rab01

At least now there's nothing left to hide from the kids; they've seen everything so we can dispense with the awesome stupidity of withholding information from each other. I don't think that Travis is really relieved by the army coming in; it's just his pattern of thinking that he has to say optimistic things to everyone. I liked Maddie's actions and dialogue more in this episode than in the previous two but didn't actually like the character any better. I am starting to fall into the camp of people who have been criticizing the actress. By comparison to Maddie,Travis has been a useless moron but I'm not rooting for his face to get bitten just so I can see a different expression on it. She is amazingly wrinkle-free for 50 and unfortunately I think that has cost her a lot of expressiveness.

In honor of him being the easiest living character to root for, how's this for a thread title? Tobias: (Hopefully) it doesn't end (for him). We can add an "... oh, well" after he dies ...

I think they've shown us reasons for her to be resentful. It looks like she's been required to play second mom to her older brother plenty of times before this. She's the one who does what's expected of her and yet her brother gets all the attention. As for recently, nobody tells her squat but they expect her to leave her sick boyfriend to take care of her sick brother. I'd be sullen about that too.... actually, more than sullen, I'd probably just leave.

I so agree with this. That girl is far and away my favorite character on this show. She's smart, sensible, and has proper priorities without giving off a Mary Sure vibe of having a permanent halo around her head. She has been given no reason on God's green Earth why she should abandon caring for her very feverish boyfriend to instead take care of her puking brother. The boyfriend's been nothing but good to her while the asshole brother has been nothing but a millstone - plus while they're both sick, one of them inflicted it on himself. Yeah, we all know that the boyfriend is going to try to chomp her face off but she doesn't know that and HE shouldn't know it yet either. I was away on vacation so I only just watched the episode last night. I don't mind the lack of a broader view of the ZA. Kirkman has said that his comic and the show were supposed to be a soap opera that happened to be set in the ZA. If they tell that story well, I'm fine with it. That said, for it to be character driven, you need good characters. I like the actor playing the drug-addict son (my comments about him above are from the sister's perspective) and some of the other actors but they aren't doing or saying anything specific enough to stand out as people. At the moment, it's just "dad", "other son", "ex-wife", "Latino paterfamilias", etc. The dead drug dealer and dying boyfriend felt more "alive" than everyone other than the daughter so it's a real waste that they were the first to die ... That's my beef with this show so far, it's too generic. The pilot of TWD was intense, specific and amazing. The pilot for this was paint by numbers and dull by comparison. That shoddiness even creeps into the visuals, which are normally one of the strengths of this franchise -- (1) this episode opened with a character walking down the middle of a street just so they could have the visual of skateboarders flanking her -- who in the hell avoids sidewalks pre-ZA? (2) she also ostentatiously pulls off her blue gloves in the middles of telling her brother that she hates him after cleaning up his puke; she then starts pulling them off again after he responds "I know." Continuity is sometimes hard -- BUT NOT THAT ONE. One last note, I get that there's a lot of frustration with the Mom and the actress playing her. I just hope it doesn't congeal into a "she's just like Lori" consensus before the character earns it. Personally, I hope that she becomes the Rick Grimes of this show and we eventually find or develop one of the guys into her bad-ass Carol or Michonne second-in-command --- not because of anything the show has given me yet, but because that would be much more fun than another couple of years of hating one of the female leads.

They've been together since she was 19 and married for the last 11 years. According to the article, she's exiting with $20 million and he gets $15 million; plus she keeps all of her company and brand (which was created during the marriage) and he only gets a piece of some of the books. The child support adds up to only about $1 million - that she's paying him suggests that the daughter will spend more time with him than with her, which makes sense given her travel schedule. It sounds like it was probably a reasonable settlement (particularly if he made more of his money before the marriage than she did).

The stories don't mention what she got in the divorce so they must not want you to know how rich she is. I bet this leak was agreed-upon between the parties. They were together a long time and he had a claim on a portion of all her future earnings (she has claimed in earlier interviews that he supported her when she was starting out), not just her books that have already been published or already in progress. How many houses did they have? How many bank accounts? What did their stock portfolio look like? How much is her FN contract worth? I'm sure she did fine and got half or more than half of the marital estate. (This was speaking as a lawyer, albeit not one that practices in California.)

I know the family of someone who went on chopped and boy were they pissed at her chosen version of a sob story.

I kind of understand why they have few cooking shows in prime time because I'm one of those people who rarely watch much of the cooking shows other than Good Eats. Here's the thing for me - if they are cooking an ingredient that I never eat, I'm out (since I don't eat pork or shellfish, that rules out more than half the recipes right there). If I miss the start of the dish, I'm probably out also because I can't figure out the rest of it after missing the start. That means that if I'm flipping channels, I'm more likely to watch a piece of a competition show like Chopped than I am a cooking show. I'm not sure that this matters to how they format THIS show so I'm sorry if this is in the wrong place ...

