BetyBee

When Oleg pulled the gun on Stan, I was so disappointed...because I feared it would be the end of the Oleg character! I suspect we are supposed to think of Stan as a good guy, a hero - but I can't stand the guy. I agree with soapfaninc that he's a lousy husband, a lousy agent, etc. I have some sympathy for him, because I think he knows what a failure he is. Anyway, I was really relieved that Oleg chose not to shoot him. Putting Annelise in the suitcase was a truly disgusting scene and looking away didn't help because the sound was seriously disturbing. I love this show and I can't wait to see what Phillip and Elizabeth decide to do about Paige. sometimes I wonder if the Pastor is the one who is grooming Elizabeth for joining the family business. The girl on the bus who originally led her to that church always seemed like a plant to me. Wouldn't it be something if the Center is already working Paige without their consent?

I was fairly satisfied with the finale and I teared up a few times. But I was not so bowled over that I didn't snerk at Kristina's news flash that she'd been courted by a non-profit to open up more amazing Snowflake Academies. Or to be annoyed as usual at Max's horrid behavior as he snatched the phone from his dad and then corrected his parents on THEIR listening skills, with no consequences as usual! And suddenly he had mad skillz at taking photos of people, even posed photos (which he hates) and suddenly gained the ability to say hello to people and to smile. Yeah, right! But I still teared up and was happy to see most of the stories happily ended.

I've been re-watching too and I forget which episode, but it's after Chandler and Monica are engaged and they're all sitting in the coffee shop (of course) and Chandler says to Monica, "You're still the little fat girl inside, aren't you?" Not funny and not anything that Chandler would say to Monica at that point. Completely out of character. And I hate in The One With the Truth About London, when they damage the Monica/Chandler hook up with the retcon that it was Joey she intended to sleep with. Not necessary. I know this kind of storyline happens when a show goes on too long, but I don't like it!

Julia told Joel that she didn't sleep with "people" in their bed. But I do believe that she did. Since it would be unBraverman-like to lie, I guess that would be an example of retcon? I agree that it was ridiculous for Amber to be sitting cross-legged on the bed post delivery. I guess that's how they wanted to set up the shot, but it's totally unrealistic. I still tear up at this show, but it's so badly written that it's frustrating. The music is lovely though. I cringed at all the Snowflake Academy stuff - enough! I hope we've seen the last of it, but I doubt it. We'll probably get another 10 minutes of it in the finale.

I still have a great deal of sympathy towards Beth. She is the mother of a murdered child, married to and pregnant by her idiot husband. I think blaming Ellie for her water breaking was over the top, but I believe it was written as a means to bring them close again and as the typical trope of the woman in labor screaming about everything and everyone. It will take time, but I believe they will be drawn close again. Ellie was shocked that she didn't see what was going on right under her nose and Beth doesn't see what is going on under hers. In any case, if I were in Beth's shoes, I'd probably be a bitch on wheels for life.

After a rewatch of episodes 1 & 2, I notice two things. One, that Baxter said that Bates took a journey he will deny (words to that effect). She must have seen Bates on that fateful day. Whether she will implicate or exonerate him remains to be seen. Secondly, after the fire, Anna stated that Bates was in a state and made reference to the fact that that is how he gets sometimes. Now there is a witness regarding Greene's death. I hope they don't put us through another Bates as murder suspect story, but if they do, perhaps it will be quick and either Bates will die (opening the door for a new, more appropriate suitor for Anna) or Gillingham will be the murderer. Then perhaps Anna & Bates will have a baby and Mary will end up with Charles Blake.

I really hope that after Zeke kaks (sp?), Amber moves in with Camille for help with the baby and a decent place to raise her child. That apartment is ridiculous! She is so unprepared for motherhood. I am thankful every week that this ridiculous show is nearly over and will soon be put out of its misery. Still, I cry every week and that is enjoyable!

I watched Natalie's interview on Survivor Live. She is beautiful, open and funny. I'm really glad she won.

