Bubbles

I might have been more satisfied by Amy ending up with Sabrina if their happy ending didn't require hand-waving away Sabrina lying to Amy (and also to her boyfriend), manipulating her and trying to isolate her from her friends. It drives me nuts when teen shows perpetuate this idea that it's romantic when someone acts like a sociopath because they love you. Liam and Lauren felt really random, but I'm kind of disappointed we won't get to see where that goes. Karma and Felix, not so much.

Rats. This season has been a hot mess, but I was looking forward to seeing what the new show runners would do with it.

Why does this make me think they're bringing in a new lesbian?

I guess that synopsis answers my question about whether or not it's safe to watch this episode if I haven't seen Captain America: Civil War yet.

I think the challenge for Shane will be less about temptation to out Noah just for the sake of it (because I do think he learned something from the Duke situation) and more about the fact that he's clearly freaked out but can't talk to any of his friends about it without outing him. Shane is needy, and having no outlet for his feelings is an awkward outburst waiting to happen. Pairing Liam with Lauren is actually making me dislike him less. Lauren is magic! I wish there was more of Lauren and Amy together though. I really liked that dynamic earlier in the season.

Does Mary know that Greer is pregnant? I can't remember if that came up yet. I mean, it seemed pretty obvious to look at her even though she was standing behind the bar, and yet it didn't explicitly enter into the conversation about going back to Scotland.

Has Morena made an appearance?

I almost feel a little bad for Layla that Avery is using her as a human shield.

He says that's what he's doing, and yet he's put this totally arbitrary deadline on it. Like, he knows that the moment when he will reach self-acceptance and be ready for a relationship is precisely midnight on New Years Eve? That's not really how that works.

That was such a good callback to Bobbi chastising everyone a few weeks ago for not knowing Russian.

Abby couldn't have still done what she wanted to do if she'd told Olivia about it beforehand, because she was defying Fitz's orders and Olivia knew it. Olivia could have shut Abby's plan down in five seconds with one phone call to Fitz. The whole thing depended on Fitz not finding out about it until it was already a done deal.

The Canadian airings are several weeks behind the US, so I just saw this episode this week. The storyline with Jade really highlighted the problem I had with the previous episode: Liza should have been the one trying to convince Kelsey that signing Jade was a huge risk, rather than the one coming up with crazy schemes to win Jade over. Jade's "I'll name names and I don't care who gets pissed off" attitude is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Liza should have enough life experience to see that there's a good chance this would all end very badly. I wish I hadn't googled truffle butter.

Aside from being lazy, it also reinforces the oddly moralistic way the show tends to treat its sexually active female characters. Beyond all the pregnancies, I don't think they've ever done a positive depiction of a female character losing her virginity. Manny got pregnant her first time, Ashley slept with Craig and then he immediately had a manic episode and ruined her father's wedding, Darcy was raped and then had joyless sex with Peter just to have another sexual experience, Holly J had the whole thing with Declan being incapable of saying he loved her and then finding out he was moving away, Alli wasn't ready and immediately regretted it, Anya lied about being on the pill and Sav dumped her the next day, Clare found out she had cancer in the same episode where she and Eli had sex for the first time, Maya and Zig were on drugs and regretted it, and didn't JT get murdered the night Emma was planning to sleep with Sean? I get that a happy, uneventful first time doesn't make for a great story, but it seems irresponsible to keep reinforcing this message that girls who have sex will be punished one way or another.

Yeah, they went the cop-out route with Alli. She had basically decided that she would get an abortion but then turned out not to be pregnant.

Whenever I see Drake, I'm reminded not just of Jimmy but specifically of the episode where Jimmy revealed he was impotent.

Nope, I'm done. I'm not up for watching a million emotional routines about parent-child relationships (because I don't think they're creative enough to come up with many other storylines for kids partnered with adults). I'm also not up for watching kids cry when they get eliminated.

