majormama

Back to the sidesaddle issue. I learned to ride Western, so this may just be a difference of style, but I learned to control a horse primarily with my legs. The reins are there for extra emphasis, but the legs are what guide the horse. I've never understood how someone can ride sidesaddle for anything more than a casual outing on a calm horse if you can't use both legs for control, let alone keeping your seat. Is this different in English style riding? Also, if you have one leg locked in place in a side saddle, what happens if you start to fall or the horse bolts? Is it easy to get out of quickly? Exactly how dangerous was it for Mary to race sidesaddle?

That's a totally plausible scenario, but I never saw it that way. Thomas was putting his feelers out, asking very careful questions that another gay man might recognize as propositioning but a straight man would not. When Pamuk gave certain answers that made Thomas feel as though he was gay, that was when he stroked Pamuk's face and Pamuk freaked. It's been a while since I saw Season 1. I could well be confusing Thomas's scene with Pamuk and Thomas's scene with the Duke. I seem to remember a man appearing open to Thomas's advances and then being like, ha ha, nope! I'm also sure that Pamuk used Thomas's advances as blackmail to get to Mary's room, as in, I'll keep quiet about it if you take me there, whether he had expected the advances or not.

Ah, thanks, I have zero recollection of her but that makes much more sense. I thought Pamuk had more or less initiated the encounter with Thomas (or at least didn't discourage it until it got pretty far) so he could blackmail Thomas into leading him to Mary's room.

When Mrs. Hughes tells the downstairs crew about Edith's impending news, she tells Anna she'd better inform "Madge". I assume it was a nickname for Mary, since we then saw Anna telling Mary? I hadn't heard anyone call her that before, and was surprised that stuffy Carson would allow it. His precious Lady Mary surely shouldn't be referred to so commonly.

I got a good belly laugh out of Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore finessing Carson's ego over the investment advice. My sister and I always say, for as much as men complain of women and their "silly feelings", they get upset very easily. Only they call it disrespect and wounded pride rather than hurt feelings. (Yes, I realize that's generalities and stereotypes.)

See, we totally could have had a better non-ending ending! Yes, Gareth protected them from execution by Madelena, but after that they were on their own, which directly lead to them seeking help from Baby Fiance and the creepy doll house. On the other hand, Galavant seemed to be prepared for long term involvement in King Richard's protection. Not exactly the fair trade implied in their agreement.

After having a few days to think about it, I realized the reason I hated the "cliffhanger" ending is because it wasn't actually a cliffhanger, it was a really bad ending. Galavant and Gareth had a gentleman's understanding. Gal was to take Richard back to their country of origin and take care of him there; Gareth was to protect everyone else. It was only after Gal and Dickie left that Gareth "protected" the rest by kicking them to the curb. Gal has no idea that Isabella is locked in a box, therefore it's unlikely he'll come to rescue her. This is The End. Madalena rules Valencia with Gareth as her consort, Gal takes care of Dickie, and Isabella is a living doll in a creepy dollhouse. A cliffhanger would be if Gal had learned of Izzy's plight and dramatically said, "I must save her! Come on, Richard!" before fading to black.

BAHAHAHA! All of those were great, but this had me in stitches!

My view of Violet is colored by her being pretty much exactly what my grandmother would be if she'd married rich. Because of that, I tend to think she doesn't care whether Isobel marries Lord Merton, Dr Clarkson, or no one; she just really enjoys messing with her. I suddenly realized during this episode, Bates doesn't walk with a limp anymore. Shows you how much I pay attention to him, I have no idea how long that's been the case. He had a cane in S1, and his being a cripple was a huge deal. I seem to remember him limping sans cane while walking around the prison yard. Now there's no hint of it. For some reason I had thought his injury was something permanent, though I can't even remember how he was supposed to have been injured in the first place, but I guess 10 years of healing has taken care of it.

Count me as another fan unhappy with the lack of ending. I had been prepared to buy the DVD if there was one, but if there's little promise of a second season, I don't see the point. I let my kids watch this with me because 1. they're too young to get the sex jokes, 2. the violence was slapstick, and 3. they love princesses and knights. They were absolutely distraught when there was no resolution. It was like "Who kills Humperdink, is it Inigo?" "No one. Humperdink lives." "You mean he WINS?!? JESUS, Grandpa, why did you read me this?" And Isabella in the box gave one of them nightmares. Considering Madalena doesn't even know the name of the Jester, it doesn't really surprise me she doesn't remember Syd. She's a total sociopath (or is it psychopath, I can never remember which is which), only taking notice of someone if they can help her get what she wants or is in the way, and even then only a little.

