taragel

As a huge musical fan, I was really looking forward to this one but it underwhelmed. They're all trained, talented, experienced singers that I was excited to see, but Jeremy Jordan just blew everyone away from his first four bars and it made me really sad that he's hanging around and totally wasted playing "fifth banana" (as a friend dubbed him) on Supergirl. I liked both "Superfriends" (because Rachel Bloom! -- forget about those TV shows who do one episode as a musical--there's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend killing it every week, folks) which suited the characters the best, and Running Home to You, which was quite lovely and makes me more interested in seeing La La Land. I think I would've liked the episode more without any covers and all originals of the same tone and spirit? These numbers were so disparate it wasn't very cohesive feeling. Also, those '40s accents were EGREGIOUS. Yikes. I wondered if Mon-El being named Tommy and being Barrowman's son in this, was a nod to Arrow's dear-deparated Tommy? And Grant and Melissa do have a nice shared chemistry that works better than their current on-screen relationships, which is somewhat ironic since Melissa and Chris are dating in real life now.

Indeed, I'm very fatigued by the warring clans at this point. I'm also fatigued by the stagnation of the Bellarke relationship (though I'm a fan of it and want it to happen) because there's zero forward momentum there. I love a slow burn, but if that's the aim, something needs to catch frakking fire here. It seemed like they were almost going to go there at the end but then...more stagnation. Everything this season so far feels very rinse and repeat to me. The highlights were finding out that Indra has a daughter (though now they're both MIA) and Raven science-ing up the rocket with the unlikely combo of Luna and Murphy. Jaha is also slightly interesting to me. Everything else feels like the characters could simply be reading off old season 2 or 3 scripts.

I thought their one-on-one scene also hinted she had real feelings for Richard. Yes, she said the tears were just an act, but IDK...I think there was genuine emotion there. I imagine in a future episode there'll also be a scene between her and Jules with some real emotion. I'm interested to find out how Maddie got caught up in this life. She looked genuinely unsettled when Ezra mentioned "their dad's memory slipping back in Pottsville." I hope Sally returns as well!

When Jules was at the bakery trailing the "sister", she saw it written on the birthday cake and texted it to the others. I too am wondering about the "aunt" being so openly suspicious at that barbecue. It was so early that it seems like it could've scared Maddie off, if they thought she was targeting Patrick as a mark. Of course, if they thought she was not targeting/just falling for him, then maybe it makes more sense. If everyone had immediately embraced her, perhaps THAT would have been too suspicious. IDK. It does sort of feel like the writers decided to make them FBI AFTER they figured out the barbecue scene. I'm wondering why Maddie trusts Max so much. Does she know he delivered Sally to Lenny?

I'm very sorry he's been the target of racist hate but I guess I disagree with Bob then, because I don't think that saying he did not look visibly Filipino (to me, of course, I can only speak for myself) but looked white, has any kind of hurtful intention behind it. I'm not implying any kind of judgment value here, simply that if someone had asked me to guess his nationality, I would have simply guessed he was caucasian and I'm betting other people would too. Unless you're a pretty big fan or the actor is very high-profile, most people don't know a lot about the actors' backgrounds, I'd venture. YMMV naturally. As far as the politics and behind the scenes intentions of the showrunners, I don't disagree with any of that, but I don't think the bitterness needs to be aimed at the people here on these threads, I guess. When you start saying "everyone" hates so-and-so or judges so-and-so, which seems to happen a lot in your posts here, the everyone you're directly talking to is going to be very confused and somewhat annoyed if they're not doing or feeling anything like that.

"There must be a reason"? Have you seen the show? She's a mean-spirited, narcissistic, vindictive bully with a hair-trigger temper. She might be good at her job, but it's easy (to me anyway) to understand why people can't sustain friendships with her long-term. In terms of the Zieglers, Melissa probably wants to be the one credited with Maddie's success, or failing that, that Maddie is so special/perfect/amazing that she came out of the womb that way/her success was inevitable. There's no room for Abby in her new narrative.

