PamelaMaeSnap

I just set the DVR to record what I THINK are all of (or most of? Or at least a LOT of) episodes from this new season in the next few days so since my daughter is 3000 miles away (and will actually be on the other side of the world on Mother's Day so I don't expect a call) I plan on treating myself to a weekend-long Mother's Day binge and that will absolutely be my highlight. Already bought a pint of ice cream and a bottle of gluggable wine. Then I can come back and weigh in on old vs. new etc.!

Well, it definitely won't be one-liter bottles of (blurred Coca-Cola) and (blurred 7Up) and boxes of cold pizza (still gobsmacked that the bride who kept gushing about how HER wedding would put all the others to shame served that! I think she may have racked up the lowest score I've ever seen on the show ... if the lowest possible score is a 30 (with 9s for food, gown and venue and then 1s for experience), I think she had in the low 30s.

SQUEEEEE for re-finding this thread AND learning about the app! I recorded about 10 older episodes just to get back in the swing and am down to a handful so now I know where to go for old fun and schadenfreude and ... well, maybe a few ideas to stick in my back pocket, not to mention getting a SLIGHT idea of costs since the Snappy family may be footing (part of, at least) the bill for a wedding in the next year or so ... fortunately, I can say with some certainty that the bride is pretty low maintenance and I suspect would be mortified at much of the over-the-top stuff I devour on the show. (Open bar, good music, great food will be the three priorities which is fine with me ... maybe maybe maybe I'll get a tiny bit of input or at least get to tag along for bridal outfit -- I don't say "gown" because it would not surprise me if it turned out to be "bridal jumpsuit.") Waving hi to old friends! I think I was still JazzieCazzie when we started following along with this back on TWoP.

Laughing at the comments about the original "Jungle Love" video and MTV ... brings back a lot of memories. Though MTV launched in the late summer of 1981, we didn't get it on our cable system until very early 1982 (though "Jungle Love" came out a few years later, I believe) ... right around the time I started working with a music PR firm that handled, among others, Prince and Morris Day and the Time (I still have my "What Time Is It?" LP -- I just LOVED him, his whole style). I'm a little surprised none of the girls tackled "Nasty Girl" by Vanity 6, the other "big dog" in Prince's crew and their biggest hit, IIRC, written by Prince himself.

Praying they do something similar next week and make it one Carrie song and one song in another category. I couldn't name one Carrie song, period. She bores me to tears. If they make everyone do TWO Carrie songs I'll know the fix is in for Grabby Gabby and probably won't watch any further ... I'll just wait and follow Maddie and Michael on their post-show careers thanks to social media.

Exactly. I confess to not being a huge Regina Spektor fan even though I think I should be ... but absolutely in that category. I could see Maddie's voice and songs being a music supervisor's dream. She'll be all over Grey's Anatomy Season 20 (I hope). I'm probably biased because she reminds me a lot (vocally and in her music style and choices) of Little Snappy who pursued the singer-songwriter route for a few years before deciding she'd rather be on the other side of the biz, the one with just a little less pressure and uncertainty.

Sorry if you guys misunderstood ... yes, that's exactly what I thought she meant ... "it's me leaving" ... I do think she has some humility hidden under all the schtick so she handled her being voted off with some class. I really thought we'd be stuck with her until T3 (I still think Gabby is going to win it all because the first time I saw her I thought a) blerg, I cannot STAND her and b) she's going to win it all). I love Michael but I think Maddie is the contestant who can really be a huge star, albeit in her own genre which tends to not have "superstahs." I loves me my singer-songwriters who have gorgeous voices but make songs their own dawgs (for me for you) and she does that.

You mean, when she was pointing to herself and saying "it's me, it's me" when the final 3 were standing there?

Absolutely LOVED the books ... plan on re-reading all of them before watching ... also, not for nothing, but my FAVORITE book by him was not actually part of the TotC series but rather a novel called "Maybe the Moon," a fictionalized account of the life of Tamara De Treaux, one of the three actors who actually "played" ET in the movie. She was a friend of Maupin's and gave him her diaries to use as the basis for the book. She passed away in 1990.

