Black Knight

I got Melissa. I was a bit surprised - I thought it might be Gregory (was he actually an option? everyone here has been a Janine or Barbara or Melissa or Ava so far) - but I can also see it.

In regards to Alli, a few of the girls had a discussion about whether to ice her out or not, and even that was a split vote (and while Jackie wasn't part of the discussion, it was noted that she would be a nay vote). Tai acted totally alone in breaking Allie's ankle, and I honestly don't think she did it on purpose. She thought if she were hard on Allie during practice, Allie might be provoked into improving, and there was a short bit before the leg-breaking where Allie actually did improve, and Tai noted it and was pleased that her plan was working. So while she tripped Allie intentionally, I don't think she imagined that Allie would break her leg. Tai was just continuing with her plan since it seemed to be working. I can see the show potentially getting through the rest of the wilderness stuff in S2. That's because there's quite a lot they need to cover about the immediate aftermath of the wilderness. At some point it's going to get very hard to keep up the present-day storylines without filling in that period of time, and I'm sure they want to actually show that stuff with the younger actors rather than have the older ones just tell it. And not all showrunners want to keep a series going as long as possible - Lost and GoT are famous examples.

Yes. To be clear, I don't think it would have been a particularly happy marriage, but it's not uncommon for people who aren't particularly happy together to still stay together, for a variety of reasons. If Charlotte and Trey had gone through with the adoption, in particular, which as kristen111 said was really Bunny's problem, I think at that point Charlotte would have been extremely reluctant to divorce.

I thought Edwards meant over the window of time of the Steelers' existence. Popes go back nearly 2000 years while the NFL goes back fewer than a hundred years, so it wouldn't make any sense as a comparison otherwise. But when looked at for the window of time of the Steelers' existence, it's quite meaningful considering that popes generally serve until their deaths while NFL coaching positions can be turnstile-like. I will be rooting for an Eagles-Bengals Super Bowl!

I too didn't quite know what we were to make of Janine eating ribs on her date. But I'd certainly like to think that she decided a man who would be bothered by that wasn't worth her time and that she should just be upfront about who she is. Gregory's seen her eating ribs and still lusts after her, so why should she really take his advice about that seriously? Maurice seemed a bit bemused, but not turned off. Also, that comment about Maurice obviously having disposable income really got under Gregory's skin. This makes the fourth episode this season where they've had something relating to Gregory's lack of money being an issue for him. I continue to think that they're setting up for him to make some kind of move within the school.

I'm not a big fan of musical episodes either, but also love both Xena's and Buffy's. I think part of that ties into what you wrote about the timing of each episode within the overall narrative. There's an organic quality to that which I think is crucial. With a lot of series, their musical episode(s) feels like TPTB just said, "Oh, we have multiple actors in the cast who happen to be great professional singers, and viewers like musical episodes, so we should do one too." And it's something of a throwback to the old days of musical episodes before X:WP did theirs and Buffy followed, in that while they do follow the model X:WP established of doing a musical episode that actually moves the plot along, they're not locating a point within the narrative arc where it truly benefits from being done as a musical. But when I look at what Bitter Suite and OMWF accomplished within their shows' respective narrative arcs, it's hard for me to see how the same could have been done as well through the regular episode format.

While Charlotte's second marriage has made her far happier than her first marriage ever could have, it is interesting to contemplate an alternate universe in which Bunny dropped dead of a heart attack shortly after Trey and Charlotte's wedding. They might have been able to make things work enough to stay married.

I was speaking beyond S3, which I don't consider to be a later season as it's still in the first half of the series. Maternal Instincts is an interesting inflection point for Callisto, because she gets exactly what she wanted and learns that it doesn't change anything for her. Right after this was her double episode arc on H:TLJ (Armageddon Now Pt. 1 and 2), and I will forever and always be annoyed that the plot in the second wasn't on X:WP instead of H:TLJ. It's hard to make full sense of Callisto going forward on X:WP without having seen it, and by S3 a lot of the people watching X:WP had either quit or never bothered to watch H:TLJ.

Callisto was initially a cop-out on the show's part. Xena obviously was responsible for much slaughter in her past heading up an army, and Callisto far from the only child orphaned as a result. But when the show introduced a victim to confront her on it, they made her crazy and evil so that she would have no sympathy and viewers would want Xena to take her out. I know it was the first season, and the show was doubtless nervous about retaining likability and sympathy for Xena. In later seasons they got more comfortable about that, most notably with Cyane, who's allowed to be legitimately disgruntled without being evil. Callisto and Xena's stories for why they became evil are not really dissimilar, in that both came out of a grievance over people they loved being killed. But we met Xena one episode before she decides to turn to good, and then spend an entire series on her redemption. Callisto has a less straightforward journey, and it's interesting how her goals change a few times. It's unfortunate that a key episode for her aired on H:TLJ instead of X:WP.

