snarktini

I really wish they'd be more clear about that. That usually means "starts with" but doesn't always, and I wonder if they contestants get instructions that we don't hear. Phil was my first guess, but I got to Rogers in time! I agree . They don't want to look like they're "replacing" Alex right away. This way they can honor him (for the cast and the audience) and keep the show going while they figure out the long-term. Also gives us lots of different hosts so there's not such a sharp comparison between Alex and whoever the next host will be. We get used to the idea of it being someone else. Have they announced an end time to the guest hosts? I was figuring they'd do this for the remainder of the season but that's still a ways off so wondering if I'm wrong.

Based on the snippets I heard, I wonder if what happened was they were asked to name the one thing they can't live without, a crucial component of their cooking. And a couple of them took it literally, and said something like butter. Fine French cuisine guy definitely needs butter! They answered the question rather than playing the game. Others knew to pick something they couldn't live without that the kitchen wouldn't necessarily have, like the plantains and the caul fat.

I was truly shocked that David thought he could join the band! I figured he'd just jam with them once in a while for fun, that seemed like a reasonable way to go with that story. A bit of fish-out-of-water with him and the kids. Not only because he's too old / a dad, but because he doesn't have the hours per week (unscheduled to boot) to rehearse AND go to gigs. Want to talk to Emily about that?! I know, I know, bringing in realism is dumb. (Don't get me started on the restaurant concept lol.) That said, I thought Sebastian Bach on Gilmore Girls was a hoot as the older dad joining a band of 20 year olds. For that character it was a serious thing, and plot-wise his family totally supported his rock star life as a break from parenting duty.

Following TV norms, that we were shown so much about him -- that he has a master's from SCAD, a piece of his art, a pic his partner and baby, his desire to be a rapper -- indicated early on he'd be out. Which is a shame! I thought he was charming. Low-key funny. Agree it was dumb. However, the bigger kitchen seems to be intended to protect / space out the crew, who can't be bubbled properly, not our chefs. Maybe they were able to do the smaller kitchen with a smaller crew? Or maybe they're just minimizing risks when they can to reduce the overall levels even if it's imperfect. But, honestly, I don't know why they make them crowd and cook in tiny kitchens. There has to be a better way. He made the worst possible choice of dish with those restaurants behind him! And while BBQ is impossible in that time frame, but we've seen them creatively smoke birds before so it wasn't totally out. He chose a family meal to define him, not one that's about him as a chef, now or before. Killer misstep. Happy to have it back!

Did they cut the Wakanda line? Because I saw it in the preview and didn't hear it when I watched the movie last night. Yup. He's had the "only girl children" problem for literally decades and he's just now realizing he doesn't have a successor? Women can't own businesses? There was a lot of growth missing there. I realize it's just a comedy film and I can't ask a lot of plot or logic. The sexism / patriarchy was obviously dialed up to 11 for comedic effect. I'm surprised to hear this was going to be a theatrical release. It's fine for a nostalgic streaming flick (like Bill and Ted was) but not really not good enough for theaters. 100% agree! In the end, one more thing stood out to me: Akeem overturned whatever law said a daughter couldn't ascend, but he would have also had to remove the "firstborn" rule. Usually it's the firstborn child that inherits the throne and we even heard Akeem acknowledge that. But, obviously, he's king and can do whatever he wants! Are there countries in which the ruling monarch is allowed to pick which kid is most worthy?

Also canceled-too-soon, she was in Don't Trust the B in Apt 23! She's done a LOT it turns out.

Ooooof, that was bad. "I see that I need to listen! And I have a solution for that! That I arrived at, without listening to the person who told me I need to listen!" It was hard to watch, but I'm glad we saw Zoey stumble at EVERY turn. She made basically every mistake. And the audience needed to see all those ways. I commented about this on the softball episode, too. Why is Zoey acting so helpless? Did it really take a song to reveal that Tobin might not want to be called Slumdog? And even if he's okay with it, Zoey and Sprqpoint should not be. I haven't understood why she has been letting her team get away with bullshit behavior, but now that we've had this episode and she's become aware how oblivious she is, maybe we'll start seeing change. Is that too much to hope for? Bathrobe coats are definitely a current trend! A couple years ago it was "teddy bear" coats. When she went to Mo and said I need a way to tell Simon that the Board wants him to rectract but still let him know I have his back, I wanted Mo (or anyone) to say to Zoey -- you can't have it both ways. You actually don't have his back! Why was she so quick to fall in line? She didn't push back or seek a third way. This plus her unwillingness to check bad behavior on her team adds up to Zoey not being ready for leadership. I hope this is intentional + part of her arc.

I liked it! It's been a heavy week and it was the goofy adventure I wanted. It had to be the daughters who would create the song...when the Great Leader said Preston/Logan wrote it, not Wyld Stallyn, that jumped out at me. When the phone box was stolen, I was momentarily confused but then with all the Hell stuff starting right after I forgot that thread. Lying in bed later, the penny dropped that it was the wives who stole their phone booth! I noticed they were old when they showed up at therapy to pick up young wives, and even saw them running into the booth when they were saying goodbye to their old selves, but I missed that connection in the moment. My BF does not share my sense of humor and this is not his kind of film, but even he gave it some chuckles. Many went to Dennis towards the end...don't know why, but he amused me/us.

I love the bit where David Hyde Pierce literally waves the bottle of vermouth over the pitcher while he's mixing martinis. Good sight gag for an old joke.

Several comments above talk about how everyone should see this because it's so relevant today. I'm writing this post several years later, and it's only gotten MORE heartbreakingly relevant and current. It's hard to watch these stories and especially to seek them out, but we have to.

OMG I did NOT see that coming! Even though I knew there had to be a twist. Could not figure out where it was headed then BAM. I agree. This movie clobbers me every time I see it, and I've only watched it a few times because of that. We, the viewers, know that he had to do was ride this out and then he could live his own life, but he didn't know that. He literally didn't know he could run away, or defy his parents. (Well, he tried defying them and look where that got him?) He couldn't face the loss of his passion, his sense of self, his freedom. He felt trapped. The weight of others' expectations, finding yourself, becoming aware you're not living your life to the fullest..these themes hit me where I live.

Thanks, that was helpful to catch back up on what the movie was missing! I didn't remember the plot very well but the movie felt much, much lighter and simpler. Shorter time frame. Definitely thought Bernadette was gone longer & was more absent and it turns out that's correct. I read it in a book club and pretty much liked it, didn't love it, and didn't really plan to see the movie. But after a year of pandemic cinema, we're running out of movies! We have Netflix DVD and are starting to watch almost anything.

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.