hardy har

All the Serena/June stuff has been so good. I was annoyed, but not surprised when I found out they were making the Waterford's younger on the show than they were in the books, but (at least with Serena) I think it makes the relationship on the show really fascinating. June's line about the possibility of them being colleagues in another life felt right-on to me. There were just enough hints in S1 where I vividly remember thinking this was not the kind of society she envisioned. Again, not to excuse her awful behavior, but I'm curious to see where her arc goes. Outside of this show, I've only seen Yvonne Strahovski in CHUCK and DEXTER. CHUCK was very frothy and fun with a sprinkling of serious stuff on occasion. Most of the press about her was about how good-looking she was, but she fucking brought it on that show. DEXTER was a goddamn shitshow by the time she got there, but she was good in spite of what she was given. I thought she was really under appreciated last Season and she's killing it this time around. Whenever this show ends, I hope she gets more quality stuff to do. I still don't trust Nick, but I think that's mostly my complete and total distrust of him in the book creeping in. Also, my response to him snapping at Eden wasn't "Oh, no!" but "Of course!" Hey, dummy? Maybe find a better spot to hide your resistance messages now that you have a wife who is going to be tidying up your place every damn day. Idiot. I know Eden is a pain-in-the-ass, but she's fifteen, was gifted to a strange man and has been groomed by her family and the laws of Gilead to be a subservient piece of property. I just......can't get mad at her too much. That end scene was gorgeous. I kept waiting for Asshole Mrs Putnam to walk into frame and take Charlotte and turn my happy tears into sad ones, but I'm glad they went out with the singing and cooing.

I'm not gonna nitpick too much about what Pope/Prime side's plan is because we haven't seen what's going on over there yet. I think the crossing area from entry -to-entry is like an agreed upon Neutral Zone. Yeah, but do we even know if they have facial recognition technology? Prime Side doesn't even have the tech for smart phones. Pope falsified an identity for Claire, so I assume that's what happened with The Guests too.

I know this show is technically a co-production with America, but I want to thank the country of Germany for giving me Counterpart, Dark and Babylon Berlin to obsess out. They might need the Big With Diplomat down the road. I think the point of The School was that they were training/indoctrinating the students so they'd be willing to do anything for the cause if they were called upon. For Claire, it was a long term mission and for The Guests it was basically a suicide mission. Since Quayle is Fail Spy, I'm assuming Claire was sending any info she could get about who worked/had access to the Housekeeping floor and that's how The School found the 3 they sent over. Since, this is one of a two-parter, I'm gonna wait to see what else we learn, but I thought it was interesting that they seemed to be deliberately not shooting some people. There were a number of scenes (besides the one with Richard Schiff) on the Housekeeping floor where they seemed to be shooting specific people. At least that's what it looked like to me. I think it's kind of fun that everyone is sort of fucked. Legit none of the principle characters have anyone they can actually rely on. Claire didn't try to have her killed. Claire actually warned Baldwin, started packing up her stuff and tried to get Baldwin to leave before they slept together in that episode (I totally missed that the first time, but my roommate is catching up and I caught a couple older eps) so I think there is actual affection there. At least on some level. I don't think Baldwin forgives her or anything, but if she's trying to disappear after all this, then more money, in theory, would make it easier for her. Though, that'll be a little difficult with Quayle's Kamikaze driving. Not that Claire would be able to get the money anyway. I've wanted Baldwin and a Howard to team up since ep 3. I don't care which Howard it is, I ..... just want it to happen for some reason.

No, I know that. I should've expressed it differently. I wish she had more involvement with the other main characters. It just felt like she was kind of off doing her own thing for a few episodes, but now that I think about it......not that much time has passed since the first episode has there? Has it even been a week? I still maintain the shittiest thing Howard Alpha has done is give Ana false hope about her relationship with her dad. Ian seems to hate Howard with the burning fire of 1,000 suns, so I imagine that's part of the problem. Other things: - I did not need to see a pile of dead kids. That was fucked. - I wonder if Pope's other is still alive? - I wonder if Quayle will tell Prime what he did?

