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Very interesting interpretation...something I had never considered before. I absolutely could not believe it when she said that, since she is the master puppeteer. Sometimes I had found myself believing her schtick, and I thought that she couldn't be as manipulative as everyone is saying, but all it took to finally push me over to the correct way of thinking, was that scene the other week where she talked Meri out of inviting Janelle's boys (??) by saying something about how "won't it be unsafe?", and just like that Meri 'all on her own' came to do exactly what Sobbyn had wanted. I noticed that when Sobbyn was saying something that involved summarizing something about each household's kids, she talked about "Meri's daughter". But by the time of filming, wasn't Leon out as trans by then?

I think he simply said that to be polite. I think he had probably experienced her crazy, and didn't want anything more to do with it!

Bingo! That's all I could think about as I watched. Plus, she knew she had been around 350, so having known that she lost at least 40, would put her around 310. But she kept talking about how long it's been since she's been even close to 300, all the while knowing that she's already close, if not there already.

I actually give a more sinister motive to Lydia. I think she intentionally kept going and was quite aware that Aaliyah wanted her to stop, but was doing it either because she could see that it bothered Aaliyah and she was hoping to break them up, or because she wanted to 'mark her territory' as having been there first even if Aaliyah and Uche did end up together.

Something that was not delved into sufficiently was the drug angle. Kouri has already indicated that they were the only adults in the house. So if Eric truly wasn't a drug user (which I think a hair sample would indicate), then either he for some reason decided that he wanted a huge amount of drugs that night, in an amount that could prove fatal. Or they came from Kouri. The defense tried to discredit the argument that Kouri got them from the cleaning woman who the prosecution says was the one Kouri contacted for the drugs. But there wasn't enough about the flip side, which is where would Eric have gotten the drugs if they came from him (cell phone records, second phone, etc.) and why would he have taken them. Since nobody thought he was suicidal, and nothing was said about him getting the drugs himself, or why then that by default means they had to have come from Kouri, whether they came from that cleaning woman or not. And why would she have given such a large amount of drugs to Eric, a man who never takes them, if not to murder him. At the least, she would be guilty of reckless endangerment, if the defense tried to claim it was for reasons other than murder, given his lack of history taking drugs.

Something from the recent Buried in the Backyard episode, "Death in Christmas Town", brought up something I have wondered about. They mentioned having gone to Quantico for an FBI profile on the potential killer, and the FBI got it completely wrong -- saying the guy was single, with no attachments, no job, etc. From a cursory Google check, profiling is wrong almost as much as it is right. I seem to vaguely remember a case where profiling was essential, but it just doesn't seem like it usually provides much more than something interesting after the person is caught, to see if it matched or not.

The part of all this that makes no sense, is that they do the financial changes, like changing the will or creating a trust, in secret. The whole point of the changes they make is to protect the assets in case something happens to them. So instead, why not minimize the chance of something happening in the first place, by telling about the change, so the financial gain motive for their death is removed. And further, make it clear to the potential murderer that along with the changes you've made, you have notified so-and-so about the changes, along with a chronology of events that have led to this point, so that if anything happens to me, you will be the very first person they look at. The idea is to make the possibility of the death so undesirable on every level, that the potential murderer changes their mind. I'm not saying this would stop the murderer in every one of those cases, but the combo of removing the financial gain and increasing the spotlight after the crime, would undoubtedly deter at least some. And yeah, leaving, especially when abuse retribution worries do not seem to be at play, is another good way to minimize the murderer's chances.

I couldn't exactly understand what Taylor was getting at, but I think she had issues with his teeth?

OK, so here's what I'm confused about. Separate from the merits of whether we think Uche is or isn't a good guy or worth Aaliyah's time, I don't understand her reasoning for leaving. She said that one of the major reasons that she was leaving was what Lydia said and that Lydia kept giving her more details even when she asked her to stop. But the not stopping would be a reason to not be friends with Lydia...it wouldn't be a reason that had anything to do with Uche. And the content of what Lydia said was actually pretty innocuous...it didn't indicate any deep emotional involvement on the part of either Uche or Lydia. So the only rationale that would seem relevant is that he kept this a secret for so long...but she didn't mention that as being very important in her decision to leave. I think she should have stayed and tried to see if they could work through this, because by leaving, she played exactly into what it seems like Lydia was trying to accomplish! Maybe Uche is a dick, maybe he isn't. But it would seem like it's worth a best effort, so there are no regrets and what-ifs.

