Sarah 103

I'm glad Lance and Brooke had that fight. She's being awful to him. She should have been honest with him about her feelings. He probably would have been able to help her work through it. Based on the argument, she does not deserve him. She needs to do some serious soul searching and work through some stuff before she is in any romantic relationship whether it's with Lance or someone else. Seeing the room Streeter created for Cary, I now kind of want to see what he created for Brooke. Cary is staying with his boyfriend because he thinks it will help him with his career. Cary will be able to go to premiers and events, which he thinks might help him get auditions or maybe even acting jobs. Love the 1990s Romeo+Juliet shoutouts/homages/references in the episode.

And whether she realizes or is willing to admit it, she wants to be a detective.

JD means Juvenile Delinquent. It was a fairly common term in the 1950s and into the early 1960s. It was used in real life and in popular culture.

I liked the Pleasantville storyline. I wish the Pleasantville bit had played out for multiple episodes, because then it could have been truerer to the movie. Cary would turn color when he realized that not every part has to be this grand fulfilling experience and that not all acting jobs are about the craft. Sometimes you take a job for a paycheck. There are plenty of actors who are "one for art, one for money." I'm still mad at what they are doing with Brooke and her story arc.

I don't think the writer slipped at all and in 1962 I think it could have gone either way ("black" or "negro"), especially with someone younger like Dinah. The book Black Like Me was published in the early 1960s, and the term was being used in discussions of the Nation of Islam. They were called "Black Muslims." 1962, 1963 is early but not impossible or a complete anachronism/error.

Until you mentioned this, it had never occured to me that Shy Guy might be gay. You brought up an excellent point/possibility. In that time and place, people became aware of thier sexuality and came out (at least to themselves) much later than they do today, so the idea that Shy Guy (if he is gay) hadn't figured it out yet makes perfect sense. Yes, he was attracted to a girl (which would be proof to himself that he isn't gay, because he was attracted to a girl), but the fact that the girl is a tomboy who wants more than anything to be one of the guys and looks and acts like it is some evidence for your theory.

Seeing Joel and Midge have flashbacks to the early years of relationship has convinced me they are going to an Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton kind of couple. They may not marry and divorce multiple times, but I could picture them drifting back to each other when Midge is between marriages.

Lenny and Midge are the definition of chemistry, heat, intensity and everytime they are on screen, it is major swoonage for me. I think we know that he at least changed how he saw and treated Esther. Esther's therapy session that started off the season was in the early 1980s. We know Abe was still alive in the early 1970s. The way the Esther talked about Abe and that he was the only who understood her felt like that had a pretty close special relationship and that his death was probably fairly recent (late 1970s or early 1980s). This makes sense to me. She gets the cover of being a married woman, because in that time and place almost no one outside of the entertainment thought that a married person could be gay or lesbian or anything other than heterosexual. Gordon gets all of her connections and the ability to look pure establishment. This is so true. It's more or less generational.

I liked lounge lizards.

I am not a fan of serial killer plotlines on shows like this, but I think I may be the only one. Erin being angry at Jamie and Danny for coming into her office to complain has been so many times, I feel like the writers can copy and paste that scene into the script at this point. This is a show where status quo is god, so I'm not surprised Erin isn't running after all.

I agree. George is right quite a bit of time when it comes to Sheldon but Mary frequently overules him. George, when he takes an active interest Sheldon, tries to help prepare for the world and help him fit into it. Mary thinks her little Shelly is just a perfect angel and everyone should recognize that and do what he wants. In the long term, more time with George and Mary listening to George would have been good for Sheldon

"Loopy logic" is a brilliant phrase that perfectly describes this series and I love it. I'm looking forward to season 2. I predict that Todd is going to start saving money for his own PI agency and there will be a multi-season running gag of how much money he wants/needs to start the agency and have a place of its own. This will provide a TVLand plausibile explanation/reason to keep him in the law firm for multiple seasons.

I think it's a second tornado.

This is about the hairstyles in the series. https://variety.com/2023/artisans/news/grease-rise-of-the-pink-ladies-jaala-leis-wanless-hair-department-1235610472/

I think it was a different tornado a year or two later. I agree. Sheldon did it because he cared about her and was worried about her, and wants to protect her. He loves his sister, even if he doesn't understand her at all.

