Tetraneutron

That's not even slightly as ridiculous as the show having the VP be a nerdy sabermetrics nerd who lives in his mom's basement and is a bad at baseball because he's never played the game (and apparently has no people skills). Haha, he likes math! What a loser! I mean, honestly. We're still doing this? Theo Epstein JUST won the Cubs the series. (Yes, I know this was filmed before, but still). It's 2016. Most teams have analysts on staff. It's not a bunch of outsiders on fangraphs anymore, if it ever was. And who cares if the VP can hit a baseball? Why should he? That's not his job. Even if you leave the completely false and reductive new-school Moneyball guys vs old-school trust-your-gut guys narrative out of this, when have VPs and owners ever known how to hit a baseball? Steinbrenner didn't. Wrigley didn't. Veeck didn't. Ed Barrow didn't. Branch Rickey spent two years as a backup catcher for shitty teams and he wasn't any good. Executives haven't played pro ball since basically Connie Mack. Not only does it not matter if Entourage guy can hit a ball, I don't even buy he'd be insecure about it. As for the rest, blah on the Lawson-Ginny romance, Blip and Evelyn are still well-groomed exposition devices, the thing with the brother could be interesting even if it is a total cliche and I'm glad they're giving Livan a personality (and not making him an asshole just so Lawson looks good by comparison).

So I'm the only one who thinks it really was MPG's real body in the photo shoot? Lighting, makeup, photoshop, strategic posing and dehydrating before the shoot can count for a lot. Especially since we saw him naked in the scene where he meets Duarte for the first time, and while he looks very nice, he wasn't crazy cut. As to Ginny throwing a cutter, my understanding is cutters are about 5 degrees slower than fastballs, maybe less. It's still a pitch that relies on speed and power. I was hoping to see part of Ginny's story be that, since she isn't going to be as physically strong as most guy pitchers, she relies on breaking stuff, control, and intelligence to get outs instead of pure heat. That would realistically be a part of her story - that she has to not only overcome people's skepticism because she's a woman, but that she can win without numbers that make radar guns light up. That's what they said in the pilot.

Ozzie used to backflips in the field, that wasn't THAT long ago and from what I can tell (was before my time) no one cared. The 86 Mets were the 86 Mets. No one cared. Even in 2004, everyone loved the idiots on the Red Sox vs the androids on the Yankees like Jeter and Rivera (althiugh that might have been a narrative thing and it's not like Jeter wasn't the most popular player of the time). It seems to be a recent thing this, "In MY day" stuff. As though people didn't cheer Billy Martin or Tommy Lasorda losing their shit on the field back in the day. I feel like I'm explaining this badly, but who cares about batflips, seriously.

Yup. It's a surprise reveal. This show loves its surprise reveals. We're supposed to think that he's just a friendly coach Mike gets attached to, but learning he's Mike's dad makes the whole thing sadder (like when he keeps referring to his family and it obviously doesn't include Mike). I was thinking that even asshole dad who abandoned him would be back in his life as soon as he became famous, but the show didn't show that. Doesn't matter really. I agree they need a new audience surrogate. There are so many characters on this show who are nothing but plot/exposition delivery devices already. Why not have Blip or Buck or Evelyn do it? The relief thing - that's an issue of some controversy. Some older-school guys thing you need a certain kind of character to do it, that you only save your relieves for certain situation, that you have a special closer who can only be used in late inning, etc. Others think all that matters is how many innings you can go before tiring (and if you're a strikeout pitcher or not) and there should be no distinction between starters/relievers/closers. The real issue, to me, is, if they needed to induce a DP, is whether or not Ginny's pitches get groundballs. Adding to all the people saying it's insane she's never relieved, especially since we SAW her relieve, in the All-Star Game a few episodes ago. Fine, not a "real" game, but still. Any fifth starter would have spent some time relieving, especially in the minors where they move you around and try to find the best fit for you. Eyeroll. Also, the batflip thing. Baseball needs to get over that sanctity of the game nonsense. Read up on the Gashouse Gang. Players in the good old says didn't treat baseball like church so I don't know why baseball culture insists on pretending we do.

