swanpride

Okay...who went and punched Chapman with a glitter fist? And I thought the make-up last week was bad. Not my episode...the make-over are always my least favourite challenges. It always results in a bunch of really ugly runways. This time especially so, other than Pryanka nobody delivered something worthwhile. I really don't get the excitement over the red latex thing, it barely looked good on Jimbo, it was through and through ill-fitting on her "sister". And the praise for Scarlet Bobo really surprised me. It was a leotard with a fringy jacket. Not only are those the most boring items you can wear on the runway, they didn't go together at all. If they had done a four-way lip-sync, I would have been okay with it. But instead we got a lot of judging shenanigans: Rita deserved to go over this. The dresses looked cheap, they didn't go together at all, and Lemon clearly won this lip sync. And not just because of her well-timed gymnastics, but also because she was actually interpreting the text in her movements. I honestly, don't get why the Jury is actually that in love with Rita at all, but sending Lemon home for her was a bunch of BS, and most likely the result of them wanting her and Jimbo as "big rivals" in the finale. Well, I wanted to see Lemon going up against Pryanka.

If you look at the YouTube version of this episode and read the comments under it, there are a lot of people sharing stories about reasons why they themselves or other people get rejected for jury duty….aside from all those people who have a degree in something like psychology, and one who apparently was once part of a jury which convicted a cop and was after that never called to duty again, the story which takes the cake was the one of a Hispanic women who got rejected after she admitted that she would be unable to make her judgement just based on what the translator said. Basically she got rejected because she would have been able to understand the accused defend himself in his own words. Why is it that every time I just know that something in the US is pretty bad it turns out to be so much worse than I thought?

Honestly, I don't mind that the villains were more in the background...I rather wanted to focus on the big goodbye anyway. And it was kind of nice being able to have villains which can just blown away without any sad feelings for a change. I mean, Ward, Aida, Talbot, those are all villains I felt sorry for on some level. Though I wonder if the original plan had been to use whitehall instead of Nathanial, but the actor wasn't available.

My favourite is clearly the funnels. It's easy to follow and the one event which stays suspenseful to the very end. The racing events work for me UNLESS they happen under water. It is just too difficult to see who is truly leading there. Everything which involves something getting measured is a little bit difficult, because it is hard to keep track of who did how well, but the halfpipe is my favourite of those events. The high jump is at least easy to follow.

I never was on jury duty (since, as I mentioned, such a thing doesn't exist in Germany), but I went with my school class to observe a bunch of trials. Twice. And compared to what we get to see mostly on American TV shows, it was a truly surreal experience. It was more cooperative and less aggressive and often the punishment which were requested by the defence and the prosecutor wasn't really that far apart from each other. The prosecutor was less set on getting a conviction which was as high as possible. I think the only time where something like a "discussion" happened was when the defence tried to argue that their client (who had tried to rob a shop) deserved a milder punishment due to "taking a step back" from her actions and fleeing without the money...which lead to the judge saying quite sarcastically "that your client is too stupid to open a cash register is hardly a reason for a milder punishment" (since that was the actual reason why she left without the money). Anyway, it is a way, way more communicative affair. And yes, there are dangers in this process too, since a lot depends on the judge you get (hence the inclusion of Schöffen in more highly prolific cases), but in order to minimize this, there are a lot of things the judge doesn't really decide on his or her own. For example the question if someone over 18 should be judged as a youth or an adult...there is always some sort of expert in such questions who gives a recommendation if the defendant really thinks like a full adult already or if his development has somehow be stunted.

Who knows...if the fans make enough noise….

My favourite thing was seeing the Minties reaching the top three after being a "new" team in the line-up. I wish though they had been pitted less against the Rasberry Racers (which as usual, were carried mostly by Razzie - I fear, though, he got hurt more badly than he let on in this one event). All in all an exciting season which had suspense till the very end. And no, I don't feel sorry for the Orangers, their fans are sooooo annoying. The only thing I would change is the black hole event. That one was a bummer to watch.

Really, “The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and the D” as one of the top ten best episodes? I had it in my top nine worst episodes (top nine because I genuinely couldn't find 10 I felt comfortable putting on the list).

