Orbert

I get all that, but that's not what I meant. The tone of this show is more than a little different; it gets downright silly and slapstick at times. It tries for the deep, emotional beats, but it's hard to get serious after watching a scene that just defies logic. It's not impossible. Other shows can turn things around on you and make it work, but I don't feel like the writers here are that gifted. I guess the character rotation can't be helped because of behind-the-scenes scheduling, but it seems weird to have Harry and Breanna totally absent one week, then right there in the thick of things the next. Hardison is there, then he's not, but he shows up via video or the last five minutes. Last season seemed to hint at Sophie and Harry maybe getting closer, but maybe I was reading too much into that. I'm actually fine with them not getting together, but Sophie now seems to regard Nate as the love of her life and she'll never get over that, and I didn't even get that impression during original Leverage. I guess it's the inconsistency that bugs me. Maybe it's because they have a rotating team of writers, each with their own ideas of how things should be; I don't know. And actually, I think I've made similar rants before regarding this show, so I think I'll just shut up now.

It feels like the writers aren't sure whether they want this show to be its own thing, different from original Leverage, or more of a continuation. Yes, we all know that it's the same characters, but Nate's gone. It seems weird that Sophie mentions him all the time. Well, this episode anyway. We've also gone several episodes without Nate being mentioned, so why so much this time? Hardison was probably my favorite character, so yeah, it's nice to see him pop in once in a while, but since that's literally all it is, showing up in the last five minutes just to remind us that he's still around, it really underscores that he's not actually around full-time. The mentioning of all the other Leverage teams was a nice bit of continuity I guess, but it felt shoehorned in. I think the idea was that it was a Christmas episode, and people do get misty and nostalgic around Christmastime. But it was hard to feel Christmassy watching it in April or May.

At first I came away from this one thinking that it was a bit lightweight. There weren't really any twists, no big reveal. "Rocket" Russ was the only suspect from the beginning, we knew he did it and how, and the only question, as always, was how Charlie was going to trip him up. And even the usual conundrum (How can this statement be true while that statement is bullshit?) only had the one real catch. Something happened to give Rocket his mojo fastball back. And Charlie did seem to figure that part out almost too easily. But... I did find myself laughing a lot. Gilda (the announcer) was killing me with her calmly describing how she can no longer see the color green, and then seemed to lose feeling in her arm, even though she'd stopped eating the canned cheese, and asking if there was a doctor somewhere who'd be willing to stop by the broadcast booth. Carl, Goose, and the others really were not the brightest. Charlie's trip was amazing, especially the discussion with Lubinski, and the philosophy of baseball and how players just want to get safely home. Ahh... so nice. So okay, this one had a little different vibe and rhythm to it, but it was entertaining. That's all I'm looking for. I'm still not sure what to make of "Good Buddy". CB radios have a pretty good range, but this isn't shortwave. He does need to be within 20-25 miles or so, tops. As Charlie continues her journey down life's highway, it doesn't really make sense that she'll be in contact with "Good Buddy" for very long. But I guess with the mob off her tail, they needed some kind of ongoing arc.

Yeah, having the hitmen show up, sometimes loudly announcing themselves, and missing by a country mile, didn't add any suspense. If anything, it added more to the comedy, but they were so inept that it literally wasn't very funny, either.

That stuff with Pluti was clunky, but Wilmon made it clear that he wasn't supposed to be there. He was supposed be out of there the next day, that was the deal, but Saw had the people and the guns, so Wil was staying until Saw said otherwise. It was dumb that he should try to download his entire expertise to Pluti over the course of a few days or a week or whatever it was, but Wil still thought he would eventually get out of there, so he did what Saw said to do; teach Pluti all the variations.

I'm sure they bounced around various ideas about how to name them, and the deal with the first letter of each name. A, B, C, D makes sense. The whole point was that they didn't know about their fifth sister. The fact that the missing fifth sister started with F and not E was an interesting choice, but I just figured they skipped one to symbolize some kind of distance or separation. Or perhaps there was an E girl who died. Multiple births often come with medical challenges, and it's very common for them to be born prematurely, which can add even more medical challenges. Do we know the backstory of their father and why he left? Maybe one of the girls died, and he left, but for reasons of his own he wanted one of the babies with him. Norma obviously knew about Felicity and kept track of her all those years, but never told the others. If there was another sister who died, she probably would have hidden that as well. Anyway, I originally came her to say that I love the title of this one. I love a good pun, and I love a bad pun even more. It made me chuckle just reading it, knowing that there would be a murder that somehow involved a dismembered foot. I didn't think it would be prosthetic, so when we (and Amber) saw it caught in the roots there, I laughed out loud.

Yeah, we just (re-)watched Rogue One, and he's there on Yavin, then says something about having to get back to Alderaan, and I went "Oh, yeah..."

