DianeDobbler

Sunil is a law student, he should know the font, number one, since the font is very important and super obvious in legal work, and number two, there is nobody on the planet thicker skinned than law students and lawyers. Work critique rolls off their back. IOW I think calling it "indefensible" is OTT. Rather than him doing her a favor, I think she did him a favor bringing him in. I don't know, maybe my work experience is tougher than others, but I just don't get how some think a professional environment is supposed to work. It's not always doled out with tact and consideration for the person's feelings. Often it cuts straight to the chase and a grown-up should handle it, particularly if the critique is correct. We were never told Paula was wrong. The past couple of episodes have made me reconsider Naomi's point of view (Rebecca's mother). Naomi is a narcissist, still resentful that her daughter isn't the trophy daughter she wants. Her saving grace is she truly loves Rebecca, and when push comes to shove, she can step up, such as when against all expectations she bonded with and approved of Josh. However, I have always thought she was wrong to see Rebecca's behavior in the worst light - as manipulative and inconsiderate, when her daughter was, in fact, in deep trouble. The past couple of episodes have caused me to re-evaluate. Maybe Naomi has her number.

CEG overall feels forced now. It is basically imitating itself. Trent has always been one of my favorite characters, but Rebecca's response to him lacked shading this time around. And his exposition was over-written. Yes in a reality-based context he'd be terrifying, but CEG always played a sort of synchronicity between them. In this episode, she treated him with open contempt, and some of his dialogue didn't sound like him. In the past, CEG had hit upon his talents for cooking very lightly. In one great scene, they ate the dinner he'd prepared. Rebecca had wanted him gone, but was also exhausted, defeated, and a little short in the self-care department. Trent's dinner proved too tempting, and he threw in a shoulder massage. He was sympathetic company as she vented. Kind of modeling the ideal partner, which was what made it funny. Here, there was nothing to ground their interaction, and stuff like his cooking and other quirks were sledgehammered, and belabored, without telling us anything about either of them. Previously, it had showed that Rebecca was so needy, she'd make HIM work in a pinch, and it was kind of relatable (at times we could all use a be-aproned Trent waiting with dinner prepared at the end of a tough day). It progressed our understanding of Rebecca. I guess Rebecca has fooled her therapists in some respects, but we should know whether or not she has. She was never previously able to fool Dr. Akopian even the first time around, and her other doctor (Dr. Shin?) never fell for any of her shit. It's stretching it to believe she fooled them into thinking she'd made progress. Other than the knee-jerk allusion to WASP families, I liked Nathaniel and Mona's scene. I liked that he noted she had only one butt cheek on the chair and "that's fair." I liked she wasn't portrayed as clingy and controlling. I agree she should have been angrier, but she also conveyed somehow that she had sort of backed herself into the relationship, following the string without previously admitting to herself how much it meant to her. She admitted she'd had other opportunities to screw around, and that her parents had been pushing her, but "I liked the guy I was seeing." It felt true when it could have felt like a cop-out. I'm glad Josh got a little bit of love this episode from Valencia's girlfriend. Valencia is not just a cartoon these days, she's been re-written. Oh, let's give up the attempt to make her a real person - let's just write bitch. She's always been fully of West Covina - wanted nothing more than to be accepted by Josh's parents, be a big fish in a small pond if she could, get married, and have babies. When she and Josh moved in together, he was excited about the apartment being "close" to some cool destinations - she was excited that it made them "close" (she thought) to marriage and family. So this "I'm bigger than this stupid town" attitude comes from nowhere. And YES, I could fill in the blanks myself, but shouldn't have to. The last scene with Rebecca and Nathaniel felt ok to me. All this way CEG was suddenly writing that it was ABOUT Rebecca and Nathaniel, and the other stuff was obstacles (like The Middle, I guess). It's not about that, it's not about who gets together. The tropes had been so overused with them, it started to feel that way, though. Whenever they were on the outs, they pretended to be angry or dislike each other. Here, Nathaniel had removed himself from her influence but also told her she was a good person. That felt more grounded and real, but I think this beat was told without real clarity as to what's going on w/our protogonist. The therapy piece is what's screwing it up. If her therapy hadn't validated that she's better, all of this would play better. Instead we have to believe she fooled her therapists in order to understand what's going on. I also see her more aware of her issues, but making little attempt to manage them, and she's inexplicably nastier and meaner. Aline Brosh McKenna keeps talking about how compelling Rebecca is, how decent, how loveable despite all of her issues, but they've really lost that aspect of her character How Mona found out is another thing we have to figure out for ourselves, but I don't mind as much in her case. Neither Nathaniel nor Rebecca were discreet. They sexted a lot. Nathaniel could have bailed early on evenings with Mona, his sex drive could have been a little lower key than you'd expect. Mona could have wanted to come over and he could have said he was busy, or he could have broken plans and dates. From there, just seeing a glimpse of a sext or seeing Rebecca's body language could be plenty if she went to the office. Particularly since they were sharing space. PS, Donna Lynn Champlin did great work in this episode. I always love the less broad side of Donna, when she's smart, vulnerable, more nuanced. She played her reluctance to get involved and her love for Rebecca in equal measure, and I even enjoyed what she conveyed in that long shot in the end, talking to Nathaniel about some work issue.

