Eyes High

1. Ed and Peggy: I really do want Ed and Peggy to survive the season. There's something so touchingly pathetic about them. They are not particularly ambitious, and they are not greedy. Ed just wants to run his butcher shop, protect Peggy, and have a normal life. Peggy just wants to "actualize," but she's mentally ill and isn't able to see any other way out of being trapped in a domestic life she doesn't want other than using Rye. And for all their flaws, they love each other very much (I never doubted Ed, but Peggy was a bit of a question mark until she panicked when Ed was hanged) and they aren't evil or even malicious people. With all that said, I just don't think it will be possible. Even though they lack Lester's cruelty, malice, and willingness to throw innocent people under the bus, they are the "Lesters" of the season and the piper will have to be paid. 2. Hanzee: I agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you consider that Hanzee is now wanted for murder. Maybe he believes that the Gerhardts can protect him from law enforcement. Also, it seems likely that for all of Hanzee's hatred of Dodd, the Gerhardts are the closest thing he has to a family. 3. Lou: I believe Lou's injury was unrelated and occurred during a traffic stop or something of that nature. Molly remembers in Season 1 being pulled out of her algebra class when the injury happened, which suggests that she was in high school when it happens. Molly was 31 (turning 32) over Season 1 of Fargo, which was set in 2006, so in 1979 Molly would have been about four years old. Assuming she took algebra class when she was 14 or so (I don't think they teach it in middle school), Lou would have been injured no earlier than 1989. 4. Hank: Hank's not around in Season 1, but if Hank is Ted Danson's age (67) in 1979, he would be 94 in 2006, which is pretty old (especially for a man). It's not unrealistic that he would have died of natural causes long before 2006 rolls around. Also, I doubt Lou would have been as cool and calm in the retelling of the Sioux Falls Massacre to Malvo in Season 1 if he had lost a family member in the massacre, much less the father of his wife and the grandfather of his child. It didn't sound as if Lou had lost anyone he cared about in the massacre.

Crucial question: Will the pop culture references be updated? What's the over/under on a Hamilton reference?

Los Angeles article on the women of The Force Awakens. I think there are spoilers. I disagree, but we'll have to leave it at that.

Ted Danson just did a great interview with AV Club in their "Random Roles" series (where they ask actors about certain roles off their IMDBs). It's a great read. There is a fantastic post-2x09 interview with Zahn McClarnon (Hanzee) over at the Wall Street Journal. It's a must-read. He confirms that "Hanzee" means "shadow" in Lakota Sioux. Also, the interviewer asks this question, which I was very glad of: Yes. Yes! Great question. McClarnon gives a good answer, too.

It is true that the makeup of Washington Depot was overwhelmingly white in 2000. However, this show cheerfully stretched the boundaries of realism in many respects, so I don't think a stated desire to adhere to realistic demographics is much of a defence; the overwhelmingly white casts in Jezebel James (2/11 POC characters of the main cast, no POC leads, in Brooklyn of all places) and Bunheads (no POC leads, no Latino characters except the lead white Hispanic Sasha, when Oxnard, California, which is close to fictional Paradise, is 74% Hispanic), overwhelmingly white casts in far less overwhelmingly white locales suggests a troubling pattern on ASP's part that has nothing to do with realistic demographics. Furthermore, when you have only one minority lead character (Lane) and only one established visible minority character who recurs (Michel), it reeks of tokenism. If you look at other shows which based their fictional towns on real places, Stars Hollow doesn't look so good. Pawnee of Parks and Recreation appears to have been based on Muncie, Indiana, which was 84.0% white as of 2010, 10.9% African-American, 2.4% Latino, and 1.2% Asian. And yet, in the lead cast of Parks of Rec, there is one African-American character (and another character played by a biracial actress), a character partly of Puerto Rican descent, and an Indian American character. I do agree that the bigger problem in GG is the overwhelming whiteness of Yale and Chilton. There's no realism excuse there. Everwood also had a "family-friendly" (read: conservative) vibe like GG, but it broached some pretty heavy stuff: depression, abortion, suicide attempts, etc. There were no gay lead characters, but there was a big storyline later in the show about Ephram's piano student coming out as gay. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was pretty out there when it came to sexuality on teen-oriented TV in the 1990s/2000s. There was a lead character who came out as gay (Willow), who had two onscreen relationships with recurring characters (Tara, although apparently the WB forbade them from kissing onscreen except for the one time, and then Kennedy). There was a recurring gay male character (Larry) for the early seasons. I'm not sure whether Faith's bisexuality was ever canon, but there seemed to be a lot of Buffy/Faith subtext. The other big WB shows running around that time other than BTVS were Felicity, Dawson's Creek, Popular, Roswell, Smallville, and One Tree Hill (which started in 2003): 1. Felicity had the recurring gay character Javier. He actually married his boyfriend in the finale for the 1999/2000 season, which seems crazy given that the same network that greenlit a gay marriage forbade virtually any onscreen lesbian kissing on another show. Noel's brother also came out to Noel. 2. Jack was a lead on Dawson's Creek. He dated at least one guy and was shown to be living with his boyfriend in the flashforward finale. 3. On Popular, there were a number of recurring LGBT characters, including a gender-ambiguous teacher (Bobbi), one lead's lesbian mother, a transgender MTF shop teacher, and a black gay male drama teacher. No out lesbian or gay leads, though. Lead Lily also indicated that she had experimented. On the other hand, this is a Ryan Murphy show, who makes a point of ensuring LGBT visibility, so... 4. Roswell had no gay or lesbian characters. 5. Ditto for Smallville. (Insert your own Clark/Lex joke here.) The wonderful out gay actor John Glover camped it up beautifully as Lionel Luthor, though. He pretty much spawned the Magnificent Bastard trope at TV Tropes. 6. One Tree Hill had no lead LGBT characters, but had a storyline in Season 2 (2004-2005) about a recurring female character coming out as a lesbian. She disappeared after Season 2, though. Seems to be a mixed bag in the LGBT department; Gilmore Girls wasn't the only WB show lacking in LGBT representation at that time. To be fair to Gilmore Girls, the other WB shows airing in the early 2000s I've mentioned sucked at diversity, too. Having one token minority among the leads like GG (Lane) seemed to be pretty standard (Irv on Everwood, Elena on Felicity and I guess Javier even though he was recurring, etc.) The only really diverse dramas airing on network TV at that time that I can recall were the procedurals, like Homicide, which ended in 1999, ER and Third Watch. I'm not sure it excuses anything to say that the other shows were terrible, especially when ASP didn't seem to change this with her newer shows, but it is useful for context. Even today, there's still a big diversity problem on TV. It seems like shows are either awesome at diversity--Shonda Rhimes' shows, Brooklyn 99 (4/7 POC leads), Community (4/9 POC leads), Elementary (2/4 POC leads), Orange is the New Black (6/13 POC leads), Jane the Virgin, etc.--or terrible (Girls, Veep, etc.). Not surprisingly, the shows with more racial diversity tend to have more LGBT representation. From what I can tell, deliberate attempts at diversity and LGBT representation seem to have to come from the showrunners, like with Shonda Rhimes' shows. They have to make it a priority. I don't know how much we can hope for in the revival on that front, given ASP's track record.

Interesting that you should say that. The leaked script page character description for Ed was that he was a "cow, basically. Which sounds like a judgment, but is simply a classification of his place in the animal kingdom" or something to that effect. I think Jesse Plemons has been really good as Ed. He's held his own in a show full of excellent performances. On another note, the person who plays Hallucination Guru Dude is Mackenzie Gray, a Canadian actor who (not surprisingly, given his silky-smooth voice) does a lot of voice work. His character is listed as "Albert" in the Loplop description. If you look him up on Google Images, he does appear to bear a resemblance to Jeffrey Donovan (Dodd).

Unfortunately, I hadn't seen the promo when I wrote that. It seems as if Ed and Peggy "agree" because it's a term of whatever deal the South Dakota cops offer Ed and Peggy (since Lou warned them that the South Dakota cops would try to make a deal with them, and poor Lou's job in this season appears to be to give people good advice that they refuse to take or to issue dire, accurate warnings that are ignored). I'm guessing they'll be offered an opportunity for a reduced punishment by acting as bait for Mike Milligan, as opposed to insisting on being put in custody as Lou recommends. I doubt they escape until after the massacre takes place, since they probably escape in the confusion. ...But yeah, it sure sounds like something Peggy would try to do. The 2x09 promo photos are out. There's not much of interest except that there's a picture of Hanzee with Bear and Floyd from the same night time scene where the Gerhardt goons appear to be descending on the Motor Motel. I guess Hanzee is going back to the Gerhardts because he thinks he can cover his Dodd-murdering tracks by having Ed and Peggy killed and that the Gerhardts can protect him from the police.

I meant beyond the nose job, which is obvious. Her face looks different. Sharper. Waxy. I don't think it's just age or weight loss. Mileage may vary on this one, of course. Keira Knightley has definitely had more done, though, don't get me wrong.

The only prominent Asians were Lane and her mother (the closest we got was Lane's cousin, Kyon, who was a very minor character and appeared in only five episodes out of 154). The "extended network of cousins" hardly matters if none of them have speaking roles, much like Bunheads doesn't get any cookies for LGBT representation because Sasha had a gay dad offscreen who never appeared and was never named. As for Michel and Mrs. Kim, it's certainly something, but they're minor characters--Mrs. Kim was never a regular--in a sea of white recurring characters, other than the ambiguous Miss Patty and Gypsy, whose identities are never established. (Gypsy only appeared in 23 episodes, about 15% of the total episodes, so she's not much for representation in any event. Miss Patty appeared much more frequently--79 episodes--but her ethnic identity is never established other than a last name suggestive of Hispanic origin.) Zack? White. Brian? White. April? White. Sookie? White. Jackson? White. Kirk? White. Lulu? Taylor? White. Babette? White. Maury? White. Madeline? White. Louise? White. Liz? White. TJ? White (strongly implied to be Italian and played by an Italian actor, but yeah). If they were characters on par with some of the more prominent minor characters, fine, but Michel appeared in only a little more than half of all the episodes (compared to Kirk's ~70%). Mrs. Kim appeared in a little more than a quarter of all the episodes (even fewer episodes than Babette of all people, and only slightly more episodes than Madeline and Louise, who disappeared partway through the series!). I dunno. The "super-femme straight man" thing in TV characters seems so dated to me, since it seems that many of the "femme straight man" characters on TV came from an era where networks were a lot more worried about having openly gay lead characters on TV. (Niles on Frasier is a good example.) The other problem I have with the super-femme straight man TV character is that at least with these "femme straight man" characters on TV in past years, it seemed like a way of degrading those mannerisms by reassuring the audience that it was okay for a man to act like that as long as he was straight, or that it was okay that he behaved in a super-femme way, because he wasn't sleeping with men or anything "gross" like that. Also, femme straight men characters' femme-ness was used as a source of humour where other characters made fun of those qualities stereotypically associated with gay men (Niles on Frasier and Frasier himself, to a lesser extent), which seemed to be a way of indirectly mocking gay men. Assuming Michel was straight, there was a lot of this on GG with Michel. To be fair, a lot of time has passed and those characters who would have been "ambiguous" if they'd been on TV 20 years ago are now out, proud, and married more often than not, so maybe things have changed. Maybe in 2015, we can have femme straight men characters without it seeming insulting to gay men in the same way. A fairly recent Canadian TV show, Being Erica, had a super-femme straight male character who ended up with a woman with no hint that he was anything other than straight (even though in the show many characters initially assumed he was gay). I don't recall his femme qualities being mined for laughs, and the show in general was fairly progressive when it came to sexuality. So maybe there's hope.

Given that FRIENDS was notoriously pilloried almost 20 years ago for its lily-white cast despite the fact that one of the main characters was Jewish, two were half-Jewish, and one was Italian, I don't think GG gets any diversity cookies in this day and age for having white-passing Italian and Jewish characters. As for the "Black mother," his mother showed up, what, once? Again, you don't get any diversity cookies for a character who only appears in one episode of a 154-episode show. What bothers me more is that even given the demographics of Connecticut, there were so many missed opportunities, especially once Rory got to Yale. An overwhelming number of fellow students were white, and not even "white-passing" Jewish or Italian characters, but white. Marty? White. Doyle? White. Lucy? White. Logan? White. Colin? White. Finn? White. Marty? White. Logan's blonde bridesmaids hookups? White. Janet? White. Tana? White. The only exception that I can think of was Olivia, which was pretty pitiful even in 2004 when Rory started attending Yale. To be fair, GG wasn't the only show at the time with a diversity problem, but yeah, there was a big problem.

