sinkwriter

I think my favorite exchange of the episode was this: Mike B: None of these dogs can be a Gordon! That was only one. Elizabeth: (very compassionately) I know. I don't really have any issue with the ties or most of what Elizabeth wears. (Well, except the black bra under a white / light-colored shirt.) Her style seems to be similar to Kathryn Hepburn: mostly classic shirts and dress pants, maybe a little bit masculine in style. It seems fitting for her character's personality and "I don't give a damn about fashion" sort of attitude. (She definitely doesn't share Noodle's passion for fashion.)

TRUTH!!

"I know you're a good lawyer. I'm asking you to be a good person"??? Seriously, Delilah? FUCK YOU. Do you seriously think YOU'RE being a good person? She makes me so mad. And for the record, Katherine IS being a good person. She helped you stay in your house, when she could have told you to rot in hell for sleeping with her husband. She babysat for your kid, when she had no obligation to do so, especially under the circumstances. She took Eddie back. And now she is being a good person, by having her husband's back and looking out for him because you can't be trusted. That's being a good person in so many ways. Lying for YOU is not being a good person. Delilah needs a serious slap upside the head. She is so self-centered and clueless.

Yeah, I was like, "Uh, you go out there with him, Ms. 'I Have To Get the Full Story' Woman." She was awfully casual with putting someone else's life in danger.

Me, too. Just the way he was saying how it's kind of his thing, how he can read people, and she looked at him and said, "I know." But I felt like she had a look on her face like, "Except you aren't reading me right, because I have ulterior motives and you don't have a clue." I don't trust her at all. Frankly, I can't believe how much Malcolm's mother keeps telling her. I'm like, lady, for someone whose husband was a serial killer, you are being way too trusting of this complete stranger with all your personal secrets and feelings and business. Don't tell her things!

Can't. Wait. for next week. 🙂

I can see it now... A Million Little Weekends. 😉

What annoys me about the Jon parentage reveal is that it's almost like the show runners are saying, "See? Don't hate on Delilah so much. Jon cheated with a married woman too." As if that will somehow absolve Delilah of her behavior and insist that we sympathize with her. Because when she finds out about PJ, she's going to need all her friends' support and they better not call her out on her own behavior. (Barf.) Side note: Jon wasn't with Delilah yet, was he? So at that time he was involved with a married woman, but he himself wasn't married. Either way... what a mess.

What's ridiculous, too, is that Maggie herself made that very point, that dogs aren't interchangeable. Didn't she say it to one of the other friends, when they suggested Gary get the shelter dog? I know she said it someone, and said it wasn't healthy and wouldn't help. So... *headdesk WTF, Maggie.

I don't have an issue with Sophie being upset, either. It was probably scary, plus she just got the car, it was something from her late father, and she wrecked it. Plus, as a teen, I would have been worried my mom would be mad at me for wrecking it. So all that is fine and understandable. I just thought it was ridiculous how they staged it to look (in the scene when Delilah arrived). The metal post was all bent over like it had been a terrible accident. It just seemed over the top, given what we'd been shown (that she barely tapped that thing and wasn't even driving fast enough or far enough away to create such damage to the post). That's the part that made me eyeroll.

I don't know why, but I assumed Jon drove that car (once in a while at least, maybe as a second car?), and simply planned to hand it down to Sophie when she was old enough. I didn't think it was a secret. I just thought Sophie was surprised that she was going to get the car, like maybe she assumed her mom would sell Jon's car at some point, since they didn't need it, with him gone. They didn't really explain it except to say that Jon wanted her to have it, did they? Or did I miss a sentence or two in my annoyance with Delilah in this episode? 😉 Among other things, I know her as the frustrating, semi-nasty mom of David Silver's "best" friend Scott on the original 90210.