One aspect of Nero's story that has always bothered me is his blaming his son's spina bifida on his wife's being a junkie. Spina bifida is a neural tube defect and it can happen in any pregnancy. I have a nephew with spina bifida and his mother had excellent pre-natal care and has always had a healthy lifestyle. It happens. I blame Sutter of course for the misinformation! As much as Jax may want his boys to be taught to hate him, Wendy and Nero are not going to do that. Wendy still loved Jax when he died. I think his suicide was a coward's way out and it is very dangerous to his boys for him to suicide, especially if it's true that his father did so too. That is a very difficult burden for children to bear. The best we can hope for for these (fictional) boys is that their new life will be so far away from the club and the poison that Grandma and Jax would have raised them in, is that nurture will overcome nature and they will have fairly normal lives.

I like it too and I like the play on words of "a murder of crows".

Lin - Triad suffered the most and for absolutely no reason. And Jax is still killing them off! He's a monster. He'd kill off Tyler too, if the Irish didn't want to work with "black". Yet Sutter would have us think of Jax's legacy as building a rainbow coalition of thugs. At least, if that's the unwritten bylaw Jax wants changed.

I re-watched Red Rose yesterday. On second viewing, I found less fault with it. And I found the 3 major character deaths to be even more chilling. I do think that even though it seemed on first viewing that Jax & Gemma did not care about Unser or his death, I felt less so the 2nd time. Jax tried to get him to leave and Gemma was too wrapped up in her own imminent death to react other than a nod. It would have been nice if she had urged Unser to leave. He might have listened to her, but I think everyone in that room was on a death march. I still think that Jax's leg issue must mean something.

That's hilarious! Seriously, I started watching the first few eps of Season 1. So interesting to see how things have changed and how many characters are dead and gone. Juice was a smart one back then re computers, but a bit of a screw-up. And honestly? Chibs is much hotter now. Tig looks better too. They both seemed a little puffy back then. I was surprised to see how kind Jax was to Wendy. He even took the blame for their marriage falling apart and admitted he didn't want a baby. Clearly, the idea was that he felt differently once Abel was born, but he's never been a great dad. He was also reluctant to murder back in the day and tried to avoid it. There was a scene back then where Gemma burns up a picture of her wedding day. She was very pregnant and Clay was smiling away in the picture, beside the happy couple. It seemed back then that Sutter was flirting with the idea that maybe Clay was her baby daddy. I don't know. I think Unser was more of a bad guy back then too. Oh and she mentioned to Jax that he too had the family heart issue, but was strong. I didn't remember that at all! I wonder if that could tie in to the leg weakness Jax had in this episode.

That Ellen clip is hilarious. As for spoilers, I'm just doing my best to avoid them. I'm used to avoiding spoilers on Tuesday, since I never see the show until Wednesday. It's the same with Walking Dead. I have a nephew who always posts spoilers on FB, so I stay off of there until I've seen my favorite shows. I love speculation, but not spoilers!

Well said, henripootel. I think Sutter is a terrible writer and his plots are full of holes. Just the way these people flit around the tiny state of California (hah!), accomplishing so much in a 24 hour period, is ridiculous. And this made me think about the retconning that went into Tara's clearly passionate, most likely by someone close to her, murder, magically became "gangland style" a couple of episodes ago. Gemma's murder looked gangland, not Tara's, but Sutter pretends for the sake of advancing his storyline, all reasoning aside.

I am of the belief that Jax was asking the council for his own crew to kill him to honor the mayhem vote. It would kind of be a reflection of Gemma's urging him to follow through on killing her. However, this morning I woke up thinking about the homeless lady. She has to be an angel, since she transported herself hundreds of miles away without benefit of a car. So, I think she will appear in the road when Jax is riding the blue bike and he will swerve and die in an accident. It might even be in the same spot where JT died, especially since the angel is likely Brook's Mom, who was also killed there.

Did Jax say he wanted the unwritten by-law abolished or to be enforced? For some reason I came away thinking that he was asking the council if his own club could carry out the mayhem and kill him. But everything I've heard or read about this episode seems to point to him wanting to abolish racism in the gangs. I'll have to watch again. ETA - I think Jax's new limp is meaningful. Perhaps it will cause him to spill JT's newly repaired bike at just the right moment and he'll be able to take himself out? I see Artsda had the same thought I did about Jax wanting his own club to do his Mayhem.