It's crazy that Susan was right and her mother should have listened to her. Part of her pitch to the adults was that if the "bad kids" are at the dance, they will not be causing bigger problems elsewhere. The fight at the Frosty Palace quickly escalated, drew in more people, and just became massive. It started off about one thing but turned into being about almost everything, and would not have happened if the Pink Ladies and T-Birds had been allowed inside the gym from the start. This episode was also all about romance/relationships, and so many love triangles. The way Richie and Jane looked at each at the Frosty Palace, and the brief conversation they had before Johnny Va-Voom showed up convinved me they are end game and there is no question in my mind they are meant to be together. I am also rooting for Nancy and Potato. They make a cute couple. I'm not sure how I feel about Hazel and Wally, but I really enjoyed "The Land Don’t Look So Bad." The music was wonderful and the dancing reminded me of "Singin' In the Rain" and "A Lovely Night" (from La La Land, and I know that song and dance number was referencing an earlier movie, I'm just blanking on what, but I think it was something with Fred Astaire). I am not sure how I feel about Gil and Olivia. He has a real crush on her, but I don't think she feels the same away about him. She likes him, but not nearly as much as he likes her. I can understand Olivia having a crush on Mr. Daniels, but acting on it is wrong. I know it's the 50s, but I can't believe Mr. Daniels doesn't have the sense to know better and realize this is a horrible idea in so many ways on so many levels. Until this episode, I thought there was a slim sliver chance that Cynthia might be bisexual and that there was hope for Shy Guy and Cynthia, but after this episode that ship is totally sunk. Lydia was just awful to Cynthia. Cynthia was mad at herself which makes sense because it is the 50s. She could get away with being a tomboy. The adults would think "It's a phase/she'll grow out it/it's probably harmless" but she knows that being a lesbian crosses a line and if the wrong people knew, would mark her and place her outside society. She tries to prove to herself and to Lydia that she isn't a lesbian, and deeply hurt Shy Guy in the process. It was clear there was nothing when she kissed him, and Shy Guy knew something was wrong/off, but didn't a have clue what it was. She was angry and in pain and clearly took out on Shy Guy when he rejected her very definitely unwanted advances with her comment about "if you were a real man, you'd like it." It's projecting/deflecting. Cynthia's yellow dress was awful, but I think that was by design. Also, are we ever going to see or hear anything about Cynthia's parents or the relatives she lives with? I'm not sure if we've seen Shy Guy's parents yet, but at least we have some idea of who they are. We know that both are still alive, that his mother is Mexican, his father is Jewish, and his father is forcing him to box. Cynthia's home life is an almost complete unknown, other than the fact we have never seen another adult at her apartment or heard her mention parents or an adult she lives with.

By the 1970s, there were some industries, especially in New York City where people could live openly as gays or lesbians. There were other industries where that was not possible. Also, your idea sounds like it could be a series.

You are correct in that Rose's clients were "older" women who had not married in thier 20s. My point was that by/in that 1970s, the 30something women were probably visiting Rose because thier mother had made the appointment and were eager to have thier daughters married. The women were probably reluctantly going along with or it, or went along due to a major guilt trip.

I realized that the lead in the school play was the first thing Buddy won/earned on his own. His father had nothing to do with it.

This is why I want more scenes of all the siblings without Margaret. I want to hear candid, honest conversations about what it was like for each of them, how each one saw themselves, how each one saw each other, and what role Margaret played in that. These conversations can only happen when Margaret is out of the house.

I hold CNN to a higher standard for documentaries than MTV and VH1. (That being said, I spent far more hours watching E True Hollywood Story, and Vh1's Behind the Music, and the I Love The (insert decades here) as a middle school/high school student than I probably should have).

I agree. The actor Danny Stevens reminded me of Danny Thomas, especially the mention of his work with sick kids, but the living room set reminded me so much of the Petries. Since both shows were on the air at the same time, it's possible that it's more the look of a particular era than a specific show. I am more familiar with The Dick Van Dyke Show, which is probably why that's the show I thought the Danny Sevens show looked most similiar too in terms of the apartment.

Funny story about that. There was concern in the early 1960s that the premise of The Dick Van Dyke Show might be too "inside ball"/difficult to understand for some viewers, so maybe the idea that people didn't understand that TV show writers existed wasn't as crazy as you would think. I tend to agree with you. By the time TV existed, people had been watching movies for decades and seeing "screenplay by" as part of the opening credits/titles of movies. Plus, the HUAC hearings/Hollywood blacklist made the news at least in LA and New York, so there would have been some awareness of the idea that movies were written by people, and it shouldn't have been too big of a leap to make that if movies were written by people, than TV shows were also written by people. Rose being obsessed with the venue was in 1961. The commercial was in the early 1970s. In the early 1970s, my guess is that younger women would have been over it and not interested in a matchmaker, but I can see mothers pushing thier daughters into using the service with variations of "it's just a meeting/it's just one date, what have you got to loose?" Jack Parr wasn't offering her the job. His booking agent was the one who turned her down. Danny Stevens was the one who offered her a job on the staff of his sitcom. However, I do agree with you that it was a genuine offer and not an attempt to sleep with her. Take your real life and make it funny was pretty much the motto of The Dick Van Dyke Show writers' room. Also, did anyone else think the set for the sitcom looked a bit like the Peitere living room? It's the same era so it's not a total shock. As soon as I heard the piano playing at the end of the episode, I knew it was going to be Esther. We know from the first episode that they were close and she felt her grandfather was the one person who understood her, so clearly they had a pretty good relationship.

At the age she is now it would not make his head explode, but give it another decade and yeah. It's the classic, "I know what guys that age are like, I was one of those guys." Me too. It's a genuine friendship/partnership with no romance at all, which is great to see. I love that Sergeant Flawless is Jamie's official nickname at the precinct. When talking to friends, I had been borrowing Al's description of Sam as "the original boy scout" from Quantum Leap. It would have been awesome or horribly cheesy (I can't decide which) if they had Jamie wear one of the prints that Selleck wore back on Magnum P.I .

This is a very difficult and also very important question. I'm not on twitter, but my vote would be young Al Pacino.