Are they down to a small enough group that they'll start adding group numbers/medleys? Assuming 1999, Raspberry Beret and maybe Little Red Corvette would be in that medley so no one would seem to be "favored." I would have loved I Wanna Be Your Lover. I'm not sure about Cade doing Jungle Love either, mainly because I always felt that what really "made" that song for me (for me, for you) was Morris Day's mannerisms and hip swinging moves. Can't quite imagine Cade doing anything but dork it up. Jurnee could actually have a "moment" with Kiss. Overall, I still think we're at the point where people have their favorites and are going to vote for who they're going to vote for even if they got out there and sang "Mary Had A Little Lamb" (I guess they'll save that for Paul McCartney night though).

I can't help but wonder if the "Cade-and-Gabby" reveal was made to actually deter votes for one or the other (or maybe both)? Girls (of any age) with crushes on Cade who are power-voting might lose some interest if he's already "sorry, girls, he's taken" and if they were also voting for Gabby this might dissuade them. Or maybe that's wishful thinking since I don't think either one deserves to be in T2 (I'm still M&M, Michael and Maddie). Surprised no one did "Baby Mine." Thought Maddie would have crushed that. And I already miss Marcio.

Thanks for clarifying that, Dev ... I was definitely inferring and figured it might have been incorrectly or incompletely since no one else had mentioned it!

Please forgive if either this has already been addressed or I am misremembering the scene, but re: Paige going ballistic in the bar scene and having that fight, it seems what "set her off" was the guy's friend's comment that "she's not even that hot" or something along those lines (and not sure if she beat up the guy she'd been flirting with to start with because he didn't defend her hottitude or because she was just on a roll). In other words, poor widdle Paigie's feelings were hurt (because how could everyone not find her absolutely fabulous) and thus she beat the shit out of them. NOT a really good attribute for a would-be spy (regardless of how much she drank) and I noticed she didn't tell Elizabeth what the guys said to set her off. I'm guessing Liz wouldn't have been pleased.

Thanks, Umbelina ... honestly did not realize that line should be tagged! But I understand now that if it wasn't shown in S1, it needs to be tagged even if it isn't a "spoiler" per se! I DO wonder, since we know she has been involved in writing S2, whether Atwood will release a book that covers this season. Anyone know?

I'll also add that it will be very interesting to see where they go re: the book when it comes to the very last chapter/afterword, the lecture given by the professor on the history of Gilead. (BTW, when my daughter read the book she didn't even realize that was part of it ... stopped after the end of the "regular" part and I had to tell her "GO BACK AND READ THE LAST PART AND THEN WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT"). I'm curious how much of that they'll get to, and how much of it will be portrayed in S2 as it was in the book.

Thank you for doing the homework, Umbelina ... I get the rare opportunity to tell hubby he was wrong about something (film-related, no less!)

Hubby called this out immediately as well!

Something was said during the episode that the women in the colonies out there in the field were "digging for duck eggs" but there was so much input to keep up with I'm not sure what it meant ... anyone want to posit a guess (or actually know, LOL)?

Yes. I always pictured her in the book as a middle-aged-not-quite-old-yet Shelley Winters. And the Commander is described as being in his 60s, I believe, with gray hair and that kind of "soft" face and paunch. Definitely a quibble that would not be an issue for those who hadn't read the book, just a mental adjustment I had to make!

Ditto that but squirmy child of 58. Since we saw her being tagged in the pastiche at the beginning I figured out what was coming and I knew why she had to do it but I'm glad I ALSO knew to cover my eyes. She did, however, manage to give herself a faboo haircut with one chop of the scissors. Wish I could do that (without the ear cartilage part). Quick couple of thoughts ... I think I may have to rewatch (painful as it may be) these two eps again to get the full "understanding" (and for that matter, since I'm retired and have no life, and more specifically have some profound memory retention/loss issues that are medical, as much as I loved S1 and read the book three times before it, I am considering re-bingewatching S1 just to help fill in some blanks. I'm guessing 1-2 eps a day I can get 'er done. The first five minutes of S2 E1 was among the most intense show opens -- or scenes, for that matter -- that I can recall. I have to give some SERIOUS SERIOUS props to the unnamed unknown and possibly uncredited handmaids in that scene who just wrenched my heart. And as a longtime baseball writer, having it set at Fenway was an amazing touch. I find myself really on edge of my seat (figuratively, since I watch lying in bed) ... LOVED S1 but I had also read the book three times before it aired (and passed on my dog-eared copy to my daughter a few years ago) so I had a basic idea of where it was going and my main comments and thoughts were more about things like "hmmmm, I didn't picture Serena or the Commander that young," etc. Now all bets are off, and I'm just hooked (no pun intended). So two questions here ... the Commander's Wife (Marisa Tomei? I knew she looked familiar but, again, memory) in the Colonies ... have we seen her before in S1 or is she a new character? And one of the women in the Colonies that we see quite a bit in shots ... older, blondish short hair ... is that June's mom?

