Snarklepuss

I just noticed that both episodes were recorded on my DVR back to back - Did not watch the second one yet where the winner is chosen so I don't know who wins yet.

Oh well, I was a Barrie fan but not upset about Trevor and Thea. I'm rooting for Thea now although I'd be fine if Trevor won. I agree about the judges being perfect. They're a class act next to the Americans and Gordon. And I am impressed with the contestants too. The quality of the cooking is so much better than on the US version. And they actually support each other. What a breath of fresh air.

ITA, but I find it hysterical that they've replaced the sex therapist with a trauma/conflict specialist, LOL. Says something about this show, doesn't it? No great loss with Rachel gone. I found her creepy and useless anyway.

I know he's won at least one of these Triple G star tournaments before and I remembered it because I was happy he won. He's competed at least 4 or 5 times now but I don't remember his track record. The older he gets the more I like him. Yum, crab cakes! I'm going to Costco tomorrow, now I'll have to pick up one of those tubs of Phillips lump crabmeat while I'm there.

I hear you. He reminds me of Mike Myers' "Dr. Evil", even the way he talks! He is yet another classic example of a 20th century "megalomaniac" or narcissist leader in just that classic cult/facist/evil doctor way. I recoil just watching clips of him. He is so obviously mentally disturbed, creepy and viscerally vile. Speaking of the rotten teeth, it does look like he got that fixed in later years judging from some of the videos I've seen of him.

Remember "The Stepford Wives"? That was set in the fictitious Connecticut town of Stepford. At least the writers of that movie had the sense not to name the place after a real town. Everyone always theorized that it was based on the real town of Darien, which is between Norwalk and Stamford (get it -Stepford, just a step away from Stamford.) But at least no one got insulted as a result! The thing is that Norwalk is no less a wonderful place to live than any other town in that area but now I'm sure a lot of people that don't know the place have a very different impression.

I hate to be all "I told you so" but I've literally been saying this since season 1 with her. I could never understand why so many people thought Janelle was so smart and the title of this thread always bugged me because of that. And BTW, with regard to the pyramid schemes, this family is yet another example of scammers being taken in by scams themselves.

I thought the same thing. I didn't even know she had Filipino heritage. She seems to have done a LOT of growing up and maturing in the time since her Top Chef season. Unfortunately she is also minus a personality now as well. I thought Stephanie deserved the win but I didn't think they would let her lose her first challenge. They will have to let challengers win once in a while or it will get boring. I also figured she would make goat because all her restaurants have "goat" in the title.

I found this interesting too. Even the Norwalk mayor got upset, calling it a form of bullying: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/11/28/a-connecticut-city-mocked-by-sitcom-asks-abc-to-end-insults There's even a petition, and I love some of the comments below: https://www.thepetitionsite.com/791/455/642/tell-abc-to-stop-insulting-norwalk/

Thank you, I just saw this and I'm not surprised at all and I'm glad that Norwalk residents spoke out about this. I lived in Norwalk for 5 years and was very insulted by this bashing, especially by the "pregnant prom girl" thing because it's just not true plus it seemed mean spirited. I posted my feelings about this in the episode thread. I put up with the Norwalk bashing for a while and wasn't too thrilled, but then they really went over the line. I agree with you about that but I think the only reason they're laying off Norwalk is that people got upset about it. Perhaps there haven't been that many people upset about the depiction of Westport yet to make them change their ways. Or perhaps they will adopt a no-bashing policy towards Westport too now. I do think the insult to Norwalk was even worse than anything they've said about Westport so far, but IMO they have still been pretty unfair, most recently depicting the school principal as being easily bribed to do something unethical. This is why I have said over and over again like a broken record on the episode threads that they should have chosen fictitious names for the towns if they were going to bash them, otherwise just don't do it.

I can imagine a scenario where being controlling doesn't necessarily translate into wanting to raise a child, but I agree that they probably broke up before she gave birth and he wasn't really interested in a commitment with her or the baby anyway.

It looked to me like they were using induction burners which can be tricky to use if you're used to gas or regular electric stoves. They heat up very fast and it's hard to figure out which setting will produce the amount of heat you want, plus they act differently with different kinds of pans depending on what they're made out of, so I'm figuring maybe the pan had an ingredient in it that doesn't work well on induction burners, plus perhaps the scallops weren't dry enough. I'm not sure why she didn't use cast iron as you can use it on induction burners. That's how I cook them too.

Any time I've ever had frozen salmon from any source it's been awful. I make a point not to buy it frozen for that reason. Maybe it just doesn't freeze well. I'd love to know if anyone knows of any frozen salmon that's good.

I just saw a 10 minute "preview" of Season 15 where they show part of the first quickfire and chef contestant Tyler Anderson (whom I know IRL) is quoted saying how it's much harder than it looks - I just hope that doesn't mean he goes home any time soon as I'm rooting for him big time.

