Snarkette

Since when has "shopping it around" been a thing? The first I heard of anything like that was Supergirl, which had a natural fit with the other DC Comic shows. This "Hey we have a show, but we'll keep it in limbo thing"? Is it something that happened to other shows?

The trailer looks *horrible*. I'll be watching every episode. Sasse.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2016/05/18/limitless-is-done-at-cbs-cbs-hopes-its-not-done-entirely/

I'm pretty sure Adele is Felix's mom, not sister, which is why there was the hesitation. I bet...um...50 cents!

AuntJess, that is particularly awesome. Thanks for finding it and sharing it

TAD COOPER, EAT THOSE NETWORK EXECUTIVES!

Loved Laith. Really didn't like Alison's take (a personal fave song, so more critical of covers). It was workmanlike and just didn't have enough "storytelling" for me. Pretty voice, a great delivery instrument, but emotionally flat delivery. Her breathing control right before bits that needed punches didn't provide enough vocal support.

I'm half hoping she's neolution plant, half hoping she's just as awful as they present her (and his mom, not his sister). Either way, it's part of the reverse bechdel test. Felix gets to be more than brother sestra. Yay!

This happens every year. The show is great until the lives. And then it sucks. They should have one-on-one battles until the final 4. "Two voice enter. One voice leave."

The strength of this show has been its realism about addiction and undercurrent of darkness that offsets the wish fulfillment. If they had revealed that Brian was institutionalized at the very last second, I would have been overjoyed with the Happy Piper ending that was just an hallucination. As is, it felt hokey and saccharine and pat. What's great about limitless has been its dark undercurrent. This ending? Kind of ruined that for me.

Deus ex machina. Too happy an ending.

Normally I'm not drawn to rockers but I love Laith. Alisan is fantastic but Laith has something I'm enjoying more this season. I know I should be objectively rooting for her but Laith has my non-existent vote.

Brian is a silly manipulable patsy. (Bless!) And I hope Piper is ridiculously evil and the primary bad guy for S2.

Excellent interview: http://www.ew.com/article/2016/04/18/limitless-finale-spoilers Best part:

To ask the question is to answer it. Came for the Greenwalt, stayed for the Hornsby (and the Weir Mitchell).

So rewatching, particularly the party scene, and it occurs to me that if you're given bad data and assumptions (like the Masons/Rhiana/Taylor Swift), you do the garbage-in/garbage-out dance. This was our first chance to see a lot of people on NZT still operating under quite strong (if you excuse the phrase) Limits. NZT seemed to act as a magnifying glass for ambition, for intelligence, for craftiness, etc. Grover on NZT wasn't much more awesome than Grover off it but Rebecca became a driven superwoman. It also gives further context for when Piper was telling Brian that he's basically an NZidioT compared to the normal NZT user. Morra, Sands, Apocryphon (whatever his name was), all get that there's a war going on and NZT is at its heart and there's a brave new world that's coming after. No one at the FBI seems to get that: all they saw out of the bombing was a hit on one drug lord's organization by another drug lord with an embedded mole It's a really interesting episode in that it allows Brian to operate in the middle of two NZT groups. The hoi polloi users at the party and the "people who matter" with their secret war. Regardless of what happens next week, Brian is burned. he can't go back to the FBI. If there's an enzyme, they'll use it with Rebecca and Boyle, not with Brian. If there's no enzyme, he can't take NZT. The case-of-the-week simply cannot happen. I don't see him being "fundamentally transformed" either, even with the occasional NZT flashback episode. So how does this wrap up? And does this week's ep allow for a season 2? (This might explain the "cute" March announcement that 5 of the 6 new series are coming back.) I really want a second season but man, they are burning through story. I considered a year of Brian off NZT acting as Rebecca's CI but that wouldn't work. All the players know who Brian is and at least on Sands' side (sentiments aside), they want him dead. Whether next week leads into S2 or not, I've decided that Brian has to end next episode by being someone who matters. Not sure how they're going to pull it off but it feels really endgame right now.

He was dead to me from the moment of diminished capacity. Brian wants to stay the same person he was before taking NZT but his dad was an asshole before NZT and he has only gotten worse with the pressures from Brian being on it.

