sistermagpie

That's exactly what I was thinking. Particularly when she's not only having him on a different diet, but she's making him cancel a weekly brunch with friends? Even if you've got him on a healthy diet you can let the man have French toast once a week. Especially when you're taking away a social thing that he loves. It seems like he's just going with it now because they're in a honeymoon phase and either he'll turn out to be the kind of person who lets their spouse run their life or he'll start ignoring it for his own happiness.

This show is so brilliant in how it portrays these little things as so important for Sam. I know Bridget Everett is a pom owner, so I wasn't surprised to see her fall in love with Pepper, but I'm hoping she'll wind up going back to the shelter. The show did a great job of introducing how great pets can be for people, and how Sam's now so scared of losing people she's afraid to take a chance even on a dog. It's funny, I remember last season there was some suspicions about Fred's wife, or at least it was easy to feel like she was a sudden interloper like she felt to Sam, but it really is annoying that she's coming in with rules about Fred not having his weekly brunch with Sam and Joel. I know she just doesn't get how important it is for Sam and that she's worried about Fred's health, but it's still, imo, too presumptuous--especially having it replaced with a sport. I wonder if it'll turn out that she's threatened by Sam in some way. Loving our Icelandic border--and totally believed that Tricia would consider him smelly because he looked smelly even when he wasn't.

Really glad to be caught up with the show for the next season! I did not see that end coming, but it was great. I completely bought why Deborah would have pulled what she did, and it's still interesting to know that despite Ava blackmailing Deborah, it's still for the good of them both. Per my thoughts on the last ep, though, I still think Deborah's sister is a piece of work, despite Deborah's comically evil antics. It feels like she was just waiting her chance to tell herself she'd made up for what she did so she could go back to thinking she was the good one and blow Deborah off. Helping your husband steal your sisters money, try to steal her kid and tell the entire world she's an arsonist is not "one bad thing." I'm not even clear how she's been trying to "make amends" all this time by just being happily married and living well and justifying her actions. If she doesn't want to spend time with Deborah she doesn't have to. I think that's the thing about Deborah as a character. On one hand she's awful and it's satisfying to see her called out--but only by characters who also get called out. Kathy seems more like she just hides behind Deborah's terribleness while Deborah's saving grace is how often she can get torn down and not only take it, but listen and make some corrections. Likewise, it's funny how work is so important on the show, yet we have Kayla causing serious problems by being terrible at her job and failing upward based on a lack of social skills. Here's to the next season!

I just watched this ep--getting into the show at last--and while they made it impossible for me to completely dislike Kathy because she was J Cameron Smith I still thought Kathy was getting off too easy. If it was just a case of Frank and Kathy being a better match it'd be one thing--Deborah obviously could have gotten over Frank. But Kathy was standing by his side as he stole all the money Deborah earned (and Kathy shared it) and tried to take her daughter away (and give her to Kathy). Saying you're a better match for a guy who's a *********** isn't a good argument for why someone should want you in their life since the family you chose wound up dying first. Seems like Kathy needs to take her own accountability and admit to hating her sister.

I think the scene you must be thinking of is a scene where Nat just has a drug dealer come to her room to buy drugs. It's not the blackmailer or money, it's a drug dealer with cocaine she's buying.

One other reasons a network might stick with something, I believe, is if it brings good attention to it--like a prestige show that has a small but passionate fanbase but gets Emmys or critical attention and makes their network associated with a type of quality. None of which would apply here either, obviously.

