withanaich

That's what I meant. I thought she was there to make sure Varga (or whomever) didn't escape ... which is why I thought she set him up to attempt just that. Because if anybody was going to abandon the others, it would probably be him. Which is another thing that bugged me about that scene: why didn't he just get off the elevator on the SECOND floor? Does the elevator not stop at the second floor? What was the need for all the James Bond elevator-hatch-escape stuff? And aren't there, like, any STAIRS in that damn building? Shouldn't Nikki and Mr. Wrench have factored in someone trying to escape that way? Maybe Varga should have stationed someone on the stairs in the first place?

I was under the impression that Nikki sent the text to Varga (to get him to abandon his minions to their fate so she could get him alone and take him out), but then he outsmarted her by climbing out of the elevator (which was a bit much for me to swallow, quite frankly). I was also under the impression that Nikki is the one who sent the incriminating documents (and Gloria's name and number) to the IRS guy, because she wanted to get Emmit every way she could. It seems like once Varga and Goldfarb cleaned out Stussy Lots, they didn't much care what happened to Emmit. He could have died, gone to jail, or lived off of his off-shore accounts for the rest of his life for all they cared. Not sure why Emmit's car suddenly decided to work. I think Ewan McGregor did pretty good work here, but maybe it's just that Emmit is so damn bland the actor didn't have much to work with until the end of the season? I think he did a better job with Ray than with Emmit, but maybe that's because we learned more about the former character and the actor had more to work with. We never really learn why Emmit was such a bland, perfect patsy for Varga and Goldfarb. Presumably that's one of the reasons they targeted him in the first place, but we never really see WHY he turned out that way.

I totally agree with your assessment of Tuan. He kills me, talking shit about the U.S. like he A) knows everything about the goddamn world, B) knows more than experts Philip and Elizabeth, and C) isn't sitting there bingeing on American junk food while wearing a goddamn KNIGHT RIDER tee-shirt.

Not everyone wants a partner; Deirdre is clearly pretty content with her life and wants nothing more from a relationship than sex. I don't see what her looks I have to do with it. I think her looks do come into play here, or at least the way they're perceived, because it's one of the reasons Philip approached this whole thing wrong. Yes, he's still thinking about Martha, but they all underestimated Deirdre because she's older, "plain," and works a "boring" job. Elizabeth specifically mentioned Deirdre's age and job when she teased Philip about getting kicked out of bed by Deirdre. He made a lot of assumptions about her, and then was so entrenched in these assumptions that he didn't see that he needed to come up with a new approach. She kept clearly indicating that she was serious about her job and just looking for something casual, and yet this seasoned spy kept pushing and pushing like a lovesick puppy. I did think it was clever (and hilarious) that Philip finally figured out that he needed to play the Married card with her. She didn't even give him a chance to finish leaving a message!

If they don't have sex at the exact same time they did before, it won't be the same sperm and egg meeting. So unless Lucy knows exactly what time that happened (which, ew, how could she?), what she's asking for is utterly IMPOSSIBLE. I so don't care about Wyatt's dead wife, but at least he has some kind of chance of going back in time and preventing her from being killed (the only reason his attempt didn't work is because he pegged the wrong man as her killer). What Lucy's asking for is freaking ridiculous, even on a time-travel show, and I wish everyone would stop pretending like she has a snowball's chance in hell of pulling it off. It feels like they're patronizing her and the writers are patronizing us.

Yes, it was awesome that she was an attractive, plus-sized woman who had no problem finding dates (just dates that weren’t weirdos, losers, or killers). No, it wasn’t cool that they made the fat lady a fucking HIPPO. A HIPPO! Why not an alligator, or a jaguar or something else predatory and vicious that can take care of itself, but isn't code for "fat fatty fat pig"? In fact, I have to wonder if she wasn't written as a pig or elephant at first, and some "discerning" soul decided that was just too on the nose. They took what could have been a funny, interesting twist and ruined it. That “reveal” left a bad taste in my mouth. I can't even concentrate on how funny the blatantly obvious Get Renard's Shirt Off fanservice is, or how much I appreciate the return to the WoTW format, because that bit just ruined this episode for me.

