wendyg

What drives me nuts is people who do a little dance around you to open the door, delaying both of you. I don't think Larry David looks frail. I think he looks skinny but wiry and quite strong. The one who looks more frail to me is Richard Lewis.

Yes, Kathleen Rose Perkins is playing Lindsay's boss ("...and why I eat ice for lunch") in YOU'RE THE WORST. Crane is one of the three creators of FRIENDS, and Klarik was one of the executive producers of MAD ABOUT YOU. I'd like to think they'll want to do more...

I am helplessly in love with the shot of the Roombas all bumping into each other.

I will really miss this show. That said, it *is* ridiculous that Carol can't find a job. Granted, she's poison for the studios at the moment (but Hollywood forgets...), but I would have thought she'd be a prize find for any of the big agencies because she has so much inside knowledge of how her studio works and the foibles of each of the executives. Sean and Beverly should have fired Eileen in any case the first time she displayed a conflict of interest (which was when she signed Tim as a client way back last season). So it probably is time for the show to end and Sean and Beverly to go back home and accept being poor by Matt's standards. I hope they find a reasonably happy ending for Carol. Matt will always survive.

I had that same thought.

Actually, as in so many shows, Jimmy's finances have never made any sense. He wrote a book that got a good review, but that, as season 1 opened, wasn't earning him anything significant in royalties. He was hard up for a bit - which is why he spent season 2 looking for magazine work and so on - and at some point Gretchen stumped up six months' rent (not really clear how her share was calculated, whether it's rent in that she's paying it to Jimmy or rent in that he's paying it to someone else, or *what*. The publicist tells Jimmy she knows he needs this because he hasn't had a big payday for a while. But this is nonsense. Supposedly this novel - and the amount of effort the publisher is putting in suggests this - attracted a fairly large advance. Advances are paid in two or three installments - usually a chunk when the book is commissioned (which doesn't apply here), a chunk when the manuscript is delivered (which happened several months ago), and a chunk when it's published (to ensure the writer reads and corrects galleys, participates in publicity, etc.). So Jimmy should have had a substantial payday three months ago after he delivered the book. He wasn't spending much during his time in the trailer park (and he was earning money, too). So why should he be broke now?

This was the first episode of YTW that I thought was poor, the main reason being that it tipped over the line from funny to just uncomfortable. For me, not just because the characters were thoughtless or mean, because they've always had those moments. Instead, I think what bothered me was the apparent pointlessness of it. I really thought at the beginning when Jimmy wanted Edgar to make him toast soldiers that Edgar would tell him regretfully that Gretchen's his boss now because she's the one who paid the rent, and Jimmy would be told to go live elsewhere. As things went, I can't see what her immediate plan is, nor do I see why she wanted to destroy the bedroom she was sleeping in. I think her behavior in front of the cameras made sense given that she thought Jimmy had made the pact with her and then deliberately broken it (though actually Jimmy's best strategy from the outset would probably have been to say nothing and hope she stayed put). There are other things: the marketing plan was dumb. Granted, Jimmy disappeared for three months, but the publicist seems to know nothing about him, not even information she could have gleaned from his agent. And PEOPLE writers are at least *somewhat* journalists - you'd think they'd go after it like hawks when they realized the kind of fake image they were being sold. What we know of Lindsay's boss suggests that Lindsay would be back at work at 8AM even if she stayed until 6AM; seems like a weak explanation to make it possible for Lindsay to be involved in a daytime plot (without having to hire and pay Kathleen Rose Perkins and a few more extras). I'm disappointed in what they're doing with Edgar, too - he had such a great story arc last season, and this year it seems like he's just sort of...there, with not enough attention being paid to him. Like others, I thought the best bit was Gretchen's confusing Lindsay about her staying there. But that was the only bit to come close to the show's usual level of cleverness. I expected revenge - but I expected it to be *funny* and *clever* revenge. I believe - I never saw the movie - that Gretchen's horror movie music and movements were from CARRIE.

Thanks for the explanation. My guess is that it's at least in part the amount of travel required to get there. Yes: the Pfeffermans; Pacific Palisades house has been in flashbacks back to 1981. We've seen several different Morts and Mauras getting out of his car in that same parking space and looking up at the house.

I don't think I agree. For me, this season fell flat. What I found so compelling in previous seasons is watching the characters discover aspects of themselves they didn't know about or had repressed during the secrecy years. This season was much more about telling us things the characters did know about themselves, but that we didn't. The particular bit you mention - Mort telling god he'd abandon Maura if Ali lived - I found especially annoying because a) for me it reeks of retcon, and b) because it seems to me to require a follow-up exploring why Maura now feels free to abandon that promise. Did her religious belief evaporate at some point? Did she come to realize there was no connection? Did she come to see that promise as simply fear? The show didn't go there. As much as Jesus Christ Superstar was a thing in its day, I didn't love its use here. The music has always been one of this show's strong points, so that was a particular disappointment. The whole storyline felt forced to me - like the showrunners said "I know, let's send them to Israel!" and then had to figure out how to get them there, so why not Bryna's and Maura's long-lost father, presumed to be dead? As self-absorbed and shallow as the Pfeffermans can look in LA, in Israel they were the kind of tourists that other Americans abroad avoid. Similarly, the three-way stuff felt like, "What sexuality can we explore now?" and the sex addicts quiz and meeting was just an excuse to get them there. The only part of this season that I thought worked the way prior seasons did was Josh's finally beginning to try to understand the consequences of his relationship with Rita. I didn't care at all for the Sarah/Len/Lila storyline. Not least because it seems likely it will continue with a Lila pregnancy in season 5. Also, a small point: Josh isn't living with his mother. His mother is living with *him* - a difference I'd have thought the character would have pointed out. I didn't think Shelly was showing signs of dementia; I thought the idea that an improv class would shake her out of her old habits was reasonable; I think we were meant to laugh at the idea of this small woman taking on the walk and talk of a big, tough Italian guy. I didn't, but I could see why it was liberating for Shelly to shake off her fear. Speaking of which, it's amusing that Shelly proclaims that she's 68, Judith Light's actual (stated, anyway) age. She acts like a woman 15-20 years older, but given her life experience this isn't that unreasonable either. The goat farm thing made sense to me because for a time there was this sort of reverence for/romance about living on a kibbutz in Israel, and you'd see middle class American kids go off to live on one for a month or two in the summer. As I remember it, they always came back wildly enthusiastic, like this was the only way to live...but nonetheless resumed their American lives. Finally, can someone from LA explain what the characters mean when they say, of Donald, apparently as a negative quality, "He lives in Northridge"?