Just watched IHOP. MARTHA Actual scene with Martha shows she’s going to get at least a little plot here in Russia. People always talk about her apartment looking so terrible, but tbf, everything looks worse through that cold, blue Russia filter they use. The Burov’s relatively luxurious place doesn’t look much better. It looks like you could never get warm there and it’s either just before dark or just after dawn. Gabriel stops by for a visit and seems to be trying to undo some of the damage he knows his work has done. People tend to read Martha’s telling him that she understands “all of it” now to mean she knows everything we viewers know, but we don’t really know that as a fact. She’s responding to him claiming that he and “all of them” want good things for her, rather than the somewhat true stuff about Clark thinking about her. So she may still have a narrative in her head now that doesn’t completely destroy her love affair. I do love her being defensive over her baked potato—Martha still has her dignity, dammit! She’s not pathetic! STAN The balls on this guy. Stan goes to see Gaad’s widow, who tells him nobody from the FBI’s much reached out to her since his death. Then Stan reveals that he’s really only there to get permission to go against the CIA to protect Oleg. This is just such peak Stan, that he’s very concerned with feeling like he’s one of the good guys. He hates the idea of betraying Oleg when Oleg did something heroic that was beyond Cold War Games, and honestly convinces himself that not only is it appropriate to bring this to the widow Gaad for approval, but that she’ll give it to him. He’s not even trying to manipulate her. It’s just funny when she says Frank would totally want revenge. Did Stan forget about Gaad’s plan to kidnap Arkady in revenge for the death of FBI agents? Not that this will change Stan’s mind. But he could have just done what he wanted without bringing her into it, honestly! OLEG Speaking of Oleg, his family dynamics get even more interesting here. His mother seems to always have one foot in her own private nightmare. His father here confesses that she’s not the woman he originally married, but unlike many men in his position he didn’t dump her for surviving the camps. This conversation is happening after Oleg’s been called in for more questioning himself. In the end, the KGB’s suspicions are less about Oleg being in danger of going to prison in the USSR and more, it seems, about laying out that Arkady has good reason to know what he did when he approaches him in S6. Oleg goes to see Dimitri, the grocer he sent to prison, and mentions that his father always favored his brother, although he wouldn’t admit it. The show’s always been pretty explicit about mother/daughter stuff with Elizabeth, her mother and Paige, but the father/son themes are more subtle and spread out, they’re leaning more into the father/son stuff this season (still without giving us much Philip/Henry!). We were introduced to Oleg’s father when he tried to pull Oleg out of the US, and even then, he seemed to consider Oleg the problem child compared to upright Evgeny the soldier. It doesn’t seem that he doesn’t like him, but more that he has anxiety about him. I think he sees his mother in him. His mother who’s been hurt—but is also a survivor who doesn’t just not think about the past like Igor seems to. Maybe someone who questions and doesn’t trust the system that Igor feels safer trusting as long as he can. HENRY A rare Paige-free episode. The show intentionally sets up an ambush with Henry and his parents to look like Stingers where Paige demanded The Truth. But Henry’s a different person than Paige. When she saw weirdness at home, she needed to know what it was. Henry deals with things more through hiding and distraction. In this case, he can do both by going to school in New Hampshire. In a way, this is a replay of Stingers—the moment when the kid lays out that their eyes have opened. One thing I remember from the show’s first run that was silly, imo, was people trying to make Henry’s plans here something other than they obviously seem to be. He wants to go to an elite boarding school that’s straight out of the Preppy Handbook. It’s a very 80s cliché. But I remember people trying to somehow twist this into Henry having some more charitable impulse here—like maybe he wants to get close to wealth and power so he can use it to feed the poor! And if he’s a scholarship student it means he’s nothing like a real preppy! Or Chris’s father just saw that Henry was stuck in a terrible school and wanted to give him a chance! Henry himself, though, lays out that this is completely about wanting to leave his very good public school to join the rich and powerful ranks of his country at an exclusive boarding school. One where Chris’s family has gone for generations. He’s just attracted to the idea. I love that he even describes it as wanting to “capitalize” on his talents. See what the show did there? It’s not that this means that he’s simply shallow or greedy. It’s not like he must come out of the school as some rich asshole defending the status quo. But he likes the ties and blazers world right now. And I have to admit, there is something satisfying about Henry saying the school Paige goes to just isn’t good or serious enough given how she’s always interacted with him growing up. One thing that bugs me a little btw, is that yet again the show brings up this being expensive just so Henry can say he’ll get a scholarship as if that makes it basically free. Like, why bring it up at all if it’s not an issue? Just have him say he wants to go. Especially since next season you want a whole story about how Philip can’t pay for the school? Although Henry doesn’t know it, he is following in his father’s footsteps here, it seems. Philip, too, left his family with dreams of having an important life. TUAN Meanwhile, P&E’s other son is up to something suspicious. Turns out Tuan is taking a bus to Pennsylvania to contact his sick little brother in his host family. He’s very Elizabeth here, with the cold exterior