I don't have a problem with anyone wanting to interpret Mr. Norrell as gay, even if it's entirely an act of headcanon, but I don't think it's fair to criticize the show as "coding" Mr. Norrell as gay when it's an interpretation so open to debate. FWIW, I saw the characters as loving each other but not having any romantic/sexual feelings for each other. I think Mr. Norrell desperately feared and hated magical rivals but feared and hated the idea of being entirely alone in his abilities and perspective even more. -- I also think that the latter part of his character was given to him more by some very fine acting than was present in the portion of the book that I got through.

Maybe I missed it while fast forwarding through the commercials and filler but it felt like we didn't really get much "previously unseen" footage this time so other than the scene between Arnold and Giada, it felt like it was just the pilots and the reveal. Looking back on the season, I think they finally got the right level of involvement for Kermit and Medusa. We weren't inundated with Susie asking for personal stories but whenever they came it felt like the adult supervision was finally on set. Also, if they hadn't been there, I feel like Eddie could have been knocked out during the Holidays episode because ti felt like Bobby and Giada wanted to keep Dom instead and were kind of taken aback by Susie's shock at their not seeing Eddie's star quality. Also looking back, I want to give a bit of praise to Melissa D'Arabian who doesn't get a lot of it all that often. Her advice regarding a culinary POV was the first time it made sense to me. She said something like -- the judges care about it so much not to force the contestant to stick to a script but because they need to know the POV as a window into getting to know the contestant. Given that, the window into understanding Eddie and his approach to food isn't the particular flavors he uses but his history and watching him interact with people. Everything you need to know about him can be gleaned from that so I guess it's not really shocking that they chose a cuisine other than Caribbean for him.

If I were Batali, I would have resented the hell out of her being heavily promoted while FN was forcing me out. And, y'all can throw brickbats at me if you like but picking her over him could not have been about cooking skill, camera presence, teaching ability or presenting ability ... so what could it have been other than looks, demographics and her family connections? (That said, he's probably a better man than me and didn't actually resent her rise.) The Iron Chef thing is so odd -- I get her being surprised and disappointed at losing. Hell, I was stunned watching it that she and Flay lost because I had thought Flay and Batali were at similar levels and that Giada was a better cook than Rachel Ray. I would have thought Giada would have been upset at herself (Batali has said that the difference in the battle was Rachel Ray's dish) and taken a quick opportunity to try again, rather than be mad at Bobby Flay.

The great thing about Top Chef is that it usually happens during the finale and everyone who isn't picked gets to go back to drinking at whatever exotic toursit spot they're at. I always got the impression that some of the contestants were hungover during the sous-chef selection.

I think that's exactly right Snarklepuss. Also, if I knew I was going to be eliminated, I'd want to ramp up my media presence before the departure from the show and final round of interviews. Waiting until a few weeks after might lose the window of opportunity. If I know I won, I can wait until after the announcement because I'll have a victory lap and opportunities to promote the new show that's coming out.

I think he taught the technique to the Pah Stahl guy

That's actually pretty much the elevator pitch for the Cooking Channel show with Bobby Deen and Nikki DInki. So long as you give the restaurant publicity and praise the taste of their unhealthy food, the owners seem to take it in good spirits.

He'd be good at that but I'd still like to see him do a show that mixes food and fitness. Picture the first part of the show being him prepping some meal that takes an hour or so in the oven or on the stove to finish with the second half him demonstrating part of his daily routine of exercises in the backyard (maybe with some "neighborhood" kids that he's running through drills) and the last segment is everyone coming back into the house for lunch. A recipe or two in the first half; an exercise tip or two in the second half and you've got a show. He could even have nutritionists, old team mates, random friends or whoever coming in to bounce dialogue off each other.

I'm glad you're enjoying the book. I couldn't get more than 200 pages into it a few years ago and I like long fantasy books (and like the TV series). I think my mistake was reading all the footnotes.

