DearEvette

Tatum O'neill was really good in Paper Moon. Also Jurnee Smollett was fantastic in Eve's Bayou. Too many people sleep on that film, it was a gem.

The Gay Wedding Advice, I think, has become my favorite K&P sketch. And it is largely because of the other actors in the skit, K&P let them carry it.

I disagree to some extent. Smaller episodes work better for a tighter story when you are telling one story though the season. An Anthology or limited series , for instance is great for a 10 -13 episodes. Is is harder to sustain a single story over 22 episodes where you have to string out the central plot/mystery and pad it. It is why when we get genre series for instance where they have a Big Bad each season, we get these filler episodes. Episodic tv is well suited to a longer season because the viewer gets the best of both worlds. You get self contained stories that finish in one episode but you get the luxury of time to get to know characters, watch them grow and develop and live with them through a bunch of different seasons in almost real time. There was this big trending discussion on twitter about this very thing around the time of the strike. People were lamenting the erosion of the network tv shows that follow the 'school year' season. Where you meet the new class (the new shows picked up by the network) in September. You get holiday episodes (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas etc.) in real time with people on the screen. And at the end of the year some shows graduate (end or get cancelled) and the rest take a summer break so you can anticipate for next year again. I think this season probably hurt Abbott because of the strike. A show like this probably plans for the full 22 episodes and they probably had everything planned to be paced a certain way. But with the shortened season and the inability get back into the writer's room without enough lead time to really break the episodes, everything is compressed. And it doesn't help that even with the truncated season we get gaps in airing so you lose viewer momentum. I still think this season was pretty funny overall, with this episode was an outlier.

Yeah, this is probably the weakest episode of Abbott in a long time. I checked to see who the writer was and he had only written one other episode, one that fell a little more on the serious side. I agree this had funny moments but wasn't funny. Everyone felt like a caricature instead of themselves. The Gregory stuff was cringe and not in a good way. But I will say Janine looked great, Erika and Tariq were 100% themselves and Manny looked goodt! I am not gonna lie, I wouldn't mind if Janine and Manny became a thing. The book subplot was a little better, but I am kinda disappointed that Mr. Morton turned out to be such a weenie. Parable of the Sower is no joke. That book is prophetic!!

Obviously the underlying theme of this episode was: Karaoke! First his bachelor party was supposed to be an 80s themed Karaoke bachelor party and then we are reminded Chim worked at a Karaoke bar and finally, the 'Islands in the Stream' song that ran under their wedding was the first song Chim and Maddie song together at Karaoke! This was a good ep with a lot of callbacks: Kevin, Doug (and all the references to stabbing) and of course the aforementioned karaoke. But I am bummed it wasn't the Hangover-eqsue hijinks that were hinted in the promo. I am disappointed in Buck and Eddie and how stupid and childish they were during the Not!Bachelor party. I mean, Buck can be impulsive and stupid but I would have thought Eddie was too mature for that idiocy. Lovely ending though with a special nod to Bobby and Athena exchanging looks during the vows. Also the look on Buck's mom's face when he walked in with his sooty face had me howling.

Yeah, that and The Wobble have displaced the Electric Slide for the fun group wedding dance at black weddings. Don't forget 'Now Beyonce I" and 'Now Beyonce II'! LOL.

Great deployment of the 'Cha-Cha Slide.' It was a black wedding in Atlanta, no brainer choice. Altho, I can't lie, Ego Nwodim and John Mulaney have hijacked that song in my imagination forever. I can't hear it without thinking about their SNL skit. Let's hear it it for yet another guest character who made the most of their small screen time. Like Bon Bon from the last episode, Patty the asthmatic volunteer firefighter who 'likes action and can kick like a mule' made her mark. I thought for sure they were really gonna lean into Die Hard at a wedding and let Faith start dropping bodies one by one. But oh well, just cute bartender/safe cracker. I kinda call foul on Spud instantly recognizing Jeremy just from the picture on Faith's phone. The likelihood of the cross-race effect in facial recognition kicking in was at an all time high in that situation. It was a high stress situation, lots of black and brown faces, seen only fleetingly and not in the same context as the photo on Faith's phone. Added to which, Jeremy does not have a face that has a stand out feature that makes him instantly more memorable. It would have made more sense if she had taken Faith's phone with her walked among the crowd and looked at it while checking out faces until she hit on Jeremy's. But that is just a quibble. This was a great episode, very action packed, tense at times, and funny at others. I also agree that Crystal could disappear yesterday and I would not miss her. The only possible way I'd see her presence as even slightly interesting is if her being around comes back to bite Angie on the butt for covering up a murder. And yeah, NOT a fan of Angie and Will rekindling anything.

