NorthstarATL

Well, Lockjaw was fun. Felicity/Chloe/Clone will no doubt help Karnak figure out how to get his groove back on Earth, since he seems out of whack. Gorgon will learn to surf. And hopefully Medusa will meet up with some drag queens who can teach her how high a Queen's hair SHOULD be once it grows back! I hated the Alpha Primitives thing when they introduced it in the comics, as the Inhumans had been around for awhile before some writer decided that they needed a reigning in. Also, I get that they are all inbred and don't want to kill each other, but that's going to lead to a lot of capturing and escaping each week. crystal alone has enough power to bring down Max AND his minions. They seem focused on her fire power, but she controls all elements, or at least she did.

Now THAT is how you milk the twin drama for all it's worth! I saw the bottom two thing as a possibility, but not the individual head-to-head challenge! Whoever thought that up ought to get scooped up by the Government for enhanced interrogation work! OK, just kidding, but that was kind of evil genius. Kintaro/Brandon made what I thought they'd make, but they are cute working together, and they do what they do well. Kintaro's model from last week, Meisha?, sold her look this week as well as she did last week. I'm not saying that the win was ALL her, but she helped. Good for Margarita. (She's from Puerto Rico, IIRC....I wonder if what happened over there affected her time on the show, or was it all done by then?)

Ben is still the cutest and scariest kid ever! I didn't realize I missed this show until I watched it again. Mickey always misjudges everything she takes at face value. It's surprising she has survived as long as she has. I think Jimmy probably has a ton to do with that. And maybe her sister. I loved the all-too-true comparison between female and male "escorts" though. LOL!

I'm really finding less and less to like each week. These people REALLY have "first world" problems! I mean, how AWFUL to have to go to a JOB every day! Imagine the torture! And then sometimes you have to bring work HOME! And then there was the STUPID cooking thing with Baby Sis and Dave! And their forced chemistry was just that. Forced. Everyone is just too precious.

Jamie had only really said that he loved Claire, though, and that she had been his wife. He didn't marry after, which, as was pointed out last episode, would be odd for a strictly heterosexual guy. And a LOT of homosexuality is situational, especially in and around prisons, historically, so it wouldn't be that much of a chance that Grey was taking. Grey was decent enough not to force the issue, and he was in a position where, had he been someone else, he might have done. (Interestingly, Berry's APTCH character worked out a marriage-for-show as a gay character in another period for the few seasons I saw of that series. He's very attractive!) I was irritated with Frank from the first scene with the proposed cinema outing. Maybe it's the actor, but he seemed to relish the chance to bring up Claire's "time abroad" by saying he'd already seen both films. I don't know enough about how things were back then, but was it NOT inconceivable to see a movie a second time in order to have some bonding time with one's family? (Okay, maybe not "Carousel", but I had to watch "The Searchers" for Film & Filmmaking.) And then, when I thought the shock on Claire and Sandy's faces were due to some time travel thing where they had crossed paths, it turned out that she was Frank's sidepiece! She was not very good at being the other woman, though, was she? Where did she get off acting all put out by Claire having a get together in HER home? That bugged me as well. Still, I was sad for Claire that Frank had died, though I found it hard to be sad for him. I guess next week, we're out of the frying pan and into the fire? Because there is no way Jamie's just going to be a happy downstairs guy. Right?

If you've seen it too often, can you be said to be "over boob"?

I REALLY was happy with Kintaro's win! That looked "fashiony", and yet didn't look ridiculous as street wear. The model sold it beautifully, and I could see her wearing it home. I agree with the auf-ing, but wonder whether Samantha was also a victim of having a model who was not "model-y"? For instance, I like Kenya well enough, but IMO her outfit was hideous, and would NOT have done as well with a different size model. Conspiracy theory: Samantha and Margerita (Sp?) did not seem to consider Claire a potential auf-ing, even though they were all three in the bottom. My guess is that the drama will be milked for either twin leaving. A) a double elimination in which they both go. Highly unlikely. B) One twin is the winner, and the other is out. Harder to stage, but fraught with drama, as the winning twin cannot celebrate because of the loss of her sister. OR C) BOTH are in the bottom, but only one goes home. Extra points if they are forced to choose.