This post was better and more focused than any of mine. Throughout Crazy Ex Girlfriend, I always knew what was going on, and the dark episodes of the first half of this season just paid that off. But now, the information we have is Rebecca did eight months of therapy, progressing enough to the point that her mental health support system saw enough progress that she was able to go back to Dr. Akopian. At least that's what I got out of it. That's supposed to be progress, right? Furthermore, Dr. Akopian confirmed her progress by telling her it was ok for her to take a chance on a real relationship and love. So she interpreted Rebecca's affair with Nathaniel as a denial mechanism, and thought the solution was not for Rebecca to focus on her own shit (which was the recommended solution in the past, with Josh) but to come clean, have Nathaniel come clean, and embark on a real relationship, whatever the risks. So Akopian obviously thought there was reality with Nathaniel, reality that was only possible with a healthier Rebecca. Yet as you say, the Rebecca we're seeing isn't healthier. In fact IMO is more insensitive (her attitude towards Nathaniel having a girlfriend). Maybe she hesitated more with Valencia because she saw herself and Josh as "true love" whereas with Nathaniel she had a rationale (and denial) that didn't actually involve acquiring Nathaniel for herself. But that angle is me doing the work that the show should be doing. If we weren't told that Rebecca's presumably competent mental health professional support system had declared her very much better, the show would make more sense. What she's doing at the moment seems to be stuff she'd be doing at the beginning of her therapy, and called out on by her shrink. In the past, Rebecca was erratic, but Crazy Ex Girlfriend had a very sure grasp. At this point, CEG is as bad as its protogonist.

