Night Cheese

Well this hour was rough. I watched during my lunch break and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to concentrate on anything after that sob fest. I guess a silver lining is that my son wanted to watch Paw Patrol with me this morning and I wasn't able to watch this before work like I usually do on Fridays. My whole day would be shot, if so. The potential sex trafficking woman is interesting. I liked the theory upthread about her being a surrogate sex partner for the boss's husband. That would be an interesting twist. The way they played her answering the doctor and nurse's questions was very ambiguous. I couldn't tell if she was really conditioned to not say anything or give any details or if the two ladies were really off in their line of questioning. Kind of reminded me of the daughter from last episode. When Santos questioned her about her dad, she vehemently denied it, but it wasn't clear if Santos was way off base or the girl was in denial/protecting her abuser. I was most looking forward to a resolution on the influencer storyline, but it seemed lackluster. Last ep the young doc (I don't know many names yet) seemed to be onto something when she ordered labs for mercury testing, but Dr. Rabby seemed angered that she didn't turf her to Psych like he said. This episode starts with a positive mercury poisoning diagnosis and Dr. Rabby seems proud that she figured it out. I thought there was going to be some fallout there, but no. The different cases in each episode are so cool that it reminds me of peak ER. But I can't help but wonder if it is normal to have such a wide range of unique cases over the course of one shift. Accidental OD x2 (one death), accidental child OD, woman pushed in front of a subway, mother of an incel who made herself sick to have her son seen, family overrides elderly fathers DNR, sickle cell woman, teen medical abortion, elderly dementia woman, black widow bite, mercury poisoning, nail gun to the chest. Plus all the new cases from this episode as well as the dozen or more that I'm probably missing. Probably several more children storylines that I had to fast-forward through and promptly forgot. And Dr. Robby's ptsd is flaring up because it's the anniversary of his mentors death, also Dr Collins is pregnant and miscarries. This is supposed to be a normal weekday right? Incel boy ran off to school in the first or second episode and the OD college kids took Xanax to relax and study for finals or something. Oh, and a stolen ambulance and high-speed chase. What a day! And we still have like 5 hours to go! I'm loving this show and am here for the long haul, but my goodness. What an exhausting ride this has been.

"We're a normal family. You'll see." Oh boy. 😬

I really loved it. I can't say that I've ever enjoyed anything that Miley has ever sang, but I thought this was a great rendition. I've been a Brittany fan for a while so I was super pleasantly surprised by this duet. I too wish it was on Spotify. If you liked Brittany's sound, her band Alabama Shakes is great. She's lead singer and guitarist and is awesome. I don't have much to add that wasn't covered already. Sandler's song made me tear up. It's crazy how great of a performer he is when he's not doing his silly "skipidoty doo, blamity boo" nonsense. I thought Kim K was Nasim Pedrad (whom I think is naturally very beautiful) at first and asked Mr. Night Cheese what she'd done to her face. He had to tell me it was a Kardashian (he can't tell the difference between the 3 or know their first names), not Nasim. Was Nasim there? Did anyone catch her in the goodnights?

The scene with Santos and the dad reminded me of the ER scene with Mark in the elevator alone with the Rampage gunman who he pretended to shock and let die. Intubated, unable to talk, eyes wide with fear. Nevertheless, it did nothing to make me like her more. She just seems like a bully and a jerk. Child molestation storylines on any show or movie make me sick to my stomach, so I'm choosing to believe her talk scared him enough to stop, but I don't know why she would think that would actually work. It's not like she can check up on the daughter later.

This was my only gripe with the episode. It was obvious that the random parking lot guy was going to be puzzle guy. But how the scene overlapped with the Roman info, I was like, "holy crap, Roman is puzzle guy!!" And then went, "wait, no, that doesn't make sense. Roman is not a psychopath, he was getting diapers when he disappeared." I'll have to go back and watch when I have the chance, but I didn't think they executed the last couple minutes very well. Aside from that, I did kind of side-eye the gala time frame. It looked like when Morgan showed up it was mid-afternoon, but the next scene it was dark dark. Daphne said Oz hadn't been answering his phone for an hour, so even if it this was happening in mid-summer when the days are long, it takes a couple hours to go from bright and sunny to dark dark. Then it looked like it was basically dawn when Oz was recovering in the back of the ambulance? I dunno... I liked the episode a lot though.

Thank you. I realized from your post that I meant to type Henri-Christian, but you've confirmed that he's in the show too. I'd also prefer of he didn't die in the show.

I just started this a few days ago. I think I'm halfway through season 1. I'm finding the show pretty good. The basic concept of generational culture clash more or less transcends time, only the details change, so this holds up pretty well. I would have been 26 or 27 when the show started, so it's not lost on me that if this show were made today it would feature my gen (millennial) pretending to be a gen-Zer and navigating the world of TikTok and whatever other genZ stereotypes they want to throw in there. I was shocked at first that this wasn't an Amy Sherman-Paladino show, but now several episodes in I realize it's not nearly witty enough to be an ASP project. It definitely had her writing style and overall vibe at first. The wonderful-as-always Sutton Foster plays Liza as a fish-out-of-water that is still somehow effortlessly cool. I guess that's because Sutton Foster is effortlessly cool. That said, how long can this pretend to be in her 20s act hold up? SF, while beautiful and youthful, doesn't pass for 26 at all, so the whole premise is pretty unrealistic. Will we see Liza in her mid-40s having a "dirty 30" party just because she has to keep up the pretense? Does her daughter ever return from India and wonder wtf is going on? I'm going to keep watching because it's an easy background show, but I hope that in future seasons more characters learn about her con.

