[S01.E02: Chapter Two]

I tend to think the explanation of the telenovela villain that wore a patch all the time even though she wasn't blind was pointing at Petra always in a wheelchair but not paralyzed.  Petra is a good candidate for killer or Zas's Mafioso drug dealer contact or whatever.  I'm just wondering if its too obvious.

That's a good guess but Petra is the wife and she can walk.  The woman in the wheelchair is Magda, Petra's mother.  I definitely think she has secrets. 

[S01.E02: Chapter Two]

Who played Petra's mom? It looked like one of the later roommates from threes company. Is that dating me?

 

You're right.  It's Priscilla Barnes who played the last blonde roommate, Terry.  I liked Terry so I was thrilled to see Priscilla here.

[S01.E02: Chapter Two]

I was both anticipating and dreading this episode tonight.  I was anticipating it because I really enjoyed the pilot and thought I could really love the show. I was dreading it out of fear that it'd be a let down.  The second ep was as strong, if not stronger, to me than the first so it looks like a show that I will end up loving.  I just hope the ratings stay strong. 

 

I think the voiceovers in the beginning of the episode border on too much.  They lessened as the episode wore on but I do think they could trim them by about 25%.  For instance, did we really need to hear "there would be no later...for them" when Petra left Zaz?  But other times, they are just right.  I pretty much universally love the titles/writing that appears on the screen, though. 

 

I'm glad to see that the show focused more on the heart than the camp in this episode. I don't mind camp but it's tiresome without genuine emotion.  I felt I got that from almost everyone tonight, including the characters who were rather one-dimensional last week.  I also liked the male characters better in this episode than the last. Rafael, especially, seemed to have more depth. I started to see Jane having chemistry with her romantic interests. 

 

I can't believe my favorite new show this year is on the CW. 

[Gone Girl (2014)]

I don't think either the book or the movie sought to indict women who want their relationships to work as psycho.  This was a very specific, intelligent, off-kilter and committed character.  I wonder how the movie would have felt with the roles being reversed.  I suspect I would have felt more depressed at the end that the woman felt forced to stay. 

 

I also don't think the movie gives Nick a free pass for the affair.  The reveal of the affair moved him to prime suspect.  The movie also focused on how devastated and broken hearted his sister was with every ugly reveal.  She didn't think he was guilty but the movie did a great job of making you feel her pain of disappointment. 

[S06.E05: Shiny Objects]

I hate Peter! He's such an ass. The nerve he had talking to Alicia like that. The balls to get offended when she mentioned how she stood by him when the hooker thing happened! And every time he ran for something, she would help him, even when she didn't want to. He OWES her!!

No one forced her to stand beside Peter.  She made that choice because she got something out of it.  She's the one who chose to put their marriage into a business model so she needs to negotiate favors. 

 

.

As far as Kalinda goes, it's never clear what they're going for, but I get the impression that in spite of Kalinda often manipulating Lana, Kalinda has some genuine feelings for Lana. The look on Kalinda's face at the end when Lana walked out seemed pretty sad to me.

I don't know if it was because of genuine feelings or if it was because Lana ruined the party Kalinda had planned. 

[S06.E05: Shiny Objects]

While I do think Alicia had a point with Peter and how it would look strange if he backed out, I think it was very poor politicking to have both endorsements on the same night.  Have the governor do the first endorsement since he's a bigger fish.  That's the one that will get the most attention.  Have Finn endorse/introduce her at another event and then that will be covered.  Spread the media impact out. 

 

Since when are the F/A offices crap?  Is this a new development? I also thought they went a bit too far with Elsbeth's eccentricity in this ep. 

 

Does anyone else think the lesbian scenes are gratuitous? Kalinda goes for women when she needs a favor, but is with men the rest of the time?

I just don't understand Kalinda's love life.  I think she will occasionally go to women for sex too.  Tonight she went to that one woman for a favor but ended up sleeping with her even though she didn't "need" to.  And it looked like she was willing to go again before turning the other woman off with her accusations.  It was also implied she hooked up with Kelli Giddish's character earlier in the season when she felt Cary had stood her up.  She allegedly didn't have ulterior motives then while Kelli's character did. 

 

As for her and men, how many men has she been with that we know of?  Her marriage was either abusive or war.  She slept with Peter because she needed something from him.  And then there's Cary who she has slept with to get information and other times because she sees to want to.  It would really help if I knew what her expectations were of her relationship with Cary and what his expectations are of her.  