I did like the way they dealt with Merc, though.

For anyone who's curious about such details, The New Yorker cover dates the issue to January 30, 2017. It had two poems in it (by Mary Jo Bang and Simon Armitage), and pieces on an artist using the internet in disruptive ways, nuclear winter and climate change, and technology allowing movie viewers to create alternate endings. Probably just the issue that was to hand. :)

Bill's rigidity, though, isn't totally arbitrary: he wants things to be done *right*. His rules for loading the dishwasher or sorting the recycling or managing the thermostat aren't random, they're the best rules he can come up with for getting the best effect according to his values - which include an environmental consciousness that the people around him don't really share. And then here's Felicia, who has those values, too, telling him that a part of the world around him isn't right. I think it's very consistent with the character, even though it's also a startling new layer.

The llama is wholly wonderful.

Anyone who's interested in what life is like for older (that is, over 40) actresses in Hollywood should search out a copy of the documentary SEARCHING FOR DEBRA WINGER, directed by the actress Rosanna Arquette. Arquette started with a question that was perplexing her: why did Debra Winger quit the movie business? She goes out and interviews dozens of actresses of varying ages - her sister Patricia, Teri Garr, Theresa Russell, Diane Lane, many, many more...and eventually Winger herself. It's excellently done.

I didn't care for the boar thing; it suggested to me that they really were beginning to run out of ideas. Everything else on this show has been so specific to these characters in this time and place. The boar thing seemed more like generic comedy. Bev's distaste for guns being turned into an ability to shoot...very Diane on THE GOOD WIFE.

luna1122: Yes, Aya Cashs's eyebrows are bushier. That's the point: the character was letting herself go in all directions, so she stopped plucking her eyebrows. Personally, I like real eyebrows.

Or maybe he just *likes to work*. Some people do. :)

Most likely is that only his agent knows where he is, and the publisher sent the proof copy to the agent. It implies very strongly that he never intended to disappear forever from his life, at least not his literary life. Either that, or his agent hired a detective.

EPISODES has gotten LeBlanc four Emmy nominations. It's probably *why* he is on TOP GEAR in the UK and MAN WITH A PLAN

Not the same kind of media, but I believe Scientology's Florida headquarters are directly in the path of Hurricane Irma.

There is an absolute prohibition on speaking about Xenu outside Scientology. In the 1990s, when the CoS began flooding alt.religion.scientology with postings to drown out the critics, people put "Xenu:" in the subject so they could use it as a filter to see just the postings they were interested in (that is, the critical ones). The prohibition meant the CoS posters never copied it.

whiporee: that wasn't a paperback, it was a *proof copy* - that is, an early preprint with a plain cover that you send to reviewers so you can have a big launch with all the reviews out. Typically, proof copies come with a warning that corrections and changes may still be made before final printing. (I guess we have to assume that Jimmy bailed on reading and correcting the galleys, too, but he can still make corrections at this stage.)

milahnna: But there is no "normal religion" (IYSWIM) that doesn't tell inquirers what it believes before extracting large sums of money from them. You can go into any Catholic church, Hindu temple, or Jewish synagogue and ask, "What do you believe?" and people will tell you. The secrecy surrounding Hubbard's writings is one of the things that differentiates Scientology. I've seen former Scientologists call it "bait and switch" on the basis that no one would pay all that money for the story of Xenu. It may not be obvious, but in many ways this is the bravest episode they've done. Scientology not only sued people but had them raided in the 1990s when disaffected former Scientologists began publishing the "secret scriptures" on the Net. I read the newsgroup mentioned in the last episode, alt.religion.scientology in the early 1990s because I knew enough about the internet and about Scientology to know that the intersection of the two was going to be highly volatile and there would be a major story there at some point. This was the story I eventually wrote for Wired - UK in 1994, US in 1995. Scientology worked very hard to keep this stuff secret; exposing it on TV is really sticking two fingers up Scientology's nose.

Since the character is too depressed to engage in any kind of grooming, Cash hasn't been plucking her eyebrows, so they're natural, somewhat copious, and unshaped. I love the look, personally.

I loved the whole thing. I thought all those characters acted exactly in keeping with their established characters and their storylines. Raymond Barry, who played Burt, is of course the same actor who played Arlo in JUSTIFIED (albeit with a different accent), and I thought he was wonderful. Separately, it was great to see Dee Wallace again (Gail) - back in 1979 she had a pivotal role in the Blake Edwards movie "10", which announced Dudley Moore's arrival as a comedy movie star and which at the time was unfortunately overwhelmed by publicity for Bo Derek. I didn't recognize her face immediately, but her voice is unmistakeable.