I think Peter was protecting himself more than Claire. If Aldrich's anecdote about killing that woman his Other fell for was any indication, I'm guessing Peter figured Aldrich wouldn't have much of a problem killing him for being a gullible idiot. Speaking of Aldrich......Ulrich Thomsen is the shit. I know the "big scene" this time around was Howard/Howard, but the Aldrich/Quayle scene with the soup was probably my favorite scene of the entire series so far. I thought Claire lying about killing her other was a nice parallel to Quayle lying to Aldrich about the mole. I wonder how long before the Sleepers realize something is up, considering Claire is too busy being cuffed to a towel rack to contact them anymore. I think it was Alpha Guy too. He was way too chipper to be the sleeper agent. Unless they gave Sleeper Agent grocery buying privileges and he was super stoked about it :) I'm fine with Baldwin, I just wish they'd tie her to the main plot a little more. She legit has some kind of back story with Claire, Prime Howard came over to find her and Alpha Howard had some sort of impact on her earlier on, so I'm a little confused why she hasn't been more involved in the A plot. Re: Howard vs Howard scene.....I wonder how much of this was Prime exploiting an opportunity to stay on the Alpha side on top of everything else? There have been some references to him traveling over there repeatedly and Emily Prime made it seem like he was really attached to Alpha World.

I haven't gotten the sense that they're trying to retaliate in any "in-kind" type of way where they'd go after the specific people responsible for the pandemic. I think they just want to cause as much long lasting harm as possible. I'm wondering if it going to turn out that Alpha Side used the pandemic on Prime as Biological Warfare testing ground. Re Claire's virginity. I definitely got a kick out of the fact that she pretty much immediately decided losing it to some random at a bar was was a better idea than losing it to The Ambassador. Wise move, Claire. I was trying to find some info about creating the show and got lost in a Twitter wormhole. Amy Berg said they had every script written before they started (tweaks were made along the way for budget and once casting was finalized) and they created a Counterpart Bible. Apparently, it details the similarities/differences between the worlds and how/why they diverged and even includes things that what kind of stamps each side uses at customs for people crossing over. They even made an Employee manual for Office of Interchange. I'm jazzed to do a rewatch of this once it's over. I feel like I'll catch a bunch of stuff I missed.

RE: The Pandemic Responsibility I can't remember which one, but in one of the little after episode things with the creator he mentioned a big theme of the show is "you have to love the lie" and that would tie in with Pope and everyone involved with The School. At this point, the idea that Alpha Side is responsible is so deep that it probably doesn't matter. The School took orphaned kids whose loved ones died from the pandemic and raised them as avenging soldiers. That is some deep seeded propaganda right there. Pus, The School seemed to be using Alpha as a catch-all excuse for anything shitty that they did to the kids. I really like that Quayle was so terrible at being a spy. Like, he just got drunk and fucked that plan up right quick. I also love that he and Claire know about each other and I liked that he called Howard Prime right away. I was preparing for an annoying storyline where he tries to figure out what to do about Claire while Heinrich and Howard Prime think he's the mole. Though I guess we don't know if they'll let Heinrich know what's going on. Here's something that I've been wondering. Do we know which department Emily Alpha worked in for sure? Was it Strategy/Housekeeping like Emily Prime? Alpha Howard mentioned she was a clerk, but if she was really high up, then being a clerk could just be her cover. Also, if Emily Alpha was working on paperwork from Quayle's safe does that mean Claire was working with her? Hadn't caught that! I know the focus is always on Baldwin since the actress even looks younger than she actually is, but I wondered about about Quayle, Claire and the three sleeper agents as well. I figured they didn't want her anesthetized because Claire Alpha probably wasn't. Just like Spencer mentioned how he had to get braces even though his teeth were fine. I broke my ankle over 10 years ago and I still have a visceral reaction when I think about it because I remember what it felt and sounded like.

I pretty much figured it had to be the wife early on in the episode, but I'm not gonna lie......when they did the coffee cup thing I thought (for a brief moment) it might be Quayle and they were "activating" him somehow. Now we just need to figure out how long Prime Claire has been his wife. Someone mentioned in another episode (maybe the Ambassador?) how much time and effort was dedicated to getting her in place in Alpha World, so it'll be interesting to see how long she's been there/when she took over Alpha Clare's place. I wonder if he started hiring escorts when Prime Claire showed up? Oh man, I hadn't even thought that might be the school, but that makes sense. It looks like we're going to learn more about The School next week, I know Pope is the mastermind, but I think it's run by a woman since Lotte Verbeek (does her character have a name?) said "she talks about you all the time" when she told Claire she was a year behind her. Speaking of Pope......I wonder how many spies he actually has on both sides? ITA. I'm kind of hoping she an Howard Prime somehow team up. She's a contract assassin and not a part of The School, right? I feel like once this season ends I'm going to have to binge it through in a couple sittings to see what I missed the first time around.

