snarktini

This whole storyline is pissing me off. I can't believe her takeaway from HKL was that she should apologize and be nicer. Nope! It should have been that they are unbelievably entitled and whiny and she needs to take control of the situation. When Tobin was being an ass about women on the team, she corrected him but didn't tell him it should never have happened. Simply saying "everyone will be included and that's final" doesn't solve the ongoing problem of Tobin being actively sexist and bro-y. He should not call them girls. Women should be invited. He doesn't get to pout about it. And if he can't change his attitude and stop doing these things, he needs to go.

Me too! I still got it right. No Dancing with the Stars in my world but I watch Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and the choreographer for that is Mandy Moore as well. I just assumed it was the actress branching out! Normally I wouldn't even notice the name of the choreographer, but it was familiar so it stuck. And while I don't watch This Is Us either, I knew Mandy Moore was on it from promos. So I had all the pieces and it registered immediately but it was a bit of a "whoa!" moment.

That was what I inferred from the song too! Was a surprised to hear him say he just screwed up. It's a good thing she brought the women onto this floor, but she should have been able to break up the fratboy vibe even without that. Leif and Zoey were acting helpless to create boundaries around what's appropriate at work. I guess that's normal, they aren't experienced managers. To be clear, I don't mind that they were goofing off, what I minded was that the nature of their games was bro-y, violent, and stupid. So did they just relocate ALL the women coders from the other/team floor then? So we've diversified one team and un-diversified the other? Hope they wanted the transfer and are happy at being recruited to break up the bro-fest. I laughed at the one saying she's up for Nut Punch - she's probably up for the challenge.

I was positively SQUIRMING the whole time. I have difficult teeth and need lots of dental work, so normally I'm pretty chill at the dentist -- I'm used to it -- but the impressions are disgusting and terrifying. All that goo creates panic, I feel smothered and I can't breathe. And the feeling. *shudder* If I ever need that again, I sure as F hope there's a scanner. He was on ANTM?! His face/bone structure are model-esque. This alliance hasn't made a ton of sense to me -- it's gone on far too long and has preserved lots of strong teams. But I also don't think it's helpful for the show to interfere. They could make design changes, like tasks that don't share easily or more separation so it's harder to see what others are doing. I don't think it can be stopped beyond that. It's definitely the whininess (and the mustache twirling) that makes it hard for me to enjoy James onscreen. The one thing I'll stick up for him on is yielding the blondes. It was unnecessary and I believe teams in the lead shouldn't do it on principle. However, taking them at their word, the intention was to protect Hung and Chee who had fallen behind. I appreciate that he honored his commitment to alliance even if I don't like the alliance.

So so hard to watch. How can any judge be that willfully terrible and stay on the bench? I know, I know, there are plenty of them. I just...ugh. Total kangaroo court. I wonder what the lead prosecutor (Schultz?) was like in real life. He has no Wiki page, which has to be intentional. He got a fairly sympathetic edit in the movie -- he believed the charges were trumped up and stood up for a small number of things in the end, like Bobby's treatment. I wonder what he really thought, how he viewed his role in this decades later. The way the government invasively investigated, maligned, and persecuted civil rights leaders during this time was absolutely disgraceful.

Yeah, I saw Moishe as wholly terrible. Assault, threats, selfishness, hypocrisy. I can empathize with his misery without letting him off the hook for his behaviors. Penguin had a sad backstory too and that doesn't make him less of a villain! The latter is exactly how I read his response. He left only because he was alone, she had the gun, and it was a public place in a foreign country. He recognized he was holding a losing hand. Temporarily. He laughed and said they'd be back for the baby. I believe him. They know where to find her now. There was a comment about Yael being mean that I can't find now. Every Israeli I've known has been BLUNT! In the piano scene, Yael felt very Israeli. Others saw her as being rude/mean but she was likely "just being honest". (My least fav words.) I binged this in one night, and appreciated getting a glimpse into Hasidic culture. I'm very familiar with Jewish culture but most of my friends have been more on the Reform side. I'm far less familiar personally with Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox lives.

