helent

That has fast become my favourite running joke.

It's so depressing that The Family still exists, even if no children seem to be involved any more, and that Hamilton-Byrne never saw any real punishment (she was found guilty of fraud and that is all, she is still very rich, and still seen as the head of the cult, although the most recent stories I can find are twelve months old and say she has dementia and is in palliative care, so she could be dead now). This is a good article by the writers of the book the film is based on - not sure how much over-lap there is with the film: https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2017/family-ties/ Googling just now, I also found that the private hospital run by the cult was about three blocks from where I grew up, and I would have passed it many times, although possibly after the cult involvement ended (the timeline in wikipedia is pretty unclear).

Until listening to this episode, I never realised that Astrid was the woman at the end who assisted in the scheme - I figured she was some girlfriend of Vinnie's.

If the doctor requires a chaperone for an exam, that suggests he has already been in trouble for inappropriate behaviour with patients - it's often a requirement from licensing boards after a complaint has been received. The way you were talking about Emma made me think of this: Except with more schadenfreude.

Writers, I think the joke of male characters having a female middle name is played out.

I thought Littlest Hobo.

I don't think Brandon is really that concerned with helping the vulnerable teen as with protecting his gournalistic integrity.

So, deep pull from my youf here, but Ricky up there looks very much like Timothy Hutton, especially in a dumb gangster film he did with David Duchovny and baby Angelina Jolie, in which his hair was peroxide blonde and terrible:

Same. And when I found the story on the main page I get the story but no pictures. http://previously.tv/veronica-mars/this-has-nothing-to-do-with-the-veronica-mars-visual-aids/

Our sex ed (Australian public school) was part of science class. Year 7 it was the biology basics, Year 10 we got the complete human sexuality/contraception etc. Don't think drugs etc really came into it - I think that got covered in assemblies, usually by some kind of educational theatre troupe. My main memory of the Year 10 classes was that, during one class, it was a school open day, and at one point the vice principal came in with a group of parents - 'This is Mr Mason's Year 10 Science class - please, Mr Mason, don't let us interrupt - go on with your lesson'. I actually think Veronica's behaviour in this, when she manipulates Trina, is one of the worst things she has done. It's slightly personal for me, because my mum was adopted, and I know what finding out about her mother meant to her, but it's just really low. Trina's not the greatest but is basically harmless, and it feels like a real line has been crossed - the show only gets away with it by having Veronica pull back at the last minute, and Trina appear unbothered.

Surely Donna's extensive experience caring for her father qualifies her to look after Kellnesiac?

Also needs to add some double entendres - 'Henry's sacks are falling!', 'April's got a great grip there!' (this must be why so many Survivor challenges use balls, there aren't really a lot of potato innuendos).

Yeah, I did not recognise him at all.

The guy who played the doctor in Black Museum was Daniel Lapaine, who was the hot South African guy that Toni Collette marries in Muriel's Wedding. I guess he's probably done some other work, but that's the most important credit in my mind.

And there were actually worse pictures of him that I magnanimously decided not to use...

It's that same keen observational eye that makes him such a great (unemployed) journalist.

Priestley is still doing his hair like that, and it is really not cute now:

I think this must be about the point I stopped watching entirely, because I have no idea who these 'Noah' and 'Gina' people are...

The actor you were trying to think of is Henry Ian Cusick.

I'm picturing something like the Steve Martin episode of 30 Rock.

Just a heads up, there is a lot of overlapping sound in this podcast - it seems to get worse as it goes on, eg the last clip, there's about 5 seconds that overlap at the start, and then the same in dead air at the end.

The weird Australian connection sent me down a google hole here, with a fair amount of cultural cringe. I looked at the imdb for that movie; never heard of one of those actors, probably not surprising. Then to Colin McLaren's wikipedia, which is a weird mix of overly complimentary commentary, as though it's self-written, but so poorly written that you'd hope this wasn't the work of a 'professional' writer ("It was during 2005 that Colin discovered that he could write."), plus very lacking in detail and citations. One detail though is that he worked on the Walsh Street murders - this was one of the real-life crimes that is fictionalised in Animal Kingdom. From a time when the Vic Police were barely better than the crims. The police went to arrest a suspected armed robber and shot him; in retaliation, a couple of his friends made a fake 000 call, and shot the police who responded. The men likely involved were acquitted. One of them was Victor Peirce - after his death, his wife admitted she lied on the stand to give him an alibi. He was one of the sons of Kath Pettingill, the inspiration for Smurf. And if you think Ellen Barkin is a pretty glamourous version of the character as played by Jackie Weaver, here's Kath:

Argh. Donna's plot here is one of my most hated tropes. It's anti-science bullshit. It's mildly alleviated here by the fact that they are rich enough to afford full time care at home and so probably can give him a similar level of care as a facility (but obviously this is far beyond Donna's ideas about helping him peel oranges and tie ties). The worst version of this trope is when someone in the ER crashes and the doctors perform CPR, but stop because there is no response, so another character kisses their supposedly dead loved one, or weeps on their chest, or pounds them screaming 'You can't die yet!' and brings them back. Bonus terrible points if the doctors then proclaim it a miracle.

Yep! This bothered me so much. The actor who plays Debbie reminds me of Jennifer Carpenter.