Dowel Jones

Well, I just finished all 10 eps over a few days, so I'm late. notKatie is morphing into notLeah for next season, I see. I kind of expected that, but I hope that telling Shaun is part of her plan, rather than her relying on the supposed friendship. Regarding the murder. would China really care about an incident between two Americans that happened on Chinese soil, unless it impacted foreign relations between the two countries? Besides which, China, or at least mainland China, has no extradition treaty with the US. Now, from the US perspective, who would prosecute the case? Evidence is so slim that a conviction is virtually impossible. The main damage is to her rapidly declining "career", and her ability to star in a movie past the obligatory boyfriend pairing. Of course, if it were me, I would rather push a broom somewhere rather than try a dig my way out of that entire toxic environment. The main effect these "pretty people in peril" type shows have on me is to make me wonder whose estate was rented out for some of the exterior shots.

My question is, who in the world would loan a parking lot company $200 million dollars? Certainly not any legitimate investors/banks/etc., so that leads me to think that the entire enterprise was a method to launder that money. Having done that through the offshore accounts (which, by the way, are not nearly as secure as they used to be), one would think that the previous owners of that money would be more than upset if it was shown that their money went to some private sources. Enter my hypothesis for the end of the show: Varga is indeed freed to go out the door, but only to be met by a "representative" from those sources. And he has neither Yuri nor Meemo to defend him. Oh, Mr. Wrench. You ruined that perfectly good salad. I was halfway expecting, and hoping, really, to see Anton Chigurch get out of that rattletrap pickup and greet Emmitt on the prairie highway. If anyone stayed for the commercials after the finale, one was for, yup, Snickers! In answer to a question upthread, I think that the FBI would have sent Varga's photo to Interpol as a BOLO. Five years later, he slips up and is recognized through facial recognition software as he is leaving Europe, and DHS, which controls Immigration and Customs Enforcement, receives notification of his impending arrival. Just my theory, anyway. Some lucky groundskeeper is going to find that stamp, and if he plays his cards right....

Replacing the HVAC system with a Trojan Horse would seem to be a doomed enterprise, but, hey, this kind of stuff always happens and works on tv. Wouldn't someone from the church management observe and realize that they are doing a huge amount of work, and ask around to see who authorized it? I don't think they have a backup explanation other than "somebody called and said there was an odd smell." What they're doing is expensive work. Oh, come now. Hasn't your life been improved by the knowledge of the fact that the sum of they hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides of a triangle? Or that the value of the tangent of any angle in a right triangle is equal to the value of the sine divided by the value of the cosine? Zoot alors!

I think in the latest episode she said he went to Guam.

Coincidentally, last week some crooks hit several places in my city with skimmers, which read the credit card numbers. Unfortunately, one of them was mine. Within minutes after the skim, the thief sent the number off to somewhere on the internet, and it was used to by someone else to buy $150 of fuel in a city 100 miles away. Fortunately, the theft prevention software at the bank caught the act, because whoever used it kept the initial run to $1 to see if it would work, which is a dead giveaway to the software. I got a phone call and immediately suspended the card. The CC bank withdrew the charge, so I'm reasonably happy. Goes to show you, though, just how fast this can happen.

More like Ma Barkin and her gang of desperados.

In a bitter irony, it turns out to be the attorney with whom Alice left the tape.

I got the impression that the current episode is long removed from the Camp Pendleton job, and, knowing these guys' habits, a lot of the cash has been spent. What I want to know is, when and where did they film when the gasoline was $2.68 per gallon?

I thought about using Tuan with Kimmie also, but, in my opinion, he is too tightly wound up in his revolutionary fervor to make a good underground agent, especially with a group of well off teenagers who share none of his philosophies. Elizabeth is right; he needs a partner to both guide him and keep him on the straight and narrow when it comes to maintaining a cover. This was probably explained when Philip was first given the assignment of bugging Breland, but since I have forgotten it, wouldn't he have to go over to their house more often than once a week to change out tapes? I'm sure they would want information on a more timely basis, and did tapes of that era have enough capacity for so much time, even with voice activation only?

One thing I wonder about is the fact that Tuan showed Pasha how to cut himself effectively but not deathly, as he admitted. What's going to happen if Pasha's parents question Pasha about the suicide attempt and he reveals that Tuan talked him into it? I don't see him hanging around that family anymore regardless if they go home or not, and he doesn't have an operation after this. He's basically an orphan.

