blackwing

I can't stand Danny so I couldn't care less about his money subplot. I knew it would never happen, but I was hoping someone would hit him in the face with a shovel.

Sorry, but I think he just doesn't know what a quarry is. I think he's a dim bulb. My 7 year old knows what a quarry is. If he had known what a quarry is and simply just didn't understand the accent, he would have said "ohhhh, a Quarry!" once the guy described it further. When he repeated the word to the guy with "What's a quarry?" he said it properly and with no Scottish inspired accent or mispronunciation, so it seems to me he didn't have issues understanding the accent.

Don't think I've hated a contestant this much this quickly. So congrats Jim for being an arrogant blowhard. I'm disappointed that there doesn't seem to be roadblocks. I was trying to figure out if there could have been one that got edited out. But based on the clues, we saw the whole trail of locations and I don't know where it could have been. Unless the roadblock directed them back to where they got the roadblock clue for the next route market clue. The show toned down the "Golden Girl Bethany" edit this week and I surprised myself by really liking them. I liked how during a moment on the train to Aberdeen, Bethany is quietly staring at her husband and calm and relaxed and visibly mouths "I love you" to him. What's up with Phil telling Keith "the word is that you need to be nicer to her." What? Whose "word"? I can only assume cameramen because why would another team comment on them? What business is it of Phil's? It's not like he's beating her or closing lift gates on her head. Not sorry to see firemen go. They were pretty hapless and once the fat one twisted or broke his ankle, it was pretty much over for them. They went out with class though.

My DVR failed me last week, and because I have the evil Direct TV, I couldn't watch this episode on ABC Go until today. Best part of the episode by far was when Frank was picking two students to go dumpster diving with him and said he wanted Prom Queen (Michaela) and Douche Face (5th guy whose name I don't know but truly does have a douche face).

I'm actually liking the Lance Hunter character. I think he's funny in a droll English way. Loved when Skye called him "Trainspotting" and he just mutters "I'm not Scottish!" And then when he says "Agent May SHOT me" and Tripp is all "Man, I wanted to be the one." I think he adds some muscle to the team that was missing last year. Glad to see that the team is actually functioning as a tactical strike team, which seemed a bit unbelievable last year with only May and Ward as the real fighters. Now they have May, Hunter, Tripp and Skye, who must have really boned up on her training to become a full fledged field agent.

I'm trying to understand how any of what he said 15 years ago or what he is saying today in his blog is at all relevant to the game. He was definitely an ass back then, he may or may not still be an ass today. But I have a hard time understanding exactly why it seems so important that they "realize" what he is saying then or in his blog. It is outside the context of the game. Many of these contestants had absolutely no idea who he was. Jeremy was perfectly fine working with John until he saw that Val was gone. Then he blamed John for not protecting her. John did keep his word and tried. Then just because Jeremy's all pissed off, Jeremy goes and tells his tribe that John is a racist and homophobe. Then the whole tribe goes "jiggawhhaaaaa?! How dare he breathe the same air as us!" Then Natalie screams and tells the other tribe to vote him out, simply because she thinks he is a disgusting human being. In the context of the game, he didn't display any racist or homophobic behaviour. He allied with Jeremy, a black man. He tried to give advice to Val, a black woman. He called Nadiya, a South Asian woman, a "sweet girl" when he voted her out. He considered his closest ally on his tribe to be Josh, a gay man. Is he actually in fact a racist and a homophobe? He might very well be. But if he is, he didn't let it affect his gameplay. Earth to Natalie and all of those self-righteous contestants. There have been plenty of contestants on Survivor. I absolutely guarantee that some of these past contestants have been, in fact, racist and/or homophobic. Did they get called out on this on national TV? Did they get voted out for these beliefs of theirs? No. Because if they had these feelings, they didn't bring them into the game. I'm no fan of Rocker, but I do think it is wrong that he got voted out almost entirely for something he said 15 years ago. Now I guess you could say that this is what CBS gets for casting a famous person with baggage, but I would have preferred to have seen him get voted out because of strategy and gameplay on the part of the other contestants, as opposed to simply because "we don't like you".

Yep. I said before that I think Wes' face looks particularly squashed. Almost like an anvil dropped on his head a la Wile E Coyote and squashed him. I dunno, I would imagine that TPTB probably does hundreds of Talking Heads. Each episode covers a three day period. They mostly have nothing to do but sit around all day. Surely each person would get at least 10 chances in 3 days to be interviewed. In all those hundreds of Talking Heads, surely they could have found something that Dale or Jacqueline or Kelly or Reed said that was somewhat intelligent. I don't buy at all that Josh is the only one saying intelligent things. I think Josh is getting lots of THs because the editors are hell bent on shoving him down our throats. TOO MUCH JOSH.