Can I just say how ridiculous it was to see THAT much damage to the metal post in front of Sophie's car? She was right there, and had barely increased speed when she hit the post. Yes, I could see her wrecking the front fender of the car, but to physically bend that metal post so that it was all crooked (like it was about to fall over), she would have had to be back much, much, much farther and slam into it really hard. Which she didn't. So I eyerolled when she had to call Delilah as if it were this catastrophic dangerous accident. Yet another trumped-up reason for us to feel sorry for Delilah... Katherine's "so mean" plotting to ruin her family and hurt her kids, her friends are making her feel ganged up on, and now her daughter's been in a car accident!! And earlier in the ep, she couldn't even carry stuff - PJ had to do it for her. She must have a really hard life. Poor Delilah. Thank goodness she got home to have that heartwarming moment, hanging out in bed with her kids. 🙄

That veering of the dog story was stupid, because up to that point I thought they did a really nice job of showing Gary struggling with giving away the dog, and then realizing that the former owner wasn't some jerk who didn't care about the dog and that she should get the dog back. His saying goodbye to Colin was really sweet and kind of heartbreaking, as was his crying after Maggie left with Colin. (Especially because I've read that James Roday is a big animal lover, and has a dog, so he did a great job with saying goodbye to a pet that he loved.) I think they should have left it at that, and had Maggie return the dog to his rightful owner. It would have kept things meaningful. Instead, they had to do this stupid dog switching thing, which was forced "humor" and pretty much negated the sweetness and necessary heartbreak that came before it. What a waste. Plus, in an episode where certain people refused to do the right thing (DELILAH), it would have been a nice counterpoint to show both Eddie and Gary doing the right thing. Thanks for nothing, show.

Nope. Sorry, show runners, I don't care how hard you try to push Delilah on me, with your cozy "family" moment at the end, with her and her kids... I'm not on her side. I do not feel sorry for her. And I think deep down she's not doing it for the kids; she's doing it because she doesn't want to be the bad guy that her kids will be mad at, even though she deserves it. Not forever, but for a while, yes, she does deserve that. And she's so selfish and self-absorbed, she doesn't even see it. Instead she feels "ganged up on." No, your friends are finally being honest with you - you just don't want to hear it. Eddie's been taking all sorts of crap, and he deserved it, but at least he's taken responsibility for what he did. Delilah's acting like she had this picture perfect marriage, and Katherine's somehow going to screw it all up for her for not wanting to live a lie. Delilah, you did this to yourself. And while I do think the kids have been through a lot, Eddie and Katherine are right - no good is going to come from lying to them. It's going to make things worse. I never whooped so hard as I did when Katherine said, "I almost lost my husband... because of you." That was a true point and a long time coming. And when Delilah wouldn't face any of it, and gave one of those "sorry not sorry" kind of apologies, I wanted to slap her. She's awful and I don't feel sorry for her at all. Which I don't think is what the show runners are going for, but that's how I feel about her. She's just awful.

Eh... this didn't concern me as much as other stuff. He knows Henry's likely got the same last name as his father, so he could easily look up Henry on social media and find a photo of him with his girlfriend, who would likely be tagged with her full name. (I did think he was overstepping by even doing the search, though.) I was more annoyed by them making Nolan seem like he doesn't know what he's doing with the home renovation. He was in construction for years! I don't have an issue with the renovation taking a long time; that makes sense, given that he's working a lot. But don't change the character and force him to look incompetent in an attempt to force humor. Nolan can be funny and still be competent at what he does. That's one of the reasons I got really irritated with the show Nathan Fillion used to be on (Castle) - his character on that show was so fun and smart and funny in the beginning, but they turned him into a bumbling joke too many times in later seasons, just to force humor. It pissed me off. Don't do that to him here. He can be funny because he's learning on his new job and makes understandable mistakes, but don't make him a total idiot and don't change what you've already established for his character. The guy was in construction and knows what he's doing. We don't need to see fires started and wire shortages or things falling off the walls. That's clichéd. They can do better than that.

I think what I found frustrating about watching this mini-series is that it's almost entirely fictional, while acting like it's somehow truth, especially with the showing of the real-life photos at the end of every episode. I had read before watching that Fauna had never met or spoken to her grandfather... ever. So it was really annoying to me to watch this entire series and have it be SO melodramatically altered from that fact. I mean, make it a mystery about her parentage, make it a mystery about whether or not he actually raped his own daughter or killed the Black Dahlia, and throw messed-up Jay in there as a journalist who believes Hodel IS responsible for both of those crimes, but don't make up a whole thing about Fauna breaking into the guy's house repeatedly and experiencing a gigantic amount of dramatic stuff that she never actually experienced.