If I am not mistaken, Janine never signed anything. Everything was verbal. Her job was always hers to come back to once her fellowship was over, hence the revolving door of subs. And let's face it Ava's 'hiring' practices were a joke. I admit, I liked her storyline at the district. I thought the way the district characters were written, for such small parts, were excellent. Each person was a distinct and interesting character and they made the most of the little screen time they had. I especially liked how they just really liked Janine, like Jacob level liked her. But I admit is was also very nice seeing how really genuinely happy everyone (except Ava) was to have her back. I liked everything about this episode except the Questlove joke. It was as obvious as Janine coming back. And I do think Janine's return was rushed and a skosh clumsily handled, but that might have been a by-product of the truncated season. But everything else, was great. The cold open was brilliant. The individual characters all had really funny moments, especially Melissa's terrible accents and Barb's reactions to them. The cafeteria workers are always a fun time. And I love that the district HR person is basically the Ava of the District who just hates Janine and thirsts over Gregory.

Yeah, it is really fun. I was listening on my earbud and I think I cackled out loud during one scene in Target and a person looked at me like they were sure I was about do something crazy. It was a scene where the mean dragon, Ajax Nightwhisper, was trying to intimidate Birdie into abandoning Jim and he had her arrested (the Dragons had some cops in their pockets...) So she gets arrested: LOL.

We do get hero POV in this one. In fact one of the better parts of the later bit of the book is the 'black moment' that we get from the hero's POV. But the majority is from hers. Remember we don't even meet him til about halfway through. But when he comes on we do get his. One thing I wish she would back away from is the villain's POV. They all sound alike in her books, unfortunately. I absolutely hated the villain's POV in Shelter in Place. Sometimes I wish they were true mysteries and we don't know until the villain is caught why they did it or who they are. I think it would add an additional moment of revelation in the end.

I just read Dragon Heist by Alexander Kane and it was a fun, fun ride. It is exactly what it says, a heist book with Dragons! The main character is a washed up former child star named Birdie Binkowitz who works for her dad in his store hilariously called 'Binkowitz Seed and Feed And Bagels' When she was a 'star' she was a major asshole. Now she is super snarky and just a little mean and has been banned from every bar in the greater metro area. In this world, Dragons are like mafia clans who own and control territory. In this book we meet a lone Dragon named Jim who wants to take over Tuscaloosa from a bigger and meaner clan of dragons. He inveigles Birdie into helping him in heist to steal some of the horde of a dragon he has a beef with. In true heist story fashion, they assemble a crew and plan their theft. The story has a huge humor quotient, especially Birdie. Also it takes place in Alabama and Jim just wants to be a local and root for the home team, Roll Tide! I listened on audio and the narrator was fantastic.

I love The Bear. But that shit is not a comedy. I believe it is put into comedy categories for awards because somebody decided that if something only ran for 30 minutes it was considered a comedy regardless if it was more dramatic than funny.

Heh. Yes. So I finished it. And it kinda reminds me a little bit of Black Hills (the one with animal preserve and the serial killer) and a little bit of Legacy (the one with the Irish Hollywood movie family). Nora is basically doing what she's done quite a bit recently with her stand alones, where a fair amount of the first part of the book, roughly 1/3 takes place when the main character is a kid. Having a bit of a great idyllic life until s seminal event happens that upends their childhood. This one reminds me of Black Hills a bit because the set up of a city kid with sophisticated, rich city parents, go to spend time in the summer in the country (in this case the hills of Appalachia) with their grandmother. And while there their parents get killed (not a spoiler, it is in the blurb). But this also has a lot of the woo-woo element because Thea, the main character, is psychic and her ability is very much "I can read people's mind very clearly' type of ability. And it plays a huge part in the entire story. The first part was pretty sad because Thea sees what happens to her parents in detail. Excellently written. If you are a cryer, you will cry at this part. The suspense takes more real estate than the romance. The romance is almost an afterthought, imo. We don't even meet the hero til almost halfway through the story. And there is no conflict really. The meat of the story is her mental relationship with the killer and the feeling that the other shoe will drop at some point with him. But there is a sweet kid and a great dog. I'll spoiler a bit I think I liked the first part of the book the best. And her relationship she develops with the two police officers who investigated her parent's murders over the course of the book. There is a pretty rad scene whens he first meets them that I re-read because I liked it so much. Overall I would give it a B-

Aw yeah, Aw Yeah. I just got an ARC for Nora's newest Rom-Suspense, Mind Games being published in May. I'll do a review here.

