candall

I thought the "fiduciary" endorsement was fascinating, but JO didn't say exactly where that Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval comes from. Is it a private oath? A certification program? A mandatory stipulation for x job title but not y? Must google.

I prefer everything cooked just past the borderline between raw and tender/rare, so I'm pretty good at spotting the difference and I was shocked when they called the lobster "raw." Lobster takes barely any time to cook, the consistency looked right when they cut it, and as you say, the color change is obvious. There's no way Yaku served pale greyish jelly translucent lobster. Let's demand a recount.

My tv cut off the very end of the very last person. Did Meagan (I think) make it? She was almost done with the hanging spike things when I lost the show. I've never seen any of this competition before. Wow, some amazing people in there. (And since I have a lot of MN rescue connections, I was thrilled to see the MN dog guy with the rescued Vick pittie promoting animal adoption. Yay!)

If you watch it again, look for the scene where Selina gently places her hand on Catherine's cheek and leans in close to say, "Sweetheart, your father's a crook." The Chinese delegation walks up right then and is appalled to have stumbled into another romantic mother-daughter interlude. Pretty funny. I liked this episode a lot. Since the dying mother episode, I've been thinking the meanness was ratcheted up a notch or two too high. I can laugh and engage at Selina's insensitivity when she gives away her daughter's thoughtful Christmas gift, but not, for example, when CYA-ing her careless stupidity costs Mike his baby daughter adoption. It's a fine line, I know. But now Mike's about to have a full house, so Yay!

Why in the world would they switch out Jesse Tyler Ferguson for some internet woman? JTF was funny, likable and added quite a bit more to the show than any of the other "food adjacent celebs" they've crammed in. I had to pause the video and examine that full-pounder hamburger patty on top of Damiano's head. Whuut? (I don't have any trouble understanding him, though. I use CC.) Whatshername Model's "just cool your jets, Bobby" presentation made me laugh--and nearly gave Giada whiplash, which was gift-with-purchase bonus funny. I can't remember who talked so much she forgot to plate, but Rob nudging her over and assuming responsibility was a generous move. I may let him off the hook for knowing he was shaky on his barahat pronunciation and not taking ten seconds to nail it down. Did he somehow imagine fumbling his target ingredient word would be endearing? These people continue to lose entertainment value with every elimination. Tregaye's game will take a serious hit without Yaku to heft her up and carry her around--she can't survive on "fleek" alone. MarTEEta would have left Ana in the dust on the Sofia Vergara reference point. ("Nut girl." Bwah.)

Heeee. I wasn't exactly searching for Izzie, but I did feel pretty smug about my background in LVAD malfunction. Hi Jill. Bye Jill. Hank'll be there soon for you and some of that satisfying third world developing nation global south medicine. As long as Jeremiah winds up with C.G. Leviathan and Mandelbrot Sacani, I'm good.

You have some persuasive arguments. My theory was just a writers' contrivance to draw out the Arya Delayed storyline and keep her lingering in Braavos with the theatre troupe and the many-faced threats, but yours is better. I'll miss the payoff if Arya doesn't get to take down her bitter kitten rival, but Jaqen posing as Arya would be a neat twist. We could all go back to being pro-Jaqen if he's ultimately taking care of young Lady Stark and feels disposed to let his little academy drop-out go deal with her Stark business. If that really is Arya bleeding her way down Main Street, I'm not surprised no one helps her. One coin was a ticket for assistance from "any man from Braavos" so the citizenry must be pretty tuned in to the HoBW. Paging Lady Crane to the set, please. She'll be the outsider to nurse Arya and they can be in danger together.

Banana PUUU-DING. Hearing that woman say "pud'n" 50 times made me crazy. OKAY, YOU'RE FOLKSY. ********* The time warp contest is pretty fun. Bongo Jet was just as great as Crooner Majumdar, and Alton cracked me up for both shows. ********** Who would've thought "punch and canape' " would be so difficult? No-fry Chicken Kiev guy got hosed. .

I approved Yara's lusty behavior and didn't find it gratuitous at all. She probably wouldn't enjoy the same full measure of respect she's earned from the crew by being a badass on the water but going all demure at the afterparty.