I find the characterization of the Wizard pretty believable. Reactionary, petty, small man, easily humiliated with a severe inferiority complex under all that blustering? Yeah, him shooting Anna was a bit of a shock in the moment because it happened so suddenly, but once I think about it, not that surprising at all. Pretty sure Elizabeth was faking it, and Anna was telling the truth because she wasn't in on the spying ploy (which seems pretty dumb, actually, because it could've made the Wizard suspicious that they weren't in agreement). I think she feels betrayed and wants to hurt the sister who hurt her with her lack of trust. She was already furious when she suspected Glinda was keeping a secret from her, and this is a doozy. Maybe Glinda is Lucas' mother? That's what I'm thinking. It's still incredibly soapy. And creepy. And gross. But it still leaves the door open for him and Dorothy to get together, I guess. The way it was set up in the preview, it looks like Lucas is betraying Dorothy and set her up, when I'm guessing he's under Glinda's thrall (maybe magically?).

I actually liked that scene, even if it was a bit ham-fisted. I think the writers were trying to give Monroe an opportunity to go on one of his historical minutiae-based tangents (“nerdsplaining,” as The Wild Sow put it), which they haven't let him do in a while. And Rosalee completely realized that he was about to tell her a long-ass story, because it’s one of those things about him she finds cute, and he knew that she was just humoring him (take a note, Auggie’s dickhead dad) so it didn’t come off as mansplaining as much as one partner putting up with the other's idiosyncrasies. I have to disagree. I feel that they did show that strife was already brewing, what with the mother being obsessed with taking 5,000 pictures a day, and not even coming to bed because she had to post them right! This! Minute! The father looked like he was completely over it. I don’t know, maybe I’ve just seen couples like that, where one of them was clearly way more into the idea of having kids than the other, and sometimes they even steamrolled the other person’s wishes to get their way. But of course you can’t make someone be happy, so it rarely works out. You would think that the kidnapping and return of their infant son would have brought them closer together, but it didn't. They fell right back into that old pattern. So I think the strife was already there. Now, in the real world, of course that doesn’t have to lead to a homicidal teenager. Plenty of people have kids who aren't that into it (or even hate it), or are obsessive helicopter parents, and the kids manage to turn out okay. But on this show, where magical stuff is quite real, I think they showed that El Cuegle was trying to prevent a tragedy that was definitely imminent, because he tried not to intervene before, and that didn’t work. He didn't have to EAT the baby to kill it (lots of more merciful, less disgusting methods), but I think the story about his one failure (and the fact that Hank and Nick found evidence to back it up) proved that he was doing what was necessary. But where is she sleeping? Where is she pooping? Even hexenbiests gotta go sometimes, right? She had a cot at HW headquarters, so we know she sleeps sometimes! Hell, get a motel room and work through your transition there! I don’t know why, but this is bugging me more than the layout of Nick and Juliette’s house, with the guest room that apparently came and went at will. It just feels so lazy, like they didn't feel like working out where Juliette was going to be staying after they "wrapped up" the HW storyline. Trubel got hustled out of town, fine, and Juliette is ... creeping in the tunnels beneath Nick's loft all day and night, cold and damp and miserable and weird.

But his name isn't listed on her birth certificate or in any other official records, so it wouldn't come up in a background check. No one knew his name but her mother and her biological father (because he knew he'd slept with this woman and, being in Rittenhouse, I guess he secretly kept tabs on the fact that she'd given birth to a baby nine months later?), so how could Agent Christopher possibly know? I don't think even Flynn knows who her father is, does he? (I was thinking it might've been in the journal and he would reveal it, but her mother was the one to tell her.) The rest of Rittenhouse (and whatever moles they have inside Homeland and Mason Industries) might know, but only for the same creepy reason her father does.

I would imagine he learned about it when he stumbled onto Rittenhouse and its various nefarious dealings. "They killed my wife but I know about that time machine they bankrolled, so I guess I'll be stealing that to get her back!"