Bear with me... unimportant but the kind of thing that bugs: How could she come back to life underwater? In stories that I've seen where characters are immortal / semi-immortal, they don't resurrect until the fatal problem is cleared. For example, if an immortal were hung, the body stays "dead" until they're brought down and their windpipe can heal. If they were impaled and that fatally severed an artery, the obstruction has to come out before the artery can reconnect and flow blood. Right? So how can she come back to life underwater? There's no air available to take that first breath, she shouldn't resurrect until she's out of the water. Obviously fantasy stories create the logic for their world, and maybe this one has its own that's just different. And stories ignore their "rules" all the time to create a better plot! Or, I could be missing something basic and important about how bodies work that would explain that first lungful of air. That's always possible too 🙂

Beth's hair sure grew between Benny's apartment and Paris two weeks later! She gained inches and went from that stacked cut to a longer flip. I find things like that very distracting, and I wish I didn't because it's so unimportant. Just like how I was suuuper distracted by the eyeliner she wore to the high school event. It was nowhere near her lash line, which I assume was intentional? Her eyes are already so big and wide, she has kind of an otherworldly look, in that scene with her extra-pale skin and mod vibes she looked straight alien. She really screwed up, whether Cleo was a saboteur or not. I'm still confused how/why/if she was sleeping in a full bathtub, clothed.

She didn't have a choice -- each had to do one of the two roadblocks, and he had already done his half before they learned about this task. Never mind, nothing to see here! Brain blip.

Definitely that's what it looked like, I agree. I guess I'm just marveling at the audacity of him being like, let's bring a new person home to keep you company (and to feed) so I can run away and leave you with no income and no way to pay the bills. People do that all the time I suppose! (Minus the adoption of a "companion" lol.) And based on the way he reacted to her death, he truly is that big of an ass. A judge would be highly sympathetic to her, but getting the actual money is harder than getting a judgment. She said Mithuen provided $80, only for the first year.

Now I'm curious how one dies of hepatitis, and how the doc could spot it on sight. Hepatitis can be related to alcoholism. Has Mr Wheatley been supporting them at all, or did he just abandon his wife (+ Beth) who had no income of her own?! I guess if he was in a different state he'd have been difficult to drag to court. I'm guessing he left her for another woman, the "problems of his own". Loved the kid. Glad she at least paid him a compliment at the end. Was wondering how much of her getting up and pacing was to intimidate him, versus the other possibility she was trying to approach each move with fresh eyes. Her mom had said she did best when she didn't overthink, but just threw down. And getting up and down enabled her to see the board fresh and pounce.

Steamed buns are one of my fav foods, and sadly they are often very dry. Both the bread and the filling. It's so disappointing when that happens! I appreciated the curry bun -- while Japanese curry is my least fav curry, katsu curry is a classic dish. They weren't required to use Japanese flavors, but he got extra credit points from me for embracing it. Thanks for this. I'm very familiar with Japanese culture and food and don't think of buns as a part of it. Borrowing bao makes a lot of sense, though. That's the problem with challenges like this where they have to stretch -- that item exists but it's not exactly iconic. And it does make one wonder if they were conflating cultures a bit. We can sit together! A great bbq pork bun is the food of the gods. And dill pickles all day, but never sweet ones.

I want to know how this works, too! In olden years they could practice and submit their ingredients weekly -- did they need to know the whole season's worth of recipes in advance this time? Do they have access to the kitchens on down days? With all the gimmicky challenges they need MORE time to practice, not less. Ugh, rainbow bagels look gross. The bread plaques were somewhat better than the previous arts & crafts challenges but still, not a great challenge or showing. Never thought I'd be so grateful to see a plain ol' soda bread challenge! I've liked Matt a lot in his acting roles so I want to give him some space to settle in. Mel & Sue were much more awkward in the beginning so maybe there's hope.

Oh, interesting, I never interpreted that to mean they believed they'd get away with it. I interpreted "on a mission from God" to mean they felt they were compelled to do it no matter what, that it was vital and holy. Not that they thought they'd be spared consequences. I found that so distracting! Maybe because I lived there for many years so the geography sticks out more. My bf told me with movies like this I just have to suspend disbelief. And of course he's right, the whole movie is crazy, it's not like only this one thing is unrealistic. But 106 miles of interstate does not take 12 hours! Even if they'd arrived at the opening of business (instead of lunch hour) that still would have meant driving allll night. At any rate, hadn't seen it in years and it was fun to rewatch. Loved seeing John Lee Hooker. 🙂

