marny

The surrogacy on this series was fairly unique in that usually surrogacy does not involve using the surrogate’s own eggs. In most cases, there will be a separate donor’s eggs (either the mother or a third party) and the surrogate will solely serve as a womb. So in this case, biology absolutely plays a part. While of course adoptive mothers are real mothers, there’s a reason why we distinguish between the terms “biological mother” and “adoptive mother”- they are each a type of mother. To pretend otherwise ignores reality. Not to mention, if “motherhood” is defined as the person who loves and raises the child, then Mia is Pearl’s mother, even without the biological connection. The arrangement set up by the Ryan’s was extremely messy and left them with very few legal protections. There’s a reason why surrogacy isn’t usually done this way.

I don’t think it would have even occurred to them for her to learn about her culture if it hadn’t come up as an issue during the trial. While they wouldn’t prevent her from learning, they also wouldn’t even compute why the fortune cookies at the birthday party was tone deaf. Which is in line with the “we don’t see color” of many well-meaning White people.

Children are human beings who are not required to suppress their feelings simply because their mother made a bad decision to give up her dreams. Elena regrets her decisions but instead of trying to figure out how to find happiness within her life or to make efforts for her children not to feel as stuck as she did, she uses that “determination” to pigeon-hole her kids the same way she felt pigeon-holed. And god forbid her child not conform to the fake life she’s envisioned. Was Izzy difficult? Yes, as are most teenagers— and her difficulties were well-earned. Was Elena a good mother to her? No. And then she has the gall to try to get dirt about whether Bebe ever considered not giving birth to Mai Lin when she herself didn’t want Izzy and regretted her existence every day? Amazing. But her actions are forgivable because she has money and a support system. A major difference I’m seeing is that Bebe was likely desperate and suffering from post partum during her worst moment of abandoning her child. What’s Elena’s excuse for emotionally abandoning her child for her entire life? I agree with the posters here who don’t like the writer’s implicit message that biology is what makes a better parent, but I’m also grossed out by the many arguments I’ve seen here that seem to say money is what makes a better parent.

He might be able to get a decent job offer but there's truly a miniscule chance of him becoming a judge. First, he'd have to get licensed in Missouri (like others stated), but also, he'd literally need to learn the law of an entirely new state to be a competent judge-- even in traffic court. I'm a lawyer and can tell you that this isn't an easy task. Second, judges are either appointed or elected. He wouldn't have the connections to get appointed, especially compared to long-time local attorneys. And running against a local wouldn't be very successful either. I know this show isn't realistic, but it really showed the writers' snobbery that they assumed a California lawyer could just waltz into a small town in Missouri and become a judge there as if they would be so impressed with his big-city talents that he wouldn't even need to be qualified.

I disagree that Mia paid for Bebe’s lawyers to spite Elena. She’s doing it because she’s projecting her own insecurity about the righteousness of her decision to take Pearl away from a wealthy couple onto Bebe’s situation. Even if Elena hadn’t been Mia’s conduit to locating Mai Lin, I don’t think Mia’s actions would be different as far as helping Bebe. Elena being a part of the conflict is just icing on the cake.

It looked to me for a minute in the courtroom like Elena understood Bebe’s feelings when she left her child at the fire station. After all, we just saw in last week’s episode that there was an incident where Elena dumped her 4 babies off on her husband and disappeared for the night. What would she have done if she didn’t have that husband to leave the kids with or the money for caretaking help? There hasn’t been much overt acknowledgement of postpartum depression on this show— I can’t remember if it was understood that well in the mid-90s— but clearly both Elena and Bebe have suffered from it. It’s just Elena had a support system. Also, now that Elena has told Pearl about the circumstances of her birth for no reason other than spite, I’m totally fine with someone burning her house down. She’s always claiming she’s “just trying to help” and doesn’t get that no one is actually asking for her help. She’s just an angry, selfish woman who’s only concern is what other people think of her and will hurt anyone who disrupts her perfect image. She’s not upset because Linda might lose her child, she’s upset because Linda might blame her for bringing Mia into their lives and that could hurt her social status.

Agreed wholeheartedly. It’s not a clever name and it’s easily forgettable. While it’s a cute idea to send out an email blast campaign for customers to remember to use it on a certain day each month, it’s not a good name for the product itself. Plus why the frog? Does it only prevent frogs? Is it made of frogs? Do frogs recommend it? Since the answer to those questions are all no, lose the frog.

The duvet cover idea was good enough , but most people buy bedding based on its pattern or color, so it's unlikely to be a successful product line unless she can hire a designer who can create desirable textiles for her product line. All the ones she showed were just boring pale-colored solid covers. Plus her packaging sucked. I don't know if her idea of a duvet that unzips on three sides is able to be patented (or if it's even a unique design in the first place), but her only chance to be successful would be to license the design to other bedding companies.

At first I was thinking Mia was a surrogate, but then I decided maybe Mia got pregnant and was planning to adopt out the baby. But then changed her mind at the last minute and ran off with the baby, taking her away from the adoptive parents. Because if it were a surrogacy situation, I feel like her position in the Bebe situation would be different— she’d sympathize more with the non-bio mother since she herself is the non-bio mother. of course, this is just my speculation.

Maybe I missed something, but what law did Kat break? My recollection is the assistant gave her access to the tax documents (right?)— she didn’t steal them. And releasing the documents isn’t against the law— she’s covered by the first amendment on that one. I get the board wanting to fire her for embarrassing the company, but honestly it makes them look even worse to fire her for revealing Scarlet’s hypocrisy. I don’t think she’ll have trouble finding a new job at a place that admires integrity. Please correct me if I’m forgetting some scene where Kat hacked into RJ’s personal files or broke into his home or something.