To the extent that we know anything, I also favor Bundchen. When they married there was no reason to think that he'd still be playing at age 45. Nearly all NFL players retire in their 20s and 30s. And I don't think it's coincidental that she especially pressed the point once their son entered his teen years. It's different with his son with Moynahan. Jack never experienced his parents living together, and the logistics - both of his parents not being together for his entire life, and of them sometimes living in different areas - probably makes it easier for him not to hold it against his dad for not seeing him that much. And crucially, Moynahan married way back in 2008, so he's still had a male parental figure in his primary home for most of his childhood, including those important teen years. Meanwhile Brady can be the Disneyland dad who bonds with his son over them both playing football. But Brady's kids with Bundchen? They know that he chooses to spend nearly all his waking hours on football over spending time with them, and there's been no stepfather to pick up the slack. From things that have been said, it seems clear the kids feel it now that they are older, and that Bundchen is reacting partly to that. There's been talk about Brady going to Vegas, and I can't see it for a lot of reasons. Thank goodness. If Tuck Rule Brady became the Raiders' QB, I'd probably have to take the season off from rooting for them. But I expect he'll go to a more complete team.

An online search didn't turn anything up for me, and given everything we've seen from Discovery since they took over HBO, it's hard for me to imagine them handing out a 2-season renewal to AJLT before the second season has even aired.

Thanks for confirming that the seeds look different! I could see Jacob emptying out the packages prior to planting. That wouldn't be a problem for an experienced gardener like yourself or Gregory, but for Jacob it would be.

That part was confusing to me. Even if Jacob cannot tell the difference between the two, I can't imagine that Barbara does not either. She's older, she's a mom, she's done her share of cooking. So I wondered if this was about confusing the seeds, as in Jacob handled planting them and of course Barbara can't see what went into the dirt. I haven't rewatched the original episode where Jacob and Barbara started the garden, but I don't remember them splitting up the garden and saying Jacob would be responsible for one half and Barbara would be responsible for the other. They seemed to be working together, so Barbara wouldn't be staying out of Jacob's half and thus not noticing that he was mixing up the two greens. So it seems to me like it had to be a planting issue, especially since Gregory directed this specifically at Jacob and not Barbara.

The captions read "Jordan Peele" for that part. Definitely intentional. To be successful at fantasy football, like Ava, Melissa and Mr. Johnson, you have to pick up players across the league, not just stock up on your own team's players. It's a reason some people don't like playing fantasy football, since it forces you to hope that opposing players on rival teams do well. I wasn't surprised at how Ava broke up that fight. You can tell she's been in some scrums and knows what she's doing. Janine I'm sure has never been in a physical fight in her life. Last episode Gregory said that his lack of money was still being an issue in his romantic life, and in this episode his dad mentioned that Gregory could take Amber out for a nice dinner if he went to work with his dad. Interesting that the show is making this a consistent theme. Gregory is obviously not leaving the school, but it feels like the show is setting up for something. We still have that loose end with that rich guy (Barbara's former student) who wants to take over and change the school.

I thought it was kinda funny the way they just couldn't turn themselves off. And then Vera gets lucky at the end. LOL

It'll let Damar Hamlin watch the game, so I'm good with it. He's in the eastern time zone, and he probably can't stay up as late as night games can go, and if somehow he did/was allowed to and the Bills won, he'd be so excited he'd probably have trouble going to sleep for hours afterwards.

I don't really know if the Bills see it that way. I looked at some of the online Bills forums after that game to see what they were saying during the game itself. Fans were unanimous that the players shouldn't have to resume and that the team should just forfeit the remainder of the game if the NFL tried to make them play. Nobody cared about what it would mean for the standings or the playoffs. Of course, obviously emotions were especially high then, but now there's the good news about Hamlin, which is the most important thing. Teams aren't doomed in the playoffs if they don't get the #1 seed or home field advantage. If the Bills don't do well in the playoffs, it's going to be far more because their heads got fucked with by watching their teammate almost die than because they didn't get the #1 seed, and there's nothing anyone can do to change that the Bills went through that traumatic experience. The Bengals are fighting the NFL's thought of a coin flip vs. going by winning percentage for the site of the wild card game. They could make it moot by beating Baltimore this weekend, and ordinarily I'd favor them to win. But, like the Bills, they're traumatized by watching someone almost die feet from them, and again, there's just nothing anyone can do to change that.

So the NFL has apparently decided to cancel the game. This CBS Sports article just posted lays out some scenarios they're kicking around to try to make it a bit fairer to the teams most negatively affected by the cancellation.

