Pop Tart

I'm thinking the guy who picked Sonja up in the truck was just driving her TO her car which was probably somewhat distant on a large lot if this is a place that stores people's cars who don't want to drive from the city. That's my guess anyway. And regarding Sonja, as much as I think she plays extremely fast and loose with the facts on a lot of things - on most things, I also think she does have kernels of truth in the stories she's spilling. When she was talking at that brunch about Ramona and the way she's been taking up with various men and "dating" them until she's done getting what she wants from them, I believed that. Both because of the way we see Ramona use anyone who comes into her orbit (the artist and his friend suddenly moving furniture and wiring tv's - hey I wonder if they beat Rob's seven-minute feat from VPR?) and because of how defensive Ramona got when Sonja slipped that in there. Because she's generally in panicked, survivor mode, Sonja is pretty socially aware, even though she puts on the ditz front. Dorinda lost me with her rant. Yes, a dead husband is worse then one you've divorced, but that's not what Dorinda was mad at Sonja about, what she was mad at her about for days before the brunch. She was mad because Carole told her that Sonja had said she looked fat in her halloween costume. That was what she had a head of steam about. But for her to go off on Sonja because she called her fat? That loses Dorinda some points, because it's petty and stupid. If instead she waits for the moment when Sonja says something tangentially connected to the men in their lives (because when doesn't she say something about her divorce?), then she can go off on Sonja about being a widow and burying her husband. Sounds pretty calculating I know, but I think Dorinda is pretty calculating. She bides her time and often holds back when others are going all in. Except when she's drunk or high or whatever combo, then all bets are off.

I'm thinking the editors are working big time to have Luann come across as particularly arrogant in this first half of the season with some creative scene cuts. Not to say that Luann needs a lot of help on this front, but I think they're really working at it so that when the whole arrest/jail thing happens it will be a very dramatic fall. I will also say, and I am a fan of Lu's so that's my grain of salt, that I understand why Luann would go the brazen route in terms of how she's acting post-Tom disaster. She dug herself in so badly that there really was no getting out gracefully. Her choices were to be all meek and contrite or to brazen it out, she's chosen the latter. Does it make her look great? No. But I kind of get it. Especially since she knows the other women are going to drag her throughout this season, and for a few more to come (if she's still there), I'm guessing. I don't even blame them for dragging her, that's part of the game and she did dig that massive hole. But it's something she knows is coming and she's going to have to deal, so why not go big?

Whoops, yep knew that, but forgot in the moment. Corrected now.

I loved how she managed to get her late husband (connected to the Kennedys don’t you know) and her journalism career shoehorned into her marathon saga. She has history with the marathon because her late husband once ran it before he knew her and the challenge of running is just like her years covering the war. That was reality show jujitsu. I’m waiting to hear that her next book is going to be all about her running the marathon. Did that cookbook she was “writing” with Adam ever get done? Tinsley is certainly coming out guns-a-blazin’ this season. As is Dorinda.

I thought Teddi looked really beautiful at the lunch she had with her husband and kids. The sun was behind her and she looked very glow-y. Not much else to note other then the usual, Erika is a mean (in spirit) person and Dorit is annoying.

Pronoun - "they" (neither female nor male)

This is why I don't have as much sympathy/worry about Brittany. She's obviously just where she wants to be and will remain with Jax as long as need be to remain on the show. If he moves away or it becomes clear that she can remain on the show without him being her story, then I think she'll dump him. I just don't think she's as naive or lovestruck as she purports to be on the show. For her it's about the storyline and staying a "character" on VR.

He said it to them, but from Taylor's reaction I couldn't tell if that was actually so or not. Taylor has a very good stone-face.

I agree. To put it in Law and Order terms, everything that comes after Chuck setting it all up is 'fruit of the poison tree' stuff. That's not to say that Bobby didn't do criminal things or that he could never be convicted of those things, but so much of what Chuck did to set it all in motion was so dirty that any high-powered lawyer representing Bobby would be able to get most of the case tossed and what they couldn't get tossed, they could muddy so much in the eyes of the public and of a jury that I doubt Bobby would be convicted. I want to know if the box test that Taylor was giving to the Quant? candidates can actually be put together into an actual thing? I loved everyone of those interactions with Taylor, Wags and the various candidates. And as much as I'm still pretty fascinated, episode to episode, with the power plays of Chuck and Bobby, I'm watching every episode looking for the Taylor scenes (having Wags be their foil in a lot of those scenes is just bonus!). You're not alone in that. I usually have to watch each episode several times before I feel like I've picked up most of the nuances - even then I don't think I get them all. And I'm okay with that because I feel like with every re-watch I pick up on things that I missed in my previous watch.

