Tarasme

As for Tilda and the colt, wasn't Tilda tied up and tortured for, well, awhile prior to their exchange? She wasn't at her best... I don't believe The Widow has any bio children. She's chosen, for a myriad of reasons, to include/ adopt all of those women, including Tilda. From what I recall a few eps back, Tilda was part of the baron's household- he assaulted her thereby instigating The Widow's revolution. Maybe The Widow has some really young biokids, but I don't think we've heard anything conclusive towards that idea. Of all the revolting things Quinn does, for some reason, this manipulation is the most detestable to me. Talk about an abuse of power. Good god. Then he insists Sunny stop seeing her. I'm not sure if I'd prefer someone get all stabby with him or if he dies, paralyzed and alone in a refuse soaked bed after thirty years of being at the mercy of all others. I see your point but I'm not convinced Quinn does anything for sex. For power yes and if power is achieved through sex, then ok. When Veil called him out (I think it was Veil) as being in a constant state of war- including war with himself physically and emotionally- I think it was a very insightful analysis. Actually, I think it was Veil's understanding of Quinn that caused him to go for her emotional jugular and point blame for her parents' death at Sunny. If it reduces his threat by undermining the bonds of any that might possibly unite against him, then whoowhoo. I'm a fan of The Widow too. I like that she could have stayed at the top of the existing hierarchy, accepting all the benefits of the baron's household, but was willing to sacrifice it to protect those that could not protect themselves. Her scheme to remove the baron, usurp him, then overturn the order of things could have/could be failing- it could all end with her death at any time. She sacrificed her relative safety to get something better for everyone. At least, that's what it looks like to me. Could turn out that she merely trades one class of oppressed people for another, but I don't think so. I haven't thought much about it but that line- "person in the fort"- did catch my attention. I hope it's someone that hasn't occurred to us yet. As for Jade- I don't see Jade and The Widow working together but I absolutely see them as two sides to the same coin. I don't think Jade has (or had) designs on taking over but I do think she'd do almost anything to change the status quo. BTW- didn't Quinn take a spoonful or two of that soup? Did I look away and miss that only Jade ate dinner out of that bowl? Yeah- this had occurred to me earlier in the season. That Sunny shares some of the same enhancements as MK. I kinda hope it is supernatural; I'd love to see a world play out where regular humanity becomes so twisted that some kind of spiritual remedy/supernatural power evolves or is majicked/provoked. Too Marvel-y? Sorry. *g*

*sniff* Ainsley, *sniff* It's disjointed (gah- this really isn't the word I want) for me that the competition has been so brief, we're already to final three. Also, since I'm following the Holiday Baking Championship on that other network, use of croquembouche for show stopper was kind of "croquembouche, again?!?" JI can keep his weird innuendos. Yuck. Teasing/flirting, s'okay. Talking 'bout sleeping over, not so much. Nia looked great. SO glad they softened her makeup to neutrals. Beautiful and sweet outfit.

I continue to be pleasantly, nay, wonderfully surprised at the depth tPtB are giving this show. The A plots are standard but the cast- led by Calista Flockhart- are giving decent scripts with good layers almost profound performances. The expectation of a genre plot (oh heck, even a "drama" would be a sucker for this) surrounding corporate shark under threat of exposure would be that he or she did often nefarious acts that require cover up in order for said shark to continue operating. Instead, Cat defended her self humanely- in character- and was willing to sacrifice herself to protect her child. From her, again very human, mistakes earlier in her career to her decisions now, the whole thing was masterful. I also appreciated the contrast between the three mother-figures (I guess the jury's still out on Astra's motherhood status). When comparing the three, with the limited perspectives- sorry- I don't trust Astra's oh your mom killed our planet blahblahblah; if Astra's willing to kill- not sacrifice- anyone for the "greater good" I question her definition of "good"- the comparison brings to light the foibles, weaknesses, and strengths of all. Awesome to uplift Cat showing how humans can do great things even though we don't have super physical strength. Good good good stuff. Good work from MB still working through her parental abandonment issues. While the villainy/heroism of both Astra and Alura is debatable, the pain that Kara feels at being left behind is not. I'm glad that production had chosen to give time and depth to that aspect of her. Now, I'm starting to wonder if we really need Winn and James to move forward. Unfortunately, with the directions this is going, it is hard to see how either are going to be more than superfluous. Great episode. I'm looking forward to its return from hiatus.

