Sisygambis

I normally lurk in this forum, but I had to come and share! I had a copy of "The Way To Happiness" delivered to my house in the mail today! Totally randmon, but my initial reaction was "they know I'm watching the show!" It's full of footnotes with word definitions.

I re-watched the episode with friends tonight and what jumped out to me this time was the length of time the Blossom family had been making payments to the Lodges - 75 years. Could great-grandfather Lodge be involved in great-grandfather Cooper's murder? The more I think about it, the two murders must be connected somehow.

"Oh, it's Kevin" was the best, most unenthusiastic reaction ever. I really liked this episode - everyone is caught up on all the secrets, there are a few new secrets, twincest (lol), and I really appreciated Betty and Jughead actually sitting down and have a discussion about their feelings. I think most teen shows avoid showing the hard conversations about feelings to create extra drama. I actually felt for Archie in this episode - he was having real problems/emotions over his parents divorce and I like that he wasn't sure how he felt about it. He finally felt like he had a real stake in the show. Loved him and Veronica! I am totally excited to find out more about Alice Cooper's past as a South Side Serpent. Is Smithers the Doorman a viable suspect for the murder? I feel like he's too loyal to Hermione not to be up to somthing.

I can't figure out if the show is in on the joke with the maple syrup business. I mean, maybe maple syrup really is a lucrative enough industry to create empires and legacies and billionaires, but it just sounds so ridiculous. Longstanding maple syrup rivalries! Maple syrup fortunes! Maple syrup betrayals! I'm really hoping that season 2 will go full Canada on this and have a Maple syrup heist.

I watched this last night and was completely charmed! This was a wonderful episode. The conversation between David and Patrick after their kiss was amazing, and sweet and I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before. I loved everyone's relationships in this - Stevie giving John a reluctant high five, Moira singing to Alexis, Alexis admitting she's not qualified to work for Ted, and Stevie giving David the thumbs up behind Patrick's head were all such lovely moments. These characters have all grown so much over the seasons - this is one of my favorite shows right now.

This was AMAZING, thank you Kim

Same! How did I not know about this! I've been wondering where my Canadian History Epic About The Hudson Bay Company has been for YEARS

I agree, Attica, I was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of women who have gone missing or been killed. When the stat came up that 20,000 women could go missing in a year with no one reporting it, I had to sit back and take an extra breath for a few moments.

I am willing to give another prequel a shot, but only because it's a 13 episode, limited series. There can't really be an wandering around with the plot and running up against too many events, people and places. I think if they focus on one event, it could be ok. I'm also interested in a main character who is not the captain - is she part of the command/senior staff or will this be a Lower Decks situation? The only part of this that gave me a bit of a doubt was "new exciting aliens." I don't really want a bunch of CGI'd characters - I'm totally fine with humanoids with different noses and foreheads - there was even an explanation in the cannon for that! I'd be down with seeing some of the different aliens that we haven't really explored before - Andorians, Bolians, Orions, Benzite (sp?), but are part of the exsisting world. Not sure how I'd feel about a bunch of new species we'd never heard of before. But, it's really all a lot of wait and see! I'm generally enthusiastic about this and I have liked Fuller in the past, so only time will tell.

I believe Adam is supposed to be living with Ray, in what is Adam's (renovated and cleaned) apartment from the first 2 seasons.

I really loved Fran and Adam's nonversation. Marnie was exactly the bride I expected her to be.

This was not good. I'm not mad, just dissapointed. Tom's character was wasted this season. Leaving aside any kind of Tom/Mary shipping, at least his pushing Mary in past episodes seemed to have a point. In this, it just came off as meddling - and I have no idea WHY Tom was so invested in this relationship. I kept yelling at everyone to leave Mary alone - if anyone treated me like that over a romatic relationship I'd stop talking to them. I loved everything about Edith. And I LOVED her speech at the end to Mary about how their shared memories would one day be more important that their anger. I am very unsatisfied. Here's to hoping the Christmas Special is better.

There have even been suggestions in the narrative for things for Tom to do! Isobel suggests he run for town council, and nothing came of that. Season 5 opens with a new Labour government - this could have been some way to have Tom involved with the local MP, and create some kind of tension/character exploration.