I agree and think that Carole finds Tinsley more her cuppa because they both come from what Carole would consider the same social strata in NYC. Bethenny is very acerbic in terms of her wit and that appeals to Carole, but generally Carole has more of a laissez faire attitude (that comes with privilege) towards most things in life (deadlines for books, dating, eating, etc.) and that is not Bethenny. So far they've navigated this because Carole's usually willing to go along on the Bethenny train, but I think eventually, perhaps during this season, those worldviews will come into conflict.

I think this aspect of Dre has become more pronounced as the series has progressed and is a symptom of what I consider to be a larger problem with the recent episodes. In the first couple seasons Barris wrote episodes that had strong messages about black experience of life in America, but the messages were offered more subtly and with much more wit and humor. Lately I've been feeling like I'm being lectured to when I watch. Each episode has to have a very strong message that is offered very didactically with Dre eventually falling into lecture mode for the audience. Basically I think that Kenya Barris is doing a lot more telling then he is showing which makes these episodes weaker and less enjoyable overall.

I think the text wasn't fully clear on what he had said - mostly because he couldn't even figure out where the disconnect had happened - so I think that's why Kristen was still skeptical about what he said. She had everyone insisting he said they hooked up. Ha! I'll grant you that point.

Kristen didn't know that he had only said they "hung out together a little bit". The way it was conveyed to her by everyone was that he said they "hooked up a little bit" which is a very different thing and something for her to be angry about. She was on WWHL and she said her head wanted to explode when she saw the actual footage and saw that he was asked about "hanging out" not "hooking up". When Andy asked her if she was still angry at James, she said no, she was most angry at Sandoval and Jax who made the whole thing up.

I did notice that and it pinged for me as strange too. At first glance I thought it was Sandoval and Arianna, then I realized that it was Schwartz and Lala. The body language was just kind of weirdly close (intimate?) which is why my brain put it as S&A first. Just odd. I've always been convinced that to Lisa V. the Pump cast (and most of the H-wives she befriends) are really just one step up from the dogs in how she views them - thought it was a bit of a freudian slip when she was comparing James to the stray Ken had brought home. To her her castmates are just slightly (very slightly in the case of the Pump cast) above her pets in terms of intelligence and she's free to play with them, observe them, poke at them when she wants a reaction, etc. The difference between the dogs and the people? She takes the people under her wing, Scheana, Brandy, that guy who lived with her in the first season of RHOBH, the Toms, etc., She plays with them and their lives until they no longer amuse her, and then she drops them. With the dogs at least they get to live in luxury until they die. If the people she adopts push too much for her attention (Brandy, guy who used to live with her and Ken) they get pushed out of her life, never to be allowed to darken her door again. If they only irritate her, then she'll ice them out for a period of time, poke at them passive-aggressively, and make verbal digs at them to the camera and other cast members until they have sucked up enough to get back in her good graces. I think there are very, very few people who she truly considers to be at her level ("she's up HERE...and everyone else is down THERE" tm Kelly Bensimone) that are her intimate friends. You'll notice she very rarely reveals anything about herself. What do we know? She's been married to Ken forever, she loves animals and the color pink, she loves Pandora and has mixed emotions about Max, and...? I don't like Lisa, I think she uses people for her amusement and then tosses them aside. But I actually do admire how she plays the reality television game. She grooms, she pets, then she pokes, and prods and does it all with her formal British accent so everyone thinks she's charming.

Not only did she sound ridiculous when she claimed she didn’t like to get gifts, she had to throw in a dig at the gift that Lala did get when she sneered “roses?, hashtag basic”. She’s really a humorless bitch.

Pretty sure he was on a hoverboard. I think my biggest roadblock with this one is that it follows so soon on the debut of RISE. I so hated that middle-aged, white guy going through some kind of mid-life career crisis and his making major, life-changing decisions that would adversely and exponentially affect his family, that it's hard for me to get past Alex doing the exact same thing here in this pilot. I actually liked the family and the dynamic the husband/wife have - where they seem to actually be in a partnership with each other. There was a smidge of the usual sitcom trope where he's just a lovable, screwup, happy-go-lucky charmer and she's the scolding "mother", but it was relatively muted. So there's that. But I did find myself thinking as I watched, "do we really need another family sitcom about a white guy trying to figure out life and stuff?" All this said I will give it another episode at least mostly because I know a lot of my reaction was actually still due to RISE and not this show.

I didn’t think Toby was dying in that flash-forward. It looked more like he was suffering a bout of deep depression. His parents mentioned that he’d sunk into a depression when his first marriage ended and Kate is talking about checking with a doctor about his dosage, which sounds like anti-depressants to me.

