Trillian

Unless American big law firm culture is radically different from its Canadian counterpart, what Katherine did with her law firm is known as A Career-Limiting Move. No female lawyer gets to a partnership offer without knowing what her firm would find tolerable. Why would she even ask not to work 6-8 unless she was trying to sabotage the offer? As a friend of mine, who spent longer in the big firm culture than did I, pointed out, you take the partnership and then just don't schedule meetings during that time period, knowing that there's simply no way you can always avoid it. She's far more vulnerable as an associate working those hours than as a partner - if they don't want a partner doing it, they're not going to tolerate it from a mere employee. It's much harder to get rid of a partner than an associate, as the latter can just be fired. And it's not even realistic that it was a total deal-breaker: there are all sorts of different types of partner and everything's negotiable. She could have - if she really is going to insist on cutting back her hours - offered to take fewer points in the partnership in exchange. Or she could have negotiated a "mommy-track" partnership (which officially doesn't exist but everyone knows it does) and negotiate being a non-equity partner instead (not saying that's fair - one of the reasons I left private practice and went in-house - but it's reality). The whole thing was just silly if you know how law firms work. Now she's labelled herself a slacker and her days at any real law firm would be numbered accordingly.

Actually, I was thinking, while watching, how much they did remind me of real actual humans. Except those real actual humans were my group of friends in undergrad, ages 18-22. Where, in that “you’ve slept with everyone the person you’ve slept with has slept with” way, we’d all slept with each other and were all harbouring varying degrees of jealousy and resentment and general weirdness, but it never dawned on us that we didn’t have to hang out together in a big incestuous group. In my experience, mature adults don’t tend to hang out in large groups on a regular basis and, where a couple has broken up, only one party gets custody of the friends. Why these people do it is rather inexplicable. I guess one could say Jon’s death brought them together a la Big Chill, but that movie worked because long distances forced them together for a whole weekend. I guess these folk just like the drama of being all together. You’re not the only one who liked it. It’s fun.

In the original, there was an episode where Jackie confessed she’d had a crush on Dan in high school and he told her he’d noticed her, too. It was very nicely done and came across as mutual liking and respect and not as if they were going behind Roseanne’s back. Not exactly sure, but I think it might’ve been the episode where Roseanne was away and Jackie took over the household as fill-in mom. So, it wouldn’t come out of nowhere if the Conners went there.

But, it's not a huge thing. The kid thinks she's a lesbian. It's not a crisis. She's in no danger. Let her come out on her own. Geez, no wonder the kid looked so terrified to tell her parents. I totally agree, and was thinking the same thing. "I love you matter what" is what you say when your kid confesses something bad. At least Beth finally figured out she should hug her - I was afraid at one point that she wouldn't.

I thought, as well, that Toby was just being his quirky, dramatic self by using his euphemisms. He wouldn’t be Toby if he presented the facts in a simple, straightforward manner. I also thought it was nicely done.

Purely speculation, but is it possible that Nicky is not dead?

There's a psychological factor, too. When I lost a beloved job some years ago, I threw myself into job searching as soon as the hangover passed. I certainly didn't need to for the money (my husband was very-well paid and I was nicely packaged-out), but there's such a feeling of helplessness and uselessness that comes with unexpected job loss that you feel you have to do something to get back in the game right away to prove your employer and validate yourself.

It’s only just occurring to me, and maybe I missed it or forgot it, but did Kevin ever go to his dad’s beloved wife or his dad’s beloved best friend and ask about Jack’s history? My own dad never talked about his experiences as a child in WWII, but I know a fair bit about it because he told my mom and she told me. My own husband knows all sorts of things about my life - including my love life - before we met that my child could ask of him if she were curious and I was gone. Ughh. Randall Pearson as the saviour of the Korean community. A community gathered helplessly in the town square, feeling neglected and ignored, but unable to produce a candidate themselves or to mobilize themselves until a Pearson appears to bring them joy and political wisdom. This plot line seems far more racist to me than a silk pillow case.