covering up a warm feeling inside that scares him a little. Btw, there are still a lot of people who think Tuan is an actual teenager, but that makes no sense to me. Aside from all the practical reasons he can’t be 16, imo (training, responsibility, history, apparent memories of bombing), Philip and Elizabeth don’t treat him like a teenager. There’s no way they wouldn’t discuss his age if he was. What he’s doing is really bad here, in fact. Tuan always seems to be critical of how P&E are doing this job, wanting them to spend more time with him. But they’ve got multiple covers to juggle at once, one of which is full-time. This is his only job that he lives 24/7, and he’s still the one who decided to run away to make a phone call. He really is a good mirror to Elizabeth, btw, because he presents himself as so strong that he crosses over into brittle and a little unsure. And of course he’d be totally judgmental of someone else doing this. Oh, and when Elizabeth calls the Morozov’s to see if Tuan’s there? There’s no way the phone we see them answer made the ring that they use as a sound effect! On the other hand, I really admire how they found old-fashioned “Don’t Walk” signs for the street scenes where they follow Tuan! ELIZABETH Elizabeth does seem to relate to Tuan as another protégé, for obvious reasons. She says Paige seems to have gotten over Matthew, then asks Philip if Tuan ever asks him about girls. It seems like she might be trying to, through Tuan, imagine Paige being able to have boyfriends while working as a spy maybe? The fact that viewers often criticize how P&E take care of Tuan, btw, seems like more evidence to me that they are good parents. If they weren’t, people wouldn’t expect them to parent a random every young-looking person they interact with. Stan’s the opposite—he offers a kid a stick of gum and is considered father of the year even when his own son never stops being disappointed. I am really surprised by Elizabeth’s supportive reaction to Henry’s plans here, though. It’s funny when she asks if St. Edwards is a religious school, but beyond that she seems to see no danger whatsoever in Henry going there. This is a woman who wouldn’t let Paige go to a Christian summer camp for 3 months to be indoctrinated. Yet where Henry wants to go is far more dangers, it seems to me. The church was at least left-learning. Henry’s going to a school for those who Win at Capitalism and Elizabeth doesn’t even seem to notice it. I wonder, honestly, if this is meant to be actual naivete on her part. It reminds me of how in S6 she seems to think Paige can just apply for a job at the State Department and get it despite those posts presumably being competitive. Like she asks if this is about him following Chris because he likes her, but doesn’t react to Chris obviously just coming from Old Money and being a legacy. This is going to come up later again as they discuss it, so I’ll probably bringing it up again! PHILIP Philip meets Father Andrei here and right off the bat, he’s clearly not a great source. He seems to want to use his job to force Philip to meet with him and listen to his problems at the church and Philip does not have time for that with the sources he’s already got. (Andre will do better with Elizabeth later, presumably because she also likes to talk about her problems at work!) Plus, he really doesn’t seem to like being close to other spies. Philip starts the ep as Jim, celebrating Kimmy’s birthday. She asks if he misses the son he told her about, and he says he wants to have kids one day and try to make up for his mistakes with them. Kimmy wisely notes that everybody screws up as a parent, but wanting to not screw up too much is a good start. This is sort of echoed by Oleg’s dad when he says he never told Oleg about his mother’s imprisonment so that Oleg could have the life he has. All these parents are trying to correct something with their kids, but they can’t avoid creating more problems doing that. Really, there’s something of a pattern the show follows along gender lines. Where the women characters often explicitly try to recreate and intentionally burden the current generation with their own pasts as a duty or something they’re entitled to do, the men lean more towards silence and trying to make things different. And yet they wind up repeating the past anyway, sometimes. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the women don’t do that as well, though. Seems like the show is saying that while the younger generation can’t ever fully understand the previous one, much less be like them, they can’t ever fully escape the past either. The past is going to have its way regardless of what the parent tries to do. Philip’s reaction to Henry’s plans, unlike Elizabeth’s, is totally in character and seems to bring together a lot of different issues he’s gone/going/will go through. First, he just enjoys having the kids at home and doesn’t want to let them go before he has to. He especially enjoys Henry’s company, so will miss him when he’s gone. Plus, he’s the parent who’s always had an eye towards losing the kids one day, if not because of their job, just because they’ll grow up, so I think he understands that a kid who goes to boarding school is not longer a kid who lives at home—especially given his own past. Also, although we don’t always think of him as such, he is an immigrant parent. He flirts with capitalism, but doesn’t ultimately embrace it. Here he specifically talks about how he’s living in a house that he couldn’t have dreamed of as a child. Yet his son needs more. This is also, though, why I can’t agree with people who seem to think Henry will just dump his parents at the end of the show and hate them forever. As a teenager Henry seems to totally see his father as a well-meaning, loving, but not overly impressive guy who’s just not destined for the kind of life Henry sees for himself. The fact that he’s actually the type of figure Henry would admire—except the Soviet version? That’s not something he can just not care about! But S6 will lay the foundation even more, imo.