I agree that a lot of this was heavy-handed and exposition heavy, but my biggest issue is Lou. I pretty-much hated him. Talk about your white, male privilege. He decides he wants the job of theater director and gets it even though there’s a woman of color who has been doing the job for eleven years. Which, granted, wasn’t his fault, but when she makes clear that she still wants her position, he shrugs and offers her the job of his assistant. And then he goes home and drops the news on his wife who expresses dismay because it will be a huge added burden for her. He makes a bunch of unrealistic promises - and we know they’re unrealistic because he immediately breaks them - and then earnestly tells her he really needs this and she gives in. These scenes plus the ones he had with the maybe-gay kid and the football player and a couple others were all about what he needed. He talked a good game about them being a troupe, but nothing he did demonstrated concern for anyone but himself. Even his choice of Spring Awakening was about his ego, he’s the cool guy, not the lame-o who does Grease or Pirates of Penzance. I liked the rest of the cast, so I’ll probably try one more episode, but boy he may make it impossible for me to watch this.

Claire knew as soon as her mom asked her for the money that nothing had changed with her. So she wrote the check knowing full well that it was lost money and she was accepting the fact that this is who her mother is, an untrustworthy user. That’s not to say she isn’t heartbroken over what she hoped could be, just that she’s looking at her mom with eyes wide open. And though I’m a cynic, I’m hoping that despite Kenny’s criminal background, he’ll turn out to actually be just Shaun’s friend, and not trying to use him or take advantage. I do think there’s a chance he’s on the up and up (in terms of his relationship with Shaun) given how that relationship seemed to have been juxtaposed with the one between Claire and her mother in the episode.

I agree about Billie. This isn’t the first time she’s immediately run to Lala and Scheana and/or Ariana with a wildly exaggerated version of what was said to her. I think she’s pretty determined to become a regular and dating creepy Jeremy is a way to put herself in the middle of things. I thought Katie actually handled the conversation well with Ariana and though I hate Ariana, her response was reasonable as well given that Jeremy is her brother. Sandoval though was totally in the wrong. And I was hating his smugness more then ever tonight. I too am getting so sick of Lala’s schtick as an “empowered” woman. She who talks about using blowjobs to hang onto “her man” (whose name she’s not even allowed to utter) is not someone to lecture everyone else.

This. Really both of them, Howard more then Bernadette probably, have jobs that would allow them to flex their schedules. Howard doesn't teach classes as far as I can tell which means he can set his own schedule at work (other then when he might need to use some machine or other). Same for Bernadette. She's a research scientist, so I'd guess she'd also have some flexibility - at least some of the time - with her job schedule. So between them they could work it so that one or the other of them could be with the babies for most of the day, with occasional child care from other arranged. Yes this means they'd see each other less as they took shifts, but it would give them what they seem to want, time with the babies and time spent on their jobs and careers. It's funny. Last week I wasn't liking Bernadette at all because I thought she was being such a bully, but it seems most thought she was more so in this episode and I didn't see it at all here. She was right to be skeptical about how well Howard would do all by himself with the babies, he immediately called in Raj to help and took a nap, and at her job she was delighting in being at work, but didn't say anything horrible to anyone. So I liked her a lot better last night then last week.

The thing that gets me is when they really like someone, like the Terrence guy tonight, they don’t just compliment them, or welcome them to the team, they declare they’ve found this years winner, or that they are the best they’ve ever had on their team, or the like. And all I can think is how that must sound to the other contestants? Like okay, Alicia, Terrence is the best ever and this year’s winner, so why should any of the others on your team trust you?

It’s not that what she wants doesn’t matter, it’s that she wasn’t caring very much (or at all really) what Howard wanted. That’s not how it sounded to me. When Amy is having the conversation with Howard she asks him something about Michael. Howard says ‘who’s Michael?” Amy tells him Michael is his son and then tells him that Bernadette told her the baby’s name. This doesn’t read as Bernie telling Amy they were thinking about Michael as a possible name, it reads as Bernie saying Michael is his name. And then at the end when Howard tells everyone the name, Neil Michael, Bernie says in the background that they’ll be calling him by his middle name, Michael. Perhaps this won’t happen and they’ll use Neil, but I doubt it. Just didn’t sit right with me. Felt similar to when Sheldon is being selfish about something (dining table) and everyone eventually gives in to him. Not a fan of that either.

I'd forgotten this piece of it which was definitely the kicker for me. That they were going to end up calling him Michael at her insistence anyway made me really hate her in that moment.

I wasn't thrilled that Michael ended up being the middle name, though I knew it would be. Of course compromise is good, but Howard was pretty definite he didn't want to name his son Michael. He wasn't just a bit 'meh' about the name, but really did not want it. And to have Bernadette effectively trying to do an end-run around him by just declaring it so and telling Amy that's the name? Then she uses the fact that she's the one giving birth as leverage to try and guilt Howard into making sure she got her way? Really did not like that and really did not like her in that moment (which is happening more and more with Bernadette). The name of a child is a big deal for both parents and shouldn't have to be something one swallows for the sake of the other. I know it happens all the time, and perhaps if I'd seen Howard actually get to pick Neil for the first name and the two of them agreeing to Michael as the middle name, it'd be different. But the way it happened just seems like more of Bernadette's bullying behavior. For Penny and Leonard, I'd like them to get a story, but I don't want it to be another jealousy story where another ex of Penny's shows up.