blackwing

On another note, does anyone besides me really hate the opening credits? I know the days of extended credits and theme songs are long gone (like with "Baywatch"). But the credits for this show seem really disjointed. I especially hate the stupid voiceover clips. Sonny: "welcome to the North Shore". Will: "it's gettin dainjurruss". And I especially loathe unidentified voice: "gogogogogo". So stupid. They could have at least composed a short but catchy instrumental track like "Hawaii 5-0" had.

Me! I'm with you, I thought this was a fairly boring episode. So much build up and then nothing happened. Was it because there wasn't enough budget to show a tsunami? I wanted to see the characters being heroes in the face of deadly danger. I wanted to see them being the last ones on the beach trying to rescue the stragglers while the big wave is approaching in the far distance. Yes, I could tell right away that the actor who plays Sonny is from New Zealand. He sounds like Phil Keoghan from The Amazing Race. He's not making any effort at all to hide his accent. Maybe Sonny is originally from New Zealand? I don't think the show has ever said one way or the other. Everyone else sounds American to me. Laka has what I think sounds like a Hawaiian surfer accent.

I hope Nash isn't really gone, he is such a great character. Last season I thought they were going to set up a triangle with William/Eliza/Nash but it didn't happen. Then this season I thought that there was going to be an eventual triangle with Blake/Eliza/Nash, but she doesn't seem to even consider Nash a possibility. Now he is leaving (at least for now). Clarence is a decent supporting character, but I would rather have Nash, Fitzroy or Moses on a more regular basis. There's been an overload of Clarence and Mr. Potts this season, and not much from Nash and Fitzroy. I miss Moses, don't understand why he is gone since we never got an in-show explanation. I'm assuming the actor had a conflict. In the season finale of last season, he was found standing over a body and then he fled. Turns out the body was one of his informants. Eliza and Fitzroy try to figure out what is going on while looking for Nash. They find Nash in an abandoned factory. He tied up the real killer, who also happened to have killed Nash's brother some years before. Nash is about to kill the man and get his revenge, but Eliza steps in front of the gun. She doesn't want Nash to become a murderer. She talks him out of it by reminding him that he is the only one who ever believed in her. This touches him and he agrees. But the killer escaped his bonds, he is about to attack Eliza, so Nash shoots him in the arm. Nash isn't a murderer but he did kidnap the guy, so he goes to prison for kidnapping. He loses his detective licence and the office closes, which is why Eliza was back in her father's old office. The last scene of the episode was her admiring the newly painted sign that has her name on it.

I was pleasantly surprised when this episode opened in London. I thought we were only getting one episode with Helene Joy, so I was happy when I realised we were getting another. However, it seems William is returning home, so that's probably it for her for the season. If the show gets renewed I do hope that she will return. I liked the second Julia episode better than the first one. Mainly because I can't stand Donal Logue and I was annoyed that what I thought was Helene's only episode this season seemed more like her taking a backseat to Donal Logue and William. I liked that in this suffragette episode it was more of her storyline than William's since she was the connection to all of these people. The Violet storyline... ugh. She has been shady, then good, then bad, then good, then bad, then good again. I'm glad they finally decided she is on the side of good, but why the manufactured drama? I call BS on this husband, they just wanted to create yet another issue for her. I guarantee that at the time she was married to Arthur they never even contemplated that she was married before. It's 1912. She has been on the show for years now, and I think each season is a new year. An American Black lady with no formal medical education becomes the city coroner for Toronto, and nothing is ever written about her? Wouldn't this husband of hers have been searching for her all this time? I feel like he should have found her almost immediately. I have to assume budget is still an issue for this show. Makes me worry about its future. Choi and Brackenreid and Watts didn't appear in this episode. Higgins hasn't appeared in several episodes. I miss Higgins. Why has Effie appeared so many times this season? Why can't she be offscreen like George? I'd rather see Higgins and Ruth instead of Effie. Is the Tucker storyline done? He got fired by Choi, went to the mob guy for a job, who declined to hire him. Is that the last we have seen of him? I assume he has to come back but I hope whenever he comes back, it gets resolved neatly.

