Milburn Stone

How does Ari Melber decide on which days he'll be clean-shaven?

And what's the story with Howard Duff? I loved him, and he even was a TV star at one point (co-lead with his wife Ida Lupino in Mr. Adams and Eve, which, as a 7 and 8 year-old, I had the discerning taste to realize was pretty good), but he should have been a movie star too. Good directors realized how good he was (Benton, Lang, Altman) but it seems he went from TV star to character actor in record time. Based on his good looks and presence as well as talent, it seems like a different future could have been in store for him. (James Garner deservedly became a star, and he's as close an analog to Howard Duff as I can think of right now.)

YMMV, I guess, but I see no way humanly possible to interpret the sentence to mean that Meghan dislikes the speaker/writer. The way to write it to indicate that meaning would be "I have never been a favorite of Meghan's."

She definitely should have been nominated for Best Actress, and a Best Supporting Actor/Actress wouldn't have been amiss for Toni Collette, Jamie Lee Curtis, or Michael Shannon either.

I can believe all that too. The problem is that the show--the writing and the performances--is intent this season on making us believe that she and her husband were truthful. That shot of her looking at David's photograph--that was in private, so her tears were genuine. Her warning to Charles was portrayed to the audience as entirely well-meant, with not a hint of agenda. It's clear this season that the show not only wants us to understand how show-Charles myopically perceived the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, but to actually buy them as wonderful people. The other thing that's troubling me is that the show's Prince Charles matches up so poorly with the Prince Charles I've known (from a distance) all my life. I understand that IRL I only see the public Prince Charles. Still, that public Prince Charles is a man who stands up straight, has a dry, self-deprecating wit that comes from a position of confidence (not self-pity), and interests himself in public works while enduring a "career situation" that would challenge the best of us. The simpering, self-obsessed fool of the show doesn't match this at all. Either Peter Morgan really knows something about Charles that no one else knows, or he's being exceedingly unfair if not malicious.

I wish I could remember who Mo was.

This post reminds me how crucial Ana de Armas's performance was to the whole enterprise. Without our belief in Marta's goodness, our wish for her to come out OK (or better than OK) in the end, nothing would have meant anything. A lesser actress might have failed to instill this belief. Or gone the Mary Sue route, which would have been equally destructive. de Armas made the character real.

This was the first episode that had me in its thrall. Better late than never, I guess.

I don't really mind the hostlessness, but it does seem a pity we've come to a point where they're literally afraid to pick a host.

I think the show strongly implied that their former life was in the U.S., because the shots of their mansion definitely seemed Beverly Hills-like. But that could be because I'm an American, and I think Canada is too nice to have that kind of crass conspicuous consumption. Canadian viewers might correct me on that.

Or should that be 7/1/20? 🙂

Having watched the show from the beginning, I only began really enjoying it again about two-thirds of the way through last season, and that continued with this episode. Alexis seemed realer, much less "one-note," and therefore funnier; and so did all the others. Even the game warden (or whatever he was) felt convincing. I don't know what's changed behind the scenes, but I like it.

I'm changing my guess to be the same as yours. 🙂

I have no idea, and I bet I'm wrong, but I'm going to make a wild guess that it's either Preston Sturges or John Huston.

Watch TCM via Apple TV is terrible. If that's any consolation.