[NFL Thread]

I agree that the play today with the Punt Return in the Rams/Seahawks game was great. The Rams even fooled the cameraman with that play, lol.

That was great but some TV commentators are making it seem like the Rams invented that play.  They didn't. I don't know where it originated but I do remember Chicago trying the same play on Green Bay a few years ago.  It worked but it was called back due to a penalty.  It was the same thing, all the Bears drifted to one side of the field as if the punt were heading that way and it actually went the other way. 

[S03.E04: I Feel Sorry For Me]

I guess I haven't been watching the show long enough to understand who Deacon really is/was. 

I can only say that based on what I've seen, and understood about the series, that Deacon, for all his sins of the past, is trying to move forward in a more positive direction.  He's going to stumble along the way, no doubt.  And for all that the Pam character is doing FOR him to help him lighten up, get over Rayna, and have some fun with life, she strikes me as the kind of so-called "friend" who's going to cause him, eventually, to move past fun into risky, irresponsible behavior again. And when the inevitable crash and burn happens, she'll laugh, dust herself off, and go look for another victim.

Pam isn't responsible for or to blame for Deacon's choices.  If Deacon messes up again, it won't be because he's her victim.  It'll be because he screws up.  He does want to do better but he makes poor choices.  His choices.  Not Pam.  He did it before he met her.  He'll do it after she leaves his vicinity. 

 

Maybe Jeff will set him up in a compromising and scandalous situation, and thereby force Teddy to sign.  

Blackmail is the only thing I can think of but I still think it'd be out of character.

[Ugly Betty - General Discussion]

I really think, for me, on the second and third watching and done in a succession it's totally obvious they were end game.

 

I was biased towards them but I do have to agree with this conclusion.  The groundwork was being laid as early as the first season.  There wasn't a firm commitment but enough hints being dropped.

I'm going to guess the only reason Betty and Daniel didn't officially end up together in the end was because the writers didn't know they were getting canceled in time to write to that ending.

They knew pretty early on that it would be the final season--far enough in advance that they could plan the on location London shots.  IIRC, there order was cut which they probably didn't expect.  I think the reason they went with the vague/somewhat open-ended ending had to do with a divided writers'room.   Horta had always claimed that they weren't going to follow the original telenovela by having the two leads get together.  Considering the hints dropped early, either he was lying or there was a divided writers' room. 

 

Of the non-Daniel love interests, I think I liked Walter as a character the best.  It's not because he was a good boyfriend but because the writers clearly knew what they were doing with him.  How the family treated him was infuriating at times but as a character, and what he represented as a character, made sense.  They didn't have that with everyone else.  Henry was charming as hell in his initial appearances but he really served his purpose after those initial appearances.  The minute they made him a regular, it all went to hell and even Chris Gorham's considerable charm couldn't save it. Gio's know-it-all attitude annoyed me from the start.  I wanted to watch a show about a young woman figuring herself out--not a show where she's mansplained into taking action.  Matt happened at the same time Daniel was dating/married to doomed first Mrs. Meade.  I couldn't help but notice that Matt had a similar past to Daniel and Daniel's first wife was supposed to be a complete opposite to what he usually dated (similar to Betty) that I believed the show meant them to be stand-ins.  And this is when Claire started to get fed up with both Betty and Daniel not seeing the potential in each other.

[S01.E02: Chapter Two]

I don't think the've addressed that.  They do have different last names but the sister could have taken her wife's name.

[Cristela - General Discussion]

I could do without the boss' daughter but I guess they need her.

That's how I felt last week but this week she had some of the lines that really made me laugh so I've come around on her. 

 

 

I wouldn't worry about lack of comments, I often don't post much about shows I really like.

I think one of the biggest factors in lack of comments is how straight forward this is as a sitcom.  It's pleasant. It has some laughs.  The cast has good comedic timing.  But there really isn't a lot of depth to discuss.  It might develop into a show with a lot of discussion or maybe it'll remain a pleasant diversion.

 

The ratings for the show held up pretty well.   It dropped less than 10%. 

