Dowel Jones

I rewatched the shootout in slomo, and I sure thought that Pope took one in the head or the upper body. I don't know how the two henchmen managed to get him and Carlos into the SUV, assuming he was fighting. Note to producers: If that desert scene with Lucy moaning over Carlos's body was supposed to be the border, I call fail. From personal experience, even on the US side, if you park your car next to the fence you will attract attention. A dead body increases that chance. Maybe it was just some random fence in the desert. Oh, you Codys. You need some seminars on how to do a hostage exchange. When Craig said you were going to need some firepower, I was expecting automatic weapons, not pistols. And have one guy on the railing, out of the line of fire, covering everyone else. Still, J being the boy scout and doing his good deed was pretty funny. Almost as "funny" as Smurf looking at him in the shower and saying "You're all grown up, now." I wonder if Lucy had a tape recorder going. Package in the mail... When it comes down to it, will Mia side with J or with Smurf? Why does Ellen Barkin walk the way she does, stiff backed and almost robot-like? Is it just the way she is characterizing Smurf? It just seems so unnatural to me. I've seen her in other roles a long time ago, but I can't remember how she acted in those.

Yes, I know there's a crisis or two or dozen going on, but, just me personally, I would trust the President du jour if he would take a moment to maybe SHAVE HIS MUG before a nationwide television address. I admire the lot of you for keeping up with the plot machinations. I watched this episode last night and already I have lost track of what went on, for the most part. It's to the point where the most interesting part is the street preacher out there in the park. What's his angle?

Well, that's that, then. American Alex adopts Italian Isabella, moves in with Irish boyfriend. Shouldn't be any problems with that, eh? Let me get this straight. Devlin was being extradited on warrants from Ireland, for crimes against the people of Ireland, as they said. Yet, after escaping before arrival in Dublin (after murdering the pilot of the plane), this major criminal is allowed by the state of Ireland and the Dublin police to parade around in public, and there's no public outcry? No one drags every one of those cops up before a judge to explain their actions? Maybe it happened off camera. Note to Alex: Find a new line of work, although you could be a consultant back at Quantico on "How Not to Do This Job." Best line of the night, from Alex: "I will have the FBI crawling all over Ireland rooting out your network (paraphrasing)". The old crime boss should have looked at her and said "The FBI? As in 'The American FBI'? Let me tell you something, toots. Driving on the left side of the road will be the least of their problems." I bet Sun Tsu wishes they had copyright law when he was around.

But she got two and a half yards of Kling bandage around her head. That should have been enough. I did get a kick out the initial conversation scene of the two women fly fishing. If you watch closely, one of them winds up like a wannabe Norman MacLean, then casts the line, only to have it strike the water directly in front of her. By the way, was that Bart the Bear? Is he still alive? Last I saw of him was in Legends of the Fall.

Because tv tech whiz people are never, ever older than 25.

I do have a twinge of sympathy for Dutton. He has to be looking around and thinking of his own mortality, and thinking "This is who I have as my legacy?" But it was his own fault. Didn't the doctor tell Kayce to take his wife to the hospital? With Kayce's Army training, you would expect him to be aware of the danger. Now the police may have to investigate a murder. Nice hit with the shotgun, kid. I wonder who the driver was. Uh, Beth...Infidelity is not exactly a career killer, if you haven't been reading the news lately. You don't have as much on the governor as you think. I didn't pay enough attention to the details of the development/casino swap, but I'm willing to bet that there ain't nobody coming away clean from that one. The good thing about Rip is that eventually he will meet someone with bigger fists than his, and he will be coyote food somewhere.

Mara must have zen messaging skills if she can speed type out a coherent message during a volatile hostage situation. But how do you make an accidental phone call while you are messaging? Once again, it is imperative that no one ever reveal some secret information that will have bearing on anyone's future. Good move, Alexis. As soon as the security guard said "I almost got caught", I felt the anvil drop. You're done, dude.

Something occurred to me relative to the laundering operation. There's at least 5-6 casinos within a easy drive from Oceanside. Why not take a few grand to each one every few days and buy some chips. One brother could buy some, another one could cash them in, staying under the IRS reporting amount, of course, and drive back to town with clean money. The false front businesses would certainly be more efficient in the long run, but you also have all the headaches of running a business just to make it look good.

