JZL

Oh yeah, the penultimate ep before the wild and crazy 1992 election, for which I have considerable nostalgia*. Melanie Hutsell doing Jan Brady, Walken as "The Continental." [must be written with quotation marks,imho] *FWIW on a personal note, on election night I happened to be at the same hotel in mid-MO that was hosting the state Republican dealio, as well as those of the Republican senatorial and gubernatorial candidates, who both lost. It was a great time and place to be a Democrat in Missouri. Times sure have changed.

Kate may be on to something-- has anyone ever seen Lindsey Graham and Jeff Sessions in the same room together? I know I never have . . .

Agreed. I hadn't really considered the HRC angle and its impact on her career. I hope she can pull out of it. She's one of the best castmembers ever. It would be sad to see her stint end as you describe. Maybe she just needs some new characters. The aged movie dame sketches are now as well-worn as the character being portrayed.

1. It really sucks that the only way Kevin Parker, the leader of one of the best bands of the 10's, gets to be on SNL is as a bass guitarist on a Travis Scott song*. Scott's second song was great, imho. It's odd that black performers like Donald Glover, Rihanna, and Travis Scott recognize Parker's talent, but SNL is totally oblivious. 2. Akwafina: I liked her in Ocean's 8 and liked her in the monologue. The rest of the show she was a cue-card-fixated cardboard cut-out. The baby shower sketch was almost painful; even the camera work was lousy. WTF. 3. It's surprising there was such a bad writing let-down the second show of the season. It's expected sometime in the middle of the fall, but already?

Good point. Philip seemed to learn, while Elizabeth never did, that America wasn't the cauldron of evil all good young Soviets were taught. Was the difference between them that Philip's developed a real friendship with Stan?

I'm a little surprised after all the time SNL spent digging at Trump since, and all the time Trump wastes twranting about SNL, they still get flack for having him host. Trump was nothing but a big joke at that time.

Wow, Kanye/Ye/Fishdicks needs to be taken down about a hundred thousand notches. He probably thinks his own farts are high art. IMHO Pete Davidson needs to find some other topic for his humor besides himself. I'm sympathetic, but after a year it stops being funny. Maybe in three months it'll be revealed that his whole Grande thing was some Kaufman-esque bit. At least he did well in the classroom sketch. Adam Driver was pleasantly surprising. He nutted that classroom sketch. There were a lot of pretty good laugh lines and the show was mostly good. It's too bad KW had to fart all over it.

GQ writer thinks McKinnon is taking over the show and likes it. This is based merely on the promo with Driver. The guy probably thought Kristen Wiig was the best thing since sliced bread, too. If McKinnon ever morphed into half the prima donna that Wiig was, it would be horrible for both her and the show. Luckily, the rest of the cast is almost surely too strong for that.

Eek, that promo is a minute-eight of suck. I'm not much for Fishdicks (West), but he usually impresses on SNL.

Hader wins Emmy for best comedic actor for Barry. I'm shocked, but how cool.

I think the MG's stink lately and I don't know 3/4ths of them. I love Jack White, but was underwhelmed by his performance last season. FWIW, the White Stripes happened to be the MG for the old John McCain episode that SNL aired last night. Anyway, you can dig around a lil to see who's hot and who's dropping albums and whatnot.

The SNL fansite I used to frequent had a guest-the-hosts (and MG's) contest every year (hint-hint). Peeps had to submit 30 guesses for each before the season premier. It was one lonnnnnng thread by the end of the season.

[averting eyes so as not to read spoilers] One of the things I've loved about the show is it's sort of old-style hard sci-fi theme of rocket ships, space suits, space stations, interplanetary intrigue, etc. As the story seems to be moving on from interplanetary to, well intergalactic, does the story lose that old-style hard sci-fi vibe?

Random thoughts about various eps from some (believe it or not) coolsters at Sci-fi channel --

Good point. One could say he has the moral compass of one who has known true evil. Anna is almost his mirror image. ---------- I don't know if it's been mentioned here yet, but at the very end, what about that liquid effect as the Roci (and Holden) passed through the ring? Something came at Holden in just that instant. Was that Proto-Miller diving into Holden's head to come along for "the ride"?

Three points . . . 1. They sure weren't kidding when they titled this The Expanse, were they? 2. I think Amos is more morally developed than people here realize. Now and then he has these, "I told you so" moments. One of the more intriguing themes of the show is that Amos is developing before our eyes. E.g., his dynamic with Naomi is surely different now, and it was great to watch the friendship between him and Pax begin and grow. I'll have to watch again, but I think in his sick-bay scene with Anna when she stays a moment with the dead guy, Amos sort of turns away and rolls his eyes as he says, "I'll bring you back some food." 3. It's the little subtle details and nuances that make this show great, like Amos' facial expression above. And note his choice of words. iirc, with Alex it's "grub" but with Anna it's "food."

My take on Amos' Naomi subtext was, "I'm glad your back, but it'll never be the same between us." Here's my math homework for the next episode: Clarissa + Amos + Airlock = Awesome. When's the last time we've glimpsed Avasarala? Has it been three episodes? It's about time for her to kick some proto-molecular buttocks. Or something.

The trippy scene at the end reminded me of Altered States. The Miller-Holden-floating-to-the-station scene reminded me of The Dude's doped up White Russian sequence in The Big Lebowski. We've had a bare Naomi and now a bare Holden. Is it Bobbie's turn?

Yeah, how many shows/movies would have had the armada of ships burning nose-on at the Ring instead of the ships backing toward it doing decel burns?

I'm not grokking the seeing-hands concept. The guy reminds me of David Byrne in an 80's MTV video or a Bowie album cover. :rolleyes :rollhands

I apologize for skipping ahead a few pages' worth of comments . . . 1. Stan didn't betray his country. He had no intention of letting them go until he realized he did care about preventing the KGB coup (which actually was attempted in real-life in the early 90's). His previous conversation with Oleg in the holding cell confirmed what the Jenningses were saying. 2. Paige remains in the USA . . . is there going to be a spin-off? Will we get to see Renee infiltrate the FBI and Paige in the State Department? Stay tuned.

Their justice was that they were forced to go live in the shithole that their beloved motherland had become by the late 80's.

Ding-ding-ding! IMHO they were giving Chrisjen a real taste of the belter perspective. Remember she's done a long, slow 180° on them generally. FWIW, I thought she looked pretty hawt in the white clingy space-ship coveralls. Admittedly I can't recall what she was wearing this last ep as she did her public address. Possibly since she's gone from a back-room player to head-of-state, she'll have to tone it down some. Hopefully not too much.

Chuffed-- great word; a new one on me. Even a blind dog finds a bone now and again.

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! Here's to seasons 5-12!![?] (at a book and a half per season?)