My thoughts from the episode: Taylor looked less than thrilled about JP when she met him...wonder if this will cause problems, a la Cole and Zanab, Bartise and Nancy, and Shake and Deepti. Milton may be a very nice man, but I am always distracted by his hair...it always looks like he has a Jheri Curl toupee. Izzy's whole face and demeanor reflect his inner turmoil about his decision of who to pick...it looks very very genuine. I hope that Stacy becomes able to express her feelings. I really feel for Chris. On the one hand, no one wants to feel like second-best. But on the other, Johni may have a new appreciation of him. I think of the Bachelor, where twice the Bachelor has chosen someone as the "winner", only to change their minds after a few months, and get with the second-place person. In both those cases, they have gone on to have successful marriages. I guess the difference is that in the case of the Bachelor, the men made the re-choice after experiencing what it was like with their first choice. But in the case of Johni, she made the re-choice because her first choice rejected her. Still, Chris is under no obligation to marry her, so he could propose and get to see if she treats him as a priority over the next month. The power dynamic theoretically could then go one of two ways: she could have the upper hand because of a subconscious perception that he needs to prove his worthiness, or he could have the upper hand because of a subconscious perception that she needs to atone for making him suffer by going through the pain and humiliation of being picked second.

I know that it was awkward and hard for Johni to end her session with Izzy that way, but she needs to give him time and space to process without jumping to conclusions, especially about him vis-a-vis Chris.

Oh yeah, I meant to post about her. It was impossible to follow the contradictory things she said. She also came across as weird as f*ck, with her lotion or potion or whatever it is that is “not dermatology but offering a distinct composition”. From sleuthing around, she apparently founded a plant-based, eco-friendly skincare brand called Zack & Lucy. The website basically looks like soft-core porn in terms of the photo of the female models and the male model.

I have found a great "new" show on TV One. Not sure when they added it for replay, but the show itself is apparently from 2018. It is a limited 4-episode series called Evidence of Innocence, and each episode is about someone falsely convicted of a crime and how they cleared their name. Amazing perseverance. I also hadn't remembered that the Innocence Project only accepts wrongful conviction cases where it can be overturned on DNA, so this Centurion Ministries that was active in the episodes, is an alternative for people whose cases don't have DNA.

As usual, at this early stage, I wish that we saw more people's experiences in the pods, and not yet going into such depth. The woman whose date was so bad that she was banging her head into her notebook? Show us that date! All those other people who we see hanging around in the living area? Show us those dates? I wish that Ouche had been able to simply say something to Aaliyah like, "I need some time to process what you've told me. Thank you for sharing something so difficult with me. Let's call it a day today and talk again tomorrow." While I thought Lydia did a good job comforting Aaliyah, I thought it was weird that she kept saying how alike they were. Lydia definitely did not seem to be picking up on the lack of reciprocation from Izzy when she made quite a few strong statements, in their next-to-last visit. And good for him for not letting it go on longer once he had clarity about how he felt. Does anyone else think that Taylor looks and sounds a lot like Micah from season 4?

It doesn't look like there's a topic yet for the Season 5 premiere, so I've created one! Description: Optimistic seekers from Houston settle into the pods, where some quickly bond over shared interests -- while others rub their dates the wrong way.

I watched the latest episode of People Magazine Investigates "The Times Square Killer". And compared to their usual episodes, this was just an overly long waste of time. It was all about this one prolific serial killer, and because of the way they did it, all the murders blurred together and I couldn't keep any of them straight, which also doesn't give proper respect to the victims. It's not like there was a lot of very interesting sleuthing to show of how they started linking seemingly unrelated murders to him. It sort of just devolved into "and he also killed this person, and this person." I don't even recall much delving into the psychology of such a sadistic horrible psychopath. The episode was very long, and may have read better on paper than what ended up coming out on screen.

