Ikki

Ruth is adorable. I didn't realize that she was played by twins until just now when I was trying to look up the age of the actress. It helps too that so far her dialogue seems fair for a three year old. A lot of the time the problem I have with child actors is that the writers give them lines that indicate they may have never met a child before in their lives.

Continuing this here-- I found the article in question and it wasn't Mikey who said that-- he actually talks about begging his parents to let him try out. The kid who was recruited from a cooking camp was named Luca and didn't make the top 24 (there was also another kid who mentioned being recruited and didn't make the top 24). Luca says in the article that it ended up being pretty fun for him, but it still seems crappy for me for parents to be pushing their kid to do a reality TV show when the kid really doesn't want to.

Heather has been catfishing him since one of Jack's early plots for the kids. How you work, "Hey, send me some of your hair?" into a catfish relationship I don't know. But apparently Heather does.

I agree, this was a good episode. It helped that the side plots were tied into the main one. The party with the kids actually reminded me of something that happened during my senior year of high school; some kids in my social group had a party in one girl's basement, and there was alcohol, and it was a Big Deal 'cause we were nerds, y'all. I mean, my friends' and my format for a party throughout high school involved pinatas and silly string. So I found those parts funny and relatable.

Yeah, it makes sense that it was "supposed" to be good, looking at the episode as a whole. Just, when he was initially writing it, from the glimpses we got and how he was selling it, I was fully expecting it to be rejected-- not because publishers wanted happy stuff, but because his book was terrible. Then the show did that thing of just referencing the supposedly "best" parts of the work in a way that indicates they were there without fleshing out what they were. Basically it falls under showing vs telling, and going forward I hope they get better at showing, and showing quality. I feel like there's not a lot of overlap between viewers of this show and viewers of Degrassi Next Class, but I'm going to make this comparison anyway: in one season of the show, this character Miles produces a play. And in parts of that season and into the next season, other characters reference the play in a way that makes it clear that in-universe it was supposed to be well-received. Thing was, the play was awful. Like, it was painful to watch, and we as the audience were only subjected to bits of it. Honestly, that was a stronger case of what I'm concerned about than I can see happening here (I really hated that play, y'all). And it's possible they could have Jack espouse shitty philosophy that the kids take as mind blowing and play that as humorous, but I hope they don't.

She was off standing in California, Hawaii, Canada and Chicago at the same time.

Stef, Mary, and Michelle add incredibly little to the show overall. Their plots often feel like a, "Meanwhile, elsewhere in the school..." that I do not care about. Durbin and Helen I'm okay with, and when they're at least connected to the main plot it doesn't feel like a waste. I wish the B-plots focused more on different students, and even better if they ended up connecting to the A-plots. The end of this episode seems like it could signal a shift for how Jack approaches the class, which could be interesting but feels like it should have happened sooner. Also, from the bits of the writing process that were shown, it seems like he wrote a genuinely shitty book. If this show does move into incorporating more philosophy, I hope it's in a higher quality way.

The 5 point A thing depends on the school. My high school didn't switch over to weighting APs until I was in my junior year, I believe. Also, some colleges ignore AP GPA inflation when it comes to admittance and continue to look at it on a 4 point scale, though they will still note what classess you've taken, of course. The boost of your science GPA when going into med school or such is a good point. I'd also add that some might choose not to take an AP exam because having those credits can end up costing more. This is because it can bump up where you're considered to be in your undergrad experience, and courses can cost more for those further along.

This episode made me imagine grownup Tina as a guidance counselor. But, like, a competent one.

Truly tragic, what happened in Ben's family. It's going to be tough watching his scenes this season.

Haha, it's funny to me that people didn't know that ga-ga ball was a real thing. How weird that must have been during the episode. It's quite popular with kids around here, so I could totally see it getting a bunch of recess hype as the new thing.

Dammit, I JUST started watching this show a couple weeks ago. Welp, got until 3/14 to finish three seasons. That's doable.