But on the other hand, this is the same Mary who spent hours slugging through mud to get water to her dying pigs and carried a dead body through the house. I don't think she's too dainty to do icky things. On the contrary, she's strong-willed enough to do about anything to get what she wants. She just does it only when she has to and passes it off when she can.

I think the goal is to personally kill Galavant in front of the queen, thus proving his manliness and badassery and win her favor. Of course, he couldn't even kick Galavant in the face during the failed attempt to stop the wedding. Not sure how he's supposed to kill him. And of course, he made this plan before he knew about the jester. I can totally see Isabella showing up with Galavant and King Richard being all, "Oh, I totally forgot about that! Giggle!"

I thought she looked New World Hispanic. Since this is set pre-Columbus, it would still be wrong, but maybe slightly less wrong than Indian. ETA: I realize the actress is Indian, I just thought they had cast her as "Spanish" because she looks similar to what "Spanish" looks like in the New World.

Sometime in the last few hours, my local listings finally changed to show Galavant tonight at 9:00C. Yay! I can watch without the kiddos!

Is that everywhere, or up to affiliates? My local listings still show Forever for tonight, but an encore of Galavant on Saturday at 7:00. ETA: And there seems to be a glitch on ABC's website. I click on Tonight's Schedule, and it takes me to the week of Dec 21 and says "This schedule unavailable."

Trying to watch anything on ABC's website is impossible. I missed most of the finale (the filler, no great loss, but I wanted to see some of the dancers again). As soon as anyone starts dancing, the quality gets so bad you can't see anything more than blobs. But the judging and filler is crystal clear! Their YouTube channel isn't any better, either. ETA: I just discovered I can change the YouTube video to HD. It takes FOREVER to load, though.

The music for Janel's fusion was terrible for a foxtrot, and equally terrible for a paso. I'm impressed they were even able to dance to it. Kind of ironic that the back up dancers to a song about loving your full figure were all tiny, skinny bits of nothing. I'm not usually one to be catty about women's appearance, but what was up with CAI's and JH's hair? It looked like Len had set off an explosion and blown them both away from him.

Well, I Jump[ed] On It and threw all my votes to Alfonso. I LOVED his freestyle. I thought Sadie's was cute, but not enough to blow me away. I am not a fan of either contemporary or hip hop, so while I appreciate that both Janel and Bethany danced well, I didn't love either of theirs. Janel's death drop was certainly cool, but the dance as a whole just wasn't my thing. ETA: All contemporaries look more or less the same to me: Run over here, pose, angsty-face; run over there, lift, angsty face. Is there such a thing as a happy contemporary, or are they always angsty?

So it was basically re-written both to make AJ look even more terrible and to facilitate his "death"? Got it. But I still seem to have a memory of Alan in flashback crying and saying he's sorry as he injects something into someone's (Jason's, I thought) IV.

No, it was flashbacks to when Jason was in his coma following AJ's drunk driving accident. I'm pretty sure it was Alan who was distraught thinking Jason wouldn't wake up, so he injected him with some drug to end his suffering, only it didn't work to kill him and instead erased his memories and changed his personality. It was all shown in flashback. I didn't watch long, so I may well be remembering wrong.

During a brief attempt to re-join this show a few years back, I remember a re-write showing it wasn't actually AJ's accident that caused Jason's personality change but Alan's failed attempt to mercy-kill his comatose son. I promptly turned the show back off, because why the heck were they messing with that story? But now I'm wondering, why the heck *did* they mess with that story? What purpose did it serve in the overall plot to make Alan a mercy killer?

Or Tavis Smiley, apparently. They must be part of the 13-contestant number, though. Can't say I'm disappointed, really. As a runner myself, I'm not exactly a fan of Ms Jones, and I had to rack my brain to remember who the 13th contestant even was.

Every vote caster can cast their vote based on whatever standard they wish. Some will base each week's vote solely on that week's performance, some on the season as a whole. Some choose the best technical dancer, some the best performer (which isn't always the same person), some the most improved, some the best personality, some the most physically attractive. That's both the wonderful and terrible thing about leaving something up to a vote.

I went back and played Janel and Val's AT, not watching but just listening to the music. I think even more there was something off about the band. Even after Val stopped playing and started dancing, the song was bad. It sounded more like an orchestra tuning up than a song in the beginning. It got much better once the bass player switched from bowing to plucking, but I think the violin and viola were just a *touch* out of tune from each other, not enough to be completely terrible but enough to distract me.

The Toxic duel: