truthaboutluv

I also thought Rose Byrne was awesome but yeah it amazed me the whole time watching, how a movie Wiig wrote and was the lead, she turned out to be the least interesting and funny character in it. In fact, she was the reason I didn't love the movie as much as so many did and definitely didn't think it deserved all those critical accolades.

I want to quote this entire thing. Exactly, some want to make this about "well Blaine is awful because of this..." or "well Kurt is this because whatever..." and to me this has shit to do about liking one character or who one stans or whatever. Because the fact of the matter is they're all fictional characters meaning whatever fucked up thing they do is the writers' work and creation. And that's what I personally am ranting and bothered about. Blaine is going to be dating Karofksy because THE WRITERS think it is okay to make the character do so because they don't give a flying fuck about their characters and more importantly the audience. They just throw shit out there because they think it makes for buzz or controversy or whatever. Well good luck to them when no one watches. People were already barely watching and with this shit, most people are pretty much resigning themselves to watching clips on YouTube and just watching edits of their favorite characters.

I didn't think it was subtle actually. I think in S3, and one can say it was pandering because by then some fans were vocal about shipping them, they started hinting it clearly in some scenes that Holder could have a thing for her and there was of course that scene in S4 where Linden came over to have dinner with Holder and Caroline and with her there we had to be shown how Holder completely forgot it was Valentine's Day. And the entire moment was tense and awkward and definitely not subtle in my opinion. My issue with the ending wasn't that I thought it was pandering, it's that I never shipped the two and never bought the possibility of them as a romantic pairing even with the not so subtle hints of Holder maybe being into her. I don't believe that Holder and Linden are two beautifully tragic people who will find happiness and light with each other. Nothing about their partnership ever convinced me of that and if I had to write a fanfic about how they story went after the show ended I'd say they'd be done in a few months at best if they got together. Like I said, they were good professional partners and even friends and sure they called each other out on their bullshit at times but honestly, I never really saw or felt, in my opinion anyway that those two truly opened up to each other to the point I buy this "you are my home" and that only they truly see each other or whatever. Linden frankly remained just as sully and sour and remote throughout much of the series and Holder was open about his addiction but I never really saw him open up to her about his father and what was clearly a troubled childhood and life with his sister. Finally, and I acknowledge this is completely subjective, I never saw any chemistry between those two...EVER. The few times they kind of flirted I guess and Linden attempted a smile, I just found it incredibly awkward to be honest. '

This so much and that's EXACTLY why I was sick of and more than ready to never see the character again since the SuperBowl Shuffle episode. While some who love Kurt constantly tout how he has been sacrificed for Blaine or whatever, the writers did the same shit with Karofksy and his man pain the second they started listening to a few online buzz and kept bringing the character back over and over and over again. Kurt and what he went through ceased to exist or it was incredibly minimized so we can focus on how much Karofsky was suffering. Like I said, the first time I got annoyed with this character and that whole arc was that Superbowl mess where Kurt was pretty much invisible in Warbler land and the whole damn episode was about Karofsky's whole "journey" or whatever and after all that, the episode ended on him still not giving a damn about what he did to Kurt. Then his whole little suicide attempt, a piece of crap episode I never watched, was an hour of Kurt blaming himself because he dared to not answer his cell phone when the creepy guy who'd first tormented him and creepily stalked him in a bear suit, kept calling. And now, because for the last two seasons they've made Blaine the constant fuck-up in that relationship, why not use him to once again tell us about how poor, sweet misunderstood Karofksy has grown and found acceptance in himself and is now such a great catch. If I didn't think RIB are so beyond giving any kind of a crap about the shit they write and having any integrity about it, I would say that even they probably figured it would be too fucked up to have Kurt date him which is why they went with Blaine, sense and continuity be damned. But nah, I don't think they care about that because whether or not Blaine was the one Karofksy directly bullied and tormented, as the poster above noted, considering the only scenes they ever shared and Blaine's meeting Kurt and befriending him was strongly tied to that, in my opinion, Blaine's only history with Karofksy is just as twisted and fucked up as Kurt's with him. So this is exactly why I honestly and sincerely say fuck this show and fuck those writers. Good luck with your point negative audience and becoming an even bigger joke than this show already is. There is WAY too much good stuff on television with writers who actually give a crap about their work for me to waste my time with the joke that Glee is. Like I'v said I don't give flying crap about Kurt and Blaine being together because those writers fucked over that pairing badly the moment they made the decision to have Blaine bang the anonymous lighthouse. Plenty of shows have had couples cheat and get back together but knowing even back then how lazy and shitty the writing on Glee was, I knew that whole thing would be a complete and utter mess and clusterfuck and it was. So I don't care about the writers breaking up Kurt and Blaine and them never being together but this Karofksy shit is just bullshit. And while I was already debating watching knowing no matter what they did it would be crappy, knowing this, there is absolutely no way I'm watching and endorsing that utter shit by actually watching it.