John is an ass, but I do question the decision to vote out the physically strongest guy and best athlete. He was being judged on his past. In this game, he never said anything that bad to his own tribe. I think they will regret it. He easily made his basketball shot, he helped the team in that first obstacle course, he caught fish. Seems like he was a key team player and provider. They should have gotten rid of Dale or Baylor. Why is it that we have seemingly never heard from some of these people, and yet Josh gets so many Talking Heads? I swear he had at least half of them tonight. Granted, he went to Exile and was on the losing side, but still.

I do think it was partially the kidnapper's fault that his daughter died. He should have been paying attention to driving instead of making faces at her in the mirror. That said, it was unconscionable of Caroline Porter to cover up a defect. I couldn't care less about Danny and the millions he needs to save his brother.

Thanks for this, I didn't notice her butt actually in the water, I thought she was just hovering over the edge. Which would work if she wasn't, you know, wearing pants. If her butt was actually in the water then it makes more sense.

Think I'm skipping this one unless I hear really great things about it. Saw more commercials, thinking they would have made some adjustments, but nope. The actor playing the Flash still looks very much like a goober. Supposed to be the lead actor, looks and acts more like a goofy nerdy sidekick. I wasn't impressed with the two actual sidekicks they brought onto Arrow late last season either.

The punting could easily have been a Roadblock. Choose one person to be the punter. The person not doing the roadblock is the one at the other end waving the flag. I actually thought it was a Roadblock, and that I just missed hearing that it was. But then I saw Dennis and Isabelle switching off turns at punting, since both were apparently hapless, and figured out it was just a task. Didn't realise there were different ways to punt. I visited a friend at Cambridge and we went punting. I want to say the punter stood at the front of the boat. I was going to try it, until my buddy said that lots of people fall in because the pole gets stuck in the mud at the bottom and they don't let go. Didn't really see that last night, just saw people losing their balance. Dentists are jerks. The bump of Whitney's punt was accidental, but they seemed to take so much glee about it in their talking head with their snarky "oops, sorry Whitney"

But she didn't go all out. It did look to me like Missy was holding back. Despite all of their "I'm imagining one of the exes" talk, Missy hardly came out swinging. Baylor, on the other hand, was extremely ferocious. She was the aggressor, she lunged at her mom. Missy looked like she was just trying to block. Baylor missed on her attack and slammed her own face into her mom's shoulder. It was her own fault. At least that's the way it looked to me. I do think that's giving John a little bit too much credit.

So from reading this thread, is it the consensus that there was a Roadblock that was edited out, and that it perhaps involved Charlie Chaplin? If so, I am glad to hear that, because I was convinced they changed the punting task from a Roadblock into a normal task to accommodate Bethany, who would have a hard time punting. I do wonder if there is still the "max Roadblock" rule. It would really be disappointing if they changed the rules to accommodate their golden girl. The show clearly wants her to win. From the spotlight single promos of them that seemed to appear way more frequently than any other, to listing them first and having them arrive at Times Square first, to the tongue bathing in the previouslies, it seems like they really really really want her to win. I know that Big Easy was prevented from doing bungee jumping, and Luke was prevented from doing some Roadblock task that required hearing, so I would hope they haven't changed anything just for Bethany. If they had chosen the Guards detour, it would have sucked if she had gotten a pass because she can't swing an arm that isn't there. I'm irritated at the "peeing" incident. Not that she actually went, because I do agree with her, when you gotta go you gotta go. However, despite what everyone has said, she didn't pee in the water. She didn't even take her pants down! She basically just wet her pants. Unless her pants are made of cheesecloth, all of her pee would have just gotten soaked up by her pants legs? What am I missing here? She begged her mom to let her get in the water. Why did she have to ask? Just hang onto the punt, lower your crotch into the water, and let go. Why is everyone here saying she peed in the river? Did she actually take her pants down and I missed it? I thought she was wearing black pants. It seems to me that there must have been some kind of punting demonstration, or maybe some teams watched other punters? You take that pole, sink it down to the bottom of the river using both hands in a hand over hand motion. Then push off the bottom to propel yourself. No idea why some teams were using it shallowly like a paddle, it clearly has no flat portion to push any water. The cyclists are so forgettable that when they checked in, I had no idea who they were. I didn't even realise they finished the Detour, when people were in their costumes they are hard to identify. All of the dark haired women resemble each other. All of the blondes resemble each other, except for Bethany. There's the food scientist girl who, sad to say, I can only identify because she is noticeably less attractive than all of the other women on the show. Dennis and Isabelle, yeech. I was annoyed at their "He's Cambodian, I'm Vietnamese, we want to prove that people of different Asian cultures can still date". What? I was so irritated with her crying. Especially her constant harping about "all that preparation". Reminds me of the incredibly annoying Cindy from Cindy and Ernie, who made them take language classes and do all sorts of other "preparation". I too was surprised that both teams in the previous preview that were shown crying about being eliminated and being in last were, in fact, in last. There was a time when we said that any team featured in danger in the preview was actually nowhere near danger. Not anymore. I think I recall one of the only times when a "in danger" team in the preview was actually eliminated was when Shalola and Doyin (identical twins) got their car stuck in the desert in Africa. If this is what previews are going to be like now, I think I may skip the previews from now on.