CBS Sports has an article up about the available options for resolving the Bills/Bengals game. In a nutshell, the least disruptive option is to cancel the game and decide team standings based on winning percentage. And this option does exist in the rulebook.

That feels a bit to me like the league throwing the refs (who are never popular) under the bus. The refs were on the field watching Hamlin being given CPR, just like the players. They are human beings, same as the players and the fans, and my guess is that like everyone else in the stadium they were standing numbly, crying, praying, hugging or something of that nature, not worrying about needing to get the game going again within a certain time frame. I really don't think the refs were giving the teams a "5 minutes and then we resume play!" instruction unless their boss, the NFL, specifically told them to do so. Looking at their conversations with the coaches, it did not feel like that came from them, and that they felt like it was totally understandable that the coaches wanted to take their teams off the field instead - plus the coaches were not showing any signs of arguing with the refs or vice versa. That decision has all the feel of someone who wasn't present at the stadium.

It has been a very long time since I read the books, and while I've read the first more times than I can count, I've only read the second 2-3 times, and the third once. (The diminishing sensawunda aspect is why.) So was the Authority ever God?

I can understand the NFL having some trouble making up their minds quickly about what to do. But somebody at the NFL did make a decision: "5 minutes and then we'll resume play!" and that's pretty egregious. It's hard to believe that they didn't have the broadcast on in their office, and just looking at the players should have made it very obvious that even if they could somehow resume playing anytime that night, it sure wasn't going to be within the next five minutes. My guess is that initially the coaches intervened and told the refs that 5 minutes was impossible, and pulled their teams off the field. And then in the locker rooms the players and coaches decided they definitely were not going to play again that night and informed the NFL - who'd probably been hoping that the teams would be willing after a little time in the locker rooms.

Yeah, I don't fault Burrow or Diggs for anything. There are always going to be a few people who try to follow through when told that they have to continue. You could see how Diggs's exhortations had zero effect on his teammates. They just wandered away looking as sad and shell-shocked as before. The NFL sucks for even trying to resume play. It's obvious the coaches and team leaders said it wasn't going to happen and shut it down, no matter what the NFL is trying to claim now.

Joe Burrow had his helmet on and was making throws to somebody who was off-camera. So I definitely feel like he was given the "5 minutes to warm up and then we start playing again" instruction that the NFL is now denying. Every other player around that point in time seemed to be ignoring it though - helmets off, standing or kneeling numbly, or crying.

It was said that it's the opening of the window that creates a spectre, and spectres are soul-suckers. Nor is a spectre confined to eating only one soul. How many souls would ultimately be consumed for the sake of even one tryst? Not worth it. It was said that there were many knife-bearers before Will. Will was careful about closing windows, but others weren't. My take was that only the Knife Bearer can close windows, while the knife is in existence. But when the knife is broken, there isn't a Knife Bearer, because there's no knife. So the breaking of the knife meant angels could now close existing windows. And while the knife could be reforged, I figure the pieces will be dumped in the trash, and even if someone did come into possession of all the pieces, they wouldn't know there's any point to reforging them into a knife, nor how to go about doing that correctly. There's no shortage of knives. It was a bit of a jolt not to see Ruth Wilson's name in the opening credits. I liked the conversation between Will and Lyra about her parents - what it was that she sensed or thought, how she felt about them, how much she doesn't know or understand about their lives and choices. And crucially she doesn't know that they didn't get deaths, they got fates worse than death. One thing that's so interesting about this series is how it resisted the temptation to give Lyra and her parents real final scenes between them before the latter went off to their eternal limbo. Lyra and Asriel never even saw each other again after the S1 finale. And while Mrs. Coulter sent her daemon to Lyra, their last actual conversation wasn't so much a conversation as Lyra fleeing her mother. Mary Malone's story was well done, and I liked the twist of her love having been a woman. It really added layers. I'm glad she got to see her daemon. Speaking of, I already liked Will, but nothing could have endeared me to him more than learning his daemon is a cat. (I found the chemistry between the actors credible romantic chemistry and I do think the show had been indicating for a while that that's where things were going.) And at least he gets to keep his daemon with him, and reunite with his mother. I felt for Lyra; she got back with Pan, but otherwise it felt lonely on her end of things with Will and Mary off to their world and Roger of course gone. I wish they had at least shown her being welcomed back to Oxford by the Master of Jordan College (unless the actor has passed away). One tidbit about the captions: When someone was speaking off-camera, the captions would include the full name of the speaker, e.g. Will Parry, Roger Parslow...but with Lyra, it was "Lyra Silvertongue," not "Lyra Belacqua."