sweetandsour

I don't agree at all with how the writer had Lucy and Tim frame the Seth issue. It's not simply because he lied a couple of times. It's not that he lies "on the job," but not "about the job" as Tim put it. And even in those terms, Seth is in fact lying about the job. He tosses out his lies as excuses for his poor performance so that performance is minimized and/or the person he is lying to backs off any consequences. He lied about OD gf because he corrupted a crime scene with his puke, he lied about car crash gf because he did such a piss-poor job photographing the car accident, and he lied about cancer (the first time) because he was late to work. Now lying about cancer again because he's been caught in his lies! I'm sure if Smitty lied about forgetting to do something or being late somewhere with the excuse, "I was qualifying for the Olympics," that lie would be treated differently. It drives me nuts when I see articles do the same mis-framing. Like Dani Mather, that awful ex-Playboy woman who took a photo of an older naked woman in a gym locker room and posted it to her IG with the caption, "If I have to see this, you do, too" or something like that. Almost all of the articles about her being expelled from 24 Hour Fitness and facing criminal charges cited the "body shaming" first. Yeah, she did that, but she is not a convicted criminal because she said mean stuff about how a woman looks. It was about invasion of privacy. I agree with all others that Lucy needs to tell Grey about it immediately. But not "he lied about a couple of tragedies," as she said to Tim. He lies to make excuses for incompetence. Tim said, "Grey isn't going to bounce him just because he brags." Bragging is not the problem!!! If bragging was the problem, the country boy probie would have been kicked out on Day 1. I am so tired of this show making their villains such mustache-twirling caricatures. Jason was out here trying to tie Bailey to some railroad tracks. I really hope they let Seth Gabel play this serial killer with a more low-key evil. He can do the caricature villain (the vertigo Count on Arrow, for example) and the shifty maybe-vlliain (Big Sky). Just let him play it cool. Also agree Nolan was a total idiot for not suspecting "the drunk girl" who tripped his alarm. She said she climbed over something to get in, but Nolan has a very tall courtyard door and walls outside his front door. She did not drunkenly climb over that in her confusion!!! Come on, you are a non-rookie police officer!

Yes, it was about as "dastardly as Mateo's "attack" on the tree guy was "savage." I know prosecutors will use whatever language suits them (well, all lawyers), but if one punch with mild injury at best is "savage," what do they call actually cruel beatings? What I wanted most, knowing Sierra McClain would not appear, is that Judd gets a phone call from her and announces to everyone that Grace is coming home. Five month flash-foward plus time she was gone before the asteroid is well over a year at this point. But no, Grace is just so OK with missing that much time in Charlie's life? Knowing that Judd had to send Charlie to live with Grace's parents for months? Sure. Suuuuuuuure. I was waiting for a Paul moment where Jax appeared in the flash-forward, or Paul made a passing reference to Jax entering the fire academy (or whatever it's called) because he's 18 now and believes the fire department is where he can be his true self, fearless and non-binary. Not really a storyline for Paul, per se, but paying it forward and mentoring the next generation. I didn't need this - because these two do not register for me at all - but it would have been nice if Tommy's daughters delivered any lines with passing adequacy as actors. This was their last chance to do it. But no, that didn't happen either. They didn't seem to indicate what Jonah calls Carlos. Presumably Carlos. So why is TK testing out "Papa Bro?" If Jonah calls Carlos "Papa Carlos," he should just call TK "Papa TK." If Jonah calls Carlos "Carlos," he can just call TK "TK." Why doesn't the nuclear reactor have a failsafe where, if it reaches a certain temperature, it automatically shuts off? I don't know how this works in real life. They established from the start that someone had to manually hit the SCRAM button. But if the reactor is capable of detecting and announcing approaching meltdown, why can't it shut itself off? And for the most important closure point - Did Wayne Knight get to enjoy his burger with his new neighbor friends, or did an asteroid piece take him out??

I will say, the impressive sightings this week of MC Hammer and Jesus partially made up for substandard Cam!

Sir's accomplice is ... Shaker!!!! Just kidding. Shaker (the black detective who works with Trent) is probably my favorite character and the only one I could probably tolerate in real life. Gabi is getting incensed that Trent walks into their office without knocking now, but still expects him to do all kinds of shit for her and the team. I appreciate what she does for missing people, but she is unbearable. Ethan sucks. He should never have entered a relationship with, let alone married, a patient, even if Dhan stopped seeing him first. And it is extra dumb because Ethan should know better than anyone how much Dhan's trauma affected him and still affects him, so the way Dhan deals with it by prioritizing Gabi and M&A should be no surprise to him. Yet he is indignant and angry about it like ... he couldn't have known that Dhan is like this the whole time? He expects Dhan to be different? It's reasonable and justified for him to blame Gabi for this? OK buddy. Take your Janet Jackson grinding stories and move the fuck on out of here. I do not want this marriage to be saved.

Coming in late here, but a couple of things: The term I've seen is "fractional series regular," which means the series regular actor is contracted to be in a set number, but not all, of the episodes over the season. I'm almost positive that's what I saw discussed for shows like The Vampire Diaries and characters like Bonnie in later seasons. I don't know that I've seen it reported, but I am pretty sure that's what's going on with all of the Chicago shows on NBC. There is often someone missing from the series regulars in every episode. It's either not mentioned at all (well, they might just have the day off from the hospital on Med, or no one talks about how a firefighter on the same shift as everyone else isn't there that day) or "Torres is on furlough," "Torres is helping his mom out," and so on. Those examples are all later seasons of established shows that get more expensive the longer they go on, so they cut back in other ways. Ghosts is a newer show, but it started out as not including everyone except Sam and Jay in every episode. The ghost actors' initial and currently in-effect contracts may perhaps stipulate they are fractional series regulars, and their presence in more episodes beyond that in seasons 2 and 3 may be in addition to the terms of the contract. Anyway, I also wanted to share these fun clips of Rose's many talents from her iZombie days. In this episode, she and her Medical Examiner boss went undercover at an amateur dance contest/reality show. She can move and she looks like the most radiant dancer doll here. Bonus points for Rahul Kohli and Malcolm Goodwin dancing, too. (Rahul in both clips, Malcolm in the second one.)

Carlos' father was murdered before the wedding. TK and Carlos were going to postpone and cancel the existing arrangements, but Carlos' mother never questioned that the wedding would proceed and it ultimately did. I like Benito Martinez as much as the next person, but the only way it would make sense to spend this much time finding their murderer in the last season is if it were Owen. And they definitely knew this could be their last season when they were making it. I was so second-hand embarrassed that dozens of grown adults executed this storyline of gaining greater insurance coverage so quickly. Everything about it was wrong wrong wrong. They paid Henry Ian Cusick to be in two episodes and he was barely even in this one. Nor did it matter that he played this peripheral character no one was interested in - could have just hired an unknown day player. Yet they didn't want to pay Sierra McClain. Make it make sense.

I also think season 2 has made changes for the better. Not sure if there is a particular source for this, but I have noticed new names in the credits this season - specifically Elwood Reid and Ryan O'Nan, who were producers/writers of "Big Sky." (Ryan O'Nan also played Donno.) Now, whether you liked "Big Sky" is a different story, but if they are driving any of these changes on "Tracker," good job. Something similar happened on season 2 of "Alert: Missing Persons Unit." The incumbent producers or new producers wisely dropped some really annoying element of season 1. (Nikki stopped promising to "bring your baby back," which is completely inappropriate to promise and she would always say that even if the missing person was 50 years old and she was not talking to their actual parent.) The scenery is beautiful but it never looks that different, even when they are allegedly in a new town and state. Except for the wine country episode. CBS seems to have given "Tracker" a bigger budget this year, as I'm consistently recognizing guest actors now. I wish the same were true for "Ghosts," but they seem to be operating on a tighter budget.