I dislike Josh a lot and it has nothing to do with his Broadway aspirations. I don't care for him because last week he was so offended that Nadiya said he could be one of the guys or could be one of the girls and that her opinion was he was pretty much one of the girls. Even though what came out of her mouth was worded poorly, I do think she was astute to pick up that he could be playing both sides. But Josh got so ticked off at what she said. Then this week, he pretty much revealed that she pegged him exactly right. He said he was playing both sides, he needed to stay in with the guys but then he also needed to appease Baylor and appear to be with her as well. I think he's very manipulative and sneaky. I guess you have to be to win at this game, but he wouldn't bug me as much if he owned up to it instead of being horrified and offended at the thought that he could be playing both sides. I despise Baylor a lot, mostly because I think she is useless. As for getting her lip split, they acted like it was all Mom's fault, when it wasn't at all. Baylor started that fight like a devil, she lunged at her mom, her mom attacked as well, and it was just an accident or poor attacking skills that Baylor caught her mouth on her Mom's shoulder. It's not like she was this innocent little baby that Mom slugged in the mouth. But she does her whole pouty "I refuse to cry" thing and garners sympathy from Mom. I guess I also dislike her because I pretty much dislike every single guy on the yellow tribe, and she was instrumental in setting about the demise of the women's alliance. If she and Josh are a secret team she could have easily convinced him to vote off Dale last week. I do think it's a bit poor of the show, although it's not particularly their fault. 18 contestants. Two black, two brown. And the one losing tribe votes off both minority members right off the bat.

That's cool you got to meet them, and thanks for sharing! If he had never seen the show before, now I understand how and why he believed Val had two idols. Maybe he thought there was one given each round of Exile Island, and then she found a random one? Still doesn't make that much sense though. If he had never seen the show you would think he wouldn't know how powerful the immunity idol is and wouldn't spend time looking for it. I agree with him that once Val told everyone she had idols, that he couldn't save her. Will be interesting to see how he is portrayed on the show moving forward.

I don't care for the one on one reward challenges either. It's a team reward, and it puts a lot of pressure on the one person doing it. I'm wondering if we are going to see any repercussions for the losers. Also, so far now only Jeremy and John know that you get clues to the immunity idol at Exile. Would anyone volunteer for the challenge and purposely lose reward so they can get a chance at the clue? Would be interesting to see if anyone tries this strategy. Why doesn't the team give people more of a hard time for losing? John volunteered to do the challenge and lost. He singlehandedly lost the fishing gear for his team. Yet no one complained.

Julie "Boobs" McGee is on the same team as Farmer's daughter, who I think is named Kelly? Julie was sitting out for the blue team. Farmer's daughter faced off against Miss Michigan Jacqueline, whose boyfriend is Jon (no H) who wears the ripped dress shirt and lost the flint. I did get annoyed at how Jacqueline cupped/grabbed/squeezed her fake looking huge boobs each time right before her two fights started. What was she doing there? Was cupping them going to help keep them in her top? You'd think she'd bring a one piece (or ask for one if it's a provided suit) if she was worried about them falling out. Was it out of some kind of superstition? Are they lucky big boobies? Does she do this in Vegas before her throw at the craps table??? Inquiring minds want to know!

Val was stupid to claim she had two idols. She would have been better off trying to ally with John. He said Jeremy shared the clue, and that must mean he wants John to work with Val. Val could have swayed John and brought along Baylor and Josh. I can't stand Baylor. She's useless. Not as attractive as she thinks she is, doesn't seem bright, acts like a petulant child. Why was it necessarily Jon's fault that the flint went missing? Because he used it last? Unless he threw it in the ocean, shouldn't it be somewhere right next to where he last used it? After Nathalie and the other girls seemed to decide that fire was more important, the longhaired douche "model" scoffed and looked pissed. I don't like that guy, hope he is gone soon.