I feel the same way! From season 4 until Tom returned, my ideal ending was Mary and Tom as platonic life bros, raising their children together and running Downton. But now I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel, because Mary and Tom ending together is the only thing that seems to make emotional sense. As everyone has been talking about, Tom's only story this season has been his relationship with Mary, and I feel like the emotional aspects of Mary's story have all involved conversations with Tom. Tying the characters up so close and then having nothing come of it is a strange narrative choice. If this were a novel, I'd throw it across the room in frustration.

I really liked this episode. Everything to do with the house tour was funny, I always love Mary and Tom together and seeing Edith finally happy is grand. I've been rewatching Seasons 1 and 2 in the last few days, and the scenes of Thomas and the children that have popped up in the last few episodes had me thinking about the relationship we see between Carson and Lady Mary in the early seasons. He is like a surrogate father to her, and I'm kind of thinking they may go in the same direction? That Mary keeps Thomas on because she sees value in that relationship? Carson is an ass. There is really no other way around it. Even Robert is not so awful to his wife.

Thank you so much for this weeks Canon. That was one of my best laughs of the week and Sarah's rage made the whole thing amazing.

Not a fan of this episode. I am completely over Eichen House and the opening scene was very rapey feeling. The Lydia fight scene was the first time I ever really felt like the stunt double was blatently obvious and it distracted from the entire thing. I have no idea why glow-in-the-dark wolf was bricked up in a wall? Was that necissary for any other reason that beating up Parrish? Intrigued by the Steampunk robot villans, but also wary/weary after the season 4 villans being so terrible. I loved everything with the gang starting senior year and Stiles working to keep everyone together. Loved the nods to Derek and Allison. Also really like the dynamic between Stiles and Liam. Don't really care about Scott/Kira or Stiles/Malia's romances, but love the whole pack as family frienships going on between everyone.

For my money, Riddled is the best episode of the whole series.

I loved season 2 for general hilarity and 3B for the darker tone (and the darker Stiles.) My absolute worst was 4 - it made no sense at all.

This show is my favourite trash. You have perfectly captured the plot to shirtlessness ratio.

Because of my great love for this show , I've been really willing to cut this season a lot of slack. But this finale was terrible. There was some good stuff in in - everytime Debbie yelled at Fiona, Fiona trying to talk some sense into Debbie, everything with Ian and Monica, even damn Frank had some good stuff. Bianca playing Russian Roulette had me on the edge of my seat. But the ending . . . . dear lord. It was like watching a cartoon. That scene between Ian and Mickey should not have ended the way it did. I can get behind a breakup, especially if it is about the reasons that Ian gave (sorta) about needing to understand himself and not wanting a caretaker. But adding the Sammi bit ripped away any emotional payoff - and this story should have had the tears flowing. Both actors were great, but the entire moment should have been about them. The writers were able to give us that kind of moment in 506, when Ian goes into the hospital, but not here. I don't even really know what to say about the ending. I'm really looking forward to reading everyone elses thoughts over the next few days.

I have so many conflicted feelings about this episode. There is so much great character growth and change - from Lip, Debbie, and even FRANK of all people. Watching Lip slowly pull himself into some kind of responsible adulthood had been so wonderful. But it has also been so frustrating, because it has been paired up with stories that I just don't care about - Kevin living in the dorms, sleeping with his teacher (yet another woman throwing herself at Lip). In the same way, it has been great to see Frank being capable of love and compassion and some kind of real emotion. But, I'm put off that it had to come from someone outside of his family - and I'm also at a point at the end of season 5 that I just don't care about Frank anymore. I've watched him be selfish for 4 seasons and I'm done with him. And with Debbie, I am totally down with her figuring out her identity and sex and relationships, but the way it has been done feels so negative. There are no growth coming from her choices it seems - from Matty, to her flirting with violence. I really just want for Fiona to get herself together and reconnect with her family. I don't understand how she has just been able to wander off and leave everyone to their own devices. I'm ok with Fiona navigating relationships, and I think the quickie marriage could have been a great plot, but I would have liked to see how she navigated that new relationship while still being the main caretaker for her family. The one place I don't have any complaints is with Ian and Mickey. Ian's story this season has been my favourite thing to watch and get emotional about. All of Cameron Monaghan's scenes this week were so emotional and amazingly heartrendingly shot. The scene between Ian and Monica made me tear up and I'm excited/terrified about the finale. Mickey's attitude towards Sammi's death was hilarious and his face in the car when he realized that Ian had run off yet again was heartbreaking.

