Anosmia

I said the same thing! Also, whoever does the embalming in Salem has some serious skills, because Nick looked great for being seven-years dead. I noticed that Alice and Tom Horton have really unassuming gravestones. Given that they were scions of Salem, you'd think they would have a shared stone that is larger and fancier. Budget limitations, I guess! Me too! Lujack and Beth 4-eva! I also think of him as Dylan's sister's pimp on 90210, even though that was a brief role.

I thought John's voice sounded somewhat different in the pre-conference room-bonking flashbacks. I know aging can change a voice...I guess that's the case here? It seems like maybe they're gearing up to have a Rosemary's Baby scenario. Or are they implying that Ben and Ciera's kid might end up with mental illness bestowed by Satan? Oooof. If that's the route they take, I won't love that implied connection between mental illness and Satan! Part of me is groaning that they're resurrecting the possession storyline. Another part of me is thrilled because the original possession happened when I studied abroad during my junior year of college, causing me to miss the entire thing. Missing that cheesy mess was agonizing for me!

I must be misremembering. I thought Delilah’s dad (Gerald McRaney) lived in the States? I don’t know why he, an American, would be living in France, given that his French wife is dead and his daughter and grandkids live in Boston. I must have missed something along the way!

I kind of loved the particicution, although it also would’ve pleased me to see Fred punished by the Gileadean regime. June wanted Fred to be as terrified as she was when she and Luke were caught during their escape to Canada and Hannah was ripped away from her. Well, she got her wish. That was almost like a horror movie when he was being hunted by a nearly feral pack of rage-fueled women who were victims of the machinery he created.

This is what I am wondering! Why doesn’t he defect? He could provide valuable intel to the Americans/Canadians and freely be with his daughter...maybe June, too, if she left Luke. Maybe he’s worried about what would happen to his new wife, or maybe he doesn’t want to give up his power as a commander, nor give up the thrill of being a spy and resistance member. This doesn’t ring any bells for me. I thought he was just a driver (and secret resistance member)—not part of the Sons of Jacob coup?

I wondered about this! She absolutely should have a security detail. Perhaps she does have one and they're laying low, trying to stay unobtrusive, but you'd think there would at least be a throwaway line about their presence. I was so relieved that June's trauma wasn't treated glibly. I worried that she'd land in Canada and immediately go into "Let's bring down Gilead" warrior mode. Her PTSD, flashbacks, survivor's guilt, trauma responses, and culture shock were palpable. There were several moments that really gripped me during this episode, including the Sabrina-bashing survivors circle; the scene with June and Sabrina in the prison; and June's disoriented, shell-shocked wonder in the grocery store. (I also felt badly for her during that scene because Luke and Moira's easygoing co-parenting rapport really drove home the point that June hasn't been there for most of her daughter's first year of life. They are, in essence, her parents and June right now is just a third wheel, an outsider.) I know the focus has to be on Gilead, but I sure would enjoy learning more about the Gilead refugees in Canada, including the Angel Flight kids, as they adapt to their new lives and work through their trauma. Maybe in the form of a limited-run spin-off or book?

OMG, the amount of snuffling that babies do on this show drives me over the edge!!

His voice is like nails on chalkboard to me, too! Ditto with Danny’s voice. It’s whispery-scratchy and really gets under my skin. I laughed at Katherine thinking that Eddie was the one Googling “big boobs.”

The shortest (and most easygoing) death row stint in history is over, as is the longest execution in history. Maybe now the writers can turn to other things, like having the truth about the baby swap come out. When Sarah learns her baby was killed by her own mother, it will be epic! Although I suppose there will likely be an annoyingly prolonged custody battle between Sarah and Kristen/Brady...

The accent thing confuses me, too. So her mom was French and her dad is American, and they met when he was stationed in France. Then they got together when she want on vacation to Boston with her parents. Okay, great, but unless they moved back to France after getting married and they then raised Delilah in France, she should not have a French accent.

This was my assumption. Bethlehem isn’t super close to the Poconos, and I figured that if the cabin scenes were happening at the Pearsons’ old Poconos cabin, then Rebecca likely said she was running to a bakery in a nearby town but actually got distracted/lost and drove miles away, eventually ending up in Bethlehem.

Holy crap! I had no idea he was so young! Technically I could be his mother (I turned 17 in 1991). That's wild! That had been my initial assumption, simply because Siddiq's PTSD-induced...blackouts?...fugue states?...have been making him do some wonky things. Plus, if I recall, on last week's Talking Dead, a caller asked if maybe Siddiq was the cause of the epidemic. Good point! Maybe they feel like it would be too depressing/complicated, but the truth is that there would be a LOT of people suffering from PTSD in a post-apocalyptic world and probably a lot of people suffering from severe depression, not to mention high suicide rates. I've always said that if the shit hits the fan and civilization crumbles, I would likely die by suicide pretty quickly in any post-apocalyptic setting. Will the communities have any doctors now that Siddiq is gone? They seem to lose doctors pretty quickly on this show. Doctors should probably have bodyguards surrounding them at all times, as they are really one of the most precious commodities in this world. As these communities grow, they should be training as many people as possible in medicine. Natural medicine/herbology, too, since their stores of drugs must be running low by now, if they haven't already expired.