OK, I've got some confusion here with the pillow. If we follow Shitney's chart, Glenn had a child with Jackie, who has died. That child is Angie, who we saw on the show; Glenn is Angie's father. Angie has 3 children, one of them is named Rhine; Glenn is Rhine's grandfather. Rhine has a child, named Maddie/Madeleine; Glenn is Rhine's great-grandfather. But the pillow that was from Madeline, was to "grandfather". Maybe that's part of what confused Glenn. Grandfather and great-grandfather are not the same thing, and they made a big deal about Glenn being a great-grandfather, so it just seemed weird to have the pillow say "grandfather". The sentiment behind the pillow was very sweet, though. It's 2023...do people really still leave more to the first-born?

To be fair, they said "frozen margaritas". Those could easily have been frozen strawberry margaritas. That was not Babs' dress! If you take a look at the dress as Jessica wore it, the sleeves are different. Jessica's sleeves are fully formed and come down close to her elbow. If you look at the picture they show of Babs coming down the wedding aisle, her bare arms are exposed all the way to the top, so either her sleeves have a slit (and the sleeve material is behind her) or there are no sleeves at all...either way, that is different from Jessica's dress. Plus Jessica is bigger than Babs was at the time of her wedding and would not have been able to fit it. I tried to look at how the dress fell and material, but there is sort of a glare on the dress in Babs' pic, so you can't tell for sure...but it appears to look like the material is smooth in Babs' pic, but there was a textured layer over the top on Jessica's dress. What made this so egregious, is that the party was her idea, so she was hardly being in charge of the family. Hunter appears to do just fine on his own, without needing Whit's interference help. I had noticed in her face that Whitney had lost weight and told my husband, but also told him that she can't make it seem intentional because she was so extreme about HAES. In reality, what probably drove the turnaround, as much or more than any scare about Babs, is that taking Ozempic seems to be pretty easy and successful. Whit was never willing to actually do anything to lose weight (after that initial 100 that she gained back), so she had to make it seem like it was unimportant to her at the time, and unimportant now. It will be interesting to see what she says if the weight loss gets more significant.

Quoting myself to specifically mention Web of Death. It's about the "citizen sleuths" who help solve crime through podcasts and various websites, and it's really, really interesting. There is a whole subculture of folks who are extremely dedicated to solving crimes and missing persons cases, and helping to right wrongs.

Actually, it was Glenn's brother, Chris. What may be confusing, is that when he was talking, he was referring to himself with the words "brother in-law" because he was Babs' brother-in-law.

When we first saw her sitting on the couch, we did hear her speak, and it had to Babs' sister because she sounded just like Babs. And Glenn's brother sounded just like Glenn. To be fair, there was no mention of money in the obit or in the linked "store". The gifts were memorial type things, as princelina mentioned above. But what confused me about the gifts, is who they were for. Most of the gifts seemed like things that the buyer would want for themselves, to remember Babs by, not something they would give to Babs' family. It seems like it would be weird for them to just receive lots of blankets, wind chimes, framings, etc.

So I have to update it this way. I can't believe I left off the story that I have by far seen on the most franchises...Abraham Shakespeare winning $30 million in the lottery and being murdered by his "financial advisor".

I just discovered that there are lot of series on Hulu that I had never heard of before. I just finished Death in the Dorms, and will eventually check out The Lesson is Murder, Killing Country, Web of Death, How I Caught My Killer, Real Life Nightmares, Charmed to Death, and Deadly Affairs: Betrayed By Love. According to IMDB her name is Erika Fong, and she is 37!

But that was just the first imagined scenario. In the second, she surmised that the scarf could have been in someone's hair or around their neck, and I believe that the depiction of that scenario showed a female.

Apparently, there will be a new September mystery called Mystery Island, starring Elizabeth Henstridge and Charlie Weber, on Friday, September 29 at 9pm EST. Plot summary: When a visit to a mystery themed resort goes wrong, a local detective and a vacationing British criminal psychiatrist team up to solve a real murder.