Lauren Graham felt the same way about having to say the line. The depressing part is that she says that people have come up to her and indicated that they really liked that line.

I always assumed he was gay, too, but the whole "He's super gay--he loves Celine Dion, wink wink nudge nudge--but we're not actually going to come out (no pun intended) and say it" thing or the "He acts super gay, but psych! He's straight!" thing is so, so dated to me, especially now that more and more gay characters are being written for standard network TV sitcoms who do not fit the stereotypical gay mold (the curt, solemn Holt on Brooklyn 99, the slobby, fratty Max on Happy Endings, etc.). Rory's insanely PG-rated courtship with Dean also seems really dated, like something out of a Korean drama. The "a woman taming a rich, promiscuous playboy with the power of love and purity of heart" is a standard romance trope that you tend to see less of in TV these days--I think there's a push in network drama for more sophisticated storytelling--but I agree that it's dated; I've noticed that audiences for romances in more conservative social climates looooooove this trope. Also, the only ambiguously gay character in Gilmore Girls is highly stereotypical, which is also dated. (I'm not sure whether Tobin was established to be gay, even though he was coded that way.) There are gay dudes running around who are fashion-conscious, bitchy, deeply devoted to their pets, and Celine Dion fans, but there are also gay dudes who don't give a shit about fashion, gay dudes who are perfectly pleasant, gay dudes who hate animals, and gay dudes who would rather puncture their own eardrums than go to a Celine Dion concert. There are gay dudes who look and act exactly like Luke, the most "straight-acting" dude in the entire show! The approach of either you're gay and super flamboyant or you're straight is a false dichotomy that is utterly dated.

The gay-jokes-without-gay-characters and lack of any LGBT representation in the main and secondary cast are something that really date the show, as much as the clothes and the technology (although even in the early 2000s there were out gay characters on "family-friendly" or teen-oriented shows: Kyle on Everwood, Willow and Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc.). Are there any other aspects of the writing that seem very dated now, only seven years after the last episode aired? I don't know. It's telling that lack of diversity--both in ethnicity and sexuality--is common across all of ASP's shows, even the post-GG ones. The Return of Jezebel James was lily-white and super-straight as well. There's a pattern at play that can't be adequately explained by ASP being throttled by the networks. It's not much of an excuse when Ugly Betty, which started airing when GG was winding down, and which aired on ABC, and which ended before Bunheads ever saw the light of day, had a young gay man and an adult gay man in the lead cast as well as a prominent trans character; when Glee, which aired on Fox like Jezebel James and which started airing in 2010, had diversity, several prominent LGBT characters and a trans character; or when Pretty Little Liars, which started airing just before Bunheads on ABC Family, had a lesbian character among the young female leads. It's one thing if she just doesn't want to write LGBT characters for whatever reason (although if that's the case, she would benefit from hiring an LGBT writer who could assist her in crafting realistic LGBT characters). It's another thing to make disingenuous statements implying that she would have gay characters on GG if it were made now when her post-GG characters have had absolutely no LGBT representation. "Everyone would be gay," Amy? Well, the revival's coming up. Prove it. I would like to see someone call ASP on her shitty track record on LGBT representation. When Shonda Rhimes called her out for the lack of racial diversity in the leads on Bunheads, her response (whining that she doesn't do "message" shows and complaining about woman-on-woman showrunner hate) completely failed to address the problem. I'm not confident that she would be any less useless and defensive when it came to being called out on LGBT representation.

I didn't want to stereotype Gypsy as a lesbian, but yeah, I can see it. Bunheads, a show that aired when LGBT representation was already pretty common on ABC Family Shows (Pretty Little Liars, e.g.), had terrible LGBT representation as well--I think Sasha had an offscreen gay dad who was never named--so it does seem to be a bit of a pattern with her. The "Tee hee, everyone would be gay!" thing would be fine if she meant it, but if she really thought it was important to push LGBT representation, I agree with your observation that there would have been some sign of it later in the show when she had more creative control, as well as in Bunheads. As it is, that "Everyone would be gay!" comment is pretty obnoxious if she doesn't mean it. Now that the revival is coming, we'll see whether or not she cares at all about even token LGBT representation. Even outing Michel would be something. Put up or shut up.

