Lois Sandborne

Bye! I found the second episode the best of the season. I sometimes forget that America has dramatic roots, but all the heightened panic of trying to hide Mateo, and then trying to sneak him out, let her and Nico and Lauren, and everyone actually, really flex some acting muscle. Even Cheyenne tugged at my heartstrings when she followed Mateo out so forlornly asking if he still wanted his ice cream. And the two of them have been getting on my nerves all friggin season, but they sold the hell out of that scene with Mateo realizing he wouldn't be able to just come back to work like normal even if he did escape. And still it managed to be funny. The service goat met the raccoon. I loved the exchange of everyone slightly insulted that Mateo had confided in other people. Kelly entertaining one hideous ICE agent with basic bitch tales, and Bo bewildering another. It was a fantastic episode to be able to marry tones and themes so well, and I'm going to spend the summer saying novenas for the world at large to discover this brilliant show (and The Good Place, and B99). Also, Ugly Betty shout-out; I loved seeing Hilda (Ana Ortiz) in the union episode. Hilda, you can't shut your sister's store down! What would Papi say?

Bitch, how you don't know the words to "No Scrubs"? I saw this writing on the wall. They're giving Silky just enough criticism to say there was some. Anybody else in the world who tried sashaying herself down a RuPaul runway looking as homemade and half-done as Silky has all season, not mention performing as half-assed, would've been read until she turned into an actual doctor. But even *Michelle* has only the barest of bones for Sister Silky? And I haven't even gotten in my feelings about Brooke vs. Vangie or Ru's increasingly gross workroom persona. I never hate-watch anything. I have to love more about it than I hate to keep up with it. But this season has steadily been losing me, and now with this one-two punch of Nina unjustly following Shuga out the door she was just booted through herself, I'm out. I still like Yvie, Brooke, and Vangie to varying degrees, but I don't need to let my pressure get up behind me yelling at a TV show. Good luck to anybody left who knows how to use a hip pad and where to buy hair. Best of luck Nina, Shuga, Scarlet in your future endeavors.

This season sucks.

So anyway, my favorite part of the episode was Holt calling the NYT Crossword app a video game. I definitely do a little dance every time the victory music plays, and if that makes me a Jake, I'm okay with it. (I'm less okay with being a Hitchcock.)

No, no-hitters are usually pretty ding-dang exciting. And yet, I do indeed tend to find watching James kind of tedious. It's going to be okay.

Not returning until 2020!

Lots of things are legal and still sleazy. Tons of people find my profession ( ... the legal profession ... ) sleazy, no matter how good I or thousands of other lawyers might be. What are ya gonna do.

I got the Crimea FJ from remembering the news story, but I originally paid attention to the news story because of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books. Yesterday I was too busy trying to think about Athens's county name, which I never had a hope of knowing, to come up with anything. If I had thought about the bird for a bit, it probably would've come to me. I don't hate James, although his winning is getting tedious to watch. He doesn't have any tics that actively irritate me, and I think I saw him smiling almost naturally once or twice this week. I admit I find his job as a pro gambler a little sleazy, but that seems like my issue and not his. I don't think he'll be around for a year; I remember him having weaker games as he was getting past the 5-day mark, so he might be another for whom the taping schedule gets to be too much. Or, he's found his groove and Jeopardy is now a British-style panel show with James and two rotating guests.

But her body looked stuffed into a baked potato's bikini, and I don't know how she found the gall to talk about anybody else on that stage. I was glad to see that Eva continues to be here if for nothing else than to check her, because nobody does it better. I died when she put Marlo's repeat reads on blast and your girl had nothing to say. I don't know how this season rated, but I'm not interested in watching any further installments of Nene's Victim Parade, so if she turns up next year, I'm tuning out.

It's before mine as well, but we read/watched it in Language Arts class in middle school. I think it was the first thing I saw Cicely Tyson in. I thought I liked Steven until he hated on the Saints. I was pleasantly surprised by Andrew's accent. I've never heard of loess in my life. I too got what the clue wanted because wordplay, but I probably would've been afraid to ring in. The Pinocchio FJ came to me immediately because him being a good boy was such a big deal; I waffled because I thought the story might've been older, but I was pretty certain. Am I forgetting something about the Velveteen Rabbit becoming human at the end? I'll be crossing my fingers for you next week, @teebax! I hope you enjoy every minute.

