Eolivet

How long does it take until the feeds come on -- several days? I actually don't buy the Hitmen as a day 2 alliance. I think that's easy to say because it's impossible to disprove (and I will concede if there is indeed video evidence of the Hitmen being formed on day 2). But if you had two players making a final 2 deal on day 2, I think the show would've jumped on that -- and I don't recall the Hitmen even being mentioned until after the Bomb Squad was formed (and maybe even not until the Bomb Squad became the Detonators). These magical day 2 alliances are popping up more and more. Andy and Gina-Marie were also a day 2 alliance that materialized suddenly, if I recall correctly. I don't deny that Derrick and Cody have had a final 2 deal or the Hitmen isn't a legitimate alliance, but I also think they might've borrowed some of Caleb's magical story-enhancing elixir to make them seem a lot more impressive than they are.

The Hitmen was really day 2? I don't remember seeing any mention of them until the Bomb Squad became the Detonators. And boy, there's a sentence I never thought I'd type. Caleb's exit interview makes me hopeful that Derrick's win will not be unanimous. At this point, that's all I can realistically hope for. I still don't understand this "master plan" for Victoria to work votes for Derrick in the jury house. If they didn't listen to her all season, why would they start now? Then again, they're still under the impression that "Victoria totally hates Derrick!" is believable, even when she proclaims without a hint of malice that she loves everyone during her eviction speech. I guess they think houseguests must go selectively deaf during evictions.

Sorry, WendyCR72 -- I didn't read this thread carefully for fear of getting "spoiled" since I didn't remember a lot of the eps, so I saw there was a whole discussion of "The Faithful" on pg. 1. D'oh! Just read the article. Wow. There's ripped from the headlines, and then there's...copied the headlines, word for word. So many details are strikingly similar! The Mothership always changed a lot more in their...headine-ripping. Not according to IMdB -- this guy was an early Mothership guest star alum (dating back to '91!), with three stints there, two on SVU and two on CI -- this and Maltese Cross (a Logan/Nichols episode). http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0622535/?ref_=rvi_nm Here's the "Blink" guy: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0434845/?ref_=tt_cl_t5 Spot the guest star is fun!

Really enjoying this S1 marathon -- there are so many episodes I'd seen, but forgotten, or just never saw. "The Faithful" is an underrated episode, I think -- twisty, but easy to follow twists (a priest pretending to be his son's gay lover gets points for originality, and squickiness) and solid actors. How Kevin Donovan goes from a creep to a victim to a really messed up kid. Strong script -- I really enjoyed it. And flashes of Holmes!Bobby, with testing for the holy oils, plus wanting a shot at the crime scene from "on high," heh. "Smothered" was good, but awful in circumstance. I know the actor who played the younger Van Acker (Mommy's boy) has been in other episodes here or in the Mothership. He's too familiar.

I'd appreciate his "sly, subtle game" in the same way I'd appreciate that expert baker who made a gorgeous three-tiered cake with spun sugar against amateur bakers who made brownies from a mix. I'd appreciate it a lot more if he was on Celebrity Apprentice or Amazing Race or Hell's Kitchen or a show that wasn't about blending in and manipulating to advance one's own agenda. Another reason Derrick bothers me, as a huge Survivor and Big Brother fan, is that I considered both games, in a way, to be pretty much ringer-proof. It's psychological gameplay and the social experiment of people insulated from the outside world and the decisions about who stays and who leaves are made within the group itself (and not "America" voting or a judge with a producer whispering in his ear about who makes better TV). This is a game where people are removed from their professional identities and roles and are just seen as people. Unexpected leaders emerge. People who are natural leaders in their profession can't rally people around them. As others mentioned before, it's neat to see a show where some of the greats have professions like a dermatologist and a Catholic school teacher. Where a nurse can be a cult leader. Where two cocktail waitresses are some of the biggest competition beasts you've ever seen. Until this year, where the show put in someone who was good enough at what he did that he got paid to blend in, manipulate and advance an agenda -- pretty much the mold for winning. They put in someone whose profession was ingrained into his personality. This wasn't "Gary Hogeboom, simple contractor." One whiff of "undercover cop," and even the dimmest bulbs would've had a target on Derrick (and rightfully so!). So, when the show tries to tell me this is some kind of incredible game play, my response is basically, "Duh -- or he'd be dead right now." They've crafted this narrative for us to be shocked and awed by what he's done, when it's basically what he does for a living. It's not the contestants are that dumb -- it's just this is what he got paid to do. He got paid to play Big Brother with bad guys. I look at the editing for Derrick like I looked at Len Goodman being shocked -- shocked, I tell you -- that Kristi Yamaguchi had such artistry in her dances. It was her job! What she got paid to do! Yeah, Derrick is probably going to win. He's earned it -- just like he earned every last one of his paychecks, manipulating people smarter than Caleb, Cody and Victoria. Putting his Big Brother-playing skills to work keeping his community safe. Good for him. That doesn't mean the show has to play as dumb as Caleb, Cody and Victoria, all shocked and awed by his masterful game. He went undercover and he will likely win, much in the same way he likely "won" every assignment he ever had. This was a paycheck, just like all his other paychecks. This one just happens to have a few more zeroes on it. But as a fan of social experiment reality shows with psychological gameplay, his victory will be hollow for me, because...well, duh. Or he'd be dead right now.

