GRChereck

Sounds like she'll have another plot with Todd in this next one (they "share an emotional roller coaster"): "Designated Survivors" (4x15, April 15) :) No mention of Jasper this time... :\ *** Also, this is what the schedule is supposed to look like for the rest of the season, according to Futon Critic -- new eps straight through the first Sunday in May, no breaks:

Yay! :) And yeah, that would be fantastic (story-wise, hopefully, a s.4 would see Ray's high-school graduation and JJ's first year of college or film school). *** A couple of nice interviews with JRB reflecting on this past season (including favorite episodes / moments, and that finale cliffhanger): http://popculturedaily.guru/john-ross-bowie/ https://www.thewrap.com/speechless-john-ross-bowie-dimeos-house/ (includes clip -- 3:40)

Considering the last time we saw Dr. Miller was when she stood up to Maya in 2x13 ("D-I--DiMeo A-C--Academy"), that was a helluva note for her to go out on if the series doesn't get renewed (or else next season, if the family end up moving to a different district and switching schools after this school year is over)! :D Another thought I had about that plot: While I still think it could've been better explained in-universe, 1) JJ getting held back was probably just as well given the shortened season, since there wouldn't have been any plans for a graduation episode that the cut order otherwise would've messed with; and 2) it might have been drawn at least partially from Micah's own life, since he was 19 when he went to his Senior prom and graduated high school. :) That could be where she actually got the money for JJ's camera. xD (Granted, I still don't think that looked like ALL her summer lawn-mowing earnings that she threw out the van window in 2x1, but you never know...)

That was a lovely piece! :) Sepinwall did a nice little follow-up with some thoughts on the finale (including an explanation of the closing dedication-card tribute to Silveri's brother): https://uproxx.com/sepinwall/speechless-season-2-finale-recap-nominee-review-spoilers/ Also, Cerebral Palsy Foundation CEO Richard Ellenson had some sweet things to say about this past season: https://themighty.com/2018/03/speechless-changing-attitudes-disability/ *** About the finale rating: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/daily-ratings/tv-ratings-wednesday-march-21-2018/ (Live estimate at 1.3) http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/daily-ratings/wednesday-final-ratings-march-21-2018/ (L+SD adjustment down to 1.2, but still tied with its s.1 finale) Helluva rebound from last week -- and an awesome comeback for the Wed. lineup as a whole, especially considering ABC did virtually nothing to promote any of it in the past week (not even 'Designated Survivor,' that I can recall)! :D

It is! :D Considering what a fuss she kicked up back then ("Trash or person? Trash or person?"), her reaction here ("You expect my son to use a garbage ramp? ... That's FANTASTIC!") tickled me all the more.

Aww, I hope so badly that this gets renewed... Some thoughts on this episode's plots / character pairings: Ray/Kenneth -- Ray finding his "niche" on the basketball team reminded me of the 'Simpsons' episode where Homer became a boxer by being able to take blows to the head. xD Also, nice to see a callback to Kenneth's star-athlete past (1x20), as well as a scene where Ray debates with himself (as he did in 1x21). And while I guess Melanie "putting in a good word" to Taylor for Ray only went so far -- Taylor did seem a lot less angry and more friendly to Ray when she showed up at his school (in support of having been turned on to basketball by a friend whose boyfriend's team had a big game coming up against the Lafayette team) -- I think it's probably for the better that Ray realized he's been too obsessed with trying to win back his girl and needs to work on himself for a while. Maya/JJ -- Maya's fighting for JJ went too far when she tried to give him an advantage by calling attention to his disabilities (in her letters to the film festivals): At the prestigious Vancouver festival, he got a taste of tokenism by winning in a special "vanguard" category. His film winning on its own merits at the local horror-fest proved much more meaningful (I'm reminded a bit of 1x9, when JJ actually wanted to compete in a sport rather than simply be allowed to "win" all the time); and loved Maya's response to the only accessible entry being a garbage ramp! :) Jimmy/Dylan -- I love this pair so much, but damn... :'( This went above and beyond the s.1 finale in how real things got between them. Choice music cue: The Zombies, "This Will Be Our Year" (1968) ***

I do, too -- I'm sort of glad she's respecting what Jasper wants for now (he's not ready to rejoin the group) and not pushing him, but at the same time she lets him know how Todd feels about the situation.

