Dowel Jones

All I could think of was Season 1 of Once Upon a Time. I loved Aram's sheer joy over outhacking his former college nemesis. Solomon is working either with the CIA or just the director in order to chase down Elizabeth Keen, and from her, Reddington, and maybe Tom, I think. The fishhook deal sounds to me like it was for show to the people observing the interrogation.

Followed shortly by Annalise's death glare at Laurel's absolutely wooden recital of her line in the setup. Just doing some mental math here, at 20 $100 bills per package, $50,000 would be 25 packages. I wonder how much is really in that gigantorandus suitcase.

Pet peeve: It's nu-clear, not nook-you-ler. You're better than that, OPA. So, are we going to find all of Olivia's stuff out on the South Lawn?

The wide eyes get me more than anything. Is that her natural expression or is she being directed to bug out?

I like George Hearst, I mean, Gerald McRaney, as the straight man foil for Agent X's derring do. I thought, and it's still possible, that the Russian Maria Thighsofironski would be a recurring character, but it seems that she's on the lam now. Worst moment of the night, bar none: VP: "Welcome to Command". NOOOOOOOOOO!! I will ask, as I always do, who dusts the furniture, cleans the floor and the toilets of this super secret room that only a few people know about? I can just see the CoS, grumbling and moping, "Why is this MY job?" all day every day. Anyway, should be fun to watch. ETA: Is this what Mr. Reese did before he met Finch? Because the actor sure looks like a younger Jim Caviezel.

Interesting sidebar: The ABA does not rank law schools, nor do they support the outside ranking of schools, usually by US News and World Report. Back in 2012, the President of Loyola University School of Law (Los Angeles) wrote an op-ed piece in the Huffington Post attacking the ranking systems because they don't include "diversity" in their methodology of school rankings, which Loyola puts a strong emphasis on. I wonder if the Kings specifically wrote this in, or if it was coincidence. All this came from the Wiki article on law school rankings (I'm not that smart).

Well, with this crop of agents.....

You would think that the FBI would be mapping the location of the tattoos relative to the crimes that show up. I'm sure that whomever did the inking had some trajectory in mind, rather than just a random "Can we fit the word Guerrero in here?" kind of stuff. I would pay money to see Ms. Patterson working with Mr. Finch. Only to give Jane Doe her contractually obligated moment to throw a flying tackle on an All-Pro running back. When they were in the interrogation room and the football player/suspect said "Lawyer", in real life that would have been the end of it. Literally, you don't get to ask questions after that until the suspect has his attorney present. If the TV NSA really wanted to keep something ultra-secret, they should take a tip from private industry. I think there are only 10 or so people who know the actual and complete recipe for Coca-Cola.

I hope you passed. 'Cause, if you didn't, you're out. :)

That wasn't fishing, either. You either talk, or you fish. Not both. Norman McLean would not approve. While it didn't bother me that they opted to kill their target, I had to snort at the CoS's line about three rings of security at that ISIS base. You guys have heard of helicopters, right? And who leaked the video of the attack, and why? I hate to tell the USAID lady, but your agency is a de facto arm of the State Department, charged with fostering development in order to further US foreign policy. You don't always get to ask, "Why are we doing this?". Just my take on the exchange. Lt. Col. Dr. MI-6 Arm Candy gets all huffy because his son gets excited over a drone strike. You didn't perchance feel the same way flying around in your fighter back in the day, did you? But you got religion, since then.

I was somewhat surprised that the DA would pursue a case against Nate, based on flimsy evidence. Granted, it's in the service of the plot, but DA's rarely pursue cases unless they have a mountain of evidence. Even if the nurse had not switched blood samples, it still would not be clear "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Nate had possession of the pills, or that he had actually given them to her. Eve could easily have asked those questions of any prosecution witness. A circumstantial case would be very difficult, given a jury's possible sympathy for the dying woman. Remember Damages? The closing scenes were never exactly as they were shown to the audience. We'll just have to wait on the reason for Ms. Sinclair's death.