David is now two, but Rafe is still draping a blanket over his tiny stroller when wheeling him around. Seems like maybe he should be too old for that?

I’m just chiming in to say how pleased I was to see a patient with craniosynostosis! I was born with a pretty severe case of it in 1974 and needed two surgeries. There were some lingering lifelong issues because of it, but overall I’m happy and healthy. It’s a birth defect that doesn’t get repped very often, so I was happy to see it in this episode!

This hijacked pacemaker storyline is so ridiculous, I can hardly stand it! Like some of you said, Lani should have just grabbed the phone or arrested her. Or she could have acted like she was playing along and then called the FBI or state police or SOMEBODY. Gabi is flat-out threatening to kill someone, she's blackmailing a cop, and she's using DiMera technology for nefarious means. All three should be grounds for an immediate arrest. At the very least, the last item should get her ass thrown out of the company and stripped of all DiMera Enterprises privileges. I can't imagine Tony/Shen being okay with her using the company's technology to threaten someone's life.

I cracked the hell up at Kristen calling her fetus “little Andy or Jenny.” In Rosemary’s Baby, Rosemary refers to her fetus as “little Andy or Jenny" at every chance. Not only that, Rosemary said, “Don’t you worry, little Andy or Jenny, I’ll kill them before I let them touch you” while Kristen said, “Don’t you worry, little Andy or Jenny, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

I had to check if this was the same actress who played Dana in the past. She looks so different and mature!

When Ian dreamt about going back to the Peach Peach to confront early '90s Ian about his fashion and hair, was that him playing the younger version of himself? Or was it a double? The face of young Ian looked really weird to me, almost like a creepy silicone mask. I couldn't tell if Ian was playing a double role and they airbrushed/CGIed his face to remove all traces of age or if the role was played by someone else who kinda looked like him. Or maybe it really was a mask! This show was messy in a lot of ways, and the first episode perplexed me, but I'll be damned if I didn't end up loving it and wanting it to last longer! It was funny, unique, and kind of bananas all around. I do hope they get a longer second season and hope Shannen comes back. If they get another season, I would love to see more secondary players make appearances. We'll never see Valerie or Claire, but maybe other folks, like Jim Walsh and Nat, could appear. Hilary Swank? Michael Cudlitz? The guy who played Muntz? Kelly's cokehead boyfriend Colin? Janet? Noah? Jackie Taylor, Felice Martin, and Samantha Sanders? Brandon's exes Tracy and Susan? Andrea's husband Jesse? Side note: Douglas Emerson (Scott Scanlon) appeared at a Peach Pit pop-up event recently to surprise Brian and it was so sweet!

Yep, Harris was born in the early part of 1997, so she should be almost 22. I kind of wish they had kept her that legit age, because at 21/22 she could be having kids of her own, and it would be interesting to see Darlene as a young grandma. I'm really curious about the Becky situation, too. How did Mark die 10 years ago, what were he and Becky doing in their lives at that time period, and, hell, what were they doing in their lives even before then, in the years after Roseanne went off the air? It sounds like they were still in love, so I guess even if they were working a string of middling jobs and unsuccessfully trying for a baby, they were at least happy. It would be interesting if maybe he did get a good job as a mechanic or whatever and when he died, Becky lost her primary source of income, her healthcare coverage, her home, etc. That would add to her grief spiral and derailing. I've wondered about this, too. Maybe D.J. and Geena start work really early and it's customary for Mary to spend her mornings at Grandpa's house before school? Or maybe they live across the street and Mary bounces seamlessly back and forth between the houses, dropping in for meals a lot, etc, like my BFF's kids do (my BFF's father-in-law lives right across the street). I was a big Roseanne fan back in the day and I'm really enjoying The Conners. I heard that this was meant to be a limited-run show, like 13 episodes, and I hope that's not true--I hope it comes back for another season and maybe longer. I think there's a lot of potential here.