That was the point. Ginny would be held to a higher standard than an actress because she's supposed to be a role model, and because she's a woman in an all-male environment. Realistically, every interview since single A would be someone asking her about if the guys see her naked or if she dates any of her teammates. The Wally Pipp thing was obnoxious (and a myth) but they have to exposit for the non-baseball audience and I can't think of a better way to do it. The whole thing was dumb because Lawson is a catcher. They're always getting injured and getting out of the lineup. I'm ready to see some people on the team besides the ones we have. Does anyone besides Ginny, Lawson and now Duarte even have a personality? I'm not counting Blip because he's just a way to move the story along. Also, are they going to mention Jackie Robinson every episode? I get why they do but the situations aren't the same. With integration everyone knew there were plenty of talented black players, and the issue was that white people didn't want them in the majors for the same horrible reason segregation always happens. Ginny is different. There aren't that many women playing at that level. The challenges she would face are skepticism she could do it at all. And again, unlike with Jackie, there's no GM searching the country for just the right woman to bring up. She went from high school, to the low minors and up the chain like every guy player (at least that we've seen). The real hurdle would be her getting into the minors at all. Most people would be convinced that she's going to get blown away against guys who've finished puberty. Besides, until this episode we've seen she relies on breaking/offspeed stuff. No one's looking for that - baseball want to find the next Aroldis. Knucklers are seen as weirdos.

The problem is the show is using Ginny as the audience entryway into the world of MLB. Which requires she behaves in a way that makes her look like an idiot, so the audience can have exposition dumped on our heads. So we're watching a show where the lead character is supposed to be one of the best in the world at her job and tough enough to be a pioneer, but also really, really ignorant about basic aspects of her job. Also, I know this is nitpicky and I'm the only one who cares, but how would Ginny have even gotten a baseball scholarship to college? Colleges have women's softball and I'm pretty sure can't put a woman on a man's team if there is a a woman's team of the same thing available.

Apparently, Drysdale and Koufax were offered acting jobs on some Western TV show that they would had taken had the Dodgers not caved during the salary holdout. Based on this clip it's a good thing Drysdale stuck to baseball.

I really don't think the show was intending to moralize about SAHMs. It's just that if the main character goes to work, there's no show. But she clearly hates everything about her life and every other mother in the community, so they had to explain to the audience why she chose to stay at home instead of working, especially since the pilot also established they aren't rich. (After they established she went to an elite school and had a great job where they're begging for her to come back even after 12 years, so the audience knows she's smart). That's all it was. As for the rest, this is like every other attempt at a high-concept sitcom. The pilot is the episode that goes high-concept and the rest is just a normal show. Honestly, I'm not sure how they were going to have a story every week about the main character being fat. Traditional sitcoms don't really lend themselves to that sort of thing. There isn't a lot of story potential there. Like in HIMYM - the pilot (and then every season premiere and finale) was the high concept, and every other episode was just updated Friends. They might do occasional nods to the series concept but everything else will be recycled domcom scripts they've had lying around the studio.

My guess is he's thinking that CBS domcoms last forever and he wants a piece of that. I expect he's fully aware it's shit but it's not as though anyone's trying to put him in a Marvel movie.

I...guess you had to be there? This is why most people don't get a production crew and televise their inside jokes.

Sure, up until the part where Don, straight arrow who does everything he's supposed to, leaves sleazy, scary, threatening strangers who are extorting him, alone in his highly secure office while he runs to the bank. Why would he do that? You would think that for someone whose instinct is to protect himself, he would worry that colleagues would just walk into his office in the middle of the workday. It's just that the whole point of the op was to get alone time in Don's office. And in order to do that, Elizabeth befriends YoungHee for a year, gets close with her, seduces Don (sort of), lies about a pregnancy and then pretends to kill herself so people posing as her family can scare Don into leaving his office on an errand. All on the off-chance they find the codes, which, apparently, they don't. And the plan was so specific they even needed to bring a sixtysomething lady computer expert from Russia! It's not at all a good plan given how long they spent setting it up. Especially since it didn't even work. I don't think Elizabeth is seducing Tim. That's not how his character's been written at all. E and P were trying to get at him by appealing to his idealism. But wouldn't it be funny if Paige being forced to spy on Tim soured her on the church, and on religion, leaving her searching for a new thing to give her life purpose? And then, conveniently, Elizabeth is ready to tell her about the wonders of communism. It really couldn't work out better from Elizabeth's POV.