[Gone Girl (2014)]

I finally saw the film today and I had two older women sitting near me, who hadn't read the book, just flabbergasted.  They wanted to know if it was like the book (I told them it was just like it--even though there were differences, it was pretty faithful.)    And then they followed me to the bathroom wanting to know why he stayed with Amy.  It was amusing but I had a really tough time explaining why.  I told him it was because they were both a bit screwed up but that didn't feel like enough to convince them.  Reading this thread helped me understand why my explanation felt inadequate.  Props to the paragraphs of analysis here. 

 

Overall, I really enjoyed it.  Part of me wished I hadn't read the book because it took me a little while to just let myself experience the movie without a feeling of deja vu.  I also think knowing about the twist took a little out of the suspense of the pre-reveal part of the movie.  I could absolutely appreciate how Fincher built menace, especially with the close-ups of Amy and Nick passing by in the shadowy background.  He wasn't doing anything menacing but the voiceover and staging was just so good at creating that atmosphere.  For that reason, the movie picked up a lot once we got to Amy's story. I guessed the twist in the book but it's harder for a book to put me in suspense the way a movie can do it with visual and musical cues so knowing was less disappointing. 

 

I do think the ending for the book worked better for me than the movie and I'm not sure why that is.  Maybe it's because I think they managed to convey the addictive connection these two had better than the movie did.  Or maybe it's because the reason I liked the ending for the book was because I could not predict it** but the movie didn't give me that option since I already knew the ending. 

 

**One thing I hate with books with a twist is that its "goodness" is so often based on the reveal of the twist.  The best thing Gone Girl did was get that out of the way midway through the book.  Once that happened, I legitimately couldn't predict how it'd wrap up and I didn't predict the ending. 

I think my biggest problem with the movie was that the reveal of Amy's psychopathy felt unearned, or something. I don't know much about psychopathy, but would a psychopath really care that her husband was cheating on her? Or that her husband pulled the same move on his mistress that he had pulled on her? Those are the reactions of someone who loved her husband and was hurt, not a psychopath. So, if anyone could fill me in on Amy's motivations, I would appreciate it.

Yes, she'd care.  It's about ego (she's the smartest girl in the room--in control of everything) and possession and wanting to direct the course of her life which she felt she kind of lost with her parents' fictionalized version of her.  We got the backstory with the guy she accused of rape because he dared pull away from their relationship.  (How dare he end it.)  The book had another example too. 

 

I didn't like the detective characters. They seemed to be playing detective stereotypes. Boney always had a dunkin donuts coffee cup in her hand. The male seemed like a bumbling inept detective. I cannot remember if they were written like this in the book.

I don't remember the male detective much from the book but I think the female detective was pretty much written as she was portrayed in the movie except the actress was way more attractive than the book description.  Dunkin Donuts cup aside, I liked Boney's depiction.  She was no-nonsense.  She was thorough.  Despite all the evidence, there was something that was telling her that she didn't have all the pieces, yet at the same time she knew she had enough to make an arrest.  She wasn't fooled by Amy when she came back.  I don't remember but I think book Boney wasn't planning on giving up until Nick told her to let it go.  I wish I had it now because I think that was a difference.

 

That was impressive, but even then, Amy came off as the smarter because of her ability to quickly change tracks and frame and kill Desi.

To be fair, the thing that made Amy come off as more "intelligent" is the fact that she was more conniving and willing to go to psychopathic lengths to make things happen.  She took months to set up her "perfect" murder. She didn't have a job so thinking of ways to frame her husband was what she did all day.  And weeks went by where she was trapped in a lakehouse, alone, and gave her time to think of how to get rid of Desi. 

 

I also couldn't tell whether the authorities' meagre investigation and easy acceptance of her story - which stunk to high hell - was meant as a searing indictment of how media taints impartiality. Amy had been cast as the victim, so whatever she says is the truth, no matter how many holes and inconsistencies are in her story.

Yeah.  It's times like this where I wish I had the book.  There so many holes in her story.  For instance, how did the diary get singed in the father-in-law's house? 

[Season 1 Talk]

I have a big problem with the way the show really is making Bow seem like a terrible physician. I'm sorry, but she was totally halfassing her job. It is almost like the show is somehow purposely disrespecting the healthcare field after Diane's ER visit last week and Bow's terrible bedside mannor this week.

I'm torn on this.  I always like to see competent women being professionally good at their jobs so seeing her have bad moments kind of irks that part of me.

