stopeslite

I think everyone thinks that if it had happened to them, of course they would have known, therefore Ellie was covering up for him to begin with and probably in cahoots with him even now. I wish they had brought that tape of Ellie kicking the crap out of Joe into evidence, so Beth and the others could see how viscerally she reacted to finding out.

There has to be - charter schools get to pick the students who go there from their applicant pool. One of the big criticisms of charter schools is that they get to take the best students and leave the difficult to teach ones for the public schools to pick up. Remember when Jude was in danger of getting kicked out due to his performance? That's something a public school can't do; they have to put him in a lower grade level to catch up. So there has to be at least one "regular" public option to take all of the rejected kids, no matter how many charter schools are in a district.

Connor's dad doesn't have to send him away - Anchor Beach is a charter school. All he has to do is pull him from that and send him back to public school, and he won't have any more contact with Jude. I wanted Connor to declare himself bisexual, so it at least didn't look like he was totally using Daria. Would have been nice to have a little more diversity from that standpoint, too. I hope the Emma thing doesn't resolve as entirely "it's ok to be sexy and people will still take you seriously!" Because she's right, they won't. Society is still sexist, and yeah, being seen as girly will end up with you getting the crappy assignments in after-school tech class. I'll be interested to see where they go with this.

I had the same issues with the commercials coming in mid-sentence. I'm not sure yet. It's definitely Community, but the reliance on the "we're in a tv show!" meta comments are too much. I hope they dial that back several notches for future episodes.

Yep. I'm no fan of piling it on, but yeah, it was her fault. I missed the first couple of minutes - how exactly could the kids be running, the dad shoot from chest level straight out, and hit Connor in the foot?

Oy. I'm sure that letting Callie into the interrogation room and letting her tell Liam about Sarah was hella illegal. That was worse than what happened on Broadchurch. I wish we could have seen Jude's reply to Connor. Loved that little half-smile he gave, though. Annoying how little time they gave that storyline, especially compared to the filler that was there. Jesus driving - please no. Poor Emma. I feel more for her every episode.

Wow, I didn't have any idea such a job existed! See, that would be really cool for the show to do, and better achieve their stated goal of getting people to understand deafness and deaf culture more. Although maybe in the next few episodes Daphne will find out that's a thing she could do, and the retaking chemistry thing is just a red herring.

I just had a similar thought this morning - that it was really her instead of him. I was thinking, though, that she might have done it out of jealousy. She said that she was irrational where he was concerned, so maybe he was leering at the girls from next door or something and she took that as a threat, and he's trying to cover for her. (and then there will be a huge confrontation with him and Ellie where he says if she loved Joe enough, she would have done the same for him) On Joe - someone had to watch him change into the prison outfit, right? I don't know if they would have taped that part, but somebody at the station saw him naked, so they should be able to testify that he had zero bruises.

So I'm guessing the storyline with the prosecutor is that she used to be underhanded and slimy, the same way her protege is, and once she managed to get somebody off the hook who then went and murdered a few other people, and that's what made her leave the profession altogether? So she came back because she knew exactly how sketchy her former student would be, and wanted to use this case to make amends for her last one? That's if they can swap back and forth between being defense and prosecution, though, which I don't know if UK barristers can. Judge lady, you are terrible. You should have been the cleaning lady at the station instead. That was bogus. As was Jocelyn not raising all of the objections everyone here has, unless part of the plot is "Beth and Mark screwed up again by picking the wrong barrister". And again, SHUT UP BETH. I can't believe Ellie let herself be distracted that way. I can't believe Ellie was that far away from the damned door; she should have been right up on the porch, and Ellie should have just said I CAN'T TALK TO YOU RIGHT NOW BETH GO AWAY. So the bluebell - one of the pics in the file was of a forest full of bluebells; was that the place where the one girl's body was found? And does that make it a really creepy memento, or something that was mailed to him to say "I know you did it", or what? And why did Claire have an envelope with her addressed to her husband, anyway? And why did Hardy act so surprised to find it, when Ellie told him about it in the last episode? Gaaa. This show is starting to annoy me. The first one was so well written, and this one seems to be so not that so far. ETA: Wait, there are books that you have to buy to read along to really understand it? I can't decide if that's a nice way to expand the universe more, or a cop-out because they couldn't figure out how to get all of the crucial information in the actual show itself, and is a bald money grab. Ugh.

