sweetandsour

I get that the point of Adam's side-story was to very explicitly tie into his recognition of the family he still has, and the older actor was good, but I was not really into it. And this is coming from someone who loves Adam! I just think the writers have never known what to do with him once they made him a regular. Honestly, I feel like they did a better job progressively easing Jerry the fringe conspiracy theorist into a support position on the team than they did with Adam. They really messed up not having him leverage his organized crime expertise in a proficient way. (Last season's disaster was unspeakable.) As it is, he's on the team because he's Steve's jilted good friend, and that's a shame. Anyway, I have definitely noticed this past season or so that they sometimes have everyone but one team member working. Besides the episodes where Caan doesn't appear at all, Danny wasn't working during the hurricane/storm episode, and he didn't even get called for an emergency once the hitman was brought in for safekeeping at the Palace. Grover wasn't working that one episode earlier in the year with the super-hot temperatures (the one where he spent the day torturing that poor caddy on the blazing hot golf course). I don't think Grover was working on Thanksgiving, either, during that awful Thanksgiving episode Chi McBride wrote, though that is a holiday.

I laughed so loud at their Sylvester Stallone ska band and "stop or my mom will ska!" It's their only song!

Guys! I'm so happy there's a thread for this abomination of a show! I haven't watched it yet, but did have the "meet the ambassadors" episode playing in the background one day. All I could think was, "I don't want to know any of these people in real life!" I assume one of the reasons these people were cast is to edit Lindsay as the wise, measured elder (who's allegedly not that old) and bosslady, in comparison to these fools and their antics. And regarding "the Lohan brand," I think Lindsay believes she's managing it well because she's comparing it to what her mom tried to do a while ago (google tells me 2010) with her own line of shoes. Dina was apparently calling this brand "Shoe-han," but it never saw the light of day. So sadly, no one owns a pair of "Shoe-hans." Travesty. I also urge you, whether you have seen it before or not, to go and watch "I Know Who Killed Me" and then listen to the "How Did This Get Made?" podcast for that movie. I don't think that edition is up on iTunes anymore, but you can listen to it via youtube. This is the prestigious acting career Lindsay fronts like she left behind.

Guyssss, I don't understand the timeline of the last 7 minutes or so (everything after the last commercial break). It's clearly still late at night, pre-sunrise. Lena makes a recording citing Adam's death at 4:03 am. No way has an entire day passed and she's just now recording her notes on the next night. But after the events at "surprise! I exist!" island, both Kara and James are at the office - again, pre-sunrise. Okay, fine, they don't go to bed and go to work instead. Then James heads over to Lena's office - again, same night, pre-sunrise - let's say about 5 am, maybe 5:30 am, holding up a bag and suggesting, "let's eat the pasta I just bought for us and have a spontaneous date at this hour!" Like everyone else, I agree there are sooooo many questions about Shelley Island and these power dampeners created by humans that seemingly aren't in the DEO. And WOW. Way to protect those dampener machines! There was no security or shield for them whatsoever. So an alien can't destroy them with alien powers that have been dampened, but if they're carrying weapons to destroy the dampeners, it's back to business. I don't understand where these jokes about Kara and pie are coming from this season. Alex joked about Kara's burnt mess like it was a reheated turkey, but it was clearly a charred pie. And why did the destruction of county fair pies in a previous episode deserve a special lamentation from Kara, but nothing for her own burnt disaster? I guess they turned down the Dean Winchester channeling this episode. I personally am not enjoying J'onn's storylines at all this season. I want him back to being a BAMF. And I know this show generally has the characters hold overly simplistic perspectives, but I've been totally over it for a while. Mostly I'm really over Kara being so shocked that people don't share her overly simplistic viewpoint. That said, I also thought James was being a real bonehead and Lena/Tess are immensely disappointing in their complete myopia of the chaos/danger that will result in some/all humans having superpowers. Fiona would be horrified by what's become of the man she was going to marry.