But competent, on-top-of-it wife with a bumbling husband has also become an annoying cliche.  This show tends to err on the side of balance for the most part.  While Bow is probably slightly more together at home, we have seen her have some less-than-stellar parenting moments.  And since we've seen Dre have bad moments at work, I am forcing myself to roll with Bow having bad moments at work since all of it put together lends itself to an equal partnership. 

 

Frankly, I'm impressed that we see the wife at work because studies have shown that's rarer than we might think on TV.

[Season 1 Talk]

This episode had some more standard-sitcom elements than the previous ones, but I still loved it. Mostly because it shone a spotlight on a very real situation: husbands will do one little thing (that their wife does all the time) and then look around for medals and congratulations; and additionally, others outside his home (both men and women) will indeed give him special recognition for that. (The business meeting was painfully accurate.)

 

That one business meeting moment was just so perfect and one of the best bits of social commentary in less than 30 seconds that I've seen on TV in a while. 

 

There were some standard cliches but there were a lot of funny moments.  I loved how Bow was trying to get him to have sex with her while he was making his cornbread.  Seeing the groceries in the refrigerator had me howling.  He put the potato chips in there.  Equally funny was her freak out over the way Dre put the silverware away.  There's some real honesty there as well.  Help is wanted but there's little freedom for improvisation.  "Mommies want to be with their babies!"

[S03.E04: I Feel Sorry For Me]

Well she was going to have an abortion, although I don't know that they said the word, until she found out it was Avery's baby. 

[S03.E04: I Feel Sorry For Me]

I'm glad Juliette didn't tell Avery about the baby and I would hope she keeps him at a distance after she tells him.  She was wrong but man he was harsh, especially after he had the audacity to call her to bust him out of jail.  I also hope to see Juliette react to Avery's constant state of inebriation.  I think it'd be hard to believe she wouldn't be afraid of it considering she grew up with a junkie.

 

I liked Rayna's story in this episode as well.  I like the Jeff vs. Rayna fight and how she got to call him out on stealing Will but please, show, don't have Teddy sign the girls to Edgehill.  That would be completely out of character and plot-pointy for the sake of plot, not character. 

 

I was a little bummed we didn't see Juliette and Rayna discussing her pregnancy. 

[S01.E01: Chapter One (Pilot)]

Bridget Regan seems to be sticking around for  few more weeks as Luisa's lawyer, probably soon to be currently fling. I don't think we can tell if her wife was sleeping with a man, it could go either way on that.

I don't think Rifel was talking about Dr. Alver's wife.  I don't have it on my DVR but I'm pretty sure they specified the assistant was female.

 

I do wonder if Dr. Weepy Bajingo Lady is going to continue to have a presence on the show and bring about even more idiocy with her bumbling ways, or if she's going to quietly disappear now that she did the job of carrying out the show's premise. If this were real life, I'd want to see Dr. Alver face some consequences, but since it's not, I'm just hoping they don't waste too much time on boring scenes about her malpractice lawsuit.

Dr. Alver is the aunt of the baby and sister of the hotel owner so I think she'll be around. 

[S01.E01: Chapter One (Pilot)]

I presume the original telenovela was done before anyone invented emergency contraception. It took me right out of the story to hear the voice-over say there was nothing the doctor could do after immediately discovering her mistake.

 

I may be wrong but didn't she give Jane a prescription to emergency contraception when she found out she was pregnant?  Of course, by normal standards, I think it'd be too late to take it (me not knowing much about it either) but the implication I got was that whatever she got was meant to take care of the problem.

 

I don't see how she could "slip" it to her without explaining why.  Jane was expecting something near her vagina that the insemination something she might not pick up on but randomly being assigned something to take?  A bit harder.

 

Todd VanDerWerff over at VOX has some interesting thoughts about the political diversity of Jane the Virgin.

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/14/6973331/jane-the-virgin-pro-life-premiere-recap

I think he's pretty much wrong on two counts. 

 

First, abortion was an option. Jane didn't dismiss the idea of abortion right away as if it were something she absolutely would not do the way he's implying in the article.  She thought about whether or not she should have it.  She asked her mother. She asked her grandmother.  She asked her boyfriend. She asked the father of the baby. She spoke with a doctor (albeit the one who knocked her up).  She weighed those different perspectives and ultimately chose to have the baby. 