Good lord. I'm wondering if the revival will have most of the cast as out and proud: Michel with a boyfriend, Taylor with a husband, Gypsy with a girlfriend, Emily settling down with an immaculately pantsuited lady after Richard's untimely death (relevant), Doyle casting off the shackles of compulsory heterosexuality and finding someone even shorter and fussier than he is, Paris pairing up with a gorgeous power lesbian who's even more terrifying than she is but is a dead ringer for Rory (also relevant), Luke becoming disturbingly chill once he comes to terms with his homosexuality, Lorelai dating a woman who is basically her clone, Logan marrying Finn in Vegas after a drunken one-night stand... I kind of want this now. Heck, maybe we'll get something like this in the revival. Her original intent for more LGBT (well, LG, I guess, in between lesbian manque Sookie and ambiguous Michel) representation is laudable, but it's hard to swallow in light of her fondness for gay jokes and lack of out gay or lesbian characters in the lead or even the secondary cast (which is something you almost never see nowadays, where LGBT representation is pretty much a given, even in "family friendly" fare).

Interesting. Reagan can't remember whether or not they (meaning his character and the lovers) made it out. Now, as I recall, in the movie Peggy was watching the Nazi is temporarily felled, allowing them to get away, but it turns out that he's not dead and gets to his feet and moves after them. Also, the scenario Reagan is describing suggests that the Nazi corners all three at some point, as opposed to the scenario Peggy watches, which is Reagan's character rescuing the lovers. So maybe Reagan's character and the two lovers do die. The movie leaves off at the lovers getting at least a temporary reprieve, the same way Ed and Peggy do at the end of 2x08 from Lou and Hank, but the threat (the Nazi in the movie, pretty much everyone after the Blomquists) is still viable.

Well, Stephen Falk did go there, and it appears from interviews that he is selling this as a serious treatment of a subject that's a reality to people he knows. It is also clear that the treatment of Gretchen's depression has been far from humorous, with big scenes lacking "funny" beats: Gretchen inconsolably weeping in her car, Gretchen telling Jimmy that he should just go because she can't feel anything, Gretchen raging at Jimmy that she doesn't need to be "fixed," etc. None of this was presented as loopy or funny. If they're gong to play it straight, if they're going to present this as serious with all the ugly, unfunny beats that entails, it is supremely irresponsible of them to omit such an important aspect of the struggle with depression. That's just it, though. As not only a creative type but also as a writer who prides himself on belonging to a long tradition of writers (many of whom notoriously struggled with depression), he would be intimately acquainted with the nature of depression and would therefore be aware at least of the possibility of treatment. It's also unrealistic that Jimmy, for all his insensitivity, self-absorption and misplaced optimism, would be blind to the seriousness of Gretchen's depression and would not be making noises about seeking help for her. As for Lindsey, for all her selfishness, intellectual shortcomings, and poor judgment, she has shown herself smart and sensitive when it comes to Gretchen's depression. She kindly confirms with Gretchen that her depression is making itself known again. She urges Gretchen to tell Jimmy. She even acknowledges that Gretchen's lack of emotion is fucked up (although her boop on the nose with a spoon as opposed to immediately seeking help for Gretchen was some bullshit). Why would someone who is so perceptive and supportive when it comes to Gretchen's depression fail to urge her to seek help, especially when she reaches the point where she is pretty much paralyzed? I had a friend in university who confessed to me that she'd pretty much stayed in bed for two weeks due to her depression. I urged her to seek help immediately. You don't need to be a genius to know that that shit is not normal, and you don't need to be a saint to care enough to act on that knowledge. I think the complaint about the show's treatment of depression is that it hasn't been funny. If they had gleefully and irreverently bastardized depression for laughs the way they have with drug use, death, abortions, PTSD ("I didn't know it was a school," like mocking soldiers accidentally killing children is sooooo edgy and sooooooo dark, am I right?), etc., that would have been braver, darker, and edgier than anything this show has done. I would have loved that. It was actually pretty disappointing that the show couldn't find the funny with the depression, something the suits actually told Stephen Falk to do before going ahead with this storyline (which he evidently failed at). Instead we get this anemic After School Special bullshit that hits all the weepy, maudlin beats a crappy Lifetime movie would--Gretchen weeping in the car, Gretchen lashing out at her friends, Gretchen pushing Jimmy away because she can't feeeeeel anything, Gretchen crying helplessly as her fantasy of cozy domestic life falls apart, Gretchen railing at Jimmy when he tries to "fix" her, Jimmy drifting away because it's too much for him to handle, the obligatory sexy friend tempting Jimmy away from his sick partner, Gretchen blubbering "You stayed!" with gratitude at Jimmy proving his devotion, etc. etc.--but doesn't once mention treatment, the way any self-respecting crappy Lifetime movie would. It's not only highly irresponsible, it's downright baffling. Also, for all the praise of how realistic the treatment of depression has been on this show, even leaving aside the issue of the non-mention of treatment (something no realistic portrayal would omit), I've seen much more realistic depictions on other shows (Amy Adams on Everwood, to give one example).

