LaChavalina

Mohamed and Walmart Tom: The Sandusky Men's Rights Club?

I love Melanie and Devar. I agree that Melanie is totally self-aware, and I think they're well-suited. She makes good money, lives in a low cost-of-living area, and I believe that they are two people who really care about each other and wanted to just dive in. Sure, this series has had other success stories... but it's nice to know that two people who didn't attend Bible college together can also find true love. I kind of laughed about Devar being the only black person there. I'm sure it's true, but they really aren't all that far from Philly.

I didn't see this mentioned in the episode 1 thread, but Nicole also admitted she was underage when she met her daughter's father online. She very clearly said that she had to wait until she turned 18 to go be with him. It sounds like maybe he wasn't too much older than her, but it does make me wonder what her parents are thinking that they're so laid back about her meeting other guys on the Internet. They may well have been. That happens in some countries; not every society views physical contact between male friends in the same way that we do here in the U.S. (where holding hands is a sign of romantic/sexual attachment).

I just finished the finale. It feels like they scrambled to throw something together after Yunjin Kim announced she wasn't coming back for a season 5. The most irksome thing was going through that whole storyline at the start of the season, where Karen has to save her baby from self-centered Alec and his pediatrician wife... and then they end up with the baby anyway. Farewell, Mistresses.

My overall impression this season is that the bakers are a lot closer together in talent than they've been in recent seasons, but on the whole none of them are as good as the standouts of seasons past. Likable as always, but I was hoping for another Cecil the Lion bread to really wow me.

Only if April becomes a crime-fighting medium and is partnered with hot Daniel from Season 2. :D

This episode was probably named in honor of the indifference the writers felt while they were spinning this crap.

FYI, Hulu posted a "preview" clip that has a different actress introducing herself as Karen Kim. Possibly Yunjin Kim is not planning to return to the show? If you have Hulu, it's under "Clips."

Yep, Joss was just trying to line up clients at the start of the season. On the plus side, she managed to kick a drug habit pretty quickly and with absolutely no withdrawal.

Not to be blunt, but don't you need to prove you have assets in order to sponsor someone for a K-1 visa? Who would possibly be putting up the money for this guy? Because it's definitely not her... Ditto to what everyone's said about Jorge. Why is it that every season we get (at least) one of these boneheads who is going to Asia or Eastern Europe because they don't like feminist American women? So sorry that his submissive Russian flower deleted his contacts. Idiot. ETA: As an openly feminist American woman, I have never: 1) Asked a partner for his e-mail/social media passwords, 2) hacked a partner's online accounts, 3) asked a partner to buy me a designer item or, indeed, anything... at all.

This show plays so fast and loose with time jumps, those kids will probably be 16 and having pool parties in S5. I laughed.

If you'd like to save yourself the trouble of watching the rest of the season... spoilers are here, here, and here. The plan seems to be to end on another cliffhanger, but I can't believe this will get renewed for S5. The writers seem to have written most of this in their sleep.

Man, I'm a few episodes behind but the tacit racism underlying the "Reza is an apologist for his nephew's domestic abuse" storyline was pretty gross. And way to make Harry look like a douche by having him go along with that...

Marc was never appealing to me. I was shocked they even had the character return this season because his relationship with April is painfully boring. And, yes, I also think the new guy is gay. I fell asleep during this episode and missed the ending, which says something about the state of the show.

Part of the ongoing attraction of this show is Karen and her bad decisions. Love to hate her... I'm very over April and Man Child, on the other hand. Are we really going to get a whole season of her getting steamrolled by him and probably getting cheated on-- yet again? Let's free her up for a new romance sooner rather than later. And while we're at it, maybe introduce an actual plot line for this season.

Well, now that they've cast Jerry O'Connell in this show it's definitely going to get cancelled. :D

So I guess we're meant to believe the Feds would just let an agent lead the investigation of his half brother, huh? The entire Anika testimony drama didn't make sense at all, if Tariq was supposed to be investigating murders that happened years before... I guess Anika could have testified about the securities fraud, but so what? She wouldn't exactly be a credible witness. It seems like she was obviously manipulating the situation to coerce Lucious into marrying her. I'll be very sad if Rhonda isn't back next season. I remember back during S1, there were some teasers that she also came from a troubled past and I was hoping they'd eventually make a storyline out of it.

Logging in my prediction: I think the "secret" that Mr. Hyde exchanged for transport to Storybrooke is telling Rumple how to make Dr. Jeckyll's potion. Rumple is going to use it to split himself so that "good Rumple" can wake Belle with true love's kiss. But the spell will go awry, and we'll end up with Regina, Dr. Jeckyll, and good Rumple all facing off against their bad doppelgangers. We'll also likely have to revisit the "Rumple without his dark powers is a coward" storyline yet again, in spite of the developments of 6A. ETA: Also a good set-up for Lilith to return, as the embodiment of Emma's badness.

Not to mention, we've been getting told for years that "all magic comes with a price." I mean, honestly. I suppose the show is just going to turn into Reading Rainbow next season. ABC probably gets to count it toward their educational programming if they showcase actual literature. :D Mr. Hyde as a bad guy strikes me as totally meh. If they want to go with Paul Bunyan, a land of tall tales could provide much more satisfying options for villains. Or a land of science fiction. Morlocks are totally baddies and they creep me way out. I also got a very Ghostbusters vibe from Rumple in the penthouse. "There is no Belle, only Zuul!"

I think she's great as an actress, and it's so refreshing to see a female character on this or any network show who isn't there to be someone's love interest. Freda is certainly tied to her father's legacy, but she's become a character in her own right.

She didn't miss Lucious, so much as Jamal stepped in front of him and caught the bullet. I kind of suspected that the outcome of the ASA award would be what it was, but did they seriously go on with an award show after someone was shot on the red carpet? LOL. The way it went down was really well-played, though if I were Andre I would have thrown Thirsty under the bus for keeping him in the panic room. And the AIDS comment made me gasp out loud. So ugly.

I had such a problem with the pacing this entire half season. The idea of bringing a whole bunch of deceased characters back, plus adding new characters, was too much. As a result, some characters that could have had really interesting, multi-episode arcs (like Ruby/Dorothy) got shortchanged and major points (like the ultimate fate of the souls) were left unresolved. What was the point of having one episode on Hercules? And I totally agree about the Olympian crystal. A supposedly powerful weapon that works across realms, and no one's ever heard of it and it lasts one episode (maybe two, now that Rumple has it). OK, then. It would have been better if this was a whole season, and really if it were saved for the final season of the show. I lost the quote above about Harry Potter, but I totally agree that parts of this episode felt ripped from the Potter films. When I watched this, I was with my parents. They watched the show back in seasons 1 & 2 but not since. My dad was watching the Zelena/Hades scenes and said, "where did they cast these two? Overactors Anonymous?" :D

I'm not so much annoyed that they killed Robin, but it was actually a pretty awful death. No afterlife, just completely destroyed? It's like the people who got pitched into the river of souls. Doesn't the idea that heroic people could get such an unjustly horrible fate undermine the entire meta-narrative about heroes and happy endings? Ugh.

I'm fairly sure they're implying that she had some form of postpartum psychosis-- i.e., sometimes women who have been bipolar develop much more serious symptoms after childbirth (hence, she blames Luscious). Although, the cakes and the knife-wielding is almost a cartoonish caricature of that.

Trai Byers is the star of this story arc for sure. Those scenes between him and Leslie Uggams... So much acting with very little dialogue. The song at the very end, for those who wondered, is called Figlio Perduto (Lost Son) and was an incredible choice for those particular scenes with Rhonda and Luscious.