And this is why I worry, despite the exclamation points in Finale! Part! Two! that the show may be a one and done and that Brian won't survive. I do think there's still plenty of story to tell (and the writers have been amazing in not fearing to burn through plot) if they want to do that. But there's been such a perfect arc that I could see next week as taking the drug entirely off the street, taking down Morra (!) (who expected the FBI to be onto him by the end of S1?), bringing down Sands and Piper, and the enzyme getting lost in the mix. Which leaves Brian alone, un-NZT'ed, and possibly going to community college, if he does survive. The best thing about this show has been consequence. And this episode really brought that home with its one month time skip, the natural fall out (the job at LargeMart/BuyMore, the addiction, the begging for more NZT, moving back in with Mom and Dad), and being, well, to coin a phrase Limited. (No exclamation point.)

I loved (!) the Finale! Part! One! from start to end. It was refreshing to see non-NZT Brian, to see the hints that maybe he's re-wiring his own brain a bit, and that even off the drug, he's still a pretty compelling character. I also love that you cannot watch this episode and make any excuses for him: he's an addict. The addiction is there, it is real. He's not just addicted to NZT itself but to being someone who matters (in the words of Sen Morra). Bouncing off his dad just made the latter part even more painful. As far as his dad's concerned, he was being used and abused by the FBI who did discard him when convenient. I actually dug the patronizing dad who just has no clue as to the bigger story. It grounds Brian's home life that his overachieving family really are that condescending and clueless and that he manages to do as much as he does despite them. (I also keep seeing New Testament jokes being thrown into the story from the Prophet without Honor in his home with an annoying Lawyer Dad (It's in the bible, really), and The Apocryphon of Brian.) Fantastic nod to Chuck, although I doubt we'll ever see his Morgan/Grover ("Imagine the Possibilities" / "He's named after a muppet") again, adored the beautifully evil Sands plan (and his obviously evil henchguy), and appreciated that the bonds Brian has made with his team from Naz to Spellman to Rebecca (who quite rightly keeps treating him as a former asset and friend, and not a romantic interest) kept them from arresting his Class 1 abusing ass right on the spot. It was a great build up, a fun twist, and the scenes from next week look tremendous. Renew this damned show already!

I prefer them going into the lives with more people because the steals make the battles/knockouts more entertaining. This is usually where I stop watching though. I like the 1 vs 1 battles a lot more than 24 singing hamsters. And it's usually clear who is going to win: Alisan, obviously. With probably Shalyah behind her. I do like Leith but I like him in a "I'll turn on the TV and enjoy the performance" not "I'll head over to iTunes and listen more than once." I think my one exception is that I do still love and play Midas Whale's Folsom Prison.

"Stripped down"? Don't get it. Only one that really caught me was Laith. There was some decent singing (Shalyah) and a lot of over-praised out-of-tune singing. And a lot of fast forwarding.

Unlike Chuck, where they teased the hell out of "Chuck is special" and couldn't deliver on it (plus overpowered him way too much), Limitless has absolutely nailed why Brian is special. It's because he's just a good guy and a so-so genius. Rebecca? She was a very good genius and caught a lot more out of her NZT dose. She also lied and manipulated and was basically an asshole the entire episode. Unlike everyone else we've seen to date (except for Not-the-murderer-Husband), Brian has been able to be on NZT and still make good moral choices. It's a killer superpower: just being decent. And it's one the writers can actually deliver on in a way that being "special" and "super" shows can't. Best of all, he has totally screwed up his relationship with the one group of people who can appreciate him, which is at the FBI. It's narrative genius. In the non-NZT way. Please renew this show.

Everyone assumes its Sands who dunnit. I'm hoping it's Mr. Y.

Brian signed an agreement with the FBI. Pretty sure hopping off to a foreign country (any country), with unauthorized controlled substances, lying to his handlers, and being generally personally unreliable wasn't part of that agreement. We know his motives are (mostly) pure. That he's in an impossible situation. That time and time again he's put everything on the line to save Rebecca. Our worldview is quite different from the reality the FBI sees. I find the least believable part not the restrictions Naz has placed on him but their continued relationship given how badly he's broken the trust.