Steph J

Good God, do these people think that James invented Tuesdays?

If only that were true. A guy once reached over and pulled the damn earbud out of my ear to start chatting to me (I was on a bus, not a yoga mat, but still). John Mulaney needs to host again STAT. The discussion of The Mule had me rolling.

It could just be a matter of Sam being the kind of entitled dick who thinks he can and should have what he wants when he wants it and how he wants it. By which I mean that maybe when he decided to be with Annalise he also decided that he wanted nothing to do with his son by Vivian because he didn't want to bring "baggage" into his nice new life and then once things started to go sideways in his marriage to Annalise he decided that, actually, he loved Vivian all along and made a mistake leaving her and their son so he should just get another chance because that's what he wants now. When he left the grass was greener with Annalise, now he's looking back and thinks that the grass was greener where he originally was. As Chicago Redshirt says, he could have maintained a relationship with his son if he wanted to/tried to. People don't lose their parental rights just because they cheated on their spouse. So unless there's some narrative reason for the separation that the show is going to reveal later, I'm assuming that Sam is just a selfish deadbeat.

I assume that the Bishop's death was just the straw that broke the camel's back and made Lagertha's sanity go "You know what? Fuck this shit" and peace out for a while. I mean, in the last couple of years alone she's lost two lovers in battle (the Bishop and Astrid, the latter of whom at her own hand), the love of her life (Ragnar), the rule of Kattegat (the taking of which divided Ragnar's sons against each other, which she might feel some guilt about), and she's had to flee her homeland and resettle in Wessex, where people like her aren't exactly trusted/wanted - that's a lot of stress in a relatively short period of time. But, yeah, that was a pretty quick turn around from crazy to fine.

Refresh my memory, because so much dumb/offensive shit gets said on this show that's hard to keep track of it all, but have any of them said anything that would suggest that they're transphobic (I'm assuming that's what you mean by "diversity" and "different backgrounds," but if I'm interpreting that wrong, please correct me)? I know that Kristen and Stassi got into it with Billie Lee over Arianna's brother, but that was about him being a creep not about Billie Lee being trans.

Methinks Stassi's mom can't stand anyone else being the center of attention, even if her method of getting attention is throwing her daughter under the bus.

My recollection is that Aethelwulf and Kwenthrith didn't get together until after Magnus was born, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong. But even if he is Aethelwulf's son, primogeniture wasn't a thing (at least in England) during the time of Alfred the Great (when the king died the Witan would select the successor from among those who were eligible for consideration, which was any man whose father, grandfather, or great grandfather had been king), so there wasn't a line of succession that dictated that a crown passed from father to eldest son to the son of the eldest son, etc. (and even if primogeniture was the law of the land and Magnus was Aethelwulf's son, he would be illegitimate and therefore ineligible to get the crown). You wouldn't know that Wessex didn't operate according to primogeniture from the show, of course, which is a bit weird since it sometimes seems like the England portion is of more interest to Hirst than the actual Vikings premise, so you would think he'd make more effort towards accuracy.

"I don't support people speaking badly to each other... but if you're all being nice/getting along then there's no show." Katie needs to just let it go and not try to get into it if someone is going to accuse Kristen of being an instigator. Kristen can goad James towards the edge and James can be an entitled asshole who can't be bothered to manage his emotions and expects to be forgiven every time he crosses the line. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

I had a bit of a chuckle when Ivar was musing about killing Hvitsirk and said that if people saw that he was capable of killing his own brother no one would dare stand against him. Uh, dude, you already killed one of your brothers, remember? Poor Sigurd and his terrible, terrible hair. It's like he never happened.

If she has a breast cancer symptom that presents itself in a way that can be seen, or if she has a large lump that she can feel (it did sort of look like she was feeling her breast), she likely knows that something is wrong even if she doesn't have a name for it. Which frankly sounds terrifying.

I think you may get your wish. In that scene where she was looking at herself in the mirror it looked to me like she was examining something on her breast. I'm amazed that Hvitserk managed to find someone dumber than he is. Why on earth would Thora tell Ivar, of all people, that she and Hvitserk are in love? How do you not know that that's just going to be something he's going to use as leverage (and which will probably lead to your death)? I'm also continuously amazed at how damn thirsty Harald is for female attention.

I think the problem with Uhtred is that the age he looks in Season 3 is probably about right (the actor is 35) for how much time has passed, but that in Season 1 he looks much older than he should actually be, which is probably in his late teens.

I'm just shocked than Lanford has not one but two life coaches in business. I also wonder if the woman who came into the bar had any choice words for the boyfriend who is apparently just giving out his number to random women. He seems like a real prize, no wonder she wants to hold on to him.

"He's hot as fuck and maybe one day he'll say yes." Scheana. Scheana. When you're throwing yourself that hard at a guy and he's not taking the bait at all, the answer is not to throw yourself even harder. Have some dignity (hahaha, what show do I think I'm watching?) James' mom is a nightmare person. James is 26. He's an adult, not a child, and he should learn to act like one*. He should be grown enough that he doesn't need a mother or a mother figure guiding him through the basic day to day task of being a human being. *not that this doesn't apply to everyone on the show, of course.