The census stuff is intriguing. I wonder if the population of Prime World is significantly lower than Alpha’s due to the pandemic? And what happened post 2011? That was the latest year Richard Shiff was willing to give up, right? Also, is the woman working with Baldwin a double for the Nurse in Alpha world? I was super tired when I watched this ep so my eyes may be playing tricks on me.

Ok, so lower than I thought, but still. I just think it’d be weird the introduce a double for one of the main characters only to kill them pretty much right away.

RE: Baldwin/Nadia's age. About half way through, I had to remind myself that my personal rule about any show with parallel universes, alternate timelines or doubles is to wait until the season is over until I really dig into what appear to be plot holes early on in a season. Usually get addressed, in some way, down the line and then I can nitpick. If the creator did indeed spend a lot of time on the 2 worlds then it'd be hard to imagine them even considering an actor in their late 20's to play the part. if it didn't line up. I do have a question though..........Nadia can't be dead, right? Why go through the trouble of a having a scene where Prime Howard asks for something to slip in her drink and a scene where we see him put said thing in her drink, only for her to die by the end of the episode? I mean, we only have Aldrich's word, we never saw her body and the shot was to her shoulder.

So, I finally got around to watching Neon Demon and it managed to be both ridiculous and really boring. Anyway, I thought most of the acting in it was either way underplayed or over-the-top, but I really hope Abbey Lee is able to carve out a decent career. I thought she was the only good thing about Neon Demon and I know her part in Fury Road was small, but I thought she was great there as well.

RIGHT?!?! If this show had just been those 3 doing what they fucking do best, I would've enjoyed it a lot more.

Guys. I'm genuinely only watching this show for 2 things: 1. Zach dying is some terrible way. 2. Dutch getting to be the one who kills Eichorst. I'll save #2 for another ep, but .... #1 has to happen, right? Right?!?!? He has no redeeming qualities at all. Also, Quinlan? Don't give Fet credit for Charlotte saving your asses. Damn, this show makes me cranky.

You guys? I continue to be baffled at how clean the city looks. Show, you can't just shove a couple overloaded shopping carts on a side walk and start a trashcan fire and make me think the city is in shambles. Seriously, the building exteriors were so damn clean. I work retail and the parking lot I traverse through five days a week looks more akin to what the show keeps telling me the city looks like. I'm still pissed the show left Dutch out of the S2 finale. One of our main goodguys is kidnapped by a main bad guy, imprisioned, psychologically tortured, chased through a fucked up hotel, and nearly raped via vombie stinger, but no biggie. We don't need to know. Oh, turns out she somehow managed to hook up woth some hacker she used to know even though they don't really have any way to communicate? Sure. Why not. Whatever. Ugh. Anyway, I'm glad she's back. I'm bummed she was slumming it with those morons, but at least the was a badass while killing the vombies and chopping that dudes head off. Setrakian would have approved. This is silly, and I've brought it up every season, but whhhhyyyyy are they fucking with Kevin Durand's hotness?!?!?! I have had a crush on that man since Mystery, Alaska and the Shoe Polish level dye they slather atop his head and upon his chin makes me want to tear my hair our. It's awful. Speaking of Fet, as soon as that lady sat down I knew they were going to sex it up. Which would be fine if the show didn't turn it into some awful triangle with Fet , Kate (?) and Dutch. Which I'm sure they will and I'm preemptively hating it already. I remember during the last 3rd if S1 I just wanted the show to be Setrakian, Fet and Dutch (who weren't all googly-eyed about each other) just being awesome and killing vombies. I believe I also wanted Gus involved, but it was purely because he is pretty and I just wanted to look at him. Anyway, those were fun times. Show, you can still make that happen. Zach is still the worst. He might also be the stupidest, which is saying a lot. He saw his mother attack the lab/secret hideout place where she tried to kill Eph and Nora and then he straight up actually saw his mom more or less kill Nora (while Nora was trying to protect him) and he willingly went with her!!!!!!!! Now he is shocked (SHOCKED!) that his mother is feeding on some kid. Idiot. I hope he dies. I know that's awful, but I actively pull for his demise every time he's on screen. I can't muster up excitement for Quinlan. On paper he is awesome, but he's just meandering around right now. Quinlan? If you remember you are a badass I will let you join the show with Setrakian, Fet, Dutch and Hot Gus killing vombies and being awesome that exists in my head. Has this show always referred to the Master's blood (or whaever that is) as "the white" because I do not remember that at all. Between "the white" and Fet saying "muncher" all the damn time it's like the writers are trying to help out whoever will write the eventual porn parody or something.