I remember the plot point that led to Rebecca acquiring the ex-wife's shares, but they are still the (vastly) minority shares, of little influence unless allied w/Darryl's. Whatever led Darryl to prefer her to be senior partner happened off screen, and I don't really believe it. Darryl was very into being co-equal partners with Nathaniel, and distressed that Nathaniel had acquired the ex-wife's shares, making him majority partner. In the past, whenever people have not taken Darryl seriously, he's turned out not to be such a pushover. He resisted making "Weekend Tuesday" a work at home day, and reminded White Josh that he founded and co-ran a successful law firm. His stake in that firm means more to him than he often lets on, but he does let on. Rebecca represents probably less than 5%, and she doesn't own them (in fact, the guy who bought them wasn't allowed to buy them actually, as he's not a lawyer, so that's another thing). Senior partner and first on the masthead, particularly how hastily it was done, feels incredibly contrived - just a hasty plot contrivance to stick Nathaniel and Rebecca in a shared office. Rebecca has negligible power without the force of Darryl's shares, so I hope CEG doesn't forget that along with other stuff it overlooks. The problem with Paula being office bitch is the stuff she focused on WASN'T petty. We were introduced to her plotline by Jim and another lawyer blowing a piece of paper across the conference room table. Legal work is incredibly precise down to the formatting and fonts - bad work product isn't just stuff that's too long (a non-petty critique), it's also stuff that's improperly formatted as to font and margins. Legal stuff is proofed for tab setting consistency and semicolons, not to mention the blue book exists for a reason. It is the wrong profession to call someone out about so-called "petty" critiques, since the critiques were not petty in a legal environment. Crazy Ex Girlfriend show us that half the personnel at Whitefeather ARE incompetent, but then rags on Paula for calling it out, which I found incredibly unfair. It felt sexist and pandering in a way that a man would never have been labeled, and CEG didn't engage the topic at all. It would be different if it were good work, but it IS half-assed, sloppy work, but somehow she's the bad guy for correcting it, in a profession that doesn't tolerate it. The jobs are also blurred. When Maya was introduced, she was an assistant/secretary (not a paralegal, as far as I could grasp). Paula's the paralegal - I'm sure she's taking on a lot more legal work, writing basic briefs and affirmations, etc. Are all the rest of them lawyers? Is Sunil a lawyer now or is he still in law school and came on to be a helper paralegal? I just dont' like the cheap/unthought path CEG of all shows has been traveling down for its supporting cast, deploying tropes for convenience instead of deconstructing them. P.S. - it's funny - if we throwback to an episode from a previous season, we see Rebecca tackling a piece of writing and taking out the Oxford commas. She knows her shit. To pretend it's a buzz kill to know your shit in a law office is the wrong hill to die on.

Before now, I've been sure of the story CEG was telling. Didn't know how they'd "fix" Rebecca or where she'd end up, but I understood what was going on with her. She was an essentially decent, super bright person completely controlled by her anxiety, depression and obsessions. Specifically, romantic obsessions. And of course, had tremendous, unaddressed rage. As Brosh McKenna said, she was grabbing onto rocks and bolders as she crashed down the mountain. Josh was the false safety net - she poured everything into him instead of dealing with what was going on inside. And in the process, the show got to critique tropes about romance, romantic comedy, male and female attractiveness, female friendship, etc. Now, I don't know what's up. Mostly because of the eight month time leap and the fact that we were told she'd made enough progress for her therapist to clear her to go to private therapy again. So was her therapist WRONG? If I take it on faith, then I'm supposed to believe she's stable enough to leave group and her other doctor. But she's into the dark web where she apparently did put a hit out on Mona, she's manipulating people like Paula and feeling bad about it but not coming clean, her line delivery to Trent about "love kernels" not being real seemed bitter, instead of insightful. So I'm pretty lost. I could fill it in myself, spin it for myself, but I don't really want to. If you're telling a story, I want the information on the screen, as it was for three and a half seasons. Mona/Nathaniel - when Rebecca showed us Josh's family,, and when CEG did JAP Battle Rap, both experiences felt very specific. I read Fillipino fans talking about the decor in Josh's house as reading very familiar, that the show had really researched. JAP Battle Rap was ultra specific about Westchester, social rituals and the totems of academic, professional and romantic success. Nathaniel and Mona were just like "Ok we're WASPs, so of course our parents don't actually express love to each other or us, it's all fake, and I want something different." Come on. That just feels lazy and unresearched. The writing for Valencia lately also feels lazy, her girlfriend notwithstanding. Beth is a doll, though. Something about this season is making me question Rebecca's tremendous pull on everyone around her - not just the guys, but everyone. She's not too appealing lately. Her being senior partner also makes no sense, and is obnoxious. Nathaniel and Darryl own most of the company. Rebecca REPRESENTS (doesn't own, just represents the investor, which is a whole other problem) the very minor number of ex-wife shares that, if aligned with Darryl's shares, make Darryl's team the senior partner side again. So why is SHE senior partner? It should be him. Loved the shoes on Mona. I did appreciate we got to check in, finally, with where Paula was in law school, and got a few minutes of seeing her function so competently at work - stark contrast to Office Bitch (where is the consistency)? One thing I HAVE understood for most of the season is the separation of Paula and Rebecca. Paula had a whole bunch of wake up calls concerning her vicarious tendencies, and I felt the separation was telling us she had pulled back and was not involving herself in all of Rebecca's shenanagins. I've thought more about why I didn't like "Buttload of cats", and it's story and character reasons. I've never heard from the "healthier" Rebecca that not having a love interest "for now" meant she was an afghan-knitting, cat-owning woman meant to be forever single. When did that come up, and why wasn't it explored in therapy? She didn't feel ready, or lacked the courage, but there was no sense she was sentencing herself to a completely romance-free future until this song, not to mention equating "no love interest" with "crippling loneliness and empty life" is pretty problematic, particularly for this show. BTW, dogs sleep about 16 hours a day too. Obviously dogs and cats are different, but plenty of cats are affectionate, and plenty of dogs are independent sorts who dislike being slobbered over.