I don’t dislike Maggie, at least, not until I saw this episode. But I loathe the breach of professional ethics. Even without HIPPA, as Amelia said, “it’s an oath” . They wrote her like an idiot who didn’t understand, at this point in her career no less, the sacred nature of her requirement of confidentiality. This was not a consult - there was no medical reason connected to her treatment of Teddy, to tell Meredith. I’m a lawyer, and many of my friends are lawyers, and we’ve all had to carry some pretty big secrets of our clients from time to time. It comes with the job and you suck it up. If you are put in a personal bind by the secret, the ethical way to handle it is to find someone unconnected to the case or the people (someone who then owes you a duty of confidentiality) and discuss with that person on a no-names basis. And then you suck it up and stay quiet. I also concede I’m getting too worked up about a soap opera of a show :)

I hope Teddy finds out, successfully sues Maggie and that Maggie loses her licence or at least faces disciplinary action. Because that was totally beyond the pale for a professional

I thought Rebecca showed remarkable restraint, waiting until Kate pushed her into commenting, and then commenting calmly. If that had been my kid, I would have burst out “are you insane? Are you trying to kill yourself?” as soon as Kate made her big reveal. And if her husband dared yell at me for my concern, I would likely turn on him as a selfish sonofabitch who was trying to kill my daughter and whose idea was this and why wasn’t he trying to stop her. Not reasonable, perhaps, but that would be a normal reaction in my family and, I suspect, many others.

I’ve been happily liking the posts that said guys don’t talk to each other that way and especially not at sporting events. Certainly that was my thought when I watched the show alone the other night. But I just rewatched with my husband and he thought that was “very realistic”. His take was that, while men don’t use talking as their main activity (except when forced to do so by women), they do talk during other activities, in fact, ideally at sporting events when they sit side by side and don’t have to look at each other directly. Who knew?

Yikes! of course, you are right. When I was posting in my bleary-eye state this morning, I felt like something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what it was. Will edit. thanks

She had me at “Sympathy for the Devil”. Other than the canned laughter, what a joy. Welcome home, Murph.

Count me among those who thought he was her father or grandfather and I will explain how. Firstly, I’d never heard of Franco Harris. I am not a follower of the game Americans call football (I am a follower of what the rest of the world calls football, ⚽️. But I digress....) so I had no idea until the end of the episode that this was an actual person. Even then, I wasn’t totally sure “his” story line was real until I read it on the boards. Secondly, I have come to expect that any random person on the show has some connection to the Pearsons and that that connection will be revealed at the end of the episode. That’s been this show’s “thing” since the “do you want a cigarette” in the very first episode. So I kept waiting for the connection and Deja’s father was the obvious one, especially since it wasn’t so obvious (if that makes any sense). I guess, if you knew the story of Franco Harris, the whole thing was very clever, but for someone who didn’t know it, it came across as a real disappointment.

I’ll let you know when I hit whatever that magic number is :). I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it - more than 5 but probably not yet a dozen times - and still get weepy. In my own defence, I do tend to watch it when I’m feeling low and/or sentimental to begin with. The whole town of Wind Gap is one big feeling low and/or sentimental pity party. And it is too a good movie. The original. The remake sucks. But mileage varies.

I thought they were. In this episode, I noticed that Helen referred to Noah as her “first husband”. That’s not a term that most women would use unless there’s a second husband - otherwise, she would have just said “ex-husband”. Then again, I know long-cohabitating couples who refer to themselves as husband and wife. By the time I clued into this, I couldn’t get a good look at Helen’s left hand, although I saw, during their lovemaking scene, that Vic was not wearing a ring. Will have to pay more attention in the future, although rings or lack thereof isn’t definitive. I do hope Helen wasn’t stupid enough to move her kids across the country without the financial legal protections of marriage, or at least a damn strong cohabitation agreement. Regardless of their status, I enjoyed the image of Noah, lonely and forlorn, standing in Helen’s gorgeous house and getting a glimpse of their normal domestic life with his children. Not to mention being told that Helen does not consider him to be a friend. It probably doesn’t help that I find the actor singularly unattractive (as opposed to just not finding him attractive), but Noah the character deserves it after what he put Helen through. Ya reap what you sow, buddy.