I know. I didn't click on that until I saw her using the computer. I love how the show set that up. But that makes Tatiana's secret kind of lame, right? She's just a bioweapons operative? I'm actually kind of disappointed in the whole Don plan, now that we know what it is. All that, just for a few minutes of unsupervised time in his office? Doesn't it seem needlessly elaborate? Not to mention all the ways it could have gone wrong. Don could have told YoungHee, he could have refused to give "John" the money, and a million other things. And it seemed like there would be easier way for P or E to sneak into Don's office. We've seen them do it a million times. Although I do love how after all that, they didn't even get the codes. Add me to the list of people who think Elizabeth is completely playing Pastor Tim. Make him feel important so she can manipulate him. But I bet the fallout is Paige pulls away from him and doesn't feel the same way about him. If his role in her life is as a parental figure, that doesn't last when he's just as manipulated by P and E as everyone else. I do wonder if Paige seeing Elizabeth go all badass like that makes her rethink which side of the Cold War she's on.

There was the time jump so this happened about 8 months ago in show time. That's a whole school year. And I think they're showing the tension really well. Elizabeth is worried about Paige telling people, and now Paige gets how scary that is in terms of personal safety. But then Elizabeth gets so mad that Paige could possibly believe the murder people who might reveal their secrets, which I honestly laughed at. And it's funny that Elizabeth feels so guilty and horrible about hurting YoungHee's marriage but not about lying to or manipulating Paige. Or putting her kids in danger. YoungHee is the thing that's breaking Elizabeth. I don't think he's drawn into the church. I think he wants to get into Paige's pants, which means there's one teenager on this show who acts like a normal teenager. The point is that Paige is a normal teenager who needs to trust her parents. She was saying "How can you lie to my brother about something so important, about the very fact of who you are and what you believe." It was showing that, despite everything, and her maturity in this episode and the way she handled Alice, who could blow the whole thing, she's still a teenager who needs her parents. Just like Kimmy, in this episode, needs adults to be adults. And Matthew. I don't know why people are expecting Paige to just get on board with her parents and start being a Russian spy. Finding out your parents have lied to you your whole like (and Elizabeth is still doing it) is going to have consequences for the family relationship. It would be weird if Paige WERE like "OK, I guess we're moving to Russia for the cause. Call me Natalya!"

I don't see that as Alicia being the victimizer, though. Any more than Canning or Patty Nyholm were supposed to be evil when they were trying to trick L/G/whoever into making a mistake. Is Cary also a bad guy because he started the new firm with Alicia? And didn't Cary use his Harvard connections to land clients? Or Will and Diane using their old friends? I disagree. I don't think she "tossed Diane's marriage under the bus" because Kurt was cheating on Diane regardless of what happened in that courtroom. If anything, if Diane is putting her pride over doing her job, Diane is the one at fault. When I said the show makes Alicia the victim against the big bad world that underestimates her because she's Saint Alicia, I meant how Eli commissioned a memoir and then tried to put recipes in it. Or how Ruth tried to have her do a cooking show. Or how Shakowsky refused to give her any cases in bond court out of spite, even though they were massively understaffed. Or how in the two final episodes, both Canning and Connor referred to Peter's cheating and then were shocked she didn't burst into tears on the spot. And that's just in the last season. Over and over, the idea that everyone underestimates Alicia and sees her as a weak stupid woman, but then she shows them all. We see it as a character beat over and over and (while I don't hate Alicia the way plenty of people do here) I think it's dumb. Besides, it was Alicia's job to save Peter. He was her client. That's what lawyers are supposed to do.