I know Cisco really only names the metas, but by now, he should have officially ordained Joe as "The Chairman." I really wish The Flash writers had taken note of the consistent criticisms on their sister show "Supergirl" about Ruby's characterization last year. No one enjoyed watching a young teenager act like an eight-year-old. No one enjoys watching a mid-20's young woman act like a petulant 15-year-old. It's exhausting and not fun and absolutely not the way to go about the storytelling unless the goal is to get people to dislike Nora from the jump. And if it's the writers' intention to make Nora's newfound maturity later in the season part of her journey - well, honestly, that might be too little, too late for the audience. Not unlike Ralph's arc last year, and I think a lot of viewers would like Ralph a lot better now if he hadn't been painted so poorly in early s4. I wonder if some version of Eobard in the future got Nora to run back into the past to mess with the timeline for his own nefarious purposes. Though I don't know what a villain would gain from that - would have to be something not related to the Flash since a villain would be happy that the Flash disappeared in the existing timeline. I found it kind of distracting how much Spencer/Spyn resembled Cecile. And what an idiot Spencer was with her time-stamps. Yes, very in keeping with the fact that she's never been a real reporter and paid attention to the details, but a real rookie move.

Loved her as Dr. Weaver and also I love that she's still married to David Brisbin! Lots of fun childhood memories of him as Mr. Ernst on "Hey Dude." It's a little wild and a little strange when you make a home out on the range ... Better watch out for those man-eating jackrabbits - and that killer cacti - heeeeeeeey duuuuuuude!

I really hope that Miller isn't a bad guy. Yes, it's fine for him to be a fallible boyfriend, causing Bonnie to end it with him at a later point, but I want him to be a good guy because his reaction to Bonnie's revelations was what she needed to hear and feel. I don't want that to be tainted later by his ulterior motives or assholery. Bonnie's been through more than enough and will continue to be put through the ringer. It's not feasible in the moment, but I would have laughed so hard if Connor discovered Asher with Connor's mom and yelled out, "gross-eries!" Michaela doing finger-guns with sound effects was quite possibly the most un-Michaela-like thing I've ever seen her do.

Welp, the only thing I have to say about Brothers Halstead and Ray Burke is that during the final car conversation between Jay and Will, I was chanting to myself, "Please make Ray Burke a mobster, please make Ray Burke a mobster," because Jesse Lee Soffer was the brother of a mob doctor (though she was his sister) on "The Mob Doctor" a few years ago. And they didn't disappoint me there! I have to believe the show writers know this about Jesse's acting history and it wasn't a coincidence. One of the things that annoys me the most about April's judginess is that she rejects anyone's judgment of her enabling of her brother because she knows best and other people don't understand. But when it comes to other people's relationships with their siblings (when it comes to anything, really), she disapproves of everything. Sure, Noah is an ER doctor and Emily is a habitual screw-up, but Noah has a lot of shortcomings, too, and April is Queen of Coddle City when it comes to him. Curry is going to end up killing someone(s) because she approaches medicine and treating patients like she's a robot. I don't think she'll necessarily learn from it (she will say in monotone, "but the science says that should have worked"). Maybe no one can prove what she did with the ultrasound machine, but she needs it on her record and her (robot) conscience that she is not a good doctor - see all of these cases. Actually, the only thing that the Monster CEO is good for is getting pissed off at something Curry does that threatens the hospital. Then Monster CEO can boot her and then hopefully the next episode, get fired herself.

