BingeyKohan

You’re right! She’s like the villain in a superhero movie. If that’s true they usually win every battle except the final one. Playing by those rules she’d have to go down in open court, with the whole cast present, (and with Celeste representing herself for some reason). At this point I wouldn’t put it past the writers.

I've seen people note elsewhere that if the custody proceedings were really just a "perjury trap" (meaning ML doesn't want or expect to win, she just wants some under-oath statements about Perry's death) then she wouldn't have made the settlement offer of joint custody. I think maybe in the world of the show ultimately we're supposed to believe that she knew Celeste wouldn't take her up on that and would go to trial, meaning the "perjury trap" scenario was guaranteed to play out. Or maybe ML sees it as win-win: If Celeste had agreed outright to joint custody she'd have her grandsons on weekends (replicating the two boys scenario she once had, before Perry's brother died) OR if she didn't, she'd get to enact the perjury trap (and maybe still get the boys).

This is by far the most plausible scenario I've heard around what could be up with Corey. Although plausibility doesn't necessarily seem to be priority for the writers. But I hope you're right (I guess, though it still sucks for Jane and Ziggy, which feels like piling too much sorrow on them). It might be that the producers don't trust Merrin Dungey's acting ability (Francie forever!) but I expected she'd be more of an outright antagonist this season, since her lighter-flicking was such a presence last season, creating the sense the women were being watched. It was hokey, but it even factored into the closing moments of season 1. She's been "around" this season but not used all that effectively, I don't think. Since Corey was the first (I believe, and possibly the only) character to actually use the phrase "Monterey 5" I guess with this new detail about him it's likely he heard it from the detective? And he used it strategically to get a reaction from Jane that time? We also never saw how the conversation between the detective and Mary Louise resolved itself. It's possible (again, given the low plausibility of these storylines) that the two of them cooked up the custody bid there as the conclusion of that convo. Here's a minor nitpick that bugs me about Renata's lost magazine-cover fortunes. We saw the photo shoot (which was awesome). Later, she bragged to her husband (I think) that she was being featured in the "country's top women's magazine" (or something generic like that, so they didn't have to name one). But this episode the feature she lost out on was in "San Francisco magazine," which is...not the country's top women's magazine. It doesn't even sound like a magazine feature Renata would want to participate in in the first place, since it'd be a little small time for how she sees herself.

I know Whitney is not the most exciting person to watch but I still find her more palatable than the rest - I wish episodes came with a little rating system to indicate how much of your favorite (or most tolerable) character was actually in it. Half a Whitney means less than 5 minutes. A full Whitney means between 5 and 10 minutes; two Whitneys mean half the episode, etc. I suspect we'll only get half-Whits (har har) the whole season. So I doubt I'll be watching.

What is up with these 45 minute episodes? I think the producers think the episodes are ending on more compelling notes than they actually are. Even though there was some misery in the first season I still felt the show was much more aspirational then (and therefore more enjoyable). Maybe it was just the novelty of it at the time but between the music and the interesting color palette and the luxury of seeming to drive around all day thinking and the real estate porn (and also more levity in general) the first season drew me in so much more. Perhaps they’re cutting us off from that this season to set a mood of wallowing and dread. But I really think they should have designated one character as comic relief. Hopefully Madeline or Renata will get their mojos back soon and it will be one or both of them.

Did Whitney have another scene or appearance besides in Audrina's backyard? I wonder if she'll even be at Stephanie's welcome back party. I kind of doubt it. She might have an even smaller role here than she did in the original. I think she signed on not for the exposure of her actual airtime in episodes but just because the press tour would give her more Instagram followers and YouTube subscribers, and make it easier to get sponsored-content deals. I have zero interest in anyone or anything else. I do think I might find Mischa Barton compelling, but I don't think she'll bring a lot of drama, which means she may barely get more airtime than Whitney.

