innocuouspuff

Yep, I definitely noticed they toned down the sketchiness there. I guess the show can take notes after all.

Yeah, I realise I have limited emotional investment in who actually wins these shows these days. They're fun to watch and whatever happens is whatever happens. If anyone wants to watch Jenna Dewan Tatum dance some more, a compilation of the Channing/Jenna practice scenes from Step Up. Which is basically a silly millenial retelling of Dirty Dancing, with Jenna in the Patrick Swayze role and Channing as the untrained natural talent. :) And the movie's last dance sequence, it's no Time of My Life, but she's gorgeous imo. Cat and I are gonna go start a fan club. :) And now I want to go watch Dirty Dancing, hee. I carried a watermelon!

I can't believe y'all claim to be SYTYCD fans and have never seen the first Step Up movie. In which Channing and the future Mrs Tatum are adorable, and pretty good dancers to boot. I might go watch it again, lol. When Nigel and Paula were mimicking Jason's hand movements during the intro of the Ghost routine, I thought they were having another juvenile humour moment. Because, um, that looked like something else. But no, they just found it funny Jason didn't know the name of a made up prop. I guess the drinking had already started. Oh, that ridiculous sexiness segment. The show still can't take poor Asaf seriously but at least Asaf is down with it. Cyrus and Little Phoenix might have been great, but through my tv none of her movements were really visible on that tiny frame. According to both my ears and closed captioning Cat called her hip hop stank face, "skank face" but I'm pretty sure that's not the same thing. Gaby's lovely, a perfectly fine winner imo.

One cute Simi and Ope moment that hasn't been mentioned was Ope proudly going "my daughter is so smart" after she crawled across the monkey bars. Similar to Sabrina? crawling over the rolling log. Too bad Leilani didn't think of that, or Dujean didn't help her in some way. But they were pretty much toast once they were last at the wakeboard task so it didn't much matter. In fact if you think about it, Simi pretty much singlehandedly kept her team in the Race in order to become the last lady standing. Go, Simi! Tiny Jon! Did we already know about Dujean's fear of water? I could only remember Ope, Nic, and Sabrina. It is still super bizarre to me that they cast so many non-swimmers yet planned a water-intensive course? I feel like someone over-estimated how interesting it would be to watch people struggle with swimming etc, not once but over and over. I love curling but hate the Face Off, ugh why again.

Last week I was thinking that Simi and Ope might be in okay shape if the Race had more attention to detail tasks coming up, and then Ope goes and proves that really Simi is the one with that skill, lol. Read your clue, Dad! They're still fun to watch though, so we'll see if they can Little Engine That Could their way into the finale. Oldest/youngest Racer left and along with Dujean and Leilani the only two mixed gender teams left. Poor Dujean when Leilani was talking about punching him, hee. Love their facial expressions. Not that I don't like the strong dude teams Gino/Jesse or Nick/Matt but watching them look slightly bored while crushing tasks has limited interest. Though why Simi and Ope always end up surprised that physical tasks are actually physical is a mystery to me. I honestly don't get mad about people on the Race who can't swim or run or drive manual that well, but if you are going to be throwing up on every surface including the host, that's when it might be time to rethink your choices.

The Level Sixes are I guess an off-shoot of the RAC, but they can't strictly be said to work for the Nine (who on rewatch, apparently owns the Company but not the RAC) if a) they just helped to kill some of them, b) Delle Seyah is wasting her favours owed by Dutch, to protect Dutch on Khlyen's behalf. Leaving the question of who is ultimately in charge. Khlyen, or someone yet unseen? Maybe Khlyen's more of a Darth Vader, terrifying but relatively powerless in the grand scheme. So maybe it is more a question of the goals of whoever wields Level Six being in line with at least part of the Nine, for the time being. Heck, maybe the extinguished families are sleeping with the fishes because they thought bombing the Quad (again) was some sort of bridge too far? A quest for galactic domination definitely seems to be in play. But, whose exactly?

What I am wondering about is Khlyen's interest in the machine. What's his angle? I thought he might be worried about Dutch somehow but if she's the last of her line then no one really needs a complex bomb to wipe her genes out. So he...cares about Qreshi politics and who's in charge there? And he keeps trying to get Dutch tangled up in it? Why? More questions than answers, that finale.

I do think anything not illegal in the race can be used strategically but it def is "strategic" giving up. Neil and Kristin would be the last to admit that, though. Was fascinated by the stories of the struggles of the partner in the sand on the Quebec leg. Even the big, tough wrestlers. It was cold but I also kind of wonder if tptb tested it out with a person actually under the sandcastle or if they just assumed that part would be like relaxing in a beach chair. The example task just used a mannequin.

Agree with the ethical argument, but just throwing out other ideas, it could also be that there's a treatment and Johnny isn't interested or doesn't qualify. For example, Captain Kirk being allergic to the treatment for farsightedness in Star Trek. The human body is complex and diverse, I'll never find it unbelievable that a universe hasn't figured out a way to imprint an identical set of abilities onto everyone.

