monocles

I sent Sarah where the Nolan-Weiss civil suit currently stands and she asked me to share it here (yay, unlimited Lexis use due to law school!) In 2014, Weiss sued Nolan and Buchbinder for assault, battery, slander and defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, medical malpractice, and negligence. The IIED charge was dismissed for being duplicative of the other claims. In December 2015, there was a family court order which found that Weiss proved, by a preponderance of evidence, that Buchbinder had conspired with Nolan to kill Weiss (this finding was made as part of a visitation decision - I will let people who have more experience with family courts than my one semester of family law comment on how binding this is on the civil court. From reading the 2017 opinions, it looks like it was very persuasive) In April 2016, the court granted partial summary judgement to Weiss on the assault and battery claims, so those are done and decided in Weiss's favor. In April 2017, Buchbinder tried to get punitive damages and attorney's fees off the table, and tried to undo the 2016 partial summary judgement for Weiss. Both motions were denied. And nothing since then, or at least nothing that involved a judicial opinion. Given the rate at which cases settle rather than go to a jury, I'm guessing that's where this is headed, especially if she is already thinking ahead to damages. Also, fun fact, one of the keywords for the 2014 opinion is "sledgehammer," which I guess means this comes up enough that Lexis felt the need to highlight it.

I am probably the only person appreciating that Tupelo Honey shoutout, because I am literally only watching the show at this point to see how many Chattanooga locations I recognize per episode

I really hope that was Xanthippe that they briefly showed - I'm guessing I was in a minority on this but I always liked that character (it was probably the German soccer joke she made). Also, as much as I love Netflix generally, the Lemonade references really do show the problem with the "drop it all at once" model; I'm sure it was timely when it was written, and Beyonce is forever, but Lemonade will be more than a year old by the time this drops.

I realize that my reaction to this should not have been "awww!" but I seriously couldn't help myself at seeing them in their little Ghostbuster jumpsuits.

I am very happy for this show to finally premiere so that Spotify will (hopefully) stop incessantly playing the promo for it.

Late Night's coverage of this has been both great and surreal because I'm currently in a health law class with a professor who looks a lot like Seth Meyers. Although I'm pretty sure Seth Meyers is just saying what my prof wants to say in class, so... (he did start yesterday with "The theme of this semester will be 'forget everything I said last class, because I have no idea anymore.'")

And the lazy thick-browed girls of the world celebrate that trend.

The Martha Stewart and Seth Meyers relationship is one of my favorite on tv.

I've been coming off a stomach bug, so looking at all those meat pies was ROUGH and I think I almost relapsed. Why couldn't it have been Very Plain Bread and Biscuits Week?

Ooh, I'm glad you're doing this! I'm halfway through the second season but stalled out, so this will inspire me to get back on it. I'm watching it for the first time (and was not the target audience when it came out - I think I was still in high school when it ended) and it's a weird little relic. You're right that most of it holds up, but there are so many "huh" moments.

That hair Bradley Cooper was rocking in the first season is really blooper enough.

One of my favorite shows as a kid was Adventures of Pete & Pete, which would hold up on the basis that it is still, 20 years later, ahead of its time. (This was a children's show that featured Patty Hearst as a guest star. And that was not even in the top 20 weird things on that show.)

Even though it has been done before in various media, I would love it if they did the Clutter family murder as memorialized in In Cold Blood. The book left out/changed a lot so there's new ground to cover, and I feel like so many of the people involved would be character types that Ryan Murphy is already obsessed with (Capote is the obvious one, but also the teenagers involved, the probably clinically depressed mother, the murders themselves) that he'd have a field day adapting it. (And obviously Connie Britton for Harper Lee even if she's the totally wrong age.)

Can we please discuss the reveal that Larry King was simultaneously dating a woman working for the prosecution and one for the defense? I actually yelled "NO" in the middle of a service station waiting room when I got to that part.

Sawyer's nicknaming always bugged me, but it was worth for that time he referred to Michael and Jin as "Han and Chewie" when they were building the boat.

LOVE this show. The only thing that bugs me is that Mel and Sue can feel redundant at times. But I also think this is another US vs. UK divide, where the one-host model is pretty traditional here and the UK's like "the more the merrier!" BUT, it's great. My PBS station was showing another season recently and I seriously started crying in one episode when my favorite contestant knew how badly they had done and was trying to hold it together after judging.

It's a weird mix of director and subject matter, but the 12 year old me who was obsessed with Moulin Rouge hasn't died and I did touchdown-arms throughout watching this.

It's a sign of how awful everyone's hair can be on this show that my reaction to Amber's purple hair was "Well, at least it's all one color."

Joe!!

re: Serial overexposure, I think it exists for people who were listening to it and definitely for people who were aware of it and didn't love it, but the number of people who don't even know it was a thing is weirdly huge. I was with about 20 law students last month, which is a group of people who you would think would be into it, and only one person had heard of it. Someone legit asked "...like, breakfast cereal?" So maybe the show is hoping to get that market of people who don't have podcasts on their radar?

I loooove that 30 for 30 episode. The footage of Bob Costas during commercial trying to figure out what he's supposed to say about the chase during a basketball game is so bizarre that it almost isn't real.

Oh man, the fact that this is all on Netflix now is very exciting news and I thank you for bringing it to me! I've only ever seen one episode, when I was studying abroad in London and we watched an episode in our British Culture class (we watched Hot Fuzz the next week and that movie is so much funnier once you've watched Midsomer Murders since it's almost a direct parody). I eagerly look forward to exploring more episodes!

Regardless if this happens or not (which, it needs to, don't get me wrong), we just need Jennifer Garner back on our televisions. I don't know why some actors are better suited to tv than movies, but she is one of them. If not as Sydney Bristow, she should at least come back on a Shonda show.

I was really excited for this show until I saw an interview with one of the producers in which he said something along the lines of "We're worried that Americans will think that magic is what ended the Napoleonic Wars!" And look, I'm still going to watch it because I enjoyed the book and I'm interested in seeing how it'll translate to the screen. But that "Americans gotta be so dumb" stance doesn't make me particularly interested in seeking out any other work by this team once the series ends.

It's so weird to hear the words "subversive nihilism" in regards to one of my favorite shows when I was 4. You totally would have had my vote...for a different episode. (Maybe the episode that's one big The Shining reference? Or the Paris two-parter.) Even as a kid this episode always seemed too angry to me.