Dowel Jones

Just what every series needs in the late season. A pregnancy storyline. Whenever they show detailed plans on a tv show, I love to pause it and read what is actually written for a good laugh. The rail gun plan (13 pages, so simple) is actually a blueprint made up for permit approval. Permit approval? You're going to hang the fate of the entire world on a bureaucrat from the local planning agency who probably won't be out there until next Thursday? What if he red tags it? Then, the company that made it is Maxwell Colliders, which immediately sent me back to the old Beatles song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" (sorry for the earworm). But the question is probably moot, anyway. The cult leader no doubt has a next-level education in particle physics that he has managed to conceal from everyone on the planet. Alycia should program a small bug into Q17's finance program to drop, say, 1/100 of a cent of any transaction into a secret account just for her. Over time she could have a good nest egg. Of course, who is trading stocks and bonds with less than three months to go? I like the FBI director worrying about a warrant. Did you not get the memo that Uncle Nick is very likely involved in some recent assassinations? I hope they arrested the creepy driver and the copter pilot as well. Round up the usual suspects.

There's always "just one mole" in the organization. With the huge amount of cocaine that El Santo was sending around the world, the possibilities are endless. I thought Devon was an actual agent the last episode we saw him. An entire episode without the Colonel's mustache twirling and Camila's hooded cobra facial expression. Wow. I hope Carlos Casteneda (or his estate) got a writer's credit for this one.

Which, of course, one has already, in the formerly fertile Midwest of the United States.

I hope that John Dutton has a long, slow, painful death. That guy is just evil, as is every one of his progeny. Even with Mary Gauthier's "Mercy Now" playing at the end, I grant him none. How does Jaime think that he can do the job of AG if he can't even stand up to his father? He's made it this far as an attorney because his caseload is just lightweight stuff for the ranch, and he has his father's money behind him. Plus, he doesn't have the sense to get makeup over that bruise, and everyone who sees him will think "Wuss". Even the day worker pissed on him. His campaign manager better do some serious oppo research into Ms. Nguyen before they go any further. Did Lady MacBeth smile a bit when John told her that she would be the executor of his estate? Her only talent is destroying everything and everyone around her. I said this before, but Jenkins' plan to grab the Y-stone is fundamentally flawed. Just because you own property next to the ranch doesn't mean the zoning automatically goes from ranch/farm to residential, along with the sky high property tax. But now Kayce and Jimmy have conspired to commit murder because of it. I wonder if it entered any of the Dutton clan's minds how the Yellowstone managed to increase its holdings by 200,000 acres (per Jaime in Ep. 1) over the past 10 years.

There's a thought. Load up all these clowns on the Ark, and then use it to batter the asteroid out of Earth orbit. "There's been a change in plans, folks..."

Given the episode (and the series, for that matter) title, I think it was meant to show a couple of predators (hyenas) getting set to chew up their prey, that being Smurf. Whether the "prey" is going to lie down and die is left to S4. Maybe she was a plant from Lucy's cartel, and she left on schedule but Smurf got the jump on Lucy. Or she could be from another group out to take over the territory. Personally, I'm going with a floater who picks up on whoever moves her along, but she is unusually observant about potential windfalls. Or, maybe the house robbery was an entire setup with the occupants. They collect the insurance, she collects the booty, Craig collects the police record.

Mia told Spider that J was someone she was working. Does she have a larger plan or was that just a stalling tactic? In any case, I think there's a real chance Mia's next killing/attempt is going to be J, because Smurf knows he stole from her, and she probably really suspects he killed Morgan. On the other other hand, maybe Lucy's kid can give a good description of those two when the rest of Lucy's cartel finds out about the killings. Then it's on for Pete and Mia, because I bet they'll be able to figure it out. Unfortunately (in real life, anyway), the notary's heavy book would not burn up in that little fire. It would char, but you could still get info from some of the pages. I wonder if that will be a plot point next season. Frankie wrote "Keys in car. Don't worry. I wash you off." Who was the woman that Pope met? She knew him, so it wasn't the foster mom, I hope. Pope had blood on his hand when he showed up at her house, so he got it at the accident site. I hope it was just from the tire iron, and no harm came to the other woman. That guy is just plain broke, and there isn't any fixing him. The surfboard. Was it cocaine, or some other drug, baked into the board? I don't think Adrian will take this one for Deran. Heads will roll.