 

Second, the one topic "progressive" and "liberal" Hollywood still balks at and takes a "conservative" bent when addressing is abortion.  There was a discussion about this in the feminism thread a few months ago and it's really difficult to come up with the names of five characters who have had abortions.  Even harder to think of is characters who have had abortions they didn't regret while also not having infertility issues later on.  The majority of the time, the woman has the baby on TV. 

 

I don't think this show had much of any political point of view.

[S01.E01: Chapter One (Pilot)]

I didn't think the wife was awful until her betrayal was shown.

Her cheating on him was the least of her crimes to me.  I had a bigger problem with her thawing out her husband's sperm, without telling him, in order to get pregnant to prolong her marriage.  I also took issue with how she was willing to play with Jane's life in order to make sure that baby happened.  (Or maybe that was the betrayal you were talking about?)

 

I really liked the show.  It had some humor. It was sweet.  Even though the premise could invite problems, I think 4 of the 5 main-ish female characters were pretty strong.  The only one that's somewhat problematic to me is the wife. I dreaded the arguments about whether or not she should have the baby but I think the show did a decent job of presenting both choices without making one choice better than the other. 

 

I do wonder how they extend the premise, however.

[S01.E01: Pilot]

I like all the actors involved.  I don't even mind the interrogation setup even if it is a cliched device to allow for differences in perspectives.   I'm okay with the differences in perspectives but I do agree that it might get old after a while.

 

My biggest problem/worry so far isn't the one I thought I'd have given the fact that I like Ruth Wilson and think Dominic West is attractive in a charismatic way--I don't think they have much romantic/sexual chemistry.  And if I'm going to watch a show about an affair,  I need to absolutely feel their pull.  They have more chemistry with respective current partners.  Maybe that will develop as the series progresses but the show was working hard to show their lust for one another but it was so blah to me. 

[S40.E03: Bill Hader / Hozier]

Hollywood Game Night: Ahh the usual Impression collection sketches.

 

39 Cents a Day Ad: Okay, can they PLEASE just add Leslie Jones to the cast?! Clearly, she needs to be added. She's very good. Anywho, I like this sketch and the idea behind it. Sometimes I wonder if those villagers really do think that. It was clever and Hader was the best option for the host guy. 

 

My favorite thing about the Hollywood Game Night sketch was every time Kate, as Jane, said "this is a real game we play."  Because yeah, those are real games they play, although not how they play them. 

 

And I agree about Leslie Jones.   Outside of her appearances at the desk, her air time in sketches that she's in has never been more than about 30 seconds.  Maybe, if we had more of her, we'd discover 30 seconds is the perfect amount.  But since she usually gets me to laugh at once in those 30 second appearances, she certainly deserves a bump to "featured player." 

[The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon - General Discussion]

I am so glad Jimmy had Carol Burnett in a skit.  I used to love watching reruns of her show when I was a kid. 

[S19: Alfonso Ribeiro: The Tap Dance Kid]

Corbin Bleu was Karina's partner a couple of season's ago. He has dance training and was a Disney kid when he was younger. He was nit picked by the judges all season long and was viewed by the fans as a ringer. I wanted him to win but he came in second.

 

I know who Corbin is.  I thought he was very good but I just wasn't sure what the "Corbin" treatment meant.  I do think they were more specific with his critiques than with others but I'll admit to being okay with that to a certain extent. I like to see improvement but I also like to see really good dancing so when a star has potential to do really good dancing (like Corbin, Alfonso or Meryl from last season) I appreciate judges nudging them in that direction. 

 

But I guess the "Corbin treatment" implied he got screwed by the judges and I don't feel that way at all.  He came in second during his season to Derek Hough and Amber Riley, both of whom have significant fan bases and I can easily believe they won the audience vote.

[Season 1 Talk]

 I could not stop laughing at all the stuff between Andre and Dre, especially the line about Helen Mirren.

That line killed me. It was so perfect.  Dre Jr. is very well cast. 

 

I liked the pilot but I thought this episode was packed with laughs.  The Helen Mirren line was a standout.  I also loved the visual gag with the dad wearing his towel the way a woman would wear it and Rainbow wearing her towel just around her waist. 

 

The shirtless sex talk scenes were almost too far but it paid off with the son putting his foot down.

[You're the Worst in the media]

From what I've been reading, FXX is focusing on "younger shows" and that's the reason it was moved.  Always Sunny is on FXX and I don't think that's going away. 

 

I'm just thrilled that it's getting a second season.