Dowel Jones

That sure was a smart move on the Chinese bodyguards' part. Surrounding our heroes with all your weapons pointing in toward the center. What do you think will happen when you begin firing? Duh.

All I can say is that Al Swearingen would be turning over in his grave had he actually been dead when this was taking place (he was very much alive).

Fair use, I think. Back in the early campaign, I remember an instance where Ted Cruz's campaign was putting up clips of him speaking on various issues, with the intent that the SuperPAC could then use them for campaign ads without actually dealing directly with the Cruz campaign, which would be a violation of the election laws. So, in effect, once you're out there, you're fair game, friend or foe, as long as it isn't libelous. Not that that would ever happen in a presidential campaign.

That's a question that has been running around in my head for quite some time. If the population has been devastated, how do you allocate scarce resources (labor) into areas that need production? Production/refining/transportation is a labor intensive industry, although the product is indispensable. Much of packaged food for consumption is not, although very much desired by some subsets of the population.

That must really suck when your boss says "No, we're not paying the ransom. Do what you gotta do." So Durant ends his days in abject poverty. Couldn't happen to a more deserving person. I had this vision in my head that he was starting to write a biography called "Hell on Wheels." Townes van Zant for the closing song. Cool. I didn't recognize the old guy who came in and took the satchel from Durant. Help?

Let us hope, then, that they can get the two houses of Congress to write bills in understandable language.

I had to laugh at that as well. It is an Aerospatiale AS-350, made in France. Pilot + 4-6 passengers, but that is pushing it.

Not to mention a quantum leap in their training. If they lost half of their fully automatic weapon armed soldiers to basically a horde of primitives, they need to rethink their tactics. So now they have 1178 people in town, according to Jason. But they're still relying on teens to reproduce the population. I'm getting a bit of a weird, Old Testament vibe from these developments. Jason's reference to Adam & Eve? A mark on the female Abby? Abbies gathered outside the wall, making noise a la Jericho? Maybe the writers are throwing spaghetti again. Of all the automobiles Pilcher could have imported to the 42nd century, he picked a Ford Station Wagon? The man's a putz.

Tommy couldn't think his way out of a wine-soaked paper bag; he's that self-absorbed. I had the ugly thought at the time of Dion's dinner date with Woichuk that the ingredients were more Woichuck than he let on. And the throwaway line when Detective Grampa met up with his daughter about the recently departed cousin? Did that mean that Daddy set the cousin up to take a fall, so as to keep his real source protected? Does Pilar have a sideline (besides bad fashion) in running other people's lives? We'll see what the next episode brings on the weekly Thr-weep-io fest.

The pirates all say "Arrrgh". The Navy personnel all say "Arrrrgh, Sir!".

What is with the episode titles? Wow.

"Red, can you get me Rita Hayworth?" I wish, for once, if they were going to show military people at their best in a gunfight, they would at least nod, if not bow, to accuracy. It always seems that every fight turns into a wall of ammunition going one way or the other, and no one getting hit. Not that I wish for blood and guts, but these folks are just plain incompetent. I'm betting on an upcoming story arc. The President, and other leaders, come to the conclusion that Takehaya, although eeeeeevil, is their best bet as a block against Pei up there in China. The crew will just have to take it, at least for a couple of episodes until Chandler can singlehandedly arrange for a democratically elected ruler to take over Vietnam. That guy wearing Slattery's shirt sure seemed to learn English in a hurry after Captain Tom produced a pistol.

Oh boy, has she got information overload, then.

He's on to you, Mei.

Okay, I can add only this: After the subway car got going through the hole in the wall, it was a hoot to see that The Machine gave the entire car a yellow square.

I was ready to give up after 15 minutes, but I kind of liked the setup of future Teresa talking to current Teresa, in that her journey from neophyte to queen could be interesting. I hope they don't overdo that. And please don't fall into the Miami Vice trope of "drugs are glamorous, drugs are sexy". Portray the cartel thugs just as they are in real life. We'll see after a couple of episodes.

Oooh, dangerous, Juliet73. Very dangerous with this show. Keep us posted in case of emergency.

It has just occurred to me that, whatever the connection between the title and the episode, it is also the climactic moment in the movie Mr. Roberts. Which, of course, leads to this mental image of Pilcher's acolyte Jason, after finding out there's an Abbie in town, screaming "Sound the Alarm. SOUND THE ALARM!" And then raising the PA to maximum volume to inundate the town: "Alright. Who did it? Who did it?"

Why did they think it necessary to put the warning "Caution - Stay Back" on the Abbie cages? Is there someone in town that isn't aware of their capabilities? Or, maybe they imported an attorney who advised them to do it to avoid liability. Pilcher asks Rebecca to design a town, and she incorporates features that are totally useless in 4000. Garages, street layouts, etc. all point to 2016. I was thinking that K was kissing, and P was penetration. No idea on the other initials, yet. Guessing the code is really the only thing interesting in the series so far. Drinking game! Margaret the Abbie looked like she had a "Kill me now" expression on her face while Megan rambles on about her husband.

The irony of the entire situation this episode is that they probably could have found an attorney who, for a reasonable fee, would review the contract. They probably think all attorneys charge $300-$400 per hour for everything. However, it would still be on their laps to actually dispute the items in the contract, which would bring us to an equally dismal outcome, given Tommy's negotiating "skills". Speaking of which, if Aidan has refused to furnish working capital, as specified in the contract and noted by Tommy, wouldn't that be a breach of contract? A more assertive person might argue that as leverage to get rid of Kevin, but of course that wouldn't jive with the plotline. When Woichik killed the CO in the parking lot of the prison, the first thing I thought was, "You realize there are cameras covering every single inch of prison property, right?"

Someone is hurting, and someone is dying. Country Song Alert.

My completely unsubstantiated guess is that Valerie saw some kind of sub-frequency transmission going on that linked a bomb on the plane to a transmitter somewhere on the ground. She might not have known it was a bomb, but she knew enough that they had to get back on the ground right now. Not quick enough, though. My other guess is that more will be revealed as the story arc proceeds.

While some sort of martial law would be necessary until an economy was stabilized, rationing brings on a black market, just as it did in the time of the Greatest Generation. Most sacrificed, yes, but some did not. My parents told me of gasoline and tire rationing during WWII, but added that extra gas was available. For a price. My wife, who went through the Northridge earthquake in the '90s, told me that the supermarkets sold water for $5/gallon, cash only. That's just the human nature. The more you try to prohibit it, the more it pops up behind you. It's best for the authorities to channel it somehow.

It could be worse. They could be the last ship stuck under a dome with a bunch of mutant abbies and bewilderingly dense townspeople on shore.

I would like to know how the pirate vessel, a slow moving freighter type, was able to outrun the Nathan James, especially since at one point they were 2km apart. That's visual distance. But oh well. I wonder if they asked the poor sailor all those tedious blood donation questions before they started draining him. I get what the captured pirate was alluding to, now. He thought the two sailors were going to get caught and drained. And of course we get another hammy, open shirt pirate in the deal. On the plus, both good episodes and it set up a long story arc (I hope).