[The Great North - General Discussion]

I'm so happy to learn that Fat Bear Week is a real thing, this show is so educational! I was surprised at how fast Beef and Carissa were moving, but I guess it makes sense that it would be easier for Beef to physically move faster than he does emotionally. I like how things played out with them at the end, I definitely thought that it would turn out that the donut king was gay and we would see him at one of the gay clubs that Ham and Aunt Dirt went to, but I really like that it was just that Carissa isn't into him like that.

Aunt Dirt freaking out about women being able to publicly date women was great, her and Ham's ploy was really cute. 

Poor traumatized Moon. "Hello child services, do you do curbside pickup?" 

[S07.E06: M.C.E.]

At some point these guys have to wonder if God has it out for them personally, they're in the middle of their friends funeral after he was hate crimed to death only to get called into work to handle a mass casualty event due to an act of domestic terrorism. What a day, they're going to need a whole lot more cookies. Poor Jerome, I feel like he'll be leaving soon, having to spend every day in the place he and Asher fell in love in would be so hard, especially in such a high stress job.

They handled everyone's grief over losing Asher well, but I still don't like that they killed him off. It seems like his character arc could have been better fulfilled by coming to terms with the many aspects of himself, getting over his bitterness towards religion (without getting religion again) and finding happiness with Jerome instead of being beaten to death the second things start really going well for him. Its just such a cliché, the character who is about to get married/have a child/retire/finally deal with their angst immediately dies to maximize the audiences tears, and that's not even getting into the whole thing of the shows most major LGBTQ character being killed off for the sake of drama. I'm sorry, I just thought that we were moving past these clichés, but I guess writers can never resist. 

Putting Charlie and Glassman together seems so obvious, he would be a great mentor for her. This is probably the best they have written her so far and I am glad that she and Shaun seem to have made peace, even if it was all a bit pat with the "autistic people can help other autistic people" thing. I do like the idea of Shaun bonding with another person who also has autism, I don't think he knows many other autistic people and if he got his hackles down and Charlie learned to handle the workplace more, they could have a good relationship.

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

I like Rochelle but she's so hit or miss it was inevitable that she wasn't going to make it. Its like all she could make are total winners and utter messes, which is too bad because when her bakes were good they were really good. 

The petit fours looked so off, the best ones just looked kind of dull, the worst looked like some kind of mutants that just crawled out of the sewer covered in radioactive sludge. I was surprised at how nice the judges were, on previous challenges it seems like they would have torn those apart.

Kate didn't really stand out to me at first but she's winning me over.

[Station 19 - General Discussion]

I missed Jack, I hope he's doing alright in off-screen land, but given his luck he's probably already fallen down an elevator shaft. So I am a bit confused, why do they even need to fire anyone now that Jack is gone? If the issue is that they have too many former captains running around, why not just move some to other houses? I doubt they'll be happy to move, but at least they wont be fired. Has no one mentioned the Union? Or are they bad guys? Essentially every organization in Seattle outside of Station 19 is full of moronic bigotted assholes who only exist to make our heroes lives harder, I cant even remember where we stand with them.

Is it time for Warren to make another career change? 

[S02.E05: Capt. Duke Wagner’s Daughter]

That certainly got intense, those flashbacks were hard to watch. I knew something bad would happen to young Amanda but things escalated so quickly and got so scary. I can get why she planted evidence to get that piece of shit off the streets, but I can also see why Faith and Will were so hurt. Planting evidence, even if you know without a shadow of a doubt that they're guilty, can lead to all sorts of other consequences, if she got caught and it wasn't hushed up that could lead to every other person she arrested being looked at again even if every other arrest was on the up and up and guilty people could be set free, its just a hard situation she was in. Screw her dad, what an asshole. 

I am so not interested in Oremwood's family drama, he's a sucky husband and I don't love that his wife just disappeared without even telling her husband or kids where she was.