The show has become incredibly dumbed down, and also the trope with Nathaniel and Rebecca? I am holding out hope he is not her true love end game, but it's fading. This was a logical episode to do without him, but GOD FORBID. The idea continues to feel like a huge betrayal. The show plays as if it's imitating itself, and things that would just be tossed off in the past are belabored now (such as the extended exposition of what happened to Trent after the wedding). It feels paint by numbers and mechanical - oh right, we do this type of commentary in the middle of this type of plot. I do not like Rebecca at the moment. I don't see how she's healthier or evolved. Maybe I would if they'd bothered to show how her bi polar condition was treated, but CEG decided to skip that. A subtext with the show is what happened with Josh. CEG seems bent on having him be oh so obviously the OMG SO wrong guy for Rebecca, I guess to make the point that she's so much better now, and him being as silly as he is just points up how sick she was before. But that notwithstanding, she lied her ass off to him, interfered in his relationship, and lastly, but not least, acted like a maniac in the run up to the wedding. If she'd confronted that, I'd focus more on Josh's failure to face up to Rebecca instead of just running out on her. But, you know, she ran out on Greg. Josh didn't do anything to her she hasn't done to others, but I feel as if the show is papering over everything she did to him, including stalk him, terrorize him, and, most of all, cause him to lose his job so he now has all these childish jobs. She's never apologized - in fact, he came and thanked her. I recently read an article calling the show out on this. Imagine if a man did to Rebecca what she did to Josh, including causing her to lose HER job, and terrorizing her via stalking, and then she came to the guy and thanked him, even though nothing was fixed. She was still out of the job she lost, etc. There's the vibe here that it's ok because it's just stupid Josh. I don't see wacky hijinks as the real show. I see the real show as HAVING this darker undercurrent. Since CEG isn't interested in her therapy, CEG has lost the anchor that, yes, Rebecca's anxiety, depression and obsession used to provide. So now she's just a douchebag. Did she go to the dark web because she was still sick with borderline disorder? Wouldn't her therapist be able to mediate if she confessed? Or was she just being willful and obsessed, but not sick? Her lying to Paula that Trent also had stuff on Paula was also obnoxious. It's not funny, IMO, it's entitled, it's obnoxious, and I still can't believe the Nathaniel shit. I'm absolutely stunned. I thought they needed a guy to play against her therapy, and Greg is gone, and obviously it can't be Josh. But this is not what CEG is doing. It's playing everything as an obstacle and failure to communicate thwarting the meant-to-be love match of Nathaniel and Rebecca. And whoever said it upthread, that this stuff is annoying enough when you want the couple together - it's doubly so when you don't. P.S. - another sign of a decline in quality is the unexplained one-note writing for characters that previously were not written as cliche. Valencia now has one note - and furthermore, the two cat store women had more relationship development than Valencia and Beth initially had. Josh has one note (he's dumb). It's lazy. The cat song was ok, but I was kind of pissed at the line about "in her lonely walk up apartment." Maybe the walk up part. I know a million people who live in walk-ups. It's probably me being oversensitive. I don't even live in a walk up, so it's not about me. But it's just the automatic idea that, well, a woman living alone in a walk-up - boy that is so sad. Screw that, show.