This. And how can a million dollar production be so witless, dull, ineffective, obnoxious, etc? There is literally no charisma to plot, characters, or delivery. I gave up on this around the third episode. Caught up through summary and fast fowarding during streaming. Finished this episode because nothing else new in the recorded queue. I can't imagine that I'll miss it and, unless the season finale includes a spray of automatic gunfire that obliterates the entire cast, I won't be back for anymore. In my opinion, acting by and writing for Priyanka Chopra is disgraceful. Maybe Quantico will decide very very soon what kind of show it wants to be and stick with it.

In addition to KirkB's explanation above, Fitz started examining Maveth!Will's leg and saw the exposed bone and rotting flesh. I don't know if Fitz would have completely challenged Will's statements about the planet's previous civilization prior to getting him through the portal w/o realizing he was looking at a zombie version of Jemma's crush.

I watched it OnDemand last week. I have no connection with the source material; I had not even read a synopsis, just saw it on MovieBox and recognized from fast forwarded trailers during Haven. For me, the amount of plot! packed into the pilot was overwhelming. And, in contradiction, it wasn't really even action packed. Weird. It was efficient; connecting all the spinning plates through the thread of the missing girl kept my attention but I was only able to invest in Holden. I think I could like Thomas Jane's Miller, but- due to watching at a low resolution/ skimpy sound offering through my iPad- I could barely make out what was happening except in broad strokes. Same for Shohreh Aghdashloo's Avasarala. I found the final scenes on the launch to be well executed. I'm looking forward to see how Holden leads his team for their survival, who fired at them, what the weird crap was in the engineering area Mao screamed at (and, again, I was really hampered by the poor resolution on my iPad, that I was watching while in the bathtub, and that I wasn't fully invested yet- not enough to stream it again and watch more closely anyway), etc.

I can see this, but I can also see- though handwaving involved- from Bank's struggle with his gun that, before Bank's turned around, MD aimed and pulled the trigger- he didn't cause Banks to pull the trigger. Banks tried to move the gun and not allow the trigger to be squeezed but failed. Then, once he turned to face Leo and Jemma, he let go of the gun and MD moved it to face him. Banks didn't flee was a fear response rather than being directly controlled. That, and handwaving. I thought Banks was familiar with MD's power due to the prior exchange with Bobbi at the ATCU. Then again, if MD is Malick's personal Inhuman and his gig was kept on the DL with regular ATCU personnel, then maybe Banks' reaction isn't so OOC.

I have sympathy for tries-so-hard Philip. But. I could hear the un-filmed end of that conversation... "[i'm Philip]... You may know me from several shows on the "Food Network" cable television channel. No? You haven't seen my shows? Oh, perhaps you've seen my greater-than-life size placards along Ventura Boulevard?..."

