Ottis

I liked this episode far better, but I struggle with this and with whatever the hell happened to The Swede. It wasn't clear to me why he acknowledged in front of everyone that he killed the real bishop. More importantly, whatever the reason was, it was so tenuous that the fact Cullen counted on it happening stretches far beyond any reasonable suspension of belief. "I am so sure The Swede is crazy, that I will - in front of everyone - gamble that me, the person The Swede knows and hates and who he knows hates him, will fool him into believing I am now a believer in him, and as a result of that, the Swede will openly admit he is a false bishop AND he killed the real one with his own hands." Just no. But we are out of the fort, so let's move on. Also, this is the only time I have ever seen a depiction of Mormons where they seemed kind of bad ass, in a way.

True. Dominion may be more accessible than Caprica, though. You had to have an appreciation for BSG to get fully get Caprica. Dominion is about angels and God and the Bible and stuff that more people have a connection to. That said, I agree, Caprica was a better show. I don't really know what the angel siblings are fighting over. The humans seem screwed just about any way you look at it, unless the angels leave (and go ... where?). I'd like to know more about why the angels are on Earth at all. A few hate humans, I get it. But so many? What are their other options?

Not only that, but the Mason's are beacons of goodness: - Tom saves Dingaan, then as a bonus talks him through his (out of the blue) fear of small spaces and I guess a death wish out of guilt (though for a guy with a death wish, he sure survived a lot escaping from all those prisons), THEN saves them both after Dingaan pulls the pin on the alien bonb (really, a pin? On a bomb meant to be a projectile?). - Ben puts himself in jeopardy to save Maggie with a spike transplant. - Matt herocially looks for his dad in one spot, even after everyone else has wandered off, and refuses to stop or eat while doing it. I don't count Lexi as a Mason. She's as much Espeni in terms of DNA and environment. Though I have little doubt that the goodness of Mason DNA will eventually triumph somehow. This, a thousand times over. Tom is so unendingly boring and almost comically gung ho. The only interesting Mason is Hal, who lied about what Maggie wanted, and who seems unable to pick a side (the shining beacon of Masonness, or the what-makes-more-sense side). And now Ben and Maggie look to share more than a quick roll in the hay, so here's to Hal providing a reasonable counterpoint to Tom's blandness. When they found Tom's scarf in the rubble I almost cried laughing. It was like a scene from Hogan's Heroes, after the tunnels collapse and they find Carter's Native American headdress (don't ask). A Mason does need to die, to give Tom a dose of reality. They won't kill off any of them, most likely, but let's play "what if." They won't kill the youngest human one (Matt). They should kill Lexi, but at this point they have invested so much in her they can't unless she becomes the plot device that saves humanity. That just leaves Hal and Ben. If the make Hal the logical Tom-alternative, who some people want to follow, that leaves Ben. P.S. Pope now being the type to dig graves for the dead? Really?

I find Stahma's slipping in and out of "subservient Casti woman mode" interesting. She is in it less and less, even in front of people who are not Casti. I don't know if that is intentional or inconsistency. She was practically lippy when talking to the ERep.

It was only 1993-1998 - not *that* long ago! Though saying that probably really does make me old. Mrs. Ottis would watch and I would sit down from time to time. The HoW shot from above the train showing the town felt a lot like a Dr. Quinn shot, as I recall. As did the drawn out baby birth and Cullen trapped in the well while his wife called for him. I'm not sure what that was supposed to trigger in the audience. Probably not annoyance, which was what I felt.

Except for Amanda's reaction, the whole "Kenya's alive!" plot seemed to be handled with indifference by everyone, including Kenya. The masked guy who had her sounded far too educated to be a true lowlife bad guy, so he clearly is someone pretending to be what he is not for cover. And even he didn't care much that she was wandering around (and Kenya, instead of running like hell, didn't care enough to leave when she broke free). Why should I care about any of it? Nice close up of the six-inch heels on Amanda as she strode down the hallways. I don't usually notice things like that, but it was hard to miss.

