mikem

Miranda says to Carrie in the bathroom that she is leaving to go to LA on the fourth, and the taping is either on the 9th or 10th. Most pilots don't get picked up and that result may not be known for months, so why aren't Che and Miranda coming back to NYC on the 11th? What are they planning on doing in LA after the taping is over? And given that most pilots don't get picked up, why did Che shut down the podcast? None of this made any sense. It felt like there was an intentional parallel between Miranda and Rock this episode that was reinforced after Miranda dyed her hair so they both had similar hair colors now. Both Miranda and Rock are just doing whatever they feel like, with no regard to their commitments or other people. Except Rock is 13 and Miranda is an adult with a husband who asked her professor for a recommendation for an internship she's blowing off. Somehow, I think the writers think we are supposed to be cheering them both on. But I don't think the audience is doing that.

In the last episode, when they cut directly from Steve looking like he was about to start crying when Miranda told him she had met someone else and was cheating on him, to Miranda excitedly telling Carrie that Steve was fine with it and she felt like she was in a rom-com, I was sure they were setting Miranda up for some major disillusionment. But that's not what happened, so I am completely confused. They are giving Steve these gut-wrenching moments and making it clear that Che is a player, and yet Miranda is NOT getting a hard return to reality? I don't know what the writers are up to. Carrie is indeed a lot more likable. I think it's because SJP is finally being allowed to show true vulnerability and ambivalence that is not motivated by selfishness or immaturity. SJP has got the acting chops, and I'm glad that she's being allowed to show them here. I thought the extremely lengthy screentime about a 15-year-old having trouble inserting a tampon to be a very strange choice. I was happy to read online that Cathy Ang, the actress playing Lily, is 26 in real life, which makes it less icky. She's a really good actress. I really thought she was a teenager.

I agree with those who are saying that this episode captured the tone of SATC much more than many of the earlier episodes. SATC had dramatic elements but it was fundamentally a comedy, with a lightness to it that most of AJLT hasn't had. Up until now, AJLT has felt very heavy. AJLT has been primarily a drama with some comedic elements. If AJLT had suddenly materialized without SATC ever having existed, it would be in the "Drama" portion of this website. I'm glad to see that the show is moving more towards the "Comedy" section, even with Miranda's serious storyline. I liked that the show had Steve blatantly say that Miranda has made him feel like he wasn't good enough over and over again, and also that he pointed out she hadn't really thought at all about how her decision affected him. I think Miranda is in for a rude awakening in Cleveland. Che definitely warned her about being non-traditional, but Miranda wasn't listening. I am now convinced that Miranda's overlaughing at Che's jokes is supposed to show how much Miranda is living a fantasy. I used to think that the writers thought Che was funnier than we do, but I think Miranda's overreaction is deliberate. Or am I giving the writers too much credit? I don't understand the setup for Carrie's apartment building. There's no apartment number on the door of her downstairs neighbor's place, but I think there is one on her own door. And I don't think I've ever seen an apartment building with a double door entrance like her neighbor has; it seems easier to break into, particularly so close to the main entrance to the street. And I guess they don't have apartment mailboxes, but the mail is just left on the table in the entryway??? Hard to believe there are only two episodes left in the season. It feels more like the show is at the midpoint of the season rather than almost over. There are a gazillion storylines, and I don't see how any of them are going to be wrapped up so quickly.

The show has been intent on assassinating SATC Miranda's character, and now it seems to want to tear down the old Charlotte as well. Would SATC Charlotte scream and curse at her husband in public, "What is your g--d--- problem? You're driving me f------ crazy!" That seemed completely out of character. Miranda said Che hadn't responded in 3 months, but the opening "time is passing" montage went from falling leaves through snow to the background singer saying that "spring is here," and the outdoors scenes in the episode looked like trees had full leaves again. It seemed like more than 3 months to me. SATC Miranda was so judgmental about cheating that it seemed weird that she had absolutely no hesitation about jumping into bed with Che. And this time, she wasn't drunk. I guess it's good that Miranda was able to stop drinking so easily, but I'm surprised that they haven't shown her to struggle at all. They spent a lot of time over several episodes setting up that she was an alcoholic and then, one Amazon alert later, she was done with alcohol and the storyline completely got dropped.