There were times where Rachel's nose was literally invisible to me when she was camera. I'd gotten used to her looking like Cindy Lou Who, but this was a little disturbing!

It became like a game to me once I'd seen a couple. I started looking in the opening credits, but at least once I didn't recognize the name, then realized wait, I know that person! Listing by the Americans character names Evie Snedjer, Nina's cellmate from prison (that's Kristin so she's in every ep) William Crandall, the snarky scientist illegal (Dylan Baker) Fred, the source they work with in S2 (John Carroll Lynch) Brad Mullins, the sailor from S2 Lisa, the alcholic Northrup employee with the terrible husband Adderholt, best FBI agent! Young-Hee, Elizabeth's only "friend" Charles Deluth, Philip's reporter agent and finally, Hans, the South African protegee

Just had to agree with all of this. Mean is exactly how the whole Andy story felt, like somebody writing a fanfic where they hate Andy because they ship Kristen and David so have him conveniently cheat and announce he's met someone. Yes, it seems very suspicious like he's being mind-controlled but at this point it's unclear how much his family would care. I see no chemistry there and it seems like they'd make a miserable couple. Yet everybody keeps insisting they're made for each other. I preferred the scenes with her and Ben as well. Why didn't they just make her a widow because it seems like they created this husband and have resented his presence ever since! They could already have their alleged forbidden love with David since he's a priest. With the appearance of John Carroll Lynch the tally of actors from The Americans to show up on Evil up to 9!

Seems like showing up with a dragon is the only way anyone will remember she exists. If the dragon ate her I can imagine her family in ten years going, "Wait, what happened to that other girl that used to be here?"

They specifically described him as being guarded because he was "long in dying" so seems like they're telling us he's not dead yet but they're assuming. It's like on a soap opera. If you die ina plane crash with no body, you're going to come back during sweeps. Wow, that would be terrible. Having her running a whole episode and ending with the cliffhanger of her facing the dragon seemed to set up a whole ep with her claiming him. If they skip to her just riding away it would be almost like the whole point of her character is to not have one. Ever. Waaaaah! That was so painful!

I assumed in that moment he was more generally just talking about them being legitimately good enough or deserving of their place. And Jace showed total weakness by replaying, "My MOM totally is one!"

Aegon may have just been told he was dead and the dragon will make a dramatic return along with Aegon the not-Unburnt.

Suddenly made me remember that I Love Lucy when she tries to learn Spanish to meet Ricky's relatives. 'You just called him a big fat pig!"

But there is no info that will reduce your odds of harm in this case. Saying there are was would be lying. Seems more like her blood/scent was what protected her, not her knowledge of Valyrian. The dragon just recognized her as a worthy dragon rider. The problem is that painting a picture gives the wrong impression. Having more knowledge and some tips seems like it would be helpful. That's logical. Dragon keepers do, of course, learn how to behave around dragons as servants to them. But given what we've actually seen about a claiming situation, those tips aren't going to help. Ser Steffon did exactly what Rhaenyra did with Seasmoke, and Seasmoke responded by not only roasting Ser Steffon, but the handlers nearby. Claiming a dragon means presenting yourself for judgement by the dragon and that's it. It's not like bringing it food without angering it. Note, after all, how Vermithor did not roast Hugh. Because the bloodline protects highborn Targaryens. It's their birthright to be accepted by dragons. A birthright carried in their blood, not in secret knowledge. That's why they put a call out for Targ bastards and not just anybody who was feeling lucky. Of course Rhaenyra was careful in approaching Vermithor--just as everyone else was--but she mostly relied on Vermithor recognizing her as a dragon rider. Knowing how to speak to it in High Valyrian was exra.

This seems like absolutely all there was to know. I don't get how knowing any words of High Valyrian would have helped at all. Seems like it would make it almost more of a joke to me, but mmv.

I think the girls are fine on their own, but I find myself getting really distracted by the Andy situation. The marriage being over is one thing, but him being alone and thinking he tried to murder his daughter while nobody's telling the truth about that and Kristin's talking about giving two lives to the guy she really likes is just too sad to think about. And no matter what would have happened organically, the marriage has been too manipulated to say it collapsed on its own by this point.