Yup; also, I thought he had a rather sweet scene with Carol (when she became so upset after drawing the short straw to kill Karl, and Tandy cut his own straw to show his willingness to take her place). :)

Possibly as a reminder to herself why the kids don't have any sort of relationship with their maternal grandfather (similar to how Jimmy carried around his guilt over "the Vegas thing" for years without being able to talk about it)? :\ Also, while I could imagine Maya not wanting Dylan to share her secret shame in a class project, I'd like to think she had intended to show the kids eventually in case they ever expressed curiosity about why her dad is their only grandparent they've never met.

RIP Karl (and the Rubik's Cube of Doom)! I kinda figured that's what would happen; there was no way they would kill off any of the main group (nor a child like Jasper), while Karl represented a clear danger to them and ultimately proved not to be as capable of change as he'd hoped. :\ I thought it was pretty funny that, when the gang realized they had no choice but to kill the guy, they all turned to Melissa -- I mean, I can't believe they would forget how she started spinning out after she killed Darrell (Jon Hamm) at the beginning of s.3, but I liked her response ("Oh sure, everyone looks at me when someone needs killing"). :D We finally got some forward movement on "Melissa hiding Jasper from the rest of the group" plot, too (she finally told them); I suppose next week will deal with the fallout from that. Also, now that Tandy's intuition about someone has been proven right for once, it would be nice see whether that has any effect on his role in the group dynamic (especially how the other survivors besides Todd and Carol might start to see him).

According to the most recent episode (2x17, "A-C--Action"), the family have simply been hiding Pepper from the landlord -- probably because they knew they wouldn't be able to get away with just saying he's a service dog without the landlord demanding to see some sort of license / certification. :\ (Granted, they probably could've made this clearer earlier; but I guess it was being saved for the latest plot development, the prospect of the family losing their home to a neighbor who wants to expand on his own property.)

Ugh, the original tweet was deleted. :p Found the clip on YouTube, though: :D

Good points. :) (I especially like that last bit, as SL and FOTB are still my faves after 'The Middle' -- so regardless of whatever else happens with the Tues. and Wed. lineups next season, in this case I would at least have my Friday shows. :D ) *** Ahead of Wednesday's season finale, here are some interviews: EasterSeals (short Q&As with Kyla, John, Micah and Mason from throughout s.2) OK Magazine (clip, 3:54) (from late Dec./early Jan. -- John talks about working with a certain 'Bachelor' alum, among other things) The Daily Shuffle (Mason Q&A) MyEntertainmentWorld (John Q&A) ABC7 (clip, 2:40) (from March 14 -- Micah and John preview that night's double episode and next week's finale) Assignment X (Cedric Q&A) FanFest (Mason Q&A)

"Special Delivery" (4x14, April 8) Could be interesting -- Erica both conflicts with Todd and bonds with Melissa. Also, Jasper is listed as guest-star again. :)

