DearEvette

Yeah, that was how I took it. All episode they were all very sad about Ava, thinking that the loss of the job was a huge blow. And I think the show also did a little sleight of hand for us as well, making it seem like Ava was laughing stuff off to make seem like she was putting on a braver face. The way she'd throw off lines like 'Ed Talk' and 'Teb Talk' to make it seem like she was making stuff up. So the reveal was as much for us and it was for them. I admit, I was shocked.

Catching up after two days: Martin remains an asshat. Complaining he couldn't count on Smitty's wholehearted support for his supposed Presidential run. What? Bitch, you did not even tell your husband you were thinking about this. And now that he has found out by accident, you are mad he isn't fully on board for the nanosecond you gave him to process? GTFO. Also, I don't remember, does Martin he even know what he supposedly did? Or is it a blacked out, fugue state, don't remember but it was covered up by his family/Bill and hit is pushing to his forefront of his consciousness through nightmares? Because if that is the case, I get it why he thinks he could run. But if that is not the case then how is it a man Congressman does not understand how oppo research is done and how things that can easily stay hidden when you are in a little pond, gets blown up hugely once you start swimming with the big fish? Bill: Oh, Naomi, think about all these poor people in my office who may lose their jobs if you tarnish the reputation of my firm for enabling a pervert Meanwhile Haley: We will crush your little firm and put you all out of jobs! Hayley just makes me tired. Naomi was talking to a wall. I hope Mike just can't help himself harasses Hayley. Of course that would mean Hayley would actually, you know, go to work.. I love how Ted manages come upon Leslie talking to Nicole and Leslie talking to Kat, but somehow not ever see Leslie with Eva even though they sit there scheming at a table dead center at the diner. The Nicole and Dani scenes were great. And yeah, Dani's dependence on Bill is sad. That man has treated her with wild contempt. I hate it when women cling on men who disrespect them with their whole chest.

First thing I noticed! I loved how casual yet blatant it was. The majority of this ep took place over various days after school had let out since so much of the action was contemporaneous with Barbara's music class. I have to admit, I was not expecting that crowd. But I also think that is the hallmark of those types of talks/gatherings. You have this person with their headset on saying all types of platitudinous things that is really nothing bit word-salad affirmations and their audience eats it up with a spoon. There is a personality type that will go to a talk like that in the middle of the day in a 2-star hotel conference room. And they tend to be prey for that brand of snake oil salesmen. But seeing that crowd and the look on Janine/Gregory's faces made think the overall theme of this episode... and again a recurring theme on the show is how little they really know about Ava. She really keeps her personal life locked down. What they do learn they tend to learn by accident (e.g. her father). So much this! I know the saying 'Those that can, do. Those that can't teach' is supposed to be derisive toward people who teach, but frankly it is misleading because teaching is a very specialized skill that is hard! I agree if it was a club then it should have been more loose and fun. If it was a class, she was correct they needed to learn the fundamentals, but she was approaching it in a way that was too advanced, imo, which sounds weird since she is a kindergarten teacher. I do like the role reversal a bit that Jacob was trying to (gently) guide Barbara on how to teach that age group. And yeah, I loved that the one kid liked her method. Not as many door-to-door one liners in this one, though I did wonder why Lucy Liu had to catch a stray when Babara said her voice had been 'Chopped, Stewed and Lucy Liu'd"? LOL. Gregory and Melissa's sub plot with Ava's filing method was fun. I love how much they came to appreciate it and enjoy it.

We watched The Daytrippers last night and it was so good. Anne Meara and Parker Posey were the stand outs to me. Plot synopsis: My husband and I both thought the exact same thing after watching, that it had a vibe similar to (although less hilarious than) Flirting With Disaster, another family based road trip movie with side quests and where Mary Tyler Moore was the standout.

I went back and watched this episode because I know I missed stuff on first watch, and yeah second watch of this scene took me out. They are all singing the song, jamming out.. Barbara is singing but looks worried. And then the shot goes to a talking head of Gregory saying something heartwarming. And then it goes back to them singing but the scene has gotten way more chaotic. O'Shon is jumping and dancing on a couch behind the main group, Jacob is now wearing Ava's coat, Melissa is drinking beer straight out of a large pitcher, Gregory is doing superhero poses, Ericka is just standing there sobbing with Janine is hugging her while Simon is outside the room watching, and Barbara is just straight up talking about how sad the lyrics are. It is pretty hysterical.

