Melina22

And that footage of her right before the murder at Walmart, going off to buy Drano and duct tape, all relaxed and smiling. She seemed almost cartoonishly evil! I'm sure there's a great Movie of the Week in this story.

I just watched Devil's Bathtub. It was shocking but ultimately really unsatisfying because I feel there must have been so many more layers to the story that we never got. Why would a well off mother of 7 children suddenly decide to divorce her husband and then kill him over custody? What happened to her new boyfriends first wife? Is he really innocent? Why on earth would her son help in the murder? We're just left with giant question marks.

You're absolutely right, Shakma. They've never said one thing. I hope that doesn't mean anything. Maybe it doesn't. I'm starting to feel a little obsessed and overwhelmed by this subject. Just me? I'm going to have to step away a bit, for a while. I think I'm going to binge some Star Trek Discovery, or for a pure guilty pleasure, a few episodes of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant. I'm hoping these will wash my brain out a little. But I'll be back here eventually. The comments are too interesting.

Driving to town this morning, the radio was playing an old Casey Kasem show and he played Billy Jean. Yikes. But then I reflected that if we really knew what various musicians, group , actors had done in their private lives, we may never watch a movie or listen to music again. I'm not going to name anyone in particular, but I have some strong suspicions. So I guess I'll draw my personal line at not giving actual money to artists I know to be bad people, and for the rest, just try not to think about it. As one of my favourite sayings goes, "Not my circus. Not my monkeys."

I finally watched the Oprah special. I didn't feel up to it before. Wow, that was so, so intense. It's hard to imagine anyone watching that and still thinking they're lying. I miss Oprah. She really is good at what she does.

Wow. Talk about delusions of grandeur! Of course, his idea that he was quite literally (in his mind, despite his fake humility) God's gift to the world, was often on display in his shows, and particularly when he had that mammoth statue of himself towed down the Thames (I think). He would have made an excellent Pharaoh.

Yeah, that's normal. Just a typical uncle/nephew pic. Isn't it crazy what people were prepared to overlook?

And that reminds me of the footage of him showing up at court in pyjama bottoms. Even at the time, back when I didn't think he was guilty, that struck me as incredibly manipulative. "Poor me. I'm too feeble to even get dressed." I didn't buy it at all.

Okay, so that was actually really entertaining. I was sure Corey would get voted in. I hope she has an absolutely stellar social game. She'll need it to survive and complete her missions. One of my favourite aspects of BB shows is trying to guess which strangers will quickly be drawn to each other and become fast friends /romantic partners. It's all about chemistry and it fascinates me. So often, the closest bonds are between people you wouldn't have picked. I guessed that Damien would survive over Laura. You can't discount the likeability factor, ever.

I always hate it on reality shows when people get thrown out almost before the game starts. The most egregious example... well, it's a tie between the time on TAR when they eliminated a couple before they even set off on the first leg, and the Survivor where they eliminated 2 players right as they arrived on the beach after the marooning. Both things were so cruel and left a really bad taste in my mouth, knowing the massive amount time and effort these people had put into what they expected to be at least a decent shot at the game. I guess eliminating someone tonight isn't quite as bad, although it's possible the 2 new people might not even last one night in the house. Or not get in at all? I can't remember the rules. Anyway, I don't expect to love tonight.

I opened that link with great trepidation because honestly, everything I see about Paris makes me feel like crying. I suspect it's partly because of her little face at the funeral. She looked so innocent and so much like a little girl in my family who is close to my heart. Yet obviously, her brothers are suffering as well. I just remember the sinking feeling I got in my stomach after her first suicide attempt, then reports of her drug use. For someone who loved children so much, MJ has certainly managed to destroy a remarkable number of them.

I believe her when she says she didn't know Michael was molesting Wade, for several reasons. But I also believe that there were some serious problems between her and her family, based on Wade's shocking statement that he had no feelings for her (one of the worst things a mother could ever hear) and her other son's feelings of abandonment and anger at her. If, in the end, Michael hadn't molested Wade, but had still brought him to America and made him famous, I think the family would still have ended up fractured and estranged. That said, it doesn't seem fair to put such a gigantic burden of guilt on the mothers, while giving the fathers a free pass. It was a very, very complicated situation. Lots and lots of people bear responsibility for the eventual disaster that resulted, one that continues to this day. Everybody is suffering,including the mothers. Speaking of which, we can come up with various reasons Wade seems to be handling things better than James at the moment, but we also have to remember that genetics play a huge part too. Wade and James are two completely different and unique people. Some people just handle trauma better than others, because of their inborn traits and personality. I see it all the time. One person sails through life despite trauma, while another is completely crushed by it. People are so complicated and unpredictable. (Which is why I love good reality TV.)

I thought exactly the same! 35 is the youngest she should have gone. I'm a big Arisa fan. Nothing she does ever bugs me. Maybe because she seems to have a great sense of humour, and when she does something ridiculously cheesy, she's laughing along with the rest of us. By the way, I'm glad you showed up, Samwise. I was starting to think I was in the wrong place!