I think that was a big part of her shame about the videotape -- it showed her wildly overreacting to something she now probably realizes she shouldn't have been that angry about. (She even said she tried to apologize to her dad and stepmom sometime afterwards, but they wouldn't accept it.) I mean, yeah, the writers could've made it clearer whether her dad left her mom for this other woman, or their marriage had ended years before and it wasn't until later that he found someone else to settle down with whom Maya (for whatever reason) simply didn't approve of.* Still, I think it's understandable for Maya to have been upset either way -- I imagine she and her dad may have had a pretty intense, close-yet-combative relationship at one time, having primarily each other to bond and clash with as they were both neglected by Andrea in favor of her cancer-research work (Andrea herself admitted in the s.2 Thanksgiving ep that she couldn't do the "family" thing) -- and yet also be aware that she should've tried to handle things more maturely to begin with. I guess to me, it was interesting to see just how Maya was always full of "fight" -- having a special-needs child definitely helped give her anger some much-needed focus. (We've seen similar development in Dylan; she started out basically as a ball of unfocused rage, but in 1x17 she revealed how she idolizes her mother and wants to be like her, and by 2x15 we saw her being very Maya-like as she lectured a movie-theater usher about all the accessibility issues JJ would face and then demanded them to be fixed; plus, I imagine both she and Maya have benefited from the influence of gentle Jimmy.**) And I think Maya's family background, as revealed in both "A-C--Action" and "B-R-I--British I-N-V--Invasion," goes a long way toward explaining why she's the way she is, especially regarding her devotion to Jimmy and the kids. * - And another thing: I guess I could see why her strained relationships with both parents might give her reason to want to get away from them; but we still don't know for sure what made her want to go all the way to the States in the first place, or what (if anything) she was doing here in terms of education and/or career. :\ **- Speaking of which, I'm a bit disappointed that for all we've been told of Jimmy's parents -- his dad would get a turkey from his boss for Christmas every year (2x10), and his mom had a deal with him wherein if he ever was drunk somewhere and needed a ride home, he could call her and she would drop everything to go pick him up, "no questions asked" (2x11), plus it's possible that the "Grandma" and "Grandpa" alluded to a couple times each in s.1 were his parents, as I imagine the kids would be closer to them than to Maya's parents anyway (Ray mentioned having gone to visit Grandma for a summer in 1x4, Dylan said something about a trip with Grandpa in 1x18, and both Ray and JJ joked about it being easier for them to picture Grandma and Grandpa having "heat" than their own parents in 1x14) -- we still don't know where they are, what sort of relationship he has had with them, or how Maya feels about her in-laws (beyond having "Mentioning your mother" on the "Dead to Maya" list).

When looking at the transcript for that particular episode earlier this evening, I caught that Maya was #8 and Melanie was #3 -- and as I seem to recall in '12 Angry Men,' those were the numbers of the two jurors most at odds with one another (#8 was originally the only one who didn't think the kid was guilty, and #3 was the last holdout to change his vote to "not guilty"). I'm guessing that was intentional. :D After "C-H--Cheater," I had wondered whether the show was just filling in Jimmy's backstory there or this aspect of his past would be revisited in some way; took 'em almost a year to get back to it, but I think it was worth the wait, and a good way to show this side of him without either starting a full-on back-to-school storyline or doing a flashback episode. :)

Good question. I'm thinking maybe 18 months for the initial lease -- if they officially moved in sometime in September 2016, and (according to the schedule in Maya's daydream in 2x16) it's early-to-mid March 2018 now... According to IMDB, she appeared about the same amount of times in each season -- 8 (out of 23) episodes in s.1, 7 (out of 18) eps in s.2: :)

Some thoughts and observations on "A-C--Action": -- Guess we know now how the family have been able to get around violating their lease despite their "service dog" not being fully trained / certified / licensed: They've simply been hiding Pepper from the landlord. -- Good to finally know what's up with Maya's dad (who was not mentioned at all by either Maya or her mom in the Thanksgiving episode). And while such a reveal could've been some heavy stuff -- she had a falling-out with him when he got remarried -- it instead made for a fun, funny Maya/Dylan pairing with psychological cat-and-mouse games and a terrific payoff. -- JJ's filmmaking continues to be one of my favorite storylines of s.2; this episode's plot struck me as a near-perfect illustration of what Dylan said last week about how, even if JJ had all the accommodations in the world, he can still be his own biggest obstacle. I also found Kenneth and Ray's effort to boost his confidence -- by directly challenging him and expressing doubt about his abilities, so he can feel like he has something to prove -- an inspired touch. (Also, Mr. Powers continues to be a hoot. xD ) -- I've found past plots with Jimmy making new friends (opening up about insecurities with the other dads at the fundraiser in "The H-U-S--Hustle," discovering the joys of special treatment with Dane in "M-A-Y--May-Jay," and to a lesser extent, finally bonding with the other special-needs dads at the Oscar Party) delightful to varying degrees, but getting a glimpse of Architect Jimmy was really something special. :) He may have downplayed how much he missed his former career when he told Ray about it in "C-H--Cheater;" but Maya would know how much architecture had truly meant to him, so it's understandable that her only objection to his jumping at this opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge and skills (once she found out what he was doing with neighbor Eddie) was that he hadn't thought to request payment for his work. Overall, I thought this was the more interesting of the two episodes last night; however, the prospect of the family losing their home (due to both Eddie's expanding project and the landlord's discovery of Pepper) seems a seriously dark direction for the show to take. :(

