Dowel Jones

The other thing that knocked me back a bit was the title itself. When the show opened with everyone enjoying regular type activities, I was expecting a segue into that night when the usual crisis du jour would happen on the other side of the world, and Bess would spend the entire night dealing with it (and the usual group of cranky, groggy White House staff). Boy, was I surprised.

She was also Hillary Swank's welfare-dependent mother in the movie Million Dollar Baby. A very cringe-worthy part but she played it well.

So, it looks like the election is Kirkman v. McCord, right? I liked Russel's comment that the general's paramour should get a medal. Such snark. And I audibly gasped to myself when the other general told Bess she "was being emotional". Personally, although her response was righteous, I thought she should have delivered it about 6" from his face and about 20 decibels louder. Henry using the Socratic method with Bess was a clever move by the writers to avoid having him mansplain to her how to get a policy changed. They're changing his character as we go. One thing did occur to me afterward, as I was way to wrapped up in the exposition of the attack scenario to think of anything else. Wouldn't an attack of over 2000 missiles from Russia be visible to Eastern Europe, and perhaps Western Europe? I know the trajectory would probably be polar, but that many contrails should be visible and the alarm given worldwide in a manner of minutes. Other countries have detection systems also, so one course or another should be obvious.

I had a mental image of all those horror stories and warnings from the NPS about feeding bears in Yellowstone Park. I realize life was difficult for sailors of that period, and they expected hardship, but for the life of me I can't understand why they would undertake to pull by hand two gigantic boats through the Arctic wildness. The effort alone would sap their energy so rapidly as to doom them. Not to mention all the useless weight they piled in those boats. Why not dismantle one and make a sled or two, much like Silna's, so that you could haul the essentials over the distance of some 800 miles? And then Hickey has the mutineers pull one UP to a ridge, only for them to discover that he means to have a final confrontation with the beast. I hope they all damned him with their final breaths. The ending reminds me of the ending to Open Range, in a way. "All this, for more cows?" Basically, that was, and still is, the entire purpose of the Northwest Passage. More trade. And glory.

The next logical step is the actors getting their contracts rewritten, at a substantial improvement of course.

I don't think Oksana actually had any sympathy for the other prisoner. She would have killed her in a heartbeat if the fake guard hadn't, simply because she doesn't want any witnesses to the event. She is a genuine psychopath.

Which somehow goes against the tenet that they can't go back to a time they have already visited, or so I thought. According to the Wiki article, the Confederates tried to win a position outside of Vicksburg, but were repulsed by a force from the recently enlisted "United States Colored Troops". Interestingly enough, the article states that the Union forces suffered almost 700 casualties, approximately the same amount of slaves as Lucy states that would be freed in Harriet Tubman's raid. Often times this show takes a nugget of information from real life to form a gold strike of an episode.

I hope that security guard finds employment somewhere other than providing security. He's standing there, armed, wearing a bulletproof vest, and folds as soon as she shoots the manager. At least try something, dude. And I was also puzzled why he would have the combo to the door in the first place. It's not his job to go inside. And then the agent in the room with the spy falls for the old "I think I'm going to be sick" routine. The FBI needs to work on their protocols. And Dina should have recognized that bump and lift trick out on the street. It's been used enough in their profession. Why would the FBI store an incredibly rare and expensive piece of jewelry in their evidence room? Wouldn't the estate want it back?

And where did Chace find a white cowboy hat in Italy on such short notice? Or did he paint that too? JP2 needs to have his nuts cut off. They're already gone in the metaphysical sense. A more disgraceful character would be hard to find. Hats off to the engineers who put that road in on a nearly sheer cliff.

I wonder if Konstantin assumed that his family was already dead when he ran (boated) away from Oksana. I sure hope so, because that was no idle threat, coming from her. I think that Carolyn is one of the 12.

Then again, Capetown is in a serious water crisis, so swimming pools and movie stars probably isn't the order of the day.

Welcome to Shondaland. With a few minor changes in names and locations, your post could apply equally to Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, and Grey's Anatomy. Personally, I think that some fitness studio that practices Pilates should sponsor some of the episodes, because of all the constant handwaving and facepalming that goes on.

That would certainly shake up po' little Paige and her wide-eyed enthusiasm for espionage. Has there ever been a mention of Claudia's cover in life? Is she supposed to be an older woman on a pension, or what? Just curious.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled lives....

Blake, as Hank's sole heir, stands to make some serious coin now that she owns the land where the pipeline is supposed to go, if it ever does go through. I liked Rich's response to Reade's 'thank you for finding the book'. "Let me top off that drink for you, first." If Jane was unconscious in the hospital, to everyone's knowledge, why would Weller's doctor come down the hall to give her the bad news? Quick! Set up a perimeter!

Yes, the doors are closed. The reason for this is people do burglarize fire stations for anything they think can make a buck for them. All the engines/trucks/etc. that I have ever seen have door remotes so they can close the door behind them, and, just as importantly, open it when they get back at 3:00am and nobody's waiting up to open a door for them.

*GROAN* That's all I got. Well, almost. Will someone tell me why Pruitt didn't just call 9-1-1, instead of asking for his very own aid car? Will someone tell me just what the incident command structure in Shondaland Fire Department is? Will someone tell me just who is their training officer? Will someone tell me why they store barrels and barrels of flammable liquids and tanks of gases on the 26th floor of a building? Will someone tell me how a fire that vents to the outside air develops enough pressure to blow out windows with projectile results on the next floor up?

They did much the same thing on 24. I remember one episode where Bauer landed a 737 on Hwy 118 out there in the northern part of the San Fernando Valley. Out in the suburbs, where it's mostly a below grade freeway, too. No problem.

Maybe he's the real Mr. Kaplan.

But not until she solves the island power grid problems, and gets appointed to the housing board so she can railroad a reconstruction plan through Congress, and, finally, appears in half a dozen PSA ads on national tv, urging people to vacation in Puerto Rico. Probably because Chicago Med has already filmed all their episodes for the season, and they're the only hospital in Chicago, of course.

It's a broadaxe. Ask Mel Gibson how it works. :(

In this circumstance, that might have caused more problems than it would solve. Since Lady Silence was right there with them, she might have interpreted it as a complete disrespect of her dead, and maybe that the sailors actually believed that the victims were indeed the marauders. This she would communicate to the rest of her people, and the sailors, at the very least, would receive no help whatsoever from them. I am curious about one thing. They are so far north (King William island is 69 deg. north latitude) that magnetic compasses would be virtually useless. How did they navigate on featureless terrain so that they would know they are still headed south?

Henry's friend's dad is another illegal who is planning to recruit Philip to spy for an as yet unnamed country. Ha.

By the way, the version of Black Magic Woman heard in this episode is the original Peter Green composition, from the original original Fleetwood Mac (Green, Spencer, Kirwan, Fleetwood, McVie)

My brother in law once told me (quite awhile ago), that the only police officers assigned firearms were those guarding 10 Downing Street. Side story (sorry to go off topic): I visited New Zealand in 1984, and just before I left, there was a headline story in Auckland about a bank robber that had been killed by the police armed offenders squad (same rules as England). The paper was bemoaning the fact that this was the 8th time the police had been forced to kill someone, since 1941.