Seriously! Her face at tribal was so grim and angry I was taken aback. Have we seen her smile or laugh, like, at all? This can't be helping her social game. By contrast, Rick gives off a genial, laid back vibe that I think will take him far.

ruby24, all the info in your post is news to me. If true, that stuff is really shocking. Maybe my earlier supposition was wrong, and MOST of the family thinks, or knows, that he's guilty. Yikes. I still feel so bad for his children, though.

I'm sure there are family members who believe he did it, and others who don't. But I hope we don't have to see this private family business play out in public. I can respect their desire to present a united front, or to just say nothing in public. At this point, it's all pretty much lose-lose for the family. Hopefully they get to keep a little dignity. Sadly, Michael's legacy will probably continue to rip the family apart. I need to go watch Survivor now. I'm thinking way more about this than is good for my mental health.

Well, that was fun! I'd forgotten how the premiere of Bbcan is always so widely OTP. It always cracks me up. I'm looking forward to watching tomorrow. I don't know who first evicted will be, but I don't think the 42 year old psychic will be there long. Older women tend to fare badly on these shows and I doubt if they bought her being 29. (I'll bet she was terrified that was the secret they were going to blab.)

This makes me want to cry. I hate so much to think what they, and many members of the extended family are suffering. I was a close friend of a family where the father, an apparently lovely and gentle man, admired and respected by the community, was charged and found guilty of multiple counts of pedophilia. Over the next few years, the family was literally destroyed. People died. Decades later, the ripples are still there. It was horrific and devastating and shameful for many, many people, including the victims and their families. I will never judge members of Michael's family for refusing to believe. It's easy for us to say "They're greedy and want his money". But that's just a small part of it. They loved him. He was the shining star of their family. If they acknowledge he did these things, the shame it brings on their family legacy is incalculable. They can't bear for it to be true. Speaking of denial, I just can't let myself think about what his children are feeling right now because it's too heart wrenching. There won't be any happy ending to this story.

Unlike most people, I was disturbed when she described doing the dance of joy when she heard Michael was dead. Not because I couldn't understand, but because there's such a giant chasm between her reaction and her son's. He still feels guilty, part of him still loves Michael. It's like the 2 of them aren't on the same page at all, and I can see how this could make him feel very detached from her. One thing life has taught me is that no matter how empathetic we may be, we can never truly understand what something feels like unless we've lived it. Very few people will ever understand what these men are feeling. They barely understand it themselves

Looking at them, it seems impossible that he's their father. And if he wanted to adopt children, that's fine. That's his right. What was bizarre was the whole fake marriage with Debbie Rowe, then having a third child from... some unknown person, all the while maintaining the charade that they were his biological children. It's like he was daring people to say, "You can't be their biological father!" If he hadn't been massively rich and powerful they would have. We got used to sooooo much weirdness. That said, I feel so, so sad for his children right now. What a terrible legacy he left them.

I've often wondered to what degree his utterly bizarre and otherworldly appearance played into this. Because, by the end, he didn't look like any other human we'd ever seen, his appearance seemed to transcend race or age or gender. So it was easy for him to convince us that he was "special". That the normal rules just didn't apply to him. I've often wondered if there was any chance he could have gotten away with what he did, if he'd been attempting to do it with his real face. If he'd actually looked like the adult man he was, rather than the weird, alien-like being he appeared to be. I don't think he would have.

That was the most uniformly funny and enjoyable episode that I can remember. I laughed out loud multiple times, giggled a lot, and even liked the musical guest, which never happens. John Mulvaney can come back as often as he wants.

I found this show really interesting, after watching the show with Connie Britton and listening to the podcast. I found Terra very likeable, although a bit different. What they never mentioned was her obsession with zombies, and how watching zombie shows and movies are what made her stab him in the eye. I think she talked about it in the podcast. The juxtaposition between this shy, sweet animal lover, and the girl who killed him like he was a zombie was mind blowing. It definitely falls into the "you can't make this stuff up" territory. I actually found Debra quite sane and self-aware. She knows she behaved stupidly in a lot of ways, and admits she often let her heart overrule her head, like when she admits she knew she shouldn't get married so fast, but still did it. She says flat out that she almost caused her daughter's death through her bad choices. I was surprised they never mentioned all her other marriages. She did seem to have a pattern of making bad choices, romantically. But as an earlier poster said, we shouldn't victim-blame. None of these women were evil or malicious or in any way deserved to have their lives threatened or ruined by this awful man. It's rare that you see universal agreement that it's good someone is dead, but in this case I totally understand it.

This could be true. Additionally, on Rob's podcast, Stephen Fishbach's take was that as a 19 year old just stumbling out of a super stressful blindside, he just couldn't think. Stephen speaks of your mental state leaving tribal after a blindside as a sort of blackout. You're in shock and definitely not firing on all cylinders.

When I watched the scene I thought the same thing, but then when I looked at what she was wearing, I couldn't picture how she could possibly do it without it being immediately obvious to everyone. For now, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, that she was smart enough to bury it where she could find it again. I know the sand looked wet but maybe that was from the rain, not the tide. I'd go back and rewatch the scene but... I can't be bothered. We're going to find out either way. But she didn't seem dumb enough to bury it below the tide line. Time will tell.