Thank goodness someone mentioned this because I was starting to think I'd hallucinated this. I saw people mention the Unveiled special or something which I think is supposed to be a collection of unaired scenes from the season but nothing about the above. So good to know I'm not crazy. I wonder when they plan to air that one. I get that fyi is just thinking about ratings and I can certainly see the appeal to both couples just on a financial level, since I doubt they'll be doing the show for free but I feel like all this just puts more pressure on them to have to make the marriage work because the show and the so called "experts" are using them as an example of its success. In fact I remember reading from those who read up on the original Danish show that the one couple who stayed together after the show but then divorced after a year, said that they felt pressure to make it work because they were held up as this standard for the success of the experiment.

I noticed the omission of Bethany and Derek which I guess doesn't bode well for them in regards to her because clearly they weren't memorable enough to her.

So Carrie Ann blogs about the show for Parade magazine and this week she said this about Janel and Val's chemistry: Note who she compared them to. Now what I can't figure out is if this is more of Carrie Ann being incredibly loopy and she meant to write Meryl and Maks and somehow mentioned JLo instead or this was just some really awesome shade at the Maks/Meryl shipping. If it's the latter, I may just start to love Carrie Ann.

There were two clips of her praying with her family. The one you described was shown in her opening package before her dance and there was another shown during the Results Show that was clearly of her and parents backstage before she performed. You can clearly see in her costume.

I knew the tweet was from Marlene and I know exactly who she is as I was a faithful PLL viewers until it got way too convoluted for me. That said, I know that was not the only tweet Marlene made about the show. I'm pretty sure she commented on Janel's dance positively, so she should have re-tweeted that. Just like Shay Mitchell, one of Janel's co-stars on the show tweeted how great she was and asked her followers to vote. Re-tweeting that stuff is fine. I can't buy that just because a tweet is from family and/or friend, it doesn't occur to her that it may not seem very nice and in fact come across as poor sportsmanship for her, the person competing against these people, to re-tweet it. The fact is Marlene King is not the one competing on the show, she can tweet whatever she wants and no one, unless they're a fan of the show and follow her would even know or care about her tweeting that. Janel's re-tweeting it though to many would seem like an endorsement and an agreement of her sentiments and that's where the criticism will stem. Because that's how twitter works. It doesn't matter if you're not the one who tweets it, by re-tweeting, people view that as an agreement and endorsement of that sentiment. And it's just not a good look for her to be re-tweeting tweets that are openly ragging on her competitors. I can tell you for a fact Amber Riley got tweets of support that weren't too friendly and nice but she only ever re-tweeted the ones that were simply supporting her and asking people to vote for her.

I liked Bethany. I noticed there were some comments about her having "bitch-face" at times during the show particularly when Sadie and Alfonso got praised but when I re-watched the show, I realized that her expression was pretty much the same anytime she was caught up in the skybox. And seeing a little of her personality after the show was over, when she was being interviewed I kind of got the feeling that she's just kind of naturally mellow and silent, maybe even a little serious when she's not being "on". Maybe it has to do with the fact that she spends so much of her time being "perky" and "adorable" for her youtube videos that she just turns it all off when she doesn't have to be. She just seemed so calm and mellow during the judging, after and in some of the post-show interviews. At one point it even seemed like Derek was trying to coax some excitement out of her when they got their scores. And honestly, I find it kind of interesting that's her personality considering she's only 18. I think with contestants that young you expect them to be very "youth-like" like Sadie was, Zendaya at times, etc. Bethany had a serious face at times that almost made me forget she is only 18.

