Jodithgrace

So glad to see the last of Rome, pre jury. He was exhausting…one of those people who have to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. Of course he did the maze, of course he sat in Jeff’s seat! At first I thought that there would be a last minute switch, even at tribal, but then I realized that they were playing the episode for comedy, featuring Rome’s boasting against what we knew was about to happen. I thought it was fun, though I do wish the food reward winners would have been allowed to wash first. I’m sure they wanted to, so TPTB must have said no, for whatever inscrutable reason. Hey…Sam ate a piece of pineapple! And he liked it! Next week he graduates to strained peaches, like a big boy.

I just couldn’t deal with that Hanoi woman with the 34 boxes of clothes and accessories! I mean, how many clothes can a person wear? And we’re not even talking about changes of seasons. I’m sure it gets cold at some point, but it’s not Canada! It sounds like she’s always buying new stuff and not wearing what she already has. And if she, like my late husband, has clothing in 20 different sizes, it’s time to get rid of what doesn’t fit. Sorry. OTT conspicuous consumption just bothers me. So she picked the apartment she didn’t prefer just so she could cram 3 bedrooms with clothes..well, good for her, I guess. She is a special ed teacher, so that is a noble calling. I’m not sure I would choose Hanoi as the place to meet men, but what do I know? I’m 73 and won’t be swiping left or right anytime soon.

It wasn’t terrible, but how are we supposed to root for them when we know that they’re not going to work out?

I guess if they can morph “Hold the door!” Into Hodor, the can morph Grand Elf into Gandalf. I too wondered if Adar was going to become Celeborn when he put on the ring and said he had been known by many names. He and Galadriel seemed to have so much chemistry. I was waiting to see Sauron put that crown on and become the Sauron we all know and hate instead of emo elf Sauron.

I knew nothing about Anna Delvray until I googled her, but I was surprised at how devoid of personality she was. I would have expected a con artist to be oozing charm, but maybe now that she’s been caught, she doesn’t have to bother. I’m rooting for Stephen and the other Olympian. I didn’t know about Eric Roberts’ issues but I couldn’t watch him after he couldn’t get down the stairs. Why incorporate stairs into a routine when your dancer can’t navigate them cleanly? It got the whole dance off to a bad start and I found myself looking at my iPad in secondhand embarrassment.

The woman moving to Paris said she was starting some kind of consulting business to work from home, but in the 2 month follow up she said that she is teaching in an international school. I wanted to see that bed in the cupboard, but they only showed the pullout sofa bed.

Thailand: The husband was expanding his non profit (very unspecified) from Honduras to Thailand, which is why the move. The big yard house was the obvious choice, so they had to have the wife being concerned about the house needing TLC. They were all easy fixes, though unless the husband did the work himself, contracting it out might have been a problem with the language barrier. They seemed to be a really nice couple.

And it wasn’t $100 over her budget, it was on budget. The one she chose was the only real option. If she has to travel for school, why also travel for everything else.

So, when season 3 begins are the “previouslies” just going to be all of season 2? I hope so, because no way am I going to remember all this.

The best part of this finale was the new ending to the tapestry with all the dragons. When Daemon says, “winter is coming,” I realized that there has been no mention in this prequel of the weird weather patterns that were such a big part of GOT. Are they in the middle of one of those ten year summers? It finally dawned on me that we probably weren’t going to get World War Dragon when I got up to go to the bathroom and saw that there was only about three minutes left in the episode. I guess they used up their dragon budget during the last few episodes and have to save the battle for next year. If there is a battle, that is. With Alicent taking Helaena and noping out of there, and Larys doing the same with Aegon, the only one left to fight is Aemond. Of course, he’s crazy, so… So now we know why Otto hasn’t returned any of Alicent’s texts. That prison wagon didn’t look like it had WiFi. Were we supposed to recognize any of his fellow prisoners? I didn’t. That pirate Queen was quite a character. It’s always funny seeing a Lannister taken down a notch or twelve. He wasn’t exactly one of the more arrogant Lannisters, though, was he? It did seem weird to me to introduce this new character in the last episode of the season.

Phouc screwed over his team by using onion in the cabbage rolls as well as leeks. Styxx had said no onions because she wanted to use peperoncini, but he used onions anyway and it would have been too many ingredients. Everybody questioned why they used two redundant ingredients and the dish was bland. Nobody especially liked the mushroom tempura either. On Austin’s team, they weren’t crazy about the scotch egg, but loved the other two courses. I think that’s why they won.

She used all the mascarpone cheese on two pizzas, one of which she threw away because it melted and she wouldn’t serve it to the judges. I guess the guests got the other one which also looked melted to me. The judges ended up getting one with whipped cream.

My brother goes to the Piedmont region of Italy every year for work (he sells wine) and he jokes that they only have like three recipes, one of which is veal tonnato. So when they were making the tonnato, I kept wondering where the veal was, and sure enough… I was mystified that Zev’s team, after putting out burned/raw pizzas seemed to think they won! Um, no…the most creative toppings in the world won’t make up for inedible crust. The weirdest topping I ever had on pizza was peas, carrots, and corn (as in the frozen mix) but that was in China, so I gave them a pass. I would totally love spicy curry pizza, but not on a bloated charcoal crust. Also problematic was the dessert pizza with the mascarpone cheese that turned into whipped cream when they ran out before the judges were served. That was on Styxx, but she made a good case against Zev and so lives to cook again. Hannah seemed to think that her skill alone was the reason she always ended up on the winning team. Funny, that the very first time she was on a losing team, she was out.

I wonder that nobody caught on to the alphabetical list of ingredients. I mean, they were told that there were 26 ingredients and then the first 3 are anchovies, bacon, and cheddar (or even cheese). If somebody had caught on, it might have helped them with some of the other ingredients, like knowing that it was salmon, not tuna. But it seems that nobody did. We are always saying..no gimmicks, just let them cook. But the chefs actually seem to prefer being given parameters. I belong to a writer's workshop, and every other month it’s writer’s choice. I always panic, preferring to be given a topic, so I know how the chefs felt. Three out of the five did poorly for one reason or another. I am impressed by Dan’s resilience in the face of all his challenges. It’s amazing that he has made it to the finals. I hope that being on a ship won’t cause him any mobility problems.

So, I guess the guy who wrote Claudia’s little ditty was literally a one hit wonder. He couldn’t write another skit for her? Nobody, vampire or not, likes to do the same thing over and over. Yes, Broadway actors do the same show for months on end, but even they get bored and leave the show after a year or so. The chorus people last longer because a hit show is a steady paycheck, and they can have a life besides appearing on stage. These pitiful vamps seem to do nothing but perform the same skits and kill people. Armand made Claudia wear her idiotic dress all the time as the world’s stupidest punishment . Didn’t it get a bit messy while she’s murdering people on a nightly basis and cleaning up corpses? They must have one heck of a laundry service.