Speaking of destroying the SATC Miranda, her son was pretty blatantly disrespectful in the first couple of episodes. I can't imagine SATC Steve and SATC Miranda raising such a rude spoiled brat. SATC Steve would be a very permissive parent, but he would be saying, "Hold on now" to the level of brattiness that Brady has. And SATC Miranda would have never let him mouth off at all.

I saw Cynthia Nixon in both her Tony-winning performances (Rabbit Hole and The Little Foxes). She is a great actress. But I agree that she seemed off in her big scene here, possibly because she's not playing a consistent, convincing character. I guess they're trying to show that Seema is a take-charge person, but she basically steamrolled over her cousin and his office to get Carrie an urgent appointment for something that wasn't urgent. And I thought her cousin's "Yes, I'm fine, thanks for asking" response to Seema's non-greeting of him and her non-acknowledgement that he did her a favor to be quite telling. Rather than thanking him, she gave him a hard time because it had been thirty minutes since the x-rays were taken? Who cares that he had to consult another doctor about them, and Carrie didn't really have an appointment in the first place? I don't see how Seema and Carrie will become close friends because they both want to have the central focus be on them. They both can't get that at the same time.

I really, really wish they hadn't decided to kill off Big in the first episode like that. The show was already veering more towards drama than comedy, and now I think the whole season will inevitably have a certain melancholy to it. I also wish they hadn't had Carrie squeal twice in the first five minutes -- does any 55-ish-year-old person squeal like that? -- but I will give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that they were going for a contrast between the pre-Big-death Carrie and the coming post-Big-death-Carrie. No more squealing! I also think they threw Samantha under the bus a little bit by making her seem so petty. For her to ice out her friends like that seems inconsistent with the character we came to know. I think they've done a great job integrating in the new characters, though.

I was shocked at Maggie's insistence that she was just going to show up by herself at the home of an unstable person who is sending her threatening letters because doing that will somehow convince the unstable person they've been wrong all along. That's really foolish and dangerous. Is that the advice that Maggie gives her clients? If so, she's really bad at her job. And Cam and Gary seemed to kind of shrug their shoulders about it, rather than saying to her, "You don't know this person, you have no idea whether this is a safe thing to do. Let's talk about how you can do this safely." Cam has been too good to be true: famous but grounded, handsome, wealthy, charming, kind, a great boyfriend. There are two different ways that the show could have been going with him. I thought that Cam was going to end up being the stalker, but the caller seems to be pretty clearly the stalker. So I am sad to say that I think they are going the other way, which is that eventually Maggie will confront him with tears in her eyes and say, "Cam, you are a great boyfriend and a great human being. You are really perfect. But...(sniffle)...you're not Gary." Sigh.

I'm pretty sure Pete improvised the continued cake-eating. There was no punchline to it. When the judges all took a bite, he took too large a piece, and part of it dropped off, which caused some laughter, so I think he thought he would keep getting laughs if he kept doing that. But his improv pulled focus from the rest of the actors for the whole skit, which is kind of frowned upon. The Trump impression is very accurate, but it's not very funny. Alec Baldwin is not as good at imitation, but he really skewered Trump in a way that James Austin Johnson is not doing. Comic exaggeration is what SNL is all about.

Gary going to therapy is the best thing for him, but I'm surprised the writers went there. He is one of many, many television characters who would benefit from therapy, but if they all went and took it seriously, who would create unnecessary conflict and drama for us all to watch? The writing in general seemed odd. Eddie made a bunch of sarcastic, "witty" comments that would normally be coming out of Gary's mouth. And Rome is a lot more sensible than the writers are making him out to be.

