Vandy10

Don't get me wrong, I like shades of grey in my characters. But I'd completely glazed over the fact that Nolan and Amanda were "on a break." Now that I know that, the Nolan-Berlin scene at the end makes more sense to me. I still don't like their pairing, but it does work for me in the narrative now. I really shouldn't be such a lazy viewer; I tend to miss important things that way!

I...huh, I still don't know how I feel about that ending. On the one hand, I do so love Stahma's badassery. But, like someone mentioned above, I wish TPTB had made how exactly she framed the religious leader slightly more explicit. I don't need every dot connected for me, but a bit more would've helped sell it to me. The more I think about the scene with her and the women, I'm wondering if Stahma went into that little sewing circle with a Plan A, which was to actually foment a real women's lib movement among the Castithans. But then when she realized the women weren't going to budge, even the abused one, she skipped ahead to Plan B: murder and a frame job. Who am I kidding? It's Stahma; murder and framing will always be her Plan A. It's why I love her. I can't quite decide if Nolan having sex with Berlin was so jarring to me because it was actually out-of-character for him, or if I'm just projecting my morals onto who I want Nolan to be. I mean, this is the guy who waltzed into town and spent the first money he earned on a whore. But on the other hand, we've seen no indications that he's been sleeping with multiple people other than our former mayor. But again, we also haven't seen them having a conversation about exclusivity and they're obviously not at that level of openness since she'd been doing drugs behind his back for a while...So, yea, still conflicted on the Nolan-Berlin ending. Plus, I just hate watching violent sex. It's a personal issue of mine. I know she asked him if she should punch him for the Barbie comment, and he told her yes, but a sex-punch just won't ever work for me. This show has built up a lot of goodwill in me (plus I'm an easy viewer to hook anyway, hee!) so I'm definitely in to see where these stories go. But I do hope some of the characterization is made clearer for me as the season continues.

@trow125, I suppose the comics thinking Machi might be out of fresh material is one strategic reason they were picking him. The only other strategy that I could see them going for is sort of a reverse psychology thing--each comic who picked Machi thought he was surely safe and wouldn't be chosen by anyone else, so then in turn they couldn't be picked for the H2H. I dunno; I'm not the best with strategy. I had forgotten to write about Karlous in my first post, mostly because I just like to forget about Karlous. I don't understand why he was picked over a lot of the funnier comics, especially to go this far. As a woman, I'm disappointed that some of the (IMO) really funny women didn't get further than this douche canoe. But hell, even putting aside the gender thing, there were plenty of men who I also thought were way better than Karlous. I know it's kind of old schtick at this point, but I love that guy from early on (loved him so much I can't remember his name!) who did the bit about his teenager daughter. I think it was all in his personal delivery, which cracked me up. Normally I get super uncomfortable watching people be humiliated or confronted on TV, but I was cheering for Roseanne when she snarked back at Karlous about how she left the men, and his jokes were "made in China."

Yep, after that episode I'm all in! I really needed this to fill the hole left by Toddlers & Tiaras, Kim of Queens, and Dance Moms. Vanassa is such a caricature, but I am loving her schtick. That lipgloss apology moment had me howling.

YEEESSSS on those glasses! I was coming here to post the same (shallow) thing. I noticed them right away when they were backstage prepping right before the roast, then I was disappointed he didn't wear them for the actual roast. He needs to never take those off. /shallow I really like Rodman and Joe Machi. Rodman did better than I expected him to in this format, though he wasn't the funniest roaster. Roasts really aren't his thing. Machi also did better than I expected in the roast, but not as good as expected in the H2H. After last week's H2H with Monroe, I thought all the contestants who picked Machi must've been smoking something. It seemed like such a poor choice. Unless there's some element of strategy I'm missing, it was a stupid move to nominate him.

You guys are going to make me YouTube Alex Wong and Twitch's duet. And that's the problem with this season. There's nobody I want to go back and YouTube over and over again. I still can't correctly match names to faces yet. Playing on my ipad while watching probably doesn't help, but still. I just finished this episode 5 minutes ago, and I don't have a lot to say about it. It was meh. Except for Misty. Can't her run be longer than 3 weeks?!

I absolutely loved Juliet and Julia's conversation about Target. As an expat of many years, it rang so very absolutely true for me. Get a group of expat Americans (and some Canadians) together, and they absolutely will wax poetic about their annual or bi-annual trips home to Target! I start making my Target list at least 2 months before I head home, and I take orders for friends who aren't traveling. I like the way Caroline shut down Caprice's fame-whoring attempts to change the venue of the baby shower. I also liked that she finally addressed (sort of) her birth plans. I kept trying to figure out how she was going to deal with having 2 kids being born very far apart. You can't travel too close to your due date, and then you usually have to wait several weeks after the birth to travel. Plus, with international travel you have to sort out citizenship (if you give birth outside your home country) and getting passport(s). It looks like she's going back to the States where both kids will be born and then, presumably, she'll bring them both back to London when she/they're read to travel postpartum.

Karlous turned me off in his mentoring session. And then he had almost the same joke in his set as he did in his first! It was the one about how he loves LA's homeless more than the homeless back home. It ended slightly differently than the first time he told it, but I was raising my eyebrows at that. And then nobody mentioned it! I thought the judges would at least point it out. But no, they sent him through. Blech.

I can tell I'm getting audition fatigue when I pick up a book a third of the way through the episode. Some moments did draw my attention back to the screen, though. I loved Misty Copeland. I actually watched all of her segments because I enjoyed her critiques. They were technical and specific, while also being kind. I like hearing that information more than the general, "OMG you're the most amazing thing evah!!!!!" that we often get. Even I, with super minimal dance experience, noticed that FunkyBallerina wasn't the strongest en pointe. But I saw moments (not en pointe) where I really liked her. Plus I adored her music and personality, so I'm hoping she's well cross-trained, and sticks around for a while. Slow krumper pulled my attention too. I was not expecting them to cut him after his choreography, which I thought was fine. But if they do choreography first, like others have said happens, then does that mean they cut him before he did his solo? Are the judges allowed to change their mind if they cut someone decent in choreography, but then are amazed by their solo? Gah, I hate having to guess around the editing.

So what happened to Nicole Kidman? I really like Mark Ruffalo every time I've seen him on this program, and his story about how he found out he got the part of the Hulk, with the morning car, cracked me up.