This! For me it feels like every book that comes across my feed feels like it is written explicitly just to include a trope (Fake dating! Grumpy vs. Sunshine! Only One Bed!)so the plot and characters are secondary. I recently read a book Text Appeal that was a fake dating book. There was NO REASON for these two to pretend to be dating. But the book wanted to be a fake-dating book. Dude if you don't want your ex-girlfriend to bother you, grow a pair and tell her to leave you the hell alone. Gah.

I do kinda feel bad for Ava. The only reason they got caught was because she felt bad for the other schools that weren't getting any resource money from the district and made sure to spread the wealth. Abbott already had all the stuff they needed. They were getting the one slice of the pie the district was giving out this year because of Janine's connections. Ava could have just kept her mouth shut, taken the money with smile, and her Soror nemesis would not have been any the wiser. But Ava gave up that slice so that other schools who were in need got the money. In the end, the real indictment should be on how poorly the district serves the students. Ava is a scapegoat for doing what the district should be doing. If they don't have the money to get the students the resources they need then they should come up with creative ways to get it. This has been a recurring theme in the show that started with the pilot. Which also demonstrates how much Ava's character has changed. In the pilot, all Janine wanted was a rug for her class. She got approved for the money to get the rug, but Ava pissed it away on stupid stuff. They finally did get the rug but only because Melissa 'knows a guy who knows a guy' who was working on the Eagles Stadium renovation and delivered Eagles rugs from the back of a van. I am sure there are correct ways to get resources, but I wonder if, say, a parent of one of the kids donated the bean bags or the scoreboard to the school or if they had done what they did in season one where they put their supplies list online and crowdsourced the things on the list, outside of the blackmail (which the district did not know about when they descended) how is this different? Is it the scale of the equipment -- computers vs. crayons? Is there a price ceiling? Is it the cover-up and not the crime?

I would be up for a revisit of these as well. It has been such a long time, but I do remember James being shoe-horned in every book. I think he was fine in -- I think it was Regina and Nicholas' book -- (which is still my favorite of all of them) but yeah you could tell he was a bit of a writers' pet. I am on the struggle bus with newer romances that I might just hunt up my old paperbacks of these and give them a re-read.

The show has been really cagey about what Ava's actual credentials are. I wonder if she has teaching credentials but never actually taught or only did student teaching? It feel like there has to be some adjacency there or even what her degree as in. Just out of curiosity I did a search for any PA principal jobs and all of them require a Principal Certification or provisional certification. Some of the Assistant Principal jobs I saw did not require the certification but required degrees in several related areas. So she could have gone that route. I can foresee the show doing something similar to what Brooklyn 99 did when Wunch got Captain Holt moved to an admin position out of the precinct. There was a revolving door of bad captains until Holt was able to return. It would be interesting to see if in her absence, everyone realizes that Ava, in her own way, did grow into being an actually good Principal that made Abbott work. Since the show has been good about involving parents, I wonder if there will be some community or parental fallout. Especially because of the spiteful way in which the district is punishing them. Not only removing the contraband but taking away the money they gave Abbott. It is a punishment of the students, not just of Ava. I imagine the parents had gotten a little used to the better tools and materials the students had access to and might not take it sitting down. It'll be interesting to see what they have in store for her and how they work her back in, because we know they will.