Peach is the real trash goblin!!! Well, the "overdose." I wish that had backfired on her in that Beck/Joe called for an ambulance on the way to Peach's place. Beck is definitely caught in a doom loop with Peach - Peach has (allegedly) tried suicide multiple times in the past and Beck didn't call for medical help when Peach called her or after she helped Peach throw up. How exactly does Beck reconcile all of these attempts with "no, she doesn't need real help - she says I'm enough and I guess I am." I know Beck has a rather weak mental constitution and doesn't want to argue with Peach, but geez. Either that, or she on some level knows that it's always a ploy and Peach has never actually tried to die. (Which still necessitates professional help, btw.) I also think it's incredibly (but believably) insensitive for Peach to pull these stunts on Beck. It's not the same thing as Beck going to the basement and finding her dad passed out with a needle in his arm, but luring Beck into these manipulated settings where Peach is passed out and Beck has to save her is potentially very damaging. I know this is going to sound insensitive on my part, but Beck has to find other sources of inspiration than writing her partially-fictional account of her experiences with her father. It's fine for now because at least she's writing about something instead of being blocked / avoiding writing altogether, but the paid jobs that her professor was helping her connect with aren't necessarily going to allow her to go to that well. The girl needs money more than ever since The Captain isn't going to be subsidizing like before. And it was crazy to me that she went from the lows of not turning in work at all to thinking she was ready to be published through a prestigious agent. Peach's journal! She wrote down the pills she took! Trash. Goblin. I read what was on the page when Joe first discovered her journal, and I'm pretty sure at least 20% of her supreme bitchiness is due to constant hunger. Also, who eats "0.2 cups" of anything? I don't have measuring cups or spoons that show that denomination. Peach is the type of person, though, who would bark at someone preparing her food - "NO, not 1/4th cup of that, 1/5th! 1/5th! Why is this so hard to do?" I really laughed at how she also tracks info on her bowels and gas. Beck and every single one of her friends is an empty vessel. No wonder they hang out together in such a superficial frenemies way. And no wonder why Beck has such a poor handle on who she is. That adage about being the average of the five people you spend the most time with has a real degree of truth. I wish Joe had played the long game with Peach better. He's gotten a sense of her obsession, instability, manipulations, and lashing out. There are ways he could have used Peach against herself (she seems to unravel in previews) without directly engaging with her as an enemy in the foreground. That gives him more plausible deniability with Beck, too. Though that was probably the point of him advising Paco about playing the long game when neither of them could. Beck was a complete asshole when she didn't stick up for Joe as Peach was rifling through his things because Beck, a guest Joe trusts to be at his place alone, let her inside. I don't know why she so easily refuted Peach the previous episode ("Joe didn't steal your book!") and then in this episode, just stood there like, "Don't put me in the middle, I don't want to admit that my friend is being a crazy bitch, can we just pretend this conflict isn't happening and really, can I just get what I want out of being close to both of you?" And then she accused Joe of not believing in her when he's the ONLY person in her personal life who does. (I don't count the professor here.) Joe Joe Joe. You threw the bloody rock away too close to the scene of the crime. It might not have usable prints, depending on the surface texture, and maybe any of his DNA left behind (from sweat, skin cells, etc.) will wash away from being outside in the elements, but that was a real rookie move, bro. I could go on and on, but I guess I'll stop. Touche, bitch!!!

Episode would have been better with two additions to the credits - 1. The opening credits - "with Chi McBride" "and EDDIE!!!!!!" 2. The guest star credits - "and Britney's 'Oops I Did It Again' catsuit"