So Noreaster, that article pretty much confirms everything we've been saying. They wanted a slap and turned the characters and plot into knots to get the slap, regardless of whether it made sense on any level. Why did Diane slap Alicia? Because it had to be a woman, due to the gender politics. And there aren't that many regular female characters. Lucca is out of the question, because the creators are trying to show that Alicia has female friends, Jackie's a joke and Grace? You could maybe do it but we were never supposed to take that character seriously either. She's the sweet, naive, trusting one. So it had to be Diane. I think, if the writers were absolutely determined to get that slap in there, they should have had actual balls and wrote Alicia doing something legitimately horrible to Diane, something that deserved a slap. The writers always wrote Alicia as an innocent victim and everyone else was horrible to her in ways she completely didn't deserve. And that's fine, if that's how you want to take the character, but it does mean your none of your characters will have any depth. This was a continuation of that: Alicia (and Lucca) were doing their jobs and asking the expert witness a pretty standard question to ruin his credibility, something we've seen them do in nearly all the trials this show has portrayed. There is zero possible way to act like Diane was in the right: that this firm should tank the trial, a huge high-profile event where they're fighting for the freedom of the damn Governor, probably the biggest client they've ever had, just because she was embarrassed publicly over her personal life. So when Diane, competent professional at the top of her competitive, elite, field, acts like a Real Housewife in a catfight, once again, Saint Alicia is the innocent victim who did nothing wrong and all the world dumps on for no reason.

I agree it probably won't go smoothly, but we've seen plenty of plans that didn't go as planned. Annelise wasn't supposed to be killed, Larrick wasn't supposed to go rogue, Jared wasn't supposed to murder his parents, and just last week Lisa wasn't supposed to start drinking again and threaten to tell everything. I assume something else will happen with Don.

It didn't work, though. E tried to honey-trap Don and failed, so she resorted to tricking him. As for the compulsive gambler idea, that's what that scene with E babysitting YoungHee's kids was about. She was searching through pockets and files looking for something she could use against them. Gambling debts, non-vanilla-hetero sexual preferences, drug problems. But she didn't find any. Largely because if she did there wouldn't be the drama of E having to give up her friendship. It would just be a routine job.

I don't think Tim and Alice will die in Africa. P and E would never risk doing something that would get Paige to turn away from them forever. I think the plan is they continue to bluff Pastor Tim. I really want to see where the Oleg thing goes. I have no idea what Tatiana's angle is and I love it. Elizabeth is planning to blackmail Don to give up the security info that gets William access to level 4, by threatening to tell YoungHee. In other words, Elizabeth torched the only friendship she ever had with someone she really likes. That was the point of the arc, that for the first time Elizabeth had a real friend and she sacrificed that for the cause. Like she expects everyone else (like Philip and Paige) to sacrifice the way she does. Only now we're starting to see that Elizabeth feels the emotional consequences. This is the first time she likes something about America. I wonder where William's story is going. He can't just show up to move the plot forward and then exposit about various horrible diseases. He's a name actor and third-billed in the credits so I assume he's leading to something big. Is he supposed to monitor P and E and find out if they've lost their fire and become too comfortable as Americans? Is he supposed to defect? The big theme of this season seems to be P and E breaking down and not being sure the cause is worth all of this. I assume William plays into that.

I don't think that has anything to do with the writers making a statement about women partners. Originally Diane and Cary were conceived as antagonists to Alicia. Diane was supposed to be the feminist who devoted her life to her career and looked down on the opt out mom. Cary was supposed to be the privileged young hotshot who wouldn't take a middle aged housewife seriously. You know how the writers loved to write Alicia against the world. But as the show developed, they changed the character dynamics so they weren't enemies.

