Bec

I have to admit Joel arranging to have a song from Midge's favorite musical play so they can dance to it when he proposed was pretty romantic. The lead up to it, not so much, though. What with the reason for the proposal being he wanted to have sex, and the way he put pressure on her to say yes right away. If I had someplace to be, and there's some moron stopping traffic so he can dance in the middle of the road, I would not be amused. But it's fun in a fictional scene like this. Very theatrical.

That Chicken Fat song made me laugh and laugh. Those lyrics are so fun - "give that chicken fat back to the chicken and don't be chicken again". Oh man, I need to exercise to it from now on. I just looked it up and it is available on iTunes (it's labelled "From the iPhone 5s 'Strength' TV advert - remastered"). Huh. Somehow I completely missed that ad back in 2014. Too bad it's not part of the Mrs. Maisel season two soundtrack. Oh, but it is available for free here (sounds like the "not remastered" version, but hey, freebie!) Watching ASP's shows has introduced me to some of the best and weirdest music. Heh.

One scene before the scene with Joel hitting some balls and moping about wanting to be forgiven, he got pissy at Midge about "handing off" his children to another man without asking him (he just learned that Ethan met Benjamin), and while they were arguing back and forth, she yelled "I didn't leave you, you left me!", showing deep down inside she is actually still pretty damn angry at him, despite the amicable exterior. (And then Joel whined "you left me back!" like a petulant child.) Honestly, I was like "go Midge!" for throwing that in his face. I've got zero patience for Joel's self-pity. He brought all this on himself. She didn't "leave" him - she gave him another chance when she didn't have to, and he blew it. I don't think he grovelled nearly enough yet to earn Midge's forgiveness. She's been far too nice to him and gave him far too many chances as it is. He's got some nerve getting so bent out of shape over Ethan meeting Benjamin for a minute, when Midge let Ethan stay with him overnight back in season one, even though his mistress was living with him and it was a just an unpleasant surprise sprung on Midge.

I agree it was rushed. But the show took the effort to write Benjamin as such an independent thinker who refuses to conform to society's expectations. So it confuses me that Midge would just assume he wouldn't be cool with her going on tour with Shy Baldwin. I know it's the 1950s, but it couldn't hurt to at least tell him and see how he reacts. She never told Benjamin, right? I didn't just miss a scene somewhere? Sure would be ironic if Benjamin would have been completely supportive of her rising stardom, but they break up because she cheated on him based on the assumption he wouldn't be supportive. And cheated with a sad sack who will always be in her life because they have children in common, no less! If the show was trying to present a situation in which she must choose between marriage and career, they didn't do it very well, because while we saw Joel tell her she can't have both, we never see Benjamin do the same. Not even a little!

The only thing that bugged me was Midge making Zelda hold back the food. It's gonna get cold and people are hungry! Why won't you let the people eat?! Isn't it somewhat easier to drop your truth bombs while people are happily munching on a nice meal, instead of cranky from hunger?

WTF, Noah works for the CIA? I mean, I figured his job had to do with some kind of super secret science project, not the kind of thing where you'd need to carry a gun around. Now I'm googling like mad trying to figure out what Cold War thing this could be a reference to. Sand in his shoes? Maybe it's Project Horizon. Would be hilarious if it's Acoustic Kitty, but it's a bit too early for that.

When that lady gave Midge the number for Sylvia Plath's shrink, I did a double take before I remembered this show takes place in a time before she stuck her head in the oven.

I liked the Paris scenes. But then I'm not watching the show just for the comedy acts. I enjoy the look of this show. It's like they exist in a world of eye-candy. I could just sit here and stare at their costumes, sets, and location shots all day, it's that good.

At least the full-frontal male nudity in this wasn't the kind of guy you would not want to see naked. There's a real disparity when it comes to on-screen full-frontal nudity. Almost all the women who are ever shown fully naked on screen (and there are so very many) are super gorgeous. Almost all the men who are ever shown fully naked on screen (and there are so very few) are - how should I put this - the type that'll make you want to shield your eyes from the horror. Midge can seem a little too perfect, too good at everything. So as cringey as that wedding scene was, it was necessary to put her flaws on full display. Apparently she is terrible at tact. Not good at reading the room. We got hints of that earlier on, but this took it to a whole other level.

Could have been worse - at least we didn't get a surprise reveal that none of what we watched actually happened, it was just dreamt up by Steven for his novel. That's where I thought things were headed when Steven was suddenly back at home staring at his computer screen. I can see how keeping everyone in the red room forever would have been too bleak, but the choice here isn't necessarily either "full dark no stars" or "full sap". Just a few tweaks could have cut the overly saccharine tone without being cruel to the characters. It's okay to let about half the family survive. It's okay that they can feel a sense of closure and move on with their lives. But Steven didn't have to get back together with his wife. Was anybody rooting for them to get back together? I relate to his reason for getting a vasectomy. Yet I still think he broke the trust with his wife too badly for their relationship to be salvageable. Besides, I'm not convinced he's cut out for fatherhood. Theo didn't have to stick with Trish, either. I care about the siblings' relationships with each other. It's enough to show they're there for each other. That already drives home the point that they're no longer emotionally "walled off" like before. I don't need to see nearly everybody paired off and pregnant to further confirm this. It's overkill. And I would have preferred closing on music that sounds less like they're trying to make an episode of This Is Us. If the music was just a touch creepier over the part where Mrs. Dudley decides to let her soul be stuck in the house forever so she can be with her children, it would have seemed a little less like our takeaway should be "Yay! The house is the best thing ever now! Everybody should want to die there!" Cut out that "whatever walks there walks together" bullshit. I never even read the book and even I can tell messing with "whatever walked there walked alone" is not a good idea. You just come off like a pale imitation trying and failing to be deep. They could have just used their nice piano music score right to the very end, with no Steven narration. He's my favorite character, but even I wanted him to shut the hell up. The show is tantalisingly close to sticking the landing. Just a few adjustments could have made all the difference.

I think "ass" is the word here, not "badass", just "ass", or "jackass" if you want a more fancy choice of words. Heh. Team Cole all the way in the Cole vs Billy fight. No sympathy for that jackass Billy. He had it coming. Until this episode, Billy never did get any comeuppance for messing up Cole's hand so that he can't draw anymore, did he? Douchenozzles who revel in causing destruction are the reason we can't have nice things.

Anne was an odd duck and "kindred spirits" with the misfits even in the books. It's why I love this character so much. And why the later books got a little disappointing because adult Anne became too conventional for my liking (I hated Anne of Ingleside). So the show's penchant for changing things around might become more of a plus for me if it ends up covering the adult years. (At the rate they're going, it'll take forever to get there.) I'm on board with having Aunt Jo be a lesbian, and I like Cole (yeah, he does remind me of one of Anne's sons from the books), but I did think the show hit us a little too hard over the head with their "look how gay these characters are!" moments. As if we're stupid and would have missed it if they were subtle about it. "Love comes in many forms" was a lovely sentiment, though. I like that it goes beyond making romantic love out to be the be-all-end-all. It's a wide world and there's more to life than just that. I already thought last week had amazingly imaginative sets and costumes, but this week went even more fancy! Bravo to the people designing these things!

The line "it could be an inside man... or woman" made me laugh. Cheesy! I knew Craddock was shady as soon as she coerced David into spying on Julia by implying his family would be kicked out of the safe house if he refused to do it, a whole bunch of episodes ago! What surprised me was that Anne Sampson wasn't in on the conspiracy as well. But then, even though both Sampson and Craddock wanted him to spy on Julia, Sampson didn't take part in coercing him into it. I thought everything - bombings, murders and all - was going to be some huge conspiracy involving all the politicians from the Prime Minister on down. But okay, that would have been too predictable. It's a bit disappointing they were just red herrings acting shady because they were trying to get the tablet so they can keep their dirty little secrets. But they wouldn't murder, no! That was some criminal's doing! Some criminal who came out of left field! I didn't understand why Nadia would admit to everything, conveniently before the end of the show. But I guess it makes sense if she feels her whole plan is complete, she would want to "take credit". Here's why I didn't suspect her of being some kind of mastermind - those aren't the people who gets sent out to blow themselves up! They send the idiots, not the geniuses with mad valuable bomb-building skillz! It sure wasn't because I didn't think a Muslim woman could be an engineer. I did think it was suspicious that she can speak English. That was a hint all along that she's well-educated. I did wonder at the time if she only said Longcross supplied the bomb because it looked like David really wanted her to say that. But I thought it would be because she wanted to "help" by saying exactly what he wanted her to say, I didn't think she wanted to kill him this whole time! So wait a minute - does Nadia know David is still alive? I'm guessing she assumed he died. If she knows he's alive, then she shouldn't feel like her plan is all done and it's time to take credit for her work. Unless she considers toying with him instead of killing him close enough! In a different story, maybe Nadia could have been a compelling and fascinating character. Here, she's a plot device doing whatever the plot needs her to do. Hey, I was entertained, so can't complain too much, but it feels a bit thin in the end, as if the story didn't completely live up to its potential. It's like the show was so focused on obfuscation, it valued the "big twists" so much, that actually telling a coherent story became unimportant. I liked the sappy ending with the happy family though. It's silly but it feels nice. I get a bit tired of so many other shows ending on down notes (even though that's often a smarter way to go).

What the fuck, she's dead? It's only the 4th episode! Unless... she's pulling a Tom Sawyer. Are we supposed to be suspicious of David? If he wanted her dead, he could have let the sniper shoot her - that wouldn't have raised as many eyebrows as blowing her up with a bunch of other people at a big speech. Unless... he has some kind of split personality, so he only wants her dead part of the time, but that would be so hokey. Is it going to turn out everyone from the Prime Minister down to the staff is in on it, because they're all hiding stuff that they're afraid would come out if RIPA '18 passes? This is already feeling far more convoluted than it needs to be.

It almost seems like it would be too facile to see Julia as some kind of sociopathic manipulative villain because of her politics and the way she's not-so-nice to people. More likely Julia actually believes she's doing the right thing, and she sincerely has feelings for David. Sometimes well-intentioned people can still hold dangerous views and be unpleasant. David's police superiors seemed nice at first, but his police boss was not-so-subtly threatening his family's safety to get him to do their bidding. They want to bring Julia down, but they're not exactly good people either. Am I just slow or are we supposed to not know who the bomber is? It's not Tahir (the poor new aide that the old aide obviously set up to get chewed out by Julia), right? Or was it him? David checked the case and apparently didn't see anything wrong. Unless... it was a bomb that was hidden really well. Or David saw something but deliberately ignored it because he wanted Julia to get blown up. I'm confused.