I know. Did the ambulence drop off the kids first, or WTF?

I don't believe she was fully expecting an empty bed. Actors are on set before the red light goes on, they know what's on set. The lighting and angles were set up to reflect Jack's body in the glass while staying on her face, and she had to stand so as not to block it. So that's misleading. Maybe she expected an empty bed before they set up the scene, but before she went to act it, she knew.

I don't know, it happens a lot. I think they try to save cats and dogs. I'm not certain, but I have read stories and seen reports, and this seems the norm. " If the firefighter went back in, it was probably a risk he was equipped to undertake. I've seen a couple of fires where civilians would be crazy to be near it, but the fire fighters are moving in, through and around. They're dressed for it, I also think they're trained to know just how stable the floor, walls, fire path, etc. are in a given situation. Obviously if it's an inferno where you're going to lose humans, they're not going to be going back for the pets.

Yes. They were trying not to be all soap opera with the emergency in the background - the actors and energy were focused, but in the manner of people who do this all the time. The announcement sounded like "Code 2" to me, but could have been "Code Blue" because it had the same focused, professional tone, not histrionic.

We heard the moment they called the code, and it was just minutes later when the doctor came to tell Rebecca.

Yeah, that too.

I saw this show live tweeted, and since I'd heard about Jack's death reveal, I decided to watch the episode (my first), this evening. I thought Mandy Moore's acting was ok. But - I was distracted by her hair. How could anyone in production allow that blatant TV hairdo to undermine the story and the attempted performance? The woman had awakened in the middle of the night to a house ablaze. She'd stood in acrid smoke. Stood in a yard where the air was filthy, was probably sweating as well. Her hair and clothing would be greasy and filthy. Gets to the hospital, her hair looks like Kate Middleton's. Volume at the crown, not a strand out of place, barrel curls at the bottom - the hair that "everyone on TV" wears (look it up, it's actually true). Her hair looked freshly washed and salon fresh. Her curls kept on keeping on, so did the smooth top, her hair part, the shine, and volume. I was also very distracted by her shiny nude lip gloss in numerous close-ups, and the cleanliness of her clothing.

Hell, they're even backing up and "writing" (if that's the word for it) Josh with LESS depth than he had at the beginning. He's just a punch line at this point. I think Josh can serve his plot function - originally, he was the guy the undiagnosed, damaged Rebecca poured all of her obsessions into, whom she projected upon without it mattering what he was actually like - and also be the guy himself. The guy himself was no brain trust, and was immature, but had a lot of heart and considerable talent. Now they give him "duh" lines and it's done. Other characters look blankly at him as if they can't believe anyone can be this stupid. And as well, if Valencia is a character in her own right, then her succeeding in business, and finding a happy relationship should be dramatized, not illustrated. While "getting into" Nathaniel, they've actually made the writing for the others worse - it's not just that he gets more, the writing for the others is getting lowest common denominator. Apologies to who brought this up (Yeah No?) but I agree that as talented as Pete Gardner may be in real life, it does not translate on CEG, and his off-camera status and personality is the only explanation I can come up with for all the material given a kind of ordinary, not that compelling, not that funny character (Darryl). So it IS two white guys getting the most writing apart from the show's female lead. For the life of me I've never understood either why this baby plot matters, why we should care. He's a fifty year old guy who seems to care most about the native American identity he appropriated. He barely gave a shit about acquiring the extra shares that would take the majority away from Nathaniel. And yet the focus should have been there, because we see him in the office all the time. We never see him parenting or see why he wants to be a dad so much. He TELLS us, which is a problem over all w/CEG in its back half. Even next week:

The writing has been so sloppy. They showed Rebecca obsessing over Nathaniel as she did w/Josh - not precisely trusting us to "get" it, but hitting us over the head with the parallels. So she recognized it and broke up with him. Then she and he gave into their sexual tension, but she rationalized that it was ok because it wasn't romance, just sex? And now eight months later her therapist and the show are encouraging us to understand this is love and she should find the courage to realize she's made enough progress to take a chance on love and even be hurt? They should stop the games (such as Nathaniel's relationship with his girlfriend) and face up to the emotional truth of their bond. Where and when did all of this progress occur? WTF happened to him being just another Josh? Her therapy, to my surprise, has taken place off camera. We've seen sort of outlines of stuff - her getting a bit manic with taking over the shares of Darryl's ex-wife - her therapist wasn't even involved. She hid it from her therapist, and then started sleeping with Nathaniel. They never came back to the fact that she was hiding stuff from her therapist. FF eight months! She has now made a ton of progress that none of us have actually seen her make, and the dynamic with Nathaniel has morphed from being Josh Redux to the guy she needs to be vulnerable to if she's ever going to have a healthy relationship. When the hell did all of this happen? CEG is underwritten and overwritten at the same time. There's so much I don't know - like, if Paula is still in law school. Twice now I've taken something Paula has done as a sign she's coming into her own, only to realize it's actually a slam at her character. Valencia and Heather were B characters, but I've been surprised at how much material Heather has gotten this season. Who else has done a time leap? Jane the Virgin did. I think all Jane's time leap accomplished was to bring Jane's age closer to Gina Rodriguez's. Otherwise it didn't do much, IMO, that a normal between season's time leap would have done. For CEG, it allowed CEG to skip over her damn therapy that she spent 2 and a half seasons needing, and we're supposed to figure out how evolved she is and what we're supposed to know about her and Nathaniel. There's disagreement, and I think that comes from the confusion about the writing, short cuts, skimping on music, on character development, and decent script writing. I was never confused about who Josh and Greg represented in her life, and what was actually going on there. I know there were fans who were hoping one or the other relationship would become something else, but I always thought the show was very clear. Now, it's not. In fact it has staked out opposite positions on the same relationship.

After Rebecca and Valencia got back from their day at Burning Man, or whatever that was, they were hanging at Home Base. Valencia scanned the bar and settled on a guy she wanted to pick up and take home, and she told Rebecca good night. So Josh was not her only sexual experience.