I so agree with this and would add it’s a running problem with the writing. Last season when they were still using the Greek chorus effect of other parents giving statements to the police one random Mom used a Betty Crocker/Betty Grable analogy to describe Madeline. The woman saying it was about 30 years old - not someone who would ever in her life think about either Betty. It drove me crazy. I’ve seen some debate here about whether it’s believable Renata would have evidenced a noticeable year-long change because of keeping the Perry secret. I will add my voice to those who don’t find it believable. It feels like lazy writing to have her husband give us that detail in a tell don’t show line. Her behavior is antic but it seems of a piece with someone like Renata who is facing the prospect of losing all her money and status. Which is a way more recent development than the Perry situation. But besides that she’s also been off because of Perry? And we have to take her husband’s word for it? It’s smallish (or big little) details like this that can add up to overall disappointment with how the season is shaping up.

I wonder about MW. I hope she is well and happy. It’s hard to reconstruct what she’s up to these days.

I wrote a piece about the passing of C.C. Capwell and what Santa Barbara meant to me in general. Sharing it here in case folks are interested. Thanks!

My guess is we'll find out the friend who spoke up about the Halloween-night dolls (and who waved at Julie riding her bike) will have spent nights over, purportedly as a friend of the brother's but maybe really to spy on Julie. Just a guess, though no doubt the sketchy cousin (and possible real father of Julie?) will continue to be investigated - we need to know, for example, whether he really watched CHiPS that night! My theory about Amelia is that her daughter Rebecca was conceived during one of her weekends where she goes off and pretends to be someone else (I'm betting that habit continued even after they were married) and the pattern of a daughter fathered by someone else will haunt Hayes' and the way he handles either Julie's real father or her 'surrogate' father. (At some point I suppose I should take these to the speculation thread?)

I’m going to be watching for more of the neighbor woman who waved at the kids before reaching up to take her Halloween decorations down. (We see her later comforting the mother after the boy’s body was found.) The friend who mentioned the doll on Halloween night (a little suspect himself) mentioned someone dressed as a ghost, but he could be conflating the little ghost that hung above the neighbor woman’s porch.

I’m glad they gave us a little Yule treat via this episode but the writing and editing were a little disjointed. I didn’t understand why Sabrina seemed to lose all curiosity around things she should be asking her Mom about since she had the chance. And why did they only show Ambrose walking into the party but no scene of him actually being there? Surely they filmed scenes of the party, but cut them? Seems like it would have made more sense to cut the party entrance scene too then.

This almost feels like an exquisite corpse season, where the writers of the first few episodes handed their duties off to other writers who had to just take whatever setup they inherited and work with it. Then the choice of that second set of writers was just to go back and explain every single choice made by the earlier writers. I still don’t know why they called this season Apocalypse when the apocalypse was the thing they seemed least interested in, from a conceptual or horror standpoint.

Totally! In that early episode when the horses that brought Michael to the outpost got drug off by things we couldn’t see I thought that’s where the ‘horror’ of the season would come in - through whatever desperate creatures the apocalypse created. But nope! Just tech bros snorting cocaine, Madison folding towels, and Coco counting calories. Such an odd way to tell an apocalypse story.

Since the only creative or storytelling course this show seems to be on now is addressing curiosities we may or may not have after the early episodes, the finale still needs to show us: How did they genetically identify our Adam and Eve and why; What's the significance in Michael's mind of the pre-natal testing that seemed to involved both women and men as capable of gestation?; how did he develop his confidence so much between being so easily manipulated by Mutt and Jeff and being relatively suave post Apocalypse?; identity spells for Coco and Mallory (also, why did Madison do the whole 'it's me bitch' thing with her when she woke up? They haven't been antagonistic in the least in the past, have they? That made it seem like Mallory had given as good as she got from Madison, but I can't remember any tension between them that would be simmering 3 years later; maybe something happens next episode?); i'm sure I'm leaving something out that they'll try and address too, in addition to the obvious task of stopping Michael. Others may have speculated about this too but perhaps Cordelia kills herself in order to empower Mallory to successfully time travel, if it's Cordelia's Supreme presence that's holding her back from her true power.