He was using potentially deadly force against someone who was charging at him with a lethal weapon after saying that she would kill him. It's inappropriate to frame this as poor Morgan brutalizing innocent Carol with "potentially deadly force." He was entitled to defend himself and did so. He would have been well within his rights if he had in fact deliberately killed her. Someone whom you've seen murder other people tells you that they intend to kill you and charges at you with a knife? All bets are off at that point. You'd be stupid not to try to kill them, and it's to Morgan's credit that he made even a token attempt to avoid killing her. If someone tells you to hand over your wallet or they'll kill you, and you refuse, and they attack you with a knife as a result, you're not "defending your wallet" when you defend the attack; you're defending your own life. Morgan's own life was at risk. Carol told him that she would kill him. She charged at him with a knife. Morgan had every reason to believe that she would kill him. It was self-defence. That same logic enables him to give Carol and Rick the benefit of the doubt and not write them off as coldblooded murderers despite having seen them commit murder before his very eyes; he even saw Carol murder an unarmed prisoner. Where would Carol be if Rick had decided that she was too great a risk to the group to be allowed back in, even after saving their lives? Where would Carol be if Tyreese had refused to forgive her for Karvid, or for killing Lizzie? Where would Rick be if the group had disposed of him, horrified, after he told them that he "killed [his] best friend" for them? Rick and Carol were protected that way as well, by people who forgave them and gave them second chances despite their horrible deeds of coldblooded murder: killing Shane, killing Lizzie, killing Karvid, killing Pete, etc. If people treated Carol the way she treats everyone she writes off as a "threat," she'd have been long dead, which she seems to have conveniently forgotten in her haste to murder the Wolf. I love Carol, don't get me wrong, but bitch needs to take a seat. A realization that she doesn't have all the answers and that her ostentatious shows of badassery and/or dominance cause as many problems as they solve would be very good for her. It's no coincidence that the two big crises in 6x08--Sam being disturbed by Carol's warning to the point of calling for his mom at the worst possible time, Carol distracting Morgan--were caused by Carol's fuckery. In relation to the thread, I think Carol and Morgan might be brought closer by a mutual humbling: Morgan realizes that he shouldn't have concealed the Wolf's presence, and Carol realizes that she shouldn't have forced the issue and tried to murder Morgan.

I agree. She has a very asexual screen presence. The closest thing I saw to a spark was with David Sutcliffe, but even that had more of a chummy vibe. LG's Lorelai didn't seem sexually attracted to any of her love interests, including Christopher, but at least they got along. I have no idea what the actor's real-life orientation is, but Jason always read as gay to me. The show told me that they had a sexual relationship, but I never believed it. I wanted him and Lorelai to get drunk together and bitch about stuff. Lorelai seems like the type of character who would have a Sassy Gay Friend (Michel doesn't count, since he seemed barely to tolerate Lorelai). Wasn't Sookie originally supposed to be a lesbian? It's admittedly a small sample size, but she seemed to be playing slightly different versions of the same character...which is fine. A lot of talented, award-winning actresses pretty much play the same character over and over. Old Hollywood films will show that awkward, closed-mouth, lips-mashed-together kissing is no obstacle to creating heat! Paging Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh in Gone With The Wind! I've seen lesbian actresses who appeared to be more into their het kissing scenes than Alexis. I get that she was very shy and very young, but she appeared positively repulsed at the prospect of physical contact with a romantic prospect. It will be interesting to see if she's improved at all in the intervening years. I don't remember her kissing scenes from Mad Men. What bothered me more about Alexis was her constant fidgeting. There was this one scene with Jess in Season 6, I think, when she's sitting with him and reaches over to her other shoulder and adjusts her jacket! It's the worst. The wooooooorst.