I wondered about that too, but I think the friend's perceptions weren't all that accurate since her stepdad was drugging and gaslighting her. She was wrong about why Whitney was looking through her purse, so she could have been wrong about whether or why Whitney told others about the hospitalization. I think when Will said 'You are a Hero!' he was giddy about having had a breakthrough with the because that was one of my favorite Will/Whitney interaction. They did that hand slapping thing and Will said: "Whitney, you have hidden depths!' "Did someone say Redemption Arc?" But yeah, I think the resolution of the murder put into perspective a lot of what they learned about Whitney especially from Tasha. Up until Tasha, the most negative stuff about Whitney was your basic Queen Bee High school girl stuff. Gossiping, trash talking. The guy she was trying to date said she had a lot of enemies because she wouldn't let people play in her face and gave smoke if she got it. Which... isn't necessarily a bad thing imo. And one girl was mad at Whitney because she posted a selfie where the other girls' eyes were closed and she didn't like the lighting. To me that doesn't rise to the level of monster, just penny ante high school bullshit. But when we get to Tasha, it sounds more ominous. She said she confided in Whitney that she had been in the Hospital and then the next day 'everybody knew about it.' She assumed it was Whitney who told. And then she said she saw Whitney going through her bag. And then there is Ms. Potts who told Will that Whitney was blackmailing her to let her stay in Belle Rose. But in the aftermath of the finding her murderers, it debunked totally the worst things Whitney is accused of: trashing Tasha's reputation and bullying her, possibly stealing from her, and blackmail. If Ms. Potts and Tasha's stepfather were trying to get a conservatorship over her, then it is in their best interests to make people believe she is unstable. And Since Ms Potts was around the kids all the time, she could have easily started the rumor. I don't think anything Tasha said about Whitney could be considered reliable because the stepfather gaslit Tasha when it came to Whitney, constantly poisoning her opinion of Whitney. And after Whitney was murdered, they went so far as to try to cast suspicion on Tasha of Whitney's murder. And we found out that Ms Potts lied that Whitney was blackmailing her. Will, Faith and Amanda realize that Whitney had been snooping around Tasha's house. That is most likely when Whitney discovered Ms. Potts and the Stepfather's affair (and possibly their plan?) and recorded them having sex. So instead of blackmail about the fake college transcript, she actually confronted Ms. Potts with her suspicions that she and the stepfather were drugging Tasha. I also think it is interesting that Elijah, who was also in the position to know a lot about the students he was around all the time, had nothing negative to say about Whitney. But then again, the man was smart enough to insist that the door to his office stayed open all the time. LOL.

Will's inner conscious as played by Whitney was fun. The actress was excellent playing off of Ramon. I loved her dry asides. "You were going to MIT" "A dream deferred.. but anyway.." She had a lot of good one-liners in there. The actress that played Tasha plays teenaged Gabi on Found. I head wank that Mark-Paul Gosselaar told her to say 'hey' to everybody for him. Ok, Elijah. I see you. I already like him better than Luke (but still wish Faith had actually had a romance with the Dr. He was all kinds of hot!). But Elijah is a snack. Faith looked gorgeous in that dress! Ahhh...memories. I was a deb when I was in Jack and Jill. I had the white dress, the ball and everything. That is one part of African American culture tv rarely shows. I actually liked Marion this episode. The Ormewood/Angie B-plot was light (for a murder). I liked it.

Yeah that was Taylor from last season. Yes, you can sometimes figure out race and ethnicity based on voice/accent etc. but that only helps if that race/ethnicity matters... which it sorta did for Garrett (Taylor's husband). But that doesn't tell you if the person is thin (hi Shake!) or meets your own personal criteria of attractiveness/prettiness if race/ethnicity doesn't matter. Anecdotally, and from what I've read over the years from the cast doing interviews etc., it always seemed like it was the guys who were trying to figure out how the women looked. The women by and large tried to stick with the conceit of the experiment.

Ooh, I like the burgeoning messiness of Naomi suing Bill's firm. That guy is a nasty piece of work. How gross do you have to be to try to have 'locker room talk' about a man's niece and his wife right in front of him? So older, about to retire cop is basically phoning it in, probably takes some money under the table from time to time, waiting for retirement. His reaction to Jacob was probably because he didn't want to be partnered with someone young and still full of energy and wanting to do the job so he was immediately hostile, probably trying to scare him off. Yeah, he gon' die. You know, I kinda want Eva to be Ted's daughter now and it is all because of Kat. This storyline just keeps giving and giving. It has the potential to be an 'All about Eve(a)' story. Where Eve quasi takes over Kat's life: She is revealed as Ted's, the family accepts her, she gets Tomas (in the short term)... and Kat is actually the more hostile one, not Eva. Eventually waaay down the road Eva and Kat will become friendlier and even acknowledge each other as sisters, possibly after some shared traumatic moment (Leslie kidnaps Kat or something...). There are so many places this can go. I am enjoying it the most. "If I get in trouble you can get me off, multiple times, if necessary". Mmm-hmmm. That was super flirty and pretty dirty. LOL. Yeah... Eva is coming for Tomas. And probably to piss of Kat more than anything. There were some really funny moments too. Of course Hayley being ignored. Honey maybe don't wear stripper day wear for breakfast. Bill and Hayley are exhausting. Yeah, force respect. That'll work. I also liked them all staring at Tomas in unison. And even though I think he is kinda an asshat, older detective's description of Jacob was kinda funny. I love how they all refer to it as just 'The Gown' when taking about the First Ladies gown Chelsea is supposed to wear. We know you talking about Michelle's gown. LOL. Oh Dani. Sigh.