This season bored me at times but it stuck the landing. Darlene’s little speech in the hallway got me.

My guess is she knows the sound of aquarium bubbles could bring back the memories of Walter’s that are lost, the way the pelican croak brought back hers. I assumed the red liquid applied to the wrist was the new usage Colin said he had pioneered, something about ‘comfort’? I assumed she’d already become addicted to it. like Big Little Lies this was a show I enjoyed but don’t necessarily need to return. Tho it probably will.

It was a missed opportunity within the Cooperative campus not to hint at more going on there than the goofy cocaine fueled robotics lab. Unless I missed it there were no peeks behind other doors. Surely that’s not all that was happening in that big building? Even just a glimpse could have tied back to the bunker and made us feel this episode had more to offer. At this point I think any title card with text like ‘2 years before the bombs’ should be replaced with more meta ones reading ‘6 episodes since present day.’

Agree. Waste. Dumb. (Speaking of dumb were Billy Eichner’s and Evan Peters’ bunker characters created by Venable to punish them for being these dolts? They have to be the same people, right? Since we heard the ‘got to be a morning after’ song?) Also did anyone else look for the newscaster from the season premiere in the Satanic church congregation? The woman who fed Michael mentioned the things ‘we’ were doing to purposefully bring about the end times made me think back to him saying ‘we finally did it.’

Did they just sort of drop the storyline of a witch hunter on the loose - the one who killed the boy Ambrose worked on and whose familiar (the iguana) he inherited? Aunt Hilda got the call (I thought) that his parents committed suicide but then it was never mentioned again. I got the impression then that Ambrose’s boyfriend might have been involved. It would sort of be weird to pick it back up next season after so much time not mentioning it.

But that's weird too! The title card setting up the flashback to Myrtle's resurrection said 2 years before the bomb - so then that would have been a flash-forward, if the main flashback narrative is 3 years before the bomb. ETA: it's the show's lack of clarity around this that bothers me, not the posters here!

I always took it they were making a play on the fact that the show's version of Oprah Winfrey of course achieved her heights of importance in the culture because of witchcraft, or a deal she'd made with a dark power...but they haven't done much with her fame otherwise. Done anything with it, actually. So, good question. Re: timing of main flashbacks relative to apocalypse (the word apocalypse is so tedious to type, maybe I'll just call it Apoca) - that would mean that the version of Langdon that Cordelia is familiar with, from having just recently resurrected Misty and Madison and Queenie, is only months from being the Langdon who strolled into the bunker with his long luxurious hair and having made pre-arrangements for the outposts and the Adam and Eve selection? It seems like Apoca is farther off than that, and his development from the schoolboy who just aced the Seven Wonders test into who he was post-Apoca will take longer. Coco to me doesn't seem like the version of Coco we met back in the first episode, who's in a long-term seeming relationship with Billy Eichner. (This version of Coco has been living in NOLA learning to count calories, so she hasn't taken up yet with Billy on the Street?) I think they've overestimated our interest in how an X-Men team of witches got assembled so long before the apocalypse, since we already know that wasn't enough to prevent the event from happening anyway.

So true! If I didn't know better (and I guess I don't, really) I would think we're headed for an Avengers-infinity-war kind of end to the season (which I guess is sort of how the season started, but that's so long ago it's hard to remember) and this was actually a two-season story. Or at least, that things won't actually be righted by the time we're out of episodes.

Post apocalyptic KB in the bunker was an android replica of burned KB.

I’m still confused by the timeline and use of extended flashbacks. The 2 years before the apocalypse thing (bringing Myrtle back) was a flashback within a flashback? How much time were we “before the apocalypse” at the time of the dinner Cordelia said might be their last time together for a while? Madison and Behold had just returned from Murder House at that dinner. And is Joan Collins’ character here the same character as post apocalypse in the bunker? That character also seemed to have been an aging actress but not one who could read minds. It would seem odd she didn’t realize who Michael was when he showed up in the bunker, even though she had never met him. Maybe the white haired character is not meant to be the same as the bunker character but they seem very similar.