Carrie Ann

I'm way late, but I really liked this episode. So much great character/emotional stuff. Loved Zoe and Lemon most of all, but for the first time, I was pretty into George/AB too. You've all covered all the other reasons I appreciate this show and will miss it. So I'll just go into the shallow notes: I didn't think anyone could be more orange than AB and George, but then George's parents came to town. Yikes. Seriously, who allowed this terrible combination of makeup, lighting, and color correction? I've never seen anything like it. On a more positive tip: my God, Lavon Hayes was stunning this episode. More Lavon in tight t-shirts please. Also, Jaime King is gorgeous all the time, but extra pretty with minimal makeup like in that breakfast scene.

I agree with that. I think for a lot of people, coming out of Season 1, Bellamy and Clarke were the two characters--together or separate--that they felt attached to. So it was a little disappointing to only have a couple of episodes where they were even geographically near each other. I personally didn't have a problem with it, because I was so into the other pairings and dynamics we got to see, but where Clarke got to bounce off a lot of other people, and have a real connection with Lexa, Bellamy was just kinda...off on his own. So, I'm sure they will step it up with him next season, and I would expect to see more B/C scenes in general. The one we got here was really nice, and a good reminder that their chemistry--romantic or not--is a good resource for the writers.

So Ray is just right out in the open, in broad daylight, huh? Is he going to do this publicly? On the same note, I wondered last night if the big change would be something as simple as OQ being publicly outed. We've talked about it before, so I know it might not feel that big to us, but it would change the show on a fundamental level. Not sure why that would make the trailer for S4 so exciting though.

So Felicity is still going to bide her time to reveal her/Oliver/everyone's secret? Because that "What are you going to do to him?" makes it seem like she obviously hasn't told him. Also just going to save this gif here for future use w/r/t Ray:

I like Gina, but I think the dancing thing makes absolutely no sense and I'd honestly hoped they would drop it and never speak of it again. Chelsea Peretti is 37 years old; not sure how old Gina is supposed to be. But basically, Chelsea/Gina has shown no actual talent at dancing, but the way they've dealt with it would indicate that she's actually good and pretty dedicated to it. And the problem is...no. Not at that age; not unless it basically is your life. And even then...not at that age. If CP were actually an amazing dancer, and they wanted to work that into Gina so she could show it off sometime, I guess I would understand that. But this is like...if they ever show Gina dancing, it's just going to be underwhelming and pointless. So yeah, I hated this subplot.

Same, and I find that so strange. The corned version at the fancy grocery store was a dollar less per pound than the regular brisket--and the regular was not as high a quality of meat. It was not a difficult decision to skip the corning process myself and go with the one the store did for me. For a minute I considered doing it on my own with chuck though, because I was googling to see if that would work and found a post from Michael Ruhlman who says he pretty much only uses chuck for corned beef now because brisket is leaner these days and way more expensive.

You're right--I was thinking about it wrong. I dismissed it out of hand because the things she was doing seemed very Journalism 101, not a grad-level course. But I suppose I could see the use in taking a Journalism class for a Sociology masters degree. Anyway, I still think it's bizarre that they had so much time to ponder Iris as a character, and still we ended up with this weird dropped degree thing. And if they were going to do that--just to show this progression of her sort of dissatisfied with her education/career path, and then latching onto this story she finally cared about--why not a degree in journalism? Sociology just serves no purspose for her. Anyway. I'm glad she's moved on.

The 100 is probably the show I enjoyed the most this year. I'm not sure it's the "best," or even my favorite, but I think I was more surprised, moved, impressed, and entertained by it than by any other show I watch.

