Ottis

I don't feel GRRM quite as personally as you. I do agree, however, that he wanders, and that's one of the things about his work that tries my patience. Doesn't change my point though, that in his wandering, he often goes in different directions than conventional TV, and that makes for a better show. When Ned was killed in season one, it shocked viewers and nonviewers alike, and was the beginning of the perception of GoT as a show that might go anywhere, vs. down the same old TV paths like this season. After my original post yesterday, I found this article, which essentially says the same thing but better than me. GoT Getting Worse

And I think I know why so many people didn't like it: Without the books to guide it, GoT has become conventional TV. All the examples you provide for the future are predictable TV fare. Scorned, powerless Sam becomes key to victory; once powerful fighter humbled and then returns to power with revenge in his heart; abused woman finds inner strength to lead a nation, etc. GRRM had a way of taking these tropes and making them interesting. For instance, Dany may have power but he clearly hinted, both in her origins and behavior, that she might actually be crazy. This season, the show seems to miss that, and is playing everything too straight. That appeals to the masses, however, it makes GoT the worse for it. This season has felt curiously empty, even as it has moved threads in a direction that seems to make sense. And I think the above explanation is why. It's nice and neat to have the Monty Python Pike people say they will build a thousand ships, and then Dany's team to say they need a thousand ships, but it's just too obvious and expected.

The Denver condo buyer's friend (Jessica?) was gorgeous and very good on camera. Wonder if she has camera experience. Not only did condo woman pick a place that had no yard for her dog, but she picked one in a building that looked like it was converted from a pay-by-the-night motel. I was surprised there was nothing else close to her price point. I live near Denver and it's expensive, but still.

Enjoy banging your sister, Barry. Why would Zoom destroy the multi verse? How does eliminating endless worlds to plunder make Zoom's life better?

I do not get the love for this skit at all. By structure alone, you knew a single surprise twist was the end point. They played the scene straight for so long, it was the only option left. The question was, would the surprise be funny? And it wasn't, for me. It utilized something already in the room, no new thought or approach, just an accident. Another version of an ACME anvil falling on the road runner. Nothing clever about that. Then again, I don't care for "recked" threads, either. Not at all. Python would either have had a cascading fail (i.e. Black Knight losing limb after limb and continuing, or Mr. Creosote barfing endlessly), or they would have a singular fail followed by everyone else acting completely normal after it happened. The humor is in the exaggeration, or in the lack of reaction. The SNL skit lacked any of that. Humor is very YMMV, I know.

That was a hell of a way to start an episode, with Sansa staring down Littlefinger. At first, that's why I thought Sansa wanted to know where Moletown was.

I didn't read it this way at all. Unlike marketing to sporty people, or people who might have kids, marketing to women means you are not marketing to a large segment of people who won't ever become your target market. People without kids often later have kids. People who aren't sporty might take up a sporty hobby. Sometimes women use products targeted to men (in fact, you can argue whether marking a men's and women's version of hair color or a razor is anything more than marketing). Men ... are unlikely to become women AND want to address their PMS. If investing is about potential, then the way that product was presented eliminates half the market, period. I even wondered whether the male sharks should be eating them, before she explained what was in them. And if you remove her unique angle, as one shark said, you basically have an allegedly healthy snack and that's where they would bring out the "you're competing against giants who will squash you like a bug" rationale. Not an exciting investment. I still don't get the Pavlok thing. Robert said it early on ... if you have the discipline to shock yourself before a bad habit, then why don't you have the discipline to not do the bad habit?

Maya and Marty looks like a frighteningly unappealing show. Andy, about two years too late on that short, buddy. How many times will they milk the same Hillary and Bernie tropes? i had to FF through the monologue. A lot of build up in Mr Bunting to lead to the least interesting, most obvious twist. Maya was actually pretty good as the impeached Brazilian president. Colin seemed truly entertained. WU was pretty good overall. The "censored jokes" were great. Escape pod worked because it was short. An amusing idea and a twist then the end. You could catch a glimpse of the cue cards in the shuttle window. The high school performance thing hits home because we often work with teens and twenties who all think these are original thoughts and that in the real world anyone had time to think about his stuff. Why does the Harkin Brothers band have 100 members? Wait- it is the rest of the cast and some returning cast. Ah. Pretty self indulgent. Disappointing end to the season. Oh well.