Yeah, when I was a kid (in the 80s), seat belts were still not a big deal, even for nine-year-olds. I grew up riding around in the backseat unrestrained, and sometimes sitting on another kid's lap if space was tight. That was the joke: of course seat belts existed (even automatic ones), but if it wasn’t automatic a lot of people didn’t even think about putting one on. I don’t know if the cops in Ohio back then were required to buckle up (and even if they were, people don’t always do what their bosses tell them). Not necessarily. Power/phone service could be out in one area and not in another (I don't remember if we learned how far away the bartender's sister lived). Nah, maybe I’m a bad person or whatever, but I still laughed. At least the Western Union attempt was a spur-of-the moment bad idea that didn’t risk anyone’s life (in the moment). The second attempt was careless, sloppy, inconsiderate, dangerous … and the first attempt should have taught Wyatt that maybe you can’t “fix” the present from the past. But it didn't, because he's a rockhead. And quite frankly, I'm sick of hearing about his insistence on resurrecting his wife (as well as Lucy's selfish "yeah, yeah, we'll save the world ... lemme just magically somehow get my sister back first"). So yeah, I laughed. We're not supposed to believe he blew up the ship. That's what he was planning, and they probably thought he succeeded when they first learned about the explosion, but they made a point of saying they didn’t find any of the materials from the Mothership in the wreckage. I believe you’re right. I guess “guy with single mom sister and little kid nephew” is supposed to be more sympathetic than “single white male hooking up with women in bars" in the same way that "tragic military dude with dead blank-slate wife" is supposed to be more sympathetic than "average veteran who is competent, not distracted by personal shit, and an asset to the team." *Shrug*

I assume Creepy Bio-Dad meant that she's a direct descendant of Rittenhouse Jr. (the creepy little twerp she stopped Flynn from killing). That would be a pretty neat twist, which I also assume means we will never actually learn what "gift" dude was referring to, even if the show does get picked up for another season. There is no way Lucy could have remembered the "original" timeline (the one in which the serial killer was conceived) unless she started a new journal and got Wyatt to take it on board with him. And asking us to assume that's what happened is just a bit much, even for this show.

That's exactly why I don't care about Wyatt's Dead Wife Drama. I don't know her. I don't know anything about her, except that story he told to Bonnie and Clyde, and I'm sorry, but the actor and the writing are just not selling me on why I should care about this. I don't know why they felt they needed to shoehorn it in. I shouldn't be HOPING that one of the heroes fails the little mission he set for himself, but I am, because the whole thing is such a drag, has nothing to do with what we're watching this show for, and takes up precious minutes that could be spent explaining any one of a number of things they really should have explained already. At least Lucy's family drama is tied to Rittenhouse and the larger plot. If they're going to claim that Jessica was tied to or killed by Rittenhouse, then A) they should have been dropping some bigger breadcrumbs and B) they need to go ahead and make that reveal soon. I still won't like Wyatt, but at least it might give him some emotional relevance.

Sorry not sorry, but I’m glad Wyatt’s wife is still dead. It’s terrible for the other people who love her, but he’s an ass and he was way, way, way out of line. And because it’s this show, I’m sure there won’t be any other consequences for all the crap Wyatt pulled (stole the Lifeboat, got a man killed, fucked around in the past like a clumsy dummy, lied to Rufus), so maybe he needed to chase a man to his death to realize that YOU’RE NOT GETTING YOUR WIFE BACK, YOU MORON. Now if only Flynn would realize that the tragedy of his life can’t be undone by mucking around in the past, and Lucy would stop freaking out on Homeland Security about their empty promise to magic her sister out of nonexistence. My husband thought Wyatt was going to end up sleeping with the woman to keep her away from the bartender, and end up being the one to father his wife’s killer. Which would have been awesomely ironic, and not resulted in a presumably innocent man getting killed because Wyatt is a hapless dumbass. No, Wyatt didn't intentionally kill him, but he was directly responsible for his death. I'm pretty sure the roads were closed, though? Which is why the guy was worried: he couldn't get to his sister, and then the phones went out too and he couldn't call her either. It is funny that instead of asking a cop to check on his sister or something, he very quickly forgot about her and started hooking up with the stewardess instead. There were a lot of things about this episode that highlighted how clumsy the plotting is on this show sometimes. The best thing, as usual, was Rufus. I could watch him geek out over old TV shows all day. "MANIMAL!"

This is so surprising yet awesome!