I agree. I can't tell if the bitterness/scorn is for the showrunners/writers or the way fandom (esp. tumblr) reacts to things. If it's the latter, take that beef to tumblr, I guess, because the people here don't really engage that way with the narrative. Overall though, if you can't understand why "fans" sympathize more with and more easily forgive Clarke, it's at least partly due to her choices having context. The show always portrayed Clarke as struggling with her actions (even if briefly, like when she and Lexa ran off and let that village of unsuspecting folks get blown up so as not to blow their own cover). The reason some fans now vilify Bellamy is because the show didn't do that at all with the massacre storyline. It happened off-screen, not in any kind of immediate-danger situation, for very little reason (despite Rothenberg's insistence in interviews that it was a kill or soon be killed situation). It was a big misstep, and now the show is framing it with a lot of residual guilt to redeem Bellamy because the critical and fan response to that storyline and character's actions was so poor. How much racism plays into that fan reaction (or into the way the story is crafted), I couldn't say. Race on The 100 is a much bigger topic on tumblr, which is very social-justice oriented, than somewhere like this board. Personally, I was truly puzzled the first few times people referred to Bellamy or Bob as a POC. He looks white, I had no idea of his family background (which is probably the case with most viewers), and racial differences between the 100 are not highlighted on the show at all, in comparison to the colonialism/othering of the grounders and assorted "krus" v. the 100.

Very interesting. I wonder if the season ends with Clarke finding Cadogan's house and possibly more survivors? Imagine if S5 was about Scientology? Lol.

I don't think Negan's going to die in the finale. Isn't JDM signed on for another season? They haven't gotten their money's worth out of him yet, I'd bet. They said there wouldn't be a cliffhanger, so I don't think Negan's even coming close to dying in the finale.

I was most surprised that, given how many flashbacks/how much she dwells on it, Jane didn't seem to know for sure if that guy on the computer was her rapist. Perhaps that's part of what's traumatizing her too, though, that she can't really remember all the details or was too drunk to remember his face or whatever. That teacher is not only the worst at handling everything, but I can't quite figure out her motivation. Is someone spurring her on or does she really actually mean well? Either way, I just can't see any teacher handling things this way, especially not in a school like that. Kudos to whoever called in last week's thread that Joseph was having an affair with and may possibly be stalking Maddie/might kill Ed. I didn't see that coming at all. I think the Celeste/Perry stuff is really well done in its...insidiousness. There are so many things that make people question whether it's really abuse in real life and they're doing a fantastic job getting those nuances across in the show/with the characters as well.

Renewed for Season 5!!

It's a memoir in that it's about her life, but not an exhaustive history or any kind of tell-all. (I saw an early galley a few weeks back.) It's very much a diary-style book for teens about certain parts of being famous, liking makeup, growing up with Mackenzie, the Sia connection, etc. She barely talks at all about either dance or Abby. And there are no surprising opinions or controversial thoughts in the whole thing. It will sell a lot of copies to the kids (or their moms) who follow the show though.

So I went right to Perry as Jane's rapist and that guy in her recollection sure did look like Skarsgaard. (It could be too obvious a red herring given the promo, maybe.) But my next thought was that it sure looked like Jane was raped there in Monterey, so maybe the reason they moved here was so she could find and kill the guy.

I haven't been all that into this season because everything has felt repetitive to previous seasons and like setup/filler, but now that they're messing around in Becca's lab and with the ark going boom, I feel like they're finally going somewhere new. I'm very intrigued that it looked like the entire Ark goes up in flames--meaning not only do they have no place to ride out the radiation to come, but they also have nowhere to live now, and no possessions, no medicine, no food, no anything. This also should basically put an end to the fighting with the other tribes (hopefully). I'm almost more intrigued now what their day-to-day life will be like with no ark than what the ultimate endgame is for evading the radiation.

I thought in last week's episode when they first introduced the Doctor he made some comment or question about the mark possibly being a patient or sick. Maybe that's how he knows the Doctor. But I agree it's weird that he immediately went to Sally as the mole and not Saffron/Maddie. Also, it's felt a bit like Ezra and the wife have some chemistry/might end up getting together. I don't know if they said whether the wife was lesbian or bi, though.

From the recap: "That we learn, toward the end of the episode, that she's also keeping A Secret from Kyle about a relationship misadventure in her past only makes her more intriguing." We did? I don't recall that at all and I just watched it last night... Maybe it was cut after screeners went out?

