scrb

I'm guessing the growth is going to come by the end of the season in which Carrie tries to be a loving, committed mother, as opposed to a murderous one. Or, maybe she's not big on bathing, if one remembers how she freshened up before an all-hands meeting in the pilot.

So the CIA was got played by ISI is apparently the season long plot and Carrie is going to hunt that down. I would imagine since Pakistan is still officially an ally, Washington wouldn't allow the CIA to run operations against the ISI. But that's okay, Carrie is going to assemble her own team of mostly caucasians working covertly in Pakistan. Okay.

Hmm, some gross out humor. Kevin "marks" Sofia and then Pete's new girlfriend as well.

Hmm but I imagine Elliot Gould and Jon Voight don't come cheap. Plus they had some guest stars over the course of the season?

Show is renewed but the creator is out as showrunner. So ratings must have been good enough but not wildly better? Glad the show is coming back though.

I noticed they're moving YTW but not Married, which got slightly better ratings.

On American TV it is. It may not be the same piano piece from Lost but it's the same genre, mood. DL is going to the well of what he thinks works. If by chance the viewers start to like particular characters, he can kill them off and write some eulogy dialog again. Someone else noted, the main male protagonist has daddy issues. That's true isn't it. But since Leftovers is based on a book maybe DL just gravitates to that kind of theme.

"We made them remember" What a crock. There's no evidence that people don't remember or aren't still grieving in some moments here and there. GR appointed themselves some arbiter of how to observe loss. If that is what the book is about, that's stupid too. I don't buy that the angry mob would spontaneously assemble and decide to burn down the GR homes, punch out every GR member they can find.

Pretty repulsed by the French song over the opening montage. DL is pretty pretentious. Edit: at the ending of the episode, a happy ending for now, you get the same spare piano music. Pretty sure it as the same one used in one of the Lost episodes after some regular died. Blatant emotional manipulation a la Spielburg.

The writing on Abby is pretty inconsistent. At the beginning, she's pliant and thinks she has it good compared to other wives because Ray still fucks her, even if it's him just grabbing her in the middle of the night and going to town. Then the therapist tells her that's not good and she becomes this harridan, not only seeking out another guy (who isn't undercover, actually seems to want her, so far), but throwing it in Ray's face, inviting him to the house that Ray bought? And what the fuck did Ray ever see in her in the first place? She kept quiet, didn't ask any questions about his "dirty" business for years, didn't complain that Ray just grabbed her and went to town in the middle of the night. Maybe as a victim of child molestation, a lousy father, a mother who died when he was young, Ray can't have been expected to make good relationship choices?

I don't think just getting rid of Cookie will solve problems. Seems to be in charge of a gang so someone else equally vicious would just take over. That's why Ray doesn't want to mess around, telling Bridget to lie and telling his bosses to give up the rights to the song catalogs.

But aren't they trying to show that Ray is kind of falling for the reporter? She's not just a booty call for him, though he seems to be summoning her to come back from Boston.

I don't know that the show would necessarily be better if it focused on Ray's work and how he made so much money that he had to launder it. At first, he seemed to just fix whatever was needed to be fixed for the clients of the lawyers. But then they showed him getting entrepreneurial, cutting his own deals with the self-help guy and pocketing the money he convinced Stu to pay to the porn producers, in order to make the downpayment on the house. Sopranos delved into how the crew "earned" like the stock pump and dump, the capos getting their hands dirty and puling heists themselves, the crew ripping each other off, etc. However that show had to depict the family relationships as well. It wasn't just a straight depiction only of criminal acts, but what made these men tick. Ray blatantly flouts authority, whether telling the FBI chief to fuck off or breaking into a cop's home. Why not resort to outright crime, like robbing banks, which is what the Southey hoodlums are known for, as in The Town movie.

Mickey's movie deal goes poof, just like that? I don't remember the other guy he scuffled with at the party, must have been in earlier eps?

So RW season 30 will be set in Chicago and filming has started recently: http://voices.suntimes.com/arts-entertainment/the-daily-sizzle/its-official-filming-has-started-on-mtvs-real-world-chicago/ Looks like they turned a former night club into a home and it's in an area for restaurants.

So the cast seem to look at Lil Bit differently than in the season finale. Are they calling her out on the same things or something that happened since the finale.

Did anything happen except for the Taylor and Ryan drama? Then again, I can't recall if anything happened in S1.

That could explain a lot. Many Israelis have a dim view of Arabs, if not outright hostility.

You wonder if they plotted this finale knowing they'd be renewed? Or got a commitment for more than one season? Supposedly other networks were interested in the show but FX made an aggressive offer. I don't think Jamal being a stereotypical Arab despot would be that interesting. It was Bassam goading him to be better and him trying to suppress his instincts that made things somewhat interesting.

One thing about this episode is that it follow a climatic episode in current time (3 years after 1014). Patti killed herself and Kevin may be implicated in her murder -- even though he didn't do it, he clearly abducted her to some isolated place during one of his blackouts. And Jill just joined the GR. So they halt that momentum abruptly and go to a flashback episode. This was exactly the kind of tactic that Lost always pulled. It aggravated and alienated a lot of people.

After LA and the Middle East, Bassam's family may get sun withdrawal pains if they move to Oregon.

I got the sense that their budget was limited, so they limited the regular cast members. So Jenny was the only female regular cast member. Maybe FX increases their budget.

Had forgotten that they time the seasons with the NFL season.

I like them better when they didn't talk ...

Started out okay but then blew up. Mickey says inappropriate things, does lousy things including hurting those closest to him. Yet he is, literally in this episode, the life of the party.