You know what it resembles? It's like when you read a self-published book from Amazon and it starts out decently and then the writing, sentence structure and plot fall apart. At first you think, well, if you just tweaked this or that, it would be OK, and you keep going. But then it compounds, and you arrive at a point where there is so little consistent characterization or logical plot development that nothing is meaningful anymore because it doesn't tie together. You get stuck on a mispelling or contrivance that distracts you from whatever else is going on. That's how this season of FS has been for me. Little bits of decent TV surrounded by 'What?" moments. Leading the charge is Tom Mason, and his "Lexi isn't dangerous! I will stop her from harming anyone! Oh wait, she is dangerous? Sorry - that one was on me, gang!" leadership style. Followed in a tie by "Flip a coin - Mason or anti-Mason" Pope and the inexplicable WWII tactics of the technologically advanced Espheni.

I agree, and I don't have any problem with how the characters reacted. My issue is that it was all the episode was about (when you also include that all the men were fools, rapists or cowards). It was a soap opera. What actually happened in this episode? What direction did it set? Ugh.

What the hell happened to this show? Aside from the open (train going into the river), this episode was more like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (a show Ms. Ottis used to watch) then HoW. And while I like good female characters, this ep was the Helen Reddy special: - Businesswoman calls out and foils Durant - Cullen's MIL chews him out and tells him to leave - Cullen's "wife" (still inexplicable to me, but whatever) toughs out a difficult birth and then wins Cullen's heart and he wants to take her with him - Eva is beaten and groped and comes back with retorts that shrivel Mickey - All the men are fools, rapists or cowards And the next episode's title is about Ruth? This was both boring and a different HoW than I recall watching. It was also the first ep Mrs. Ottis has watched with me, and now she is interested in it. Coincidence?!

I can see that. Maybe that is why it bothered me so much, even though Pope addressed it. It was the single most uncharacteristic moment in the episode.

So much of this show is drama with no point: Anne and company mourn Lourdes like she was a fallen daughter, when she was an idiot who kept trying to out herself between the wider group's needs and whatever she personally believed. Plus, if Lourdes would have just shut the hell up, she would still be alive. She did it to herself. I cringed when Ann said to Lexie that some of them "had faith" Lexie would come out of the cocoon and not harm anyone. Boy, that sounded like a kooky religion was being born. Ann asks Tom Mason to "not quit on us." No idea where that came from. Mason would never quit. Then he wouldn't be able to run around acting heroic and telling people what to do, even when his ideas make no sense. All of a sudden, the Volm are back? And able to shoot down Espheni ships in one shot? And take out a bridge? They sure come and go when they please. I would ask for more accountability from the Volm if I were the humans. I will give the show credit for dodging what looked the the biggest character blunder - Pope not running away. Because hanging around to fight as part of the team was very unPopelike. But they had him explain to his pal why he stayed. Points off, though, for his praise of the special snowflake Masons. Why did the Espheni insist on walking miles to take another bridge to get into the town? With all their technology, they can't airlift troops over water? Speaking of, if they just had infrared capability, the Espheni would have wiped out the humans by now. And please oh please don't tell us that what was in Hal's eye was more worms. I find Tom Mason extremely grating as a leader. Everything he decides is absolutely right to him (and usually because he has some emotional need) - until he is wrong, which is often, and then he waves off the consequences with a, "It's on me." He needs to step back and let Weaver or others lead, and Tom can contribute.

In his fear and dismay that the sheik would survive and tell the world what Jamal did, Jamal allowed himself to appear weak to his mistress, and fantasize about leaving a country to find himself. Once Bassam took care of the sheik, it was back to being president for Jamal, and now he had a witness to kill. The key takeaway here is that even though Jamal knows that he doesn't really want to be president, and that being so means he has to be something he doesn't truly want to be (shades of him refusing to kill as a child), he still cannot turn down the power and all that it brings. If he had stronger principles, he would still walk away. But he can't.Plus, then we wouldn't have a show. The visit to the home of the man Bassam killed as a child was interesting. In effect, because Bassam killed the father, the family moved away - and lived when they would have all died if they had stayed. You could see the wheels of justification turning in Bassam's head.

Is he? And is it? My single biggest point of confusion on the show is what powers a Grimm has, beyond being able to see Wesen. Nick has taken some pretty good blows from Wesen, so I am assuming there is some added strength or something, but the show has never been clear on what makes him special. My second biggest issue is why Capt. Renard was once a feared member of The Royals (we were led to believe) and yet doesn't seem to have any meaningful powers. In fact, he seems pretty weak compared to many varieties of Wesen. My third biggest issue is Juliette, who need to die.