Pilar must have been fairly well off to afford private nursing home care, plus a Reverie tablet. Or perhaps the company actually prices them low enough for the general public to afford a regular trip to fantasyland, but you would think that they would inquire as to the client's health before licensing the software to them. I didn't have any sympathy for the rest home manager, with his "She must come out of the reverie (where she's happy) so we can continue her treatment for terminal lung cancer (until she dies, anyway). Otherwise, we'll send her to a state home." I also weary of the continual syrupy endings. Let's have some longer story arcs. Note to Alexis - If you frown every minute of the day, your face will freeze in that look. That's what my mom said, anyway. I wonder what her reverie is like.

Frankie is probably thinking of getting tied in with Craig, which may be the reason for the Renn storyline cropping up. Because they certainly need some more drama. Is Pope a nickname? Smurf called him Andrew. That was an interesting scene between J and Smurf's attorney. He almost came off as threatening her. Maybe he meant it to mean that she could make some money independently of Smurf, but she knows where the power lies. Subtle?

When they disclosed the memory trick of Don't Tread on Me, I thought that would be the password itself (no spaces, include the apostrophe = 14 characters). I was also thinking, why do you need a memory trick for Barkus Aurelius? You can't remember that? They should have copied that file once they got it opened. I can just see the whole thing imploding on them as they watched it. The whole idea of the paid assassinations seems rather ludicrous. With three months left on planet Earth, wouldn't all forms of money and the stock market essentially lose value? Sure, pay someone a half a million dollars. Where do you spend it? The show could have a huge subplot about the gradual, or maybe rapid, decline of the economic system, but no, they're more concerned with the battle between groups of petulant scientists. It also puzzles me where they got the goons to watch over the scientists. It's not like you can motivate a bunch of out of work mercs to stand guard over scientists who are trying to save your lives. Again, are they paid? Are they part of ReSyst? It's really going to suck if Bennett actually had a workable plan to stop the asteroid.

I'm surprised you remembered all those details from the beginning to this season. The episodes have been running together for me. Teresa gets set up somewhere, everything looks good; Teresa gets attacked/kidnapped/etc; Teresa escapes with the help of friends; Teresa gets set up somewhere else. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It hasn't dumped the silliness, though. It's my understanding that MI-5 deals with the British homeland, while MI-6 takes on Britain's international intrigue. In any case, wouldn't Ireland send their own operative instead of relying on MI-5? That should have been Fiona's giveaway. Then, someone explain to me how an aircraft with an open tailgate (like the C-130) can lose air pressure? I presume the 130 crashed in an uninhabited area, killing no one on the ground and thereby avoiding any plot complications. And then Owen, making a remarkable recovery from a gunshot to the chest, flies with the rest of the home crew over to Ireland with a ton of tactical gear, acquires a nifty command van, and, yet, says that no one knows they are there. I did enjoy Alex in the hospital, rattling off the medical jargon like a pro. Hey Alex, there's a job for you at Angels Memorial Hospital. Oops, never mind. I wanted Alex to just shoot Devlin in the warehouse, but, no, she has to be the good agent. Like you haven't killed anyone today. That's one hella mess that someone has to clean up. Where did all the high rollers go when the auction went south? Thank you for that. I had no idea who that was.

Although her alcoholism is very real, I think Beth is far more cunning than her behavior lets on, and Dutton knows this. That's why he imported her from SLC to deal with Jenkins the developer. He wants that guy gone, and, for better or worse, Beth uses her sexuality to lure him in. She makes no effort to conceal the fact that she wants to destroy him just as she sharked that oil company owner in the pilot episode by buying up enough stock to ruin him if he didn't go along with her plan. She appears to be ineffectual because that's how she want people to see her, but it's also tearing her apart every day.

Also, production companies like to be paid for their work, so they can pay the actors and crew, as well as other expenses. I have no idea what a scripted series costs per episode, but if those costs could be covered, I'm sure paid streaming services would consider picking up a show. The networks run on advertising revenue, which in turn is fed by viewership. Without those, no one will subsidize a show for long.

