DearEvette

Not only did he say ihe was with a student at the time, he effortlessly embellished the lie. Dude can lie on a dime.

I thought this was an interesting contrast to Jon's demeanour during his suicide. Given the way the whole scene went, it felt like the subtext was that Rome's attempt at suicide wasn't at all resolute. He seemed to be delaying it waiting for some intervention: taking the time to open the different pill bottles and spill them onto the counter so they disperse widely (it would have been more efficient to empty them into his hand straight from the bottle). Waiting for the water to filter. He was crying, nervous, trembling like he was really psyching himself up to do it. With him, the scene read to me like it was something he felt he had to do because he had to -- it would solve some problem. I wasn't getting a depression vibe from him. Meanwhile Jon was relaxed, smiling, whealing a deal, charmingly told his assistant to take a long lunch and -- just jumped. Of the two, I could more easily buy that Jon was actually depressed. With him, his scene read to me of a man would was relieved that it was finally all gonna be over and he was setting things aright before he was done. Whether the mystery of why he did it bears this our remains to be seen. Also, I think whatever is going on with Rome is somehow linked with Jon. Overall I liked it. I think the marketing made it seem like a This Is Us, but the story/plot bears no resemblance. Not even the tone does. This felt darker. I do like the mystery & questions being set up: why did Jon kill himself? What does the assistant know? Why not give the wife the envelope with her name on it? Why did he buy the restaurant? What is up with Rome? How do all these relationships fit together. If the show delivers on all the stuff bubbling under the surface I think it'll be great. I also, mostly like the characters. However, I rolled my eyes so hard at the manpain sharing at the Hockey game. My god that scene was bad and uncomfortable and felt really fake. And I can't believe that Boston Hockey fans would not be giving some major side eye to three men crying and hugging during a game when it isn't in response to their team winning the Stanley cup.

The set up for a ferris wheel and other bigger rides like that usually require the involvement of a midway rides carnie outfit or company. Most of those companies have a very defined season that runs from about April to Mid-October in the Northeast. Most of them close down and store all that equipment for the winter. I'd be very surprised if any would put up those sorts of rides in a cold climate during the Christmas season. If they have left it as some nice outdoor Christmas festival with hot cider and ice sculpture contests, that would be one thing but the big rides do make it a little --- not believable.

I enjoyed everything about this except the Kate stuff. I was hoping at this point the show would get past everything being about her weight. That said, I did appreciate how frank the doctor was. I didn't think she was mean or cruel, just starkly factual about something that can be hard to talk about without it seeming to come off as mean. And I hated her speech at her party. I think I FF'd through the rest of it because of the cringe factor. Beth looks gorgeous with her hair like that. I just needed to get that out of the way. On the one hand, I was not on board with her poking her nose in on Zoe and Kevin's romance. It feels like it was written very sitcom-tropey and played for light laughs a bit. But it felt beneath her. On the other hand, I liked the conversation she had with Kevin. Her admitting her "schtick" with Kevin felt real and right. I like that added complexity to their relationship. I liked her flat out admitting she loved him. And I especially liked her observation that he speaks to her kids like people, because that was one of the things I noticed about Kevin right off the the bat in S1 when I actively disliked him, except for that. I will say I hope Zoe and Kevin prove Beth wrong. I hope they are what each other needs finally to conquer whatever demons they both have. I also think maybe the trip to Vietnam may be part of that. I know we are supposed to get backstory on Beth this season so maybe that will encapsulate Zoe and we'll see why Beth thinks she is so destructive with romantic relationships. I know people rag on Randall, and sometimes he deserves it, but I loved how he was trying to be all stern with Deja only to visibly melt into delight when she pulled out his birthday gift. That is peak Randall, and SKB does that so well. And finally, I was as confused as anyone about the Franco Harris thing at first. My first thought was that this was Beth's family. But then the minute he started to put on the padding and finally the Harris jersey, i knew it was Franco. Of course The Immaculate Reception was the first thing I thought of. You couldn't grow up in my family and not know Steeler lore. I figured Jack and Rebecca's date would tie in somehow with it. I know it seems disconnected and corny, but I liked that little bit of connection/metaphor it provided. Also wonder if they consulted Franco in any way? Also I was tickled that some people on twitter were still thinking Franco was Beth's dad even after his identity was revealed. Also great casting on the actor.