I suppose, though I see the three examples as different. A booty call is an action that is easy to grasp when it if referred to ("Hey doc, some on over here for a roll in the hay, it's a booty call"). Potato-patahto is an expression you hear in a context and then can repeat it without knowing any more than that context ("Is it X or Y? Potato, patahto, same thing"). Simply saying something is "squirrelly?" You would have to know which behavior someone is referring to, and then be able connect it to the word in a meaningful way. I guess you could do that without knowing what a squirrel was, but it would make the remark even more abstract. "Hey, stop being so squirrelly." "Uh, OK?"). Maybe it's just me. I find the societies the show is building up in the alien cultures fascinating, and especially am intrigued by the more offensive mores because they are so different and this is, after all, a TV show. Also, I swear I saw Irisa's eyes at one point and they were brown and not yellow.

This show feels more like Farscape every episode (a good thing). The humor, the buddyness, the singing-out-of-nowhere. I like it. That was the only thing I didn't like. I suppose an alien may have been on a destroyed Earth long enough to have seen a squirrel (though I would guess they are rare to extinct by now), but to understand the slang meaning of "squirrelly?" Maybe. But it took me out of the moment. I fully expected her to respond with, "I'm not sure what you mean by that, but (something clever)." Defiance has gone from a show almost off my list to a show I look forward to.

Never worked for me. I watched until he bought her a puppy. Then he became too stupid for words. Haven't watched since.

This is becoming repetitive. There is a problem, Jamal instinctively wants to handle it "the old way," Bassam says here is a better way, the better way doesn't work (usually because it ends up being too naive), and Jamal is left in a worse situation than he was in before in the sense of his being ruler. Rinse and repeat. The only difference in the cycle is that Jamal finally seems to be getting irked at Bassam, and the Sheik is/was playing off that. What needs to happen is either Jamal tries something on his own and it fails, or Bassam suggests something that Jamal actually makes work better. Let's have some variety, show. And no way the Sheik ends up in that bathroom with none of his people at least waiting outside and observing Jamal leaving. What it actually does is make Bassam more important than he would have been otherwise. If the opposition becomes more deferential to Bassam, people will notice, it spreads and ultimately there will be a showdown between brothers. And I suspect Bassam may be a far more difficult opponent than Jamal. It's easy to manipulate hotheads.

I agree with that. The problem was with how Tom handled his side. The rabble-rousing, Pope-fueled mob doesn't know any better. They did what mobs do. Tom didn't sit down and listen to them. He didn't discuss pros and cons with them. He declared no one is killing his daughter, you have to go through me, and stormed off to stand by Lexi with his handful of supporters. It was actually Maggie who made the coherent point, as she switched sides. There is a higher standard for leaders. Following Tom is like following an eccentric CEO. He may do things that help others, but always at the forefront is whether it helps his needs (in the case of the show, Tom and his sons). The moment those interests diverge, he goes one way, the group goes another, until he can return. Or he doesn't choose to do the same for someone else (Dan, who is missing his daughter) as he does for himself. BTW, I didn't see a way that only he and his family could escape the Espheni prison that wouldn't also benefit everyone. The plan was to take down the gate. Anyone could then escape. In fact, you could argue that by urging everyone to escape, it provided cover for Tom and his sons. It is much harder to recapture hundreds of escapees than five. In non-Tom matters, the fact Maggie banged both brothers is skeevy. Pope is wildly inconsistent in character. Ann is beyond annoying. And why no one could use simple logic to see that Lexi was in a cocoon, which equals transformation, which means what comes out should be different than what goes in, I don't know. That should have been the starting point, not the end point, of the discussion. Also, the "frozen" mech in Lexie land puzzles me. Aren't mechs just armored Espheni? Does that mean there is an Espheni inside?

It was the way Tom did it. No discussion, no attempt to find out more, no measures in place in case whatever Lexi became was a threat ... just a blind, "How dare you threaten our daughter?" A daughter who, BTW, Tom has barely spent any time around, given his absence, her absence and her fast growth. He is supposed to be a leader. He really is a self-centered blowhard. This show would be so much better if Tom died and Weaver led the group Weaver has lost a child who was experimented on, is trying to come back from it and actually thinks through what he does. It isn't all about him and what hem wants at the moment. The sad thing is, this would be so easy to fix. Have Tom make a sacrifice so that the choice he makes isn't based on his own needs. Choose for the group or humanity, not for the Masons.