Oh, definitely. It's just that it always takes me out of the scene because it's catering to the audience, practically breaking the fourth wall, when we know that they would never really be yapping out loud like that the whole time.

I guess. There's Mister "It's a trap!" and I don't remember what happens to Bail later to be honest, and I don't really know who the others were. Was Draven on the committee? I haven't rewatched it yet. Anyway, Ep 9 ended with her going to Yavin to make a speech, and I figured Okay, this is the real start of the Alliance in a sense. I didn't expect them to suddenly make her their leader or anything, but a year later I guess I expected her to be farther along than what we saw. Not a huge thing, but still something that caught my attention.

Yeah, that was weird about Mon. After Andor himself, she seemed like the main character in this series. We spent a lot of time with her and her family, saw her in the senate a few times, and of course the speech openly calling for rebellion. I figured that a year after "Welcome to the Rebellion" we'd see her at least starting to become the leader we see in the movies. But instead she was still deferring to everyone else, even Bail Organa who I thought was an equal (and a friend). Speaking up the one time, to let Cassian visit Kleya in the infirmary, I guess was supposed to show how she was finally starting to stand up to these guys? And I guess we extrapolate from there.

Finished Episode 12 tonight. Wow! Very tempted to watch Rogue One, but it'll have to wait til sometime this weekend.

That was a fun episode. Scary, but with enough humor sprinkled throughout to keep things from getting too dark. Yeah, it's not realistic to have "fun banter" during life-or-death situations, but hey, it's TV. Discussing dinner plans while barricading perps, tumor nickname pun lists? It's all part of the job. I saw it asked but not answered. Roy the homeless guy died. There was a shot of a TV report naming people confirmed dead from the then-unknown pathogen, and Roy was the first person named. I'm glad the archery team got to play a role in taking out the bad guys, but it wouldn't have made sense for them to actually shoot anyone. I wouldn't want to see the trauma of killing someone, even a domestic terrorist, inflicted on a high school kid. Being a teenager these days is insane enough as it is. One trope nitpick complaint: Angie sneaking through the air vents, talking to herself (or really her unborn fetus) out loud. Yes, she was speaking quietly. But come on, you're trying to sneak around and not be discovered; you don't make any noise at all that you don't need to be making. Oh, sorry, two trope complaints: Potential fatal injury as season cliffhanger. We saw Amanda take that hit, directly above her heart if not actually grazing it. I was sure she was a goner and was already pissed about it, but she's in critical condition until next January, which actually pisses me off even more. Similarly, Ormewood may or may not make it. In the old days, and perhaps even now, they did this when they thought they might shake things up between seasons (that is, get rid of a few characters) or maybe some contracts were still up in the air. Maybe they come back, maybe they don't. But they actually listened to whoever said "Hey, what if we make Ormewood not an asshole?" and he's been great this season. Why change him to be actually likeable, then kill him off?

I liked this one. Well, I like all of them at least a little bit, usually a lot, but this one was so crazy with all the Florida references that it had me laughing out loud a few times. And all I could think was "Yep, Florida. Crazy shit down there." I'm glad that Fran the cop didn't go down for murder or even animal cruelty. She really was one of the "good ones" and they showed us how little she cared about the stupid award... at first. But after actually being nominated six times in a row and losing to Gator Joe, that eventually got to her. Which is sad, really, but I guess I understand it. She cracked. But even her boss couldn't see busting her for it. Joe got eaten by his "pet" gator, end of story. This is Florida. It happens. So she ends up working at the animal sanctuary, where Hutch tells her that she could make Volunteer of the Month if she keeps it up. And she got this look in her eyes. She didn't used to care about awards, but there's some kind of weird parallel to having tasted human blood there; she wants it. She's hungry for it. And it got one last laugh out of me. So apparently Charlie really is free to explore the great U.S. of A.? Cool.

Lonni was Imperial, secretly working for the resistance. What he did was huge and involved security breaches and he would certainly have been found out. As Ohiopirate pointed out, Lonni's family is actually safer now. Bummer that he's dead, of course, but they would have spent the rest of their lives on the run and eventually be hunted down anyway. Lonni wanted to make sure that they're safe, and they are, for now and possibly forever.

I read something once by a supposed former agent of some kind, and he said that when people choose aliases and alternate identities, they often try to keep something of their true identity. The most common was their birthday. They can take on a new name, completely new backstory, even ethnic background, but their birthday is personal and somewhat random enough that they keep it. And often times, when people are trying to hunt them down and/or determine if they have the right person, if the birthday is the same, that's pretty much the clincher. I thought of that when someone shouted "Sargent Lear!" and he was addressing the one we know as Luthen Rael.