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I don't see why there would be a need for martial law. Kirkman's handling of the Michigan situation put the governors and local officials on notice that they need to maintain order in their jurisdictions. The country is not is a state of disarray. The deputies and undersecretaries of all agencies are still there to take charge as well as the career bureaucrats who actually do all the work. State and local governments are still intact. The crisis would certainly have an emotional an impact on ordinary people but not really affect the routine of their day-to-day lives much. Even in DC things would have settled into a new normalcy. Food supplies, vital utilities and services, schools and businesses were not impacted. People would have adjusted their driving habits to avoid cordoned off streets around the ruins of the capital building, but that is really just an inconvenience. Congress and the Supreme Court need to be repopulated but that can take some time. The country can carry on quite well for several months without them.

Someone who has learned the language primarily at school and knows it well enough to speak it somewhat fluently has probably read literature from the period so would have knowledge of how people spoke at that time. And they could also take their cue from the people they are talking to and mimic them. The native speaker would probably chalk up any oddities to them not being native speakers. Passing oneself off as a native speaker is difficult. Just making oneself understood is easy with passable language skills.

They mentioned in the scene at West Point that the guy lived in Poughkeepsie. There are plenty of very safe neighborhoods there. I'm glad they actually took the time to drive up to West Point to film that one scene on campus.

Exactly. No one wants to be that teacher who lost her job for talking about blow jobs during the history lesson.

They haven't said anything of the sort, just the usual noncommittal stuff. I don't see anything irresponsible about that. This is just a campy TV show, not a serious drama trying to depict real life with very special episodes. If fans are taking things way too seriously then that is on them, not the show runners. I agree they should have ended things with Rumbelle last year but that may not have been possible. Once Rumple and Belle break up there is no reason to keep Emilie de Ravin around. Belle's sole purpose as a character was to advance Rumple's story. The network couldn't fire her last year because she was pregnant but it can legally do that now, if it wants to.

Show runners give interviews to promote the show. That's part of their job. They aren't going to say anything negative, just teases to get people to watch. If Rumbelle is indeed headed for a breakup and A&E have known this all along they aren't going to say that in interviews. They pretty much have to dissemble until that moment arrives.

I read all Matt's tweets on the subject and he didn't explicitly say he is no longer covering the show. I got the impression his terseness was in response to the obnoxious Rumbelle fans who kept bugging him and didn't know when to quit. It's pretty clear he is fed up with them. I can see a reporter not wanting to cover a show anymore not because of a falling out with the show runners but because they are done with the needy fans and their bullshit.

I can buy it. Since Deep Throat is a direct reference to a well-known porn movie of the time and a specific sex act depicted in the film, I can see lots of teachers glossing over that to avoid embarrassing questions and just talking about a secret informant.

They need an overarching element like the Rittenhouse story to tie it all together and provide a serialized story that viewers will come back for. Without that it would be a procedural showing the gang visiting a different time period each week for what purpose?

Not everyone is interested in all aspects of American history. Some people are more interested in those events that had an effect that they can personally feel today. Watergate is not that event for many people. How people filter their knowledge and rank it in importance can certainly be cultural. I know plenty of people who have some general knowledge of Watergate but have very limited interest in the details, and that is not just POC. Many Americans are ignorant about many important historical events and persons. Not everyone retains everything they learned in school, if they were even paying attention to begin with.

It has nothing to do with being a genius, it's cultural. Lucy knew all about what the establishment white men were up to then and Rufus had detailed knowledge of Eldridge Cleaver and Black activism at that time. What was accomplished back then had more of a lasting impact on his life than anything a bunch of crooked white dudes did.

I'm interested.

They are not normalizing it. Writing uncomfortable stories does not necessarily mean they are endorsing that. Rumple and Belle have always been written as a tragic story about a dysfunctional relationship between two people who are in love with the idea of each other but all wrong for each other in reality.

Maybe that is not an issue for them. For the actors, this is a job. They are not emotionally overinvested in it the way some fans are. Robert Carlyle is a great actor who has taken on a whole bunch of awful roles in really bad movies in the name of paying his bills and feeding his family. I doubt this phases him. He makes no bones about the fact that he is doing this for the money and for his family, not for the art.

Totally.

Disney is in the business of making cloying feel-good movies that appeal to little kids and make a lot of money, not telling the traditional fairy tale stories. This show, however, is not geared toward 6-year-olds so I see no reason why they have to slavishly follow the cloying Disney stuff. Belle and Rumple's story has been the anti Beauty and the Beast story from the get go. Skin Deep is the story of a failed romance. Everything that follows just reinforces that.

The Disney version of Beauty and the Beast doesn't have much to do with the traditional story. The Beauty was pretty much a spoiled dumb bunny in the Villeneuve and Beaumont versions of the story. Oh, wait, that isn't much different than the show. The Disney movies are not the gold standard for any fairy tales. They are sanitized and sugar-coated and embellished to the point that they barely resemble the stories they are very loosely based on.

The beginning of season 6 was mostly just more of the same of what we had at the end of season 5 so that would be a turn-off for viewers who didn't care for season 5.

Season 5 was pretty bad and didn't give many viewers a reason to return to the show. That also influences the ratings for this season.

It's pretty clear to me that the two actors are having a lot of fun with those scenes. They are going all out to make it campy and outrageous. I see the the scenes and the relationship as twisted fun. I don't have an issue with seeing two attractive people kissing and the actors obviously have fun at their job.

Storybrooke was stuck in the 80s for 28 years. The available entertainment reflects that. It's no mystery why Henry likes those movies. There was probably nothing else to watch. I can buy that clothing is modern because that is a consumable that would need to be replenished on a regular basis. Some technology managed to advance to the last 80s/early 90s. It is only very recently that some people have upgraded to smart phones. Last we saw, Rumple still uses his flip phone. Cars will last for a really, really long time if they are only driven a couple of miles a day. Most cars in Storybrooke probably have less than 20,000 miles on them.

It's the dark castle. We've seen all those items at various times.

It depends. Lucy may have chosen to keep it vague and not write any specifics in her diary.

Ginny gave birth last spring. What we are seeing now is the excess weight gained during both pregnancies. Not every woman gains excess weight during pregnancy. Look at Emilie. She lost a bit of weight beforehand and didn't gain any excess weight during her pregnancy. She looks great.

Ah, so Robert is perhaps doing it as a favor to Lana.