That bothered me, too. She said it had to be a secret, but it didn't make sense to me to just bail and leave her to Mycroft. Couldn't she have left a note that said: "Gotta go for now! Time to build your own life. Don't tell your brothers. And here's a bunch of money for you and the housekeeper to keep things running." Then Enola could have planned her life and made her exit without being forced into a boarding school. It never had to be a mystery. (But then there would be no story.) But this is an interesting explanation! I really liked this as well. She did okay but was outmatched and that's how it should have been. A small 16 year old with only sparring practice, up against an larger, stronger, well-trained assassin? Nope. I appreciate strong fighting women characters, but roll my eyes at their superhuman powers sometimes.

I agree Ben is much younger in this reality. My theory, in answer to all three of these quotes: Dad can't directly choose which kids will be born or what powers they will have. But he CAN control when he sends his alien dust down. So if he sends it on a different day/year, he will get a different bunch of children. They may not be better, but they will be different because the mother will be a different person or the same person but on a different day with a different egg. Same as any two human parents -- each conception is unique. And now we have a bunch of what (in the shadows) appears to be teens at the Sparrow Academy. So maybe Dad didn't stardust his kids into creation until 15 years later in this timeline. How he essentially got a dupe of Ben 15 years younger I don't have an answer for. Same mom, different alien sperm created an extremely similar but not exactly the same kid? Or....if Ben isn't younger but the Sparrow Academy team is, we could be looking at a 2nd generation of kids led/trained by Ben?

Ooh, that's where Carl totally lost me. I had a little sympathy for him before but F that. He was totally getting rid of Harlan. That's what he wanted all along. Harlan is a burden to him. Embarrassing. And the kid finally speaks...wasn't he even a little curious to see if Harlan could say more? If something positive had happened? No, because he just wants his weird kid gone, and wants to erase any trace of Vanya. From the moment they arrived I was wondering where Ben was. I wasn't sure what a ghost could do, but he was the only one who would be able to get through Vanya's radiating energy, physically! (When that started I was like OH YEAH there was a warning about strobing lights at the start. Here they are!) The acting was so good in that moment when he asks for that hug. The way he said "it's been so long" and the look on his face when she grabs him. *sniff*

The way I interpreted it is there was more than one night that Fonny and his friend hang out. That first night isn't THE night. For two reasons. One, there a moment where she's serving dinner and he jokes about her cooking, which implied it wasn't the first visit because they hadn't met previously. Second, they don't have the loft yet. It made sense to me that they started hanging out and the arrest happens some time later. But dang every second of that first night hang I was holding my breath. Oof. How the cop knew where to find them kept tugging at me. Did he follow Fonny? Look him up? He was obviously motivated to go after Fonny, so I'd buy that he dug around and found out his name/address for use when it suited him. One thing I was curious about, though: They never even hint that the cop framed him. Nothing like that is ever spoken, only shown in a single scene. Which I think is an interesting narrative choice by Baldwin -- he avoids giving the arrest/incarceration a singular cause. All of this is systemic. This also maps to the non-explanation of how the cop finds him. It doesn't matter how or why, it just happens because the system is rigged. OTOH, it did make me wonder if the book, which I haven't read, absolutely confirms it was indeed the same cop. I assume it does, but without any dialogue it felt like it could be implied but not stated outright.

Agree 100% with these takes. After waiting 4 months for this disc (Netflix DVD has been very backed up!) I was disappointed. I grew up loving LW and asked my BF, who doesn't know anything about it, to watch it with me. It fell flat for both of us. He was confused by who was who and all the jumping around. (TBF, he's always terrible with time jumps, unfortunately, even when I think they are perfectly clear.) For me, it had no emotional resonance. It felt chopped up. I didn't feel the bonds or love in almost any case, nothing was allowed to build. Something was deeply missing for me. It's also possible I've outgrown the story. The ages were also distracting. I kept trying to figure out how old they were supposed to be, and that tells me I wasn't that into the plot! Amy did not pass for a tween at all and looked way too old to get away with the novel-burning tantrum. Then again, I always thought she got away with that too easily at any age.