Finally settling down to catch up with this season. I hate Dro. I always have. I think he is toxic for Molly. It would be one thing if she was really comfortable with Dro's open marriage, but she isn't at all. And when she tries to give him specific boundaries he pushes them and pushes them. And then he has the nerve to tell her "you need to figure out what you want." Bitch, she told you want she wanted. Ugh. I felt bad for Issa. She made a comment about walking on eggshells in all parts of her life and it is true. She is just completely powerless all over the place. Issa and Molly are such a contrast because Molly has a lot of the power Issa doesn't. She can demand her key from Dro whereas Issa is staying at Daniel's on his whim and doesn;t feel comfortable returning without an all clear text. Molly can negotiate her employment contract and work on her terms, whereas Issa's is being treated like a second class citizen and can't even point out obvious things to her boss. That said, Molly and Issa stay friendship goals. Their conversations ring so true and sound so natural. You feel like they've been friends forever. I love the vase saga!

I think the season 2 trailer is a bit of a misnomer. It is less a promo of the whole season and more a promo for the first episode of S2. They are continuing two storylines that they started in the finale of S1 that are not Claire centric. But in each weakly promo throughout last season, she had pretty good facetime. And in the episodes that centered her, she was promo'd. I absolutely agree that H'wood and tv has an abysmal track record wrt their WOC characters and using their images in promo and/or ghosting their characters in their storylines. I just don't think that is the case in this particular show. The show has been very clear from its inception who is the lead and what the show is about, a show about a doctor with asperger's. That said Antonia has gotten some very meaty storylines in her own subplots, she's driven the narrative, she has been given her own family backstory which informs her character to some extent, and the show has allowed her some gratifying complexity. It has actually justified her third billing in a largely ensemble cast. Yeah, them casting the stereotypical manic pixie dream girl for Shaun's love interest is really rather eye-roll worthy. I have been on record in the GD forums that I can't stand that character. But I am rather glad they opted against a romance with Shaun and Claire right out of the gate. I am loving the building blocks of their friendship. If the show later decides to go that route, I'd be fine with it because I think the characters would have built a foundation on top of a deep friendship and I think it would feel like they earned the romance and the audience would be completely invested in it. Now, On a completely different note... I wonder if Lifetime's horning in on what used to be solely Hallmark's turf with the Christmas Rom-Com tv movies is what finally caused Hallmark to step up their diversity and inclusion? Because Lifetime has unveiled their slew of Christmas movie offerrings and they have at least four movies with non-white leads.

She's the highest billed female actress, but overall she is third bill. I never got the impression she was supposed to be a lead and the show doesn't support it. The show is very much a Freddie Highmore star vehicle with everyone else being supporting.

This actually sounds like it is a good step for the show. And Rick, wanting to re-build community and not being constantly at war other groups makes so much sense. And I think i'd be a lot more optimistic if Andy were staying and Carl were still alive and we knew Negan would die. Instead the show has irrevocably tainted this development. I don't know if I could enjoy it knowing that this 'new beginning' has been bought on the back of three seasons on absolute character assassination and unnecessary shock value deaths. Fact of the matter is, Andrew Lincoln is leaving. And God love him, but neither Normal Reedus nor the character of Daryl has the necessary heft to fill those shoes especially given the fact that the only characters that'll be left by the time the season ends that are in any way recognizable or have any real audience investment left will be Carol, Darryl and Michonne. So that is a lot of heavy lifting. Everyone else are paperweights. And who the fuck is Earl anyway? And I finally, I just don't trust these writers/producers. At all. They've talked a good game before and we've gotten stuck with the people like Jadis anf the plot armor villain that is Negan. So no. It is hard to feel that this will be back to being the best show on television.

Naw. That was a Lifetime movie. Not Hallmark. People very pointedly mentioned to Hallmark on twitter and FB that see... non-white people can be happy and in love at Christmas too.

Basically. Also really short sighted of the producers and the Network. If they were really paying attention to their demographics, they would have noticed that POI was a big performer in black households in the Nielsen's when Taraji was a lead character. The show dropped out the top 10 of the demographic in the Nielsens after Taraji left. And black households, at least according to Nielsen, is a major consumer. Now, it might just be a case where that demographic didn't didn't match their advertisers target group, but in the end that doesn't matter because that is the group that had big eyeballs on your ads and advertisers are willfully ignorant of the purchasing power of the black population and are wedded to that myopia. But then again it is CBS....

You really have to excuse me, but I feel like I can gush for paragraphs over the whole Kate Daniels series. Magic Breaks is GANGSTA! It does mark a major turning point in the series, but not in a bad way. But rather in an, 'Huh, didn't expect that to happen." way. Just really smart storytelling, imo. Ok, I'm just shutting up now.

