ItCouldBeWorse

So many things wrong with this episode. College applications require documents besides the actual application. Transcripts, for instance. How did Becky obtain Mark's official transcript from his first semester at SAD? How did she fill out his financial aid application? Because if one had been submitted, I'm practically sure Mark would be going for free, not for 50k a year. U Chicago provides 100% of demonstrated need, and the Conners need a lot. I chuckled when Mark said it might take him more than a year to earn the money to attend U. Chicago.

Not that it matters anymore, but it seems that Nell writes an obituary every other day at most. We've never seen her have more than one at a time. It would make more sense to pay her by the piece. Asking for a raise is pretty nervy.

Gripes: There's no reason to give up gluten before egg retrieval, unless you have celiac disease or a gluten intolerance. And vitamins can be cut in half or even ground up. I really like Nell's boyfriend. Too bad. I do think it's weird that the fact that Nell already was pregnant wasn't mentioned. And Lexie has a daughter. Did she use one of the eggs that was retrieved when she was in her 20's, or did she just let nature take its course?

As I recall, Louise agreed to work for transportation costs and lunch money. She's probably losing money by working fewer hours at the restaurant. But of course, she's not doing it for the money. She could be drawing social security, too, now. And she was also renting out her apartment. Maybe next season, which will be the last, the Conners actually break free of their curse: Becky graduates, gets a good job, marries Tyler and moves into a home or apartment with a separate bedroom for Beverly Rose, (meaning Mark can move out of the windowsill area when he's home from school); Ben's magazine does ok and Darlene completely takes over management of the school cafeteria at a decent salary; Jackie finds something to do that doesn't drive Neville crazy; Harris does well at the restaurant; and Dan and Louise get to enjoy (semi) retirement. Then we find out the whole season was a dream.

It seems as though criminals really always do return to the scene of their crime. Quinn left the black coat behind at the crime scene, right? I would think she would have left DNA of some some sort, or a strand of hair at the scene which would be useful after they had strong reason to suspect her. Also, I really don't think Elsbeth should be searching for evidence while Kara is in a different room. The chain of evidence has to be preserved, and since Elsbeth doesn't work for the NYPD, I don't think she is capable of doing so. I noticed that, too. "Katricia is Back!"

I thought it was toilet paper, wondered if that could suffocate him, and then wondered if it would really dissolve completely. Also, would the water have washed Ashton's fingerprints off the wheel of the golf cart and the beer bottles? He wasn't exactly careful about what he touched. Why did Ashton have to tell him all the details about keeping double books, helping the clients avoid taxes, and then boast about his wealth? Why not just say that certain clients require discretion, and that it's safer for everyone if they never speak of them again? Then the son-in-law wouldn't have anything to really divulge when he got drunk. But then there wouldn't be a story. Nora's mother was certainly cool as a cucumber about Ashton doing away with Nora's future husband, although she could hardly have expected him to murder the guy herself. She made it seem like he had hired people to off other troublemakers in the past. I wonder if she was from one of these crime families. Capri (the stripper) also seems like a loose end, much like the antique dealer who obtained the replacement Cupid for Retta (the matchmaker) a few episodes ago. Have these amateur murderers never watched television crime shows? It seems to me that he's a good guy. His lieutenant resents being passed over for the job, which he thinks happened because the powers-that-be wanted a Black captain "for the optics." So he's taking bribes in the Captain's name. How he thought the Captain would never suspect anything, I don't know.

Also Only Murders in the Building for some of the Arconia residents. Which is why it was pretty stupid of Vanessa to yell at her wife about having let Astrid ("that bitch") revise her ear as she was led out in handcuffs, thereby providing a motive from her own mouth. How did Vanessa's wife hide the ear revision healing process from her? Wouldn't she have been bandaged for a while, and then have still had some sign of a procedure (even if there was no visible stitch marks) until the ear was fully healed? Having seen a lot of television shows, it seems to me that the Captain doesn't know what is going on. But it's pretty sleazy to remind Elsbeth that he got her son the job to keep her in his debt. It was also dumb for Elsbeth not to somehow convince her son that he needed to quit that job and look for another, even if she had to support him for awhile. The job is far more serious than a comped tennis ticket would have been.

I wonder if in the finale the adult Sheldon who's been doing voiceovers throughout the series will somehow reconcile his memories of his father as he had recounted them in BBT with what we've actually seen in YS. And Tam wants to propose! Did we ever find out where he went to college?

Only if she were to tell them about it, which she would be too humiliated to do. I don't actually want this scenario to take place.

Maybe Mary finds out about the vasectomy after reading the autopsy report and thinks that George was having flings on the side. She would be too embarrassed to ask George's co-workers, who would know the truth.

I thought of that, too, but he did know where the insurance policy had been kept before the fire, so I thought that perhaps he had been paying it himself. And the premiums would be a business expense, so it wouldn't make any sense for his mother to be paying them unless she was a part owner.

I wouldn't assume that Jackie's therapist is going to let Becky "sub-in" occasionally for Jackie. New patients are more work than recurring ones, and require initial background and intake sessions. But then, the college therapist offered to see Darlene, so perhaps therapy works differently in Lanford. And poor Neville, who is paying for Jackie's therapy sessions so that she will be healthier and potentially a better partner to him, will be grifted by the Conners yet again. And now that Dan has finally retired, he has more time to teach his off-the-books repair courses, as long as he isn't relying on the hardware store for his teaching equipment. He could make some nice extra money.

I guess that one can only reserve so much of the park on a single day, so everybody was reserving separate areas? Like the playground, the picnic benches, the softball field. That's what it sounded like. Except they weren't calling, it was an online reservation system. And they were supposed to forward their reservations to Jacob.