I'm glad others have picked up on the similarities between shitty neighbor Ron and Dexter characters. I started calling Ron "Doakes" last night and I will not be stopping anytime soon. I don't think Joe has killed before unless he's that unreliable of a narrator or he doesn't view what he's done in the past as killing. In episode 2, he says in his voiceover something like, "oh if only I was a killer, this would be so much easier," when he's got Benjizos locked up in the room. He also says in a VO along the lines of "who wants to be a killer?" in a tone of voice that implies he's averse to it. That said, I don't know if someone who has never killed before would progress to dosing Benjizos with peanut oil and being that blasé around a dead, rotting body. Of course, the shop owner and Candace could have died in ways that Joe doesn't define as killing. (Like if he was chasing after Candace who was scared of his obsession, she tripped, fell, hit her head, and died.) If Mr. Mooney is dead but he's allegedly still alive, Joe must be running the bookstore for him, either pretending to be him (like filing taxes) or as though Mr. Mooney has delegated these responsibilities to Joe in his old age. I find it interesting how Joe keeps trying to figure out who Beck really is. Some people base an obsession on who they want the other person to be and they cling to that. Joe's interpretation is still subjective, but he hasn't decided she must be a certain way and run with it. Though I agree with others above that Joe's desire to figure Beck out is because his understanding of her is directly related to how he sees and feels about himself. And of course he can't figure out who she is because she hasn't figured out who she is. I don't even think she wants to be a writer. She loves the idea of being a writer, but she's too scared of failure that would push her to find a new identity, so she avoids turning in work for others to appraise. I honestly think she would be secretly relieved if she was kicked out of the program for financial reasons because she wouldn't have lost her dream due to her own creative shortcomings. She could blame it on factors other than her level of talent and passion. Speaking of, I get confused by the inconsistency in her financial worries. She didn't need to keep that TA position for extra spending money. She needed it to pay her basic living and school expenses. She didn't seem to worry over buying a new phone to replace the one Joe stole. She didn't seem to have a problem buying a new bedframe after she broke the other one during her bartender sex romp. I'd think a financially struggling grad student would get a cheap IKEA bedframe or just those basic metal rails. I don't know how this long-term disappearance of Benjizos is going to go. His richie-rich family has a lot of resources to look for him. He obviously had some issues with his partner, Jonno (?), but I can't imagine that Jonno will just go on like he always wanted to make the artisanal soda business work by himself anyway. Police interviews will uncover that no one has seen Benjizos since the day he disappeared and a dump of his communications will find that catfishing e-mail from Joe, which presumably could be traced to some degree. I wonder if they're going to overlook all of this or it'll come back to haunt Joe later. Peach(es) is definitely into Beck. They seem to allude to it in every episode. When Peach was telling Beck at the hospital that Beck needs to be with someone who will take care of her financially and allow her to be free and create, she's not just putting Joe down as a love interest - she was talking about herself. I think a big part of Joe's appeal is his sense of humor and sarcasm. As creepy as his behaviors are, his reactions to the people around him are funny and I think most people would enjoy that in a vacuum. I have to wonder why he chose Beck, though. He works in retail where he interacts with people regularly. He's not a social isolate and Beck is the neighbor across the hall. Was their first interaction really that compelling to him? I guess so.

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. And is entirely what I suspected, even if I tried to give the show's design the benefit of the doubt. I understand that getting to the top of Mount Midoriyama was always a fundamental aspect of Ninja Warrior, but it seems to set the show up for some really unwelcome controversy if a man and woman ever get there together. Like I realize that (for demonstration purposes) Lance Pekus would be lugging a lot more body weight than Jesse LeBreck, but he still has the upper hand. Hardcore female gymnasts do drills where they climb ropes with their legs out perpendicular (body forming an L) so it's solely upper body to get up there, but I don't know if they could do 75 feet in the time allotment or beat the men. Nor could they get to stage 4 in the first place. Even controlling for height differences, I imagine a man would still take fewer pulls to get up the same height because his upper body strength allows him a bigger reach. That said, I don't know how the show would implement a more level playing field. Though I'm sure they're confident it'll take many more seasons to need to, if ever. They would probably just keep making stage 3 harder to begin with.

I'm not a rope climber, so I don't know what attributes make a person a successful rope climber, never mind a fast one, never mind faster than other people. But let's say a male and a female competitor make it to level 4 and it's a race to the top like it was with Geoff vs. Isaac. Is the rope climb an obstacle where a woman's chances of beating a man are "reasonably" fair? Obviously there are instances where body types can be different (like if it was Jessie vs. 5'1" Tyler Y), possibly favoring the female in some ways (reach, etc.). But otherwise ... does stage 4, which decides the winner if advanced to, seem predisposed to favor a man? We're not close to that kind of match-up, but on paper, is that a raw deal for the women? If so, that sucks for the female competitors because that would basically be like, "you can do so well that you make it past stage 3, which is a spectacular feat, but your odds of actually winning aren't very good if a man also finishes stage 3."