With a weird "Young Frankestein" lisp to go with... "May-vith! May-vith!" I thought the ep was a nice denouement from last week's kills and peril. Though tPtB attempted to raise the tension factor for Phil and Fitz- mostly by dragging out the never ending minute that the portal was open/closing, I never really thought either of them would get trapped on darkplanet. The "that damned body jumping Inhuman had better not be in Coulson or Fitz" thought did cross my mind. I'm oddly glad that it was Ward... And please don't judge that I found bruised bloody clearly dead Ward even hotter than smarmy alive arm porn Ward. Man that camera scan up from him holding Coulson's death dealing hand of destiny was all kinds of yummy. Don't judge! Yay to a great big ensemble mission. It was both serious and fun and a nice little win for SHIELD. Sort of a win. Well... right now, they think it's a win anyway. Special points to Mack, Bobbi, Hunter... "Are we supposed to follow her?" And Hunter's waiving to show they're them on infrared. Ha! I, like a few posting above, liked the juxtaposition of Lincoln and Joey. I don't care that much one way or another about Lincoln and Daisy or, really, just Lincoln period but I'm willing to keep him around as a functioning "girlfriend" to our heroine. After all the angsty peril, Jemma and Fitz need to go on vacation. Preferably someplace where their curse will cause little collateral damage. More shameless StarWars plugs by the Man (otherwise known as Disney/ ABC). You'd think there was a movie coming out or something. Not sure how I feel about Will. I'm not a fan of killing a character immediately after he or she builds a rapport/ affair/ close friendship with a main character (AHEMROZ) and I don't like it with relation to Jemma and Will. It's cheap. Now, if Will had died BEFORE "he" met Jemma- if Jemma actually had a relationship it Mavith, *that* would be interesting. I wonder if Mavith is a trustworthy narrator... I'm looking forward to knowing more about Mavith the Inhuman and the darkplanet and it's civilization and the whole "they had their chance..." nonsense. Seems clear that Mavith has access to its host's knowledge- at least in part. This puts Jemma and Fitz squarely in the crosshairs of the antagonist- again. I'm kinda tired of those two being in peril. But then, maybe Ward's Coulson hate will trump whatever manipulation could occur because of Jemma & Will. Poor Melinda and poor me. Poor Melinda because of Andrew angst, poor me because even though May was present, she was barely there. Good times. Around Feb 1 I'm gonna start having withdrawals. Here's hoping they can take March and April's eps and integrate them nicely with May's CA:CW premiere.

I love the Great_ Baking shows. All of them. I do see that the Holiday Baking show's contestants are lacking a more well rounded baking repertoire, HOWEVER, IMO when comparing the baking essentials of the British baking culture vs the baking essentials of the American baking culture, it seems like some items are firmly ensconced within the British knowledge base that are almost unknown to Americans, therefore, what looks like significantly wider knowledge is just a different knowledge. Capice? There were a few times in the last few rounds of tGBBS that a few early contestants had sad sad showstoppers. And they had pies. And bread. There were lots of places to add savory items to their baking lists. On tGHBS, so far sweets only. For this week, I wish technical had been a Mary Berry cake instead of Iuzzini's and that they had another hour for the showstopper. Nia. Nia Nia Nia. Nia's beautiful, but the harshness of her makeup is so distracting. All the hard red and black lines make me think of a ventriloquist's dummy every time she's on screen. :(

Glad Marjorie and team won. ITA above posts comparing Marjorie to Stephanie I. Very similar initial impressions- highly skilled, competent, and likable. Glad Amar and Angelina worked with her. I wish I could lunch on Amar's carrots. (whoa- in hindsight, that sounds kinda weird). I will miss KC sassy Renee. She had a good, if ubiquitous, attitude. What the hell, Grayson? Seriously? No words for Phillip and his 25X life size banner and his two restaurants. Pbbbttfftts.

ITA w/ regard to FitzSimmons, Mac, and Blue Planet comments With regard to Ward's taunting Coulson. Ward needed Coulson. The point of killing Roz was twofold- stick the dagger into Phil, twist, but also- quickly- get SHIELD's answer to "How do you schedule a return trip from Blue Planet?" Ward knew he was setting Coulson into motion to bring Mallick what he needed. And Lockjaw is one of the Inhuman/Kree kings or whatever, right? I'll go look that up now.