I just saw this on another site. I also saw how apparently the day of the premiere, a few hours before, she re-tweeted something about none of the other celebrities being any competition (guess Alfonso sure as hell shut that up). Yeah she definitely needs to be careful because between that, people's reaction to feeling like she and Val are trying to force some showmance, she may just be setting herself up for an early shock boot.

It's called Boss by Fifth Harmony. I had to go to YouTube and find it myself because the lyrics were so random to me. In fact they were so ridiculous that I was half paying attention to the Pro dancers, just thinking "what the hell is this song."

I don't see how, considering there have been "ringers" on the show since the beginning and few of them have actually won, particularly the men. The only thing I think will be the demise of this show is one, natural progression meaning eventually it will just flame out and the ratings will go down like many shows before and two, producers messing around with the formula too much looking for controversy, water-cooler moments, etc. The show has always been a mix of old and young; some dance experience and no dance experience; famous and not so famous, etc. Yes, he is. With regards to Lolo, yeah she's definitely someone who needs to stay far, far away from social media. To my recollection, she was okay when the media and US Olympic team were first hyping her with all this press, interviews, etc. but she is someone who is totally guilty of foot in the mouth disease and after a couple of unfortunate "what were you thinking" tweets and comments, people starting going at her online. It could have still not been a big deal except she made the huge mistake of responding and engaging with those criticizing her and since then it's just been from bad to worse. She's annoying but I swear from comments I see around online, there are people who just go at her for sport because they think it's fun and she just keeps responding, keep making it worse for herself. Yeah she really needs to get away from social media and just try to live her life in a healthy and happy way. With regards to Janel/Val, while I understand what kitcloudkicker and ElectricBoogaloo are saying, I don't entirely buy it because I just feel like Val especially at this point, with multiple seasons under his belt, knows how this show can be and I just can't buy that it's totally innocent on their part. Yes Janel is seen posing with her boyfriend and he's at the show but like some noted before the season, Kelly Monaco had a boyfriend at every show and Maria Menounos with her season with Derek was public about having a boyfriend and that didn't stop her and Derek from being flirty flirty at times and having a few suggestive comments and dance moments. As I noted last season with the showmance debate about Maks and Meryl, a showmance isn't always the pairing trying to convince people there is an actual relationship happening. Sometimes it's a simple as knowing some fans think they would look good together and playing into it with a few flirty comments here, a few coy answers here, etc. As I have learned being a part of all kinds of fandoms - books, movies, television shows, even real people - there are those who will ship any and everyone sometimes with little help. So I just feel that knowing that, I can't entirely buy the "oh Val and Janel are just being touchy people and there's no concerted effort to push this..." Like I said though, judging by some of the reactions I've seen online and how Val rushed on twitter, I'm thinking they may tone it down, realizing that it's turning people off more than making them want to root for them. Also, if it is all so innocent and not deliberate on their part, why were we shown that clip of them talking to the livestream guy where Janel was all hesitant and coy when asked if she was single? Now I get how the producers can edit things at times to tell the story they want and so maybe she eventually said she had a boyfriend but still why the little smirk and second hesitation if there is no intention for having any showmance angle and it's all innocent. She would have just said instantly, "no I'm not single..." Actually kind of like Danica who was pretty upfront about her relationship last season as was Val about it too. Finally, I want to say I'm surprised about the story about Gleb but honestly from his one season he came across as kind of a tool who was also not that bright so I'd be lying. Also, Derek's audition video was hilarious and with that hair and those eyebrows, he actually did look like a little devil/gremlin for a moment. No wonder some think he's some demon spawn and that's how he's won so much.