I am not surprised. The show was getting crowded with the four new regulars. They made no effort to create any storyline just for her last season, her only involvement was as a satellite to Melendez and to a lesser extent Glassman. They broke her and Melendez up, so there goes that connection. And they seem to be moving Glassman into a new direction. And honestly her past with Glassman's dead daughter felt like it was just a writer's ruse to give her something else to be part of. Having said all that, it does puzzle me why they chose to have Lea come back and make that actress a regular. But that could just me my bias speaking, because I found Lea as a character to be very much a 'tv character' character who is given a bunch of plot necessary traits, rather than someone who feels like a real person.

Heh. I was looking at the hashtag on twitter. Yeah, the shows that you can probably guess just from the writing are diverse are the ones proudly posting. There are loud crickets elsewhere. Legends of Tomorrow is the only Berlanti-verse show from the CW that posted theirs and I may be projecting but they look like a fun group so no wonder the show is so damned fun. Surprised by the new Suits spin off show. It looks like the majority of their writing room is POC. This Is Us is pretty diverse as well, including two black women (no wonder Beth has such great lines and the stuff with Deja's hair rang so true) The new football drama on The CW is also pretty diverse as well.

I remember the season Carter was killed off, CBS has been using 'major death' as their pre-season promo. Since I knew damn well it wasn't going to be either John or Finch, then it had to either Fusco or Carter. Most people were sure it was Fusco. But the minute I heard that Taraji got the sizzle reel at NYC ComicCon ahead of season 3 and everyone was buzzing about it and how bad ass Carter was in it, And then i saw how much extra face time she was getting on the show for that season, I knew, I knew she was the one being killed off.

Ugh. don't get me started on Twisted. Such wasted potential and they did Kylie dirty. I console myself that the universe tried to make a small reparation by putting her and Avan Jogia together that Tut miniseries so we could actually bask in their chemistry.

Heh. Speaking of American Vandal, it took me almost all of episode one to figure out it was a parody. In my defense... I wandered into the living room while my husband was watching it so I had no idea what it was. And my husband is an inveterate documentary watcher. That man loves a good documentary. He had just finished Ava Duernay's the 13th. So how was I to know he hadn't just started a new one? At any rate, I remember sitting there outraged that this asshole was getting a whole documentary because he was vandalizing his school. My husband laughed his head off while I was making my pissy comments. and then laughed harder at me once the light bulb went on.

This is fantastic. For the record I have never read a Jodi Picoult book, but that is only because I can never make it past the blurbs. Every time one comes out I pick it up and read the blurb thinking "maybe this one" but something always turns me away.

I believe they've never been able to recapture what made S1 so good because they've created no other antagonist other than Thawne that has had good motivation for their actions. I will always believe, if you give your villain a motivation that the audience can at least understand (if not agree with) then you've laid a great story foundation. The other part is to write the plot to fit the characters -- not the other way around. And finally cast an actor that the audience can sell it all. Thawne's motivation in S1 was great. He came back to change time and beat Barry. But something went wrong and he got stuck here and really wanted to get back home. His main focus was getting back home, he was wiling to do anything to get back home. When all was said and done, you can look back at the season and see all the steps, all the decisions Thawne/Wells made. And they made sense. Also Tom Cavanaugh & Matt Letcsher were perfect as the dual Thawnes: Cavanaugh as the who had to wear the mask and create the subterfuge to make his plan work and Letscher as the Thawne with the gloves off who finally revealed himself when he no longer had to hide. Meanwhile S2 Zoom's motivations were all over the place. First he was sending just meta-humans to kill Barry. Why? I think it was a 'There can be only one!' Highlander thing only for speedsters? Then with no explanation he needed Barry's speed so no more killing Barry, just keep kidnapping people to get his speed. And then? He just wanted to the rule world because he had grown up in an orphanage where they gave him electroshock therapy? And while Teddy Sears is a nice looking man, his Zoom had all the charisma of a potato. S3 had Savitar. Which turned out to bean evil version of Barry himself and his big motivation was... nobody on the team liked me anymore so now I am so bitter I have to become a God? Yeah. No. S4 DaVoe had the potential to be just as good as Thawne. He and Marlize had chemistry to burn. And Neil Sandilands were excellent. The set up was perfect. But then they bungle it all up with his motivation: He just wanted everybody to be dumb? Even worse, his need to first create and then steal the powers of 12 metas was so ridiculous that even Bond villains with their overly elaborate plants would be like "dude that is just too extra."