Yeah, Bryan's tweets are almost devoid of apology. Color me astonished. 20 hours ago: --Snort, clumsy me, falling in the hot tub. --Oh wow, I'm really drunk, huh? --I'm very upset about being so drunk. --Could I have been drugged? --I got shitfaced due to work stress. --Hey, how about that boat sinking? --Man, Ben gets really pissed over food restrictions. Three hours ago: --Anyone out there ever been to Greece? Two hours ago: --Sorry, Tiff.

That would be better. My closed captioning says "The massage will be from about 4:00 to 4:15 and then we'll have the cocktail hour." And ETA, since I was replaying to verify massage times anyway, it's funny that Hannah's next statement is "I have 50 balls in the air at the same time." Which, umm, not really. All those years of experience surely encompassed some tougher nuts than a massage, a special occasion cocktail event and dinner for four, right?

I've been Bryan-supportive, but that fucker's dead to me now. Not that I would be especially proud to ever see my own slurry-drunk moments broadcast during prime time, but all the rest of his NON-slurring dialogue to and about Tiffany was equally repulsive. And yes, fits the SAE "partyboy" frat reputation to a tee, 1975 - present. ***************** Hannah couldn't have made more bad choices on the dinner debacle if she'd tried. She had a super easy "out" when Ben offered to grill the kebabs, but she opted for the "Still hungry?" Hail Mary instead, trying to cover her own ass. That being said, I'm not sure I'd consider a plate of tidbits passing among the guests during the cocktail & violin hour a "course." Is it still the first course if it's a bowl of veggies and dip? And again, money money money. My million dollar yachting experience better have more going on at dinner than one dish followed by dessert. AND a massage longer than 15 lousy minutes! Fifteen minutes is a shoulder rub at the mall.

Carmen's groove has always worked pretty well for her. "I'm too good for this maid business because I'm a staahr. And hot!" But she's never had to do much except flounce and preen, while this whole (sexy, manipulative) daughter story requires a lot of complex emotional conflict: guilt, jealousy, suspicion. I guess it'll be a real showcase if she can pull it off--she'll need to do more than look at the floor and stick out her bottom lip. Oh, wait, I just remembered when Carmen offered to take care of her former arch nemesis, who had cancer. Whatever happened with that?

Uh oh, they went just a leeeetle bit too strong, on several fronts, with this one. Like ever paying off $600k--to a guy who loves plier mutilation--with your 25% stake in a brand new high risk restaurant. Or handwaving multiple dealbreaker clauses in a contract because you feel so sympathetic to the guy who's in danger of being thoroughly screwed, you decide to spare him the disappointing news. How delusional do you have to be to pour out your heart to your dead wife at her grave, and then fudge the story with lies? There's a Dark Ross Geller move. I got my second hint of stupid Dark Ross when he went bazooka over an incorrect assumption, attacked an old man in a wheelchair, and was then bested by the old coot. Kid, we know you can shake your head; when daddy demands to know if grandpa pounded you to a bloody pulp, do it. I'm still in, though! heee

Oh, I liked it a lot. I need a new show where the characters are simply regular-damaged and not beset by bad supernatural ju-ju, vampires, aliens or dead things. That guy has to stop waving his pliers around, though, because ripping out peoples' teeth makes me sick. If I owed $600k to the (blerg!) Tooth Fairy, I'd just go ahead and sneak off to Paris. Percentages are not good for being in debt for years to a psycho. (The casual scenes with the animal butchering and processing aren't great either, but as an omnivore, I don't feel entitled to fast-forward.) Deion might have been the hit and run driver, but I hope not--there's no coming back from there, and besides, it looks like there are plenty of likely candidates.

What is this? I'm not even up to the first commercial break and this woman has some obvious psychological issues that need to be addressed by a professional--not fucking Gordon Ramsey giving her the benefit of his hotel management advice. And they're stretching this into a two-parter? Feels like exploitation. Out. ********************* ETA: Okay, maybe that's too much of a snap judgment. I'll check in here with you next week to see if they pulled it all together. I mean, surely they wouldn't devote two hours to the host ineffectually beating his head against a subject's dementia, right? Maybe this is all in service to "Ramsey Triumphant."