Based on what Tom said when he sent it to her, about talking to the highest scorers who knew they were safe, I think she was supposed to interview Alfonso, Sadie and Bethany. A few hours late since I had to catch up on the DVR but agree that Lolo going home was the right choice. Either her or Betsey would have been fine but Betsey was likely saved due to the likability factor. She wasn't great but she had a great attitude. Lolo stank BAD and she had a horrible attitude - bad combination. It was nice having a proper results show again but I have to say I didn't really love any of the Pro numbers. I really need for the show to get another choreographer than Mandy Moore for those group numbers (also WTF to that song the Pro women were dancing to in the opening) and Mark and Witney's dance kind of bored me to be honest. Like others, what I most enjoyed about having the results show again was seeing the couples' interactions behind the cameras before they danced and after. Which speaking of, holy wow to the Janel/Val interaction some were mentioning above. I have to say, so far it has seemed like she's pushing the showmance far more than Val. Although don't get me wrong, I'm not totally letting him slide since I doubt she'd think it's okay if she didn't get an indication from him that it was. But I don't know if it's because he's reading comments and suspecting backlash from viewers because they're being so over the top or if he is uncomfortable but he went on twitter talking about what people think is flirting was just chivalry or some crap and basically trying to downplay the whole thing. But yeah between Janel's rubbing of his pecs which she thought were his abs and all the kisses and "I love you...", it was all a bit much. Not to mention, was she kissing him on his lips...the hell? I'm guessing maybe the boyfriend is fine with it because they're looking at it as one big acting job by her but that just seems sad and desperate in my opinion. Janel should be confident in her abilities to feel like she can win this on her dancing. She and Val need to focus on her cleaning up her technique and creating fun, exciting dances instead of trying to showmance their way to the Finals. Again, I guess Val saw last season with Meryl and Maks and thinks that's what it takes but I maintain Meryl and Maks won because she was just that good and not because of their gag-worthy showmance. Instead of Val looking at Meryl and Maks as some standard, he should listen to how Maks constantly passive aggressively goes on about how Derek "knows the formula" to win since he's done it 5 times. Well guess what, none of those wins came with any hint of a showmance. Derek's only showmance on the show was Shannon and that was arguably his worse performing season and he and Maria sort of had some flirtation and they got eliminated right before the Finals when she was at the top of the leader-board. I don't know why these people haven't yet figured out that shit does not work.

This comment is a perfect example of how unless one works for the show and sees actual, solid data, it's all still opinion because I personally did not think Amber was overscored and certainly don't think she was "overscored" into the finals. I thought then and still do that Amber was likely only second to Bill Engvall that season in viewer votes and so she was going to make it far on that alone. And then she turned out to be pretty good and the combination of that pretty much solidified the win for her. So I agree that there's a question mark of Bethany's voting base but that's the case for everyone especially so early in the competition. Unless the celebrity is a Bill Engvall who is consistently scoring last place and still making it through so you know their voting base is pretty formidable, the best indication of fanbases comes when it's middle of the season and the couples start getting scored with nary a margin of difference between them. The pairings that survive those very close point differences are the most telling. Also, I think it's important to note that sometimes it's not about the size of the fanbase but the dedication and determination of the fanbase. Because someone can have a lot of fans but many who aren't that motivated, maybe they think they're fine or they just don't care enough to vote versus someone with a slightly smaller fanbase but the fans are dedicated in their dialing and redialing efforts and social media voting, etc.