I am right there with you. Was purely flummoxed how he got the Tonight show gig. He comes off as rather juvenile to me. And I don't know if it this is unpopular opinion or not, but I also hated how he'd constantly break on SNL during a skit. I know some people found it charming or just funny in a "well it is Jimmy Fallon' *shrug* way. But I found it annoying. The 'More Cowbell' skit, I can forgive because that shit was funny. The sight gag of Will Farell's gut hanging out of that too tight shirt all by itself is funny. But there were times when he'd break and what he was giggling over wasn't even remotely funny. By contrast, I loved it when somebody like Tim Conway or Carole Burnett would break because they were so top tier and when they broke it felt so organic that it became part of the bit itself. But for Fallon it seemed after awhile to be disingenuous and a little too precious.

I read that article yesterday and I found it very interesting and illuminating. It it hard enough to break into writing/producing at a network and then the added minefields POC have to navigate to make themselves comfortable and to make other people comfortable. I found this quote particularly telling: It also confirms what everybody already knew. ABC specifically wanted to woo the Trump/Red state viewers and that is why they green-lit Rosanne. And you can't help but see the karma here in that in the end, Roseanne is the one who ended up giving them a bigger PR headache than if they had gone ahead and aired the episode of Black-ish. And episode that was completed but that no one will ever see, so will probably grow mythical in the re-telling. In the end it sounds like he and network tv were just not a great fit. I never thought about him one way or the other as a person outside of his role as the writer or creator of Back-ish, but I actually liked reading his perspective and respect that he seems philosophical about everything rather than bitter.

They really should. It is excellent casting. I mentioned she looks like she could be their kid biologically back in when she first appeared in the crossover episode when we were all speculating who she was. Someone on twitter pointed out that JPK is actually older than Candice and Grant. Which just tickles me. I wonder what age Nora is supposed to be in this? JPK has a pretty youthful face so she could believably play any age from late teens (19-ish) to mid-twenties. But it would be a hoot if they played with the age thing so that Nora is either the same age or older than the 2018 version of her parents. It helps that Candice and Grant also look younger than their bio ages.

I just finished Scout's Progress by Sharon Lee and Steve Miler. I loved the heroine who used the power of her mathematical genius as her exit plan from an abusive domestic situation. And it was a space opera to boot!

So I just finished binge watching Midnight, Texas on Hulu. The show is cheese to the max but it was a fun binge full of pretty people. Most of the characters/actors I really enjoyed. And even though I thought the show had a high cheese factor, the storytelling and the entire main plot arc over the whole season was actually deployed really well. But then there is a character named Creek. She is the love interest of the main character. He falls in love with her like a nanosecond after meeting her and I have no idea why. She has no personality. She soo bland. I mean, cat on the show had more personality than she did. She had a really good story arc and I felt nothing for or from her during it. The actress did not sell me on anything. I ended up hating her so hard because we had to spend time on her (lack of) emotions and I felt like the main hero guy was wasted on her.

Yes. I agree they did not expect it. I should have said they inadvertently sabotaged their OTP. I believe that they felt that simply casting a character named 'Laurel Lance' that they'd thought they'd have the luxury to play with the ship. But they underestimated the lack of chemistry between their pair Also, I have to admit, while I had no particular animus toward KC or Laurel, the writing did her no favors. Her writing was humorless and lackluster and no matter how good an actress KC is (and yes, I believe she is a better actress than EBR who I think is a collection of tics) she still couldn't rise above her material. The usurpation of Laurel by Felicity definitely felt like mde the possibility tat Iris would be shuffled off a real threat. As you point out, they had already set the precedent so she was never safe just because she was Iris west. But unlike KC, Candice was able to shine past some of the more questionable writing for her character and she and Grant had loads more chemistry than KC/SA had.

Arrow did manage sabotage their OTP couple successfully, though. Laurel's Black Canary is the canonical love interest for The Arrow and she was clearly set up that way when the show first began. But that got all turned around and Felicity became the leading lady. In the comics she is a minor character who has never had any sort of romantic relationship with Oliver. For WestAllen fans, 2A is hard to watch. I remember being resigned that she was gonna go the way of Laurel. Also, I remember being on twitter and Iris fans being pissed to the point of counting how many lines of dialogue she had in any given episode and calling out the CW. The course correct on 2B was so noticeable that I can't help but think that no matter what AJK was trying to pull, that he got reined in finally and luckily neither Cailtin nor Patty managed to become Felicity 2.0. Funny you mention Sleepy Hollow because Sam Chalsen was an EP on SH and one of the ones I hold responsible for the mess it became. Him and Meztner both. When I read that Metzner was on Iron Fist and that they were messing up the Misty canon I wasn't the least bit surprised.