Right. And beyond grieving his parents I think Mack is grieving everything. He's disillusioned with SHIELD and their mission. He's tired of the responsibility and people dying on his watch. He's angry at his team for not following orders (and maybe with himself for following or not following any particular order). He's upset that their time meddling has made things worse -- earlier interventions pushed the chronicoms forward in time, they then target and kill his parents because of Mack. If it weren't for his work, his family might still be alive. And then Mack had to personally destroy them. While he didn't kill his actual parents, it must really mess with your head to be bonding with your parents in the past then find out they are fakes and you have to murder them in hand-to-hand combat. He kicked NotMom out of the plane! Every move the team has made has further messed up the time stream, and really not fixed anything. That is weighing on him. Question 1: Why/when did the Chronicoms kill Mack's parents to begin with? On the plane, NotDad said the real parents been gone for awhile. I assumed that meant well before yesterday's kidnapping. Was it always to lead to this moment or to entrap Mack in some way? Question 2: How did Deke explain to the Uncle and Little Mack why he visited and helped them financially? Did I miss that explanation?

Glad to see all three finish so so well. Lovely contestants, lovely meal. What struck me as odd was Padma (?) saying that one wouldn't think Italian and Asian/Chinese cuisines could be compatible. To me those two have always seemed like a natural fit! Not if you compare char siu to marinara, obviously, but both have lots of noodles, stuffed pasta (dumpling/ravioli), pork, seafood, mushrooms, broth. Swap out a few aromatics, spices, maybe rice for wheat, and you're on your way. Does fusion really have a bad rap today? That makes me sad. It can be poorly done (and overdone) but such interesting things can be found at intersections.

The brother clicked for me fairly early, but I didn't clue into the girl. In fact, I didn't even get it when it was revealed. I'm embarrassed to realize my thinking was so ableist I didn't register the reveal of her digital voice or even the guy saying she had a computer powerful enough to hack the Pentagon. Those clues sailed right over my head. Hours later, as I was falling asleep, the penny dropped. DUH. I thought adult brother was poorly cast to match up with his young self, though. Didn't look anything alike. Actually I thought Affleck looked more like young Braxton than young Chris as well. Their dad was a piece of work.

TC has made weird/bad calls over the years but I never believed that the fix was in for Kevin. He deserved to go home, and he did. A squeaker for Bryan, though. I get the "soul" criticism. About 10 years ago I ate at Le Bernardin and walked away feeling like all the food lacked soul. It was technical and beautiful, but nothing was memorable or craveable. I grew up in a traveling foodie family, I remember meals we ate 30-40 years ago, yet I can't tell you a single thing I ate at LB. Sad, because I love watching Eric Ripert. That was so confusing. Why include the clip of "never cook" if it's not true? Like the aperitivo QF last week, where a "rule" was not actually a rule. I'm happy with all 3, this is probably my favorite set of finalists ever. I'd like to see Melissa win because has performed so so well; she deserves this. I'd like to see Stephanie win because she was such an underdog, and it's beautiful to see her blossom. I never thought she'd get past the halfway point yet here she is. I'd be happy with a Bryan win out of sheer perseverance, he just keeps coming back and he's very talented and sweet.

Yay! The best team won. I'd quibble that it's this dark interpretation of H&G was not true to the story in that the kids would never have actually gone into that house. Theirs looked like a proper scary, forbidding witch's house in the woods! Who'd go near that? However, the execution was IMO by far the best. (And I don't always pay the closest attention, so maybe they said something like this, but I guess the kids could have looked in the windows and been enchanted by the color inside?) Yan and Henck did great work throughout, no shade to them. And Jim and Ralph were so lovely. I really liked all the finalists. It took me all the way to the end to notice Kristen's last name Griffiths-Vanderyacht. I assume that's not his given name?! I mean, "Van der yacht" is absolutely a rich character's name in a satirical novel.

Agreed. It wasn't on brief at all. I was shocked they thought they'd be best in bloom. In the last episode, you noted that Kristen saying "you said you were going to make a cornucopia and you did!" was lame. This episode explained why he said that -- it's now clear his philosophy is that a successful design is one that starts with a clear, well-developed concept, is planned carefully, and is executed as conceived (with lots of color). Deliver as promised. No improvisation, no winging it. On another note entirely: Such a contrast between GBBO judges, who are delighted to see competitors pitching in, and here where the judge actually stopped them from helping.