I've just finished marathoning all 3 seasons - great because I'm now a huge fan of this show, not so great because now I have to wait a year for the next season. As a Vikings watcher it's been really interesting to see such a different take on the same era/some of the same characters (since I loathe the Aelswith character in this show, it's sort of hilarious to see how she's portrayed in Vikings). I agree with the general consensus about Skade, although I don't know that it's entirely the actress' fault. She certainly wasn't great, but the bigger problem to me was that the character was never half as interesting as the amount of screen time she got. She more or less replayed the same scene every other time she appeared ("I'm your woman," "drink this blood," "blah blah blah curse blah blah"). Given the number of actually interesting female characters the show has had and not made nearly enough use of (Hild, Brida, Gisela, Hild, Hild, Hild) it's kind of baffling that it spent so much time on Skade. I'm hoping that Uhtred finally gets to Bebbanburg next season because by my calculation of the passage of time (25-plus years, given the time jump from when Uhtred is a kid to when his Viking family is killed, the year or so that Uhtred is married to Mildrith, and the fact that Edward was an infant in season 1 and is now a teenager), by the time he finally gets there his uncle will be dead of the medieval equivalent of old age.

Regarding Alfred giving lands to Ubbe et al: does anyone know how it is that land in East Anglia is Alfred's to give? Historically East Anglia was a separate kingdom from Wessex, which the Danes conquered by defeating its king, Edmund the Martyr.

Maybe my memory isn't correct, but my recollection is that he wasn't passed over. He wanted to be king, the courtiers wanted him to be king, but his mother pressured him to step aside so that Alfred (who didn't seem all that keen) could take the throne instead. In real life Aethelred was king of Wessex (after his and Alfred's older brothers Aethelbald, who became king and promptly married his stepmother... Judith, and Aethelberht) and I'm not sure that the narrative has actually been served by ignoring that, particularly if the show is just going to kill Aethelred off anyway. There could still have been plenty of emotional conflict with Aethelred as the king and Alfred as the brother of the king, particularly if Alfred began to become more "kingly" in his disposition as he matured. At any rate, I really don't understand the purpose of this "twist." It only serves to push Judith past the point of no return and, more importantly, it doesn't even make sense. If Aethelred is dead and then Alfred dies (this isn't going to happen, of course) then all the power she thinks she has disappears. Even if the baby is born before Alfred dies, this wasn't a period in history where the crown passed to a deceased king's child via regency (that's why Alfred became king, because Aethelred's sons were only children when he died and the courtiers, quite reasonably, wanted an adult to be in charge). In all likelihood the house of Wessex would be overthrown and replaced by a new house. Judith needs Aethelred, if only for the insurance that the family stays in power.

You would think, given her own experience with being tortured, that she might have an aversion to seeing someone else subjected to it. But I guess her bloodlust is supposed to make her "interesting." I really hate the short hair with long sideburns, mustache and soul patch look on Alfred. People complained that Astrid looked too modern, but to me the new styling for Alfred, which I presume is meant to make him look older, makes him look like a 21st century kid who went a bit overboard while creating a character to go out LARPing.

Because women have to stay "hot," otherwise what's the point of having them on screen. It's dumb and gross. Can someone please refresh my memory: has it always been known that Lagertha and Rollo had a thing and that Bjorn's paternity is in question? Because I'm honestly drawing a complete blank about any of that.

I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, yes, I agree that Becky shouldn't have said yes if she had doubts and they have a right to be upset about getting jerked around like that. On the other hand, it really didn't sit well with me that they made an unsolicited offer to adopt her baby without her even indicating to them that she was considering giving the baby up for adoption in the first place. If she had said to them, "I'm pregnant and I'm going to put the baby up for adoption" and they'd said, "We'd love to adopt your baby," then fine, but this was more like, "I'm pregnant and I'm afraid" and them being like "We'll raise the baby and you can visit whenever you want" which felt sort of... I don't know. Their intentions were good, but the way that it started out left me feeling like Becky was being taken advantage of when she was vulnerable.

He was exhausting to watch. And I only watched him for an hour - I can't even imagine what it must have been like living with him for years. When he started to justify buying more video games for the kid by explaining that it doesn't matter whether he has one game or a hundred because the problem isn't that he has too many games but that he spends too many hours playing them (which doesn't even make fucking sense!) I wanted to slap the smug off his face. And, really, if she's such a bad mother (and I'm not saying she is, that's just his point of view) and all the problems are because of her or are things that she's imagining, then why doesn't he ask his son to move in with him? Son and mom aren't getting along and she's worried for the safety of the other kid in the house, he's old enough that he can (in the Canadian family court parlance) "vote with his feet," so what's stopping him from moving in with dad? I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that dad is shutting that down because he strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn't actually do anything (except stir the pot between the kid and the parent who is parenting) but freely expresses opinions on everything.

Yeah, he moved in with his girlfriend (with whom he would go on to have three more children) only a month after he married his first wife. My understanding is that the marriage was seen as a way to protect his oldest two kids financially (though I don't really understand how they were any more protected by their parents being married).

Somewhat random question, but did anyone catch the title of the middle book from the Sasquatch erotica bit? The one he read from was called "Forbidden Forest" and the one at the bottom of the stack was called "Son of Squatch" but the print on the middle book was too small for me to read. Overall I thought it wasn't a great episode, but Kate banging against the window in the NASA bit killed me, as did Heidi's determination to pretend that everything is okay in that RV sketch.

How does someone manage to get into five accidents bad enough that a car had to be completely written off each time within the span of ten effing months and not lose their licence?

I sort of wonder if the manufactured controversy about the flag has anything to do with it. My awareness of the film before it's release was due almost entirely to stories about people being "outraged" that the film doesn't show the American flag being planted on the moon, even though the film shows the flag being on the moon. Anyway, I liked it, too. Gosling is great and I thought Claire Foy did a lot with a character type that tends to be pretty thankless. That scene where she finally just loses it on him (with good reason - dude, you're going to go to the moon and you're not even going to say goodbye to your kids just to avoid having to deal with the emotional fallout?) was so good. I was also really impressed by the two kids who played Rick Armstrong at different ages. That scene with the younger one, where they're at his sister's funeral and he asks Neil to come play with him and then just sort of sadly nods when Neil declines, absolutely broke my heart.