IIRC, back in season 1 after the Cuchillo shooting, Honda got some ribbing from other officers because he was on the front page of the newspaper. LOL I think the press got some aerial shot of him in the helicopter or something. Ostensibly, one such as Cuchillo's cousin could have found out who killed Cuchillo from the paper. I highly doubt Cuchillo's cousin reads the newspaper, but it's relevant info to be passed onto him by someone else as intel. I did think the alleged prisoner who ODed on the infirmary floor looked way too put together and groomed (mostly haircut) to be a prisoner. Him being the doctor made more sense. But I guess even well-groomed guys have early days in prison before they are not so well-groomed. I watched the end credits hoping against hope that the octopus jerk-off guy would be credited as something worthy, like "Octopus Pervert." But no, he was just down as some pedestrian "Porn Prisoner." Boo. I still miss Street and Luca a lot.

I like Patience in small-to-moderate doses, but I don't want her to be featured in every episode and every storyline. She can show up as often as Crash does. (I like Mary Holland, the actress, a lot, so that is probably making me biased.) Maybe the apparent majority of viewers will get two birds killed with one stone if Patience and Carol (where's she been, e.g. who has she been screwing?) inexplicably become best friends and they wander off to live on a corner of the property together. I think there is plenty that wasn't said that may paint Sam's mom and/or dad in a more sympathetic light. But they just did broad strokes in the episodes featuring them, and maybe we'll peel back some layers as we go along. Diane was insane to taste the red substance. No matter what it is. Even if it's tasty food like raspberry coulis. It was on the wall of an old house. Applied with some unknown tool.

The redhead's mom (aka True Owner of the Stolen Peaches) was played by Paige Davis, the longtime host of Trading Spaces!! It's nice to see her disturbed by something other than, say, Hildi's designs. I was grinding my teeth the whole time about these horrible teenagers. More so about the boys than the girls, but it was gross and sobering. The deep fake video of Remy looked so fake to the human eye. Even if you didn't know what he looks like now, it looked so fake. I might be more inclined to believe it if someone played it off an old, low-quality VHS recording but this was allegedly a press conference that day. Looking forward to the season-ending revelation that Remy has TMJ, gasp!!!

Bode to Weasely Uncle Leone - "Everyone thinks you're a bad guy! Prove them wrong! By using your power for nepotism! Get me to skip the line in front of hundreds (or more) aspiring firefighters! It's for the good of the world! The entire world!!!! Everyone will think you're a great guy if you would just push a nepo-baby! Do it for Firefighter Jesus!!!!" I think we are all used to seeing drawn-out "will they or won't they?" but Gabriella and Bode are so dumb together. They are incredibly immature people apart and no better together. Gabriella, you're not the victim here. I really wish the show would get her to realize this and actually take steps to be a better person. Who paid for the "congrats" banner to fly during the indoor wedding ceremony? Where the only people who would want to see it can't see it? Or was the pilot paid to fly around with the banner for an hour? What a waste. I can never get over the constant breaks during firefighting to indulge everyone's personal issues. How is any sense of urgency real when any two people, at any given time, are stopping to bemoan their ridiculous drama?

Yeah, the show is definitely losing a lot of steam vs. what TPTB expected from it. I honestly don't mind this show. It's an easy watch. But that's sort of an inadvertent back-handed compliment. I watch it soon after it airs because it requires so little of me. I don't have to be in the right mood, I don't have to think, I just look at it. Beautiful scenery, characters that are annoying in ways that don't make an impression on me after the 40 minute are up. But boy, did I say "yes!" out loud when Ian Anthony Dale (hot fireman) showed up. I forgot he has a recurring role so I was legit surprised. Very pleasantly surprised. Now you're talking, show. I mildly appreciate that the character we have the least handle on is the white man. At this point, all we keep seeing is he's Em's ex, it's kinda awkward, he wants to be a fireman (or his lady really wants him to be one), and he's so chill that he tells everyone else to chill all the time and he took the bad job switch news very inwardly. But that's not a full character, those are bullet points on an index card. I want to see more to him. Doesn't hurt that Adam Demos is nice to look at and great to listen to.