I thought of it, enough to wonder how he would answer. "We're just drifters ..." or "My name isn't important, I'm just passing through" maybe. I mean, for pete's sake, they even had him say "we" with no visible companions, had one of the brothers ask, "Who is we?" and had Tom dismissively say, "That's not important." I mean, talk about waving a flag in someone's face. That and the fact they already knew the Espheni were searching for them en masse, and had referred to that fact several times ... I think there were plenty of obvious reasons for the guy who broke out of a prison, after BBQing an Espheni, and is traveling on foot so he can't be far from where he escaped, to be at least a little cautious about identfying himself with his real name to strangers. But not Super Tom. And that is why watching this show makes me laugh out loud a couple times each week. Because Mason can do no wrong, even when he is being amazingly silly.

Super Tom can do anything. Including walk up on two strangers, whom you are concerned enough about that you have your colleagues sneak around to flank, and then when asked your name, knowing that the Espheni and Espheni allies would recognize it, actually reply, "Tom Mason." It would be like going to a Brazilian slum and saying, "Hi, I'm president of a big, wealthy company." I thought the show had already told us so. The reveal was just bizarre. So that leaves me with only one question: Why does Lexi have "powers"? Espheni don't seem to have powers. They wouldn't need mechs and soldiers if they did. Say what now?

Not really. Mason doesn't know where his son is, and turns to Cochise to find him. Then when he is told of Matt's location, Tom drops everything - leadership of the larger group - to go get his son. Meanwhile, Weaver wants his daughter, but for some reason doesn't ask Cochise for help, doesn't run off to look for her and only leaves the larger group behind to go help ... Tom (not a decision I agree with, but whatever). Like with everything on this show, for some reason people follow Tom (and Ann) despite the fact that Tom and Ann seem to be mostly concerned with getting their own family members back and heck with everyone else. Meanwhile, that scene at the end with the molten planet ... what? I get there is a rivarly among the Espheni. Not a big surprise. That planet was supposed to be ... what? Their ruined homeworld? And they communicate by turning soil into ... what? Ash? So they are a firebased life form? But Tom burned one with a flamethrower? And so Ben was actually in Espheni Brother's mind, knows he is lying and ... no one believes him? Why not? Didn't we learn before that through that link, humans and Espheni share thoughts? And why no time given to that discussion? And how strong are skitters, anyway? Super Tom brushes them off while on his motorbike. But Weaver's daughter, now modified into a super human crossbreed, is tossed like a toy by one? As is Weaver? And the Volm keep pulling incredible technology out of their butts (flying drones smaller than house flies), but they share almost none of this sith the humans? OK, fine, don't fight for humanity but someone should be asking the Volm for technology by now. I laugh at or say, "What?" at least 3-4 times an episode of this show. At its heart, FS is still an alien invasion/humanity triumphs story. And I like that part. But the stuff that happens each episode ... good grief.

That seemed to come out of nowhere, and also seemed to be asking for it. This show has gone from one I briefly stopped watching to one that intrigues me. The "why" as to why certain people were having hallucinations was unclear to me rup until near the end, and Doc Yewell's hallucination seemed real except for a few comments that made no sense (for a few minutes there, I thought the show had some kind of script writing seizure, because what we saw and what he heard didn't match). It made sense at the end, and it really started feeling very Farscapey.

I see this much differently. Drawing this out is what makes the show interesting. Can the way Westerners view social mores and rights work in a country and region like this? Can anything work when the people have been broken for decades? This is Russia after glasnost, and the Middle East pretty much all the time. What effect can Barry have? What can Jamal actually achieve? Does a Quadafi end have to be inevitable? What can Barry and family learn from the ME perspective? Is there a middle cultural ground? Layer on top of all of that the individual stories ... Barry and his past, Sammy and being gay, the rebels and what they want (is it just power, or actual justice?), the reporter and whether he can still make a difference with his reporting, Tariq and whether his way has been passed by in modern society, and on and on. IMO, once Barry becomes the tyrant, this show ceases to be interesting. At that point, it is a soap opera about a royal family.

Oh, gotcha - reverse discrimination, essentially. That makes sense.