I was a bit confused during the barroom scene. When Beth said she worked in Mergers & Acquistions for that law firm, Jenkins' wife said "Oh, you work with Dan." Or did I misunderstand her? If She and Jenkins work for the same firm, he would know all about what she does, and it oughta be clear to him who the target is. I don't think I'd park my multi-million dollar helicopter in the PD parking lot. If some guy came around the corner, nursing a grudge against the Duttons, his pickup could do a shitload of damage to the copter and it's a long walk home. I did some quick Wiki research, and it appears that, as citizens, everyone is protected under the Constitution. There have been lots of "interesting" cases over the year in tribal law vs. state or federal law. There was another section which said that Indian courts do not have jurisdiction over non-Indians. I'm too tired right now to delve that deeply into it, so maybe tomorrow I'll think about it. The question is likely moot, anyway, because just as in any tv cop show, they run roughshod over people's rights and nobody blinks. Jaime made the point pretty well that the tribe doesn't even have a case.

I think his benefactor gave him a high sign when they were walking down the alley, and he said that he would stay back to organize the reinforcements. That let Bram know there was an ambush coming. He can have that. I want the Fender Stratocaster and the Dobro.

So many unanswered questions, or even hints at answers. I wanted to know who the alien "she" was. Or why it would be in the interest of the hosts to save Seattle. What made it special? From the last scene, it looked like a titanic battle shaping up and the earth is just collateral damage and there's no repercussions to the aliens if it is destroyed. Sucks to be you, IGA leadership. And you too, grayhats. Snyder thinks he has some pull with the aliens, and he's going to restart Seattle, but he's really nothing to them. He has no leverage anymore. On the other hand, the insurrection is rather pointless now, too. At least they made passing mention to the fact that the entire world is under siege. I would have like more plot development in that regard in the future, rather than just small stories about life in Seattle.

Why do the Cody's even think that the $7 million even exists anymore, assuming that figure is correct? Jewelry is worthless to crooks unless you turn it into cash, which is what the cartel would have done immediately. Why hold on to it? Now, with that kind of cash lying around, problems will develop in any kind of crooked organization. They've either spent it on firearms, bribes, toys, or maybe even quasi-legal purchases to further their own power base. Nobody's getting anything by going to Mexico. Except trouble, that is. For all his skeeviness, Billy did get one good line last night. "Young man, what are your intentions toward my son?" Snark to the first degree.

My eye-roll was reserved for Alycia and her "Yeah, we put a nuclear weapon in low earth orbit and threatened to destroy the world if you didn't get your act together, but we never thought it through, and it's all your fault!" Speaking of the warhead, is it still in orbit now that the interwebz are up, or is Re/Syst going to have a change of heart? Somebody please put a clause in writers' contract that specifically forbids the use of "Are you alright?" in any life threatening situation. "I just took a high velocity round in my leg, but, yeah, I'm okay." Please. Now all that President McKenzie has to deal with is the proliferation of the far right/far left/sovereign citizen/militia groups that have sprung up throughout the country, determined to take advantage of the power vacuum. Meanwhile, back at Rancho Asteroid...

I have an idea that will spare the Earth. Make the asteroid sentient, so that when it looks down at the little rock in the galaxy, it will say to itself "There is no way I am crashing into that little speck down there with all that insanity. If I get those little ants on me, I will be infected forever. Ugh. Shift left."

It's the hair. You. must. obey. the. hair.

And take the cannoli.

I realize this train has dropped off the cliff in terms of viewership, but I thought I'd comment anyway on the Connor Devlin saga. Okay, highly trained FBI agents, aka the Scooby Doofuses. Think this through. The bad guys are on one dock. They can't have run too far. It's not likely that they separated the two containers by much. Maybe get some reinforcements (there's this agency known as the New York Police Department, you know), lock down the port, and bang on containers until someone responds. Secondly, get some firearms training. I seem to remember that being part of the Quantico training that you went through a few seasons back. And, Alex? watch some tv cop shows sometime. You might learn that you never ever get next to your prisoner until they are secured. That was so, so, so predictable. At least her hair stayed put. Also, let me guess. Devlin will somehow manage to escape custody in Ireland. Maybe they went off to film in Ireland and we'll get a travelogue to finish out the season.

Additionally, it looks like they're headed in a Matrix direction, where Mara and Paul can overcome any obstacle while in the Reverie, as long as they can contain the left brain thing. I hope the DoD version of Reverie is unhackable (hah!), because the next step is anyone in the world reverse engineering the program (all 145 billion lines of code, or whatever) and, since you can now invade other people's Reverie, and using it to their advantage. This does not bode well. Even worse for the company, cut rate versions might appear on the market.