They really weren't. Bump, Bump, Bump was a decent sized hit for them and for a short period they were all over BET and the little girls were into them but they never achieved anything close to what guys like N'Sync, Backstreet Boys and even more recently One Direction, did. Not to mention their egos got in the way very quickly and they split up very soon after they had some modicum of success. B2K's "success" was really almost like a blink and you miss it. They had a few R&B hits, I think they only had two albums and one debuted as high as #2 on Billboard charts but only went Gold. And then the next thing, they were over with accusations being hurled that the manager took all their money and how the group became all about Omarion, etc. Which speaking of Omarian, I think his biggest problem with people "constantly talking about B2K" as he claims is that he foresaw himself as the next Justin Timberlake and word is that was a big reason behind the split. He very quickly saw dreams of a solo career and yeah he had some decent solo success but nothing that amazing. I had to laugh when he was rattling off his solo songs when talking about how people can only talk about B2K. Like how can they not focus on his super amazing solo career. Whatever. I glanced at the show and it was typical Love and Hip Hop fare I guess. I don't trust anything when it comes to Ray J. That fool has just been media whoring for years since he could no longer just rely on Brandy's money and success once her career stalled. Everything he does and says I think is calculated to get himself attention so I pretty much eye-rolled everything related to him on the show including that mess with his ex who I have never heard of and don't care to know about. And I completely agree with the above comment that the reveal is coming that he and his "assistant" have smashed. I loved how the girl said she and the ex were cool for years and suddenly they weren't and she has no idea what could have happened. Yeah I have a feeling she's not exactly as ignorant as she claims to be.

Yeah not to get into this discussion because it's always a very touchy one but I'd just also like to point out one small caveat, that Darren Criss is not white. He's bi-racial.

It's already been addressed with the many posts since mine but just to comment on this: If this was in part a response to my comment, let me be very clear that nowhere did I say anything about people commenting on spoilers because that would be ridiculous since this is the spoilers and discussion thread. However, to each his own, but I just personally do not think a couple of pictures posted on some of the actors' social media accounts with some lame hashtag is that big of a deal or should be used as some tangible proof of what's happening on the show. But then again, that's just me. The only person I follow from the show is Chris and that was an on a whim thing years ago and frankly, he seems to tweet so little these days half the time I forget I follow him. I get that the show is not coming back for awhile but I think there's plenty to discuss spoiler wise between MJ's spoilers, the Gleekto Tumblr or whatever it's called, the Brazilian girls, GOB or something or another and even the major outlets like THR and TV Line, etc. who mention something every once in awhile. Whipping oneself into a frenzy over a couple of pics on the actors' social media that proves and tells nothing really, just seems a bit much in my opinion. But hey, to each his own. Admittedly I've always maintained that frankly, I find a lot of the fandom bullshit to be as annoying sometimes as the crappy writing and that for me works both ways - good and bad. In other words whether it's "stanning" one of characters/actors or hating them. I find it all a lot of times to be incredibly over the top and as a result mountains are often made out of very small molehills.

Question - did they get rid of the band entirely in all their changes because I swear it seemed like all the dances were done to the original song.

Well not that she was likely in any danger of going home this week but now she's probably definitely not in any danger. Apparently Taylor Swift tweeted a video of Bethany's dance (it was danced to Taylor's song) and mentioned how much she loved Bethany to her 49 million twitter followers. And Taylor Swift's stans are all about doing what she asks and supporting anything she likes. Caught the rest of the show and a few things: Julianne's boobage didn't bother me too much but I really, really hated her makeup, especially those nude lips. It practically washed her out and made her look almost sickly and with that hair - not a good look at all. Maybe I just never noticed in seasons past but there seemed to be a lot of last season's competitors in the ballroom last night. I saw Danica, Charlie, Meryl and Amy. Not going to be as embarrassing as Julianne and Carrie Ann but holy crap, I was with them on how sexy Randy was in that dance. That was a very, very welcome surprise for me. I honestly barely paid attention to his opening package and was pretty much writing him off and then he pulled that off. Very interested to see what he can do in a Latin Dance. Tommy was the man...just hilarious. And Peta proved that old or young doesn't matter, she's still going to hit every single step so hard that she just looks downright aggressive in some of her movements. She looked gorgeous in her costume though - very Poison Ivy. On rewatch, I am even more bothered by Sadie getting those 9's. First of all it took like 30 seconds for her and Mark to start dancing together and half of the dance was her pretty much shimmying well. Again, she clearly has some natural rhythm and Julianne's right in that she has the right frame for creating some nice lines and stuff but that dance was in no way 9 worthy. On the flip side, I think Janel was slightly underscored. I think she could have gotten a 30. Yes it was a little over the top, manic even but looking at it again, it wasn't that bad. Also, I noticed many comments about her boots being the problem but I don't think she was wearing boots. I really paid attention to her legs during the dance and I'm pretty sure she was wearing thigh high pantyhose with matching color heels. Lea was beautiful but the girlish giggling, as someone else pointed out, did get a tad bit annoying.