I caught up with these yesterday, and I spent the whole evening lowkey thinking about UK-style flapjacks. Only because for my whole life a flapjack has meant a chewier, eggier pancake, and it a little bit blew my mind to think that our two cultures could magic up the same weird word to describe two such completely different foodstuffs. I demand to know which came first, and I, without any evidence at all, accuse the UK of appropriating our word for their odd sort of oatmeal-creme-pie-without-the-filling things. I would also demand an apology, but they did all look kind of tasty, except for the woman who put chocolate and mint on top of her oats. James Acaster delighted me with his ability to admit he should've taken Paul's advice about his mix being too wet, although I was also cracking up when he was defending the texture and saying it looked wet because it was unbaked, and offering his hand for Paul to shake in advance. And Sandy baked a cake! That was adorable. It looked quite good too, especially for something she did on a moment's notice. I didn't miss Big Narstie at all when he left. I know each episode has at least one cut up we're not supposed to expect much out of, but I've been delighted by how earnest pretty much everyone else has been in the tent so far. Russell Brand cared super a lot about his brownies, y'all. And Johnny Vegas really wanted those moscow mule biscuits to turn out. I guess it's hard to be too silly when you're working against cancer.

I ended up working from home yesterday, so I was treated to a lovely line-up of 30s musical comedy fluff, including Joan in Dancing Lady, good old Marion Davies in The Floradora Girl, and one I hadn't seen before, Bette Davis and William Powell in Fashions of 1934. I know and love how dramatic dramas are, but there is just something about a fuzzy, fizzy song and dance show that will always get my attention, no matter how terrible it might be. I can see why Bette ended up shying away from these kinds of glamour girl roles though. She looked vaguely uncomfortable throughout. I'd bet anything a Robert Osborne intro for Dancing Lady exists; that would've been a treat to see.

Fuck Netflix. I let out an involuntary wail yesterday morning when I saw the news, and Rita's post has just made me sad all over again. Lots of people are putting all the hope eggs in the NBC basket, and for sure, fingers crossed for any network that swoops in and saves this gem, but I haven't seen anyone mention ABC/Freeform. It seems like ODAAT would be a natural fit for one of their family show blocks. I would totally watch it after Fresh Off the Boat or The Goldbergs, etc.

I'mma go back in time, infiltrate the set, bumrush the stage, and rip the clicker out of Lindsey's hand. The final film they listed was The Mack. I was sad no one got that clue too. I don't know if I would've given credit for the "theory ... of ... uncertainty?" answer. Alex's pre-show remarks were lovely. Brief, sincere, and to the point. I'm glad he gets to see how much he's supported.

Same (except I'm not old), but I'm on my last sheet, so color me irritated to learn that stamps are now 55 friggin cents each. I hope the USPS finds other ways of making money sooner or later, even if only because letter-writing and physical mail themselves are fading out. My office sends a ton of correspondence, and this year we began an electronic system. And we're late to that bandwagon. I did a couple letter writing campaigns in the run up to the midterms, and I can see those kinds of activities falling off too, just because they're too expensive. In other news, I only got rid of my dumbphone a little over a year ago (I realize this is losing me the "I'm not old" argument), and I immediately became a target for spam calls. I don't know how my smartphone is to blame, but that's what I've always done. I learned after the first couple not to answer numbers I don't know, but they are a huge nuisance. Trolling Ajit Pai probably won't make a big difference in political will to change the regulations (ringing their phones every 9 minutes maybe?), but it gave me big schadenfraude to see that little finger push that little button that made that big finger push that huge button. And obviously, Donald Trump is ridiculous. Hence, people gonna ridicule him, and people gonna laugh. It's basically the bedrock of every late night show in the US right now. I think that segment was the show working out some psychic guilt over the fact that laughing at Trump might empower him even as it eviscerates him. Saying that there is a way to try and do it responsibly, balancing the reality of our circumstances with the absolute, unbelievable-unless-you're-living-through-it absurdity of Trump and many of the others currently causing these problems. I think this show is one of the very few that routinely excels at that balance.