Salvation Deleted Scenes: Darius: Now that we have all of the retinal scan data loaded in the computer, we can apply them to the bank account files and see which one opens them up. Let's see, now, start the program, and see who's who... Wait. Grace??? Grace: It isn't like it sounds, Darius. I can explain. I'm sure glad the administration's priorities are straight. Let's go after Q17 and put them all on trial, which will take a year or so to gather up evidence and sit juries. The asteroid, now on Dday-80? Not a problem. By the way, what's to prevent Re-ReSyst from hijacking another nuclear weapon? I like to watch the backgrounds of scenes like that. If you watch carefully, you'll see the actor extras swerve around the camera crew, and one bails off to the right to get out of the scene. What were Liam and Jillian talking about? I missed that. Oh, well, not important. The whole bunch of them are going to permanently roofie themselves shortly anyway.

That poor driver whose car Harry hijacked is going to have some serious 'splainin to do when he goes to reclaim his car. "What were you doing out by the traitor's camp?" "A man stole my car. I have no idea where he took it." "Mmm hmm...." Well, Oberstinkinfuehuer Sabine's father, I hope that you die painfully and get to meet that other supercilious pig in the afterlife who got Ulli killed. I wonder if Sabine is going to stick a knife in him at some point. Neil and Harry, at least don't do something really stupid. I know you'll do something stupid, but keep it down some, okay? Guess whose bar is offering free drink specials until further notice?

Comcast has a cast photo array available on some tv shows; this one shows Ben Robson in a tuxedo, of all things. And he's smiling, too.

I remember ski instructors using it when I first started skiing around the early 80's, but I don't know if it was popular outside of athletics. The Caravan is actually quite a powerful plane. Very popular in skydiving, and FedEx uses them a lot. I looked it up and the stated load cap is about 3500 pounds, but I'm sure smugglers don't often worry about that. Far more important is the center of gravity, and how the load is put in the plane. If it's been mentioned in the show, I'm sure it will become a plot point somewhere along the way.

I assumed a lobotomy also, but it was definitely a discount level job. I wonder if George will know something is up when Camilla comes back to him alone, because her kissy time with Cortez is decidedly on hold. Will he get word to Teresa, or will he actually sell her out? Coche should have requested a rifle for the assassination attempt. A knife? Come on. Anyway, I'd bet dollars to donuts that Camilla had a guy in the crowd who would take him out just after he killed Cortez anyway. Just didn't happen that way. There was a little short in between scenes, where the showrunner was waxing eloquent about how the bosses in this show are both women and "it's empowering to see them work." She must have a different set of values than I.

I went to the Stetson website juts to get an idea, and, I think you can find some up in that rarefied atmosphere, but they're more like dress hats rather than working hats. I certainly wouldn't kick in a day's pay to buy the new kid a hat, since he just caused the other guy to lose a $50 rope and left the rifle home that he was supposed to bring. The only mention of Jaime's sexuality has (so far) been Beth's insult hurled toward him that he was 35 and still single, so he must be gay.

I like the fact that the bunkhouse crew got Jimmy a real hat. I can't believe they spent over $500 dollars on a working hat. At least it's black so it won't show the sweat stains that all their other ones do (slight sarcasm, there). Rainwater is right. Jenkins doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground about business. This development is a desperation play because he is obviously undercapitalized to carry it through, if the stock is worth only $3/share. How long would it take Beth to get a seat on the board? Could he sell the land before she takes over? Still, she has only one vote, and can't really threaten to dump her shares as she did with the oil guy in the pilot episode. And Rainwater's deal with Jenkins is about as solid as a swamp. That bit about no lawyers, just trust? Oy. Earlier, I did have some sympathy for John Dutton. Now, with that outburst toward Jaime, I don't care if he does lose the ranch. He brought it upon himself, raising a family to be a bunch of serfs to his empire building. Speaking of that, $6,000,000/year in property tax, on undeveloped agriculture/forest land? How big is this ranch? Looks like Kayce has somebody else to kill, now. If he can find them. Jaime, I know she's hot and accessible, but making out in the office in full view of the street? Not a good political move. Maybe she's a mole from some other organization. I hope the journalist plotline gets going pretty soon.