I hope those SWAY guys who almost shot Amanda feel really fucking stupid. "A woman threatening children with a weapon? Get that lady jogging not anywhere near any other people except her friend and a chihuahua in a sweater! Who knows what that sweater wearing dog is capable of!"

[S02.E04: It’s Easier To Handcuff A Human Being]

I really enjoyed the story with the Boo Hag, I grew up watching Gullah Gullah Island as a kid and lived in South Carolina for awhile so I was excited to see some of that culture depicted. I knew right away that the "witch" would be innocent and guessed early on that the preppy looking older guy would be the villain, but I still enjoyed the case and liked how it all played out.

Its interesting that this is the second episode where Will learns about faith, with the pastor in the last episode and now the women here, two different faiths but Will had sort of similar arcs. I don't except Will to find religion or anything, but it seems like he is coming to terms with having faith in something he cant see isn't always a bad thing and people who practice it aren't always bad people. 

Ormewood and Angie are in a totally different show this week, it was a pretty funny b plot to have as relief with the more serious main plot. Not surprising that Ormewood's wife left, I don't blame her, but I hope she's not leaving the kids behind fully, and I don't love that she left him via note. I totally get her being done with him, but they at least need to talk.

[S07.E04: Buck, Bothered and Bewildered]

Wow, I so did not see that one coming! Here I thought this was just another bit of trolling the Buck/Eddie shippers, I spent the whole episode like "Oh yeah, they know exactly what they're doing, but they'll pull back at the last minute" but then it went in a totally different direction. Tommy fully looked like he was about to kiss Buck but I didn't think it would actually happen! If either Eddie or Buck were going to be bisexual I would certainly say Buck is the more likely, I am still pretty positive that their relationship will stay platonic no matter Buck's sexuality. I am really interested in how this plays out, I feel like Buck would be pretty chill about dating a guy without too much internal panic, but I can see him not being sure how to talk to his friends and family about it, even if he knows they would be perfectly supportive. 

As a reluctant Bachelor fan (I just cant stop! Its my crack!) it was fun to see the brief Bachelor crossover, its been hyped around Bachelor Nation for awhile now and I have to say you guys are lucky it happened this season when we had Joey, one of the most charismatic and non fuck boy Bachelors we've had in ages, and not one of the previous Bachelors, who would have bumbled all over the screen.

Its wild to see Michael so big now, its definitely not the same actor but it will be interesting to have him back. Personally I would have been more mad about Michael fleeing the state to avoid an arrest warrant and then trying to hide it from Bobby and Athena, which is not only crappy but extremely stupid. Did he really not think his mom, a cop, would never find out that he has a warrant out for his arrest? 

That mom who shot her son was heartbreaking.

[S07.E06: Baptists, Catholics And An Attempted Drowning]

Mary could lighten up about the drinking at the wedding, we all saw how much beer she chugged in Germany! This was a fun episode, the dueling baptisms were so ridiculous and rather offensive that it turned around and became hilarious. Its probably a lucky thing that neither Georgie or Mandy care all that much about religion or this would have probably been a much bigger fight. 

If Mary and Mandy's mom had just talked about it they could have pretty easily agreed on CeeCee being baptized in the Catholic church, Baptists don't even baptize people until they get older while its a big deal to baptize babies in the Catholic church, but of course both of them are ridiculously stubborn so a compromise was probably not going to happen that easily. 

Awww Sheldon called Amy hot AND listed her before his Nobel Prize! Narrator Sheldon really has grown! 

"Jesus drank wine!"

"He probably needed it to deal with the likes of you!" 

[S03.E06: Hello, Brother]

Of course Trevor's brother found a loophole in the B&B's awards program so that he could stay there for free for a whole year, he really does take after his brother! I thought it was really sweet how happy Trevor was to see his brother and, in a weird big brother way, giving him a wet willy to give him that push out the door. 

Jeremy wasn't just at Fyre Fest, he was the last one to leave the island! Because he was having that much fun!

Lots of hilarious lines all throughout, but the running jokes about Isaac freaking out about the existence of dinosaurs was amazing. I cant blame him, if I hadn't grown up knowing about dinosaurs I would be pretty shook too. "Much like the dinosaurs, he is gone."

