JudyObscure

Well, I went from thinking Whitney is just out to win, at the start of the season, to Whitney is trying so hard because she really loves this guy. I'm happy for her and hope Chris lives up to her estimation of him. Sometimes the job makes the man. Why oh why can't we just have a beautiful nice woman from nowhere for the B'ette? Britt looks like a girl Jack-O-Lantern I made one time, and has been caught lying about several things. Kaitlyn has a pretty total package, but has those Pitt Bull teeth, and I can't imagine an entire season of her laughing uproariously at her own weak, nervous little jokes. I guess the men will decide.

 Amen, Sister! Most of what the TV writers think of as meeting cute, I see as meeting obnoxious. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks seemed to do it a lot. In the case of Mary and Matthew's first meet, I immediately began to dislike her because she was rude and snobby to a new person in an awkward position and it just seemed so un-gracious, rather like her treatment of her latest love interest. I soon began to dislike Matthew for being such a doormat as to mope after someone who treated him like that, just because of the mythical Mary hotness. I hate all the movies where the leads are nasty to each other for two hours and then fall into one another's arms during the last 30 seconds, because by then I despise both of them. Neither am I fond of what I call "Moon Lighting," syndrome where the Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd types spend years getting up the nerve to tell the other one how they feel. Cowards. So Rose and Atticus are the first screen romance I've really enjoyed in years. That's how I fall in love, breathless and grinning from ear to ear, while I wait for an excuse to start touching him.

I agree that would be the kind thing for Aisha to do, I just don't agree that any woman who wants to plan her own party has control issues, or that people get to do whatever they feel like at another person's house. My sister-in-law likes everyone to take their shoes off when entering her house and I'm happy to comply.

Well, I think it should have something to do with the people she's visiting because it's their house. Just as Hugo needs to learn that he can't go into someone else's house and throw their records around then I think Hector's mother should learn that when Aisha says she doesn't want any help with the food, she should respect that. Aisha had said to Hector that she had been on the phone with her several times telling her just that. I thought the worst thing she did was take food off Aishas's beautifully arranged table and put her Tupperware containers in their place. It was like saying, that her food was so much better than Aisha's that it just went without saying. Presentation counts to me. When I prepare a meal for guests, I consider how it each dish compliments the other and the picture it makes when it's all served up in my best dishes. If other's think that's silly and it's just as good off paper plates, then great, they can do that at their house when they are the hosts.

Taken the bat from Hugo. Told him to play right. Maybe taken him by his arm to one of his parents and pointedly handed him over. I've been kicked in the shins by a neighbor's child who was just that age. You don't respond to being hurt by a child by hurting him back. We're older, we're supposed to have more self-control and know how to use our words. Not that I'm on Rosie's side. I understand Harry's reflexive action and have sympathy for him, but he did have other options.

I was worried about Keith, too! Nobody's mastered that, 'You've got to be kidding," look as well as Keith. The look that says: "The middleman really thought he was going to go home because he hadn't actually wielded the knife?" "The husband honestly thought we'd believe all those phone calls to El Coupon were pocket dials?" "Really?" My own personal moment, when I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, was finding out the hit man did it for $5000 and spent the money on bedroom furniture.

Heck, yeah! My friends who scorn me for watching reality TV have no idea how good it gets. This show could fill an entire curriculum requirement for psychology credit or for people with problems understanding social cues. At first, I thought it was Nina's deafness that was making her blind to Will's facial expressions during that scene, but that doesn't make a bit of sense. So awesome it made me gasp out loud.

As a fellow old person I just want to hold Connie down and brush her hair. After the first episode, I thought Manolis and wife were insufferably overbearing, but now we see she just brings too much food because it's all she feels she can contribute and he just thinks it's his job to fix everything. I like them now. I don't see why Aisha had to choose a side at all. She should have just told both sides that because she loved her family and Rosie, she had to stay neutral. Rosie may already have started homeschooling. Banging Truck Against Wall, may have been Hugo's version of Reading Readiness Alphabet class.   ]

Me, too, it's a nice change from CSI's and bad sit-coms. Still I think they muddied the plot a little last night making Harry a wife-beater as well as a child-slapper. I thought it was more interesting as a, "look what one unguarded moment can cause," sort of thing.

LOL Unless she's over forty and then it's all, "Grandmother tazed by police in road rage incident!" How do they even know? I guess it all started with Ma Barker.