In terms of Becky having potential, I personally feel like it's a mix of marrying Mark and losing him that caused her to pull away from that original potential. In the beginning she was a good student and did give the impression that she would be the one to go to college and break the working poor cycle. To that end, I thought it was somewhat off-character for her to fall for bad boy Mark, drop out of HS, and run away with him to get married. She never really did get back on track, studies- and ambition-wise, after that. Back in Lanford, she worked at low-level jobs (including as a waitress at Hooters ripoff Bunz),and when Roseanne gave her money to pay for a semester of community college, she gave all the money away to Mark. But she seemed happy with her life, so I rolled with it. Losing him (and I hope they eventually tell us how he died!) definitely seems to be the thing that made her full-on derail. As soon as I saw Juliette Lewis I yelled to my cat, "No way! National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation!" It was cool to see those Griswold siblings reunited, even if they WERE reunited as romantic partners! I agree 100%! Andy was born three years before the show ended and had nothing to do with the shark-jumping "dream period." It would make no sense for them to wipe him out of existence. The storylines concerning Jackie's pregnancy and becoming a mother were pretty important. Andy would be 24 now and I'd love to see what the character is doing with his life in adulthood. I do hope we find out what happens to him and get to see him (and Jerry) again!

Will personality even be allowed? Will kids be allowed to snap "No!" at their parents? The terrible twos and bratty teen years won't be so terrible in Gilead, I suspect, because kids will get their spirits broken early in the game. They will be made docile and pliable, just like Eden. I'm thinking in particular of the Duggars and their ilk--the way they blanket train their kids and crush their spirits to squash all rebelliousness. I'm also thinking about the child-rearing adage of the olden days: "Children should be seen, not heard." Headstrong toddlers and mouthy teens simply weren't tolerated back then. I don't see them being tolerated in Gilead, either. In Gilead, among the lower classes, this would be done partially to help the kids stay alive (horrible punishments await people who fight back, after all) and partially to help them accept their lot in life. I doubt there's any movement among social strata in Gilead, except downward. An econokid may as well be taught that being a freekthinker and/or joining the ruling elite isn't an option, and expressing an opinion and pushing back isn't an option, so she should keep her head down, stay compliant, and accept her fate either as a future econowife or a handmaid. Parents would really be doing their kids no favors if they allowed them to develop a spark of independence or allowed them to sass back. At the Red Center the women were basically told, "We know this is tough for you, because you remember life before. But for future generations, this will be all they know." I think the kids of Gilead will only know how to obey and how to be meek. They'll be raised to think that this is the natural order of things. Girls will be raised from Day One to realize that they have no power and compliance is mandatory. Now, commanders' kids (or at least their sons) might get away with exercising a modicum of independence and showing attitude; I picture them as being like the douchey rich teens I see today who feel entitled and untouchable (the Affluenza guy, for example). I picture Serena maybe being a bit lenient with Holly, indulging the child's spiritedness and not wanting to punish her. But it seems like the commanders and their wives will only indulge such things so far, because they seem very aware that their own position is tenuous. We know from the book that At the very least, Serena and Fred seem very aware of how things could turn on a dime for them, and if they're aware of this, presumably other commanders are, too. So, it seems reasonable to think that even the highest-ranking leaders would put the kibosh on any substantial attitude and personality flexing coming from their kids. Toeing the party line is what's going to keep those kids alive and ruling over the next generation.

Yowza, she's two months younger than me but I thought she was in her early 50s! The makeup crew/wardrobe folks did a great job with making her look older. I'm really curious about the new two-state US. Who are the leaders? If I recall, Congress was called into a special session to ensure everyone would be there and that's when they were assassinated. So, much of the line of succession was wiped out. I guess maybe the governors of Alaska and Hawaii help to form the new government, along with any other feds who could be rounded up, such as ambassadors in foreign countries and high-ranking diplomats (Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Interior) who happened to be out of the country during the coup. Military folks stationed in AK and HI and abroad perhaps play a role in the new government, too. Regarding tourism, that didn't surprise me at all, and not just because of the book reference mentioned by several people here and the North Korea and Soviet Union tourism industries mentioned by others here. As someone with an interest in dark tourism, I absolutely understand that weird, lurid pull to seek out dark and horrifying places. Not only that, there would probably be a big contingent of people wanting to ogle a trainwreck in motion. Imagine: the most powerful country in the world--the country that dazzles and intrigues so many foreigners--is now a theocratic dystopia. The country that gave the world Hollywood blockbusters; the Kardashians; and countless examples of glamour, wealth, vapidness, superficiality, and glitz is now a grim, puritanical hellscape. I can absolutely see rubberneckers wanting to line up and witness the mess for themselves.

That's one of my suspicions, too. The other one is that they have a widows' home (as existed in the past; there was one in my hometown) where they could live together and spend their time praying and knitting socks for the boys on the front. But of course that brings up the question of what happens to their kids, if they have any (via the handmaids). Like, say, little Angela, if the peevish wife raising her is widowed. I suppose the kids probably get "reassigned" to other commanders and their wives, because heaven forbid the widowed wives be single mothers.

