DearEvette

I am looking forward to the reunion. I want to hear what Will has to say for himself. His mother was a piece of work. But I guess he was just immature in the end. He really fooled me. Veronica was classy but also I am glad she called him out in her talking head. I did not watch the first LIB Brazil (because I think the only option we had was dubbed and the voice overs didn't have a lot of emotional inflection) so I can't compare this season to last. But I was surprised how involved the hosts were during the weddings. They came in and gave advice and were part of the wedding party/ceremony almost as if they were family. It was weird to me. I will say I liked how different the weddings all were. The color schemes and the venues were lovely. I liked Will/Veronica's sunflower yellow, but thought his suit looked like tan sadness. Robert's blue suit -- the details of it as the camera honed in -- was gorgeous. So many nicely tailored bits. Alisson's brugundy suit was also really nice. And I am SOOO glad Thamara got rid of that stupid looking zipper in her dress. It was the one thing I hated about her dress. I was surprised that Robert and Flavia got married. Very happy that Alisson and Thamara got married. Her dad was a hoot! I really liked him. He was a great palate cleanser from Will's mother..

Yeah his wardrobe is fab! I'd wear those plaid suits in a heartbeat. I am a sucker for a well tailored suit. But I love how campily unconcerned his is about their feelings for the murdered people. he's basically:

Up to Ep 5: Alan Cumming: "I am a less butch Agatha Christie." "This is going to divulge in chaos". <-- yeah I don't think "divulge" is the word you wanted. "Brandi was starting to become a cancer of rumors." I actually liked the music bells challenge in Ep3. It did require them to remember seeing random objects around the castle. The spinning wheel challenge was pretty stupid, the riddle in the church challenge seems like it was a good idea but in the end it made no sense Since all the money goes in the same pot what does it matter if one team didn't contribute? It would be different if say the losing team was told that someone from the losing team would be on the murder list that night. This is an Episode 3 spoiler: That said, some of my Kate love is starting to wear off. She is still funny, but she seems so completely over it. And she's letting her dislike of Rachel get too personal. I love how Cirie is always, always, constantly calculating how she can use anything, anybody does or says for the benefit of the traitors. Also she played Kyle perfectly. Meanwhile, Cody is catching feelings about murdering people and it is affecting his judgement. I would have thought Christian would have been the biggest bungler of the three, but Cody made a rather stupid strategic in the presence of someone who really on the ball. Quentin impresses me. He is playing a very good game and being the right amount to smart, vocal and trustworthy. I think his defense of Michael went a long way to making people trust him. Shout out to Fergus for being such a quiet, steady presence. I love how he is like groundskeeper Willie, but never says a word.

At episode 2. Kate has a fun energy. I like her. Her talking heads are great. Agreed. The traitors need to really be on their guard around her. I know proper names come in all sorts of spelling, but "Jerryldean" and "Geryldeane" ? And I think someone spelled Michael as 'Michel'. LOL. I thought the mission was cleverly done. Simple enough yet did require some good teamwork. I will say that this reminded me to never volunteer for anything without knowing what I am volunteering for. The "rescuees" fate would have done me in. I am mildly claustrophobic and being buried alive would have taken me over the top. Y'all I would be a wreck! I liked Michael in the prior ep, but this one he was annoying the hell out of me. I agree with Kate, there are appropriate times to advance your game and times when you need to be paying attention to the task in front of you. Also... it must be really cold in that castle they are all wearing coats all the time inside.

Airdate: 01/15/2023

Ok I finally finished Ep1. Oh Ryan Lochte. Bless His Heart. He so sweet and dumb. All he wants to do is find a hidden door. What will that accomplish Ryan? What? Except maybe you getting lost in a secret passage way. Cirie -- ohh. I have never watched her in anything but I've heard of her. And her stone face after being touched as a traitor was perfect. Even though it was what she wanted, she never even twitched! Early favorite for me. Meanwhile Christian is the exact opposite. Dude as grinning like an idiot. No poker face at all. I love how Cirie and Cody were not thrilled he was a fellow traitor. Her description of him as a labradoodle was perfect. Seriously, Alan Cummings -- even the way he said 'A quarter of a meeelion dollars" was just like Dr. Evil. He is cracking me up. I also like Andie. The one who was so unimpressed with the 'celebrities' she strikes me as very intelligent. I am tickled the traitors were given cult murder robes to scheme in. They are in a Scottish castle so I guess the visual reference to the Macbeth witches had to be deliberate.

Chili mac and cheese

I am the exact opposite. I like comedies, but for me the re-watch value just isn't there. I think I've re-watched fully Brooklyn 99 and maybe Happy Endings and Playing House. More typically I will watch select episodes of my favorites. But dramas have my heart. Lord knows I am no fan of dark gritty dramas (I do admit I think Breaking Bad is just excellent tv) but before they took over our tvs, there were a lot of lighter dramas and genre shows. David E. Kelley's entire 90s oeuvre threaded that needle. Meanwhile I think I've re-watched Leverage (the OG) like 5 times all the way through. Eureka, Psych and Freaks and Geeks are super fun re-watches all the way through. And then I'll do select seasons of some others, like the first three seasons of Fringe, Person of Interest, Killjoys, Scandal, Justified, Endeavour, and Alias. I would LOVE for some gone too soon shows to appear on streaming like Wonderfalls and Big Shots (the one with Dylan McDermott (or maybe it was Dermot Mulroney), Michael Vartan and Nia Long.) At some point I plan to re-watch Queen's Gambit. I watched it during Covid lockdown binge fog when I watched so. many. shows. So I think I want to do a re-watch to take my time and savor it a bit.

I literally just saw that part and had to pause and say 'Girl, whut?' Oh honey, no. I don't watch a lot of reality tv, so the reality people aren't resonating with me. The only person I've heard of was of course Ryan Lochte but not because of reality tv but because of the Olympics. Also, Cirie from Survivor. Her reputation as a player has trickled out even to me who hasn't watched Survivor since season 3. So the reality show people are just as anonymous to me as the regulars. Meanwhile some Big Brother girl swears she's an icon. Girl, I guess... I love that Alan Cumming decided to dial his accent up to 20. LOL. Everybody else is on a reality show. He is starring in an Austin Powers movie as the villain.

I'd be curious about the reason for the tweet. Context is everything, With Brendan and Terry we know they were both actually sexually assaulted. So their experience is different. National statistics say that 91% of sexual assault victims are women vs. 9% who are men. It simply isn't something that normally rises to the forefront of men's consciousness like it does a woman's. And women of course, even when they are not actually assaulted, often have to be hyper vigilant about the possibility of it with street harassment and men becoming aggressive and or violent when rejected. Again not something men have to often confront or think about. So with that tweet, it only works in context if he was responding to something about assault. If he wasn't, then it coming from nowhere and specifying 'any man' who touches him versus 'anyone' who touches him, it does come off as sounding rather gay panic-y.

“I’m a pacifist. You mess with me, imma pass a fist across yo face.” What a fantastic episode. The quips were flying fast and furious. Barb and Jacob's reaction to learning that their garden is actually Gregory's Secret Garden was everything. Probably my favorite scene of the episode. Between Barbara's alliterative outrage and the gasp/hurt faces Jacob was making, it was perfect. I liked that both Eddie men sent a WTF look at the camera at one of Ava's lines. LOL a Janine being shorter than 8th graders. "Hate to see my Queens fight, but I thought Miss Teagues was gonna get molly-whopped." Man. I haven't heard that term in a minute. Everyone can agree that Toy Story 3 is one you just can't handle the re-watch.

Minx lives!!

Oh forgot to mention in my earlier post... The romance novels that Carole (I think this name I got right... LOL) had on her shelves were mostly fake, except the first one, it was a Mary Balogh novel that I actually read (quite good). Also I love that Harry being a 'LumberPrince' was a turn on for the ladies even with that stupid looking beard. I also liked the sight gag of the gumbo being delivered by invisible elves to Sophie as she worked in the food truck.

Airdate: 01/11/2023

LOL, bless you for using real names. I did not have the energy to go bck and look for names and I was posting from memory. And agreed about this being a look at a possible new pair of Leverage Int'l recruits.

This was a nice change up of the formula. I do admit in the first... what..15 mins? I was missing the team. But it was nice to see how they operate from the perspective of someone on the outside who doesn't know what is happening. The assistant (yeah I forgot her name already too...) was a sharp little thing. I like that she immediately copped to Sophie's fake name. You never know who you are gonna run into who knows character trivia. There is a mystery series I read (Fox and O'Hare) where they run cons to catch thieves and Fox (the the reformed thief) always uses names for 60s-80s era tv show characters (Merrill Stubing or Thomas Banacek). Those probably wouldn't tip a millennial but a Gen-x might get it. I liked the fact that even with Parker's instructions, she wasn't able to miraculously crack a safe, and we got to see Parker slip down and open it for her. My one question about this ep was how did the Leverage team get the job? It sounds like the original victim, Sara didn't know they were on the job since she thanked the two regular employees for helping her, not the team? I am wondering if she sought them out and they were on recon and hadn't officially accepted the job when they realized the new plucky assistant was doing all their work for them and they decided to 'help' her out?