I thought so too! I even went and looked him up to see if he was his little brother or something. What I did find was that he was in The Brittany Murphy Story, where he played...Ashton Kutcher. :D Yes, definitely. Sure, if it's only work all the time then something is wrong, but "it should just...work"? Sorry Emmett, you're in for a rough ride. It was all so weird. Of course, he moved away and moved on from Bay - that's what high schoolers do when they go to college. It's a tale as old as... colleges. It probably would have happened even with Bay there and without the Tank thing, it just would have taken longer. And he was just so callous about it, it seemed entirely out of character. Kind of OT, but as a counterpoint to the horrible (true to life) scene in the hospital where nobody even tried to communicate with Natalie, this was in the news yesterday. For a commercial to advertise for their deaf assistance program, Samsung went to a neighborhood where a deaf man lives and taught everyone on his daily route enough sign language to do their basic interactions with him. Then they filmed him going about his errands and having everyone suddenly sign to him. Not gonna lie, it made me cry a little, especially after that scene in the show. Let's see what our girls have learned this season. Daphne learned: You can retake a class if you do poorly in it. You can redo tests that you failed if you cry to the teacher, even if she's never given that chance to anyone else. If you meet a jerk who acts like a jerk and tells you he's a jerk, you can love/badger him into becoming a good supportive friend. If you go to an illegal dorm kegger, you will face no repercussions from it at all. If you stupidly hand a criminal evidence that he will use to blackmail you that could send you to jail, someone you just met will put his own reputation, his relationship with your mother, and possibly his life on the line to save you. If you meet a guy who refuses to invest several hours a week helping you through a class because it's an emotionally damaging subject for him, you can whine until he says he'll do it anyway no matter how it affects him. If you commit a felony, your sister will ruin her life taking the fall for you and your family will all think that's cool. Bay learned: If you don't live with your boyfriend, he will dump you. If you date a guy who wants to make movies, he will make one about your most painful moments so everyone knows about it. And his new girlfriend will help him direct it. If you do someone a favor and take them a sandwich, you will get 6 months of house arrest. If you go to an illegal dorm kegger, you will get raped. If you decide in a moment of panic to stupidly take the blame for something someone else did, nobody will try to talk you out of it, and everyone will call you a whiner if you even hint that the consequences kind of suck. Yeah. Good job, show. Someone said it already, but it's like Daphne is Dorian Grey and Bay is the painting in the attic.

"Deaf Colin Firth". Heh. CUT YOUR HAIR TOBY OH MY GOD. The actress who plays Natalie tweeted that the hospital scene with her was based on something she actually went through at a hospital last year. Scary. I wish they wouldn't try to make hashtags a thing on these ABCFamily shows. Vanessa was heartbreaking in that scene with Emmett. She is such a good actor. I want a tv show where she and Maia Mitchell fight crime and solve mysteries. OH MINGO NO I can't believe it. We were this close to having Daphne drop the stupid pre-med thing. I was sure she was going to decide to be a medical interpreter, what with her amazing lipreading skills and familiarity with medical terms. Regina was really cute with the "stupid in love" comment. So, now we wait. And wait.

Definitely agree with Shut up, Beth. But I can understand it a little - it's scary to get mad at what's happening legally because then she'd have to admit that justice isn't always served, she's not going to get mad at herself, she doesn't think she can live on her own so she can't get mad at Mark, so the only person left to be mad at is Ellie. But still. Shut up, Beth. I'm trying to figure out - was Claire part of the Sandbridge case, or another one at the same time? I don't remember them saying before that it was two girls who were killed in that one.

I wish Marybeth had gone to Bay to tell her how she was feeling, so Bay could take Marybeth to her mom, and Katherine could have given Marybeth a shoulder to lean on and a lot of advice about how to deal with a boyfriend who has sports groupies. Missed opportunity, show!

I saw that as the opposite - once again, Bay is pressured into doing something she has no interest in just to help out someone else, because god forbid she get to choose her own path. Maybe I heard wrong, but I thought they were talking about it as a job for awhile until they could hire someone else, not a one time thing? It seemed like Toby would have been the better choice, what with him already having been a coach and all. YES. Jeez. I want to yell "there is no such thing as majoring in pre-med" at the screen all the time.