My complaints with the sexism in TWW dropped off notably after Aaron Sorkin left the show. Judging from what I've seen of his other material, I don't think that's a coincidence. I think this is clearest with Donna. Anyone who claims that The West Wing under Sorkin was sexism-free need look no further than her. Donna only started pursuing her career seriously and bridling at perpetually being consigned to the role of Josh's Girl Friday after Sorkin left. That conversation in Season 5 where CJ bluntly points out that Donna is turning down fruitful career development opportunities and shooting herself in the foot out of love for him never would have happened under Sorkin. The closest we got in the Sorkin years was Amy asking Donna if she was in love with Josh, but at no point was Donna's career stagnation explicitly linked to her love for Josh, and pointed out to be something negative that was stifling her career growth. Under Sorkin, Donna was Josh's humble, devoted sidekick, who was in love with Josh but never realized that it got in the way of her personal and professional growth (or realized it and ignored it), who made vague noises about wanting to do more that neither of them followed through on. The relationship wasn't presented as something dysfunctional or harmful to Donna. After Sorkin, within 1.5 seasons, Donna not only realized that Josh was holding her back but Donna finally broke free of Josh (and it was pretty awesome), left her job and launched herself on her own career path. That's not a coincidence. Now, the complaint with Donna is that she took on positions after the White House for which she was vastly underqualified, not even being a college graduate. However, given that the alternative under Sorkin appeared to have been Donna happily remaining forever as Josh's adoring helpmeet subordinate (whose role in part was to ask him dumb questions for the benefit of the viewing public that he would answer in the most condescending manner possible) as the Natural Order of Things, I can live with that.

Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman looked more alike when they were younger. Plastic surgery and age have changed their appearances a fair bit (although there's still a height difference, obviously). Daisy Ridley looks a lot like a young Keira Knightley pre-lip injections circa Bend It Like Beckham when she smiles, though.

I think this show has to be careful about getting too far into the "people standing around talking to each other" rut. Someone made the cruel but accurate observation that the farm stuff on the show had the feeling of bad community theatre. (The acting probably didn't help, but...) Very static, very inert, and very dull. The show needs movement and momentum, which I think is why the introduction of outside threats--the herd and these horrific gangs (the Wolves and Negan's bunch)--is necessary: these shakeups move things forward. Otherwise, you end up with a bunch of people standing around talking at each other. Now, don't get me wrong: with superior writing, "a bunch of people standing around talking at each other" can be riveting stuff (heck, "Twelve Angry Men" took place in one room). However, with these writers, who are serviceable at best, and the source material, which is pretty awful in a lot of ways (leaden dialogue that sounds like no person ever, speechifying, boring manpain, too much focus on white dudes and psychopaths, thin to nonexistent characterization of everyone who's not a white dude or a psychopath, poorly written romances), I don't think there's enough writing strength to make it compelling without introducing these shocks to the storyline. To be fair, I think if Carol had been minding her own business or had even been unarmed and Morgan had beat her up, the fact that she wasn't his wife wouldn't make him any less of a piece of shit. However, I do think there's a meaningful distinction between "a man attacks a woman" and "a man attacks a woman who is coming at him with a knife with a stated intent to kill him." Postapocalyptic TV shows and movies (or TV shows and movies about war), and I think in particular American TV shows and movies, are notorious for pulling their punches, refusing to follow the scenarios to their grim, logical ends, and trying to impose sunny optimism. (Jericho was a pretty bad offender in this respect.) There are exceptions--The Road, my goodness--but they're few and far between. There are all these thinkpieces about American audiences' appetite for postapocalyptic movies or movies about war, but the fare itself is usually relatively upbeat. I think people do want the exciting possibilities of an apocalyptic or postapocalyptic world, but through the American lens it gets framed as illustrating a spirit of adventure, reinvention, new possibilities, etc. etc. Pacing this season was awful. We got one awesome episode (6x02) and the rest was a tedious slog, although personally I quite liked Morgan's Karate Kid episode (no need for it to be 90 minutes, though).