Looks like Carol is up to her old tricks again, she just cant stop treating Pete like garbage. At least he didn't get sucked into a relationship with her again AND he gained Thor's respect by solving a problem through violence! Never change, Thor. My guess is that Carol will get sucked off when she finally realizes that cheating on Pete was wrong, feel remorse, and actually apologizes. 

[S07.E05: Who At Peace]

I cant believe they actually went there, I'm truly in shock. Not only did they kill off a main character, and its been awhile since they dropped a building on Melendez, but it was in such a sudden horrible way. I really liked Asher, he was a really interesting character and I would loved to explore more of him reconnecting with Jewish culture and navigating an engagement to Jerome, but instead we get this. It seems so shitty, random, and pointlessly dramatic for the shows final season, Asher deserved so much better than to be beaten to death by two random anti-Semites right when he was about to get engaged and was working towards making peace with both of his identities. 

https://www.thewrap.com/the-good-doctor-asher-death-season-7-episode-5-explained/

I found this interview about the choice to kill off Asher and while I get that the actor was ready to go, it really sucks that they decided to have him get murdered instead of giving him his happily ever after with Jerome. Apparently they wanted to remind us that "Life doesn't always have happy endings" which...I hate when show runners say shit like that when they decide to kill off a beloved character in an especially brutal and depressing way, like we all forgot for a second that people die. Oh wow, thank you SO MUCH for the reminder, for a second there I thought that we were a race of immortal elves, but thank you for your reminder of mortality!

[S25.E08: Third Man Syndrome]

This was overall a pretty good episode, most episodes without Maddie or some pretty young women in a he said/she said case is a win for me, but it seems like it was close to being great. It would be so nice if we could just have an episode that's about solving crimes without any interruptions to remind us that Olivia is the best and most amazing detective/genius that ever lived. Even in this episode, where she wasn't even taking things personally, we have to make sure that we all know that she's in charge, that she's the only person who can cure agoraphobia and gives victims closure, she's the only one! 

Its nice that we have a much more full squad these days, its alwasy good to see Bruno, but its pretty hilarious watching them talking about canvasing basically all of New York when they seem to only have about five cops in the whole city who can do more than drop some minor exposition. 

I thought that getting over years of agoraphobia would be hard and probably require a mental health professional with years of experience, but it turns out to be super easy, barley an inconvenience, as long as you have candles and the hand of St. Olivia to hold! This girl should have just gone to a Yankee Candle years ago and she would have been fine! 

I wish that they had gone more into the whole third man syndrome thing, that's really interesting and I wanted it to be more important than it ended up being.

[S12.E06: Opening Night]

I wish they had given us a recap, I really forgot just about everything that happened in the last batch of episodes, although lucky for me hardly anything has actually happened. Nothing has happened, I don't care about any of these characters, its not scary, its not even campy silly in a way that I can enjoy, its just a bunch of nothing.

Something that made Rosemary's Baby work so well was the feeling of claustrophobia and the feeling that you never who you could trust, Rosemary was all alone most of the time in her apartment feeling isolated and paranoid, that and made the audience feeling those same feelings which made everything happening even creepier, but there isn't any of that here. Ana is usually out and about and there isn't much to keep us guessing about who is in on it an who isn't as its clear that basically everyone is in on it.  

So Ana has been prepped to be this baby factor since she was a baby? Did they also kill her mom? Why did the summary say that this was supposed to explain why Ana wants a baby so much? All we know is that the cult or whoever has been prepping her for whatever their evil plan is.

[S25.E07: Probability of Doom]

This would have been a pretty solid episode if it wasn't so filled to the brim with embarrassing amounts of Olivia workshop. We not only have to watch her play her own greatest hits, obsessing over victims from literally a decade ago, she's not only the only one who can solve the case, she's also apparently an expert mechanic, better than even professionals. 