Guys!!! Did you know that Samantha's last name is Wheeler? I ask because everyone on the show constantly refers to her by first and last name, as though no one else knows who the hell she is when everyone knows who the hell she is. I really need someone (at this point, I don't know, maybe Brian, or a food cart guy outside the office, or the one time Patrick J Adams does a voice cameo for a phone call with Harvey) to reply with, "of course, what other Samantha is there?!" But since this is Suits, it'll probably come out more like, "bullshit, of course, what other goddamn Samantha is there?"

My assumption is that Sam and Eddie were kissing and she had a drink to try to look like a normal couple while they were looking for Trevor, so he wouldn't make them? I don't know. I liked the episode more than previous ones, but I feel like I missed a lot of little details. I don't think they were already under the influence of anything, so she was pretending to drink and maybe pretending to kiss / actually kissing but for cover only? It's believable to me that Monica would think she has a solid understanding of psychology, as a young person who thinks she knows a lot, but it's not believable to me at all that what she spouts is accurate or that the others find what she says to be credible. That one episode (the DJ kidnapping one, I think) where she profiled the kidnapper based on his ransom message was ridiculous. One thing I continue to be very confused by is the fundamental circumstance of Sam being a recognizable actress. Of course not everyone knows who she is - there are some people who haven't watched her shows/movies or pay attention to tabloids, she's not Brad Pitt - but sometimes people they encounter on their cases recognize her as a star and other times they don't. It seems very convenient when they don't, like when they need to socially engineer something out of someone and she pretends to be someone else (location scout, DHS authority, etc.). She just lies about who she is, without knowing whether they know the truth, and then it turns out they don't know who she is after all. And how lucky did she get that the Rideshare driver didn't seem to know who she was or wasn't interested in personally benefiting from it? He just turned over that tape to Monica like nothing. So yet again, convenient that he didn't know she was a famous actress and/or had no interest in trying to sell the tape to tabloids or back to her. (Though that would have been a rehash of the teenage boy who stole her sex tape ...)

I think only three of the women even got to the Broken Bridge, so if it is in fact easier than Tuning Forks (and I agree it is, but I'm not on the course so I can't say as a fact), the number who could advance through it was even lower to begin with. (But if you ran numbers, I'm sure way more than 33% of the men who got to the bridge were able to successfully get passed it.) I don't know if the low completion rate was a fluke, or maybe women don't train balance as much as one would think? Because they spend so much of their time training their upper bodies and their grip strength, knowing those obstacles are going to be really hard for them? Pure speculation. I felt bad for the lady who didn't get past the Archer Steps - it sucks to be a city finalist and go out like that. I don't think it validates the idea that top five women advancing from qualifiers might mean that some of them aren't very good, but it can't feel nice when it happens to you. That said, it did give me a little more perspective on what could even be challenging about the Archer Steps in the first place. I laughed to myself that not much of Brent Steffensen's run was shown, plus at the end when they showed the list of qualifiers to Vegas, they didn't highlight him. I don't think they should, based on relative performance, but he's just another veteran ninja now.

I checked the times and while Grant was the first one knocked out in 16th place, it was by a pretty wide margin. 15th place finisher got to the Baton Pass in around 6 minutes; Grant got there around 7. He might have played to the cameras and the crowd a lot, but I'm not sure if he would have taken his time anyway because he needed recovery. I feel fairly confident that he wouldn't have made up the minute-long gap if he'd cut down on the showiness. It was really more of the time he seemed to choose to take on the Salmon Ladder and the difficulty he had with the Cubes. So hopefully that makes him feel better - it's not like he didn't make the cut because of a few seconds of ego. I really love seeing the womens' back and arm muscles. The person I want to see complete courses, but they usually chose to WWWA or just show the end, is Josh Levin. Though he may fall into the category of so reliable and so low-key that there's no suspense in showing him. Can you imagine that Spider Trap if Kacy went through it? Seeing her little tiny body and her tiny head and her tiny neck open those doors? It's ANW: Horror Story.

Alannah (purple hair) has reminded me of someone else since the first episode she was in, and I realized today who it is - she's a cross between Bree Turner and Bella Thorne. The first part is complimentary, the second part ... is not. At this rate, if Deacon's scenes for the last four episodes were just of him still reading that book (what it is again - it's like, a Teddy Roosevelt biography or something?), I would think (a) this is the best storyline of all the characters and (b) this is Deacon's best storyline all season.