Yeah, boys the age of those in Jacob's class would probably gravitate to a personality like Budden. It would be interesting if the show kept up with the podcast idea to see who girls that age would gravitate toward. I have no idea as I am not around kids that age anymore and most especially girls (I have two sons so I am more tuned into what male children/young men would gravitate toward). Also am not a podcast listener very much. Like most people I was riveted by Serial. But besides that the only podcast I ever listened to regularly was Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period podcast. I loved that one, the format was great and it was often so informative and funny. And pulling this back to AE, so far we've had the step show and now the podcast and teacher involved extra-curriculars with the students. I hope they do more. Have they put on a school play yet? That would be cool to see.

LOL, right? AM radio was basically podcasts before podcasts were invented. NPR simply adapted their radio stuff to the new technology that had been created and was to allow anyone to reach an audience, not just well funded radio programs. But I could totally see Jacob thinking Ira Glass was the pioneer of podcasting. I mean, he thinks jumping on top of the desk cosplaying Robin Williams from Dead Poet's Society was a flex. He has a specific cultural perspective that is often at odds with his students' point of reference.

Yeah I feel like they get made quite a bit or something happens to blow their cover and the mark figures something ain't right. One I can think of off the top of my head is the one with the cars.... the Boost Job where Hardison/Parker are Nate/Sophie are working two separate marks. H&P are working the chop shop guy and N&S are working the front man in the car dealership who sells the cars. They never are seen together by either mark, but the car dealership guy figures out that Nate and Sophie are conning him and H&P are part of their team.

I think Hurley fits this, He was their original mark in that job but he wasn't the real bad guy and he got pulled into the con at first unwittingly but then for real.

Airdate: 01/08/2023

All Kelvin wanted was some orange juice. Heh. Cute scene. Tom is ridiculous. Eddie Cibrian is sliding into his silver fox years very nicely! Connor put in what looked liked 2 quarts of real maple syrup in his grocery cart. A quart of maple syrup can cost anywhere from $18.00 to $30.00. Even double coupons won't make up for that. Man, Lupe had her fictional back story at the ready. Much respect! Loved he end tag with Denise and Lupe being idle rich and continuing to annoy Connor. Fun episode.

I love that we are reminded of Gregory's utter disdain of pizza. I also love how many grammar school book titles got dropped throughout the episode in dialogue. It was like a scholastic book version of celebrity cameos. Melissa brought out the 'Youse' when she was giving her class their pep talk. She was fired up! But I loved her ending convo with Maya. Not Barbara with Miss Frizzle beef. LOL. Yeah, this kinda pissed me off. I hate the constant Janine-as-loser they go with. But I figure they needed to get her on that podcast. So that ultimately was why. But I wish they had done it cleanly and not another Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown. I thought the Jacob podcast storyline was interesting. Yet another way to highlight how a white teacher in a predominantly black school has to understand the culture of the students. To him, podcasts are of the Ira Glass variety and to them they are of the Joe Budden variety. It becomes both an age thing and a race/culture thing that constantly needs to be navigated. So true. Even with college aged kids. My God , some of the conversations I had with parents when I worked in advising were ... yikes. Luckily my own kids was just the opposite. My oldest kid when he was in the 7th-8th grade basically spoke to us in grunts and hand gestures. He had no time for us. But we'd go to parent-teacher conferences and the teachers would be like 'Oh he is such a polite young man. So intelligent. So insightful in his comments. I wish I had ten more like him." My husband and I would look at each other and be like... what wondrous stranger are they talking about? LOL I kinda call foul on the parents telling their kids they saw Janine and Gregory in the club. Unless those two students have younger siblings in Janine and/or Gregory's classes, most parents are not gonna know or pay attention to other teachers. They know the teachers of their kids. It would be one thing if Janine or Gregory had been at Abbott a long time and parents knew them from their longevity, but Janine had only been there, what, three years? And Gregory two. Gregory might stand out because he is male, black, young and handsome so a rarity in a school.. but unless you know someone really, really well, it takes a bit to place a name to a face when they are completely out of your normal context. I remember there was a librarian I'd see behind the desk of the public library where I would frequent regularly. But then I saw him, I think it was in a restaurant and while the face looked familiar I could not for the life of me remember where I knew him from. Until the next time I saw him in the library and then it clicked. And in J&G's case it was a crowded dark club. So I take piece of gossip that as complete plot convenience.

Well dang. I saw discussion about this on twitter this morning. Apparently it was announced two years ago that a romance author, Susan Meachan, had committed suicide, partly due to online harassment and bullying by other authors. However, yesterday she posted on her facebook saying that she was really still alive and that the fake death notice was done by her family who felt she needed to step away. WTF? Who even does that? Also I have never heard of her before today or ever read any of her work so I feel like a dispassionate bystander. But man... Here is an article about it.

We just watched the first episode of LI Brazil (S2). My husband has a huge crush on Thamara. LOL Also I was so offended on Samantha's behalf for being used a messenger for William. But I LOVED her in the end and how she handled it. She was great and a lot of fun in that segment.