First- NO ROZ NO!!! Second- NOT BANKS TOO!!! Third- dammit show, if Ward doesn’t suffer immeasurably, alone, on Planet X- and DO NOT during his sojurn allow him to become a bigger menace please- I’m gonna be Up.Set. Fourth- No Roz! No.  I wasn’t spoiled and I didn’t find Roz’s demise predictable except in hindsight. Of Course there had to be something that drove Coulson to Act. Now. If tPtB were gonna do it, they did it damned effectively. Appreciated the following: --The teams’ response to Coulson’s grief --Coulson’s methodical reliance on his training to get to what he needed about Ward --Mac’s unwilling assumption of directorship --Mac having the gonads to fully activate and legitimize Daisy’s Secret Warriors --Hunter. Hunterhunterhunter. (with regard to this- I hope tPtb have shelved the spinoff for Bobbi and Hunter- they’re such an awesome part of this ensemble) --Coulson diving through the portal- and then promptly banging his head on a rock. --That there’s a NEXT WEEK on Marvel Agents of SHIELD Didn’t really like: --Mallick- golly he seemed whiny “please be my leader buddy Ward, pleasepleaseplease” --FitzSimmons in peril. Again. --Such a brief almost merciless use of Thomas Ward. Com’on SHIELD, either coldly and completely manipulate your enemy or bring him cocoa and a blanket- don’t vacillate. If you’re gonna threaten- make sure everyone knows you’re prepared to follow through. Looking forward to next week and Agent Carter in January.

I saw this as an irritating conundrum for Joan. If she goes through channels and complains or back channels through Gregson or Bell or any of her friends on the force, she risks this irritation becoming vendetta. Chances are that any of the above options would have resulted in less than a stern talking to unless Joan could get IA or another group with oversight involved. I have a feeling Cortez would have accepted a < STT like twelve year olds accept an 8 o'clock bedtime. Getting IA or oversight involved would have set her back- with everyone, not just Cortez- into the personae non grata zone she's already worked her way out of. It wouldn't develop rapport she and Sherlock desperately need to do their job. I can't see either of these options getting Joan the results she was looking for- Cortez ceasing and desisting. I dunno. To me, this was a damned if you do, damned if you don't for Joan. :( I don't think Cortez's school yard bully is going to be deterred by a couple of rounds though she might think twice before physical intimidation. Her threats were specific and her harassment focused. If Cortez has buddies, they'll be seeking ways to intimidate Holmes and Watson too.

I had minor feels for the man that I recognized from almost every professional cooking competition show on FN. Orange juice in the eye is not pleasant. And I like him- I was worried I wouldn't as he's been on every. professional. cooking. competition on FN, but he was upfront with that and presented himself on those shows as skilled, so I hope he stays through a few rounds. Then there's his FN cooking competition show compatriot- she's bleached herself since FN but is also likeable. Okay- are there so few acclaimed professional chefs available on the west coast that we need multiple FN entries? And I liked the sassy chef- sassiness be damned. Especially since she's from the greater KC area.

Maybe they're arm wrestling for extraordinarily brief periods? Heh.

Interesting episode- IMO driven by Kara and Cat bonding, ignition of what could be complex game play by Alex and Max (can I call him Max?), and another nod to everyone's daddy issues. But.... how dare they make Red Tornado look like a complete doofus!

I'm not eager to share this, but I really like this show. After being less than enthused about the new crop of action-thriller-genre shows this season (especially since I had such high hopes for so many), this is- egads- the only new show I look forward to each week. I like the Widow. It's interesting to me that she is completely defined by her title, yet, she maintains a steadfast contradiction to most aspects of it. Widows are often depicted as THIS Widow is -Forlorn -Not grieving but thriving and plotting and planning -Need care/ keeping -Doing a decent job of caring for everyone under her purview (except regent) -Missing physical strength that was provided by husband -not lacking strength nor skill For me, Tilda is also full of interesting contradictions between the superficial and internal (that's not really the word I want, *sigh*). M.K.'s ok- but I'm much more interested in his origin and enhanced abilities than I am him. Sunny and Veil (sp?)- I'm interested enough to want a happy ending for them. (*note- So sorry that this spacing is way off!)

