SilvaVocat

Just finished re-watching 3:11 Emily Lake, and damn if Jinx's death isn't perfectly done. Just heartbreaking.

I was so happy to see this was coming back. It's just so gosh darned cheerful and silly. And I can't see the title without singing it out in my head.

That solo was the worst. Before the dance she said her dances are normally "strong" but this time she was going to be "sexy" and then she proceeds to roll around on the floor and make "O" faces at the panel. I'm sure Nigel loved it, but Paula was exactly right, she didn't dance. I'm pretty sure she's one of the producers favorites, so we're going to be subjected to her for a while. LoFro did that gawdawful "Hee, look at me, I'm sexy" nonsense during auditions, but she backed it up with real dancing.

Can anyone point me to a legal way of getting A Thousand and One Nights? It doesn't seem to be on the cast album. Thanks!

That was some high quality garbage. Maybe I'm just blind to Pearl's greatness, but I don't see how she's more worthy of top three than Kennedy. She has one face, one dance routine, and no spark. #teamGinger

I really thought Katya and MKD won that challenge, but I also think the show has a bias toward "pretty" and even "ugly twin" Trixie was pretty. Katya and MKD were hilarious and fully committed, but not pretty.

I probably missed a lot last night, because I was stuck wondering why Robin would got to NYC. Why wouldn't they send him to find a cabin in the woods somewhere? He could take whatever money Regina gave him (and surely she magicked up some for him) and get a nice place to stay outside of a small town. Why on earth would go someplace as crowded and expensive as NYC if you were a forest dweller with no modern skills? (Except for lock picking. He had no trouble picking a modern lock to get into the shop. Too bad he didn't also know about modern alarm systems.)

There were and are Anglican brothers who are celibate as well. And now women can be ordained as Anglican Priests and can marry. I had a stillbirth about ten years ago, and the hospital had a whole protocol, pictures, a special outfit, a staff member who specialized in counseling grieving parents. It was very different from my mother's experience 30 years earlier.

If Philip could get Elizabeth to agree, he'd pack the kids up and go into hiding somewhere in America's heartland in less time than it takes you to say Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

My problem with Katrina's hair and clothing is that when we met her she was a Quaker woman, all about simplicity, and now she's all hair dye and attention grabbing clothes. If the writers had made her shedding her Quaker simplicity as her witch powers grew, that would have been fine. But they clearly just ditched it, which is lazy.

I was rooting for the zealot, because the other guy was played out. The zealot would give everybody something new to do. This episode was a placeholder, a breath between the first half and what I assume will be the new plot of the second half. Nothing actually happened. We met a new player, learned that an old player was still with us, and Katrina got a new corset. I don't know if the writers knew that this episode would be aired after the break but before another week off, but it sure played as if they did.

Dear Katrina, I know you think it's your fault that your ex-fiance went all crazy and pledged himself to Moloch, but it's not actually your fault. That asshole went and got his head cut off all by himself instead of just getting drunk and going to bed with a floozy which is what most men would have done after they'd been jilted by a pretty woman. Therefore you are not bound by either karma or good form to fix the mess he got his own grown-ass man self into. He's a bad guy now. Stop being codependent and start acting like the super-witch everyone keeps telling us you are.

I love this show. I love this show for being so honest about what birth looks like, and what love looks like, and how they're both so wonderful and painful. Just gorgeous.

I loved Jane and Michael's relationship this week. When they backed into each other at the bridal shop you could see them relax when they finally touched, because whatever was wrong they were together and they were going to work it out. It showed how comfortable they are together normally and how much they rely on each other. And honestly I don't blame Michael for being continually weirded out by his virginal girlfriend's pregnancy with the baby of her sexy boss with whom she one had a flirtation.

I think this was the strongest ep so far, and the first week where we saw how Annie and Jake actually do work as a couple, as opposed to Jake just putting up with Annie's crazy. I liked that they got a win, that Annie was a decent human being.

She would have to woge first, then see that Teresa is a Grimm. I don't think there's any reason for an FBI agent to freak during a non-confrontational interaction.