Right, I get that, and it's not that different from premium cable channels like HBO. I was responding more to what you mentioned in terms of charging for the season of a show, not a blanket subscription that covers all of the available programming. Because for a specific season, that's exactly what people are buying, not access to a catalog. Myself, I put something on streaming and fall asleep to it, so it might look like I watch something constantly, but it's really just ambient noise for zzzz's. Hulu would think I can't survive without ending my day with multiple episodes of Lucifer.

Demo ratings are more important to advertisers than total audience, but the ratios of the demo ratings across those three shows is around the same as total audience. (Well, Riverdale is the highest of the three.) Ratings don't really make sense considering they're really for the advertising part of the business model, but so many people consume programming these days through other ways. I get that CW Seed still makes you "watch" commercials, but the no-ads package on Hulu (for non-CW shows) doesn't. But that's a whole other topic of the evolving landscape and where does the revenue actually come from. Ratings don't matter at all for a show like Dynasty that had better ratings than LS, but not by much, and was also moved to Fridays. But Dynasty makes it profit through international licensing, so any advertising money on US broadcast is just a cherry on top. LS didn't have a revenue stream like that. You bring up an interesting concept with charging viewers per show per season. I wonder how this would actually work, though. The viewers of a show who can watch for free are not the same as the viewers of a show who have to pay for it. Even assuming that 450,000 viewers per ratings is underscoring the current viewer base (because so many watch through another avenue), the viewers who would actually pay vs. casually watch is a smaller base. Plus I think there'd be a lot of people who wouldn't pay to try out shows. They'd wait to hear if others recommend it and think it's "worth it" unless there are free episodes in the beginning that are compelling. I think new shows really rely on people trying them out and deciding to keep watching, rather than if they hear it's good, then they'll go back and pay to watch. And some people would be like, "well, I already pay to watch x number of shows that I really like, so I can't pay to watch shows I only average like or am casual about." If that's the main revenue stream to cover production costs over as few as 10 episodes, recouped only after production has been completed, I'm not sure how that leaves studios in the red or black. Anyway, I'm glad Stella chose herself because that was the right choice for her. Ugh, and I wanted to punch Dr. Will in the face after he took ZERO responsibility for his pushiness about interfering with Stella's marriage AND blamed her for it. Because it's always the other person's fault when someone behaves in a certain way, right? But you know, choose him, go to Papua New Guinea with him because he's the right guy to make her happy ...

I'm going to talk in generalities here because I don't really know specifics and may be wrong about the broad strokes anyway. Life Sentence was basically pulling the lowest ratings on the network in the Wednesday 9 pm slot. It either set or tied the record for lowest demo rating on a weeknight across all broadcast networks. Even Friday shows were beating it. No network is going to keep a show in that spot to potentially continue to do that for multiple episodes until the end. It would be embarrassing, never mind any financial component. And the idea of "spend more money to advertise it" isn't appealing when that money could go elsewhere and how much of a bump can you really get vs. how much you'd have to spend? Now as far as why swap timeslots with The Originals? A spin-off of The Originals was pitched prior to the May upfronts and picked up to series in the fall. So from that perspective, yes, the Originals is ending, but leveraging its ratings (which are hands-down higher than LS's) and audience interest can still be good for the network going forward. I find The Originals to be tedious, but that's just me, and the viewers watch it more than LS. Also, my basic understanding about selling advertising time at certain rates is based on projected ratings that the network can deliver. So if advertisers buy time at upfronts and afterwards, they're paying an amount based on the audience the network is projected to have. I think advertisers can get credits, refunds, comped ad time, etc. to make them "whole" if the ratings fall short and they essentially overpaid for the benefit they actually got. So LS' really low ratings in a timeslot that had the most hyped show on the network (Riverdale) as a lead-in - I assume that had an impact on the ad revenue as well. The Originals last year held onto their ratings fairly decently, even after being moved to Fridays, and those ratings were much better than LS'. So I'm guessing the execs figured it was a better scenario to air The Originals on Wednesdays to at least match last year's Friday ratings, if not improve on them, and move LS to Fridays since it's low (and possibly dropping even more) ratings wouldn't be as impactful there.