My thoughts on this are that Fisk- he who had the Kitchen in such fear that no one would even speak his name (and the first time in series someone does- he promptly puts rebar through his own brain)- would be the first to know who Kilgrave is, what his motivations are, how he can be manipulated/ what his currency is, and how to protect himself as much as he is able. Fisk is factors smarter than I am, so I have no idea *how* he'd protect himself, but I believe he would. I doubt it would have anything to do with being immune or insusceptible to Kilgrave, rather, he'd have a complex web of contingencies in place should he be Kilgraved. And ITA about a meeting between Matt and Jess. Hee. I think they need to play beer pong.

I'm so sad no new ep tonight... I. Can't. Even. about the break between MSF and March.

Jessica Jones series spoilers- if you haven't watched it all, you might want to stop here. Part of what I enjoyed about the Jessica Jones run was the directly shared 'verse with Marvel's DareDevil (doing an abbreviated re-watch now!). Of course, it was awesome to see Rosario Dawson's Claire in the last two (two right?) JJ eps. Throughout the JJ series, I thought how much better Jessica et al would be served if Matt or Foggy represented the variety of jailed characters. Maybe Matt would be more susceptible to Kilgrave, maybe not- at least Wendy would have been spared that gruesome, gratuitous death (blech). It's interesting to me to contrast the solitude and isolation of the characters in Jessica Jones versus the camaraderie and teamwork in DareDevil. Matt knows he needs his friends- even when he's beating himself up for using them or they're beating themselves up for using one another. In JJ, so much time is spent on Jessica's reluctance to accept help and her insistence on going it alone- and still everyone is in danger (though- granted- it's usually- but not exclusively- proximity to Jessica that puts one on Kilgrave's radar). Though, in comparison, even though Matt and Jessica both pull away from their best friends to do what they need to do, they both rejoin with those people to become better together than apart. And in a Fisk vs Kilgrave face off? I'd take Fisk every. single. time. Kilgrave might get lucky, but Fisk would have planned so far ahead that- I think- any Kilgrave victory would have immediately resulted in his demise. It'll be cool to see if future installments further integrate the two stories. If I understand correctly, Claire There's so much to compare and contrast between the two series. Thoughts?

I understand this sentiment, but I don't rank him very high in villainy. Kilgrave's ability puts him among the scariest of the scary guys but he is SO self-seeking, SO immature, SO insecure, SO petulant, crap- if he gave just one thought to anything other than his own whims, he would be insulated, unstoppable, and in complete control of the world w/o further enhancement. He's a poster child for wasted potential. Between Loki and KG there are a lot of comparable traits- but Loki grew up. Fisk- or someone with that kind of single minded drive- utilizing Kilgrave as a tool- *that* makes me catch my breath in horror.

Ugh Robyn- If any character ever is deserving of a swift punch to the throat...

Liked it. A lot. It's hard to express thoughts related to just this episode; after binge watching every spare moment for the last 48 hrs (including finishing ep 13 at 2:30am this morning), it's all running together a bit. I almost wish they hadn't made the parallel to Hope the pivotal part of this episode.So much plot was jammed into this but not much action. Weird. Poor, poor Malcolm Hogarth- the lying liar who lies (gah! We did see that at the end of this ep, right?!- feel free to pm me if this needs spoiler protection)- seems ridiculously out of place in this story. Particularly when there's another Hell's Kitchen lawyer that would probably be pretty interested in helping. I do wish Jess had chosen to thump Hope about two minutes prior to when her head hit the door frame. I was sufficiently spoiled to understand that this wouldn't be an action show. I still wish it was an action show. Or maybe more of an action show. YMMV but I'm sad that due to the extraordinary violence, potty mouths, and bold sex, I can't watch with my 13 yr old.

Squeee! 0 days 16 hours 38 minutes 56,55,54,53...