During the scenes when Mary Margaret struggles with holding the baby and managing everything else, I just want to get in my car and drive to Storybrooke so I can teach her how to use an Ergo carrier, a moby wrap and a ring sling. I know the show wants us to think it's abnormal for MM to want to carry her baby all the time, but plenty of women want to hold their babies all the time, and there are benefits to mom and baby (or dad and baby, nanny and baby, whatever, anyone can babywear). There are lots of babywearing devices on the market, or you can just tie a shawl around your shoulders and use that. I know this because I've done it. Surely someone in the entire enchanted forest, where there were no strollers, knows how to use this ancient parenting technique.

I just finished a binge watch. I liked Matt and I liked Julie and I liked them together, but I was really disappointed by the proposal and the talk with the parents. Julie starts in on how she's not going to quit college and her parents should trust her and of course her parents say they do trust her, but why? Why do they trust a girl who is only two months removed from having an affair with a married teacher and then nearly dropping out of school because of it? And why does Matt feel rushed to propose to the girl who he had very recently told she needed to get herself together because he didn't want to be her back up plan? If the show runners wanted them together at the end, they could have written a story about them starting to get back together and figuring out how that was going to work.

I hated the West Coast Swing choreography. It was just one awkward lift after another. If choreographers are supposed to, in part, show dancers to their best advantage, why give them a dance full of tricks they can't do instead of giving them a dance full of, I don't know, dance steps? I'm frustrated with how the choreo on this show has become "Who can design the biggest, scariest trick most likely to do permanent physical damage to a young dancer who has little/no partnering experience?" I did appreciate Benji's dig about story dances. Just once I'd like a Contempo choreographer on this show to say: This dance is about the joy of movement and music. Even the dances that are about a couple in love (as opposed to the dances about a couple in a one sided relationship) are angsty. Even "the ultimate connection" has to be full of obsession and angst. Can Contemporary not express joy? That would seem like a major flaw in a dance style, and maybe Contemporary needs to take a time out and think about what it's doing. You know how in all the dance movies, the uptight ballerina type sneaks out to take a jazz class or learns to hip hop from the sexy inner-city boy and discovers that she truly loves dancing again? Contemporary needs to go sneak out and take a jazz class.

I never miss Mia. She's the queen of nasty. There was a season where she had a couple of clear favorites and then she just shredded everyone else, and Adam just sat next to her and parroted her. Ugh. What happened to Amir the funky ballerina? Did I blink and miss her?

Plus, I just don't think she's a particularly good dancer. The hair drives me nuts on so many of them. I want to give them all a good tight french braid and make them do their solo again. Her dancing was beautiful, and I hope that the judges in notVegas see past her shyness. She might not do very well when voting comes because America cares about personality more than dance, apparently, but I think she'd rock the kind of routines this show produces.

I knew Ricky Ubeda would be good as soon as I saw him run from the microphone into his starting position. He ran like a dancer who could fly, and he did fly. It was lovely. As to Rick U being feminine in the Slide number, I can see that, but none of that showed in his SYTYCD audition. Anyone trying out for this show has to know that if you want to go all the way as a boy in this competition you have to dance "like a man" and any male dance who has the ability will tailor his solos to that expectation. I think he'll be fine in the show, and watching a few of his routines online, he is both strong and very bendy, so the choreographers will enjoy using him as their paintbrush.

A few people here have suggested that Nigel and company are pushing for a ballroom winner this season, and I think this is more evidence of that. He's putting the word "ballroom" in fans' heads as much as possible.

She's 21, which doesn't count as "so young" in dance. And she is almost done with the DTH program. I really want to see her dance in bare feet, because her point work was weak, but I think she's probably a lovely dancer.

I didn't realize she was Dance Theater of Harlem (I ff through a lot of the talking) which is of course not a low tier program. I just looked it up, and she started there in 2011, which means she would be finishing up their three year program this Spring. I'm sure she's putting in the work, because I can't imagine that she's going to be allowed to coast there, but if she's not company ready at 21 after three years with Dance Theater of Harlem, then she's not going to be company ready and it's good she's exploring other opportunities. This is not a knock on her at all. Professional ballet requires a very particular skill set, and if I see her out of her point shoes I may love her dancing.