Jillybean

This reminds me that I forgot to comment on Connor's hair. He didn't have it slicked back when he was actually in the hospital and he looked like a totally different person and 1000 times better! Now that he's back "home" I guess he has access to unlimited gel (sigh). I don't know how these women eat as much ice cream and as many s'mores and muffins as they do and stay so thin. With the exception of Jess, as noted above, who now has a curvy figure and looks more "real." At least Abby was a runner at one time, though she doesn't seem to be doing much of that lately. Ah, the unemployed life of a billionaire's girlfriend.

Darren Star was one of the creators of SATC, so he may have a creator credit on AJLT, but he was not actually involved. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/darren-star-emily-in-paris-backlash-1234995876/

What a relief that Abby's unfortunate bangs disappeared overnight in the hospital following Connor's heart attack. Speaking of Connor, he has quite the bathrobe collection, but I was relieved to see him sans robe in the second half of this week's episode. Something about the new Margaret bugs me. Though she does have a very impressive earring collection. I really liked the OG Margaret and hope the actress moved on to bigger and better things. I hate hate hate the opioid addiction storyline for Mick. How could Bree presume to write from the viewpoint of someone in prison?! WTH?! If she publishes that story, Luke should get co-author credits. Abby and Evan are an extremely boring couple. I wish they hadn't gone the eccentric billionaire route with Evan, especially since RB has been portraying him more "on the spectrum" than eccentric and it just comes across strangely. RB is HOT and I just find him extremely boring here. I don't like the David's dad on the lam storyline. Don't need to see any more of the Boston Pecks, and I actually like David and hate seeing him sad. Megan, I don't care whether you go to the Getty or not. Just make up your mind already.

After the character assassination on Aidan in the execrable SATC2, I can only assume that this is a big paycheck for JC. There's no other reason he should want to be part of this shit show.

This really is a completely different show after the network switch. I miss Lola 1.0.

I don't know if the S5 premiere date has been announced. They are in production now.

I think I'm in the minority but I enjoyed the season much more once I started fast-forwarding through all of the Brie & Brady scenes. I don't enjoy them as a couple and I don't enjoy Brady in any scenes. I liked Brie's scenes with Mel and with Jack, but she and Brady had WAY too much screen time. Brie is much too old to still be falling for "bad boys" and Brady is just plain unlikeable, even if they did try to begin redeeming him in the last two episodes. I wish they had cast a good-looking guy in the part, then maybe I could see the attraction. Apparently some think he is...but I'm not seeing it. I saw a promo for a Hallmark movie he's starring in coming up, so I guess they think he's marketable. Preacher is my favorite character so I was happy to see him finally start to get a life that doesn't revolve around Paige and Christopher, but then they had to go and ruin that. The only thing more annoying than Hope is Hope with a TBI. I read an interview on TVLine (I think) with the new showrunner for Season 5. Apparently he is aware of the turtle-paced timeline but nonetheless, S5 picks up exactly where S4 left off.

I loved this episode! Even though I totally expected Suzanne going to see Kai's father and Colin being at the apartment, it was still a great ending. Love Billy's dawning self-awareness. And although I love MGH, I didn't miss Claire at all. I don't think a season 2 will be as good but I'm hoping for it, anyway. I read somewhere an opinion that NPH was mis-cast, but I thought he was perfect.

Also, the obvious solution to the question of whether Lola should accept the conference invitation was to leave the baby with her parents and take Robin along to the Four Seasons for some much-needed alone time.

Wow. Oprah's allowed to let the F-bombs loose in the 8:00pm hour. I hated this episode. This new version of All Rise is like watching a completely different show with the same characters. And no, I don't mean Lola's very weird dream. I don't get the appeal of "Dre" either. I liked when Lola was a badass judge. Now she's simply the main character in a primetime soap.

The third episode was pretty much all about Jeffrey Epstein. I FF through a lot of it. If they had kept it to VS, it could've just been an hour or maybe 90 minutes total.

I keep expecting Sara to kick out the magician so she and Emily can be roomies again.

The OWN version of this show is pretty soapy and im struggling to be interested. This may go the way of New Amsterdam for me.

Technically, this episode WAS set in the future, as was The Train. Rebecca dies somewhere around 2030-2032 (depending on the source) so it's already 8-10 years later than present-day. Fortunately, this is why a President Pearson spinoff is unlikely, as it would have to be set in the mid-2030s or later. Flash-forwards are one thing, but setting an entire drama (not sci-fi) series in the future would be pretty ambitious even for Fogelman. Nitpick: "The nonprofit." Seriously, Kevin would not keep calling it that. He would call it Big Three Homes, or whatever its name is. Just calling it "the nonprofit" diminishes its meaning and I think it's very meaningful to Kevin. In fact, I wish we'd seen more of it. I suppose continually referring to it as "the nonprofit" was supposed to remind us viewers that Kevin was doing something significant with his time and resources. As someone who has been employed by several nonprofits, including a tiny start-up, no one calls it that.

I'm maintaining that Kate and Philip's wedding was merely a plot device necessary to get Sophie back to she and Kevin could get back together. Or maybe the showrunners thought Toby deserved to be happy, because he surely wasn't with Kate. I also read an interview with Dan Fogelman where he said Kate is doing what Rebecca said, living fearlessly (with her amazing and unbelievable career trajectory). So did she associate Toby with living fearfully? Not sure. On a side note, it appeared to me that in the flash-forwards, the only thing that changed about Kate was her hair color/style. Randall looked a decade or two older than her. Agreed that this episode was Randall-heavy, and that was an odd choice for the final scene. I've always been disappointed with the addition of Deja because it took away from Tess and Annie. Annie disappeared, and Tess' queer storyline never went anywhere. I would've been much more interested in seeing how that unfolded than Deja's teen romance with Malik. And then the scene in the finale with grown Tess and Annie talking with Randall, then leaving so Deja could "have a minute" with Randall. I wish I understood why Tess and Annie were sidelined for the second half of the series.