It's weird because I haven't seen a lot of that version of Stefan in recent seasons. So to me, a lot of this stuff feels very inauthentic. It feels like writing for plot, not character. And it's dumb because it's just not really necessary. I believe Caroline would make this choice. And I would believe that her friends would not really buy that she could/would control herself as well as she thinks she can. So I have no problem with Stefan wanting to force her to turn back; it's just the reasons and the explanation for why she turned in the first place that ring false to me. And I think Elena should have been less willing to consider letting Caroline do her thing for a year too. She knows what that was like. And she knows that when she came back to herself, the pain was still there, but she DID get Jeremy back. She knows Caroline never will get her mom back. So this is basically Caroline asking to take a year-long bender, which will hurt OTHER people even more than it hurts her, only to theoretically come back to herself some day in more pain than ever. Obviously people make their own choices, but if I had a friend who was about to dive into hard drugs for awhile, and I thought there was anything I could do to stop that--even if I were a former user myself--I would do that. Anyway, so I think the writers just wanted this Angel & Darla thing, and they took these clumsy steps to get there. Now I'm just waiting for it to be over.

Even her Masters doesn't make a ton of sense, because she talked about needing Electives, which is why she was taking Journalism, when...you really don't do that for advanced degrees. Certainly not for a PhD.

'Tis the season, so I made the Cooks Country corned beef and cabbage yesterday. It's really good--the vegetables are almost as good as the beef. But I will admit that I don't make it exactly as directed. The recipe calls for using "corned beef," and doesn't include a curing process, so that implies that you are using the corned beef that is sold pre-cured, still packed with spices. (Or curing it on your own, of course, though no method is provided.) Around this time of year, the grocery store near me sells a kobe/wagyu corned beef, and it's what I've used every time. So the change I make is that I don't rinse the brisket first, and I just omit the spices the CC recipe calls for. I find the addition of peppercorns, all-spice, etc., unnecessary and even a little over-the-top. I added them yesterday just to try it, and ended up straining them out after an hour of cooking time because it smelled so perfumey. Maybe it would have been fine, but there was no lack of flavor or spice/herbal notes, so I will definitely not bother with the spices in the future.

Cool, then I give that option an even slimmer chance. It was just all the "this show has never been just about one person," and ensemble talk this season, plus just knowing he's been really overworked, and just bought a house in Palm Springs...just made me think it was possible he'd been angling for a change in workload. And I'm sure some cast members would be happy to play the lead for awhile. Other than that...unless The Flash really does do something that changes the timeline of the entire universe, and we see some weird changes to the Arrow universe too, I'm not sure how many options there are for grassroots changes.

I wouldn't give any thought to the show turning into a "true" ensemble--i.e., no lead character, equal focus rotated among the cast--except for a nagging feeling that it's possible SA doesn't want to be the solo lead anymore. I still don't give that much of a chance, because I don't think the network would be pleased at all to receive that kind of pitch--to actually change the show at that level--and I frankly don't think they'd let him get out of it that easily. So I'd be more inclined to agree that for next season at least, the team may be traveling for missions, instead of working in Starling. The only thing that doesn't make sense about that is how you keep the whole cast relevant (particularly PB) with that kind of change. And powers...yeah. They're obviously going there, LL will obviously get a real Canary Cry, and I think it's all going to be a mistake. I just don't see how you keep Oliver relevant when he's fighting metahumans alongside other metahumans every week, but okay, Show.

Another option (besides the godfather thing that is still my #1 choice) would go back to something I wanted way back in the fall when I still had hopes and dreams for this show--which is that ARGUS gets tied into this somehow, basically legitimizing the Arrow stuff, if only in a Top Secret way. In that scenario, I wanted Diggle to basically act as CO of the Arrow task force, which would effectively make him Oliver's boss and make him accountable to ARGUS. I don't think this will happen, but I suppose it's an option.

I am very leery when it comes to the AI plot, and already have concerns based on that one short scene (the effects of ALIE walking through the walls didn't seem to fit with a hologram or whatever that was supposed to be), so my #1 wish is to be pleasantly surprised by how they handle it. Ideally, not too much time per episode spent on Jaha and the Hologram. Otherwise, more Raven. More Raven and Wick. More characters shouldering the load of leadership of the Ark/100. I could imagine Clarke being very gunshy of leadership when she returns (assuming she does), so I'd be perfectly content if it took her all season to be comfortable with that again. In that time, Bellamy, Abby, Kane, Octavia, even someone like Monty, could move into that position in various ways. Also, more time spent on character and relationship development; less time spent on the bomb/battle of the week.