Rob Lowe's favorite part of the episode - a verbal proclamation for all to hear, "You're too tall!" It annoyed me that, amidst Owen's flailing and total indecision about promoting Marjan or Paul, he was so steadfast and firm and immediate in turning down Judd. Like, OK fine, decide that I guess, but it seemed like an extra turn in the blade to be so decisive about that when Owen was going to punt the LT decision to test results. That tied to the hundredth of a percentage. Sure. Suuuuuuuure. I'm not sure if the reporter is just a victim to save in the next episode, but when I first saw her, I assumed she was going to end up a new girlfriend for Owen. "Oh great, he gets his own Taylor." (Buck's reporter ex from 9-1-1.) I enjoyed Mateo's contribution this episode. It also made me that more annoyed about how poorly they use him in general. That awful 80s sitcom tv show episode in a previous season, or whatever the hell that was! I don't need any reason to eat a ton of donuts. No one has to ask me, "what's going on with you?" because I did. All that's going on is, I like donuts. IIRC, the 126 station was already destroyed once in a season finale and then rebuilt the next season. But I wouldn't put it past this show to somehow destroy it again at the end of the series, or redraw jurisdictions for stations, so that the 126 is eliminated entirely. But of course, the 126 is such a lauded and special house of firefighters that they are all purposely scattered across the country to bring their skills and leadership to firehouses in other large cities. Like a reverse of how they all came together in the pilot. Then they all get to be lieutenants somewhere. Including Mateo. Provided he gets accommodations so he can pass the exam. We all know what happened with his initial exam to bump up from probie. Still miss Grace. A lot. They need to at least show us Judd's end of phone conversations with her. They don't need to provide audio of her voice. Just let us know they are still talking regularly and are in a good place as a couple. None of this unconnected call business.

Bee-o-swarm!!!!! ("How Did This Get Made?" listeners may recognize that.) The hijinks this episode were very welcome after they were tapered down last season. I am not sure why the second driver had soooooooooo many bees down his throat while the assistant breathing through the hose in the pool only seemed to get a couple. The second driver's bees were probably the grossest thing in the episode for me. I'm glad Mara has adjusted so well. She and Jee-Yun are so cute together. Brian Thompson (Gerrard) will always be "The Master" from season 1 of Buffy to me. He is no less personable as Gerrard, heh.

I understand how people may bristle at Dr. Lenox, but I love Sarah Ramos so I'm here for it. I also loved how, when she walked up to Goodwin and introduced herself, she was facing Maggie like she was only talking to Maggie. It would be more objectively professional to turn to Dean when talking as well, but I am sure almost all women can name moments in their careers when other employees only seemed to address the man/men in the room. I don't know why Dr. Charles' ex-girlfriend thinks it had to be Ripley who beat up her brother. Even though she ignores how awful of a person her brother is, he must have a lot of people who hate him. It's well-established he has a gambling problem, too. Not that his sister will hear of it. She only gave up her own fucking house to pay off his earlier debt, so NBD ... Abrams for the win as always. I don't want Abrams Med, but I never want him to stop popping up. Goodbye Crockett. Are we to assume he went to Boston in particular because that's where Pamela (transplant surgeon mentor and ex) went? He doesn't think she would take him back, does he?? Oh well, either way. Heal your old family wounds in Boston, Marcel. It was nice knowing you. Maybe no one else will ever use 2.0 again, except for the mystery people who were maintaining it after it imploded live and Jack Dayton stopped putting any money into it.