One Imaginary Girl

So, is Mary Louise going to fall down some stairs by the end of the season? I wouldn't mind, but really I suspect she's going to turn out more layered than she appears so far.

The mention of Tom Selleck seemed to be an anachronism. I don't think he was very well known until Magnum PI, which debuted in the 1980-81 season.

The tweets of @SlavaMalamud are a good accompaniment to watching Chernobyl. He grew up in the USSR in the '80s and is astounded about the details that the series gets right.

During the scenes about the evacuation of Pripyat, I was regretting letting my college Russian get rusty, wishing there were subtitles of the announcements. Of course, the Internet has everything, so I found it on Youtube. A great thing about that is that there's a picture that shows how urbanized Pripyat was, so it's shocking to compare with what you can see on Google Street View, though it's tough to discern any buildings behind the overgrowth of trees. Then I rewatched the evacuation and was able to pay more attention to details (though it helped that this time was on my computer, which is better than my TV), and it was devastating. You can see a woman trying to bring her dog with her but not allowed to (this wasn't the same dog running after a bus) and a hospital patient struggling on his own to get up and walk out. Even just that first part with the young couple shocked to see the endless procession of buses arriving was chilling.

Yes, and in so many ways he's a great character. I wish they'd just recast the Brandon role rather than lose him altogether. It's kind of weird, but it's not like it's never happened in TV history.

Bill goes to the old college-students-shutting-down-free-speech well again but somehow doesn't mention that his guest Jonathan Metzl's appearance at a bookstore in Washington was interrupted by an alt-right group.

The prop department should have combined them all into a Jon McNaughton-style painting.

What other show would have tributes to Wait Until Dark AND Million Dollar Baby? And I LOL'd at the line "I accidentally did most of the drugs." Best episode yet.

Well, the show's also recycling now, since Ty Burrell was on a couple of years ago. He had an interesting story with a black ancestor, so maybe there was more that they didn't have time for in the previous episode. But I'm with you on wishing that genealogy shows would take civilians more often. It was a bit surprising that someone as avant-garde as Marina Abramovic would go the cliche route of saying that she was a certain way because of her ancestors. I always feel like the person is selling himself or herself short--they got where they are mainly from their own talent and work. They could cite the support of parents or grandparents, but farther back than that wouldn't be that significant. And it was weird on WDYTYA when Kelly Clarkson claimed she was outspoken because of a politically minded ancestor but then the following episode was about one of Christina Applegate's who had abandoned her family. Did that therefore mean that she and her father, who was on, were terrible parents and awful people? No.

Yes! Sorry.

I have seen basement renovations in Philadelphia in which a new bathroom was put in down there. My contractor offered that, but I declined, but if I had a house full of people... I'm probably going to be a PITA next season about Philadelphia stuff. Dan Fogelman* and Ken Olin both went to Penn, so I hope they will make some effort to be realistic, though they might not have been back here in ages. I will say that thirtysomething was pretty good at portraying Philadelphia, so I hope that rubbed off. *edited

How old are you???

I was wondering about how she managed to, er, take care of things afterwards apparently without the kids knowing.

The writers missed a laugh in the Fresh Takes sketch by not naming the boy characters Aidan, Brayden, Cayden, Jayden, etc. Scott and Chrissy aren't very 21st-century.

I like Marisa Tomei, but I cringed a bit every time she said or acted like she knew nothing about her genealogy when in fact she'd been the subject of an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? It was a few years back, though, so I can't remember if that show mainly explored a line that wasn't discussed on FYR. Well, the DNA reveal was great, though, but since her ancestry was supposedly just under 70% Italian, what was the other 30% composed of? I didn't want to squint at the screen to look at the list, but maybe that was the source of commonality.

It looks like the Philadelphia accent in the Charmin sketch got a mixed reception on Twitter, where it was discussed a lot. I thought it was one of the better ones I've ever heard. Tina Fey and Bradley Cooper are the undeniable greats, but of course they have an advantage. Nick Kroll is pretty good as well.

The weird geography and time zone problems with this show are pushing me toward the door, and the whole ridiculous thing with an election occurring right after New Year's Day may hasten my departure. For crying out loud! Is an election ever held in early January anywhere in this country? They can't even claim it's a special election, because there is an incumbent. Sheesh.

Huh. I thought it was Kathryn Hahn, too, but they've always seemed a lot alike to me. But there was another woman in the eggnog song who I thought for sure was Julianne Moore, but that seems pretty unlikely. The credits rolled too fast for me to check, even with rewinding the DVR a couple of times.

I immediately thought, "Ooh, Academy. Here's your host, " with or without Tequila Jones.

Agreed. I can't imagine speaking publicly so soon about something so painful, but she did it very eloquently.

Well, they needed to have a Peach Pit After Dark counterpart.

When Scaramucci was droning on while Bill was trying to introduce Haidt, I really wished Bill would be as sharp with him for stepping on his toes as he had been with Michelle Goldberg a couple of weeks ago. Sharper, even, since I didn't think she deserved that.

The bit about Zimmerman having a running joke with carrying packages of Skittles around--I never knew that. What kind of a monster makes light of killing a kid? Glad all this stuff about him is out there, even if justice wasn't served.

I'm going to place my bets before the window comes down: Henry will not want to leave the US; if it were up to Philip, he would stay, but Elizabeth wouldn't want her child to remain in the corrupt US. I have no guess as to what actually will happen with him, however. I'm sticking by my initial hunch that there's something fishy about Renee. I admit that I'm not going way out on a limb with these predictions. It's just writing them down for me to check back on at 11:31 tonight.

I could see it, but possibly with some new person if not Renee. Same idea that the work would continue.