I think what irritated me about Fauna was her constant foolishness. Breaking into places, sneaking around, seeing all sorts of weird shit, and then the biggest thing... Jay's told you he thinks her grandfather killed the Black Dahlia (and may be responsible for other deaths as well), your bio mom told you that your grandfather was a pedophile, the dude had Fauna followed and lied to her at every turn... yet you STILL go visit his ex-wife in the end? Call anyone else for help, for fuck's sake, but not that woman who cannot be trusted. *headdesk headdesk That drove me CRAZY.

They should have made the dog incident happen on a weekend. Then it wouldn't seem so weird that everyone's able to drop everything and help search.

I'm just grateful they didn't cut to Delilah looking at him longingly. I swear, every episode when Eddie's with Katherine in front of Delilah, I keep waiting for them to pull that. Thankfully that's one thing they haven't done to try to make me feel bad for Delilah. Kudos, show! He dug the folder out of the trash after Maggie told him that she'd thrown away all her plans for her own funeral. So in this case, it wasn't really some hidden easter egg sort of situation. They did show us all the pieces involved (Maggie and Gary talked about her former funeral plans folder, she told him she threw it away, he took it out of the trash and looked through it and her photo was in the pocket on the left, and then he put the folder back in the trash and noticed the piano bar flyer on the counter). It was just confusing with that last scene faking us out, making us think she was actually at the piano bar when she wasn't.

That was my thinking too! I mentioned that in the pilot thread. Mainly because I don't like the sister and I feel like that would be the only way to make her more interesting. Because otherwise I find her really annoying, and the actress (while lovely) just isn't right for the role. I wonder if it would help if the actor shaved off all the scruff. I know it's probably supposed to make him look all cool, and like he's struggling, but he could carry that off without the stubble. Usually when actors shave all that off, they look younger.

Right away! 🙂 And I hope they don't just use her for these little snippets of comedy where she drools over Malcolm. I want her to be a substantial part of the crew with actual character depth.

Has this been pre-empted for Monday night football? I just turned on my TV to tune into the show, and there's football on. *grumbles

Yeah, it's more "memorable" than "favorite" for me as well. If we're talking favorites, well, there are too many to name, but one that's up there for me is everything involving Toby with In the Shadow of Two Gunmen / The Midterms. I love what Richard Schiff does expression-wise when he finds Josh on the steps. I love how angry and defensive he is later, arguing with CJ about how mad he is and whether or not he should see a counselor, and I love when he finally goes to see the President in the Oval Office and ends up breaking down a little. Such powerful moments. CJ: You wanna lock up everybody with a white sheet? TOBY: Yes, I do! Who has a problem with that? Bring 'em to me right now! YES I DO!

I like that scene between Bartlet and Toby because neither of them are particularly admirable or right. (In different ways they're both right and both wrong.) But they're both angry and stubborn and wanting the other person to understand why they're upset, but neither one will budge. It's a very human sort of scene, very honest. It's hard to watch. Reminds me also of the scene where Bartlet hasn't been sleeping and Toby pisses him off by making a comment about his father hitting him when he was a kid, and Bartlet snaps at him: "I don’t know what the hell goes on in a Brooklyn shrink’s office, but get it the hell out of my house!" Ouch, ouch ouch. But Toby was right - Bartlet often rode that line between unthreatening / too centrist "Uncle Fluffy" versus super smart, lethal, unafraid to speak his mind Bartlet, and you never knew which one he'd choose to be (which had to be really frustrating for his staff when they wanted to accomplish things but didn't know if he'd really take a stand or not).

I actually grew to like that scene. That moment when he drops his cigarette butt was so startling and disrespectful in the setting, it was both shocking and remarkable, because in any other circumstance as an adult, there's no way Bartlet would do that. He's so strong in his Catholicism. But he was so angry, because of what happened to Mrs. Landingham and Josh, so he lashed out. So the cigarette butt moment felt really powerful and almost gasp-worthy to me. He was almost saying, "I'm done with you. I don't believe in you anymore. How could you do this? How could you let it happen?" After all his reverence for his faith (especially in previous episodes like Take This Sabbath Day), it was painful yet understanding to see him rail against his God in that moment.