A lot of what I wanted to say has already been covered up-thread (too many to like everybody's posts) ... I think Dom's star quality is real - not because I like him (I don't) but because my kids do. They're rooting for him even though they can see him screwing up. They aren't even sure exactly why they like him. I have always liked FNS because it's the most honest reality show on television. Yes, I believe they cast it with only a few real contenders and a bunch of chaff but the judges are the producers are the people who run the network. They want an interesting show but they also are choosing the people they want to represent the network - and the process that they want to show us for picking that person. They also are more than happy to hire other people from the show who they think have something to offer and keep winners on the air for well beyond their minimum run and cast them in other projects. If they decide to eliminate someone even after they've aced a particular challenge, it's for the unstated but honest reason that THEY don't want to hire that guy and s/he no longer serves a useful function on the show. I know that sounds manipulated and dishonest to some but to me it's honest. As for this specific episode, I wasn't disappointed with Dom coming back because I couldn't see what Rue's final dish had to do with her point of view and Alex never seems more than pleasant to me and because Dom really nailed SS. (I still don't believe that he has such stage fright or why would he have sought out this show?) I thought Rachel Ray was really very good at working with them and helping them shine without telling them what to do. Her reaction to Jay was perfect and I thought it was fine with Eddie too -- she's way more famous than they are and their boss for that day. Jay invaded her personal space in a way that looked slightly uncomfortable and she said something slightly funny to let him know that she didn't mind but that it wasn't totally OK. Her lines with Eddie helped put him at ease as to what he was selling in his pilot and as we've seen, he generally works better in that mode. Since it's Kermit and Medusa's choice as to the winner, I think it's only between Eddie and Jay. If Lenny hadn't happened, Jay would have seemed the safest choice. Now Eddie's past as a pro-football player means that he's been vetted for longer so I'm not sure which they'll pick. For my money, Eddie could use a few more years of culinary training but has a higher ceiling than Jay. (If he did a lifestyle/exercise/cooking/eating show instead of straight food, I think he could be a hit tomorrow.) Also, I wouldn't be surprised if FN keeps hooks in Dom and Arnold too. Both of them have shown potential and seemed to have been liked by the Network so it would make sense if they do a bunch of FN demos and events around the country and eventually get worked into the rotation somewhere.

Is it saying Dom? If so, I'm not surprised. My older son is rooting for Dom. I don't why but he must have some appeal.

In defense of Jay's clothes, I used to dress exactly the same way when I weighed what he does. Every time I looked in the mirror, I felt like it made my gut look bigger to tuck my shirt in. There is, of course, absolutely no excuse for the food he served in the first round - it was wise of him to toss it out there during the first round, which never counts in the final judging. As to Alex's finances, I have absolutely no clue but wouldn't a trust fund baby have been in tons of family gatherings? The kinds of people who set up trust funds tend to have bunches of family events involving cousins and what-not out two or three generations. I'm not saying they're always social people but everyone I've met who has that type of financial situation has also had a large web of family from whom they cannot disconnect.

I haven't rewatched this episode but I totally thought at the time that Kelly was raped. It aired during the period when people were still having to explain that date rape was rape, instead of some lesser assault. (I went to college maybe a year after this aired - I think - and "Take Back the Night" marches were just starting to sweep campuses.) I can't think of examples anymore but it struck me at the time as the same structure used by other shows for date rape episodes.

I'm posting this here even though it's from the episode that just aired (the "Live" show episode) so as to avoid spoiling anyone if I'm right. They really faked me out with Arnold's talking head. He sounded like he was trying to choke back tears about being so close and then ... Alex was eliminated. So, my guess is that the talking head is Arnold discussing when he was actually eliminated and just aired in relation to a different episode. (It's not actually out-of-order since all the talking heads are filmed well after the fact.) My bet is that next episode someone comes back from Star Salvation and Arnold is the one eliminated without the opportunity to make a pilot. Theoretically, he could last another episode but I figure he probably had a good idea throughout that Eddie and Jay were the frontrunners so it wouldn't have been something that made him cry in retrospect as much as not even making a pilot.

I don't think Jay's way of getting the other guys involved was copied from Eddie because they had the clip of Arnold saying how specific Jay was being during prep of how he wanted to talk with them. Again, Jay was being too rehearsed so he came off slightly stilted. I like Jay; he seems like a good guy with food that's usually in my wheelhouse and (he along with Eddie) is often shown praising other people's food as they cook in the kitchen but he really makes too much of an effort to be "on" in front of the camera. I was really surprised by how badly Arnold did on this challenge. It really made me think back through the season and I can't remember any time where he said something funny or interesting that came out of listening to another contestant. He's more often the performer and the speaker than the audience ...

Trump's lawyers have been saying stuff like that about lots of the people who sever connections with him. I am not assuming that those claims are true just because Trump's lawyers say so. (I'd say that I'm waiting until a court decides but the resolution will be quiet and we're very unlikely to hear the real outcome.)

Maybe Conant only minds when Italian ingredients are disrespected. (I can only remember him honoring pasta and Branzino; I'm sure someone could slice red onions with a chainsaw and he wouldn't mind.)