I thought overall this was a good episode. I wasn't prepared for the daughter being the killer in an assisted suicide way... I thought it was going to be another one of those where the brother got immunity but then revealed on the stand that he was the actual killer. I didn't mind the juxtaposition of Nolan's issues with his dad versus the parallels of the dad in this case. The woman expressing that she just wanted to follow her dad's wishes and let her dad go made Nolan realise that he needed to let his own dad go and it made him agree to the plea. It was purely to defraud the insurance company. I don't think she should have gotten a plea. She could have let her dad go in other ways, like letting him take pills that would have ended his life quickly and painlessly. Instead, she schemed with him to deceive the police and the insurance company into thinking he was the victim of a violent robbery. I was annoyed that nothing was mentioned about the insurance fraud. Yes, she got five years for manslaughter, but I think there should have been additional years for the fraud. Why take pills and make it look like an obvious suicide when you can defraud the insurance company and get a free $10 million for your deadbeat son? I'm wondering why the daughter was the one to kill him. She didn't need the money. She is now paying the price for a scheme that primarily benefitted her brother. Did she even appear in the courtroom for the trial? If so, I didn't notice her. I think her only role was to be a red herring, to make it look like she was a suspect. Why the need to even make him married at all?

I think she has realised how much it cost her. She gunned for the job and it cost her Will, and she finally decided to choose Will over her career. But it might have been too late since Will decided to choose Julie. I guess in the end, there is no captain's job available anyways. This is a TV show so there was no way that Sonny was going to retire. He was only retiring for the drama and because he felt the guilt, but now his sister has forgiven him so he's not going to retire after all. Earlier in the season, we saw Sonny having to re-certify and had to have a qualifying run-swim-run time. He is old and overweight. How is it that he was able to easily qualify, and yet Kainalu's time of 22 something isn't good enough? And Kainalu and Hina who are both young and in shape are vomiting after training? But Sonny re-certifies on his first try?

For me there's varying degrees of dislike. Including some of the non-leads, I think it goes something like, from least to most objectionable: Jen, Sonny's wife, Kainalu, Hina, EMT guy, Kenji, Em, Will, Laka, Julie, Sonny I like Jen, she was unfair to judge Laka like that but she did apologise. And she is a good friend to Em. Kainalu is trying to get out from under the shadow of his father the mayor and is trying to prove himself. He seems like a good guy. Slept with Hina and seemed like he wanted to pursue it more but she shut him down. Hina, she is a rookie trying to prove herself in a male-dominated environment. She can be a bit snarky but otherwise seems like a nice person. Doesn't want to have the entanglement of a workplace romance. I think she sees what happened with Em and Will and doesn't want that for herself. EMT guy is a sad sack, just read the room dude. She's obviously not into you, she only used you because she couldn't have Will. Stop sniffing around and find someone else. Kenji thinks the Captain job should be his. He is ambitious and unafraid to say what he thinks. Is this the only Captain job in Hawaii? Or is it just the only one in the North Shore? Don't the other units have their own Captain? He should be in consideration for one of those, now that Sonny is apparently not retiring after all. Em. People here seem to dislike her, but I understand her predicament. She didn't want to have a baby and delay her chances of advancement. It's the same dilemma that many women in high stress and cutthroat environments (like big law firms) face. I cut her some slack for that. She realised she was wrong and told Will what she wanted and he rejected her. Now she's drunk. Will. Is he going to go run to Em now after Julie dumped him? After he dumped Em? Just make a decision already. Laka. Immature. I think he took Sonny's words to heart and he is trying to change. However, now he's doing the complete opposite and coldly rejecting Jen after she apologised. Julie. I just don't like her. She and Will were never a good match. Sonny. I have greatly hated his storyline, I don't care at all about his personal life.

