CalamityBoPeep

One of my favorite little Luke and Lorelai moments is the open to "Kiss and Tell" (season 1, episode 7) where Luke is in a heated argument with Taylor about not decorating for the Fall festival, and the whole time Lorelai and Rory are trying to get his attention he doesn't miss a beat in his argument with Taylor, but is clearly aware of Lorelai the entire time, allowing her to move behind the counter to help herself (after giving Taylor the "back off" look), handing her the tongs for the muffin, then finally topping off with "Don't sit on any cold benches!" It just shows that he's always got her in his sights.

Yes, after posting, I verified with my mother (born in 1945 in Scotland). She said peanut butter was something the "toffs" might have, but "regular folk" almost never. Her father was the gardener for an earl, and the earl's daughter introduced my mother to peanut butter and cucumber sandwiches. The whole PB&J thing stuck out to me because I grew up hearing my mother commenting on how strange it was. She made it for our school lunches, of course, but she found it odd at first. We were American kids, though... so we had our PB&J. My folks went back to live in Scotland for a while in the 90's-2000's, to take care of my grandfather, and my mother introduced my cousin (who's now in her 40's) to PB&J for the first time. Having acquired a fondness over the years here for slightly squished PB&J sandwiches, my mother bought American brands of peanut butter and jelly at an import store while they lived there. My cousin now adores PB&J sandwiches. As for the book vs show... Claire still had to have some pretty impressive packing skills if she managed to get a loaf of Wonder Bread across the pond without squishing it. But eh... like I said before, I like the feeling of that tidbit in the books so I don't mind.

Actually, peanut butter itself wasn't available in Scotland at the time of Bree's passage (nor Claire's in 1968), so Claire having the sandwiches is an anachronism on Diana's part too. Unless of course, Claire packed her sandwiches in Boston and kept them throughout the flight (I can't remember (been a while since I read the book)... did she do that?), and managed to keep them in reasonable condition over the day or so that she might have taken to get to the stones. I mean, are we supposed to assume she basically landed in Britain then took a taxi directly to the stones? It's a 9 or 10 hour drive from London to Inverness. Did she sleep first? I seriously doubt there were direct flights from Boston to Inverness at the time. (There aren't now, anyway, and I have a hard time thinking Inverness was a bigger destination in the 60's and early 70's than it is now). Bree and Claire probably had to connect in London, at least. So those sandwiches would probably not just be in that "nicely squished" condition that long after making them. They'd be more like a sodden mess, well soaking the wax paper, and basically just kind of nasty. But I always did love that bit with Claire eating her sandwiches so I employed a bit of hand-wavium, smiled, and moved on. Edited to add: To clarify, (see below), peanut butter was not technically unavailable. Just uncommon. And you'd have to go to a lot of effort to find any American brands, if they were imported. My bad. <grin>

Eh, we could just credit his hardy Scottish constitution. ;-)

My pet theory is that Janet is a God, and she's getting more and more powerful in her ability to create. She can create entire worlds, now even with simulations of people (like Derek) to populate them. As the judge's and Michael's plans began to formulate, (while the Cockroaches were off to the side, wondering what was going on), Janet moved over to Michael, which indicated to me her readiness to put the new plan into motion. The moment the idea is visualized, the new reality exists. Because Janet sees it all, knows it all, and creates it all. After all the reboots, she may no longer even need Michael to state the specifics. It could be that they're so in tune with each other, that the moment he imagines the reality, she is creating it. So, yeah, I believe this new Earth-realm is a larger, more elaborate, Janet-created simulation, and that she's made the transition from being a Janet to being a God. She is experiencing all realities through her creations, discovering her emotions and senses through her interactions with humans, and is always benevolently loving, to the point where she must allow or force herself to experience being "evil" (Bad Janet), in order to attain the highest Good. I don't think Bad Place demons are playing people either. The people populating the new Earth-realm could be Janet-created-virtual people, more finely tuned creations than her Derek was.

For me, the difference was that Kendall actually displayed emotional intelligence and seemed to genuinely want to see if Krystal could or would be real, and connect on a friendship level. Taylor just wanted to lord her "emotional intelligence" over Corinne (who granted, was annoying as anything), but never seemed interested in actually trying to dig deeper to really understand Corinne. Kendall's emotional intelligence came across as quiet confidence and self-awareness. Taylor's came off as insecurity and credential-bragging. I enjoyed Kendall's more.

Kendall vs. Krystal. Deep vs. Shallow. Knows herself vs. Knows how to pretend to know herself. Observant vs. Oblivious. Merciful vs. Catty. And last but not least: Kendall wins hands down, because finally... finally... a contestant who knows how to describe a relationship between herself and another person! Kendall wins the Pronoun Game! She's way too good for Arie.