I think he's moved into central importance, which is turning me off. That's what I meant by flipped the script. For two and a half seasons, Rebecca externalized her issues and romantically pursued Josh as the answer to her problems. She told herself when she had him, she'd be fulfilled. Now, with Nathaniel, although two episodes back we were told that's what she was doing (and she broke up with him), now it's flipped. CEG seems to be giving us the old trope message that two people don't admit their real feelings for each other to protect their vulnerability. And Rebecca will have really progressed in therapy when she's courageous enough to be vulnerable and risk getting hurt. This is a woman who has thrown herself at men all her life, and now she's over-corrected and depriving herself of the man she actually, healthily loves. Instead she's having an unhealthy affair and in denial about the depth of her feelings and desire for attachment. Nathaniel is dating his girlfriend for the same reason - it's a 'you go first' situation - they're both afraid of rejection. They each feel safer pretending it's just sex. Each starts to say what they feel, then cuts it short, so they misunderstand each other. It's now a very conventional show about two people who won't admit their real feelings, and I'm not here for it. In fact I'm confused. And, I must admit, that as good a fit as SMT is on CEG, I like that CEG is unconventional, so that THIS guy, rich, white, tall, handsome, with the requisite streak of insecurity and hidden heart of gold - is where she ends up when she's evolved psychologically - I do not like at all, and in fact am pissed, surprised and disappointed (in a fan way). It feels that the show had a brilliant, very sure grasp of Rebecca's unraveling, and is leaning very hard on cliche, telling not showing, and writing to result as far as her recovery. That her recovery is being written as an obstacle to what feels like the show's REAL current center, the Rebecca/Nathaniel coupling, seems like a betrayal of its foundation. Yeah, I agree. It's a double-pronged deal for me. I've seen shows sort of contradict themselves, or fall into traps, but I'd go along anyway because I liked the chemistry between the leads, or enjoyed whatever was on screen in a stand-alone kind of way, and would just edit out what came before, or any logical inconsistencies/implications. You know, just enjoy something in its own right. I don't find these two interesting or hot together. I have this weird split with SMT in that I think he handles his dialogue and his "beats" really well, and has good timing, but I don't give a shit about Nathaniel. I don't know why that is, it just is, and he certainly makes me care less about Rebecca, which is a problem. OTOH over the seasons the show has really kept it up with Dr. Avakian, and while I thought she was ok in the beginning, I just adore her now. A side note that fonts are important at law firms. Most courts specify font and spacing - I imagine so that no lawyer does a 7 pt font squeezing a gazillion words into under ten pages. Got to control them and make sure they're succinct. And outside of submissions, a lot of law firms give consideration to their fonts - Times New Roman is still the norm, but many are using Arial, I know a boutique place that uses Palatino, and a global firm that uses Georgia. But no matter what, it's usually standardized for consistency, so no, it's not really a nitpick. I was getting out of it that Paula was really on her game and was going to be an incredible lawyer since she's outpacing even lawyers in her grasp and scope, but nope. Office bitch. Alrighty.

That's not how I remember it at all. Heather's had a lot more material than Valencia all along, particularly the material moving her out of her student status. Valencia had material in S1 when Rebecca was befriending her and in denial, and then that one time in S2 when the two girls then went and stalked Anna. Heather had her own separate storyline with Greg, including pillow talk and going with Greg to visit his family at Xmas. We've met her parents and been in her parents' home. She becomes Rebecca's new roommate and a built-in talk to. She had a solo focused on being finished w/school. We go with her as she moves onto a new job and establishes a new relationship, and is then further brought into the show's central story - Darryl's desire for a baby. Valencia hasn't had close to that much material. The lack of writing for her has become incredibly conspicuous this season, almost on par with why on earth is Josh still on? I, too, would be willing to see Josh develop but he's written as a one-note joke- oh let's show him be dim witted. I agree that Valencia is WRITTEN as a one or two note character when there is no reason for it. Why keep her? She was supposed to be a 2 episode character and the show made her a regular. All the characters are what is written for them.

I will change the "she" to "we" but if we don't know how long she's known, how come we don't? It was a big deal because Valencia has been completely underwritten this entire season. The one song she got was about poop and didn't really further whatever her individual arc may be. Her song didn't have to be about being bi, it could be about taking chances, or feeling great her business and love life is going well, etc. It just stuck out to me that she made big steps forward - her business started working and she got a romantic interest, with absolutely no writing. Whereas compare it to the treatment Heather's job progress, personal growth and love life has been given. It was just completely obvious how marginalized she is and I don't get it. Also don't get why they bring out Vincent Rodriguez III just to make a joke about "Have we shown you lately how dumb Josh actually is?"

It wasn't said directly, but I think that White Josh wanted to get out of the country and away from Darryl. My mother, though, used to volunteer for Habitat locally. Felt they've been skimping on songs. There was a reprise this episode, and Dr. Akopian's was the only full on number. As great as she was in it - and the actress was terrific - I enjoyed her delivery of "I charge $250/hour now." the absolute most. It's worthy of her audition reel - if that sort of thing is still done. Fantastic. I remember Bloom saying she was one of the actresses who auditioned for Paula. I didn't like the treatment of Paula in this episode because they didn't make it clear if the work she was criticizing deserved criticism or not. Like many people here, I know a lot of lawyers, and minus the sarcasm, her critiques seemed valid to me. I don't like the idea that having standards of work quality is somehow unfair. Until it was presented as a knock on her, I thought her criticism of shoddy work was a long-awaited (to me) look at how far she's come in her progress to become a lawyer, and was showing us she's going to be a great one.