I kind of like that Tristan is awful. This show has done too many variations on the super-earnest LGBT kid struggling to find acceptance (including self-acceptance). It feels like progress to me that they're acknowledging that some gay kids can be jerks just like any other kids. The whole thing with Grace and Zoe felt very contrived to me. Grace has always been shown as a pretty straight shooter. I didn't really believe she'd go ahead and have sex with Zoe without telling her first that she's not sure she's into girls but is willing to give it a try because she cares about Zoe, especially since they were already talking about her fear of their friendship getting screwed up. Her liking Zig, if she was telling the truth about that, also seemed designed for maximum drama. You just know that's going to come up at some point to mess up her friendship with Maya. There's never been anything in their history that gave me the impression Grace was into Zig. Although I do like that Tristan and Miles were wrong with their stupid crap about how Grace must be a lesbian because "girls don't dress like that to attract boys."

At last, our long nightmare is over. Now can we please have a spinoff about Max brushing his hair?

Ok, if you haven't seen previous seasons then I get why it would seem like a really sudden turn. The stuff in previous seasons went beyond just having a short temper, to seeming kind of delusional. He came across to me as though he's far more invested in a fantasy world in which he's the conquering hero slaying his enemies than he is in his real life. It wasn't really clear to me if Maya already had haters for her song or if the haters were all Hunter and his friends using her song as cover for their revenge campaign. I figured they didn't go after Goldie because after the stuff Hunter said to her in the meeting he would have been the prime suspect if she'd suddenly started getting harassed online, whereas Maya was an easier target because they could appear to be just random internet people who hated her song.

I actually think they've been pretty consistent with Hunter's characterization since they first introduced him. He's always been presented as having a hot temper and a somewhat tenuous grip on reality outside of his video games. One of the first times we saw him, he exploded at Becky in the hallway after she ended their in-game relationship. I may not be remembering all the details correctly, but I seem to recall he mocked her for thinking real life was more important than the game and threatened to tell everyone about their in-game sexytimes if she didn't give him back the stuff he gave her. His next major storyline was when Frankie found the violent comic he drew about him murdering cheerleaders (including his sister's friends) who were mean to the girl he had a crush on. Given all that, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch that he would take a threat to his gaming way too far and not see what was wrong with what he did. His friends, on the other hand, don't seem like the types to have gone along with all that. I wish we'd seen more of the dynamics within that group while the harassment of Maya was going on. In particular, I would have liked to see how Yael reacted when it took a decidedly misogynist turn with the rape threats, and whether that gave her pause at all.

I think he also got the gold, which had actually been put up by Catherine in the first place.

I've watched the first four episodes and I'm not sure how I feel about Next Class yet. It feels maybe a little too glossy and candy-coloured. I miss the days when the kids weren't all pretty and looked like real teenagers, bad skin and awkward growth spurts and all. It's pissing me off that boys keep telling Zoe that Grace must be a lesbian because "girls don't look like that to attract boys." Miles said it in the summer movie and Tristan said it this week. First of all, girls can dress however they want because they like it - not everything girls do is about boys. Second, as a former goth girl, I can assure you that plenty of boys are into it, and not just the goth boys. For a girl who's so outspoken about sexism, Maya sure forgave Zig awfully quickly for trying to date-rape her. I'm kind of amazed that their subsequent conversations barely touched on that aspect of their situation. Grace was harsher with him about it than Maya was. Tristan is still the worst.

I really want Daphne to do better than Maddie. It drives me nuts that Maddie is being so snotty about being paired with Daphne and doesn't seem to realize that from an industry perspective the Conrad sisters are a much more unique and interesting act than yet another teenage girl trying to be the next Juliette Barnes. Ask Layla how well trying to be Juliette worked out for her. Daphne is what makes Maddie special (and vice versa).

I was so sure that David and Elizabeth's request for custody of Ben was leading to a paternity test and a "you are NOT the father" reveal. I hate that it was Max that killed Jared, but really, if we're supposed to care about what happens next to the person who killed him then Max was pretty much the only option. Or maybe Grant, but I can't imagine a plausible scenario in which Grant would kill Jared. Everyone else, including Carter, is pretty expendable at this point. Oh well, at least there's no reason to believe Max will face serious consequences for this - Lori and Crash both got off scot-free with far flimsier defenses than Max can argue.

So confessions made while someone is pointing a gun at your head count now? Good to know. How stupid is Carter that she would choose to call Mentally Unbalanced Felon Mom instead of Cop Mom when being questioned by the police? And what cop's kid doesn't know that minors can't be questioned without a parent or guardian present?