Count me in as being just as shocked about the "you don't want the educated ones" line as the (not surprising) "no black people" approach. Judging other people is a duty which SHOULD be done by people who are able to really examine the facts at hand and aren't easily swayed by emotional arguments (from either side). Honestly, WHUTTTTTT? I mean, it is shocking enough to consider how stupid the average human is, and then consider that half of the people out there is even more stupid, but if you deliberately get rid of the smart people, what kind of people are sitting on those juries? I was never a fan of the jury system (since I consider it wrong headed to have amateurs judge other people), but this is even worse than I thought. Oh, and, btw, I doubt that ALL the algorithm which just HAPPENED to exclude Black people happened by accident. Also, how the h.... did this DA even elected? Kind of disappointed that he didn't mention marble league....the last race was a really gripping event.

Btw, did anyone notice how many references to prior episode titles they threw into the finale?

Oh, right, naturally. I think there are two possibilities: We either saw the timeline which split in 2014 when Thanos went to another timeline or, more likely, it is the same timeline but the snap just never got mentioned because the Agents simply have other concerns.

They can just claim that she is one of the snapped.

4, 3, 2, 7, 1, 5, 6 Thus said, the ranking would look very different if I would go by arcs.

SWORD is in the comics the space division for SHIELD. The movies have hinted to move in this direction, most notable in Spider-Man Far from home. There have been rumours flying around regarding a show based on SWORD (I think the latest was the inclusion of Blue Marvel). And honestly all Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are pretty much overqualified. Regarding the new timeline: Not sure if Thanos would have it easier or not. With all the knowledge Deke has, it could give earth an advantage.

Lemon has been second best so often, she deserved the win.

Well, I have taken a slightly different approach for ranking the show...I have done a list with my worst episodes, and have used them as starting point to mentioning a bunch of episodes in which the show tried something similar way better. If anyone cares, here is the list: https://swanpride3.wordpress.com/2020/08/14/a-goodbye-to-agents-of-s-h-i-e-l-d/

Well, for the next five or so years he is still hanging around with Fitzsimmons, but after that, this version of Enoch will travel in the past to die there. And it wouldn't be wise to disrupt this…..

Yep. So it worked once, why shouldn't it work a second time?

But it can't be hurt to make a lot of noise that having Daisy in an Agents of Sword show is very much wanted.

Ilona has been canon fodder for a while now. It is no surprise that she had to go this week. Honestly, it would have happened last week if Boa had just put a little bit more effort in the lip sync. So...this week…Lemon clearly did the best, for the simple reason that she still had the spirit of one of those girls, while the others with the notable exception of Pyranka forget that part. And Pryanka was kind of a long string of missed opportunities. If she had done just a serious version of interpretive dance, and then hammed up the anger aspect, that would have actually been funny. Or if she had worded her 1% joke a little bit better, the idea was there, but the delivery didn't quite work. But all the others, they just went over the top and partly didn't even manage to hit the characters they were supposed to be. A few of them were at least funny, though. And I wouldn't have put her in the bottom. I wonder if they partly did because she was a sure bet of being able to finally take out Ilona. Regarding the runway: Again, Lemon is clearly the winner. It was a great idea to go 5 year old, but then deliver a really clean look (and for once her preference for not padding worked to her advantage). Jimbo's look was easily the worst. Okay, she likes to be funny, but Cracker has demonstrated multiple times that you can be both funny and glam, and this dress was just awful. Regarding Scarlet, I think she was funny, but there was little "misinformed" about her performance (I mean, it would have been really funny if she had acted the whole time as if she thought that she was at some other competition, or if she had talked about "alternative facts"), and her runway was good, but I just wanted to rip off that ruffle. In defence of Rita Bagga: Part of the reason why she looks older is her jawline. No shade, but she has a very strong Jawline, and this gives her a more mature look in female form. Jimbo has no such excuse, she paints old. On a different note, what the hell were the judges wearing this night? One had green dots at his eyes, the next had a turtleneck which went over her chin, the next had no eyebrows for some reason, the only one who didn't look like a fashion accident was Brooklyn.

Kind of, but remember how S.H.I.E.L.D. used to work. They don't really question other levels. There were people turning up obviously knowing what this was all about, so they followed orders. Hopefully Deke did something about this attitude later on...

"Oh, a creepy smile, that's new."

Yeah, a musical episode was all which was missing on the bucket list.

I am still trying to remember what happened to the first Lola. Technically they weren't in the same room together. They were all on their own mission. In my every growing headcanon Deke will be spending the next years looking out for a bunch of mini-agents. Minus Daisy, naturally. But he can now watch out for his bobo while he grows up fatherless….

Which reminds me: did anyone else think "Independence Day" when the Zephyr was sucked into the airship?