I don't like Julie. We weren't given any backstory at all on why or how she and Will are together. She's a rich pampered princess who is used to a high roller lifestyle. Will is a blue collar guy from Australia who just wants a simple beach lifestyle. They are completely incompatible. Her only appeal is seemingly her money but he couldn't care less about her money. Will and Em aren't great together either. They broke up before because she was gunning for captain and didn't want children because a child would derail her career. She now seems to have realised that if she wanted Will, she needed to decide. She seemed to have picked him, I thought she told him a few episodes ago that she was willing to have a family. But then the past two episodes she was still on track for captain. I don't fully understand what happened with Will and Em in this episode. Will told Laka that Em was his person, and he was determined to break up with Julie. But then Laka said to go for the money. And then Will told Em that he was staying with Julie? What happened? Surely it wasn't because of Laka telling him to go for the money that he never cared about in the first place? I don't care for [don't know his name, the EMT guy who was Adam Nakamura on Hawaii 5-0] either. He got together with Em knowing she was still hung up on Will. They went on a few dates, she wasn't that into him. He got a promotion to Kauai and pretty much asked her to move there with him. She said no. That should have been a sign to him that she was still all about Will. I hope we are done with the Sad Sack Sonny storyline now that he has reconciled with his sister. It seems like he isn't going to retire anymore now that his sister forgave him. As for the rescues... the self-absorbed winch girl and her boyfriend were infuriating. How is something like that even allowed on a public beach? I was convinced that the poor beach girl was going to get ripped in half by that cable, if this were a movie and not a TV show that definitely would have happened. I hope the winch girl and her boyfriend were charged with reckless endangerment or something.

I was overseas for work last week and there was a channel on the TV that showed nothing but Australian Survivor 24 hours a day. They were showing what was billed as Season 3 but was the start of the rebooted series that started again in 2016. Since this was the first rebooted season, there were some elements that I thought didn't work. In particular, the way the tribes went from 3 to 2. 24 contestants divided into tribes of 8. When it got down to 18, there was a challenge. Each member of the winning tribe (there were 5 members left at that time I think) got to decide if they wanted to stick with their tribe or join a new tribe. Of course they all stuck together. And then they got to poach from the other two tribes to fill out a tribe of 9. Of course they took some of the biggest and strongest. Leaving the other tribe as a tribe of "rejects" that proceeded to lose every single challenge until the merge. However, on the whole, I thought some of the challenges in Australian Survivor 2016 were fantastic. So much more creative and physical and fun to watch than most of the challenges in the U.S. version. The U.S. version has seemingly devolved into obstacle course then puzzle. Almost every challenge ends in the puzzle. This is my biggest beef with the U.S. version today... so many repetitive challenges. Australian season also had puzzles, but they had a better mix of challenges. Some of the ones that I'd like to see introduced (or brought back, if they have been used in U.S. before): - Memory challenge: Host lifts a cover and shows a series of 6 or 7 objects (wooden idols with different coloured paint markings, traditional brown fuzzy coconut, huge yellow coconuts, some other fruit or gourd, sack of rice, mortar/pestle, wooden carving etc). Contestants run back to station and choose objects from bin and recreate the order. - 3 on 3 water basketball. - One person slingshots a ball towards two team members running around field with lacrosse sticks. First to catch 3 balls wins. - Endurance challenge - hanging onto a horizontal pole with hands and legs - "how well do you know each other" quiz. Questions such as "who is most likely to be viewed as trustworthy". If your answer agrees with the majority answer, you get to break someone's square. Each person has five squares, when they are out of squares they are eliminated. - Transfer of coconut water. One person uses an axe to break a coconut. They transfer the water into a bowl to next person. That person carries the coconut water through obstacle course of teeter totter and balance beam and then pours water over a high bar into the mouth of the third person. The third person spits the water into a clear cylinder and has to get the water past a line. - Twisted path obstacle course. The one we have seen where someone has to make their way through a rope which is twisted all throughout an obstacle course (over, under, through bars/beams etc). Only in this version, the person's feet are tied, so they have to be physically carried by the other tribe members. - Fill mud into a trough. Two people at a time from each tribe thrown themselves into a mud pit. Then they stand over a trough and teammates scrape the mud from their bodies. Then two more go and get mud on themselves. Not sure if this led to too much touching of breasts and junk? I did hear one guy apologize to a woman and she said "it's ok just keep going". - Connect Four. One person tosses a coconut to the next person. The next person has to throw the coconut through a large rectangular opening, which is being defended by a person from the other team, to the next team member. That person has to successfully catch the coconut and then walk across a balance beam while avoid sand bags being swung by two members of the opposing team. If they get hit and fall off the beam into the mud then that coconut is out of play. Then place the coconut into a large grid. First team to get four coconuts in a row wins. I wonder if the U.S. production team helped initially with designing these challenges for the Australian production team? If not, they need to take some notes. Last season was so boring, it was obvious that Rachel was great at puzzles and would win many of the puzzle individual immunities. Whereas Sam was clearly not good at them.