You and me both...you and me both. I blame social media and the internet. Gone are the days where you watch a show and bitch about just the actual storylines and shitty spoilers. Now all this "extra" stuff gets added in and it's all just like...seriously? I mean who cares about some stupid pictures I assume was on the actors' social media accounts, when you get bullshit like this Because the "you have to be disbanded even though you came second in a national competition" wasn't stupid enough, let's compound the stupidity by saying that students were forced to transfer simply because the club they were in was disbanded. Well I guess any bullshit excuse to explain why the people they forced on viewers for two seasons are all gone but they'll waste money and time on new actors and characters that no will care about either and bringing back the creepy 40 year old teenager no one wanted to see again.

Noticed this as well. I think other than Alfonso's dance and Randy's, everyone else felt like a blink and miss it to me. As is the case with this show, I'm doing a bunch of other things while it's airing live so I'll have to rewatch on the DVR to fully critique everyone's dances but off the top of my head, agree with others that the 9's for Sadie were way too high but she definitely has a natural rhythm and potential. Alfonso was predictably amazing and fun. Lolo was just tragic, like she might be to my memory, quite possibly the stiffest celebrity they've ever had. Janel didn't impress me - I hated her costume and I think there was too much "messing around" (as Len would say) before they got to the actual jive content and it just came across as too much. Too much with the movements, too much with the flirty flirting, too much with the smiling - just too much. I think this may be a case of her being just a little too excited and overconfident so my suggestion to Val is to work on her toning it down and choreograph a dance that's just clean and sticking to the basics. At least for these first two weeks so she doesn't turn people off. Antonio is awfully pretty to look at but man, there was nothing happening with those hips. She's probably just not in great shape. It's the beauty of being 18, when your metabolism is amazing so you can stay tiny but not actually be in great shape. So she probably tires quickly. I also thought part of why she had the lapses was that she would get tentative at points in the dance, particularly when away from Derek - like she would start second guessing and looking to him for what to do next, so it was making her tentative.

I saw that article and it's really heartbreaking even though she is being positive and fighting. However, hearing that she has to use a walker, she can't stand for more than a few seconds, she's pretty much wheel-chair bound and she is all but wasted away is really sad. And then she has to gain weight only so she can start another round of chemo. My heart just breaks thinking of the beating that girl's body has taken.