Re: areas that wouldn’t go to Gilead: isn’t the whole point of the book/show the notion that Gilead can happen anywhere? When a poster asked some weeks ago, upon learning that the book was written by a Canadian and the show produced and filmed in Canada, why wasn’t it set in Canada, I almost posted, with all my secure Canadian smugness, “because it can’t happen here”. And then I stopped, and thought, yeah, it could. Why not? I imagine Atwood, with all of her secure Canadian smugness (a national trait, I fear), set it in the U.S. because she thinks it could happen there first, but the story is a cautionary tale, specifically about women’s rights but by extension about any rights. It’s the analogy of the slowly boiling pot. We all like to think we’d rise up - and have the foresight to do so before it was too late - but I think Atwood’s message is that that isn’t necessarily the case. Take away rights slowly, feed on popular fears, shoot a few dissenters and then, incrementally, there are no rights left and no one left to fight for them. Sure, there’d be resistance, but I think she’s saying that no one is immune.

When you think about it, the whole plotline about forbidding reading for women is a pretty stupid, and rather implausible, idea in the first place, given that the women in the story are already literate. I know Atwood based “everything” (or so she claimed) that the women suffered on things that actually have happened somewhere at some time, but has anyone ever banned reading for people who already know how to read? Because once you know how to read, it’s impossible to look at a written word and not read it. For this to work, even the men can’t read in public - things like the names of stores or products or street names or train stops (I can’t remember if, in the first season, the subway stops had names - I think they did - but I’m pretty sure the GO Train June took with the econowives had the stop names replaced). As an experiment, I just took a stroll through the first floor of my house looking for the written word. Discounting the books and the magazines, I found product labels on everything (of course), writing on my husband’s baseball cap, on awards and certificates, on framed prints, the cookie jar with the word “cookies” on it, “welcome” on the mat - to name but a few. Gilead would have to have massive industry dedicated just to removing writing from everything and replacing it with pictographs. Why would the men bother with subjecting themselves to all that, even assuming it could be done?

Something has occurred to me while reading these posts that discuss whether or not June has a better chance of rescuing Hannah from Gilead or Canada: why is it assumed that Hannah can only be rescued by force? If June got out, Hannah would be one of what must be a very rare group of stolen children where both parents are in Canada and whose mother knows exactly what happened to her and where she is. Luke, after all, doesn’t actually know (ie he wasn’t an eyewitness) that Hannah was stolen - I imagine this Gilead (as opposed to book Gilead that didn’t really think this through) claims to the world that the children were willingly surrendered by their mothers and the mothers, for the most part, aren’t around to dispute it. Diplomatic channels could have some impact in this case. Sigh. I’m overthinking this while the writers are underthinking it. I just wish she’d fled when she had the chance.

That was Deborah, IIRC. And a truly terrifying mod she was. But, yeah, I could Aunt Lydia in that role.

You get a like for one of my favourite lines from GWTW. Well done!

This episode made me mad. Everyone acted out of character, with the exception of Fred, who has become a caricature of a moustache-twirling villain. Pious little Eden has been reading, writing (and possibly doing ‘rithmetic) in addition to running off and committing adultery? Handmaids happily walking down the street together, unsupervised, talking about their pasts and their real names in normal speaking voices? Marthas suddenly banding together to save one Handmaid and her baby? Why this Handmaid? Why not Janine? The worst was the Wives, suddenly banding together to demand their right to read: huh? And Serena? I don’t think Serena is a complex character but I think the writers want us to believe she is. I think the problem is the speed with which everything happens. Serena in the first season was a younger, physically more beautiful, version of book Serena. In season 2, any resemblance between book Serena and tv Serena is entirely coincidental. She changes modes with whiplash speed: she’s into Gilead, she hates Gilead; she feels a bond of sisterhood with June, she hates June; she feels some discomfort with the Ceremony, she’s an instigator and active participant in the violent rape of the at-term pregnant June. Etcetera. Had there been a gradual evolution of her character, even with occasional backslides, it might have been plausible (same with Eden’s and the Wives’ plots), but it was all too rushed. I would, however, happily watch a spin-off of Commander Lawrence’s wacky house of fun.

I hit menopause at 42. Two years younger than the age at which my maternal grandmother gave birth to her 6th. My gynaecologist pronounced it “early but not abnormally so”. On top of that, my chances of conceiving with reproductive technology dropped to 2% a few years before that when the very best of them saw it coming, through daily blood tests and other, more invasive, tests. Every woman is different, but this myth of popping out kids into one’s 50s is th exception, not the rule.