Best case scenario for something that forever alters John/Oliver's relationship: Oliver is made godfather of Sara. Don't really want to think about anything else.

Is it different for him? Maybe not, and I doubt that he'd be upset to read anything like that (and frankly, it would be hard to avoid, if he's read more than a few pieces). But it is different for the people who write it, not ever intending for anyone involved with the show to read it, and I think that's what people here are joking/NOT AT ALL joking about.

No shit. How do I...change settings to specifically block certain people...

I'm going with some sort of hallucination for the Shado thing--or she had a twin sister no one ever knew about or something, because S2 makes no sense if she lived. Also, damn, everything about that trailer just made me feel dread and unease. I have no hope for 316-320, and if 320 isn't the bottomest rock bottom in terms of darkness for the season/Oliver, with things turning around dramatically for the last three episodes, then I don't see myself coming back next season. Finally, just for the record, we have had ANOTHER claim of the show never.being.the.same, apparently after the end of this season, according to AK. So just in 3B alone, we have gamechangers in 315, 318, 319, 320, and 323. Not sure there's a game left to change, at that point.

Yeah, I'm just catching up on things here, but a lot of media outlets seem to be a little sloppy in their reporting from Paley (understandably so--it's a lot of info to absorb and report quickly), and either the Deadline person misunderstood, or just had a little oops, because I think they might have meant future "episodes" not "seasons."

Ugh, this was a tough one. I thought IS's direction was really showy, kinda choppy, and the ep as a whole didn't really work for me. I thought KG was great though, and I LOVE seeing her allowed to have feelings about things, and to actually give others consequences. It was heartbreaking to see Damon betray her like that, and for her to hurt him like she did, especially after their reunion last ep. But it's good drama, and I appreciate that. I did think NoHumanity!Caroline was effective. It makes total sense to me that she would approach this practically, considering what causes the least amount of problems for her along the way. And she was mean and scary but fun (which NH!Elena was not), so that was great. But this Stefan thing...no. NO. I hope like hell that he's faking. It's the only thing that makes sense. He believes he can bring Caroline back; he knows how he is when his switch is "off," he knows how dangerous it is for everyone. I just can't believe he would risk that, even for Sarah. So I have to believe he's faking it, and in fact I'm counting on it, because the Steroline scenes from next week: *sobs* not like this, TVD. Not like this.

Yeah, uh, Ian is pulling no punches when it comes to the show at this point...yikes.

Ha, yeah, his interview with TV Guide covers a lot of the same ground. It does actually make me feel a little spark of hope for Bamon. Dammit, they always drag me back in.

I agree with three of these points--Octavia snarking at Clarke was awesome, as was her "Yes I am" rebuttal when Jasper said she's not an outsider to the MW guard. I love Octavia so much. And Lincoln! Oh God, as soon as they asked where Cage was, and I realized we still hadn't seen Lincoln, I was like, "Oh my God, if that bastard kills him..." I felt like Lincoln was marked for death all season, so I've been super-paranoid for the last few episodes. If it had gone that way, I think Cage would have taken my top spot for Most Hated Current TV Character. And yes, that Hatch moment must have been an intentional homage to Lost. I loved it. I am a little skeptical of how this weird AI thing is going to play out though. But I don't agree with your second point, because Clarke didn't call herself a good guy. She said she tried, implying that she clearly believed/knew that she had failed. That was the point of that scene, I think, to convey what you say. She was too trusting of Lexa, got too caught up in trying to be a certain kind of leader, and in doing so, was directly responsible for two mass murders. She can't call herself one of the good guys, because she knows she isn't. Her mother tries to comfort her by saying that no one really is, but Clarke doesn't seem to accept that.

No, you're right, she had that callback line "I bear it so they don't have to." And I think it's in Clarke's nature to want to take full responsibility, particularly after giving herself over to playing the role of leader, and that could be read as martyr-like for sure. But also I think that could be read to mean that if she's around those people she saved and the people who followed her or made equally awful decisions, she won't be able to keep that out of those interactions. So removing herself could allow other people to heal better, since she's not capable of dealing with this right now. I don't know. It's complicated, like everything on this show. Makes me happy to ponder it, in a way.