I kept kept wondering during the ep why they didn't base her character around the idea that she's meant to tame a wild dragon. Like most obviously, make her wild herself so it fits. Or even make her somebody who's caring in an out of the box way so it seems like she's meant to care for a lonely, fierce stray. Just anything to make it a character story that she'd feel this dragon is meant to be hers like Aemond did with Vhaegar, where she just figured it was her mom's dragon and therefore hers. Maybe the idea is that she's forgotten and wandering by herself through life like the dragon, but that doesn't come out when she's whiny about it instead of finding things of her own to do like the wild dragon presumably is. But none of that has anything to do with the people here, because they are not applying for a job as dragonkeepers. They are there to stand in front of a dragon and claim it. it's a fairy tale test of character with no more way to prepare for it than pulling a sword out of a stone. (Except the stone doesn't leap up and crush you if you fail.) Sure, the aspirants don't know exactly how a dragon will reject them if it does, but neither does anyone else, because they're unpredictable animals. It's more like Brienne and Jamie thrown into the bear pit than someone learning to work at the Crocodile house. Teaching them to say, "Be calm," in High Valerian might have given them some confidence going in, but they just would have died screaming, "Be calm!" in High Valerian. Neither Hugh nor Ulf (or Addam) had any more training than they did.

Maybe if she'd made a point of saying, before she left, that this was their last chance to turn back she might have saved a few more lives, which would have been good, but the danger would still have been abstract if Rhaenyra had explained it before it happened. In fact, I think even in the scene they might have been able to follow her out if they chose right before the real testing began, when that monster was already right there in front of them. I'm not defending Rhaenyra's character--her goal was finding dragonriders out of that crowd, not preventing casualties, and that's why the guards were told to keep everyone in there as long as possible (the only thing I would really consider a surprise to the smallfolk--though some were still able to push through and if they were near the guards, they were away from the dragon). But these people have grown up in a world where dragons are the biggest, scariest things in the world, and it seems silly to think that they need somebody to explain to them that the giant fire-breathing maneater might very easily kill you even by accident. I mean, I've never seen a tiger attack anyone in person, but I'm scared to get close to one. Even the talk of knowing how to mitigate the risk etc. seems useless given the situation. Vermithor wasn't stomping, burning and eating people because they weren't following proper etiquette. Running away from a dragon doesn't always result in a roasting. The first guy he burned did exactly what Rhaenyra did. The previous claiming-gone-wrong also resulted in several casualties, and we saw that the people who spend their lives caring for these creatures carry knives to slit their own throat rather than burn alive. There's no real trick to staying alive.

I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around any of these people not understanding that they're risking death by getting near a dragon, much less trying to claim one. Or thinking their Targ blood will protect them for some reason. How could they be confident at all that the giant fire-breathing maneating monster they were volunteering to get close to wouldn't breath fire on them and eat them? It's pretty much all they do. The point of the whole test as presented was that these people thought so little of their lives they were willing to risk them for a chance to win the dragon lottery. The two guys we know both seemed to know how dangerous this was. Of course Rhaenyra knew people were going to get roasted in some fashion, even if she couldn't predict the dragon going after the whole room the way he did. But I don't think she would have saved any lives by testing people in private to be burned one by one. Nothing about this makes Rhaenyra seem stupid to me. Ruthless and having a noble person's attitude about smallfolk being red shirts, but not stupid, since she got exactly what she was after in an efficient manner and predictable casualties. A lot of those smallfolk will never come home, and everyone will know they died by dragon. Two flew out with dragons. Those who escaped will run home traumatized and singed with tales of how fucking terrifying those things are, and so how awe-inspiring and god-like people like Rhaenyra must be for being able to ride them.

I think there was a reason to test them altogether and we saw it in the episode. Putting them in a terrifying position where they were facing the dragon attacking led to the dragons finding their riders in ways having people get roasted one by one in private would not. I thought that was the point. Terror was necessary. As to whether they really knew, I don't think anybody can really know what it would be like until they were facing it, but there was no way for them to know that except through experience. They all knew dragons are gigantic with mouths full of teeth, that they breathe fire and eat people. They just didn't know the depth of terror of being attacked by one for real instead of just abstractly knowing they were gambling with their lives.

Wouldn't people expect that from any ruler? Like, with the dragon feast, I don't feel like people would really hold it against her. To quote someone who quoted something I wish I'd quoted first, "Please. They bought their tickets. They know what they were getting into." She gave them a fairy tale chance to claim a dragon based on their bloodline and a lot of them were willing to be tested knowing the dragon was the danger. And she didn't lie--two of them did claim dragons. It's sort of the opposite of the optics with Melys. Vermithor came across like a hungry god. Totally agree. I was never into the dragons in GoT, but these guys are genuinely beautiful and terrifying and often seem more like full characters than the people.

It's like they just set a big bowl of chips out in front of him. You know now it is. You start eating and they're right there so you just keep going even if you know you're going to order a main course soon.

I guess what's missing, in a way, are that plenty of people would support her as an idea because they hoped to manipulate and control her, whether she was seeking support or isolating herself or not. Her mere existance is a potential road to power for somebody, if not her.