Lindsey

Katie Ledecky on Game of Thrones as Brienne's long lost sister. I spent the first week of the Olympics trying to figure out who she looks like and now I can't unsee it. And I'm not sure Lochte is good enough for Reno 911 or Catfish. Maybe just an episode of Cops? That's still on isn't it?

I would 100% watch a Friday Night Lights style show set in Westeros. There have to be some interesting stories happening in that world set somewhere in the middle of the continuum between the struggle for world domination and a hippy commune led by Al Swearengen, right?

So, I know next to nothing about Star Trek (which is why I'm constantly worried the nerd authorities are going to come take my membership card away) but I'm super excited to see the TV fantasy draft because my favorite podcast is supporting my favorite philanthropy. DonorsChoose.org is such a great way to support teachers and help their students learn and experience new things! There aren't many times you'll hear a teacher more excited than when her Donors Choose project gets funded. Thanks guys!

Maybe the way the producers keep highlighting Lucinda's grant application is meant to imply that the psychological torture of applying for a federal grant has driven her insane. Otherwise I can't figure this character out. Why is this grown woman interested in a boy who isn't old enough to buy beer or rent a car and is Brandon? Why doesn't this university instructor know that Helen of Troy is fictional? Why does an alleged feminist think using Kelly as a beard would be cute? WHY?!?!

So original Grandma Rose was the mom from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and replacement Grandma Rose was the crazy grandmother from My Big Fat Greek Wedding?!?! How did that not tear a hole in the universe?

Y'all, I think this mini should come with a trigger warning for South Carolinians. Stephanie's suggestion of Thomas Ravenel for VP gave me trauma flashbacks to the last few times he's come anywhere near elected office in this state. It was... not great.

Several of the characters on Nashville were barely tolerable (early season Scarlett/late season Maddie/all of the random guest stars) unless they were singing.

I'd say someone should combine this supercut with one of the characters on Arrow saying "this city" but the video would end up being nine hours long.

Brandon's hair looks like they were going for a military style high and tight, but didn't understand how that's supposed to look AT ALL. It makes everything he does look even more aggressive, including the bray and the lamprey-kiss.

If they had a dress code, it wasn't very strict if some of the outfits the girls on the show have worn are anything to go by (diaper jorts!). There is always controversy any time a school board tries to change existing rules, especially when it comes to dress codes and/or uniforms, so that part actually tracked for me. The only part I didn't buy was that Andrea stopped at calling dress codes "oppressive" and didn't come locked with arguments about the undue burden dress codes place on female students to cover up or racially coded restrictions, even without knowing the issue was on the agenda. That's just the kind of info Andrea would have at the ready.

I listen without watching but have no excuse. I'm just a weirdo. Y'all share a lot of good life skills advice in the course of mocking the dumb celebrities, though. Don't wear heels and a tight and/or short skirt = dress appropriately for the occasion. Ring in first, figure out the answer second = take the opportunities that are presented to you. And so on. If you wanted, you could spin this whole thing as a lifestyle podcast.

I was so afraid something terrible was going to happen to the bunny and/or kitty. That sounded dirtier than I meant it too...

Male teachers are still pretty rare at the grade school/elementary level (at least in the US), but I think that has more to do with cultural biases agains men working with young kids. It's much more socially acceptable for men to teach at the secondary or post-secondary level. A lot of people still see teaching younger children as "women's work." (Ahem, let me just hop down off my soap box.) Yeah, he was super inappropriate. Brenda's comment about how he "flirts with all the girls" is a major red flag. (Because, ewwww.) If he had that reputation, he was already making some very poor choices. Mrs. Teasley needed to get her house in order before any of this happened. But I'll give the show this: it's not like there aren't any teachers, male and female, who are like that IRL. They think they're being friendly or charming but they're really just gross.

You leave the door open (and as it was pointed out in the podcast, if the student closes the door, you open it back up) or better yet, go work in the library or another public area. There are ways to work one on one while protecting both the teacher and student (without making it weird). And it's not a great idea to be alone behind closed doors with any student, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

Yep, teachers in the US are mandatory reporters. It's not even enough to report suspected abuse to a school admin, we're required to report directly to child and family services. And I know it was 20+ years ago, but I can't believe a male high school teacher at the time wouldn't have been told not to be alone with a female student and not to have any unnecessary physical contact with students. Even elementary teachers are discouraged from doing that. That was one of the first things we were told at my job orientation when I started teaching. On the other hand, multiple male staff members from the high school I attended have been arrested for statutory rape both when I was a student and since then, so for me it tracks that some people just make stupid decisions. Especially English teachers who don't know how to pronounce "Hawthorn."