I was hoping she would go right in and, from the camera point of view, spin around, place the wine coolers on the desk, and wordlessly walk out. So who killed Elise? Jake? Obviously they use the same people retrieval service that Alicia Florrick employs. That was some glass of liquor Olivia had in the final scene. Enough for an all nighter of decision making. I don't know where Mrs. Professor got her stats; maybe they were accurate, but I started college in 1972 and plenty of women rented apartments there without their fathers' signature, and I assume many had credit cards also. I can just imagine the scene in the Pentagon Situation Room, Olivia posting pictures of Putin and Assad up on the wall, Huck and Quinn chiming in with short bursts of information, and Fitz over in the corner.

It reminded me of an interesting scene in Argo, where John Goodman's character tells Ben Affleck's character "We have to go see (some guy) so we can get the clearances for the movie rights." Affleck has no idea who he is, and Goodman says something like "You want to make a movie, you go see this guy first. You think the Ayatollah is rough? Try crossing him and see what happens."

Okay, but can she write a coherent plotline for a script? Toughest challenge yet. Patterson wasn't really in trouble for showing photos to her boyfriend. The boss was upset because the arches were next week's tattoo plot. I wonder at what kind of militia/gang Guerrero had assembled. Sorry, but when your loyalty is paid for, it only goes as far as the last check. As soon as those guys saw two or three of their buddies go down, it should have been obvious that the agents were not the kind to be standing around yelling "Halt! Drop your weapons!" I'm guessing that they would decide right quick that Guerrero wasn't worth the risk and fade back into the bushes and brambles, anti-government philosophy be damned. What kind of business jet shakes and rattles like that during minor turbulence? The FBI needs to confiscate better equipment from the drug busts.

Generic Episode X (in ten easy steps): 1. Agents are assigned ridiculous tasks without any substantive training. 2. Management reminds us (the viewers) that there is a larger conspiracy afoot. 3. Alex manages to hide in plain sight. 4. FBI botches yet another arrest. 5. Gratuitous cleavage shots of female agents. 6. Gratuitous bare chested shots of male agents. 7. Gratuitous sex between agents. 8. Continual bitching and sniping between agents. 9. Cliffhanger ending. 10. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Wasn't that easy? Gotcha covered.

One other thing comes to mind. Did the writers choose Millstone as Asher's surname intentionally, perhaps as a harbinger? Or is it just coincidence? Somewhere in the dusty archives I think I remember the term as an enormous weight tied to one's neck.

"C'mon in, Kay, meet the family. This here's my brother Fredo, and my sister Connie, and my brother Tom, and over here, this little squirt is my younger brother Michael. You can sit here next to him." Plot twist: Caleb and Michaela are biological siblings. Her family is wealthy, but it wasn't clearly delineated in S1 where that wealth came from. It was a rather unfortunate implication because they were Latino.

Except for the guard that he killed, of course. That entire scheme reeks of lack of credibility, but this is Scandal.

I was half expecting to see one of them clobber an overhead light, or an orderly, with one of those rebars. Trust the show to bring the two of them up to standard, then knock them down a peg.

I was actually thinking of Olivia, as the entire reason for the marriage was to prevent her testimony. And political damage wouldn't matter to her, because people flock to her office door right and left anyway. And she has her daddy, too. And maybe mommy too, the way this show is going.

Are you allowed to invoke the 5th Amendment provisions while testifying at Congressional hearings? That would seem to be the shortest route for anyone to avoid throwing anyone else under the bus. Yeah, it makes you look guilty in the eyes of the populace, but Olivia and Fitz are way beyond that. The only thing I really took away from this episode was that Huck's last name is Munoz. I did not know that. On the bright side, if anyone needs a press secretary, it's the old guy himself.

And another thing: Elias will always be the uber-criminal mastermind from Person of Interest. How dare they appropriate that name for this clutzburger of an FBI agent?

Actually, I would think that the written files would be far more important than digital copies. Digital can be altered, although the footprint is usually left on the computer, subject to later investigation. Arson investigations, as with any criminal acts, are also shifted to experienced and trained personnel, not Gabbified firefighters on light duty. But what the heck, she'll probably stake him out on his next property and make the arrest herself.

.All you need to know is Mom. Everyone else is superfluous. Just kidding, every character is really getting stronger each week. This episode had the right mix of tension and action, without too much of the usual histrionics of lesser hospital dramas ("Let's move it people, NOW" and that sort of stuff.)

Tough break, Nate. Alvey's right; you can't have a fighter who''s afraid to hurt someone, as vicious as that sounds.