Sadly, it seems that the only criteria for being elected to high public office in the U.S. is a pulse and a Twitter account. So Randall's ascent to senator is not all that unrealistic, given it takes place in the 2020s and 2030s. Randall went to college and has always been hardworking. Kate, OTOH, has never been shown to have any career ambition. She was unemployed for the majority of the six seasons/years (spanning ages 36-42ish). So, to have gone from community college dropout to international curriculum designer, when she's been depicted as having no career ambition, is harder to believe than Randall becoming a senator. It's like they retconned Kate at the 11th hour and, out of nowhere, made her a powerhouse educator. They told us and didn't show us, same as with her relationship with Philip. I suspect this was not the original arc for Kate's character, but they pivoted when Plan A didn't pan out.

I came here to say the show must be trolling us with Kate's meteoric career success, and someone upthread beat me to it. I literally laughed out loud at the "international curriculum." I have to wonder if there was originally a different storyline planned for Kate's absence in the flash forwards. This one just seemed dumb. Why would Kate leave the country with her mom nearing death? I told my husband at least 50% of viewers wouldn't understand the Marcus storyline or its significance and from glancing at comments on TIU Facebook posts, it looks like that's about right. I enjoyed the tie-in with William's speech about the bigger picture. But there was a bit too much time spent on Marcus. And commercials. We watched live instead of starting 20-30 minutes late like we usually do so we can FF the commercials. There were so many freaking commercials. I feel bad for the original kid Big Three. Once they aged out, we never saw them again.

Agreed. The renewal will come any day, I'm sure, but they left the gang in good places just in case.

Darlene is a terrible parent.

If the message of the show is that straight women don't need men to be happy, I'm good with it. That's the only way I can handwave all the male leads being partnered and all the female leads being single in the end.

While I don't think that everyone needs a partner to be happy, I'm also not convinced that Brianna and Mallory's vague notion of starting a TBD business together constitutes a happy ending for either character. Granted, Mallory has always seemed pretty happy since her divorce (especially since she doesn't seem to spend much time with her kids!) but I think she deserved a fulfilling relationship. Her arc as CEO never made any sense. I wish they had figured out a more rounded picture of her identity. Brianna has shown almost no character growth and is almost as much of a caricature as Karen Walker (Will & Grace). She is so damaged and self-centered, and her brief breakdown in Mallory's arms is one of maybe two vulnerable moments we've seen from her -- the other being following Barry to Baltimore (?). I don't mind that Brianna was childfree by choice (so am I) but the line she drew in the sand with Barry was totally unreasonable IMO and he was right to bail after kowtowing to her many demands for years. So, it doesn't bother me that she didn't get a happy ending. Frankly, I don't know what Barry saw in her.

Kate's new "baller" persona reminds me of Christina on Parenthood starting a new school despite her only credentials being having a son with autism. I really liked the scene with Beth explaining to Randall that he's seeing former versions of Kevin and Kate rather than who they are in the present. Randall has an enormous savior complex. From the original deathbed flash-forward, it was clear Rebecca had stayed at the house and that Kevin lived there. So, no big surprise that they ended up with that plan. But interesting how they arrived at it. I do think there's probably a reason Kate and her crew are the last to arrive (even Toby beat them there). I just don't know what it is. I read an interview with the showrunners saying we'd see more of the ugly side of Rebecca's Alzheimers. So those who like a heavy dose of realism in their entertainment may be getting their wish.

The most shocking moment of the episode. I LOLd thinking of the reaction here.

I was disappointed overall in this last batch of episodes. I recently did a full series re-watch, and it was just so amazing and hilarious. This season it was almost as though they'd run out of ideas. Even my 78-year-old mother just emailed me and said "I’m watching Grace and Frankie too. It’s not as funny so far in my opinion." The complete and total absence of Faith + Mallory's 4 kids was jarring. I get that they may not be able to have children on-set, but if they can fake Barry's baby, they can fake Faith. With Mallory's, at least make a passing reference as to where they are all day and during important family functions. They've handled Mallory's children oddly. One season there were a couple of episodes with just two kids -- no mention of the other two. I have no idea why Peter and Adam were at Coyote's wedding. It really just seemed like they wanted to throw in a couple of extra gays who had no business being there. Bizarre. I loathe Peter, and wish they didn't seem to think his presence was needed in nearly every episode. Also in that category: Joan-Margaret. She isn't funny and her presence diluted the G&F relationship IMO. Robert's memory issues/ Alzheimer's onset was nothing short of depressing, even if it's realistic. Not sure why that storyline was ushered in at the 11th hour. I can't believe they broke up Brianna and Barry at the very end of the series. Why did Bud and Coyote get happy endings while Brianna and Mallory did not? It reminds me of when Robert and Sol were settled and happy in their new home and Grace & Frankie were stuck in assisted living. This show celebrated female friendship in a delightful manner, but otherwise came across as borderline misogynistic at times.

Oof. I'm 52 and I thought Randall looked a decade older than that, at a minimum.