I don't know if Janine going back would be status quo, though. She has grown, got confidence, has learned how to work the system. All those things can be used to show a different Janine teaching than the one we were first introduced to in S1. The show has been one long Janine progression. We've seen her get contol of her class and the respect of her students, dump Tariq, get some outside friends., etc. This is just one more step in her progress ladder. IIRC, her fellowship was for her to test initiatives with Abbot as the testing ground. A full time job would (actually should) mean that her role would be more widespread and not just focused on Abbott. My fear is if she stays in the district, the show would have to create reasons for her to continue interact with the Abbott crew and that could become belabored. And the essence of Janine's character is she loves teaching. I did love seeing Courtney again. She's gotten so big! Jacob this episode was funny. I liked the message about AI in this one. The lack of human interaction it promotes. And it wasn't just the Jacob/Barb/Melissa storyline but the Alex one as well, with the automated calls. I can't help but feel there is some meta-commentary given how the AI was one of the bigger issued in the writers' strike. This week's sub was the best one yet.

Welp, bye OJ. Hope you have the afterlife you deserve. Not just that, they royally effed up putting Mark Furhman on the stand. His hatred of blacks and pleading the fifth on the question of whether or not he ever planted evidence -- added to the already questionable chain of evidence with some of the evidence from the scene. Remember this happened only a few years after Rodney King. There was already mistrust of the LAPD and their treatment of black folks. All you need to acquit is reasonable doubt. And he handed it to the jury on a silver platter. They could have been able to read DNA sequences like a Dr. Suess book and it would not have mattered because of Furhman. It shone a light on a lot of issues to a lot of white people. Everything about race relations, police brutality, the justice system , and especially the public consciousness when it comes to protecting white women from black men, was something Black people were intimately aware. Nothing was surprising or new. Honestly the only thing that was surprising was that he was acquitted.

Oh I loved this episode down! 1- Will and his uncle bonding. 2- I always like when all four: Will, Faith, Angie and Ormewood work together. Their group dynamic across the four of them is interesting and the writers seem to bring their A game with the personality and quips. 3 - The writing was fabulous. It was a line a minute, so clever, smart, and funny. 4- I actually liked Ormewood's personal life for the first time. 5 - Fantastic guest characters. Bonbon ftw. I would love to seen Bonbon and Josiah again. 6- The case itself was good. But I figured it was the sister from the first interrogation scene. 7 - The final scene of the party -- what a fantastic ending, Other little things: Yes - on the title card. Very appropos. The Watchmen on HBO (the one with Regina King) also used to do really fun and creative title cards at the top of each episode. Everyone calling it the 'vanilla envelope.' Bonbon's reaction to Amanda's entire look. I can relate Bonbon. Anita Subpoena Amanda calling Faith's office a 'Sex Den' whereupon Faith calls HR to report workplace harassment. LOL. Of course Amanda would have car rules before allowing anyone to get in her car: Amanda: "Wipe your feet" Angie "On what?" Gabe's "confession" scene.

There is a dedicated thread to specifically discuss book v. show.

When I first got my NYPL card they had Kanopy and then about 3 years into they no longer did. But it was nice because Kanopy had the Criterion collection.

It depends on how the shows are set up within Hoopla. Some shows you can get for a single "borrow" for 7 days if they are on something called a 'Binge Pass'. If they are not, then each episode is a borrow. If you are really interested in Detectives, it is also on MHz Choice which has a 7 day free trial.

The rest of Cory's family is shown on one of the rescue boats.

https://www.libraryextension.com/ this is what is looks like in Goodreads for instance when I am looking an John Grisham's 'The Firm'

Yeah, I think 9-1-1 has always had a pretty nice budget from the music alone. And the Tsunami season opener in S3 looked pretty expensive.

1. Cosign on getting as many library cards as you can. I live in New York and any resident of New York state can get a digital library card from the New York Public Library. But I also have cards in my local county (which has reicprocal agreements with other library systems) and the county I work in. I have actually begun doing a search to see what other regional libraries allow reciprocal memberships. 2. I love Hoopla. I am a huge consumer of audiobooks and sometimes my librar(ies) will have long waiting lists but if Hoopla has it they are available without a wait. Also I have discovered some great tv shows and movies. One of my favorite discoveries was this stylish, sexy french tv show called Detectives. It was only two seasons but I enjoyed the heck out of it. They also have movies/shows that are on streaming services that I may not be subscribed to. 3. And yes I can stack. One of my libraries allow 5 loans from Hoopla a month. One allows 7 and another allows 3. So I get 15 loans from Hoopla a month. 4. I also use a library extension on my browser. So if I am browsing a book site (such as Goodreads, Amazon or Audible) it will let me know if a title I am browsing is at one of my libraries, if it is an e-book or audiobook and if it is available or has holds. And the extension will take me directly to that book on my library's website to the borrow or hold button.

A name I have not heard in a hot minute. I read the first five of her Dark Hunters series back around 2008. I remember liking the Greek Mythology background, but thought the vampire lore got shoe-horned in probably because at the time that was really hot what with Laurell K Hamilton and Christine Feehan. The only one I really liked was the 4th book. The rest were underwhelming. By the time I read the 5th book, I realized she just wasn't the writer for me.