I'm just watching it now, debating whether I want to buy into another season. I hoped they were giving Rosie a ticket to drop the annoying speech pattern, but apparently it was just acknowledgment, so pfft. Otoh, if Peri's going to get it by the end of the episode, that's a big check in the "plus" column. Adrian being able to walk: of course. How long before Carmen and her secret love child are romantic rivals? (TV is EMPTY these days!)

"Probably"?!? LOL She flat out informed us in her (natural voice) parting statement that she expected to win the whole thing--which means her anxiety-face as she stood in the bottom four was, like all the rest of her affect, totally contrived. Hasta lueeego, Marteeeta. >jazz hands!< Maybe I'm just on a happy high after 147 straight hours of HBO's Six Feet Under binge, but I don't really want anyone else booted. They all fit so well into their little stereotype boxes and they're all just so basically awful--I'd be happy to watch six more weeks with the full complement of clusterfuckery intact. It's going to get less interesting as the crazy quotient goes down. I doubt if gnocchi has ever been prepared over a campfire, anywhere, by anyone, but the category that mystified me was State Fair. Cheese curds (??) and crabmeat don't say "state fair" to me. I guess a five pound bag of sugar and a vat of hot grease would have been too basic?

That dip in the water where the whole town tosses out the marketplace trash (and their chamber pots) didn't help either.

This is essentially what I'm complaining about. I think we were all primed to see Arya and Needle settle The Waif's hash once and for all, but now Arya's dripping down the street in serious need of medical intervention and the Waif's going to have an even bigger chip on her shoulder. Hey, how lucky there's a theatre troupe in the vicinity with someone who owes her and someone who resents her. Arya can spend a few episodes with them while she's recuperating. List? What list?

Excellent observation. They probably eliminated characters and stories in the beginning because there was such abundance and they wanted to keep everything tight. Now the stories are just dribbling out at a snail's pace and there are way too many threads for too little time. I love Tyrion and Ian McShane, but I didn't really need to hear the negotiations with the pro-slavers subsidizing the Sons of the Harpy or the backstory from the man who patched up The Hound. Three episodes left and one of them will be spent on a big whizz-bang battle. Can we get some of these bleeders tied off before the end? Maybe focus on a big storyline--like more than two minutes on The High Sparrow OR Arya? I like tiny badass Lady Mormont, too, but it's kind of sad that her new character was the highlight of the episode.

They were smart to bundle SV and Veep with GoT. The three of them make a nice Sunday night block and otherwise HBO's half-hour comedies are so hit or miss. (Ballers? Yeesh.) Everyone on Veep is unpleasant these days, so thank goodness for sweet Jared. I'm really enjoying his story development as a charmer. Agree that the Erlich stuff is about as incorrect as it could be, but that doesn't slow anyone down on this show because the writers care more about replicating their standard irony: an injustice boomerangs and lands x in even hotter water.

Wow, Evan was sensitive and mature. Wow, the Hong Kong liaison was neither the secret villain nor the new conveniently geographic-adjacent love interest. (Hee, this show is so fluffy, it doesn't take much for me to have a "wow" reaction.) **************************** Mark F. must have "plus one exotic shooting locale" scribbled into his contract. I knew sick kid would be a decoy, but using sneaky guy's own kid was a nice twist, which I don't recall seeing before. Points!

Well, either we dodged a bullet or Andy saw an opportunity to administer a spanking that would carry a little sting. : )

I hear you. I always fret for the animals these women own. That little thing probably would have keeled over and died from joy if he could have taken a brisk spin around the property and had some time to do his business. When Sonja met Dorinda to go for a simple walk, I was, like: TAKE THE DAMN DOGS!! (Don't even get me started on that tiny Vanderpump creature whose feet aren't ever allowed to touch down. Skin condition doesn't equal "paperweight.") In other news, I like Skinnygirl margies. Kind of like alcoholic lime water, which is nice sometimes instead of the sugar-syrupy real thing.