The thing I liked most about "One A-N--Angry M--Maya" was how the pairings of both Maya/Melanie and Jimmy/Dylan ended up doing nice things for Ray; as much as the show clearly delights in plumbing the depths of Ray's weirdness for laughs (for some reason, I was especially tickled by his "schvitz" scene with Jimmy, and Maya's throwaway reference to a "man bun" xD ), I like how his family sometimes acknowledge that he's a good kid and show their love for him. :) Other thoughts and observations: -- Nice wrap-up to the Maya-Melanie rivalry: I found their bonding over prolonging jury duty -- another obligation, sure, but also an opportunity for some much-needed "me time" without feeling purely selfish -- and their realization that they can never fully get away from their family problems both hilarious and rather sweet. Also, I thought the musical-fantasy cold-open was a cute and fun way to get inside Maya's head and express her sheer secret joy, but the implication that Melanie had had the same fantasy was the icing on the cake. :D (On the downside, I was hoping when Maya mentioned her beefs -- the school-application incident from 10 years ago, and Taylor's recent breakup with Ray -- some info about JJ's feud with Logan would also come out, but I wonder whether they're saving that for the season finale or it'll just be best left to the imagination like "the Noodle Incident" from 'Calvin & Hobbes'...) -- The car from the Oscar Party episode shows up again; little does Jimmy know that Ray already had a joyride in it once... -- As disappointing as a return to the status quo could've been in light of Jimmy's "give me back my kid, man!" outburst last week (he admits he wants more time with JJ, only to lavish attention on Dylan instead?), I thought having JJ (now technically an adult) and the perpetually single Kenneth navigating the online-dating world together was inspired and generally well-handled -- I especially liked how they each had a lesson to learn about the importance of honesty (JJ about his disabilities, Kenneth about his age / appearance and marital history). -- I liked how 1) in addition to having bit of their own fun (ping-pong), Jimmy and Dylan's bonding in this ep was largely in the service of getting the garage / man-cave ready for JJ and preparing the car to give to Ray, and 2) this season's lack of Jimmy/Ray bonding -- they couldn't fit in even one "robe talk"? -- at least was finally addressed in-universe (Ray's preoccupation with Taylor, also cited by JJ in the "Star Wars" ep).

I hope it does OK, though it might take a hit this week due to Daylight Saving Time. (In s.1, DST hit between 1x17 "S-U-R--Surprise" and 1x18 "D-I--Ding," and the rating dropped from 1.5 to 1.3.) :\ Lack of promotion could hurt it, too; 'Black-ish' also has a double episode this week, and I've already been seeing it promoted a lot more (though I guess I could understand it getting the bigger push, as it's both coming back from a 4-week break -- the new ep it had scheduled for Feb. 27 ended up shelved for "creative differences" between ABC and the show's creator -- and facing competition from the 'This Is Us' s.2 finale). The 'Speechless' episodes sound really good, according to this preview: FanFest: Treat Yourself to a Double Dose of DiMeo on 3/14 The first one sounds fun, but I'm more excited for the second one -- with JJ's filmmaking, Jimmy's architecture background, revelations about his and Maya's past, and a rare Maya/Dylan pairing all coming into play (plus, I'm still curious to find out where Kenneth fits into it). :) EDIT: Also, Minnie's comments from this Yahoo! piece about the musical fantasy-sequence cold-open from "One A-N--Angry M--Maya": And here, Scott Silveri goes into greater detail of how the sequence came about and how it was filmed: THR: Why 'Speechless' is Doing a Musical Number -- About Jury Duty (Guest Column) *** Micah shares pix from his UCPLA Trailblazer Award honor Sunday night:

At least a half-season, yeah. :) *** FOX chairman Gary Newman discusses renewal chances for several ongoing series (including LMOE): http://deadline.com/2018/03/24-series-comeback-plot-gotham-exorcist-empire-renewals-fox-gary-newman-interview-intv-1202335812/

As part of its "On the Bubble: Keep or Cut?" series, TV Line makes cases both for and against a 5th season for LMOE: http://tvline.com/2018/03/11/last-man-on-earth-cancelled-renewed-season-5-fox/

I could see that happening, especially if/when he finds out that she's been keeping Jasper from the rest of the group. :( *** Programming update: Unbelievable. Looks like FOX may air new episodes on Easter after all (up against NBC's live production of 'Jesus Christ Superstar,' to boot)... http://www.thefutoncritic.com/listings/2018/04/01/ :\

That's largely why I would think it more believable if this were a more recent development (brought on by JJ turning 18) than something he'd been feeling for a while -- if it were the latter case, it would've needed a lot more groundwork than simply being set off one day by the lightbulb and the dog-training. (Sort of like in the "Star Wars" episode when JJ confessed to Ray how much he'd been missing him since Taylor came into the picture; aside from one or two lines earlier in the ep, it seemed to come out of nowhere.) I saw where in the next ep that airs ("One A-N--Angry M-Maya"), Kenneth and JJ are supposed have a plot together while Maya's away at jury duty and Jimmy picks up the slack with Dylan and Ray -- sounds like a return to the status quo, though I like to think the two men at least have a new understanding between them that 1) if Jimmy feels his relationship with JJ is lacking or suffering in some way, he needs to speak up and 2) Kenneth would be more than happy to step back and give them any space / time they need to work out their stuff. *** Something else I thought about this episode: I knew going into it that it would have the basically the same character pairings as this season's Christmas ep (2x10, "S-I--Silent N-I--Night"), but I thought it was neat how their plots had some parallels but also enough differences to not seem like a total repeat: 1) Ray/Maya -- just as he'd had her back when he had stood up to Taylor's mom (instead of siding against his own mother, as Maya had feared), Maya ultimately showed her support for Ray by letting him confront Taylor in person (despite her having been rightly concerned about him making an ass of himself with the drone) and being genuinely happy for him when he got what he wanted (any kind of emotional response to let him know she still cared on some level -- even if just to angrily tell him everything he'd done wrong -- as opposed to the "so distant, so unfeeling" way she'd treated him earlier); 2) Jimmy/Kenneth -- both plots started out kinda silly yet took a more sincere turn as the guys came to some sort of understanding about each other; but while the Christmas plot wrapped up sweetly (with each man learning a bit about the other's work-life and then giving him something he wanted), this plot ended abruptly on a rather intense note; 3) JJ/Dylan -- besides both eps featuring JJ's Film class, they each dealt in some way with everyday challenges and obstacles he faces; but while the Christmas episode had Dylan learning from JJ about what he goes through as a nonverbal person (not through her vow-of-silence experiment, as she had assumed, but by figuring out exactly what she'd done to anger him and how she needed to make it up to him, as well as through the video he ended up making as a gift to his family), this one instead focused more on the wheelchair aspect (especially accessibility problems and various hazards -- rain, dog droppings, blocked pathways, etc. -- in public places) and had JJ learning a lesson from Dylan about not getting in his own way when it comes to forging friendships*. (* - not unlike the advice their dad gave her -- "let 'em in" -- in 2x2 after she told him about her lack of friends at school.)