So Diane is putting her personal feelings above what's best for her client? Not to mention Kurt literally testifies in court for a living. This would be far, far, from the first time a lawyer called his credibility into question. And even if Diane is devastated by Kurt's infidelity, how does slapping Alicia fix anything? Shouldn't she be blaming Kurt? Or herself for not seeing it? Or even Holly? This would have nothing to do with Alicia, since discrediting a witness that makes your case look bad is a basic part of the job. But the Kings decided they wanted to end with the slap, and jammed the story in there whether it fit or not. And then it just became a matter of who could deliver it? Peter? Of course not! We'd question how Alicia ever could have stayed in an abusive marriage. Jason? No. He's the love interest. Lucca? There's no history and her character is there just so Alicia could have a friend. Cary? David Lee? Eli? Leaving out the gender dynamics, what impact would that possible have? Elspeth? Canning? Grace? There's really no logical solution, but at least with Diane you avoid uncomfortable gender issues. Elspeth would have been just as dumb, but at least that could have been passed off as quirky. Of course, that would change the whole energy of the scene and rob it of any dramatic impact or ability to serve as a parallel to the pilot. But who cares! Symbolism! Honestly, the whole idea of needing to end with a slap was just dumb. I started watching this show two years ago and I had completely forgotten the Pilot even had a slap.

She also refused to put up with drama from her actors and fired people who caused it, even if their characters were popular. Just saying. Looking back on this show, it surprises me that they contracted most of the main actors for six or seven seasons but only signed their male lead to four seasons. There are plenty of good-looking men in Hollywood; you would think they could find one other guy who would be willing to sign on for the whole thing and not force them to torpedo their story. I'd still watch a spinoff about Eli running political campaigns and being slimy. I know I'm in the minority here, but I thought the politics stuff was consistently the most entertaining part of the show.

See, that's the problem. They put symbolism over telling a story that made sense for the characters. I get that they wanted to subvert audience expectations by having Alicia end up with nothing: no love, no husband, no law firm, no political career. But did they have to either destroy or ignore every other character to do it?

Yeah. It seemed weird how the entire final episode was just DESTROYING Diane and making her look horrible. The show started with Alicia, who sacrificed her career for her marriage, being a weak, pathetic nobody, humiliated in a high-profile way while her husband cheated on her in the most cliched way possible, with a younger, hotter, blonde. The last episode is all of that happening to Diane. Especially since the final two episodes made such a big, underscored point of showing how far Alicia had come from being that woman. Both Canning and Connor attempt to bring Alicia down by acting like she's some weak woman who will cry and collapse if they bring up her husband's affair, and the show plays Alicia rolling her eyes at that like it's some big feminist victory. (Which made me roll my eyes pretty hard). And what we do see, is Diane, big powerful lawyer, being the one who does collapse, stop thinking straight, almost tank the trial, and otherwise act emotional and throw her career away for the sake of her may-un. I'm not sure what we're supposed to think about that.

Well, yes, but it was the right thing to do as a lawyer. And it's not like Diane's ever pit her career above her friends. And it wasn't only Alicia calling the shots. And the marriage would have been damaged anyway. If Kurt was cheating then Kurt was cheating. Law partners and friends have disagreements, but adults who don't live Real Housewives franchises don't go around slapping their colleagues. The whole thing was just so unnecessary. None of the stuff with the bullets or Kurt or Holly or the cell phone had anything to do with the court case - whether Peter covered up evidence. AUSA Fox was absolutely right when he wasn't being a sexist straw man.

Sutton Foster playing a nothing character was like Leslie Odom playing a nothing character a few weeks ago. Famous theatre people want to be on this show and the Kings wanted to have them. They said they tried to get Lin-Manuel Miranda but he was too busy. I get that they deliberately introduced a bunch of new plot threads so it wouldn't feel finale-y. But it just made the show feel cluttered. There is no reason Eli would ever speak to donors about supporting Alicia without making sure Alicia actually wanted to run for office. For the people confused about Grace, the show wasn't suggesting it was a good idea that she take a year off school. It was just a character beat that Grace is sensitive and wouldn't want to be in California while her dad was in prison. Diane spalling Alicia made absolutely no sense. Can someone explain it to me? Is it just purely to have a visual bookend? Because I can think of no other reason. It just made the character of Diane look stupid.