I thought it was a further put-down. Snarking at a grown woman who might dare to want to have a little fun instead of just stirring the cooking pot for 39 days, Imagine that. If they had said Nina wanted to have fun it would have sounded different to me than saying she wanted "to be a girl," as though Nina was jealous of their youth and forgetting her place. I agree with those who say Jenn was the worst but Hali, after originally seeming to try a little with Nina was still part of all that . I'm always offended by the way every woman over thirty on reality TV is designated the Mom right off the bat. The men aren't all Dads and just because someone has had a child that shouldn't totally define them from that moment on. I'll bet Hali wouldn't like being called the Student and expected to watch and learn every minute.

Now you've made me want Kelsey Smirkwell as the B'Ette so we can have an entire Dickensian season.

Oh I agree that Nina seems to be doing little to nothing to help herself blend in and yelling at others for leaving her out is something she should have learned not to do many years ago. I just don't think any of Nina's faults excuse Jenn and Hali's rudeness. To me, it's simple good manners, when three females are bored on an island and one of them gets an idea to have a women's skinny dip, you look at both of the other women and ask them if they want to go. While it's true that one of the other women may not be as cute, the same age, wearing the right kind of nail polish or whatever, you still invite her and leave it up to her to say whether she's interested or not. Again, it's true that in the game, or in life, no one has to consider the people around them who have special needs, it's only decent if they do. We're not talking about someone who needs to be fed or pushed through the sand in a wheel chair, Nina just needs a little slower speech and not to be treated like she's invisible, whether because she's deaf or old. It's pretty bad when Vince of all people, says something like, I thought we were supposed to be the sensitive tribe.

The last time I saw a Survivor be mean to deaf a woman it was Jenna M. who went on to win the million. I sure hope this won't be a repeat. Jenna used almost the exact words that Jenn used, something like, "This is Survivor and I don't have time for that." As if they don't have endless hours of time and all that's needed is just a tiny bit of extra effort, like making sure they are where Nina can see them when they talk to her. Also, leaving someone out and then saying, "We didn't think you'd be interested," is so transparent. They sounded thirteen. So I really wanted to see Jenn go home. I wanted to watch her excitement over being at tribal fade off her face in one of the greatest blindsides ever -- but, it turns out, Nina is the worst player ever and likes to sabotage her own dreams at the last minute. On other tribes, we had the tired old thing of getting naked. Why, why? Max put me right off my snacks and then here came Shirin. Honestly there's something about a woman, naked only from the waist down that is more naked than naked.

I always had a little bit of suspicion about that, too. It made almost too good a story to have his sisters pick her as the most wholesome Cinderella type, followed by lots of implications that country bumpkin Farmer Chris wouldn't be able to deal with such a wild city girl. The truth is probably not only that there was producer manipulation involved, but that rich, party boy Chris has met a dozen Jades in his life. He wasn't driving home drunk nineteen times from the Arlington Methodist Church. Chris had to be doing his partying in Des Moines or even Chicago for the weekend. Even small towns usually have a few bars where girls like Natalie tell dirty jokes to prove how much fun they are (and get quickly friend zoned) and girls like Jade think having some nude pictures on a porn site is proof they're the prettiest girl in town, when it really just means they're the only girl in town who was willing to do it. Loved the article about behind the scenes at WTA. It explains why sometimes everyone looks shocked or sad while someone in the back looks like she's trying not to laugh.

I'll be right here waiting for your book report.

I so agree with this (love the Grandpa Simpson reference.) I thought Kaitlyn's big fuss about going out at third was almost as bad as Britt's big fuss when Kaitlyn got the date rose. Why was Kaitlyn so angry that she "had to go through a rose ceremony," when she had calmly watched a dozen other girls go through a rose ceremony before being cut? I know it's a little different when it's later in the game but she had no reason to be that over-confident, it was insulting to the other two. False hope and rose ceremonies are the name of the game. One of these days a girl like Kaitlyn is going to push the "Why me?" thing too far and the guy is going to get fed up and say something like, "Because you have those big beaver teeth and Becca doesn't."

I think Jade wants to have it both ways -- the excitement, money and small scale fame of doing Playboy.com -- and still be treated like a demure little princess. She'd be better off just embracing the wild mustang. I really hope they don't pick the next B'ette from this group. None of them really seem right for the job. I do think Ashley S isn't the only candidate for Bachelor in Paradise, though. I think Ashley I, Tara, Carley and Jillian might be entertaining as well.