I am still frustrated by the fact that there's no clarity as to whether Gretchen has tried medication, therapy, etc. and found it ineffective, and by the fact that no characters--even those who supposedly love and care about her--have raised the issue. It also seems incredibly irresponsible that people who supposedly love and care about her would not seek emergency professional help immediately when Gretchen was pretty much physically paralyzed by her depression. And someone who has claimed that this storyline is based on the experiences of people he's known in real life, as Stephen Falk has, would surely know that. It's like having a storyline where a character is diagnosed with cancer and not only does the character not receive treatment, treatments are never even discussed by anyone, even to say that they wouldn't be effective. It's completely fucking insane. On the AV Club thread, I saw at least one commenter assuming that Gretchen must have tried medication, therapy, etc. and found all treatments ineffective, but there's still nothing in the show to verify that. Just one line--Gretchen commenting that she wouldn't take her medication because she couldn't mix booze with her antidepressants--would go a long way. In interviews and such, Stephen Falk seems to be holding this storyline out as a fictional representation of a problem many of his real-life friends in the creative community, but the elephant in the room is the fact that Gretchen has come out and said that she has a disease--clinical depression--and nobody has breathed a word about treatment. It's horrible writing. You don't claim that you're writing a realistic representation of depression and then completely neglect any mention whatsoever of treatment. It's not only false, but it's also highly irresponsible to depict depression with no reference whatsoever to treatment and to present it as a disease which is not only apparently completely untreatable but whose effects are to be uncritically accepted by one's partner as a test of true love, as this episode did with the "You stayed" bullshit.

I like the idea of Floyd surviving all of her children, but is it realistic that she would be left standing with her entire operation in ruins? We can imagine that the Sioux Falls massacre will claim the rest of the Gerhardt muscle, leaving Floyd as an isolated old woman with only minor children around her, easy pickings for some or other concern to move in and off her. Do you really think anyone would leave her alive, unless she's sufficiently fortunate to end up in prison? As for Charlie, the 10 year prison sentence (out in 5 for good behaviour) was the worst case scenario Karl outlined in the event that they convict (and Karl seemed to imply that there was a possibility that they wouldn't). If Karl works his magic, maybe Charlie walks or gets a slap on the wrist. I think Ed and Peggy's luck will run out. Lou has warned them so many times of the consequences of their foolishness and of the people who are dying because they won't cooperate. Karmically, they're going to pay for ignoring him, even if they aren't cruel or malicious in the way that Lester was.

There are I think several scenes that all take place at the same location: a motel (the Motor Motel, I'm guessing), which in the promo has a brick facade, two levels, and distinctive turquoise doors. There is also one of those streamer things in some of the nighttime shots (plastic bits of different colour on a line, of the type you see in car dealer lots, with lights strung on it). Here are the scenes that I think take place at the motel: 1. Ed, held by a state trooper, is being moved into a room. He's being led up the stairs (the motel has two floors), and there's a turquoise door behind him. The lighting suggests that this is in the late afternoon or early evening. 2. Bear and his goons moving through a parking lot at night, with the streamer thingy overhead. 3. There's a shot of the hotel at night with a bunch of what I assume are Gerhardt goons moving in. The back of Floyd's head is in the foreground of the shot. You know it's the same shot as #2 because the streamer thingy is overhead in this shot as well. 4. Lou bursting into a hotel room with cops (state troopers?) out of uniform, drinking, and playing cards. This may or may not be at the same motel. They're definitely in a hotel room (you can tell by the paper stuck on the back of the door), but I don't know where they are. We know that Lou gets booted off the case at the cabin, and it also appears from the promo that he sees Floyd and Bear in their truck, but we don't know where he sees them. I think the episode will involve Lou playing Cassandra. He will warn the South Dakota state troopers that they're out of their depth and that they are completely unprepared for the shootout brewing, and I'm guessing they won't take kindly to his efforts and will resent his attempts to advise them; the sneak peek suggests that the male state trooper gives Lou the heave-ho (since he's not a state trooper for South Dakota), and the promo also shows Officer Kinney telling him to take a seat on the bench. Lou also warns Ed and Peggy that they should be in custody for their own protection and that their luck will run out. All of that suggests to me that 1) Lou's advice being ignored will contribute somehow to the Massacre and that 2) Ed and Peggy's luck will indeed run out. Lou's promise that Ed and Peggy's luck will run out seemed to me a strong hint that they won't survive the season. I have no spoilers to base that on, it's just a feeling.