It was so obvious, and then I thought back to what I have read about the history of that period, and I thought it was extremely foolish. They SHOULD bond, especially if they are ostracized as the course progresses, but initially they both should have kept their distances. Joe doesn't know enough about Claire to know that she was as enlightened as she was, but he would probably know that, sadly, appearing to be "hitting on", for that period, a white woman (who happens to be married, though he couldn't know that as yet) is something that society did not look approvingly upon. I recall reminding my fellow gays, during the push for gay marriage, that it was insulting to interracial marrieds of the past to compare our "struggle" with theirs. They COULD be jailed, or worse, for intermarrying, where ours were just not recognized by the Government (which has its perks). Sad to see Jamie turn himself in, but it was noble, and hopefully the redcoats will lay off the 'brook now. Jamie, BTW, was lit beautifully in that scene with Mary. I actually knew people whose parents had single beds! The way I understood it, it had to do with space, and not being able to have separate bedrooms, but that every now and again the beds would be pushed together. I still don't get it, because in college we did the pushing together of the single beds, and it's dangerous, unless you somehow lash them together so that nothing separates them! Then, again, these were not particularly athletic looking people.

Okay, three out of the four couples at the family dinner (not including Grandma and the parents) were on their first ACTUAL dates, and maybe I'm just NOT that much of a Hallmark guy in real life, but I usually reserve the family shindigs for when I've gotten to know the person I'm dating just a LITTLE bit before subjecting either one to the other. What was Trace all up in arms about? Was it the "Rock & Roll"? The fact that they were playing without him? The fact that their music wasn't putting anyone to sleep? I think they are just trying to winnow down the "group" to a duo, so that Abby can be more incensed when the two have to play constant all-nighters. Ugh. I think I'm right about the cook, that his past will probably catch up with him. Jess and Bree both like his buns, though, so I think he'll stick around. And what was with Firegirl's assessment of Kevin as being the glue or whatever that holds the family together? Where did she get THAT from? For that matter, why do all of them downplay the family's togetherness? Other than the Mom leaving once upon a time, they seem to have no real conflicts at all.

She was not in any physical danger in that room. That would be the key difference between the eras for me. I did chuckle at her initial attempts with the stove and the later solution. If she were cooking for Jamie, I imagined she'd find a way to upgrade the stove, and create something miraculous all while pregnant. Not to mention after reading about a Florida woman who delivered her own child during Irma, Claire seems not to be stepping up as much in the 1940s.

Probably benched due to injury.

Little Bree must have been a BEAST to have buried things so deeply at such a young age! And, yes, the pregnancy hiding was even more ridiculous than ever this episode! The tent-like shawl at the end cracked me up! Pretty good-natured of the rest of the female cast agreeing to cover up as well during that scene. Trace's adventures in Nashville are boring, as is the world's worst next-big-hit, but I guess the pregnancy plus developing romantic stumbling blocks made it necessary. Speaking of stumbling blocks, of COURSE Abby got paired with a widower rather than just another mother, and it happens to be Victor Webster, who looks different somehow, but whose voice is always recognizable to me. Cook guy seemed pretty shaken up by the reviewer using his name in a major newspaper. I'm guessing we'll find out why he's working for the occasional pay.

And yet the same hair for Aneela and Daenerys there at the end.

Wow. I liked how Baz/Pope kind of mirrored last week's Craig/Deran. I LOVED when Craig and Deran were eying their targeted genders at the beach. I have had that conversation! Smurf was really flailing from prison. I STILL do not have J figured out. He was more like a kid this episode than ever before. While I liked the "Baby Cody" teasing between J and Nicky, which was VERY high school, I was surprised he was dumb enough to go along with her spree. OTOH, Lucy played Baz as an adult would and she totally blindsided him! Now if my speculation from last week about Renn is correct, we have a Trifecta of stupid. Smurf may have just kept these guys safe all these years! Can't wait for next season!

Jesse Metcalfe is always wearing jackets or loose-fitting shirts this season...or holding a guitar strategically in front of his mid-section... But, yeah, those tricks ARE used to hide an actress' pregnancy. I, for one, am all for it, having suffered through series where the pregnancy written in to the show to disastrous effect. Just last week she couldn't get any business at the Inn! Who's running it while she's author-hunting? And, speaking of businesses, while Dad is all up in his daughter's business about not being able to write AND run a bookstore, HIS partner is galavanting to Nashville to record the blandest single ever, when just last week the music venue was his LIFE! It's like he's twelve. I realized when Abby was speaking to Gregory Harrison that he's her Uncle Tom.

If I had not seen (and heard!) Vanessa judge prior to this week, I would have assumed that she was doing a parody of a dumb blonde to go with the wig. Sadly, it's just her.

It is known that ancient aliens gifted us with peanut butter, pizza and toothpaste.

Have we seen interaction between the mother and her ex-brother-in-law yet? Because it seems to me that both of their returns to CS is too coincidental, and Treat Williams' character seems to have a bone to pick with Gregory Harrison's other than 'Dad liked you best". The superfluous blonde firefighter might be the most annoying meant-to-be love interest ever. On the plus side she may make littlest sister tolerable.