I know, right? Denker is the most inconsistent character I've ever seen. Is she an underhanded, drunken hustler, or is she a sad, older lady trying hard to keep her new position as lady's maid? At least we know where we stand with Spratt.

Mary will always own her rudeness because she thinks it's way cool. In Julian Fellowes's 16 year-old world of romance; girl sees cute boy she likes, girl says something mean to him in a totally bored voice to get his attention, boy instantly becomes interested because she talked to him and she's pretty, boy shows off his cool car to her, girl is, like, really impressed. The Anna & Bates story is more like an endless spiral of "The Gift of the Magi." Only instead of the wife sells her hair to buy her husband a watch chain while he sells his watch to buy her a comb, it's -- Bates goes off to kill Greene because he raped Anna, only he changes his mind, while Anna is so worried that he did it that Mrs. Hughes and Mary burn tickets that could get him off and then Anna goes to jail so he confesses to a crime he didn't do, busily committing perjury while Anna's about to get out anyway. It was still a beautiful Christmas special -- The clothes, the castle, the dogs, the train, the Christmas tree, the children, Mary's maroon coat in the prison, Donk and Edith, Rose and Atticus, Mosely and Baxter, Hughes and Carson, Violet and Isabelle.

This reminded me that Josh was talking to a prosecutor on another Dateline, last week, saying that murder motives were usually about money, sex or pride and this was clearly a pride case. Although the killer seemed unruffled when he was caught stealing those monitors he must have been completely mortified to the depths of his evil little soul. Yet, as Lordonia says, he would never dream of blaming himself for the stupid action in the first place. His wife you guys? It's one thing that this man went completely berserk but how did it happen that his wife went berserk along with him? Furthermore, what judge's wife has no teeth?

Yes, ByTor, I usually think all the contestants must have excessively high opinions of themselves to even apply for this show, but in Carly's case it was probably pressure from her brother that made her send in that video, so we finally got a truly insecure woman. I sort of found that a nice change, but I also agree she was misrepresenting Britt when she talked to Chris. I thought he had plenty of reasons to cut Britt from the herd, but her attitude about Arlington shouldn't have been one of them. The recurring "His wife will have to live in Arlington!" isn't strictly true. The Pastor they talked to lives in Arlington, Chris does not. Chris lives on a farm in the country and Arlington is his postal address. Where I live in Ohio is the same sort of farmland and scattered about are these little ghost towns that have a small post office and a gas staion and that's it. No one thinks they actually live in that town, even though it's part of their address. If we want to shop or party or go to the ballet, we have a choice of Columbus, Cincinnati, or Dayton all within a 45 minute drive. When we lived in Washington DC we still had a 45 minute drive to the ballet (Kennedy Center) even though it was only about six miles from home. Bumper to bumper, crawling traffic every inch of the way.

That's exactly how I feel about Edith. I think it's interesting which people we watch Downton for and would probably quit watching if they left.

After the Christmas special, whatever that's about, I would like just one more episode about this generation. Anna would confess to killing Greene and Vera, and do a little bit of mousey, shifty eyes, and unintelligible mutterings, when questioned about a few other cold cases. Mr. Bates would promise to visit often. There would be a big Downton Party. Rose and her new extended family would appear quite happy. Isabelle and Lord Merton would announce that they had been married quietly at the registry office, Larry and Darryl would say they were going to Kansas City to seek out pretty little women. Violet and the Prince would quietly reach for one another's hands. A devastatingly handsome man would come as Blake's guest. Mary would be shown to thunderbolt. The man would be shown catching Edith and Marigold in a beam of sunlight and asking Blake who the beautiful strawberry blondes were. Downstairs after the party, Daisy would announce leaving to run Mr. Mason's farm along with Mrs. Patmore. Carson would kiss Mrs. Hughes in the pantry. Andy would kiss Thomas in the wine cellar. Next season would begin in 1946, featuring the new generation of handsome heir George, only slightly damaged by WWII, Marigold, beautiful and mysterious, lively Sybbie just returning from America, and Larry Merton's evil young son and daughter.

Agreed, Malbec and we also saw on the computer that Anouk's mother had about 10.5 months to live and then her assistant walked in and said, 'It's very early in the cancer." So we know Anouk just barely has time to give her mother that grandchild before she dies. They might as well show us that birth/death-bed tear jerker right now. Okay, I know I'll cry, no matter how trite, but I thought the premise of this show was how a small domestic incident can escalate and ruin friendships and families, now it's "Call the Midwife," and I'm all off track.