The way Vartan asked that dude to kidnap the therapist and take her to "the facility" totally made me think of Scientology, Miscavige and his missing wife. That being said, it was less juicy/campy and more basic romance novel/Hallmark movie than I expected. The stuff with Vartan controlling his whole life with arrangements (obviously he made the previous fiancee back out) could get dark and interesting, though I generally find Vartan very wooden.

Agreed with everything here. Is Freeform the one behind these shifts toward misery and melodramatic trauma for all characters on their shows now? Both SaB and The Fosters have indeed suffered from it and changed greatly from the kind of mostly heartwarming family dramas they began as. Also, though I liked Kathryn calling out the gross client--how did she never point out to her boss/colleague that what he was asking her to do could be considered sexual harrassment. Kathryn would know that and she'd speak up...or at least agonize about it before speaking up. Her frustrating was all over what she was being asked to do but not that she was even being asked to do it really in the first place or who was asking her to do it. It was kind of odd that they didn't come right out and suggest the colleague was harassing her.

Me too. I wearied of the Lexa focus/Polis politics at the middle of last season, but towards the end they refocused on the core group/100 kids and I was more interested. This season so far though feels like a re-tread of previous problems and emotions. Everything so far feels a lot like filler or setup, and nothing truly surprising (save for Indra having a daughter?) has really happened. I hope they pick up the pace a bit soon. I didn't care for Bob's big shout/cry (I always find those on-command wails when people find out bad news to be VERY unconvincing) but I liked the rest of his expressions/emotions/reactions in that scene. It's such a cheat/contrivance to keep Octavia alive and mostly unscathed after that fall, but I knew they'd never kill her, so that robbed a lot of the power from the scene too. As far as best actors on the show, I think Idina Porter and Henry Ian Cusick are, but are mostly wasted sadly. I'd like to see them get meatier, more dimensional material to tackle. Richard Harmon is also probably easily the strongest actor of the kids.

I was glad when I heard Connie Britton was moving on because she never fit quite right in this role. CB can say y'all with the best of em, but her as a country superstar just never rang true. I was ready for Juliette to become the true lead this show deserved, and Hayden is more than capable. However, the way this season has gone under the Thirtysomething writers doesn't give me a lot of hope for what's to come. Now we're going to have to struggle with the immense mourning/grief of Deacon and the girls for ages. Maybe they should take a page out of Jane the Virgin's playbook and flash forward a few years so they can shake up all the storylines.

Yeah, I wonder what's up with this. I heard rumors when I went to see the tour that they did not get along. Actually saw the tour in two cities, once with Sam and once without, and they had very little interaction when he was there, and when he wasn't there, her fiance did some of his parts in the duets. Weird vibe. In general, I find Scarlet to be such a complete oddball. Why on earth does this girl want to be famous? She hates all the trappings of it. Go write some songs and sell them and stay off the stage if you're so completely scared of your own shadow. I think the British director is a total boor and agree with those who say this relationship is born out of some weird, vaguely abusive dynamic....mostly. But I kind of also just think Scarlet is such a twit, that she's spooked by anything and everything. If she didn't want to do what the director said in the vid, she should've just put her damn foot down and said no to all that. Then we wouldn't be dealing with this stupid and gross romance storyline, where she turns into an out and out cheater because Gunnar had...previous girlfriends when they weren't even officially together? What the frak ever. I can't with her whole guilt tripping him all the time either. They are so toxic together.

Maybe the pirate will whip his face off in the future and be.... THE REAL SCOTT, who is not dead at all.

Honestly. I wonder if the show is really going to make an arc out of the fact that every one of their kids is completely out of control and makes terrible, terrible decisions? Somehow I doubt it, but they really should, because it's so incredibly obvious at this point. I get that the writers are in love with the idea of Stef and Lena as perfect parents, but they're so incredibly far from that now. And lordy, Emma being pregnant. Please no with all that. I did wonder though if Jesus's coma dream of Brandon and Emma hooking up was going to end up being prophetic.

Heh. A real life friend who I know watches this show just posted on FB that she's having a LulaRoe party!! I so want to point her to this thread. Interestingly, all the people in her comments are like "DO YOU HAVE ANY PLAIN BLACK LEGGINGS?" Lol. Like you can get in any store anywhere but probably pay 3x the privilege for if you get them from LR? The regional manager or whatever was like "THOSE ARE RARE UNICORNS!" Hee. Dying.