Were there auditions for a Cher bio film or musical that Vanessa just got back from? And did she get the gig or lose to a guy? I need to know.

I LOVED J's face when Baz was listing Smurf's "sins" and he got to the killing Javi part, and you could just see the wheels turning as he remembered what Javi did to him! Also his smile when Lucy tried to keep him on their side. Finn Cole usually plays J very tightly wound, and inscrutable, so when he does let some feeling through it's pretty powerful. I'm not so sure they did. Blood connections are not always the most important. I'm not saying that those relationships are definitely NOT what you think, just that I don't know that they need to be. Pope may just be the one who sees, as we the audience do, that Baz is a sorry excuse for a father, and he wanted Lena to see Smurf for what she is, just as he has had his eyes opened. A rough lesson for a kid, but I think he thinks it will make her safer. I just know that of all the reasons for the brothers not to trust Baz now, they never bring up that he is not related to them by blood. (Or maybe it's just that I'm adopted that makes me sensitive about the issue.) I think she had her game face on, but that this whole rebellion of the family has, despite what she said, blindsided her. It's funny. Tonight I realized who she reminded me of. I was working at a bar years ago and there was an older woman who worked as a cocktail waitress with me. She looked like a heavily made up cross between Joan Collins and Ellen Barkin as she looks now. Maybe the toughest woman I'd ever met. Had to meet with her probation officer every Monday, but spent her entire shift with a glass of whiskey, chain smoking cigarettes, and pointing out to me in colorful language everyone in the place and what she knew about them that was "questionable". I think I saw her carry a drinks tray maybe twice, but people would come over and tip her and pay their respects all night long. Smurf could have learned a thing or three from her. I know I did.

She claimed that he had her front him money to GET to Vegas, when he pretty clearly flashed cash at her to convince her to go, so it only makes sense to me if she is trying to convince him of something she thinks he doesn't remember.

I tend to ignore their scenes, but, yes, they've discussed her brother, Marco, before. I also didn't make the connection till the end that both Marcos were the same! And, yes, she is NOT what I think Baz thinks she is! He may have destroyed Smurf, only to be hooked up with a woman who might be more trouble for him? Amy reacted just as I thought she would. Pope should have 'fessed up in stages. Tell her you're a crook first, and work your way up to murder. I felt bad for that kid. He was all bluster, but he was scared. Craig and Deran were pretty amusing initially, but I hated them both at the end for probably aiding in the kid's murder. Was Renn shaking Craig down? He pulled out a wad of cash when he offered to pay for Vegas, but she claimed she fronted him money for a private plane. Maybe she thinks he forgot? Maybe she still wants revenge? Speaking of revenge, Jay certainly is holding a grudge. I liked his scene with Nikki where he admitted to being angry all the time. Say what you will about her, but Jay's motivations have always been unclear to me, and if she is the plot device to get him to open up, I'm okay with her. I really want to see where this goes with him. Now I can't wait till next week to see where all this goes.

So Dutch is Wonder Girl? Or Wonder Tot? Basically, back in the Silver Age of comic books, since Amazons were not having contact with males, Wonder Woman was without junior versions, unlike her male counterparts, so the writer/editors had WW's mother magically pluck younger versions of her out of the memories (like home movies) and have them have their own adventures contemporaneously with the adult version! Groovy! Dutch is basically Little Aneela plucked out of HER memories through the Green is what I understood. Wild! The rest of the cast is so much fun I often resent the trips into Inner Dutch. This episode was no exception.

I hope it's just "Maddie", because that would be annoying, and also fit her character.

Which was a wonderful line, BUT it also points out what an opportunity the writers passed on! Here's a CENTRAL character who is in a relationship with the guy who holds everyone's financial fate in his hands, and THAT is all we get? No agonizing? No conflicts over friends vs. profits, artistic integrity vs. paying the bills, sexual attraction despite ethical differences? Nothing? AND it was an instance where the fact that the two people involved were gay had absolutely nothing to with the conflict between them, or with other characters. And they STILL made Zach a "lonely little boy" in the end, which is a typical victim stereotype writers love to saddle us with when they are not making us perfect angels. It's tedious. SO glad Avery fought every soap opera cliche INCLUDING the weather being too dangerous to fly in order to get back to Juliette with his fidelity intact! That woman was so over the line, had the genders been reversed, she could be accused of harassment. So Daphne is in the same peer group as Jesse's son? Didn't we already do that with Maddie? Please stop.