The sad thing is, there is something interesting in the bones of this, how different people respond to trauma and how it affects them over the years. Tonya went through something horrible and became a murderer, while Maria went through a similar horrible thing and become a cop, building a good life for herself, there really is a compelling story there, its too bad that its not really about any of that, its just the backdrop for more Olivia worship. Finn nailed it when he said that this wasn't about the victims, it was about Olivia. 

Can I just say again how much I hate Olivia's stupid whispering victim voice? She was talking to that girl like she was three, and not clearly in her early teens, if I was a victim I would be really annoyed at being condescended to in the middle of my life falling to pieces. 

[Spring Baking Championship - General Discussion]

Cait should have leaned into her bloody cake and gone full Carrie. if this was the Halloween Baking Championship she probably would have won! I have mostly liked Anna, even if her "I'm not classically trained" crying did get old, but it seems like her leaving was inevitable. I also think its possible that the judges took previous weeks into account in a way that they often don't, normally anyone who undercooks goes home but I bet they didn't want to let Steven go after so many great weeks. 

Rochelle seems to make either crappy bakes or amazing ones, not a lot of middle ground. Her cascading Tsunami cake was gorgeous and I loved her bakes from the last week. Tsunami cakes are definitely a dessert perfect for reels and TikTok videos. 

Seeing Nancy with brown hair is weirding me out. 

[S07.E04: Date Night]

It was all tied up a bit too neatly at the end, but I am really glad they realized that the guy didn't actually have  and they could help him, that's just such an awful series of events for one couple to deal with. Wife almost dies of aggressive cancer, then seeming right after the husband gets extremely early onset Alzheimer's before 40 just as she gets pregnant then she almost terminates the baby they clearly wanted because of the terrible circumstances, what mummy did these two anger to get that kind of curse? 

Lim's face when she realizes that she accidently set up her mom and Glassman because she didn't want to go on a short shopping trip with her is going to be priceless. 

[Station 19 - General Discussion]

Yeah I was really taken out of this episode by everyone running around in summer clothes in what is supposed to be February in Seattle, at least give your actors sweatshirts and gloves. I know the show is filmed in LA but they have to at least be somewhat aware of the fact that places outside of LA have cold weather. 

I had totally forgotten about Travis's dad cheating on his mom with guys, which probably says a lot about how many crazy things happen on this show, especially involving Travis. That makes him cheating even worse, he absolutely deserved to be called out and dumped. 

Are we going to follow up with Maya's brother? 

[The Great North - General Discussion]

Poor Ham, I felt really bad for him. It was hard seeing the usually always supportive Tobins being so selfish but they all do tend to get obsessed over their very specific interests and can get carried away, its just too bad that it all happened at once when Ham really them. At least they came through at the end. 

I have to shout out the animators on Ham's face, they really nailed his facial expressions, going from trying really hard not to be upset to his eyes twitching before he blows up on everyone. 

Aunt Dirt is such a fun addition to the show. Looks like she was just seconds away from getting to play basketball with Bigfoot!

[S07.E03: Capsized]

This could probably have been a two-parter, but I do have a soft sport for these big cheese set piece openers. My favorites are still the earthquake and the tsunami, probably because they were still somewhat in the realm of possibility, but this was some nice cheesy fun. You can really tell that the show is loving that bigger budget, I can even get why they wanted to do such a big ship story to show off that new budget. 

I knew as soon as they established that the family from the opener sometimes left their youngest behind where this was going, a bit pointless on top of everything else that was happening but I did enjoy the grandma having her hat on and ready to fight for the best spot in the lifeboat and when they were worried that the pirates were coming to get them. Are the pirates going to knock?

Sad that Wes died and I even felt bad about Julien, he was a slimy crook who ended up getting them into this whole mess in the first place, but he wasn't all bad when the chips were down. Too bad it looks like they might throw the book at Lola without many other people to blame. I also like that the twitchy ship doctor stepped up in the end, a true classic 70s trope. 