Newsflash, Derrick and Cody: it's not a "secret" alliance when there has only ever been one alliance the whole game. I swear, the show better not try to sell this to me as some kind of "Renegades 2.0," who actually nominated each other throughout the game, to hide a secret alliance when there were multiple factions in the house. It's like, does anyone not realize Derrick and Cody are working together? Would that be a huge shock or a master strategic move? And you know if they make it to final 2, it will be "We formed a secret alliance called the Hitmen" (who were in a giant alliance that everyone knew about where everyone had final 2 deals with everyone, but pay no attention to the man behind the curtain), and everyone will ooh and ahh -- secret alliance, very wow, much strategery. I never thought I'd say this, but as boring as The Brigade season was, the end of the Brigade season was actually interesting. The whole Enzo/Lane/Hayden hierarchy was fascinating at the end -- how Enzo the architect of the Brigade ended up getting shut out of the alliance he created. I'm sorry, Derrick has played a manipulative and personal game very well, but his endgame is dull as dirt, and the show has been acting like a parent overpraising a toddler for taking his first steps with how they have framed everything he's done (with DRs, editing, etc.) "Oh my gosh, Derrick is bringing a goat to the end! Wow, the mastermind! Look at that brilliant fake 'fight'! Nobody has ever done that before! See how people were fooled! Unbelievable! He has a secret final 2 alliance! What a puppetmaster!" And it does seem disingenuous to me because of his profession. It'd be like having Mark Cuban as a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice. "You broker deals and make celebrity contacts for a living? Wow, how are you such a natural at this?" Give me a break, show. Please.

Me neither, especially when re-reading/remembering how Dan won in BB10. The early comp throwing, the great social game, the secret F2 alliance -- Derrick basically cribbed Dan's 1.0 playbook, with a dash of Dan 2.0 with stringing along Victoria, and a heaping help of moralizing about his daughter. If Cody is sitting next to Derrick in F2, I think Cody has Donny's vote. I think Donny is hurt by the betrayal from Team America, and he seemed to hold Derrick accountable for everything Cody did, at least early on. The only comfort I take is if they ever brought Derrick back for All Stars, no way he makes final 2. No way he makes it out of final 12. With his cover story exposed, Derrick likely never could come back to play Big Brother again. Hopefully his daughter will still have enough to eat, regardless.

Ugh, I'd almost forgotten about the Hitmen (not that there was a Derrick/Cody alliance, but that it had a name). Sounds more like an off-Broadway revue than the name of a serious alliance. Frankie J. Grande stars in...The Hitmen! I realize after 16 seasons, a lot of the good names have already been used, but was that seriously the best they could come up with? I wish they'd start naming alliances with made-up words, like the merged tribe on Survivor. But he can only take one of them out. I think this was a rare instance where Derrick was actually telling the truth. Say Caleb decides to put up Derrick or Cody against Victoria, and the Frankie winning veto to save Victoria scenario happens. One of them goes out and the other one is gunning for Caleb, with a still-here Victoria also gunning for him as the appendage of Derrick. He puts Frankie up (as far as Caleb knows), with the plan to take out Victoria -- then he's made no enemies going into final 4 (as far as Caleb knows) because Frankie would understand he was just a pawn. So, two people gunning for him vs. nobody really gunning for him specifically. Two is more than zero. I realize Derrick and Cody had no intention of being loyal to Caleb, but it's also the least risky move for Caleb, and I don't think Derrick should get credit for something that, as he said, was simply math.