Binge-watched the season this weekend after completely forgetting Netflix had released a final season. The good: 1. The mystery moved along at a fairly quick pace because they only had 6 episodes to work with. As others noted, it spared us the million red herrings like past seasons. Amazingly we only got one - the neighbor. I guess Lincoln and AJ could sort of be counted as red herrings, except not really because while they didn't pull the trigger, they did know what happened that night and did go back to retrieve the gun and try to cover that part up. 2. I liked the throwbacks to the previous seasons with Callie's mom, Holder visiting Bullet's grave and the Mayor coming in at the end, even if it was to cover up Skinner's crime. Speaking of Skinner, I kind of liked Reddick, the one who Linden dismissed as lazy and useless, being the one who solved the case and figured out what she and Holder did. 3. As much as I liked Kyle and thought he was a very sympathetic character, I kind of liked that this time the show employed the "after many twists and turns, it comes right back to the obviously guilty one from the start" method. And for the not so great: 1. I completely agree with others about Holder and Linden's amazing sloppiness in covering up the Skinner murder. Linden not being able to get rid of her gun and the casings is bad enough, but okay you can chalk that up to her going through her whole emotional spiral. However she kept leaving both items out in the open, right on her table - genius. And of course there's the going back to the scene of the crime to get rid of the phone when I'm sure there were many other places around the lake, more isolated, she could have found to throw it. And Holder dumps the body in the car, right next to the cabin. It was all so ridiculous but the most ridiculous in my opinion, was covering up the murder at all instead of staging the scene to make it look like self-defense and calling the cops. Had they done that, sure, maybe there would still be questions but a lot of their actions that day, the things that made Reddick realize something was up, would have lined up and made sense. For example, Linden being the last one seen with Skinner, Holder making the comment about finding the guy who set him up after getting away from Internal Affairs, Holder going to Skinner's wife to ask about the lakehouse, etc. But no, instead they try to cover up the entire thing and not figure that someone would eventually wonder why they weren't hearing from Skinner. 2. The mystery. I could sort of understand Lincoln and AJ running to Rayne in a panic rather than going to the cops because it was their gun Kyle used, or more appropriately Rayne's gun that I assume AJ who had access to it, stole. And because of that I definitely understand going back to the scene of the crime to retrieve the gun before the cops got there, something else they would definitely not want the police to know. Plus, I think that night, after they returned to retrieve the gun, Kyle had probably already shot himself and so they figured he'd die anyway and everyone would assume he killed his family and then himself, so there would be no point in mentioning any part of their involvement to the police. But then he lived, they panicked and then listened to Rayne who had her own reasons for covering up for Kyle. I actually suspect they might have made the decision, particularly AJ (something about how he defeated and hurt he looked when they were getting ready to leave) to go to the cops with everything and that's why Rayne shot them. Because with both of their rich parents, I'm sure some fancy lawyers would have gotten them off since they never did anything but be there that night and then go get the gun. What bothered me about the plotline was all the abuse and torture they were inflicting on Kyle, particularly Lincoln at first and then later AJ got in on it again for some reason. With the latter, I actually think part of it was jealousy at all the attention Rayne was paying to AJ. As Rayne said, all these kids were so troubled and probably all had fucked up relationships with their family and AJ seemed to be Rayne's right hand student which probably made him develop some possessive/territorial/parent feelings towards her. It's why, as he kept saying, he just did everything she told him to do. But going back to the taunting, abuse, etc. that's what made no sense with the plotline to me. They were worried about Kyle remembering what happened that night, worried that he would know they were there, etc. and instead of steering clear of him or being polite, Lincoln especially constantly taunts him with the murders, puts stuff in his room that would only trigger the whole thing. It just made no sense really. The only thing I can think of is that they hated him so much that on some level they wanted him to remember so he'd know what kind of monster he was and what he did. But again, the panicking and freaking out to Rayne when they thought he was remembering just did not make sense. 3. And finally, what I'm sure will be a massively unpopular opinion - I hated the ending with Linden and Holder. I never shipped those two and never saw them as anything but police partners and good friends. I never saw any chemistry and I also never saw a great love story between them either. Yes, they're both damaged individuals and one can romanticize their healing and being better together but nothing I saw of their partnership ever convinced me of that. I especially did not want them together after they added the Skinner backstory last season with Linden which showed a pattern of her getting involved with people she was somewhat professionally connected with - her therapist from S1 (which I still don't understand how that was ethical), Skinner and now I guess Holder. I hated the entire last ten minutes of the season. Of course I'm also one of those who never shipped Goren and Eames on Criminal Intent and instead just loved how intensely supportive they were of each other. And I honestly saw way more chemistry and connection between the latter than Holder and Linden.

I don't know why Val would think this showmance thing would work. Didn't exactly work for him and Kelly. Yeah, Meryl and Maks won but honestly, I really think that was because Meryl was just that good. Sure they had the shippers who bought into their "great love" that Maks per the usual with him was all too happy to sell but at the end of the day, Meryl came in with her own fans who've followed her Olympic career, and then she was an amazing dancer so there were also the ones who voted based on that. If Meryl was not as amazing a dancer as she was, showmance or not, I actually don't think they would have won and hell Derek would have probably been able to slip in another win with Amy. After all they did come second. But Meryl was a phenomenal dancer and that's why they won, in my opinion. So unless Janel is Meryl-levels in her skill, if I were Val I'd worry more about her fanbase coming through for her and creating great and memorable routines rather than trying to showmance his way to the win.