[S28 E11: The Finale]

An actual miracle has taken place, I like Joey even more at the end of the season than I did at the start! I always liked Joey and spent half the season waiting for him to show a fuckboy side or to lose his personality and became boring, but that never happened. He stayed sweet, engaged with the women, empathetic, funny, and cute the whole time, it really does say something good about him that none of the women had anything but nice things to say about him even after they lost out on the final rose. I suspected that he would end up choosing Daisy but am happy how thins turned out, I think that Daisy had the right idea. Joey and Daisy certainly had a real connection but I think they both saw each other as someone who worked better on paper than in practice, while Kelsey and Joey just had this great spark. They seem like a really cute couple, I hope that things go well for them. 

Daisy certainly showed a ton of class, I love that she got to bow out with grace and dignity, as rough as it must have been on her. She and Kelsey riding to the final rose together was not something I expected, but it was lovely to see. I really liked all three of the finalists, they all seem very nice and the lack of drama between them was so refreshing, you really did feel like they saw each other as friends and not just the competition. In general it was great to see a season with so little drama, instead of pointless fighting and producer mandated drama, instead lots of people actually having fun and being pleasant. Wild!

The show so desperately wanted Daisy as their next bachelorette, but I can respect that she wanted to take time for herself outside of Bachelor Nation. Jenn seems nice, not sure how she's going to be as Bachelorette considering I hardly remember anything about her besides being pleasant and pretty, I feel bad that she was clearly their second choice. I didn't really think they would pick Maria, but I wort of wish they had, it would certainly have been a very different sort of season. 

[Quiet On Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV - General Discussion]

As a 90s kid who grew up with The Amanda Show, All That, and Drake and Josh, this was hard to watch. I certainly never connected any of the goofy things happening to anything sexual or inappropriate as a kid, but even at age nine I remember thinking that those All That dares were traumatizing. Looking back, some of those jokes were horribly cringe, those poor kids feeling like they didn't have a voice in what skits they do, at least in most adult skit shows actors usually have some input in what sketches they perform in. Knowing that things were even worse backstage makes it even worse to think back on, I very much remember thinking that being one of the Nick celebrities would be the coolest thing ever, its awful knowing how things actually were. Dan Schneider really is a piece of shit, I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that he was doing even more that hasn't been confirmed, especially regarding Amanda Bynes, there was clearly some nasty stuff happening there. 

I read Jennette McCurdy's book and while most of it is about her horrible abusive stage mom, she also talked a lot about Dan Schneider, who she always called "The Creator" and it lines up with what we heard here. He played favorites, was a control freak, had a short temper, and was extremely creepy and inappropriate with the young actresses on his shows. You look at him and I swear you can see him secrete slime. 

The fact that they had two sexual predators on a set filled with children is just insane, while I don't know if Dan hired those guys specifically because he knew what they were, I feel like shitty people tend to find each other and he obviously made an unhealthy environment where vulnerable kids were easy prey.  

Knowing what happened to Drake Bell explains so much, that was brutal to hear. Its so sad that he went through so many terrible things and it seems like he never got help, and then the cycle of abuse just continued. This doesn't excuse any of the awful things he has done, but it does give it a lot more context. 

Uggg shut up internet people. How can you watch a whole documentary series about how hard child stars had it and then proceed to bully them online for not responding to this clearly awful situation in a way that you like. People really do tend to forget that actors and celebrities' are real people who have actual feelings.

[Station 19 - General Discussion]

You know what's even worse than sleeping with your ex boyfriend with his mom in the room while you already have a boyfriend? Sleeping with your ex boyfriend at his fathers funeral reception while you have a boyfriend. Holy shit guys! 

Poor Jack is just radiating misery, I hope he finds something new where he can still be involved with 19 even if he cant fight fires, this job and his work family is one of the main things keeping the guy going. Can he get just one subplot that isn't ridiculously depressing? 

Ben giving Jack a pep talk as a guy who's changed careers about thirty times was pretty funny at least. 