I wasn't so surprised she hadn't done it previously, because she had convinced herself she was just fine not knowing. But now that she's opened the door, she might consider it. But who knows what crazy relatives she might unearth.

Yes to all of this. Although they may be surprised by the amount, there's no reason for Louise and Dan to act like Ben did them a favor by giving him 10% of the insurance proceeds. If he's a 10% owner, that shouldn't be a surprise if the store isn't going to be rebuilt. I hope Ben doesn't have to spend all the remaining money on the magazines purchase. If Dan is getting in the high 5 figures (let's say 80k), then Ben would have $720k left. The magazine would have to be highly profitable to be worth that much (and for Ben to be able to pay the staff and other expenses.) Actually, Dan should be thanking Ben for staying current on the insurance payments, because you know that no true Conner would have done so unless it was absolutely required.

Melissa was egging Barbara on with respect to Gregory, right? As soon as I saw the hall decorations, I wondered about the kids who don't have moms, or don't live with them. There have to be some. And neither Janine or Erica know who their fathers are. Perhaps that helped them bond. Were we supposed to originally think that Jacob's brilliant idea was to take the students to the free drag queen performance? I didn't see how that was going to work, so I'm glad that it was the park he was thinking of.

You're right; the 24/7 comment was why I thought that he had left his job to work on the food truck. I've returned to the view that it's crazy for him to have done that.

I mentioned a stipend above. But aren't stipends fairly low and would a "star" prospect get one that was much bigger than everyone else in the same department?

Where were Dele and Abishola's brother sleeping when Abishola and Bob were playing Dele's audition video over and over again /talking while in her brother's bed, only a few steps from the couch and kitchen area? In the bathroom?

The continued MaxDot involvement initially confused me, too. But then I remembered that while the Chinese would have bought out the family completely, Goodwin took 7 years to do so, so Bob had an interest in making sure the company was successful enough for Goodwin to afford to keep making payments to the family. So, part of the terms of the sale likely were that he stayed on in order to guide Goodwin until the deal was completed. I do wonder if he continued to draw a salary during this time. Agreed. Also, did Douglas stay on as an employee at MaxDot for 7 more years, potentially receiving a paycheck while also splitting regular payout checks from Goodwin with Bob, Christina and Dottie? That would actually have been a good thing for him to do at his age (regular job; less time to get in trouble), but it's hard to imagine Goodwin agreeing to keep him on. But it did seem like he was staying while Bob was leaving after the final payout, so maybe Goodwin did agree (or it was also part of the deal.) And if Bob was frequently at MaxDot, where exactly did Abishola attend medical school? And after medical school, where did she do her residency? If her hospital were a teaching hospital (I never got the impression there were residents working there), she could have been accepted into a residency there, but otherwise, Bob would probably not have been local unless he and Abishola lived separately. Also agreed. The per diem part is extremely unlikely. I suppose there's always an exception, but it would be very hard to go to medical school, do well enough to get a good residency, and also work a job where you have to be fully awake. Yes. Exactly. She already taken the college pre-requisites (bio, chem, organic chem, biochem,physics, calculus, etc) or Hopkins would not have accepted her. But even nurses still need 4 years of medical school and 3 of residency. The clinical aspects of the last 2 years of medical school and possibly the first part of her residency (not the pediatric part, since she didn't work in pediatrics before) would likely be "easier" for her than for the typical non-nurse who had no previous experience with patients, but she wouldn't have much advantage in the first 2 years of medical school (the science-training part), and might even find it more difficult than someone who had an undergraduate degree in biology or chemistry. It's very rigorous. If she didn't have a sub-specialty, med school is 4 years, and a pediatric residency is another 3. IF she had started medical school the fall after Dele finished HS, she would have just been hired as a pediatrician in the year the finale takes place. You're probably correct; he did say that he was a pharmacist. That's some lunch hour he has. It's completely unrealistic, but it's also a sitcom. I thought the same thing. I also couldn't help wondering where Dele and the brother were each sleeping when Abishola and Bob were playing Dele's audition video over and over again /talking while in her brother's bed, only a few steps from the couch and kitchen area in the prior episode. Yes, now she's the pastor's problem. The first one, for sure. Dottie? That would be nice for Abishola and Bob. And also possibly for Maxine. Did Dottie still have her house, though? I thought she had sold it, although she could certainly buy another.

I assumed that they had decided to use Nigel less going forward, and that we won't see him much anymore, perhaps only slightly more than Stephanie. With Flower temporarily gone, there was more room for subplots with Carol and Nigel, but now they can focus more on the main 8 ghosts. And people seem to like Nancy occasionally, so they don't really "need" him (I have nothing against the actor or the character.) My guess is that Patience won't be in very many episodes, either; or at least won't become a regular. This show has 10 full cast members-that's a very large cast. I'm the same way about sushi rolls. No matter how well you wrap them, the rice is always somewhat dried out the next day (and any avocado is brown), but I'll still eat it.

Agreed!

I've had it with chopped red onions and/or chopped tomato. I don't love raw onions, but it's fine. The tomato is a good addition as long as the avocado predominates.

Yes, perhaps (despite being a Puritan) she was interested in him and he kept making excuses. I generally agree, but does any guacamole hold up the next day? No matter how much citrus you add or how well you wrap it, it always turns brownish. Subtitles were how I was able to understand it. My hearing is fine, but without subtitles, I don't always catch what they're saying when I watch tv shows.

I like the 2nd part of the synopsis. . . .