LeGrandElephant

Wow, that was quite a season finale. What’s the spoiler policy here? I google to see if there s a second season coming but it doesn’t seem to be decided yet.

We’ve been enjoying this show a lot! But I guess everyone has different pet peeves. I’m not that bothered by the history being all wrong since they disclosed that upfront, but I am bothered by the medicine/ medical science being all wrong - that’s not how variolation works! You don’t just poke yourself with smallpox and then announce you’re fine and immune that same day. Typically you’d be sick for weeks with pustules and everything, during which from you’d have to quarantine from anyone else. You could still be pretty sick but you’d be less likely to die than if you caught it naturally, and then once you recovered you could consider yourself immune, just like people who recovered from a natural case of it. I also don’t think you’re safe from smallpox if you kiss someone with smallpox and hang out with them for awhile, just because you didn’t touch the sores themselves. It appears it IS true that Catherine insisted on variolation and that it was controversial, but under somewhat different circumstances. In the show, I didn’t understand why anyone objected to her idea of having tents where the sick serfs could wait it out and see if they recovered, given that they basically had them out on the grounds with doctors mingling with them anyway.

Watching the pilot. I just keep thinking this is such an unhealthy workplace dynamic! Don’t take a job with so many warning signs, new girl.

I don’t buy it. Are they telling us all these highly trained surgeons with million-dollar hands are supposed to play Red Rover with a psycho? What if the guy runs through the human chain and wrenches one of their hands and they can’t operate? No way is that protocol. I’m not sure it would make sense for non-surgeons either.

I came here to see if anyone compared Alex’s departure to Poochie dying on his way back to his home planet, and I can’t believe no one did!

Harvesting her eggs would have involved far more discussion of timing, with doctors, etc. It was very clear that they used Mr Ryan’s sperm and put it in Mia using a turkey baster, meaning the egg was hers. Some things in this show were unclear, but not that. But yes, they should have talked it through more, involved some kind of counselors or professionals of some type, etc, and that kind of due diligence probably would have resulted in them not using an 18 year old virgin as their surrogate.

An ad in the newspaper still probably would have been a better choice than following a teenager on the subway at night. And regardless of who answered the ad, it would have been smart to insist on someone who was a bit older and ideally had already had a baby. But, perhaps the Ryans had already tried all that and not made any progress for some time and were getting desperate.

I don’t know if there were surrogacy agencies in the 90s or not but either way they never should have been soliciting random women on the subway or gone ahead with it once Mia said she’d never even used a tampon. Recipe for disaster on so many levels.

What was the ending in the book? Who set the fire?

So after all the episodes, why does that fireman guy think Izzie did it? It can’t be because she disappeared / ran away that night, because he asks to speak with her.

I don’t like a system that encourages people to bond with a baby and then takes the baby away. I’m not sure what the best solution is when there will be heartbreak either way, but Linda didn’t do anything wrong. The baby had been abandoned and presumably they had no way to know her Chinese name (why did no one point that out in court?) or what was going on with BeBe. They were told the baby was unwanted and would be theirs and bonded with her for a year. And now they being called evil baby thieves? I do have a lot of empathy for Bebe too but maybe I feel less need to argue it here because the show seemed to be on her side. She was in a really bad position, largely due to unfairness in society, and while I can think of better choices she could have made, she wasn’t in a state to think of them or know about them. But what is the solution? Leave kids with no known parents unable to be adopted or bonded with anyone for years because a birth parent might come back? Did Bebe say that she recovered from her postpartum depression after a week and immediately asked about getting the baby back but was told no? If so, the people (doctors? Social workers?) who blew her off then might be the ones in the wrong (it shouldn’t have been hard to connect her with the Asian baby abandoned at the same time), but that wasn’t Linda and Mark who did that.

Wait but a big issue with Mia was that she didn’t answer any of those questions when Pearl asked, and the vague answers she did give were lies. I might agree if she had stuck around long enough to make sure someone opened the door and the baby didn’t freeze to death. Or called 911 from a pay phone to report it, or anything like that. Leaving the baby alone in the cold and not making sure someone got her is definitely dangerous behavior, and was not the best thing to do. The postpartum mental illness argument can work here, but not the argument that it was actually the best choice to leave the baby getting frostbite and possibly freezing to death. Probably the Ryans contacted Mia’s parents when looking for her, but I agree the show did not specifically say that. I think his most memorable scene was when he told Linda not to check on the crying baby and then it turned out to be kidnapped. Will she ever forgive him for that?

Did they have safe haven laws in the 90s? I think even if not, Bebe could have found an option that would make sure someone brought her daughter inside before she was frost bitten (eg, call 911 from a pay phone, or knock on the door and watch to make sure someone answers before running away). She could have asked for help from a church or something. Since her actions don’t make logical sense, post partum depression is more sympathetic than the idea that she made a logical choice to have someone else care for her baby, when in fact she left her outside in the cold. I feel bad for Bebe but I also feel like the adoptive parents bonded with the baby in good faith and did nothing wrong. I think the best solution would have been Bebe getting some regular visitation with the baby through the adoptive parents, and maybe they would have all agreed to that if Mia and Elena hadn’t been so busy escalating things.

Amazing how people who marched for a woman’s right to choose are so upset over their daughter or their son’s girlfriend having an abortion. I would be glad the teen was able to make that choice. I’m not saying it’s not believable that people are that hypocritical about it but it is sad.

I thought Mia suggested New York, meaning the Ryans, but Pearl said no. So the only other choice is the grandparents. But if Mia actually took Izzie with them then they’ll definitely get caught, because Elena will be after them and she knows where the grandparents live. I did not get that. Was that supposed to be confusing?