Enh. My post was a comment about perspective. You don't have to apologize. You just have to realize that in any house, especially one that size, there will be things that won't be exactly to your taste, and if you can spend 1.5 million plus on a house then you can afford to fix those little things, too.

While I watched Houston couple be nitpicky about wall color, pools and decorative ceiling beams in $1.5 million plus homes, I just kept thinking there were millions of people with no homes or bare hovels. I don't usually do that, but she especially seemed to have lost all sense of perspective.

This show makes the strangest choices. Renard's motivation to be a bad guy is whisper thin. Even if he once dreamed of people cheering for him, what about his personality or anything we have seen him do supports that? He is a captain in a police department who largely lived off stage. then suddenly, he wants to be mayor or Portland. Which is the one thing that makes us laugh each time it comes up. "Yes, ve vill begin our takeover of the world in ... Portland!" Why? Will it be a hippy revolution? Truble has been one of my favorite characters, but her choice to live in a barracks and obey Meissner was sort of vague, and then in this ep she drops the Magic Stick in terror (Truble isn't afraid of a stick, she just said she would take out Black Claw with only Nick) and has the most forced line reading ever during that whole bit with Nick. She sounded like a different person. Eve/Juliette ... WTH? "I don't go there." Why? Because you area trained assassin who ran erase mouths but ... can't talk about your ex? I have no idea what she is supposed to be. She's not competent or ruthless enough to be a formidable soldier, and she isn't "normal" enough to be a human. Her affectations come and go. She is just all over the place. The only one I am enjoying is Wu. Wu doesn't pout and whine about realizing he is some sort of werewolf. No, he begins to train himself to control it. And laughs gleefully at his success. Wu rules.

That's the last thing this show needs to do. Its best episodes have been those where there was little or no Liz, or she was essentially a plot device moved around by Red and the FBI team (mostly when she was on the run). Giving her *more* to do will not make this better. For some reason, they can't write Liz simply being competent and efficient. Everything she does is emotional angst or poor judgment or temper tantrum or special snowflake. The best part of this ep was the truck heist. Very Alias-like, down to the music.

Noooooooooooooo! So that's Lizzie's father? Who the F cares? What is the point of Lizzie and her Russian past? She could be Putin's lost son after a sex change and what damn difference does it make in the Blacklist world? So disappointing. I figured she was alive, but hoped the show would evaluate over the summer what to do. And last week was so good.

You can't predict hail storms any better than floods. Hail can come out of nowhere, when it is barely cloudy. That said, hail protection was exactly what was missing. They should invent something that pops over your car quickly when it hails, and stays on if it is windy. In Colorado hail is such a problem that it isn't unusual for dealerships to have "hail damage sales."

Kudos to the actress playing Catherine for that both very ugly and humorous crying after her grandmother dies. Well done, from an acting perspective.

I think the issue is the unbelievability of what we saw. So all you have to do to defeat a dozen or more alpha Dothraki is ... knock over the burning torches? Because the fire ... magically spreads exactly where you need it to? In record time (and this had never been a problem before at the retired khaleesi place, I mean, at any moment you might burn down the house)? And none of the warriors have a clear shot at you? And then you push over each one and it continues to protect you while the men just run around in circles? And at the end, the last one you push takes out the last guy? I realize we are talking relative believability when the alternative to that sequence is to have a dragon rescue you, but still ... That said, I'm enjoying this season. It feels like it is moving along faster than past season, and you can start to see the forces of good coming together to ready the battle against the ice zombies.

I like Drake. The episode was kind of blah. Other than American Ninja (which was obvious but still executed well) and Baby Boss (which is just kind of amusing), the other skits all seemed sort of half-there. Kept waiting for Rental Car to go somewhere, (no pun intended), and it never did. And it felt vaguely uncomfortable that the two slacking employees were black while the outraged couple were white. Drake's Beef's had the potential to be great, but it was too subtle. It needed to start plausible and then quickly ramp up to heights of "no respect" nuttiness. It played somewhere in the middle. Even Black Jeopardy seemed tame. A few chuckles, and so much was left on the table. Dennis whoever was interminable. WU is the bit to watch every week, both for the written jokes and the banter, which can get pretty sharp. I can't believe Drake still "dances" like that.

