Dowel Jones

AlieMen's Wearhouse. You're gonna love the way you look. Or else.

Yeah, it would have been nice if someone had referred to one of them as Colonel Klink, but they've probably traded in their sense of humor at the same time as their souls. I wonder how the algorithm used to determine the candidates for collaboration dealt with outlier groups in each country's culture. How would street gangs, beaten down minority groups, etc., fare within the new system? In the opening sequence, the Resistance once again showed why, for lack of a better phrase, resistance is futile. First, the lookout comes running up to alert the lead guy that the motion detector went off. He spends 5-10 seconds of precious time telling everyone to do what should have been automatic protocol. Then they all take up positions that allow each of them to be easily eliminated. Game over. Hell, even Will & Co. can barely manage to escape their predicament (same thing; Katie hanging on to the phone), and that's with automatic weapons at their disposal. Training. Learn it, love it, live it. I had to laugh at Will's question to the driver when he mentioned the space pod. "Did you get a look inside?" "Uh, no, man, I was driving this stolen blackjack car and waiting for some idiots to get out of a crossfire so we could maybe just get away." So, the nice Bowman family are sewer dwellers for the time being (and a very nicely appointed sewer it is, too). It would be a good idea to scout the entire system as time allowed, as that would be good information in time of need. Topside isn't going to work for you, anymore.

Speaking of which, what is Paige going to think whenever someone holds up and rubs their thumb/forefinger in the classic "world's smallest violin" jibe?

It did seem rather ineffective to me, also, although part of it I ascribed to Paige's resentment over having to train. I wonder if the writers were taking a slight potshot at the old "wax on, wax off" routine from Karate Kid.

100 points for the frame grab, Tara!

I would like to see Miss Cuthbert (can't remember her name and I'm appropriating the matron from A League of Their Own, sorry) come to her own end by walking home one evening, and being accosted by a stranger in the twilight. She is chloroformed, and wakes up in a dark room. The stranger moves into the dim light, and says, in an nondescript voice, "Welcome to Ripper Street." The camera focuses on a knife and her reaction to it. Fade to black. And I hope that Thatcher channels his inner Chuck Norris and leaves Drummond with a permanently broken nose.

Don't you dare invoke the name of She Who Must Not Be Angered. This Is Us is still a workable show, even with its faults.

I think Stan is getting into deep trouble here. If the CIA develops a contact in Russia who lets it slide that he warned Oleg of the CIA's intent, and/or reveals the extent of Philip/Elizabeth's activities in the US, at the very least he's looking at loss of career. ETA: After reading the possible setup of Oleg in earlier posts, that might not happen after all. But he is still on the hook for getting close to Phillip/Elizabeth. When they did that, I was thinking, what happens if someone at the lab has second thoughts about the burial because of the possible water contamination or whatnot, and decides to have the coffin exhumed and relocated? I can only imagine the reading on the seismograph when they find the extra body in the coffin.

Hey, maybe she meant that 70's band by the same name. Her onstage band was going to cover one of their songs, but when she left, it fell through. Just a theory....

I thought that it was Hannah that shot Lady Mac, because that would be the actual thing to do for a real FBI agent. Just think. You're holding a suspect at gunpoint when an unknown person directly behind you pops off a shot, killing him. You're probably next in line, so, do you whirl around, yell in surprise, or do you pump off 2-3 rounds into the person holding the gun on you? Personally, I would choose the latter, consequences be damned. You gotta be alive to get fired. The secret phone in the VP office is still there. Hopefully someone seals off the entire office for investigation. Or maybe a publisher of a right wing conspiracy touting website, who just happens to have received security clearance.

I was thinking more of the long term development of his construction work, where he had become a foreman and was actually dreaming of starting his own company with Miguel. He basically tossed the idea of auto mechanic somewhere along the line. Do you mean 1970?

I'm rather curious (but not enough to warrant a backstory, mind you) about how Jack moved from auto repair into construction. Sure, during a recession, he would take anything available, but to drop all that training from the service and start learning a new trade doesn't sound like young Jack, who really wanted that auto repair shop.

By the same token, if Catalan has half a brain, and as a Special Forces vet he should, he would suspect from the beginning that his minders would have no intention of leaving him alive, and thus he would have alternate escape routes and such to ensure his own survival. Although that part may have been necessary for the plot, my mind still reels at the fact that he got caught at all.

That's correct, but there might be a reason. Danielle Bauman, who "wrote" the rejection letter, is the script supervisor for This Is Us. I just had to check that name when I saw it. Call me obsessive. Anyway, it's possible they didn't want to show her signature in case someone out there took a screen shot and used the signature for no good ends. Or, it could be that she, as the head of A&R at Electra, dictated the letter and the assistant mailed it without a signature. Chrissy Metz sings with her band, so I assume she does have a good voice. The way that Rebecca was holding the necklace at the last scene gives me thought that Jack's death happened shortly after their fight. As soon as Jack won the big pot, I was thinking "bait game, bait game." They let him win one with the idea that he would stay in and try to do it again, while the big dogs gradually cleaned him out. Leaving after one hand upset their apple cart and they weren't going to let that happen. I wonder how long his buddy tried to keep the bartender on the phone before he realized there was no joy coming his way.

The irony of a socialist country's choir singing a song about the worst excesses of the capitalist system of coal mining. I wonder if it was intentional. Another point about the exhumation. Presumably the workers tasked with burying William did not put any extra effort into digging the grave than was required for a coffin, i.e., 3' x 6' (more or less). Yet the hole is 6'x6', at least. Yes, they needed room to work in the hole, but all that extra dirt would have been hard packed, unlike the original hole. Very hard and time consuming to extract. And dirt, once disturbed, usually takes up way more space than it did when it came out (landscaping experience). Plus, obviously, they had one less helper after the fact.