When she body slams a reporter, they'll damn sure know about it. They might have dropped a hint in the scene where Paige is watching the news about President Reagan's infamous line "The bombing starts in five minutes." It was so isolated from everything else that I took it to show some increasing distrust of the USA on her part. I would think the KGB would be developing far more sophisticated methods of surveillance once they found out Breland was going to be promoted to such an influential post. Tape recorder in a briefcase, indeed. I think it has served its purpose and besides, poor Philip doesn't want to listen to endless conversation about breakfast at Denny's, or the Yankees, or whatever. He probably dreams as he listens... "If only there were a computer programs that transcribes spoken word to written word...."

Henry: "Dmitri, what are you doing this weekend? I'd like to invite you to dinner at our house, and meet my daughter Stevie." Dmitri: "Noooooooooooo!"

CIA's Lebanon station chief William Buckley (not the author) began an affair with a Lebanese woman almost as soon as he arrived on station. She was a spy for Hezbollah, and what he didn't give up to her, he gave up to them after he was kidnapped and tortured to death. It seriously impacted the CIA's network in Lebanon.

It's a good thing that Joe Friday isn't around anymore. You would get "the speech" for that comment!

I don't want her dead, but I would have been highly amused if the laundry bag had swung around and knocked her on her can.

I still say that's Justice Clarence Thomas moonlighting for some extra coin.

So, what's to prevent the evil brother from having his sister killed, now that he is under arrest and she plans to testify against him? She doesn't want the WPR, and plans to stay in Miami, so what did the entire charade accomplish, other than to release JP from her contract?

I see a problem with just uprooting Paige and Henry and planting them in Russia without any sort of conditioning beforehand. They are, in fact and in law, still United States citizens, and thus allowed entrance into any consulate or embassy (Russian guards notwithstanding). What's to prevent either kid, in a moment of teenage angst and rebellion, from walking into such a place and requesting repatriation? The PR problems would definitely be newsworthy. It occurs to me that the surveillance on Pasha's house is mostly ineffectual and incompetent. A guy sitting in a car all day and all night is noticeable to anyone and everyone, and if the KGB wanted to pull a snatch and grab, he would likely be the first casualty.

I'm not a diplomat, but I've seen people play one on tv. Looking at the world map, I don't think Turkey would be waiting around on NATO to do something. Istanbul is right around the corner from the Bulgarian coast, and they would consider that a clear and present danger. That's my humble opinion, anyway. And what's with the France bashing on the shows, anyway? They aren't doing so well this year. I have to agree about the Stevie-Dimitri scene. It's a wonder they didn't have to repair the floor from the impact of that anvil. We're going to see a lot more of Mike's antics, I think. I don't think his denial was completely up to snuff. I just wish that tv would quit showing people holding mugs of hot coffee by the bowl instead of the handle. Try this at home, kids!

Well, if notRed has been the guy this whole time, he sure has had one helluva time spending realRed's money all these years.

I was so channeling Charlie Sheen from Hot Shots, Part Deux, during that scene in the monastery.

A good, fast moving, few dull moments kind of an episode. Two small gripes: CIA guy: It's nu-clear, not nu-kyu-ler. Sorry, that just chafes me. When the satellite weapon was hacked, the screen shows "Satellite spoofed, deterred to ocean", or something like that. Computers only display what has been programmed into them. Did Patterson have that line of programming all set up? If the decoy didn't work, was the computer going to display "Oh, shit. You people are so fucked. See you in the Matrix"? Poor Shepherd (not really): "Do you expect me to talk, Naz?" "No, Shepherd, I expect you to die." Goldfinger reference. In the end, it has been Patterson who was the true hero of the show, although almost always in a secondary role. They better get her un-kidnapped in a hurry.

It's the "leave no witnesses" policy. If they left him alive, no doubt he would tell the police that she was killed by assassins for being a traitor to Russia in WWII, which would then bring the FBI and the CIA into the investigation. Even with a faulty ID of Philip and Elizabeth, it would bring increasing heat on the Russians. Too many questions would be asked.

As he drives around with a truckload of high explosives, which he explains nonchalantly as "stuff he bought on the open market after his mercenary organization collapsed." And the FBI believes him. Ouch. You know you suck at writing when people think Scandal is the superior product.

So, it is true about the Hills? Texas won't know what to think.