This is how I see them, too. I think the majority of them are probably just ordinary folks who are trying to survive/protect their remaining loved ones. Just because they didn't bawl/freak out during last night's brutality doesn't mean that all of them were okay with it. I'm sure some of them are sadists who WERE okay with it, but some of them could have been too terrified to step out of line or even show revulsion/horror/fury at what was happening. Not to mention the fact that some of them may have thought it was somewhat justified simply because they see the CDB folks through a lens of "Well, they killed our people and attacked us. They're the bad guy." Rick and his people have done some shady things, albeit usually in the name of survival. I really think that Negan and his folks are maybe not so different in the end...they've done what they've done for survival and to eradicate the "bad guys" out there. Maybe it's because I'm a Cold War kid, I don't know, but I'm fascinated by the dichotomy between how groups see themselves vs how they see others, in terms of who is the bad guy. We were of course raised to see the Soviet Union as the bad guy, the mortal enemy, the antithesis of liberty. They were raised to see us the same way. But at the end of the day, they--like us--were just ordinary people living their lives, loving their families, trying to survive, with our governments both doing some shitty and some positive things in the process. I'd like to learn more about Negan and his people, although not at the expense of propelling the action forward and seeing CDB's hijinx.

I can’t fault them for how they ended last season because I saw it as a good old-fashioned cliffhanger. Maybe it wasn’t absolutely necessary, but it did keep people guessing and speculating throughout the summer, and buzz like that is usually a producer’s/network’s wet dream. I was irritated with the delayed reveal of who was killed, although I’ll admit it helped to ramp up the tension, at least in my head. Negan’s incessant chattering was annoying, too, but as an introvert, I’m always reminded of how many irritatingly chatty people are in this world, and I guess that’s not likely to change after civilization falls. All in all I found last night’s episode to be satisfying. It was rough viewing…I was sick in the guts while watching it. My stomach was roiling and my legs were literally weak. I cried--something I don't do very often with TV shows. My hand was clamped to my mouth in shock. I tried to hug one of my thoroughly unimpressed cats as an emotional support animal and she was having none of it. I’m normally not a fan of torture porn, although I did love me some Martyrs/Inside/High Tension, but I can’t say that last night’s torture porn was completely unnecessary. Brutal people do brutal things; we see this with ISIS on a daily basis. In a post-apocalyptic world, brutal people are likely to rise to the top. Was Negan’s sadism REALLY necessary? I don’t know, but it did serve a point in the end, because it helped to bring Rick’s feisty group to heel. I don’t think he could have successfully controlled them if he had behaved in a less sadistic manner. I respect that his actions weren’t straightforward (he didn’t kill Daryl after Daryl punched him; he didn’t cut off Rick’s arm or kill Rick). Instead, they were far more manipulative and thus insidious. Over the summer I heard that maybe more than one person would die, but I hoped it wasn't true. In fact, when there was that temporary reprieve before Abraham died, I thought that MAYBE nobody was going to die at all. Maybe they were just tricking us with the Season 6 finale and Negan really just slammed Lucille into someone's leg (hence the blood all over her). It would have been a copout and people would have been pissed, but I still kinda hoped that this would be the case, simply because I hate losing leads who I like, even though I know it’s necessary because it’s realistic. In the real world, people I like do die, and that would only be accelerated in a post-apocalyptic setting. As to why he didn’t just kill them all…yeah, that would have been realistic. If this were the real world, he undoubtedly would have killed them all. The problem is that we wouldn’t have much of a show if nearly all of the leads had been killed. The show could continue on as Negan’s show, or it could begin focusing on a completely new band of survivors, but I honestly don’t know if it could survive that. I, for one, wouldn’t stick around if the entire lead cast (minus Carol) got slaughtered. Poor Maggie. Her dad, sister, and now her husband--all killed by humans. It does a nice job of reiterating the show’s ongoing theme: humans are the worst monsters of all. Glenn's "I'll find you"—his dying words—pulled out my heart. I love that Abraham’s dying words were "suck my nuts." He sure has come a long way from when he took Brenda Walsh to the prom and partied hearty with Mike Seaver. Re: folks wondering how Negan has found so many people to serve him…I wonder how many of his followers do it for lack of a better option. It seems like every Big Bad has established his own fiefdom, and on top of that there are roving bands of people who won’t hesitate to kill others to get their hands on their weapons/food. Plus there are zombies everywhere. Basically, safety and security are in short supply. I guess I can see why people would opt to follow Negan despite him being so sadistic. He feeds them, he keeps them safe. Eighteen months into the apocalypse, that would seem like a damn fine offer. Maybe many of his followers are sadists, too, or at least lacking a strong moral compass. Like often attracts life. Plus I don’t think we’ve seen him be cruel to his own people—only outsiders. Rick’s group might seem destructive and evil to outsiders, too. We don’t think they’re bad because we’ve been with them from the beginning. If we were following Negan’s group from the beginning, we might not think they’re bad, either. Maybe we wouldn’t think it was such a bad thing if we had seen Rick beat the Governor or Gareth to death with a barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat.