candall

See, I didn't think it was the blue line, even though Dave kept mentioning it--I could only find it on one piece. I think it was exactly what you pointed out about designing a cohesive "triptych." The horses were good art, but you could have put any one of the men in the middle and it wouldn't have made the slightest difference. Nunez was hilarious complaining about the central figure on Peck's team being "off-center" when his people had no discernible center at all. Even the biggest piece, that covered the most skin, and might arguably have been the "centerpiece"--was on the side. It was nuts to do three figures and make them all face left.

Ha, they did a better job than many shows as far as wrapping everything up and still leaving an opening for Season Two, just in case. Credit where credit is due! In fact, now that I think about it, ret-conning Deputy Townie into Holyoke 2.0 is probably a hedge to cover their bets in the (unlikely) event they want to feature his ghostly presence next year. <g>

Now that Lifetime is showing four to TEN hours per day, I find it very easy to just bzzzzz . . . FF all of Izzie and Denny flirting their way to true love, Alex's investment in various shades of Ava angst, live pig surgery, etc. LOL, it feels very satisfying to do that! "Nope. Pass. Pass. Pass." Even though this has to be my third go-around, at least, for large chunks of this show, I'm still surprised at how my reaction changes. This time I'm totally impatient with Izzie. She can barely open her mouth without blabbing someone's secrets or being deliberately rude or thoughtlessly self-centered. You could put together a five minute montage of her tossing out a thousand insincere versions of: "What? Oh. Sorrr-y."

I put up a thread so we can wrap this puppy up and have some closure on Camp Not-So-Stillwater. Sorry about the episode title--I can't tell what the titles are unless I have more than one on my DVR. I thought it was funny that Amy and Jessie were trapped within the camp perimeter so Holyoke and Malphus could duke it out in the ultimate cage match--seems like they might have had an opportunity for that throwdown when they were both inside Jessie. But then we would have missed all the hide & seek, capture the flag and Marco Polo games. It was interesting to hear from the showrunners that Deputy Townie has now assumed Holyoke's role of Permanent Protector for Lake Stillwater. As far as I could tell from the show, he just had a warm celestial hug with his dad and they disappeared into the light together. Er, when did Hollywood start having Production pop in at the end and 'splain thing to us? LOL, this show. Nice to see Jessie's mother get a bit of comeuppance. I know my mother was always irritated when I raided her closet for my summer camp wardrobe.

You wouldn't have minded if you'd watched the old (2012?) episode that aired right before this one. The mother high-whined, sobbing and gasping, the whole way through her "intervention letter." And then the sister did the same thing! It was like ground glass in the ears.

Agree, and adding: for purposes of show tension, I think they wanted to make us all wonder how far the revelations were going to go. Start off with a sympathetic young guy who gets caught in a snowballing avalanche of trouble, smudge up his character a little bit with this, then that--and then what's coming next? His prom date woke up roofied and disheveled? It was entirely possible one of the many themes in the show was going to be "hasty first impressions." No way to know they were going to come down on the side of "trust your gut" instead.

Agree, and adding: for purposes of show tension, I think they wanted to make us all wonder how far the revelations were going to go. Start off with a sympathetic young guy who gets caught in a snowballing avalanche of trouble, smudge up his character a little bit with this, then that--and then what's coming next? His prom date woke up roofied and disheveled? It was entirely possible one of the many themes in the show was going to be "hasty first impressions." No way to know they were going to come down on the side of "trust your gut" instead.

Sounds like I made a mistake passing this up. The programming description made it seem like another show where the whole point was "watching Celebrities!" But I'm always up for seeing interesting unfamiliar places and if celebs can show me those, and offer some bonus funny on top, great.

Grace and Laura. I agree it's sketchy for Romania's winner to scoot over here for a second bite of the apple, but THEY approved her inclusion, so I'm not deducting personal accountability points. Even playing field, that is one amazing set of pipes. But then, ha, I take credit for being objective about opera girl and at the same time I have an anti banjo girl bias--because of the judges. Do they really think they're hearing God's own gift to the world of music? I mean, maybe Barbra Streisand popped up one day and the world paused to listen, but Grace VanderWaal seems like a product Simon has decided to hype pursuant to marketing. I can't stop thinking about Simon saying, after one of her shakier performances: "It's really the potential that's important!" Umm, no, for this show, it's really not.

I really like that Dave says, "For the Flash Challenge, my choice is going to be based strictly on the challenge directive." As always: yay, Dave. For the Elimination, there's not going to be any pretense that "worst tattoo of the night goes home." They even showed side-by-side comparisons of Tito's and Carolyn's earlier work from the selection process! It's refreshing they're going to be honest about that instead of Peck and Nunez making up bogus arguments and lying through their teeth. (See, every past season.) If they kick out the weakest competitor from among the worst of the challenge pieces, I can live with that. Sorry, Carolyn. You might not have had the worst Medusa, but your bluster was not convincing and the xx factor never helps.

I was very amused by the quick montage of Jill in her various "officiant" outfits. I think the quick humorous flashes (that aren't beaten to death) make the best parts. Just the fact that Candace was wearing a bridal gown was funnier to me than 22 minutes of Jill desperately seeking Hamilton tickets. I thought it was sweet that Jill's husband had secretly bought one of her photos from her website, and maybe didn't deserve to have his head taken off. The Von Webbers are dependably consistent, but the main character is so sporadic--sometimes generous and reasonable, frequently unlikeable and a real pain in the ass. It's a strange show.

$10 a pop didn't seem out of line to me, LOL. "Well, Mrs. Weiss, as business majors, we've been taught that you charge what the market will bear." I thought one of the best small details was that Stone is no longer the "No Fee 'Til You're Free" guy. $250 up front, cash only. I think I've watched that cat pad across the screen and meow, punctuating the last haunting notes from Roberta Flack, about 14 times. Very nice.

For me, the finale was excellent. I was pleading with my television screen on several points: PLEASE let Naz walk out of Rikers safely. PLEASE let the cat come home. PLEASE let Box step up (and have it matter.) PLEASE let Stone save the day in court and PLEASE don't send Naz to prison for any of x, y or z reasons. In every single instance, I was pretty damn sure the show was going to dash my hopes, purely for the sake of being "gritty." (Man, did this show ever love the grit.) But, no! I got every last toy on my Christmas list, which was such a nice surprise. They did all that and still maintained the darkness. Every character was bloodied and disillusioned at the end. I loved Stone's bleak summation to Naz: the wheel keeps turning--you don't really matter in the long run so the best you can do is shoulder your load and try to learn something as you go; fuck everything else. clap clap clap

The trauma, I believe, was supposed to be that she later regretted being so self-absorbed. But then there was something significant going on with her photo being plastered all over the place as "the Canadian voice of the Japanese disaster"? I couldn't figure out the angle--because they didn't show any of the text with the photo! Maybe the media had secured a quote about how the tsunami totally screwed up her trip and she was on country-wide blast. That would definitely depress me. All of this should have been made much more clear. Just trying to puzzle that portion out makes me question what's going on with the Canadian episodes. Is it simply that they don't have the years of experience necessary to turn out a compelling story? Or a slick Hollywood version of a compelling story? Are they trying to make some modifications to The Colonel's Original Recipe by casting or coaching? And where are they getting these interventionists? I think there are some production problems, but I don't care, I'll never be out. I'd rather watch sketchy new addicts than repeats of old addicts or no addicts at all. Back to Sarah: she was a MESS. I wanted to tell her mother to just go ahead and hook her up to a vodka IV so she could be right there to hold her daughter's hand while she died.

The dearly departed's tendency to eat you has been taken under advisement by even the most generously disposed, hence the fences. But the long cultural tradition of Dia de los Muertos doesn't have the dead relatives showing up once a year in the form of snuggly puppies, either--they're clackety de-meated skeletons, rendered marginally more agreeable with flowers and top hats. And there's really no "remembering" zombie characteristics for these people, such as whether the resurrected recognize them or prefer chicken. It would be pretty much a learn-as-you-go situation. I'm only saying that moving the cast and the "co-exist?" stories to Mexico--a country accustomed to celebrating the dead coming back to life on a regular basis--is far from the dumbest thing this show ever came up with. Si'? *********** I get your point about mercy. (In Z-Nation, a lot of brains are punctured on behalf of mercy.) Personally--while I'd feel sad for any creature spending eternity on a showerhead--I'd resist the impulse rather than risk a close encounter that wasn't absolutely necessary.

Agree. The difference in the water they were getting seemed like a bit of a "rig." I just don't think many people are going to complain. [evil snicker]

I watched a therapist put an unhappy married couple through their paces on a "deserted" island last night. Surviving Marriage: Love on the Rocks. It was pretty laughable, except I could believe the wife really had fallen into a pattern of abdicating all decision-making agency. And maybe I can also believe that a man wrapped a lifetime of feeling disappointed about not realizing his potential into a package he secretly calls "she got pregnant and trapped me." I'm not sure it's going to be all that great for their children to watch the show.

Why do people think James was close to falling off his ledge? To me, it looked like it was an effort to uncrimp himself from his position and crawl down. Other people only had to relax their fingers and they immediately went splat. Nicole's whiney pleading about needing to win HOH so she could hear from mommy was pretty sickening (or else brilliant?) but I think James will ALWAYS grab a chance to avoid responsibility. I don't have much respect for James and his gameplay--the one time he was crowing about "making a big move," Natalie had carrot/sticked him into seeing he only had one feasible option. I'm sure Nat wanted to strangle him after the HOH ledge. I think it's fine if this was the last chance for the weaker members to knock Paul and Victor out of contention and they blew it. I didn't like Da'vonne and Zakiyah going "Thelma & Louise." Da': If you don't like water, or heights, and you decide to quit because you really don't think you have much of a shot, that's fine, but then maybe don't say you did everything in your power to stay in for your daughter's sake. If you have it in you to discuss the situation and orchestrate a hand-holding ballet exit, then you still have the strength to hold on a few more seconds. Paulie repeatedly being blasted in the face with a firehose was very enjoyable. And Victor was looking a little iffy there at the end. There probably won't be the public squawking about "rigging" that there would have been if Paulie had had the round-trip ticket.

I've never defended this show before, but I'm going to give them some credit for going down to Mexico to establish their "culturally different viewpoint" storyline. I'm not all that familiar with El Dia De Los Muertos, but EVERY entry on the first Google page uses the word "celebrating" with respect to the dead. "In Mexico, death is a fact of life celebrated through a dedicated festival . . ." ". . .three days of celebrating the reunion of dead relatives with their families." In the US, we don't have any positive associations with dead people who continue to amble about--ghost stories are meant to be scary, animated corpses are for horror movies. It makes sense a long tradition of "the dead are back, yay!" would make people in Mexico more open-minded to the whole concept of zombies, struggle to make sense of it all, try to co-exist.

It must be an Aldi's.

I'd like to see a clever escape plan, too, but it will probably be something as dumb as a car horn turns them all around en masse and lures them away. This particular group of zoms seemed highly motivated when they were flinging themselves off balconies, but now they're completely stymied by a bar-height barrier. (I eyerolled when the walkers couldn't scrabble their way over the top of the bar to chomp Mads and Strand.)

Forty-five zombies walk into a bar . . .

Oh man, Madison is such a buzzkill. C'mere, Strand, I'll do martini flirty with you.

AND another bag of Skittles.

Hope not. His ego's pretty healthy already. Oh, for fuck's sake, Nick. You could have crammed 15 of those bags in among the water bottles.