Yes, I really noticed it as the episodes went on and he got more aggressive and chaotic! He roars and bellows like he's some kind of super-mobster in his own little fantasy world. I am baffled by the idea the show tries to push that he's such a formidable villain - that's why I want him to go even more over-the-top when he's brought back against viewer wishes - just turn him into a full cartoon character instead of some allegedly serious and capable arch-nemesis. (And then kill him in the first two minutes of the premiere, please.) OR! He can just reveal himself to be the devil next season. "Vanity! My favorite sin!" "I'm the hand up Mona Lisa's skirt!"

Ahhhh, so many parts that made me laugh (Dick Tracy villain, Cheddar loves responsibility, all-frosting cake, among many others), and I was expecting to tear up at some point, but I was NOT expecting to legit cry, like, loudly cry for the rest of the episode after Jake teared up. (No silly single-man-tear for him! Real squinting and choking up!) I spent all day previously catching up on the last 9 episodes of Arrow and none of the intended emotional moments landed for me at all, but Brooklyn Nine-Nine just knows how to do those emotional moments with a realistic balance.

This seems like a fairly obvious thing to say, but I don't normally comment on Arrow and didn't check previous episode threads for related comments - I'm super bummed it seems like Diaz/Dragon is going to be around for season 7, which as I understand it, makes sense given the Longbow Hunters in season 7, but GOOD LORD, I cannot take another second of his horrible Al Pacino take on acting. If he's going to play the role this way, I need him to at least start yelling about "taking a flame thrower to this place!" or "out o' order, I'll show you out o' order!"

Wow wow wow. At the awfulness of this finale. I was expecting it to be terrible, and I'm not hating on the show just to hate on it, but wow. I don't know if that was "the best Shonda could write" after the complete deterioration of the show, but I somehow feel that she and her team think this was an amazing script and ending. After all of the power plays of the past, we're to believe that Jake and Cyrus just fold like that? Yeah, I know, it's the finale, but good God. What the hell was that small smile from Jake as he lay alone in his supermax cell? I'm pissed that all Cyrus lost was his VP position. Dude killed David in cold blood. Sure, that might have been the tipping point that led to him recognizing he should just take Liv's resignation offer, but what I would have liked to see, if he really did have to kill David in the script, is the inability to handle what he'd done led him to have a real (non-poison-induced) heart attack and he died. Was David's death supposed to be a true emotional moment for the viewers? Because it was surrounded by so much lunacy that it's impossible. UGH. Of course end montage has to give us multiple (MULTIPLE!) power sashays from Olivia. I laughed so hard when the camera zoomed out so you could really see her sashaying down the street bc it really highlighted how ridiculous and unrealistic her walk is. If you saw someone doing that in real life, you would assume there was something wrong with them. That shot at the end of Mellie after she signed the gun control bill (yeah, I'm sure that was really easy to get passed) and she shook hands with Marcus. I'm sorry, I'm not familiar enough with general conduct when bills get passed - is that showing us that she chose Marcus as her chief of staff, or that Marcus is her VP? Having typed that question, I also realize I'm not familiar with how a new VP is chosen if the existing one resigns - if it automatically goes to the #3 person or there's room for other options. (EDIT - I just read the ew.com article linked above that clarifies in the cut scenes that Marcus is a senator.) I guess the Rowan testimony was a "good" moment but I still hate his pompous lectures, no matter who the audience is. Why couldn't he have screamed about his bones one last time? That would have made me enjoy it. I think the only thing I did enjoy, and I rewound this five times to watch it over and over, is when Quinn and Charlie (Bernard!) reunited at the end and they both kissed baby Robin's cheeks. The look on that baby's face said everything I've ever need to know about life!! Baby Robin, you are the only character that I like.