With regards to Fiona being so absent from the household, I almost felt like the "Where Were You" bumper at the beginning was being used to drive the point home. The bumpers were reused a lot during the first 3 seasons, but season 4 and 5 have had very specific, unique for each episode openers. The one this week with Fiona talking about raising 5 kids felt very deliberately used to accentuate that she isn't actually raising the kids right now - at one point in the ep, even though last week she told Sammi to get out, she's all disgusted that Sammi isn't doing housework. I'm hoping this is leading somewhere - maybe to a confrontation between Fiona and Debbie, or Fiona doing some soul searching about where her life is going - maybe she will face up to her own problems?

This episode was such a mixed bag, and definitely one of the weakest episodes of the whole season for me. I loved everything that was about characters and not so much with the wacky hijinks. I know I am biased when it comes to Ian and Mickey (because they are my favourite couple on the show and Ian is my favourite character) but I just want more from them. There has been so much heavy stuff going on between them this season, it would be great to finally see them talk about it. They have spent basically the last 3 episodes apart, so it would have been nice to have some kind of conversation - while they were dressing, before or after the clinic visit. But beside that, I loved all of the Mickey/Ian scenes. Mickey being able to calm Ian down about the delusions, them in the clinic, with both of them asking questions, and just the little moment of Ian calming Mickey with a touch to the knee. As well, their faces when the nurse said 30 or 40 years. Loving this story line, but I want more! Fiona not dealing with her love life was fantastic. I loved seeing her back with her family and actually dealing with trying to raise the children. As well, I like the stuff with Shawn, mostly because sex was off the table in these moments. Her going to be with him while he was fighting so hard against his impulses to use was a great moment of selfless friendship. I liked half of Lip's story - everything to do with his financial struggles and deciding not to get the other student to hack into the system for him was interesting and I think the show has done a great job of exploring Lip's slow crawl towards adulthood and growing up from the brat who ran around smashing windows last season. All of the stuff with the professor I could have done without. I'm over Lip's relationships - so unless this is going somewhere very interesting, I checked out as soon as they started going at it in her office. Did not care at all about Kev. Far too much screen time devoted to his epiphany that he really loves V. I actually gave a hoot about Frank this episode, which is a miracle. It's the most interested I've been in him since I though he might actually die last season. The stuff with Carl and Chucky was fine and a little sad - that there was seemingly nothing that anyone could do to prevent a mental disabled minor who had clearly been taken advantage of from going to jail was very depressing. Like many others, I'm over Sammi. But I do appreciate her love for Chucky, even if it is twisted. Edited to add: I forgot to mention the sinking feeling I had when the nurse mention that Ian should make a list of people to call in case he felt like hurting himself. What are others thoughts?

I think this was my least favourite episode of the season, but I am going to rewatch a couple of times in the next few days, so my opinions may evolve. I though there was way to much focus on Frank - I would have prefered that the series stay mainly from Claires POV. In the second episode we got flashes of Frank, and it was left to the viewer to decide if that was Claire's vision or what was really happening in the 40's. I liked that much better than the cutting back and forth, and for the first time found myself walking away from the TV. I'm very glad this is being confirmed in the media, because I feel that what we saw on the screen was Claire being raped by the deserter. The way the scene was shot, combined with Jamie's reaction, made me think she had been. If we're not supposed to think a rape took place, I question every production choice in this section. I really enjoyed all the scenes of Claire and Jamie bonding, the raid, the fighting lessons. So soon after the wedding, I love the idea of them now learning to live together and Claire working to find a place as part of the family, not just a reluctant guest/hostage.