I haven't been watching the show for that long so I missed Master P's low-scoring dances, but Martin Kove was. . . Not Great. He was walking more than dancing. I like that no one was amazing off the bat. Even though some are better than others, they all have room for improvement.

I re-watched the whole series after knowing the ending, and it's interesting how linear and non-twisty it actually is. The guy who seems to be the murderer from the very beginning actually is the murderer, and everyone else is essentially telling the truth and are who they say they are. No one is hiding anything, with the exception of Henry having the murder weapon and having seen Jonathan and Elena together, thereby knowing his father's guilt all along. The best friend really is just the best friend, the victim's husband has done nothing shady, etc. There's a lot of "could it be..." thrown at us, but none of it amounts to anything in the end. The plot holes are more glaring on re-examination, though. Would Grace really randomly walk from their apartment on E 63rd to Harlem by herself at night in January? That's over 3 miles each way. Would the detective pointlessly lie on the stand about Grace being in the area on the night of murder, when he knows that Grace, who is there, knows about the security camera footage? Why would Jonathan bring his bloody tuxedo to a dry cleaner rather than destroy it? Didn't the dry cleaner find it weird he has so much blood on a tuxedo, and don't they watch the news? How did Jonathan drive to the lake house - did he rent a car, in which case the police should know he has a hold on his credit card from a rental car company? Jonathan and Grace have a driver take them to the auction, so it seems they don't have a car themselves, and one is never mentioned. Etc, etc. But this did not end up being a plot-driven production, so the plot holes aren't as bothersome as they would be otherwise.

I really liked the show, which kept its tone on the "light caper" side for the most part when dealing with the main plot but added more serious moments when talking about Cassie's alcoholism. I'm not sure that all of it stands up to close examination (why would Buckley kill Chavez? And would he really goad Cassie into stealing the horse, thereby getting arrested? For that matter, would he kill Alex without confirming that his book story was true first? How could Miranda have left the bathtub without Shane noticing in such a small hotel room? Etc.) But this isn't the kind of show where the plotting has to be airtight, and I was fine with just going with it. I loved Miranda's character, who reminded me a lot of John Simm's character in The Catch, another baddie who would probably be awful to be around in real life but who is a lot of fun on screen. I really miss The Catch, which took a while to find the right tone, but whose second season is a lot like this show. I was thinking that the white, pale, and Yale FBI agent would end up being one of the bad guys, because, at times, he seemed to be sabotaging the investigation by being so focused on Cassie and not listening to his partner. But, as it turns out, he's not a traitor, just a jerk. I also spent much of the last few episodes trying to understand how Megan could fit into all of this. Her whole storyline was an unnecessary distraction. I think Shane had to intervene, because Cassie would have been killed otherwise. Although he wasn't originally placed to help in the Cassie investigation, that may have become part of his assignment.

When Maya Rudolph said how Kamala Harris was the first Black/female/Indian-American/biracial Vice-President, it looked like she (Maya, not the character) was really moved by the amount of audience cheering. The cast did not seem to have their concentration laser-focused on the show at times, with a looseness that felt like part of the moment but threw off the timing in spots. I think that's part of the reason why there were character breaks and the show fell flat in multiple places. But that's part of the historical moment, when the election gets announced 12 hours before the show airs. Is the 16 minute, 39 second length of Chapelle's monologue a new record for length of a single SNL segment? The opening after the first debate was 13 minutes, 41 seconds. The Kavanaugh sketch was 13 minutes, 5 seconds.

I thought it was strange that Bill Burr was trying to claim that he had never heard that June was Gay Pride month until this year. It would have been strange for someone in his line of work and who lives in Los Angeles to have claimed that 5 years ago, let alone today. Los Angeles has had a Pride parade in June since 1970. I thought the whole monologue was weak and disappointing. He can be quite funny but really didn't do well here.