I think we've all been victims of poor writing much of this season. Left to draw my own conclusions, I decided that Gabriel went looking to see if his own child perhaps had been killed at the school. Who is Mary, the owner of the Bible and the backpack? Did he know her? Although, if he did have a child at that school, even a chicken-sh*t like Gabriel would have checked on his child's fate long before this, I suppose. It's really irritating to me that the hospital story and the Gabe story make so little sense. At least Abraham's story was fleshed out for us. Beth's death was senseless, imo. Really, what was she going to accomplish with that little scissors? And we are not even left with the info that ANY new characters followed our heroes out of the hospital. Not even the strawberry loving geezer? No one? They all chose to stay in the evil they know? That makes Beth's death even more meaningless. All that said, I did cry when Maggie looked expectantly for her sister to walk out of the hospital, only to have her heart broken. I also heard on a podcast, a theory that ties the title Coda, a musical term, to Beth's story arc. That made sense to me. I just wish that any viewer could figure things like that out from watching the show, rather than from extraneous information.

Very odd writing on this one. The only reason I can think of for Kalinda confirming with Dylan what time he gets home from school is that her back up plan is to kill Bishop. I'd be okay with that. I have no idea where they are going with the Geneva affair, Alicia's note to Grace or the Finn stuff. It seems to me from the Alicia/Finn conversations that maybe they have already slept together? They always seem to be skirting something.

Those reviews are so comforting to this disappointed viewer. I do believe that Katims would have us believe that we are heartless where his characters are concerned. Instead, we have common sense on our side and he is ridiculous. I can't wait for this nonsense to be over. What a joy it was to read that even "professional tv viewers" agree!

After Max PUSHED Aaron and his MOTHER, words came out of my mouth unbidden, "Put that kid in a reform school." But Katims wasn't done. Kristina glaring at drivers whose cars she ran in front of after running after the most special snowflake of all was bad enough. No, he still wasn't done. Then she tells her monster child that he is brave. I am amazed at the ridiculousness of the writing on this show. We are definitely supposed to think that Kristina is super-mom. I listened to the Afterbuzz TV podcast this episode and they all agreed that Max was brave and Kristina is awesome. It is apparently an alternate universe. I am not going to miss this show. But I already miss the show it might have been.

I did not even think of Tig hurting Venus or vice versa; however, I didn't really believe Tig's "heartfelt" speech. I don't know if the actor didn't sell it (for me) or if it was just so out of character, but I didn't find it as touching as many others did. I totally buy Walt Goggins as Venus, but I don't buy a sincere and deeply in love Tig.

I was blown away by the ending, then immediately fearful that Jax wouldn't believe Abel and would head in the wrong direction like he always seems to do. Jax's glee at Juice's situation made me think that he might reveal to Tully who Juice's father was after he no longer has any use for Juice. Jax is a cold hearted bastard. I'd like to see Gemma get what she deserves, but I don't trust Sutter at all. Still, at least he finally gave us a good episode.

I've been thinking a lot about this. I don't think Gemma will die, at least not by Abel's hand. That is too dark a place for even Sutter to go to. I think that he keeps showing us how awful Gemma & Jax are when it comes to parenting kids for a reason. I mean really, burying Uncle Bobby steps from the cabin & laying him on the picnic table where Abel can and did see him - all shot up and missing an eye! And let's not forget there there is a junkie in the house (2 actually) and drugs as well as loads of guns. It's ridiculous. I think he's showing the relative better parenting of Wendy and possibly Nero (though I think he's doomed) because he has plans for the kids to get out of Charming and away from the poison that is Jax & Gemma. Nero may hand over access to the farm to Wendy with his dying breath, but I believe that is where she and the boys will land. Since Gemma knows all about the farm and no one could keep her from "her boys" she will either have to die or go to prison. I think she'll go to prison and Jax will die. As for Unser, we are going to waste at least 2 more episodes with him blabbing all to Gemma. His ridiculous love for her is what facilitated her murdering Tara in the first place. I would imagine that he is doomed as well, but since he's a "good" guy, he'll probably die saving someone - Eglee, Wendy or the kids. I'm not sure who the "rat" is - I think it's quite likely Chucky, since his hands are not as dirty as Rat's, but Rat is the other possibility. They have both had some odd close ups that seem to be pointing out that they might be duplicitous. If it's a long term rat working with the feds, then I think it's one of those 2. If it's a short term rat, only "guilty" of revealing the whearabouts of the guns to the Chinese, then I think it's Barosky. He seems pretty fed up with Handsome Jack.

How about "Birth Mama"?