Blue Castle

I'm also really enjoying this show - I would say it's almost ranking up there with Succession for me, which is my favorite current drama. It's also really surprising because I never had much interest in the books and thought the movie was so-so (I might have to read at least the first few books now). I feel like all the changes they've made so far (Louis and Claudia now being black, moving the time period to the early 20th Century, making Louis and Lestat's romance explicit, aging Claudia to always be on the verge of adulthood) have really made the story more interesting to me (at least compared to the movie). This episode was pretty heartbreaking - to see a young woman at first happy with her new life as a rich vampire, but then to slowly realize she is trapped in an isolated existence for eternity. It was interesting how her diaries focused only on happy moments until Charlie's death. I got the sense that she was even hiding her loneliness from herself (cannot imagine spending your teenage years with no one your same age to talk to).

This episode really made me think that not only are none of the kids going to "win" the top spot - at this rate I don't think there's going to be a company left at all. Kendall was so hard to watch in this episode - he makes the wrong choice like 95% of the time. It's also interesting how the kids think their dad is a dinosaur in some ways, but they only know how to emulate him. So they lash out and never trust anyone else and are always trying to prove how "tough" they are and it's destroying them. I wonder if they did finally see their dad fail (lose the company and/or go to jail) if it would actually cause them to re-evaulate their own behavior and go into intense therapy?

Yes, I thought the exact same thing! He's never been scared before. I liked it too, because I think he previously wrote Din Djarin off as being not a big threat but the message showed that this random bounty hunter has what it takes to find him. I think he was really surprised. This show often has ridiculous plot devices (the whole imperial facial recognition system made no sense) but I don't even care because the character development and the action sequences are so good. I really hope Din finds Grogu next week, though. I would be so unhappy if they end on a cliff hanger where those two aren't a clan of two again. It was except Gideon said "It means more to me" and Din changed it to "he means more to me" (naturally). Made it even more powerful! PS. Hi, everyone. I used to post on TWoP but haven't really been at the new site much. The Mandalorian makes me want to read everyone's thoughts, though!

Looking: The Movie has been nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding TV Movie or Limited Series. (I really hope it wins.)

I didn't watch Passions, but I think this is also the classic soap archetype of the "bad girl." Blair Kramer on OLTL, Carly on GH (as played by Sarah Brown at least), hell even Erica Kane, were all popular bad girls. The bad girl is the woman who plots, schemes, lies, and in short does anything to get what she wants--but the audience still loves her because she's also vulnerable and tough. There's always something tragic about the bad girl because often she's doing all this for a guy who doesn't love her enough (or who loves someone else)--or she's doing this because she doesn't believe he will love the real her (or the person she is without lies). And her schemes never work out on the long run--she's usually left to pick herself up out of the ashes alone. The bad girl is, imo, the heart and soul of any good soap opera. Her desires define a soap. Even though she's often the antagonist to a "good" character--she's never a villain because the audience is rooting for her, even if they don't root for her schemes. I never really thought of Rebecca in these terms because Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has such a different tone than the soaps I've watched--but yeah, you guys are right, the show is kinda like a deep examination into the mind of soap opera bad girl if she happened to be a West Covina lawyer.

Thank you for this review. Every time I see the commercials for this show I become enraged and you articulated all the issues of its crap premise perfectly.

I just love this show so much. As good as the Tina story was, I think my favorite part was Linda's ridiculous/fun idea and how the other Belchers slowly got into it with her. So many other family sitcoms create consistently adversarial relationships to generate story and I love how Bob's Burgers doesn't do that--the Belchers are a family on the same goofy wavelength.

I'm not watching the show anymore (last season broke me and this season looks like more of the same crap) but I enjoyed the recap, especially the 'Professor Gretchen Witter' line. I always think of her as Pacey's sister, too! I also liked the recap's points about how Shameless deals with race because that's always been a huge problem with this show.

I'm a little obsessed with Bob's Burgers so I know the answer to this, it was established in "Christmas in the Car" that all three kids very much still believe in Santa. That's the ep where Louise creates a "Santa trap" that Teddy gets caught in and Bob mentions to Tina that he's grateful that she plays along with Louise' belief in Santa and Tina doesn't really know what he's talking about (because she still believes, too). It's implied that all of the kids are a bit too old to believe in Santa but they all do nonetheless. I loved Nice-Capades! It's definitely my favorite Christmas episode so far. I think my favorite throwaway moment was Linda getting distracted by the fudge shop while talking to Henry Winkler, ("Ooh, fudge!"). Also, I just loved the exchange with Bob, Edith, and Harold--their irrational hatred of Bob and Bob's long-suffering acceptance of it just makes me laugh (also, the idea that Bob is having a Christmas Eve felt-emergency).

I've gotta hand it to them, this new spoiler has somehow made me even less excited for season six and I didn't think that was possible. Very impressive.

Sorry to post twice but here is a good review of the finale that identifies a lot of problems with the whole season.

There are less and less reasons to tune into season six.

I am really questioning whether I can be a fan of this show anymore. At this point I would only come back because I love many of the actors. In that finale the only good things were some of the performances. I was so excited for fifth season after the wonderful 4th season and it was a train wreck. The writers didn't just create mediocrity, they burnt this show to the ground.

It’s not the actors. The show wrote a sex scene and the actors filmed it for the third episode of this season. It was then edited out, presumably to make room for more exciting ‘Fiona and random dude’ scenes or Frank being an asshole. I agree that Fiona had an unfair burden placed on her, but I don’t think she ever believed her family was a burden. She felt burdened by her poverty. She felt burdened by her lack of opportunities. She felt burdened by her narcissistic father who only sees his children as people he can use. But in the first four seasons she literally said, “Those kids are my life.” Lip told her in season one to leave with Jimmy because he could step up; but she chose not to leave. Jimmy wanted to take her to a hotel for one night and it took a bunch of convincing for her to go. In season three the impetus for her to gain custody of the kids was not that they would go to foster care (she was planning to clean Frank up and use him to get the kids back). Her motivation was when she learned that Frank had betrayed them - she then decided (and she never once wavered) to seek custody of them herself. It felt more like her deciding to take control away of her life more than anything. In season four after she endangered Liam she missed her role as a caretaker greatly and that was partly what led her to further falling. She begged Lip to bring Liam back so that she could mother him again. When she got out of jail the first thing she did was make a big breakfast for her family. In the fourth season finale she was a woman who wanted to recommit to her maternal role. Who wanted to recommit to being responsible to the people who needed her. This season all of that flew out the window. And that would be fine if there was a story behind it - like what you were saying - if she unconsciously wanted a break from this (but even if it’s unconscious for the character the audience should know somewhat what’s going on). But I don’t know what happened for Fiona to change her so radically from 4x12 to season 5. Why does she basically abandon her family and her previous motivations? Is it because she feels guilty about last year? Or is she acting selfishly because she just can’t give of herself anymore? What story are they telling? I have no idea. What I saw this season for Fiona was a bunch of shuffling love interests and a half-baked abandonment of the family she once loved so fiercely. For unknown reasons. I can speculate wildly about what was going on with her, but I really don’t know. It was terrible storytelling, imo.

If that's true, that just proves yet again that the writers are bad at their jobs. If they were planning a happier, non-break up ending for them (which the rest of the episode seemed to imply) they still could've done it! If Noel Fisher didn't want to be in seasons six they could just say Mickey's in jail for something or other. I mean, come on--why invalidate the characters' journeys for this season just because one actor might not be available for next season? The ending was insulting to anyone who was invested in those characters.