Penman61

[emphasis added] I would tend to agree with this, but to the extent Shiv has thought of this at all, I'm sure she realizes that she and her baby, being among the super-wealthy, would largely be insulated from a Mencken admin's worst depredations on the general populace. One thing this show gets so, so right is this stratum's completely justified attitude that social/political/financial consequences of their actions are for the little people, not for them.

Me, last week: Me, this week:

Since the Roy children are so variously and manifestly unqualified to run a global corporation, I can see why viewers offer up a "Why not Greg?" outcome, with him the one who ends up on top. After all, could Greg be worse than these foundering fail-sons and -daughter? Well, yes. By orders of magnitude. For me, Greg ending up as Waystar CEO wouldn't be some biting, ironic twist ending; it would strain more credulity than Bran being chosen in GoT. It would yank me out of the show and retrospectively lower my opinion of it overall (just as the Bran decision did for GoT), because Greg is so, so obviously and comically not equipped to decide anything of any importance ever. I know less show time has passed than our real time, but whether it's been a year or four, Greg has shown NO growth at all, except perhaps in intermittently aping Roy family dickishness, and even that seems fake with him--plus he's bad at it! And that's definitely not enough to make me--or a fictitious board of directors--think he can run it all. Nope, not Greg, not ever.

That's what I was wondering: If I had forgotten some plot point that rendered the dick pics impotent (sorry, again; I blame the writers' strike). Gerri seemed so genuinely (and uncharacteristically) upset in that confrontation that I really thought she'd use anything to fight back.

Re Gerri & Roman's fight: Why isn't Gerri using Roman's having sent her unsolicited dick pics as her trump card? Or has that card been played already, since Logan already found out (Roman's stupid mis-texting) and is now dead anyway? Seems to me a headline like "New Waystar co-CEO Sent Dick Pics to Highest Ranking Woman" would still have some potency (!) as a threat.

I know the cliché says “There’s no right way to grieve,” but of the kids, Shiv’s setting aside crying time appointments strikes me as WAY less unhealthy than Roman and Kendall’s weird avoidance and bro-ey “humor” about their loss.

Why “Doderick Macht Frei”? Who/what is Doderick?

Elliot delivered Beverly’s twins, and we see them in her stroller in the final scene in the park.

So...are we just supposed to assume that Rebecca & Co somehow got rid of Beverly's body?

Minor gripe: The scene with Din Djarin and Carson Tiva was SO STILTED! The lines and their delivery were so flat, and even the camera placement/blocking were just...off. One way you know you're in a top-tier show is that the exposition is more than just obvious exposition. This show needs work on that.

That was the most rushed finale I can remember. Especially in the second half, I really felt like narrative boxes were being checked, and then we were hurried on to the next box. The relighting of the forge should have been solemn and grand, and the final scene should have been relaxed and unhurried. Also, destroying Moff Gideon’s clones was…all too easy. This whole season has been plagued with structural problems and pacing issues. Gorgeous effects, stirring score, but they really need to get a handle on the basic storytelling. Andor spoiled me.

The ONLY justification for mixing family into your business is because you can trust them MORE than you could non-family members. (This assumes roughly equivalent competency, which, as we see, is not in evidence with the Roy family members individually.) When you trust those family members LESS than you would the average person-off-the-street, then you're just working out your family tish on a grand scale with consequences for massive numbers of people outside the family. Hence, this show. Still hoping just one of children will just check out of the family business and make something of themselves. But there's no sign of that yet.

Was Marcia selling Connor the apartment (or whatever NYers call it) for $62M supposed to be some kind of burn? Was Connor expecting to just...get it for free? Also, have Connor's earlier liquidity problems been resolved?

Still puzzled as to why I'm finding Katee Sackhoff's Bo-Katan is so uncompelling. Obviously BSG showed that Sackhoff can be charismatic, and I know Bo-Katan is a very different character, but she's coming across so flat and one-note. Maybe queen/king-in-exile roles are difficult generally to make interesting (more retrospective kudos to Viggo Mortenson!), but I feel like Pedro Pascal in a mask is more expressive than Sackhoff without hers.

My simplistic take on this entire show is that Logan was an absolute, incorrigible monster, and that his children are fighting (with various awarenesses and intensities) to deal with being raised by a monster and find their own humanity somewhere under all that sludge. So my hope is that just one of them--just one--takes Logan's death as an opportunity to check out of this Heartfuck Hotel, and just leave all this toxic dysfunction behind. I want one Roy child--just one!--living on the coast of Oregon running a seashell shop with a dog named Bottles and getting high now and then.

Agreed. Tom gets a grade of A- for me for his handling of this situation. No one else on the plane thought of Logan's kids' emotional needs (however warped) at that moment of crisis. Tom easily could have later pleaded "confusion" and/or "shock" as an excuse for why he didn't contact the kids as Logan lay dying. But Tom did contact them, and what he did could very much help them process all this (which will definitely be warped).

My family is very much not the Roys in any significant way. And I have never seen a show depict more accurately those awful weird moments among the siblings during/after a parent’s death.

Wrong. Humans, collectively, have it coming. Dogs, collectively, don’t.

I don't recall the exact line, but my memory is "over 600 miles" off the intended flight path. Basically, "so far off we weren't searching in the right place."

Just in case showrunners/writers skim here: If you kill another dog, I'm out. Kill, cook, braise, sauté, poach, and blanch teenagers, flay them and fricassee them, tear, chew, and chomp on them, lick your fucking fingers, whatever. But if you harm another dog on this show, I'm the fuck outta here. And I'm serious.

I don't agree with the Primetimer argument, but I appreciate them making it. I don't think we'll know if this episode is "cloying" (their term) until we see the arc of the entire series (at least 2 seasons now). For me, I thought it was novel to show two decent* people surviving more-or-less fine in the zombie apocalypse. Now, if every few weeks we have a similar story of decency thriving, that will indeed be cloyingly unbelievable. We're talking about humans here, after all. But one hour out of 20+ showing that a capable, prepared survivalist could keep himself and partner alive and thriving...that was new to me. (Also, representation still matters.) I also thought it was thematically important to touch base again about WHY you want to do more than "survive." *I mean, zombie apocalypse shows have shown TERRIBLE people thriving, but that's an important difference.

Anela corrected me upthread, that Tess was referring to herself and Joel, not Bill and Frank.

Slightly tangential, but really respect the unflinching, unresolved anger in the song "Long Long Time," which doesn't try to tidy up some very intense and messy feelings about unrequited love. (Even that fancy word "unrequited" is gussying up the emotion.) Ronstadt's shouting of the final "...everything I know to try and make you mine..." is perfect. And the song even ends on a minor chord! Sometimes these feelings just don't resolve...

When did Tess tell Ellie that Frank and Bill weren't good people? (I might be misunderstanding your pronoun reference here.)

I guess I didn't see the ending as a cliffhanger. It was Cassian declaring he will either die now or become a part of the rebellion. It's the resolution of his season-long arc.