He was played by the same actor who played Randall on Black Sails. :-)

I've noticed Sam's delivery too, and I think it's a combination of factors. The other Scottish actors rarely have to deliver a paragraph of lines that are meant to sound poetic, all at once. Most of them get to play off other actors, so their conversations sound more natural, in general. Add to that, the effort the writers are making of keeping some of the dialogue from the books intact, which doesn't actually lend itself to the spoken word very well... and Sam's fighting an uphill battle. Plus there's the tendency on the part of Scots (about 1/2 my family) to slowing down their speech a bit when they're speaking to Americans, in order not to lose us. When Hubby & I went to introduce him to that side of my family (many, many moons ago) he had the devil of a time trying to translate what some of my broader-speaking cousins were saying, if they spoke at their normal rate. I even had some trouble on occasion, and my own mother is a Scot! So, I think the sheer weight of the lines, (in number and text), combines with Sam's awareness that he needs to try to stay somewhat understandable, slowing him down a lot. The other Scottish actors get to be more "normal" since they aren't trying to create the "King of Men." Our Randall had one leg! And yep, when I heard a line delivered in the preview, I had to check imdb! It's Randall, y'all! (His character is called Bernard Cosworth in this.) We've missed you, you old loon! Back home... only not serving on the Walrus (that was the Artemis, in this case), but on the Spanish (now British ;-) ) galleon. Can't wait to see what other Black Sails Easter eggs are in store for us. Also... loved the new opening credits. Loved Jamie & Claire. Love Fergus & Marsali. Loved the whole episode, really.

I finally have a chance to sit down and weigh in here. Just to add to everyone's great comments. I loved it. Especially the fight between Jamie and Claire. So fantastically acted. I loved the grit, the rough edges in it, the powerful emotion. Well done! I found the reasoning for everyone's actions... Jamie's, Claire's, Jenny's & Ian's... solidly scripted and justified. When this show delivers, it delivers. I feel like they do get the angry angsty emotional beats pretty well, as writers. All in all, I'm a happy book-reader and viewer this week.

We must be looking for the same things, Petunia. I enjoyed this one too, though I can understand the frustration that some are having with it. I loved all the looks from Jamie, like "here we go again, with the surgery and life-saving-thing." LOL He still gets her, in some ways. I also like the groundwork they laid, creating the sense that yes, these two are both still very unsure about how to integrate the 20-years-later-selves with the people they knew before Culloden. They still have the passion and vibrant awareness of each other. They still make each other's days more interesting. But they really don't know what's making the other tick yet. That gives me something to look forward to, because of course they will get these things sorted and come back together as a team (after the big blow up, next episode). It also put me in mind of how marriages do change as time passes. The first season, they were becoming one, getting to the heart of each other. The second season they were recovering as a team and driving toward a mission. Now... the kids are grown, the nest is empty, and you're looking at that other person going "right, where were we?" LOL Only they haven't had the opportunity to grow there together. Jamie and Claire have to figure it out on the fly, and the recognition that deep down, each one has changed, is a splash of cold water. Also like the way Willoughby is being used. And I'm kind of glad that Wee Ian's deflowering wasn't a "here's how to forget bad things" moment, but was a set-up by Fergus.

Talk about over-complicating and infusing politics everywhere! Totally agree @GHScorpiosRule! Good grief. And this... "They even had a theory as to why the audience was largely older adult women." ... Their theory is all Strong Women this, Strong Women that. I'm a middle-aged woman, and for me, it's simple. I have been waiting over twenty freaking years to see these books done, and I'm ecstatic that they're done well. It has nothing to do with politics, feminism, or social-anything. It's simply that they're fantastic character-driven stories, and I like them. Of course I'd become a fan of the show! I read the first book when I was 24 or 25 years old, for Pete's sake. When it came out! I have lived most of my adult life with these characters existing! FFS. I should have followed @WatchrTina's lead and not clicked on the link. My own fault. Live and learn, I guess.

LOL Got it in one guess. And yeah... it was more complicated, but ultimately they just couldn't understand what it was that fans were really looking for.

Exactly! I'm not opposed to sex. I do think this is a fairly common point of confusion in Hollywood though. So many production teams seem to think that when fans are clamoring for the depth of emotion felt by their favorite couples to be shown, that we mean "we want the sex!" I was thinking about this the other day. One of my formerly favorite shows was completely ruined (and finally cancelled (I checked out at the end of the third season, in complete frustration)) because TPTB could not conceive of intimacy meaning anything other than getting together sexually, and they were adamant that they would not allow that to happen! So adamant that they torpedoed their own show. I can watch absolutely beautiful fan videos that show nothing but momentary looks and reaction shots, and feel like those videos breathe more life into the relationship than the actual show did. That's terrible! Amateurs, fiddling around with the footage and the timing, are creating more emotional depth than the actual professional show editors and producers! Not that I want Outlander to be set to a modern music track, or anything. I don't want Outlander to look like a fan video. I just want those moments to hover, for just that instant, before landing. I want them to be allowed to Be!

I nearly mentioned this exact thing in my previous post, but deleted it because I didn't want to get too specific with my complaints in the episode thread. But yes, yes, yes! That was the other big emotional scene that ended up feeling flat to me. I mean, eventually I got to the place where I conceded it was nicely done as they did it too... but the initial viewing left me going "wait, what? Is that it?" Sometimes less isn't more. More is more. LOL