I'm doubling down on that opinion. Oh look, the healthy, feminist thing is to get with the basic white male lead! Just get the courage to embrace your true feelings for the WASP leading man with the heart of gold! That's your healthy route! We've just flipped the entire script of the show! Fuck that. And still beyond pissed about Valencia. And Paula.

I'm just - for God's sake, they gave the temp who replaced Rebecca a song. They've given Dr. Avakian a bunch of songs. Not only is Gabrielle Ruiz primarily a singer/dancer and terrific at it; she's a series regular, not recurring. But fuck nothing. They do a poop song, but not a song about when she discovers she's bisexual? Why are she and Vincent Rodriguez II even still on CEG?

It couldn't be clearer that CEG sees Rebecca and Nathaniel as a legitimate end game relationship as long as they "honestly admit their feelings" which, again, presents the relationship, opposite to every other Rebecca relationship. The show is telling us he's the one, via the trope that she's extra cautious and self-protective due to her diagnosis. But he's the one. IMO it's annoying. They have completely flipped the script of the first two and a half seasons. But ok. And. Ok, so Valencia is bi. No song. No story. Absolutely nothing. If I were Gabrielle Ruiz, I'd be so fucking pissed. WHY NOT a story or a song?

Co-signed - Eric Lopez is looking good. I think it helps that he and Vella Lovell look good together. When they're in the same shot, something about her highlights the handsomeness of his face. His acting is pretty good too - low key, but effective. Does anyone else think Scott Michael Thomas is NOT a "Fit hot guy" hunk? I see him as basically a leading man type, not a "hunk" type. Tall, conventionally nice looks, but not swivel my head off my neck looks, in face or body. You wouldn't cast him as that type. He himself said the Nathaniel casting call called for a WASP, not a hunk. Apparently he also auditioned for Greg but the show runners say he was too good looking. SMT says that's just flattery - he thinks they wanted a much stronger singer than he was. I think SMT's is the reality-based take. But anyway, take away the haircut and the clothes, put him in a flannel shirt, t shirt and scruffier hair, he's not some obvious Adonis.

Agreed. It was a great episode, but I thought it would be more of a plot driver, not a one-off. The show reassured that Rebecca would backslide, but if I'd known that "backsliding" was code for a half season of Rebecca/Nathan screwing, I would have taken a pass. I've complained a lot how this Nathaniel/Rebecca thing annoys me already, and plenty, but just one more thing that gets under my skin. Back in the days when we'd watch DVD's with director commentary, I noticed an annoying tendency of the director to swoon about how hot his/her actors were in a scene, to where I'd hit mute. Sex and the City DVDs did it right and left - Sarah Jessica Parker stretched in one shot while wearing a wife beater, and the show runner goes "The crew really thanked us for that shot." (Gross - AND, more to the point, it wasn't even that hot. There's just a show runner tendency to tell us all the time how hot someone is, even when that's not a story point.) And it's all over the commentary on the original "Bridget Jones Diary" movie. The director swoons so much over every frame I got squicked out. I feel that on CEG and Nathaniel and Rebecca. The diagnosis is an pretext for the story to showcase how hot CEG thinks they are, and implicit is that we agree and will accept any pretext that shows them getting it on, however sloppy and hasty. Well, I least they are so explicit about it, it's canon, it's conscious, and we and the writers are on the same page. They're not blowing it off or saying it's cute, or that Rebecca is justified (for contrast you can read where SATC fans depart from the writer point of view when it comes to Carrie). I hope my confidence is not misplaced that this self-centeredness will be called to account. She's very generous, often impulsively so, she has a big heart, but when she's obsessed about something, there isn't any room for anything else. Heather got tuned out, and she's so self-referential she doesn't see past her own convenience or biases.