Thanks for sharing that. I don't follow any of DG's social media or blog because I find her sense of self-importance extremely off-putting, so I appreciate when people share things like this that I would never see otherwise. It's interesting to me that she's been publicly throwing Roberts under the bus following the finale. I wonder how much consulting or involvement she and the Exec Producers have in this show, because from her recent comments I get the sense that he's the only one calling any of the shots here. Caitriona and Sam are both executive producers and Diana has a consulting credit. Does anyone outside of Roberts have any input? Is Marill still involved at all? Also, she's really ramped up her objections after the internet outrage at/fallout from the storyline, whereas in the immediate aftermath she acknowledged that it was a storyline for a work that never materialized and that she gave Roberts the idea. I found that interesting. Anyway, her publicly nitpicking and crapping on the show is basically in line with what I expect from her, so this comes as no surprise to me. What is interesting though is that she's really hitting hard how displeased she is with Roberts changing the Faith storyline, which makes me think it won't be walked back in the Prequel, but will in fact be a part of the show's canon. Because surely she's knows what's going to happen in the Prequel series and wouldn't be so public about her unhappiness if she knew it would be resolved in the Prequel series, right? I agree. Does Germaine even exist in the show? I think I asked that in another episode thread but no one answered. He's such a great character in the books.

In the show (and real life? I don't know) there is a prophecy that a Scot will rise to the throne after a 200 year old baby is killed. In season 3 when Claire runs into Geillis in Jamaica, she learns that Claire went back through the stones while pregnant, and gave birth in 1948. Geillis believed that Brianna is the 200 year old baby because she was conceived 200 years before she was born. So she wanted to kill Brianna (by going back to the 1960s, I guess?) to kill Brianna and allow a Scot to ascend to the throne. That's why Claire killed her.

Eliza Coupe! I don't know what character she's playing, but I already hope she becomes recurring or even a part of the main cast.

Since there are non-book readers here looking for more book context, I'd add also that the fantastical/magic elements are more prevalent in the books than the show. It's understood that Claire is really some type of "white witch" who just hasn't fully come into her powers yet. Bree and family meet a traveler in 1739 who has powers. Master Raymond used some sort of dark magic to heal Claire (although that one is in the show as well as the books). So is it a stretch that Master Raymond took Faith, healed her, and raised her? Not really. Is it straight out of fanfic? Absolutely. There's probably dozens of fanfics with the same exact premise. It's also pretty cruel to steal a baby like that and make a mother think her baby is dead, complete with gravestone. There's a lot of mystery still to be revealed about Raymond, St Germain, Fergus, Percy Beauchamp, etc. that I'd rather see explored than bringing Faith back from the dead. I just hope Diana lives long enough to publish whatever she needs to publish in order to tie up all those loose ends. I doubt we see it in the show, but hopefully we see it in print.

Maybe they didn't want to rehash the spouse comes back from the "dead", what to do about this current marriage storyline that we had with Jamie/Claire/Laoghaire from season 3. Obviously John wouldn't fight anyone about it or demand alimony and whatever else like Laoghaire did, but it's basically the same storyline all over again.

I didn't hate this episode as much as, seemingly, the entire internet did. The Faith lives thing is straight out of fanfic, but honestly, I feel like with 10 episodes left, if they can end the show with Faith somehow still being alive and making her way to the Ridge and Jamie and Claire having their whole family there, together, I'd be ok with that ending. Even as I type that, I'm mentally acknowledging just how *truly* fanfic-y it is, but whatever. I guess it's possible that it all gets walked back and explained away in the prequel series. I didn't realize that series was filmed, let alone ready to premiere this year. But I think my 6 months of Starz will be up before it premieres, so I'll have to check the internet for any Faith stuff that comes from it. Aside from that, I really loved the John/Claire scene. I could watch a whole hour of them just talking. I'm honestly thankful for David Berry and the Outlander directors for helping make a character that I am, at best, indifferent to in the books, to one that I really love on-screen. The girl that played Fanny was a real treat as well. Kudos to the casting director(s) for finding her. I thought the Jamie/William scene was nicely done and well acted by both. William's identity crisis in the books reads to me as more bratty and petulant than sympathetic, but the actor does a good job with his material. He's still bratty and petulant, but the actor brings something more to the character. Overall I thought 7B was really strong. I liked MOBY a lot and thought the writers did well to condensing down books 7 and 8 for this season. I'll be back for season 8. Here's an article where DG talks about giving the showrunners the Faith lives idea while also subtly crapping on the show and this episode. https://parade.com/tv/outlander-season-7-diana-gabaldon-finale-shocker

Oh, most definitely. I wasn't denying it was discussed, I was one of those discussing it. I was just providing some context. It seemed so fast to me in the book when DG brought it up and then waived it off.

I think in Bees Jamie and Claire briefly discuss the possibility that Faith was Fanny's mother, but quickly dismiss it. There wasn't an out and out "Faith lived!" declaration.