This show is so much better without Lizzie. I can live with suspect alliances if there is no special snowflake. It just needed more Red. It's annoying that this was to help set up a spin off though.

Yay on the Mom stuff. Barf on the Iris "come home to me" stuff. Felt intrusive, like Iris needed to insert herself. What kind of reporter doesn't know the dual meaning of a "morgue?" "Plan H!" Ha. Not much surprise from the rest of the team that Barry has his powers back. Now I think the actor who plays his dad (Henry) is just stiff and perhaps not a hidden bad guy. Barry was angry? Huh.

It's funny that anyone would think this show reflects any realistic cause and effect between Selina's actions and the consequences. The hyperbole is the whole point. That said: I've worked in and around politics as well, and this is exactly right. This show accurately reflects motivations, and then exaggerates actions/consequences for comedy. At its heart, it is dead on. And that should scare people. I'm starting to like Ben a lot, and the way he rolls with whatever happens. Doesn't matter which way it goes, he's ready to be on board. I think that's the only way a sane person survives in that environment.

Thought it was one of the best parts of the episode. I've often wondered at what point do women decide to get that "mom cut," and the long hair goes away. It was a bonus that the skit added the bathroom ocean and kitchen farm. All of that has forever been a mystery to me. The irony of the GoT skit is that, this season, GoT has moved along pretty well. That skit was about 2 seasons too late.

Other than the fact Red mentions her death now and then, I don't even think of Lizzie. They were both good episodes. They transitioned Red from despair (his, not viewers, who were celebrating) to action, and left Lizzie behind. Maybe they will be viewed as a turning point, when this show became better. I admit I wasn't impressed with the Halcyon kidnapping attempt. No one considered Red might have backup, especially when one of the kidnappers was aweak link? BTW, sad to see him be collateral damage. No Bahamas beach house for him.

There remains something creepy and seriously wrong with Henry. It has been that way since he was first introduced. When he is acting like he cares about Barry, it feels almost rehearsed, like he is following a script he has lived before. And he chooses first to accept jail for a crime he didn't commit, then when he is released, he runs away. He's either trying to avoid triggering something he knows will happen, or he is running away from something he did that we don't know about, yet. Barry was almost at ground zero for the "explosion." Wally and Jesse were further away, after Barry absorbed the brunt of what happened. I don't know why they all don't refer to "Zoom" as "Jay." Or "Hunter," whatever the case may be. It's like Cartman insisting everyone call him kewl. Why keep doing it? Barry and Iris again. ugh. Sure, Barry. Go ahead and bang the woman who, for all intents and purposes, you grew up with as your sister. That's not weird.

I think the point was that they found a whole bunch of flyers or campaign memorabilia, not a single flyer. That's how I interpreted it, anyway. That's why they wanted to know who else was involved in the campaign, and would have had those things in bulk. I have a vague memory of Helena dropping something at the murder scene, a book bag or something?

I think writing is not the problem, it's the direction of the show. Red clearly is a fascinating character, and his motivations are complex. The writing provided that figure. The problem is the choice, from the beginning, to focus on Lizzie. It takes away from exactly what you note ... the development of Red as a truly iconic character. Instead, we waste time with Lizzie and her relationships, Lizzie and her temper tantrums, Lizzie and her specialness. it drags everything down. This show has an opportunity now to become something much better than it was. But Lizzie has to stay dead. She can come back in a flashback here and there, to show how her death drives Red or others. But we cannot have her back, sucking all the air out of the room. This episode was slower but far more fascinating than 90 percent of Blacklist episodes (just as Cape May was as well), because you had to observe and think about what you were seeing. The ridiculous tributes to her were the only part of the show that broke the spell. And seeing Red at the end, at Aram's door with his hat on, ready to go to work, was an iconic moment for Blacklist that was the result of Red's journey over the past two episodes.