Ah, didn't even make the connection. I do remember also thinking he was miscast, he was way too old. Which I thought was part of the problem with that series... they seemed to deliberately cast an older Gamache and Jean-Guy, it was like we were dropped into the middle of the story and had no idea how these characters had gotten to where they were in life.

I can forgive her for being excited about the award. She is 62 years old and as she said, this is the first time she has ever won anything. (I'm assuming she doesn't count her Golden Raspberry for "Striptease".) In looking at her profile, she's only ever been nominated for two Globes ("Ghost" and "If These Walls Could Talk" in the 90s) before and no Critics awards ever before this year.

I'm no Seth Rogen fan, and haven't seen him in years so was shocked at how old he looked. His bit with Catherine O'Hara was by far the highlight of the evening in terms of the presenters. I knew "The Brutalist" and Adrien Brody were going to win, because it's a holocaust movie. I was rooting for Ralph Fiennes and "Conclave", perhaps Fiennes can pull off a surprise at the Oscars. Demi Moore! Fantastic win over the favorites Mikey Madison and Karla Sofia Gascon. She gave an amazing speech, I hope that helps carry her to a win at the Oscars. The drama actress category was stacked. I don't know anything about the lady who won but I do remember her mother in "Central Station", and felt very old. If she can beat out four Oscar winners, she must have something going for her. After Demi won, I bet Pamela Anderson was thinking nostalgia/comeback would also lead her to a win, but it wasn't meant to be. I know she has been doing the "no makeup" thing recently, but I get it by now. It wouldn't have hurt her to put on a little eye makeup, without it she just looked incredibly tired to me. I've never been a fan of Adrien Brody ever since he assaulted Halle Berry, and I didn't care for him kind of copying Demi Moore by saying something like "I never thought I'd get another chance again". He already has an Oscar, it just rang very hollow to me.