Yeah I was very concerned about them being design students who never measure anything. I am kind of embarassed to say that Simi and Ope's just keep racing! never give up! routine still entertains me and makes them endearing. Embarassed because, god, so many of their problems are of their own making. What a weird decision not to join the group math at the flight tarmac task - you never want to be the only team doing or not doing something. At least they didn't take a penalty, I guess. Poor Kristen, that's the problem racing with a parent. You'll always be the junior partner. I wouldn't be surprised if we get longer penalties next season. I don't really mind the teams hacking the course via strategy, but you'd think production would want to make that decision harder for them, ie attach greater risk.

I didn't really get Khlyen as Dutch's dad from this ep - as much (creepy) care as he showed her in this ep and much as he seems to appreciate things about her, there's still something very purposeful about it all. She's an object, albeit an important one, quite possibly the queen, in his (creepy) endgame. He tolerates certain things about her, including her team, but would he if he didn't need her? Would he send birthday cards (or cut off the hands of her enemies or whatever Khlyen considers a nice gesture) if she didn't have whatever importance Khlyen percieves for her? I don't get that vibe. Very curious to know what his game is though. It may be way bigger than all the local Quad political squabbling we've seen so far. Honestly I'm happy to believe that Khlyen likes Dutch in his weird way, and Johnny likes Dutch, and it's not because of having spawned her or wanting to sleep with her. She's just awesome. D'avin, the show has established, thinks with his reproductive organs sometimes. The Red 17 callback was interesting, but I sort of think it might still not be anything? Or might be something, but not anything relevant. The show implied that the RAC guy was just throwing out rumours to get D'avin to crack, and maybe the details of their past missions are all in a file somewhere. The anti-Chekov's gun.

She definitely mentioned the Iron Chef thing, but she framed it as being the continuation of their "rivalry" and her wanting to prove she was the better Italian cook on FN. I agree, it wasn't entirely clear to me as to whether Mario knew about said rivalry. And to be fair she wasn't describing a present day situation I don't think. But oh the hilarity if Dom gets an Italian show that challenges her throne. podcast here

Giada was on Alton's podcast talking about how she had a kind of resentment/rivalry with Mario Batali based on them both doing Italian and him (according to her) feeling like she got by on being attractive, so I don't know that cooking the same cuisine as someone really predicts a partnership. And I still feel like Bobby's got the bigger crush on Dom, heh.I'm happy to see Dom back, it's true. Also there are lots of people in entertainment with performance fears or related anxiety. The most famous off the top of my head is Chris Evans, he almost didn't take the Captain America role because of it. It's not necessarily the most fun topic for a tv show but I'm not super comfortable with the idea that they should all just go hide away and not try. We'd be missing a lot of awesome creatives if everybody did that. We've talked about Eddie's flimsy "Caribbean" knowlegde but Bobby calling the Scotch Bonnet peppers in his dish Habaneros made me really annoyed lol. Bobby this is supposed to be your wheelhouse, those two things are not the same! Related, but not literally the same thing. Stop repeating that bad information, Food Network. Eddie speaks African American English but I haven't personally noticed a problem with his grammar outside of that. I guess he should be better at code-switching but as an athlete I guess he hasn't had to be. Nothing to say about Jay so I guess he bores me. :)

Yeah the ERs in Toronto are generally similar with their triage practices, but once you get into the hospitals a wee bit further from downtown I've had them separate me into the "probably perfectly fine" area, and send a dr to have a quick conversation about how I'm fine very shortly. That place has major crowding issues though, so maybe the getting rid of people strategy is tailored to that (and I'm sure not a problem experienced in rural Quebec). And of course it depends what kind of crises are ahead of you, sometimes there's just really not much else happening. I got through this week's podcast at RHAP and they're saying it was 2°C that day? I wouldn't want to get in the water either!

The Magdalen Islands have a population of about 13 000 people, so I buy there could have been no wait at the hospital. Plus some ERs are actually set up that having nothing majorly wrong gets you out faster, because they don't want you cluttering the place up. I wondered if they weren't allowed to practice the kayak thing. It seems like there should be some benefit to getting there before another team. But maybe between the cold and fatigue teams judged it not worth it.

May be starting to repeat myself but I was more addressing the question of whether the original problem was small or large. The show's edit gave me the impression Asaf was just a loveable troublemaker, tbh. So when we found out two of his choreographers were actually still seething about the experience weeks later, that's a different thing and gives me a different picture of the hill he had to climb. Culture may certainly have been some of it. One choreographer mentioned the English language thing also.

Not all pain means dramatic treatable medical issues, in fact frustratingly few pain sources are ones the ER docs can do anything about (besides dope you up if necessary). At that point it would have been up to Kristen whether she could get through it and she did try to keep racing. Plus she was shivering during the sandcastle task and that's hard to fake. I was feeling all of Neil's parental worry as well. He was ready to do whatever would make her feel better, lol. "Let's go and see the horses." Was wondering about Nic and Sabrina's choice to have the "weaker" teammate in Sabrina do the digging, but once all the women started shivering it seemed like they may have lucked into a reasonable strategy, since men generally don't get cold as fast. Glad we still have Simi and Ope! I hate, hate the Face Off. It basically ranks the teams by athletic ability and that's not sporting enough to be fun to me, maybe if they came up with something that called more on a range of skills. I'd probably still hate it though. This leg was stressful to watch, can't imagine how stressful it was to run.