I don't think we're supposed to like or sympathize with Mia. I think we're supposed to see that she's not necessarily a "better mother" than Elena, but that she is also flawed but in different ways. Both women are their own brand of unlikable. As a viewer, we're trained to want to sympathize with the one with the greater struggle, but sometimes the one with the greater struggle is an asshole too. I do think there's some reason why she is so all-in with helping Bebe. After all, if she can get access to $30k very quickly, there must be an explanation for why she'd do it to help a virtual stranger as opposed to wanting to invest in a more stable life for her daughter. I can see being sympathetic to Bebe's plight and wanting to help, but that's above and beyond what even the most loyal friend could and would do (barring extreme wealth).

RVs are much more expensive and harder to drive. That was the very first thing the entrepreneurs pointed out. The nail device was brilliant and I can’t believe it’s never been invented before. I felt like the Sharks barely talked about the actual product. Was there even mention of a patent?

I think the pool idea was crazy, but I also think it's crazy that people would be renting out their apartments or rooms in their homes to internet strangers for the weekend (AirBnB) and wouldn't have thought all of us would be so excited to get into cars with random strangers to get rides home from the airport (Uber/Lift). So, what do I know?

I can’t believe I’m the first to say it: Wunch time is over!

This documentary should have been at least 2 episodes shorter. The story itself is interesting, but it got incredibly redundant and long-winded. Actually it would probably be better as a podcast than a visual documentary since it relied so heavily on actor re-enactments and b-roll type shots since they didn't have very much video footage of anything important.

While Bite may have more environment-friendly packaging, it's going to be very difficult to convince people to spend that much more for toothpaste. $12 for a 30-day supply (I assume that's if you brush twice a day?) is a lot more than most people are used to spending on toothpaste. And the commentary about the "bad stuff" in traditional toothpastes is just not backed up by real scientific authority. This gullibility is what led to her putting out a product that didn't even have fluoride in it. And now that she's adding fluoride back to it, all those customers who buy into the idea that additives = bad are not going to want to use her product anymore. So she's pretty much left with just an overpriced product that has good packaging. That will result in quite a narrow market.

Interesting. It seemed way too VSCO girl for someone like Jane who's always dressed to the nines.

I'm a lot older than the main women on this show, but are those clunky bright white dad sneakers that Jane was wearing with her jeans in the park a real thing for fashionable women these days? They weren't even cool hightops or classic Jordans-- just sneakers I think my 70-something dad owns. Oh, and also, the clothes Sutton picked out to style Raven Symone were terrible. A short, curvy woman in culottes? No, girl. A busty woman with a button down buttoned all the way to the neck? Bad idea. I know Scarlet has started using models of different shapes and sizes, but I'm not sure Sutton has mastered how to dress non-traditional model body shapes.

There is absolutely a demographic for Fur-- it's the "young, sex positive, but peer-pressured to fit in" demographic. Unfortunately, none of the sharks are likely to appeal to that demographic, and aside from bringing money to the table, I can't imagine any of them being helpful to that business. It was clear from Lori's commitment to giving money towards a "body positivity" charity (without being knowledgeable enough to name any examples) that she doesn't get it. It's not about being body positive in what she thinks that means. They'd be better off partnering with a young entrepreneurial celebrity who young women can relate to. This isn't a Bed, Bath and Beyond product line.

Loved angry Jerry wearing the crab sweatshirt that we learned at the wedding he only wears when he's crabby. Great callback.

Even if there was some kind of contractual obligation that forced Jessica to stick around through the wedding day, she wasn’t forced to have sex with Mark, but she did it anyway. If you know you don’t want to be with a guy, don’t have sex with him. It might just possibly mislead him into thinking you like him— along with constantly cooing “I love you” in your best baby voice. At least Kelly was kind enough not to have sex with Kenny when she knew she wasn’t into him.

What's hard about Jessica and Mark is that they have no clue how they're going to be edited, so they're each trying to come across well, meanwhile coming across terribly. Jessica is just trying to force Mark to dump her so she can be perceived as the poor victim. Instead, she's coming across as a huge jerk who settled for a nice enough guy after her first choice didn't want her, but won't just let that poor second-choice guy go. And Mark, in putting up with her nonsense, is coming across like a pathetic doormat. I wonder if he's afraid to be the one to walk away and be depicted as a shallow guy who doesn't want to be with an "old lady".

On another note, I thought it was crappy that McDonalds pays off the 1 million in $50 thousand interest-free increments over the course of 20 years. While it’s a nice supplement to your life and all to get an extra 25k annually (after you pay the taxes on it), it’s not like you can quit your job or live the high life. At least the lottery gives a lump sum option.

Sorry— I’m behind in my watching. Anyway, there was no evidence Maritha made a fake profile of Dejanay. Dejanay just said that someone made a fake profile of her and she assumed there was a connection. Apparently there’s someone else out there chasing the clout of an eyelash specialist in the Bay Area /s.

Angelo is a lovely man but had no business being on a show where people make clothes. I hate when it’s obvious that a casting is about personality and not abilities. He’s been very open about his technical limitations, so I doubt he pretended otherwise during the auditions. So they gave him a spot that could have been given to a capable designer and foisted him on a partner who would have to do all the heavy lifting for half the season. It truly sours me on the show, which is unfortunate because, like I said, Angelo seems like a lovely person.