So once again, Bay's life is falling apart while all Daphne has to worry about is whether some mean girls like her or not. Oh noes, she didn't get into her sorority that she didn't really want in the first place! And the guy she dumped then went out with someone else after she told him she didn't want him! I am so sick of Daphne Goes To College I just can't even. I wonder if Emmett pitched the story of him and Bay, or of him and New Girl. Or, because he knows what would make a compelling movie, if he told the story of him and the catfish. Now THAT would be an interesting plot angle for him to make a movie about. Poor Toby. I blame his haircut. I don't even know what to say about Travis and Marybeth. She sank that one all by herself. It's infuriating that she let her own self-esteem problems overshadow the relationship they have, but it's partially so maddening because it's so relatable. :(

Exactly. And it's a strong signal that Merton himself isn't a great catch - he is at least in part responsible for how they turned out, and he obviously didn't do a very good job.

I assume Mike pays child support for Brandon, which would take some of his money. And being a cop doesn't pay a huge amount of money, and I assume he has a huge car insurance bill given his history, and he doesn't have anybody to share expenses with. And $1500 is a lot of money, no matter how you slice it. I really hope that Brandon's "I would rather not go on the tour if it keeps you here" means "moms are going to forbid me from going on the tour and I'll go to the classical camp". Jeez. These storylines are dragging out forever.

OT, but I was watching an old episode of M*A*S*H last night and a very young Jeffrey Tambor was on, and I was completely struck by how much the guy who plays Brandon looks like a young Tambor. Coloring, face shape, expressions, it was kind of eerie. Not the best pic, but here's one: http://i42.tinypic.com/34xqixk.jpg The principal doing everything wrong because she doesn't understand the academic environment is in some ways old and tired, but then again it keeps happening in real life and more and more often, so good for the show for highlighting that particular kind of problem of administrators who don't get it and thereby make things worse. Whoa, crossing and double crossing and nothing with Kiara went the way I thought it would go, except that crying hug at the end. Not a fan of the loud music playing all over the last couple of scenes. The sound mixing just drowned out the lines. Booooooo on having Connor and Jude and then just dropping it like that. Boooooooo.

I was thinking they should do a theme season where every couple is a set of a cleric/theologian from different religions. Then every episode someone can make a "a minister, a priest, and a rabbi walk into a..." joke as the teams show up for their tasks.

I didn't have a pledge drive, but I did notice that PBS cut some of the episode out. I watched it on youtube and there were "since the show was taped" summaries for every contestant, but on the version I saw on PBS it was cut down so that you only saw the summaries for the most recent 5 or so people.

I was secretly hoping that Violet really did love Denker's broth because it would turn out that Violet's nanny was also terrible at cooking. Like she has this one big flaw in her tastes where she thinks awful chicken soup is fantastic because that's what she grew up with.

Oh, right. But that means Anna got released on the evidence of a confession that didn't have any legal standing? Or because the witness recanted, which should mean then the police would be in trouble for locking her up on such flimsy evidence? This whole storyline is so messed up.

Why were they hanging empty stockings in the kids' room, acting like they were doing it in secret? Is it also a thing in GB that the stockings appear like magic and then are filled by Santa? If Bates is proven innocent, then didn't he just perjure himself and will go to jail for that too? Also, when Carson almost cries of happiness it is the best thing ever.

I have zero idea on British aristocrat shooting, but it looked like they each had a stone "stand" that they were behind. I guess that lets them use the stand to balance the rifle, and also keeps them all out of the line of fire. If there are only so many stands and more people, someone can't shoot. I was impressed at how quickly Rose figured everything out, but she could have gone one step further and said Diana was a childhood friend; that would explain why the Crawleys didn't know her either. She could have said that after Diana moved to London, she would visit when she was there seeing Aunt Rosamund. But then again, she did come up with an awful lot on the fly already.

She didn't, though - she told him to take the butler down a peg. I don't think Mary would ever let go of her aristocratic notions long enough to ask a servant to do anything to a peer. It was Thomas who decided to take Sinderby down with the butler, since he was mad at Sinderby for insulting him. Speaking of which, I don't think it came down on the butler at all - he was scared to death, but I doubt that Sinderby would ever link the appearance of Diana with his own butler. I'm a bit surprised that Atticus and Rose didn't immediately develop a paranoia, since this is the second time something dastardly has been set up specifically to interfere with their happiness (seemingly). If I were them, I'd be on edge for the next year or so. Are Atticus and Rose really moving to New York? They talked about it in the summer, but not a word was spoken about it during Christmas. Were posh positions of the type that he could just put off showing up for half a year until after the holidays? ETA: I just caught last night that the Prince's first name - Ivan or Igor, I can't remember whch. But either way, seriously, Fellowes? First Russian character and you go with one of the most stereotypical Russian names? Ugh. He needs to hire someone full-time just to do names.