virginia blue

Top Chef really should introduce blind judging. I think the outcomes would be much different. There is a fairly obvious bias against female chefs.

I think this episode proved that’s not the case. She had a successful run on LCK and won tonight. When she can get out of her own way she is the equal of every other chef there.

I wish that the conversation about how Kate doesn’t assert herself with her brothers had been with PMJ rather than Toby. I get that the writers probably wanted to show that Kate and Toby are on good terms (and give the actor something to do) but we have been given so little of the K/P relationship. It would have been a chance to show that he sees things in her that maybe others don’t and given us more of a foundation to understand their relationship.

This show hasn’t made me cry in years, but tonight really got me. I started ugly crying when “And So it Goes” started playing, and I honestly haven’t recovered yet. Such a beautiful episode. I don’t think Miguel had a sad life. He had a happy marriage to the love of his life, he was embraced by her family, he ultimately reconciled with his children. I hope the show doesn’t erase him in the few remaining episodes. I think they will want to focus on Jack and Rebecca’s great love story; I have always been more interested and invested in her relationship with Miguel.

We’ve been asking for more Rebecca - Miguel back story, and I’m starting to think we should have been careful what we wished for. I love seeing their supportive best friend relationship over these past couple of episodes, and think it’s clear they are developing feelings for each other. I’m not looking forward to watching whatever conflict drives them apart for years.

I’m trying to think of a reason why Xander, Ricard, Heather and Erika wouldn’t vote either Danny or DeShawn out at the next tribal. They are both immunity threats and you wouldn’t want to go to final tribal council with either one. It seems so obvious to me that there’s no way it will happen.

I am wondering how much Jason Sudeikis’ personal situation informed the Roy-Keeley-Jamie storyline. On the one hand, I would think that the writers would want to avoid a story in which a woman ditches an established relationship to get together with a younger man. On the other hand, maybe this is something they want to explore — the end of a relationship in which there are no villains. I personally would hate it and think it would run counter to everything we know about Keeley, but I can see the writers wanting to go down that road.

I think the showrunners are making a risky choice here with the Kate/Toby/Philip twist. Love them or hate them, the show has invested a lot of time and energy into Kate and Toby’s relationship. We saw them meet, fall in love, weather health crises, have children. It’s going to be emotionally draining to watch that unravel. And I can’t imagine how they’ll get to the point that the audience is actually rooting for Kate and Philip, especially given that he’s been presented thus far as a rather unpleasant arrogant jerk. Am I the only one who is afraid that Miguel is dead or otherwise out of the picture in 2025 and the wife Nicky is referring to is...Rebecca? I swear I will throw something at the screen if the showrunners go that route.

Loved every minute of this episode. I’ve never cried during Outlander before, but Claire and Bree’s reunion, as well as the scene where Bree tells Claire about her rape, had me tearing up. Major kudos to both actresses. I also thought it was a huge improvement over the book. Everyone’s actions made sense in the context of the information they had. I do regret that they left out Claire’s line about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the withdrawal method, since it’s one of my favorite of the entire series.

I hate every element of the Stephen Bonnet plotline from beginning to end, none more so than the rape and the ridiculous shenanigans that follow in its aftermath. I had hoped against hope that somehow the writers and showrunner would find a way around including it, but I reluctantly concede that it is just too essential to the plot. I almost feel bad for the writers since they must have known that the reaction to yet another sexual assault would be overwhelmingly negative. I give them credit for handling the rape with as much restraint as possible. Where I do fault them is the complete underdevelopment of Brianna and Roger's relationship to the point where I, a book reader, was actually surprised she accepted his marriage proposal so quickly. The last time we saw Bree and Roger together, he reacted extremely negatively to her very reasonable feeling that she wasn't ready to get married. Nothing we have been shown since then indicates that she regrets that decision or her feelings have changed -- I don't think Brianna has even said the word "Roger" in any of the intervening episodes. Show Brianna has not been written as the kind of person who would be swept off her feet by a romantic gesture, so her accepting his proposal and the subsequent love scene felt very unearned to me. (And add me to the list of people surprised and slightly put off by the fact that the scene was so graphic -- for some reason I didn't think the show would go there with those two characters.) I think Sophie Skelton has really grown in the role and gave a great performance. I do suspect she struggles with the accent and that sometimes leads to a flat affect, but she has gotten a lot better and last night in particular she was exceptional. I think Bree is a deceptively difficult character to play. Especially in the early books her actions are more often than not plot-driven rather than character-driven, so it can be hard to understand what motivates her.

The first military engagement of the Revolutionary War was the battle of Lexington and Concord, which took place in 1775. Claire would be familiar with the history, having lived for so many years in Massachusetts. I don’t recall which book it’s in but Jamie fights in the Battles of Saratoga, which happened in 1777.

One thing I liked about this episode was that none of the disastrously bad decisions were shown to be Claire’s fault. It’s often easy to blame her when things go wrong but in this case it’s all Jamie, from the decision to bury his friend in consecrated ground to the choice to protect Bonnet. She may have idealized colonial America but Jamie’s decisions weren’t dependent on that.

I think the writers wanted to avoid any speculation from fans that April and Jackson might be endgame. If April is single and just living elsewhere a certain percentage of the fan base will continue to hope for a reunion. Short of killing her off, the only way to permanently end Japril hopes is to pair her off with the guy she left at the altar. There’s no way she could ever plausibly leave Matthew again and reunite with Jackson. With April out of the picture and happily paired off, I’m sure they hope the audience will be ready to buy into Maggie and Jackson. Agree that Matthew and April are likely going to end up at the rural hospital where they were volunteers.

I think Heughan has a really difficult job to do. Jamie is written as larger than life in many respects — not perfect, but an idealized figure. Heughan has to find a way to make him human while living up to the images of millions of book readers. I think he does a good job not getting overwhelmed by all that and makes Jamie a real, relatable character.

I thought that was lovely. I appreciated Arizona reminiscing about Mark and loved the focus on the photo of the two of them with Callie and baby Sofia. Also loved that Jackson mentioned Lexie — I feel like the show tends to forget her and it was great that she was remembered tonight. As an April fan, I especially liked Meredith’s recognition that she isn’t average. All in all, a nice episode and a tribute to everyone who made the show what it is.