If that is Morgan's house, and Smurf drops by trying to find her and instead finds Mia, she is going to presume that Morgan is dead at J's hand. Unless she actually had J do it, he is going to have a tough time of it, even though he's her favorite. And she better hope that Morgan didn't have a complete set of duplicate papers of all her financial shenanigans stored with someone else "in case of my death or disappearance." I agree with those who think that J had Morgan set up some dummy companies so that he could sell the Carlsbad property and make it look like Morgan did it.

Don't forget that ReSyst actually did detonate a nuclear weapon in the US. It happened somewhere in Nebraska, I think, and was handwaved off as being in an unpopulated area so there weren't any casualties. I don't think so. What about the land, water, and air contamination? And what if the winds carried radioactive materials into the populated areas? And how many decades will this last? They got some splainin' to do.

The first thing I thought of when Darius and Grace went into the clinch was Omarosa's comment that "everyone in the West Wing was banging." Stop it, real life. You're ruining my show.

Nah. Some previously unknown scientist will announce that he actually developed the concept of the rail gun, and bring a lawsuit to prevent its further use until he is properly compensated.

Somewhere along the episode a newscast made mention that New Yorkers were fleeing the city in droves. Why, exactly, was anyone still there? Were the Yankees playing a home game? I wonder how ReSyst was able to pick up some rent-a-goons to keep all those scientists in the room. Paying them? The world economic system would be in tatters now. Simple loyalty? Why? What's in it for them? As is stands, they may have ruined a chance to save the world. Now they're just on a road trip with Alycia. Congratulations, Darius. You may have saved the world, but you just created the Terminator's self-sealing system. Complete with spectacular fireball. In the vacuum of space.

They're too busy in their various pissing contests about which solution is best.

Because he is the new guy, and Beth and Rip are some kind of love/hate couple, I think that was a setup for a future confrontation between the three of them. The horse was incidental.

On a side note, two things for Charlie: 1) Hire some competent security people. The whole place is closed down, and security lets in some random A/C repairman. 2) It's Cavalry, not Calvary. That is, unless you're going right to the top for help. I did like Charlie calling out, after shooting Oliver, "Don't move, Oliver!" Or what, you're gonna shoot me? The government gets redeemed on screen because they have a copy of the Reverie program, unlike the company which stores it backup on site. How can Paul talk to Mara if he isn't in her Reverie inside the school? Is she in another Reverie in the conference room?

I thought it was mostly because the smoke set off the alarm, which can provoke a big reaction in the ward. And probably some paperwork.

I wonder what happened to Mom to turn her against Beth so viciously in the horse accident episode. She seemed to actually like Beth this time, at least to the point of educating her about life. It looks like she definitely started her down that bitter path early on. Jenkins' plan to own the hotel is doomed to fail, methinks. He will need a workforce there, and the tribe could easily make that too difficult to accomplish. I wonder what Rainwater has up his sleeve for that property. Rip wouldn't even have to explain what happened out there. He could say that the grizzly charged, he killed it, and then found the two hikers dead at the bottom of the cliff. No one else would even know his part in the attempted rescue. It would look like they tried to climb up, but failed. Dutton is in bad shape. Coughing up blood? No bueno. Gotta love those tourists. Climbing through the wire when there's a gate 50' away.

I suspect Marco folded long before the rats actually got to him. The blood loss alone overnight would have killed him. The reason I think Lucy might have taped Smurf is not for the criminal justice system, but to give to the Cody guys so there's more than a seed of doubt in their minds about Smurf's loyalties. I don't think for a minute that Lucy's cartel is going to let this go.