I'm currently binge watching the show for the first time on Netflix. I'm near the end of season four right now. One of my favorite bits of characterization is how much Archer loves (most) animals. Whenever an animal shows up, I get excited for him to interact with it.

I watched this show while also doing other things, and I thought it was okay. Then afterward, I started thinking about it, and it's just really not a premise that's meant to be thought about. I'm a teacher, so there are (often major) details that raise a lot of questions for me. Like, I'm stopping myself from going off on a rant right now. Obviously with TV, there's going to be some suspension of disbelief needed. But while I find the show somewhat entertaining in parts, I don't know if it's entertaining enough to warrant the extent I'm telling myself not to think about things.

Jimmy Jr.'s a real wang. Great episode, though! Even better if it marks at least the peak of Tina's ill-fated crush and others start becoming serious contenders *cough*Zeke*cough*.

I'm currently rewatching the series with a friend of mine who has never seen it before; we're halfway through season three so far. It is so hard to take any of the buildup to the play seriously when I know what a cringe-fest the play ends up being (somehow not in-universe, but).

Holt's gambling addiction has come up before, as a matter of fact! (I'm excited about that because I love continuities like that.) It came up in season 2, episode 8, "USPIS." When they were trying to help Amy quit smoking, Holt says, "I don't like to talk about this, but many years ago, I myself overcame an addiction. I could not get enough of the ponies." And then...well, here's the clip:

I liked that as well. Black teachers are so important, and it's interesting to me that there was the implications that there were none at Junior's private school. I've read various reports about the importance of Black students seeing/having Black teachers, though at the same time there are numerous factors that limit the presence of Black teachers.

Well, the nomination was supposed to seem patronizing. It was, and that was kind of the point-- that people, both in shipping them and nominating them, were treating them as their disability rather than people. And their speech was going to criticize that, but then they didn't win.

As a public school graduate and current public school teacher, there were a lot of things that bothered me about this episode. In fact, some of the comments from the Johnson's reminded me of various racist comments I heard from various people when I was teaching in a predominately black (98%, I believe) public school. I suppose the source of the comments does matter somewhat, but still. The less serious thing that bothered me, though, was in the end tag when Junior and his friends were talking about movies from the MCU. They were talking about watching them in chronological order, and Junior suggested that Guardians of the Galaxy, because it was in space, could somehow be before Captain America: The First Avenger. Really? With how prominent 80s music and and nostalgia is in that film, not to mention the opening scene ON EARTH, Junior is really going to say it could have happened BEFORE a movie set during WWII?

I also loved Jake's voicemail to Amy's dad, both because I dislike that tradition and because it makes sense after the lesson they learned the episode they met.

As soon as Amy starting talking about how Jake could no longer surprise her when they were in the room with the belt, I knew he was going to propose. So I wasn't surprised at that moment, but I was ridiculously happy. (Not as happy as I was when Ben proposed to Leslie, which actually made me cry, but still.)

Oh my god, so I know I'm late getting caught up, but Stef's face when Mariana and Emma were kissing! I laughed so hard I had to pause it. My god.

I wondered about that as well. It could also be interesting if she had gotten in but then had her acceptance rescinded (which, if she did get in, I'd definitely think it'd be rescinded) and wasn't able to get in again.

Well, that was largely depressing. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it, but it definitely seemed to be more of the "sad" side of the coin to me. If I hadn't watched the previous three seasons, I probably would have found the wackier elements to be more jarring from an overall more serious show. That said, with my understanding of the show as a whole, I did love the clown dentists. I also really liked how they played with story form in how the episodes were presented. The biggest gut punch for me was the end of episode nine, "Ruthie," when it's revealed that her great-granddaughter talking about her was in PC's imagination. It really wasn't the biggest thing of the season, but I guess throughout the episode I was taking comfort in it the same way PC was, thinking, "Well, if her great-granddaughter is telling this story, things must work out." And then to have that taken away was just...really well done. Some of the asexual stuff seemed clunky to me, but on the whole I was just thrilled that there was so much explicit asexual representation. I also enjoyed hearing Captain Raymond Holt in some episodes.