Some drop zones require a tandem jump before actual training. Others go right into freefall, but with two instructors for the first four jumps, and one instructor for the final four. And only after about a 5 hour ground school. But hey, it would have cost mucho money to hire two extras for each of the characters, so I'll give them a pass. What was really funny to me was the interior plane shots were from a large turbine aircraft with the door on the pilot's left. When they got out, it was from a Cessna with the door on the right.

I was thinking that someone could hack into the ubiquitous surveillance cameras and upload the footage to YouTube. I've probably been watching Scandal too much. I liked Henry's line to their kids: "Hey, guess what? School starts at the same time every day." Sometimes, Democracy Just Blows really is a good book title from a former Chief of Staff. I would read that. The secret agent in the God cult is just too nonchalant to be really believable. Showing up with a db of one of the cult guys, who will be missed no doubt about it, and just passing it off as "some bad news", just doesn't ring true. Of course, these guys are not top cabin material. You have a shed with something really secret, so secret that the new guys can't even look at it, and you leave the door unlocked.

What I wondered most about was, given that the time machine was broken, why not give Jack the key? It's useless to anyone and he certainly doesn't know how to repair it. Plus, it results in him being trapped in the room at Vanessa's house. And if Aunt Bea finds out, the whole town will know by tomorrow.

I am somewhat ambivalent about this concept. In order for someone to sell stocks, someone has to buy them, and, of course, vice versa. Tons of money was transferred, to be sure, but nothing was forcing the shareholders to sell. True, people who don't engage in the rapid sell off lose some value to their shares as they decline, but if they hold on, it will come back. The stock market will recover, as history has shown. Only those who are in the great game of buy low, sell high will be the losers, at least in the short run. That's just my opinion; I'm no Jim Cramer.

Aha! So now we finally know just who really was Agent Keane's father. Whoops. Wrong show. Given the accuracy of the drones in picking up objects, bailing out of the aircraft would not be a solution. They would see the parachutes in midair anyway. On the other end of the spectrum, since the aliens seem to have state of the art surveillance equipment, why wouldn't facial recognition software pick up Broussard walking around in broad daylight? And who killed their contact in the theater? How does the pilot hope to get out of the colony? Every time I see Bob on the screen, I have this image of Boz staring at the coders from Mutiny and thinking "Your time's coming, assholes." I gotta think they're free, now.

Really. She wanted to run a clean campaign to make up for Defiance? What a laugh. Of course, what constitutes a clean campaign in the Scandal world is a jail-able offense in the real world. If that is supposed to be the start of a redemption arc for Jake, forget it. He needs to die. I knew as soon as they pulled up to yet another isolated cabin that Jennifer was going to be alive. She looks remarkably fresh for someone confined to a cabin for the last week or so. And Liv - never hand your phone over to the creepy guy driving the car. Have you never ever seen a crime movie before? Maybe they'll stop on the way out and pick it up. They incinerated Vanessa's car? Damn, I would have taken it. Kept my mouth shut as long as they paid for the repairs.

I did some quick research and the NYSE closed shortly after both Reagan's shooting and the Kennedy assassination. The news article indicated that it was done internally, not at the behest of the White House or anyone else. And, of course, after it reopened the Dow Jones rebounded quite well after its initial drop. I wonder if part of The Evil Plan was to play the market as it crashed, and make a couple of million before Tom recovered. After all, what's the point of a conspiracy if you can't profit? I was watching officers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on a talk show one time, and they indicated that the President doesn't have absolute authority to order executions at will, at least by the military. They said there are military attorneys that clear executive actions. Not saying that it's not possible, as procedure can be twisted. However, giving civilian authorities an order to kill a suspect on sight is a blatant violation of Constitutional protections, in my humble opinion. And he did it in the presence of several people, so it can't be covered up. The police at scene should have balked at that order in the first place. Did anyone notice the board behind Agent Mike when he cleared the floor in the hospital? Code Black! Happy Birthday, DC Gal!

I was hoping the widow would come around with a haymaker and put her purse into the side of Bull's head. And, on top of that, Bull's assistant double crosses her contact. This episode could have been more about betrayal than fault finding. The new governor would have been a fool to rescind the order expanding the airport. The loss of potential jobs would have everyone breathing down his neck. Sorry, but the skydiving center could always go somewhere else, and very likely would have, given the increase in traffic. Seems like more and more of the plots leave me saying "Whaaaaat?" Finally, speaking as a skydiver, if anyone is considering trying out this activity, please don't the this show color your perceptions of the sport. Neither the training nor the operations happen that way. That being said, I am well aware of the need for dramatic license in pursuit of the plot.

One thing the show got right, as a surprise to me, was that Wells was only 30 (as is the actor who plays him) when he wrote The Time Machine. I have always seen photos of him looking much older.

Wells: "Do you mean to tell me that nearly everyone in this era carries a firearm?" Guard: "Yeah, pretty much." They didn't initially suspect him. They showed up at Wells' house, doing a house to house search, as the victim was murdered a short distance away. Everyone noticed Stevenson was gone and one of the detectives, over the objection of Wells, opened up the doctor's bag. Inside were bloodied butcher knives. Everyone else went outside to search for him, but Wells went to the time machine in the basement, and the plot shifted into high gear. It would seem the simple solution to the problem at hand would be for Wells to make a copy key with just enough error to fit but not function. Hand it off to Jack, except that this time have some competent personnel at scene at the museum to take him down. Then again, that wastes 11 out of the 13 episodes they might get.