Just binged the whole series in a week or so. Overall, I quite enjoyed it. I never read the book or saw the movie... are we supposed to root for the Jackal? Was it an intentional choice to make Bianca so thoroughly unlikeable? I hated everything about her, and apparently so did her family and her co-workers. She bullies everyone to get what she wants. The only ones that seemed to like her were Vince and maybe Osi. She didn't care who got hurt or killed, as long as she catches the Jackal. The Jackal has done horrible things and killed innocent people, but because of how much I hated Bianca, I was rooting for him to get away. Some of this is probably due to the star power of Eddie Redmayne, but some of it is also due to the awfulness of Lashana Lynch. She was terrible in this role. One could argue that the character was a horrible character, but for me, it was hard to tell whether the awfulness was simply the way that Bianca was written or Lynch's acting. Likewise, I greatly disliked Ulle Dag Charles, both the character and the actor. Is he supposed to be a stand in for Elon Musk? They cast someone that looks vaguely like him and then had his sycophant spout stupid phrases like "let UDC be UDC". I didn't care for the actor, I greatly disliked him as Dodi Fayed on "The Crown" and he basically played the same character here, again with the strange, weirdly flat American accent, even though the actor is British, Dodi was Egyptian and UDC was presumably some kind of mixed Scandinavian / Middle Eastern heritage. Why the poor American accent? I actually leaped up off the couch and gave a great "huzzah!" when UDC got plugged in the water. The more I think about it, the more I think I disliked most of the characters on the show. In addition to Bianca and UDC, I also disliked the Irish husband/wife, their daughter, the gunsmith brother, UDC's entire entourage, Charles Dance and his entourage, almost everyone at MI6, Nuria, the mom, and most of all the brother. I liked Bianca's husband, Vince (who loses points for being apparently Bianca's only friend), Carlito, Zima, and poor innocent Rasmus. So Charles Dance got the UDC death he wanted and instead of paying the Jackal and Zima, he decides to just kill them instead? Didn't he see what happened to the son who hired Jackal to kill his dad and then didn't pay? Why wouldn't he just pay, that group had plenty of money. I know Jackal wants his son, but I'd just as soon the show finds a way to lose Nuria. She doesn't add anything to the show. She's been with him for several years and never once questioned where all the money was coming from? I am all for a Season 2 of Jackal and Zima chasing Charles Dance around Europe. Also, I saw some comments on some of the episode threads about how much people hated the music. I fully agree. I hated how they used the obscure European (?) songs on the show... the music always seemed very jarring and out of place. And terrible. I also really hated the theme song.... some flowers whatever whatever. I hope whoever is the music person for this show gets replaced before the next season.

It was obvious to me who both Buffalos and Wasp were. I think this is the strongest finale ever. Both were deserving winners. Congrats to Boyz II Men for winning and being the first group winners (although I still think Wilson Phillips and their amazing harmonies should have beaten Amber Riley!). It was clear that Mario was honored to lose to them and to share the stage with them. When they started up with "Motownphilly", wow.... just took me back decades. Loved seeing how excited Mario was to sing with them when he joined in with "so we started a group and here we are". I read that Rita is coming back for Season 13. Yay to her sticking around, she's been a fantastic panelist. Disappointing that Nicole isn't back. Maybe she can come back as a contestant? That would be amazing. Since everything seems to be filmed in the span of two weeks, maybe Sunset Boulevard can take a two week break and she can be on the show. One of these days, I dream that Ken Jeong will get fired. I wouldn't mind a panel of Rita, Nicole, Jenny and Robin.

Sue's hate for Kyle didn't seem to have anything to do with him talking about his family life and values and his buck twenty. It was purely because he voted for her. After he voted for her, it was all she talked about. She said many times that she wanted him out because he voted for her. I agree with your assessment of her, Lady Chatts. And that she was years too late for loyalty to count. I'd say her FTC performance was one of the worst I can remember. Her pitch was "I deceived you into thinking I was 45, but today is my birthday, you can make my wish come true by making me the oldest woman to ever win. Oh and I was loyal. I didn't do anything in the game besides find an idol, but I was loyal!" The only two equally bad FTC reasoning in recent-ish years that I can recall easily were Julie Rosenberg (Edge of Extinction, lost to Chris Underwood), who said her #1 strategy in the game was to "be nice" and that she should win because she was nice. And the infamous Angelina Keeley (David vs Goliath, lost to Nick Wilson), who when asked what she did... "I gave up rice". It's still in publication! There was a period of several years in the early 90s when it was defunct, but it's been going strong ever since. It's now rebranded as "GAMES World of Puzzles" for some years now. For some period, there were two magazines, the traditional Games and a second one called World of Puzzles which was all Pencilwise-type puzzles. Then they combined and just go by the combined name. The magazine no longer publishes monthly, it seems like anywhere from 6 to 9 issues a year.