Both Spencer and Dave pretty clearly described a personality issue, imo. Dave's quote is at around minute 33 of this week's Afterbuzz: "He's super headstrong, and he feels like, this is better than what you're asking me to do. And it's like, really? *deep sigh*" Around the same time they talk about Chris Scott dealing with Asaf refusing to b-boy as choreographed, and how it's part of the same stubbornness, that Chris didn't take it as a compliment either. The choreoraphers are there to choreograph. The idea that Asaf just needed a tiny dash of positivity is what the edit tried to sell us but I think we have some evidence to suggest it's not what happened. No tea, no shade. I'm stubborn and opinionated too, still working on it and I'm older than Asaf.

The repeated clips of Jay saying he didn't know anything about kids got so weird, lol. Like presumably he *was* a kid at one point? They're not aliens, dude.

I mean, I don't think there's any reason to assume Nigel is always telling the truth? It's his responsibility to present the choices of the show and judges' panel in the best possible light, and their treatment of Asaf makes more sense if he's the hardworking, fast-improving dancer Nigel describes. I don't make the accusation in a particularly negative sense. If that's what you get paid to do, then go ahead and get it, you know? But I am a cynic who finds it hard to believe Asaf grew a new personality in a week. (We did see him giving similar trouble in Vegas Week as well.) Changing your attitude so completely is hard to do in a lifetime, never mind one week while under stress. But like I said I'm a cynic and I wasn't there, so who knows. I like the idea that Nigel is just leaving out key information, that might be the most plausible way to think of it. Forget to mention: Holy cow was Kate's story inappropriate! I'm sure other dancers had dark stories they could have told too, but why would you.

Dave Scott's comments again raising the question of, who are these choreographers talking about how great it is to work with Asaf? Nigel said it again this week, the big fat liar. I felt bad for JJ in the hair segment, I imagine she was picturing a cute, sexy type of segment. Lots of viewers might like to watch a hottie play with her fabulous hair. And then the camera person went and took it sooo literally, as if anyone was really going to be taking notes on how to do a topknot. Not really understanding the horrible insult in comparing Asaf to a disabled althete. Hell, maybe the insult is in being compared to Asaf, hee. Also I hate when people talk about how illness/health troubles must mean automatic depression, like it's a mystery why we don't all just kill ourselves immediately. Depression doesn't even work like that. Shut up, Nigel! Looking forward to Asaf's incompetence no longer being the main story.

Controversial opinion ahoy! Cutting out gluten is an expensive pain in the ass, so I'm not convinced anyone does it for funsies or that we can tell who the "real" gluten intolerants are by watching people eat. I'm sure restaurant servers always think I'm a big faker asking stupid questions about it, but I ask questions because it's not my kitchen. I don't know what goes on in there. I did get tested but I don't think cutting out foods that make you feel worse is really a terrible life strategy. It's pretty much what the doctor will tell you to do absent a better idea. Plus I've been introduced to lots of interesting grains that aren't wheat (quinoa among them lol.) I like sriracha but, like. It's just a hot sauce.

Jay's trip up on the after-school snack reminded me of an ep of Top Chef Canada where the chefs decided a "family style" challenge meant dumbing things down as much as possible. As if "family" eaters would be unable to cope with what a chef normally does. There weren't actually any kids there, so any finger or assembly food that didn't include overly adult ingredients - liver pate or whatever - should have been fine. Eddie! there is way more to Caribbean cooking than jerk seasoning. That's my official pet peeve with him. I guess they're all bros who can laugh about it at this point, but did Eddie basically give Alex the reunion prompt because Alex has no family? I spent the whole episode braced for the explanation of why he has no family, and the more it didn't come the more I worried that it's something too terrible to even talk about. I was sympathetic, but clinging to the one time he went to a reunion in a completely different cultural context was obviously not the way to go. He should have just been straight up about it, involved the other guys for stories of what American reunions are actually like, and made a shareable summer dish. Of course I'm picturing myself in that challenge all, hey guys! Hope you're having a great summer! Let me me tell you about my family that I don't talk to! Then Giada giving me feedback like, innocuouspuff, no one wants to hear about your narcissistic asshole relatives. It's too depressing.

I guess the question being raised was why Hamilton & Michaela couldn't go get the passport after checking in, on Race downtime. i.e. only Race tasks should count to their finishing position. But thinking about it, it only seems like that could have worked because the show made retrieving the passport look relatively easy. Suppose they never found it, and then they had to drop out after Nic & Sabrina had already been eliminated. I can see why the show doesn't take that risk.

According to a recapper who's visited the city, the Detour tasks were five blocks apart. (The site also does a podcast!)