Kristi Yamaguchi also originally trained in California, and this episode would have aired right around the time of the 1992 Olympics where she won gold. Plus, she moved to Canada to train not long before the Olympics which backs up the story about a skater going to the coach rather than the other way around. If Brandon weren't already The Worst before this episode, he would be dead to me now for his "hockey players are the 'real' athletes" bit. When I took figure skating as a kid, the hockey team that practiced after us would try to scare the girls in my class by charging at us if we didn't get off the ice fast enough. I may or may not still hold a grudge.

Wow, could they have been working any harder during Hailee and Gaby's rehearsal to avoid any explicit references to coming out or being gay? Nigel, you have a pretty romantic routine choreographed by an openly gay man featuring two women. Get over it, already. (Anyone want to bet that if the routine had been for two men, Nigel wouldn't have even let it air?) And followed by Nigel's total freakout over Virgil and Joshua's "boy's rule, girls drool" number? That was bizarre. I thought Jaja and Gaby's jazz routine seemed really flat and awkward, but I couldn't tell if that had more to do with the dancing, the choreography, or the music, none of which I liked much. Other than that I thought most of the routines were fine. I wish I was a little more excited about the finale, but maybe I'm just being grouchy. Do we think Cat actually wanted Nigel to announce her pregnancy like that? It seemed like an ambush to me.

You guys, we've almost made it! We've almost beaten the Dome! (Also, now I'm not so worried that Tara's head will explode before this whole thing ends.)

At least the prop was an actual, physical object. When Joe "splits" the amethyst the CG just looks like a really badly rendered cartoon.

I worked an evening shift job for several years and the whole time I worked there I would get up at 11:00 every day and watch Gilmore Girls on ABC Family while I had my breakfast and an unhealthly vast amount of coffee. I cycled through the entire series several times and even though I never had any illusions about the appropriateness of the Girls' behavior (though really, it's partly the town's fault for encouraging them; how did Taylor never throw them out of one of those town meetings?), those are some of my fondest TV watching memories. When Netflix began streaming the series I watched the whole thing all over again.

Okay, Julia was a judgey pain in the ass before, but now her metric for irredeemable monsters is... people who step on spiders? That's the worst thing she could come up with? Look, some of us don't want to go around carrying tiny, eight legged monsters to the door on sheets of paper. Nothing needs eight legs, Julia! Nothing! Ahem. Anyway, every time I watch this show now I find myself wondering if the actors read their scripts thinking, "I was in Breaking Bad/China Beach/ER/Twilight, and now I'm doing this crap? How did I end up here?" Yeah, I said Twilight because even that is better than this thing. Seriously, now they're aliens, but they're maybe the good aliens because even worse aliens are after them? Or Christine is lying and nothing that happened between her and Joe matters? And what the hell version of Brahms' Lullaby was that? She sings half the second verse and then goes back to the first verse? Worst! Ugh, why can't I look away from this nonsense?

I was wondering that too. She doesn't seem to have anywhere in particular to go during the day. It's good that Birdbones showed up at the end. I was starting to worry that the show was going to forget she'd ever existed now that the path is clear for Mark and Emma. That or she'd gotten trapped under an avalanche of beautiful linens.

My mom took me to Pompeii when I was a kid and I flat out refused to go into the building where the body casts were. Twenty-ish years later and that would still be a hard pass for me. Creepy and sad.

Why did Tyce have to come back? We were doing so well without him. The whole Addams Family look in the opening number seemed a little overly specific and as soon as they started that boring, cliche filled number I knew it had to be him. All concept, no content: Classic Tyce. Ditto his "reaching and yearning" routine for Derek. It was fine and I thought Derek and Jaimie did a good job with it, but we've seen it all dozens of times before. I'll be perfectly happy if we never hear another choreographer explain that their dance is about some kind of unhealthy romance/bad break up ever again. Virgil can come off a little try hard, but I just like him so much! And Jim's solo was one of my favorites in a long time. It's so hard to do anything interesting in the super-short amount of time they get, but that was gorgeous. Unlike Derek's solo. You'd think dancers who grew up watching this show would know not to throw every move they know into 30 seconds. It just looks like desperate flailing. I think that's where we really see the difference between a more mature, professional dancer like Jim and someone who still has a way to go in his development like Derek. (That said, I don't dance, so what the hell do I know?) The biggest issue for me tonight was the number of dancers who had to go way outside their own style. Megz and Jim in particular looked uncomfortable during their choreographed routines. I know we've gone over the whole "Stage vs. Street" conceit a lot already, but I can't help wondering what this season would have been if everyone had only danced in their own styles (or at least stayed within "stage" and "street") and every dance was executed at a relatively high level. Would that have made it better or worse?

Mr. Turner did make a comment about replacing the arts programs with test prep, and I would have bought into the premise of this episode much more if the kids had based their arguments on the value of enrichment programs over test prep courses, instead of convincing the board to save the arts with puppy dog eyes and really terrible interpretive dance. But that would have been less an episode of Girl Meets World than an episode of The West Wing: The Next Generation.