joshleejosh

Did anything happen with the P.I. that Victoria (re-)hired? I liked how irritated Emily was that anyone was able to follow her, even though she was knocked out and tied up at the time -- which means that as usual, it was Aiden that effed up. Daniel is intentional comic relief at this point, right? Fingers crossed that there's a good old-fashioned revengination coming up. Pascal doesn't interest me much on his own, but as a target for a red X, he seems pretty ripe.

I think David Clarke is still posthumously passive-aggressive ("Please do not take revenge on my enemies, especially not with this box full of juicy revengey evidence," "I'm sure you'll love your new mom once you stop walking in on us in bed"), but I don't think he's evil-evil. I don't think I'll miss Patrick much. Also, Aiden just sort of wandered off at the end of the episode there. Is he leaving too or what? (I suppose it ultimately depends on whose pilots get picked up.) The blackouts were kind of fun, but I'm ready for Emily to move on and get back to proper revenging. I miss Hamptons Batman. They brought up Emily's mother again. She will show up for mother's day/sweeps. I am not a crackpot.

I don't really want to be the pedant who points out that INS was shut down a decade ago (it's all Homeland Security now), but I will be. They really are getting their mileage out of Malin Akerman's Scandicanadian background, though, aren't they?

So apparently Claire Holt is actually leaving the show? That's kind of a bummer. If it's true, this was a pretty good sendoff, excepting a few bits that sounded a little group-therapy-ish (if group therapy involved magical daggers instead of Anyway, I guess we can look forward to lots more of Elijah and Klaus doing their Michael-and-GOB routine.

There seems to be a rule against bringing back anything from Season 2, but since Emily and Nolan brought up her mother, I wouldn't mind seeing Jennifer Jason Leigh again. Bring in all the mothers! Emily's eyerolls whenever Daniel tries to act like her equal might be my new favorite thing about the show.

She's the best, and if you don't agree, you probably just can't handle her lumps.

Nominated for Best Actress: Nina Dobrev. Nominated for Best Supporting Actress: Nina Dobrev's Hair. If Katherine has been dragged off to hell for an extended break, I prefer to think that the Devil is just looking for some pointers on hair care and sass. Not looking forward to the loooooong talk that Elena and Damon are going to have about whatever their relationship is now. Hopefully the fact that they're both rippered up will force them to keep it short.

Bob's Burgers will be releasing an album of its songs, and announced its upcoming timeslot change with a song as well. They sure do like doing their musical bits, and I sure do like it when they do. My personal favorite is probably either "Electric Love" or the National's cover of Linda's Thanksgiving song. Are there any songs that you find yourself humming, or perhaps belting out loud whenever you get into a car and fasten your seat belts?

The question this episode asks is: How much Bert can you handle? The answer is: As much Bert as you are willing to dish out.

I just hope she can go for more than 10 minutes without being kidnapped or imprisoned.

And he has a source for new clothes in his old style now!

On the minus side, it was not an especially exciting episode. On the plus side, it's probably the least sweaty/try-hard episode they've done since Season 2 or so. And this makes two episodes in a row where Britta has successfully done a thing. That's kind of nice to see.

Editor's Note: Discuss Bob's Burgers Here! Next time I'm upset with someone, instead of crossing my arms and scowling, I'm going to Can-Can forcefully at them. That'll show 'em.

I look forward to celebrating International Terry Crews Day once they declare it some time around 2035. He is a treasure.

I want to play "Wife or Dog" with all of my vague acquaintances now.

I thought it was increasingly an ensemble (for some definition of "ensemble") show as the season progressed, with Sarah as first among equals. Alison certainly has no problems anchoring a plot line. Cosima might have gotten the short end of the story stick, but looking for a cure to her own illness gives her something to grapple with next season. If the premiere doesn't start with Sarah, I'm guessing we'll see Rachel first.

Now that Kate can admit to herself that she likes the settled-down married life more than being a fun-time party girl, can they maybe find a new beat for her to play? Jackie giving Diane a lesson in acting like an adult was a strange reversal. Bert's horror at learning where various meats come from was delightful, but that's to be expected, since Bert is always delightful.

I'm very late to the party, but I just finished Season 1, and I'm itching for next season to get here already -- mostly because the season finale left eleven hundred storylines open while only concluding one or two. So: What's going to happen when the show comes back in April? Here are some completely uninformed, random guesses: Mrs. S. got out with Kira just before Rachel's goon squad showed up. It won't take long for Sarah to find them, but it will take a long time for S. to answer whatever questions Sarah's birth mother was trying to raise. Alison is trapped between the contract she signed, her monitor, and her guilt/denial over the garbage disposal. It'll take most of the season for her to reconnect with Sarah and Cosima and re-form Clone Club. I will be sad because this will deny us more fun scenes with Alison and Felix. The next clone will be an intellectual property lawyer from Atlanta. Or maybe an ER doctor from Indiana. Paul and Delphine will continue to be gorgeous but mostly useless. Anyone else got thoughts?

Through no fault of her own, it's almost certainly Shirley.

Since I visit my parents for Christmas most years, my actual winter break TV usually ends up being Korean dramas. I am not immune to their charms: fancy costumes, absurd hair, and Every! Emotion! Amped Up! To! 11! Of course, since my parents are getting direct Korean feeds, I have to watch without subtitles, and since I only speak like six words of Korean, it makes following the shows kind of a challenge. Empress Ki is apparently the big new series of the fall, and it's on Hulu, so I can actually understand what people are talking about. It starts out as an adventure in the "girl dresses as a boy and somehow no one notices" vein (á la Mulan or As You Like It), then pivots into palace intrigue between empresses, concubines, etc. (sort of like Reign minus the vague supernatural stuff). There's also a bunch of political wrangling and a few wars breaking out here and there, because if there's one thing you can count on K-dramas for, it's lots and lots of plot. Do K-dramas only appeal to Koreans (and Koreanophiles? Is that even a thing?), or do other people enjoy subtitled bulk melodrama?

Well, the "Doctor Who?" question paid off in this episode, so presumably that's done with. Now they can think up some new catch phrases to beat into the ground.

Was this season worth watching? I caught the first episode, turned my back for a second, and all of a sudden, I've got like 6 hours piled up in the queue. Even fast-forwarding through the non-singy bits, that's a lot to get through.

Granted, I lost all ability to critically watch Doctor Who about 30 years ago, but I thought this was really lovely. I agree that it suffers from stuffing 80 minutes of story into 60 minutes of show, but I feel that way about 80% of episodes these days. Long passages of time are a recurring theme for 11th Doctor (Power of Three, the Snowmen, etc.), and seeing him settle down as the town sheriff/goofy grandpa to the village for 1000 years was a nice way to bring it all home. And the answer to the "Doctor--Who?" question was pretty much the most correct thing ever; after that, getting him his new regenerations was just denouement. One really impressive thing: once they finally got all that Impossible Girl stuff out of the way, the relationship between Clara and the Doctor crystallized very quickly. After looking out for the Doctor throughout his personal history, she's the companion who knows him better than just about anyone else in the universe, and is looking out for him in his old age. It feels completely natural for her to be his conscience in DotD and to sit with him at the end of his last life in TotD. (And of course, now that that relationship has finally been well developed, we get to throw it out and start over. Fun!)

Ooh, I haven't seen the previews. Is it Emily? I guess she can go to Lydia for pointers on how to work that.

99% Invisible is pretty excellent if you're into design or just like interesting things.