My iTunes probably reflects my taste in music pretty accurately, especially since I'm guessing 90% of the songs are from another decade if not another century (or milennium, if you want to be accurate) LOL ... A TON of old-school R&B from the 60s through 90s (lesser 90s but I love New Jack Swing) and primarily male vocals ... and a TON of acoustic melodic singer-songwriters. (Also some super catch power pop but I think that sort of defies gender/race lines). So that said, no surprise that my personal favorites in the many years of AI have been a lot of the black male vocalist and a few singer-songwriter types, but the latter have been very underrepresented and often stuck with crappy song choices. I'm white, and don't think I'm racist but I like what I like and one thing I really like are appealing personalities with gorgeous R&B vocal tones. (Ruben remains my favorite Idol winner by a mile).

LMAO about "Pants on the Ground" but I bet they do (though I don't know what they would do with it) ... I haven't really pursued the topic that much further so I don't know if it's at a certain round but I thought it was from the get-go in terms of the televised episodes (and with auditions, even, you don't know what's going to air and they have to sign a boatload of contracts before they even get to anything that could be televised) ... I'm gonna guess that if what I've heard is accurate (and I have no reason to think it's not ... it comes from a very good source, so it's more likely that I may be the one misunderstanding it ... that happens a lot these days) ... But I assume that maybe those who choose to sing their originals on the shows and give up all the rights in perpetuity to those specific songs have a pretty large catalogue of originals and figure they can afford to give up the rights to a song or two if it gets them noticed (being "discovered" as a singer-songwriter isn't easy). It's not like by singing one song they lose the rights to their entire catalogue ... Which show was it (AI or The Voice?) where they was some guy who kept singing and singing and singing his song "Roses"? I don't think it ever became a hit (and IMHO it wasn't very good) but they made a big deal about him because he was an ARTIST LOL.

I don't know if they do ... or still do ... or the extent of it ... but I DO know someone who did NOT audition for the show and to whom the show reached out and asked to audition (not this season, but a few years ago, before the hiatus). The person is/was a singer-songwriter and chose not to go the AI route because they lose all rights to any of their original songs they perform on the show (I am assuming the big glut of singer-songwriters they have on the show this season are aware of these rules, or POSSIBLY they have changed the contract). And this is also true of, at least, The Voice (knew someone who was on the show for several episodes who is a really good songwriter and was wondering why they did not perform ANY of their originals, and the loss of rights to the song was explained to me (by a mutual friend of both that singer and the one I referenced above). This leads me to think they may actually be looking for a singer-songwriter type to win it this year ... another reason I think Maddie is TCO. Hope that's a little clearer than mud!

I absolutely adore the idea of "Baby Mine" for Maddie ... I used to sing that (the Bonnie Raitt version which apparently isn't on YouTube, from a collection of redone Disney songs released late 80s I think) to little Snappy every night when I was rocking her to sleep ... plus it harkens back to an early Disney era that a lot of people (younger people who wouldn't know about it) are ignoring ... I suspect we'll be stuck with lots of big songs from the Jasmine/Ariel/Disney Princess era but it would be sort of awesome if someone picked something from, say, "Mary Poppins" ("Stay Awake" is quite beautiful)

I may have plenty of criticisms of AI over the years but don't really personally feel racial divides was one of them. S2 was definitely my favorite season (and also the best one to follow on PTV's predecessor, TWoP ... who here remembers "Carmen's Dairy"???) ... I still have not gotten over the tragic untimely passing of RIckey Smith. And Ruben remains my all-time favorite AI winner AND "Flying WIthout Wings" remains in high rotation on my iTunes/Nano mix.