[S07.E02: Rock The Boat]

I have to hand it to them, they really did capture the feeling of a big melodramatic 70s disaster movie. A huge cast of characters, a couple on the ricks due to adulty, some white collar crime happening that has nothing to do with the actual disaster, a romance, a selfish asshole who's obsessed with money even during a crisis, all we need is some cocaine and a heroic dog to have a full 70s extravaganza!

When the hell did the pirates have time to plant a bomb? I thought this would just be a two-parter, but it looks like we aren't out of the storm yet. Are the people in the life boats really going to be alright in the middle of this huge storm that can topple a whole cruise ship? 

A theme of the episode seemed to be "having to deal with unreasonable assholes" between casino guy and rich meth car guy. At least smuggler guy came back to help Bobby and Athena at the end, despite how scummy his scheme was. Oh Lola, what a horrible way to find out that your being cheated on. 

Hopefully this puts to end any lingering doubts Bobby and Athena have about their relationship, their love language might be disasters but they obviously really love each other. 

Hen's story seemed to be just padding before we get all hands on deck (pun not intended) for the cruise ship wreck. She handled the situation just fine, the guy refused treatment and there was only so much they could make him do, but I think she was pretty unfair to the rest of the team. They were just telling what they saw and smelled, lying about what they experienced would just make Hen look worse. 

[S01.E05: Broken to the Fist]

Ouch, I knew something bad was going to happen with that pheasant, a culture clash that led to a mans death. Blackthorn really should have explained that better at least to Mariko, at least if they knew he was preparing something for food they would understand why he was keeping this rotten bird around. 

Points to everyone who called Mariko's husband being alive, tragically for her. What an asshole, I knew that dinner would turn into a pissing contest, and then when it became a drinking contest of course it got worse. 

That earthquake was certainly something. 

There is a really easy joke here about how English cuisine literally killed a person...

[S07.E03: Critical Support]

While people were certainly were hard on him and he received some real pushback at first, Shaun saying that no one ever made accommodations for him is ridiculous. He had tons of people going to bat for him and plenty of accommodations made for him, especially when he had the occasional meltdown, Shaun really needs to remember that and be more understanding towards Charlie. That being said, Charlie really needs to figure out how to work in a professional environment, a lot of people wouldn't be so chill about asking what their favorite sexual position is in the middle of the work day. People can take her being on the spectrum into account, but she has to do some work too. 

I'm glad that Asher went to spend time with Jerome's family instead of pitching a fit, if the worst thing about your partners family is that they like hockey, your doing pretty good. 

Both of the cases were good, Park was really good with his student, he really has come a long way.

[S28:E10: The Women Tell All]

This is probably one of the most fun Women Tell All episodes they have had in ages, everyone just seems so nice and normal. Even villains Sydney and Lea turned around pretty quickly, even when they came in hot with the ridiculous "I was being gaslighted!" nonsense. By villain standards, they were really pretty tame. Its also pretty noticeable that no one had anything bad to say about Joey, and if you can get a bunch of someone's ex's together and they just want to talk about what a nice person they are, that says something. He and Rachel were so sweet on stage, there is so often so much awkward tension between the third runner up and the bachelor/ette, but you were so comfortable together, no bitterness or unaddressed anger or hurt. 

I hate how much crap Rachel and her family have taken, what a bunch of utter shitheads. What is wrong with people? Rachel seems like a lovely person, I wish her the best. 

The note had to be a producer's idea to scrap up some cheap drama right? Kelsey had to know that nothing good has every followed hearing the phrase "we need to talk" right? If she really just wanted to tell him how great he was, she could have just left him a paper with a heart on it. At least we found out what was going on now and don't have to wait.

I like Maria, she's a whole lot and has a very BIG personality, but she seems like she would be fun to hang out with. She would certainly be an unconventional Bachelorette, even if it was a train wreck it would probably be an interesting one. I'm not sure if they will go with her though, she has such Paradise energy. 

The outtakes were funny, love the Joey impression and Joey spending the shopping date drinking and eating macaroons. Big mood Joey!