I am wondering if the purpose of Ashley and Derek is that they are just two angles of what is supposed to be an old fashioned love triangle with Andre and the audience is supposed to root for one or the other? Which makes sense. Love triangles are a soap staple. But Ashley and Derek are just too boring to care about. And they didn't build out the Ashley/Andre backstory in such a way we could be convinced he really likes her. We really never saw their supposed long time friendship so it doesn't hit like it should. I am not in any way invested in any version of this relationship. I would much rather spend more time with Kat and Tomas and see where they are going. In the few minutes they were on screen they had a ton more chemistry than Ashley/Derek or Ashley/Andre. And as much as the Dani/Hayley/Bill story is their major front burner story, I wish they'd let it breath. It feels like they are rushing all the beats. Case in point, why not let Bill and Hayley notice the little off things the next day or a few days down the line when Dani thinks she is in the clear? You have just had a long, complicated planes/trains and automobiles type of trip back home complete with sweaty sex in the back of a limo. And Hayley at least, should be a bit low key disappointed her honeymoon lasted a nanosecond. And there should be some jet lag since it is Italy is 5 hours ahead of EST. They should be too exhausted to notice the little things that Dani messed up the second they step in the door. And even then, does Hayley just relax at home with her new husband? No she high tails it to Dani's house to force yet another confrontation. Slow your roll, show. I will say, Dani just standing there with a stone face as Hayley made her accusations and then playing dumb was a great move and really showcases, imo, my Karla is so fun to watch. I will also say, I do I think they are doing the Sherri/Leslie/Nicole/Ted story perfectly. It it fun to see all the shifting beats. Of course, Nicole would wonder about Sherri. Eva inserts herself to sabotage it. And we have her eavesdropping and denying Leslie's calls. Yeah, I am enjoying this. I also kinda like the messy situation with Martin and Smitty and their family. I agree that Tyrell might be bullied. I wonder if whatever is going on with him we'll find out that it causes Martin flashbacks or something that caused him to do whatever he did? The scene where Tyrell fobs them off wit the lame calculus excuse and Martin is all 'Welp, that is that then' is yet another brick in my 'Martin is the worst' wall. LOL.

The show doesn't give a good real sense of time. But it was the second meeting and it feels implied it was the next day. In the first meeting, Kaya is in uniform and Elsbeth is wearing a pink Chanel-like jacket with a pink bow. We then cut to (presumably) the next day, and Kaya is now in her new suit and Elsbeth is wearing a purple Chanel-like jacket. I assume it is the next day because now that Kaya has gotten the promotion and her badge, why would she wait several days to put on her new suit? They are meeting with Jill Eikenberry's character who says something about Marilyn and that gets both their Spidey senses tingling. That sends them right back to Marilyn on the same day. I don't doubt that a skilled fraudster would have some deep research methods to prime their marks. But with this, admittedly, imprecise timing she would have had less than 24 hours to research Elsbeth. A woman who is of an age not to have lived her entire life online or not rich and famous enough to have a lot written about her and readily available. I am also still stuck on the fact that the show is a child of Columbo and has a schtick. We have seen when Elsbeth has the perp thinking they lied successfully to get her off the trail and she starts to leave but does that 'Oh and another thing..' which lets them and, more importantly, us know she wasn't fooled. The only reason I think the show is trying to suggest that Marilyn may not be completely a charlatan is because we never got that moment definitively. So in my mind it isn't about what is probably the real case about a person like Marilyn, it is what the show wants to leave us thinking about Marilyn. They didn't conclusively debunk her. If they wanted to do that, they would have had Elsbeth say 'Oh and by the way, my grandmother called be Bethie.' This is network tv they aren't trying to be too cryptic. I also think they left it inconclusive to get that last scene in there, so that both Elsbeth and the Captain -- who both know the Judge is out to get Elsbeth -- could feel legitimately alarmed by her warning. As I said before, they could still debunk her later, but for now they want the audience to believe she might be somewhat legit.