The closed captioning had Ozzie's mom correcting the pronunciation of the name as "Kapelput" (Kah-pull-put). "Cobblepot" must be an Americanised pronunciation.

I enjoyed this episode more than the pilot. More focus. Still loving Jada Pinkett Smith. Yes, she's over the top and campy, but I think the character is written that way. I do wonder, is this supposed to be set in the same universe as Arrow? Batman is a kid here, and he should be about the same age or older than Oliver Queen I think. The Dollmaker was already on Arrow. It'd be interesting if he showed up here. I know one show is CW and one is Fox, but both shows are produced by the same production companies, DC Entertainment and Warner Brothers. I expect that the season finale will end with a reveal of the Joker.

I enjoyed this episode but as usual I have a few questions. Why did Mary say it was her fault to Richard that she asked him to release Selah Strong? She did so because she thought Selah would reunite with Anna. He didn't, she thinks he is dead and he is with the rebel army. Why is that Mary's fault? Who shot Richard? It would seem to be someone working with Simcoe, right? Simcoe had someone steal a page from Elder Tallmadge's bible and use it as wadding? Why haven't Ben or Caleb bothered to send word to Setauket that Selah is alive? Does the actor who plays Simcoe actually have a voice that is that high pitched, or is he putting it on (like I think the actor who plays Moriarty in "Sherlock" does). If it's put on, why? To be purposely irritating?

Have none of these people ever seen a car compass? In the days before the car manufacturers put an electronic indicator of direction on the dashboard, many people bought these things and stuck them on their dashboards. I had one for years, and it was invaluable. These things they had looked EXACTLY like the car compass with the floating indicator. Regarding flying to the wrong country. Wasn't there a recent season where there was a team that almost did just that? They were all set to fly somewhere, but then they got to the airport and I think a guy mentioned how they were flying to some city, and another team said wait, what?, and told them where to go. Am I making this up? I fully agree. I think the word "hero" is overused in this society. Why aren't teachers considered heroes? It's a noble profession and without teachers, the future of the world is bleak. Why aren't doctors usually considered heroes? They are respected, but I never see anyone throwing around that all doctors are heroes. Do you have to risk your life to be considered a hero? I have a buddy, college-educated, that chucked his career in sales because he hated it. He became a firefighter, not because he particularly wanted to fight fires, but because he said it was a good lifestyle. Work your shift, sit in the firehouse when there's nothing going on, lift weights, chat with your buddies, and then get like two whole days off to sit around at home and relax. I doubt he considers himself a hero. To him it's just a job. Regarding these two Boston guys, one of them said he was near the finish line of the marathon and helped out. Is he a hero? I wouldn't say so, I'd say he was doing a job. To me a hero would be a guy who saw that backpack and sacrificed his life by throwing his body over it to prevent more deaths. I don't see this particular Boston firefighter as any more of a hero than that helicopter pilot that was on TAR some time back who became a "hero" simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting captured.

I thought this episode was over the top, but still enjoyable. As I expected I would, I hated the couples therapy session. It went exactly how I thought it would. I guess I'm just thankful they didn't continue it throughout the entire episode somehow, and use the tired trope of characters sitting on a couch recounting exciting or traumatic events that just happened. I agree that the opening sequence was implausible. People wouldn't leave their car doors just hanging open like that. They would close them. Heck, if I was driving and I heard an announcement to get inside, I'd probably DRIVE somewhere. I wouldn't just abandon my car in the middle of the highway and run into a building. People wouldn't leave their books and beach bags on the beach. They'd take them with them. I did like the ending with the various hints at what will happen next. I think Adam is doomed. Every single relationship on this show fails.

I agree, I've never bought into this modern day attempted rehabilitation of Richard III. My opinion is that he may not have been the one to actually carry out the murder, but surely he knew of it and either ordered it or approved of it. I'm about two-thirds of the way through Conn Iggulden's "Wars of the Roses: Stormbird" and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Even though there's an index in that back identifying the characters, the index isn't detailed enough. There's too many characters, they're all seemingly named Thomas or Richard. The book gets a little muddled and confusing, and sad to say, I am finding it a bit boring. I mean, how can you make battle scenes boring? I will finish it out and see if the next installment is any better.