I don't know why they think they have to keep making Sheldon an ass just for the plot's sake. The audience wants to see him grow in a positive direction, not turn mean spirited. I enjoyed the "flashback" scenes although it was pretty obvious that they were filmed in the present. Good job, though and yes, nice to see their old haunts again. And yes to it being implausible that Sheldon wouldn't have kept a copy of the bitcoin file when copying it to Leonard's flash drive.

If all else fails I'm sure the missed episode can be found on YouTube. Fortunately my DVR recorded both of them. I just wanted to reiterate how much better the cooking is in general on this show than on the U.S. version. I feel like these contestants are a cut above in terms of talent. I actually feel like the US version used to cast better cooks. Now it's all about personality when it should be about the food. I think it says something when I would be equally happy with any of these final 3 winning. I would be extra happy if Barrie won, though!

Oh I know, I watch "Sister Wives"!!!

I actually feel sorry for her. After all these years I've realized that she suffers from shyness and/or social anxiety, which she tries very hard to compensate for with a false persona, but it comes out awkward, strange and unlikable. I also think she has a complex about it, which makes it even worse. She's actually gotten worse rather than better over the yeas and she comes off as just strange, which she probably is to some degree because come on already! It's no wonder she's mostly been replaced by Aarti on the judging panel, who is much smoother at presenting herself on TV. ETA: It could be made worse by going through perimenopause, which she's probably of the age to be going through right now. I had wicked social anxiety back in those days myself. But she was always awkward to some degree.

It was just refreshing to see a 24 year old already married and with their own home. You don't see that much in my area anymore.

This episode hit me on many levels. Being of half Sicilian descent, I can see that all very southern Italians share a lot in common both culturally and genetically speaking. It fascinated me no end because so much was so similar to my childhood family growing up in NYC. If I were at that dinner table I would have been laughing and going along with it in fascination as it took me back to my childhood at the dinner table. I particularly loved the 1960s gas station glass collection, LOL. Tony was obviously uncomfortable, which I can understand as he had very different expectations. I guess growing up with a house full of yelling Italians made me see that situation differently, LOL. I figured she was his girlfriend after noticing the chemistry and then remembered her from the Weinstein accusations. I guess Tony has a thing for southern Italian women given that his ex wife Ottavia was Sardinian with a similar way about her. Hah, he would have loved me when I was younger. I'm even part Jewish and French like he is too! Oh well, the closest I ever came to him was being a regular in a restaurant in Greenwich Village where he was a line cook back in the 80s (which I of course didn't know at the time). Not that I've ever had a thing for him "that way" anyway. At least he did this area justice, not like the two horrible shows he did on Sicily.

That's true, I was also someone that didn't know Jordan other than seeing him in a clip of "Hamilton" on TV once and after seeing him on DWTS I would consider myself a fan of some sort (I guess I think I'm too old for that but you know what I mean). This show is great for breathing life into has been stars' careers as well as being great for making the up and comings like Jordan more well known. BTW, I always knew the Property Bros. but I watch HGTV once in a while.

I don't know if I'd agree with you when there was this article after only one episode back in September referring to his already being ahead in fan polls: http://www.entertainmentdaily.com/news/jordan-fisher-already-ahead-in-fan-polls-for-dwts-win/ Plus, the size of his fan base is only relative to the size of his competition's fan base and I don't think his competition could measure up. Perhaps Jordan didn't seem to have a big fan base going into DWTS, but that may not have been true based on the article above. Plus, I think the show itself has increased it.

I've thought that myself. The one and only time I ever saw a medium the woman said she didn't know who was coming through but just told me what they were telling her. I soon realized it was one of my best friend's fathers that had passed a few years before because she used specific expressions that only he had used and she said he was a "big personality", which he was. It was uncanny! Of course I would rather it have been my grandmother or my uncle! Didn't Theresa just do a reading this season where someone else came through, not the person the woman had wanted it to be? I can't remember now but I seem to remember this and it was out of the ordinary for her.

Yes, the FMLA law protects your job if you otherwise wouldn't have any issues preventing you from returning, such as the company claiming they were terminating you for a cause that has nothing to do with your absence but with your performance. In such a case they would have to prove a performance related cause or they would be setting themselves up for a wrongful termination lawsuit. It would have to be something documented and dated, like an incident warranting dismissal or a poor performance review after being warned of poor performance and given a chance to improve. In "at will" states, they can terminate you for any reason or no reason but during or right after a FMLA leave they would still have to prove a performance reason.

Even if she is legit, how can she filter out all the cross talk among spirits to focus in on only a few? I've seen videos of her huge readings and they're nowhere near as "spot on" as the ones we see on the show. I've read that the show filters out all the "dead ends" that don't resonate for the person so that it will look like she's always right on the money. I think that even if she is wrong sometimes it wouldn't prove her to be a scam artist, just not 100% accurate at receiving messages. No one could be that perfect.