLY VALUE strong women if NOTHING traumatizing happens to them? To me, that's not the only form of strength in women OR ANYONE for that matter. Strong character should ALSO be valued by HOW we deal with events like this.

I keep hearing that, but I've never understood people's reason behind that thinking. How is it hard to understand being a rape victim and believing in a right to life, regardless of how it comes?

You'd never think there could've been an ada that could make Jack McCoy look like the "good cop" by comparison, but Abbie Carmichael proved that theory wrong. :D It's why Abbie was my favorite ADA. She inadvertently challenged Jack McCoy to find his inner voice of reason.

Okay so I somehow managed to stomach the tragedy in this episode again. Apparently this WAS brought up by Jack and Jamie on multiple fronts. But the reason we don't see this option, Jack stated by the time it gets to appeals they'll be in Graduate School. So they try to get them behind bars sooner. This explanation drove me NUTS because while that holds true in real life; nearly EVERY TIME we visited the appealiate courts on the show, only 1-3 months would pass. If they want to take some liberties with how long justice takes on the show, fine I can let it slide. But they can't just use real life time, after IGNORING it, because it's not convenient for the kind of story you want to do. I don't have a problem with having a downer ending, but the way they arrived at their designation here was absolutely contrived based on what they established.

Not exactly. The monkey in the basketball WAS a thing that happened (no matter HOW much I would rather forget it). But the monkey was not a special victim, just something SVU got tangled up in while investigating an SVU case that was intertwined with that.

Second Life? Are you talking about season 9's Avatar, if so I can rationalize it. But that doesn't mean it was any less crap. Also lets be fair in stating that in season 5 and before there were SOME creative choices that are up for debate Like dressing a real person up to being a doll; a guy trying to fool people into believing he's using girls to achieve cloning, a perp undressing in front of Stabler but isn't smart enough to know OTHER PEOPLE would be watching from the window, convicting a therapist for using sodium amytal, and that's not even all of them. So yeah, SVU has been doing silly alot since season 6 and beyond; but lets not kid ourselves into thinking that they weren't before that.

My favorite season of svu hands down is season 4. The cases were a little more out there than usual (see Angels, Risk, and Damaged) but were never as silly as later seasons would get (I'm ignoring Dolls for the sake of argument), while still maintaining the edginess of seasons 2 & 3.

Again I disagree, in season 5's Act of God when Jack got a conviction, he found himself taken aback by Lennie Briscoe's theory on them getting the wrong man. He doesn't try to argue about the right man sitting in jail. What he does is find ways to get the right man behind bars, and the wrong man out of jail. That doesn't sound like the acts of someone who's endgame is to be right no matter what. It was more about doing right. The real difference between Stone and McCoy is that Stone seeked to fully apply the law, and only pushed the envelope when he himself was pushed to get that. While McCoy seeked to fully apply justice, which didn't always line up with the law sometimes. Where did I say liking Stone was a character flaw? My point is more that people seem to put Stone on a pedestal as someone who could do no wrong in his position, which I absolutely disagree on.

If you mean character flaws. Then yes, but that's why I prefered McCoy over Stone. So sue me, I prefer my fictional characters to be flawed. Clearly we are watching different shows since I watched one of the episodes with Stone tonight on netflix. The one where he threatens to indict a man's son as an accomplice to murder to secure his cooperation in another case. Stone doesn't think the charge would stick, he doesn't think the son was actually an accomplice in the legal sense, but he tells the father, the son, and the boy's mother that he will if he doesn't get what he wants. He basically uses the power of his office to bully a man who didn't want to accept a deal on his own behalf (because that was offered and rejected) to create a scenario where the man must testify if he wants to keep his kid out of jail. And when the man doesn't buy it, he targets the mother and son and makes the same promise, to prosecute the teenager (who btw was a victim of molestation by the man his father killed) if they won't help him go after someone else. So yeah, Stone's a real prince with integrity (rolls eyes).

Am I the only one who was never that high on Ben Stone as an EADA (even though I liked Robinette)? Sure Stone was probably someone that a real life DA would be satisfied with. But IMO Jack McCoy made for BETTER TELEVISION.