Derrick plays many people like fiddles so often, he rivals Yo Yo Ma, but in this case, he was actually correct: a Derrick/Cody nomination alongside Victoria with Frankie winning the veto actually would have ensured Derrick/Cody going home. Not that they were actually thinking of Caleb's best interest, but I wouldn't call that playing Caleb. It was an accurate analysis of the situation, which just happened to benefit Derrick more than Caleb. Not that Caleb saw that, but still. I don't like jury house Donny as much as BB house Donny. His tics seemed dialed up to 11, complete with the smile and thumbs up. Maybe that's the scripted DRs more than Donny himself, but he seemed a lot more natural and less like a caricature before he was evicted.

Yes! I loved how it built, WendyCR72. Bobby as a shipping magnate is a reasonable cover, but the scene got hilarious when Alex was introduced as the Queen of Sheba. And then didn't Bobby repeat all of their "professions," just to humiliate that guy further? "VP of Operations...shipping magnate...Queen of Sheba." A nice moment of levity in a really awful case.

Allison Janney's sweet aspiring baby food manufacturer getting gunned down by the Russian mob at the end of Ben Stone's last episode. IMdB says it's "Old Friends." The end of the first Dobson case ("Coma") -- the comedy club owner whose wife was shot. They try to prove he shot her, they get the court order to remove the bullet and...it doesn't match his gun. I was fuming that he was able to get away with it. To see him finally taken down a couple years later (by a woman, no less!) was sweet revenge.

Yep, but if you look at the original airing dates of the three-parter, they all aired on Thursday (3/13/97, 3/20/97 and 3/27/97). ER being a 22 episode series, instead of airing reruns for three weeks in March, they put Law & Order on a special day and time. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply Law & Order was always on Thursday at 10 -- but for this three-parter, it definitely was. That's what made the episodes so cool.

Yeah, when they were going through the litany of "What happens when you have a creature that's perfect at hiding," I was like "...Isn't that basically The Silence?" Feel like we've done this story before. So, Russell T. Davies' end of the universe was a space junkyard ("Utopia"), while Moffat's is...rock formations backlit in pink? (oh, (P)ink. Wonder if that was intentional).

Yeah, as odd as it sounds, I actually think they would rather lose Victoria more than save Frankie. I think they're fine with losing Frankie before the final 2, but someone like Victoria actively sabotaging their own game knowingly in service of someone else winning is absolutely terrible television. Even odder is they may suspect (or Frankie has intimated) he will cause trouble in the jury house, throwing a wrench into their "second coming of Dan Gheesling" narrative for Derrick. Send Frankie off to jury at the last possible minute, and their Derrick narrative is secure. Whatever happens, at least this final 4 -- even with Victoria -- is head and shoulders above than last year. Actual competitors from an established alliance, with at least a modicum of social game and a stack of comp wins between them. Not four leftover individuals who waited until all the actual competitors had been eliminated, and then pretended it was all their doing. So...good on you, season 16!

Good luck on that one, Derrick. Has there ever been a Pandora's Box in the history of the show that hasn't been opened? If there is one, you won't have much say in the matter, I'm afraid. Now I hope Caleb gets a Pandora's Box, just for Derrick thinking he can dictate production.

So, Derrick just won $500,000-- I mean, $550,000. There goes any suspense left in the summer. All I can hope now is it's not unanimous.

Exactly. I'm going with ambiguous wording, said to each member: "If Team America makes it to the final 2, you will win an additional $50,000." Is that "you" collective or "you" singular? If it doesn't apply to both of them, that gives Derrick even more of an incentive to dump Frankie -- now he gets an additional $50,000 for dragging his most brain-dead follower along behind him. Unless that's what production wants, it has to be both of them. Unless production didn't clarify on purpose, and left it up to them to interpret. That would be interesting...make the wrong choice and you lose $50,000. Or more.

And the coaches' twist in BB14. If a coach made it to the end with one of his or her players, the coach was rewarded extra money. The coach and his or her players were a team.

I would take this, as well. The idea of a Team America player getting an extra $50,000 is bizarre if they don't both have to be there. That doesn't save Frankie. If anything, that only encourages Derrick leading lemmings off a cliff and watching them jump, tossing him extra cash on their way down, for the next few episodes. However, Derrick is very mindful of not looking like he's going against Team America. If I thought Caleb or Cody would catch a clue and make a move against Derrick (that he'd actually have to lift a finger to quash), I'd be fine with keeping things as they are. But without Frankie, this plays out like one of those Law & Order episodes where the minions of a group all fight to sacrifice themselves for their leader. Derrick's Billy Flynn game is very effective. It's also extremely boring.

This actually doesn't surprise me at all. Derrick's end game is mind-numbing television -- three brainless puppet Stepford houseguests (tm someone brilliant, not me), all fighting over who gets to advance his game the furthest. From a TV perspective, I don't blame them for wanting a real contest: the master manipulator and the comp "beast." Derrick doesn't have to go along with it either. Production is simply guessing (correctly, I believe) that his greed is greater than his loyalty. Finally, someone has found the flaw in Derrick's game. This is the real Derrick's funeral: production has taken a chum bath, put on a carrot suit and sat out an HoH to keep their pet around (and will pay $50,000 to make it happen). Your 24 hours in solitary confinement starts now, Derrick. What are you going to do?

The more I think about what Derrick is doing, the more it is the actual antithesis of Dan's Funeral. Dan's Funeral was a public move designed to advance a private alliance -- Dan didn't bash Danielle to get her out of the house, but to advance them both further in the game. He pretended to blow up his alliance to save himself, but once his safety was secured, he went back to the Quack Pack. In this bizarre scenario, Victoria bashes Derrick, not to save herself, but to advance his game with her full knowledge and consent. For a guy who's not even in her alliance. In this scenario, she's Jenn City (who blew up her game -- albeit unknowingly -- to save a guy who wasn't even aligned with her), not Danielle. Derrick has no loyalty to Victoria. Heck, Derrick has no loyalty to anyone. Dan's Funeral was designed to save Dan, yes -- but to advance his main alliance (Dan/Danielle) and break up a sub-alliance (Britney/Ian), solidifying both stray members firmly to his side (Ian and Shane). Derrick's Blip on the Heart Monitor (or would it be Victoria's?) is designed to advance Derrick and screw over the guys with whom he's supposedly aligned, Caleb and Cody, who have done nothing but be loyal to him all season -- because they have the audacity to want to take food out of his daughter's mouth. If this isn't using personal relationships to advance his game, I don't know what is. Tell me again why he's not Dawn from Survivor, with a different chromosome?

When the red team had the best opening night service ever in the history of Hell's Kitchen, did anyone else think, "...Well, duh, they just renovated the kitchen! The appliances must actually work now!"

Ah, I've never seen RK in anything but as the hapless Paul on "Spin City." He irritated the heck out of me then and now. I really do love this show, but this was not their strongest season. I know I'd seen "Brother's Keeper" before, but had very little memory of it. Still, I thought the whole "God can't heal a developmentally delayed teenager" line was painfully telegraphed. It was pretty easy to guess that Dr. Corliss had some kind of developmentally delayed teenager in his personal life and didn't just fly off the handle for no reason. The show was only able to treat it like a huge revelation by making the detectives conveniently dumb. Early season Goren would've picked up on it immediately. Clearly, he was distracted by strung out President Grant from Scandal!

I still think if Derrick was going for Dan's Funeral, he ended up with...Dan's Momentary Blip on the Heart Monitor. Caleb getting the ?????? subtitles and the fact that he wanted the button to make him marry Mila Kunis...you can't script that, even for reality TV.

I was about to come here and say how Derrick really needs to make a big move, or he's not going to have much of a case in front of the jury (other than "I'm a nice guy and also have a daughter who needs to eat") sitting next to anybody but Victoria. However, looking at prior seasons, Maggie only won one HoH and one Veto. She did, however, get nominated three times. I don't remember her argument to the jury, but Derrick might. The difference between her game and Derrick's however, is she seemed to own her role as "leader," whereas Derrick has done everything in his power to make it seem like he's not a leader. He's actually appeared to play the quintessential "under the radar player" game. But if Victoria goes, he has to know he'll be sitting next to someone -- if it's not him -- who got Caleb, Cody or Frankie out: three pretty big targets with superficially more impressive resumes. Therefore, I have to think he's going to be playing the same personal game card that he's played all summer: "I was nice to you and also I have a daughter." I honestly don't know what else he could claim to have done that anyone not named Victoria sitting next to him couldn't claim, and then some. I still think he himself needs to make a "big move" sometime in the next two weeks or his resume is looking awfully thin. "I totally controlled all of you, but you didn't even know it!" isn't exactly the best jury speech. Holla!