Corvino

You don't have to be either Roman Catholic OR culturally appropriative to cross yourself in church. Some Episcopalians do it-- the "high" Episcopal church teaches it. (The "low" branch in which I was raised does not; I occasionally go to a small weekday service where everyone but me crosses themselves at certain points. I'd imitate them, but it would seem inauthentic to me.) I can see Laura coming from an Episcopalian family. Or the writers may just be ignorant of sectarian Christian nuances. I still remember an adaptation of Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" on PBS where the marriage service of the secondary lovers was done in a Latin the Church of England hadn't then used for more than three hundred years. Aargh!

"Great emotional torture story" is sooooo right. The only reason I watched it all was that I have a standing date to go over to my friends' house every Sunday, play Scrabble and then watch whatever is on Masterpiece, unless it's a rerun or we all three agree we don't want to. In this case, one of my friends found it moving, so his husband and I went along with it. But this last episode: GEENG CRINE!!! She dies at the 18-minute mark, and then the rest of the 45 minutes is milking and milking and MILKING the depressingness? Every detail of his watch by her body? Every replay of their happy moments? It was a relief when they showed his daughter sitting at the two graves; they get to be together in death, anyway. I hope she knows her mind better in the afterlife. But such a weird enterprise! Four and a half hours (given six 45-minute episodes) of nothing but the love story of people with a severe approach-avoidance conflict? And that's ALL it is, no intertwining with a heroic quest to get the talisman to save the world or survive a great war or solve a mystery? We watched the stuff after the 45 minutes and saw that the participants were very happy about this and thought that these two deserved this very close attention to their story. Ooooooh-kay. As I hinted above, it made one of my friends cry, and usually I love to cry at sad stories, but I actively resisted doing so at this episode because I had such a feeling of being POUNDED into doing so. And yes, never watch "The Patient". Oh, that enraging bummer of an ending!

Susannah said: "JMO, but isn't 15 a little old to go trick or treating? Don't teens generally go to Halloween parties instead?" I just had a fabulous Halloween where a few friends and I sat out on our building's stoop and distributed candy to several hundred trick-or-treaters. Of these, most were little kids shepherded by adults, but dozens were in fact teens Charlotte's age. Maybe they were opportunistic candy-seekers on their way to or from parties, of course. I didn't think this was wrong, because my favourite trick-or-treating stints in my youth occurred in my college years.

A friend who hadn't watched GH in a lot of years came over yesterday as I was recording it off the air, and due to my old-fashioned recording technology we couldn't start watching the DVD he brought till it was over. I therefore whiled away the time by telling him the full story of the Misfortunes of Sasha, from her and Brando's baby dying up to Thursday's cliffhanger with Dr. Evil coming into the room, to show him why I had to have the whole of the next episode. What I noticed was that, told all at once, that whole series of events made a dyn-o-mite story. They stretched it out WAY too much, with way WAY too many instances of Dr. Evil shooting up Sasha with the paranoia drug, but the basic facts are very compelling. Since Cody took steps to get in and rescue her and there was hope, this has been my favourite current plot strand. And then they gave me what I wanted! Hooray! I hope they write lots of aftercare and recovery and successful fighting of Dr. Evil and Gladys as they try to retrieve their disaster. Plus Mac finally finding out Cody is his son, for God's sake. Did his scene with Felicia foreshadow any progress on this? Well, I handwaved that seat belt action as a PSA-- ALWAYS use your seat belt, children-- but it reminded me of a Grade Z horror movie of the 1940s whose title I forget. The hero and heroine screech up to the sinister mansion in his convertible, they have to get in to save the day and every second counts, but the hero gets out of the car on his side, goes around the back of it and politely opens the door for the heroine, as was the custom at that time. She waits for him to do this. Riiiight.

Okay, I marked this to watch last year but didn't get around to it till now. I join the group that is sorry we watched it. I am angry at the ending, to the point of not liking the fact that a lot of people here are praising it for its realism. As some have said, it's not the only realistic ending possible, and I want justice. I despised Sam so much when he killed Elias (triggered just by the poor guy's implication that his parents loved and cared about him), and I really, really wanted him to not get away with his deeds. (I know it's not the subject of the show, but in the real world the police would have to catch up with Sam soon. He left his boss's body right out in the open, and he left clues when he dumped Alan. I can see the police detectives assembling their board: "Well, we know the killer isn't Jewish...") But I will form a table for one-- especially since everybody else has finished watching and commenting, and therefore reading, long ago-- to say that I think the writers' intent was that Sam chaining himself up at the end did count. I deduce this from the fact that when he handed his mother the key, her expression was smiling and tearful: "Yes, this is how it should be." And their lingering handclasp, as if for the last time, said the same. So now he gets to pee into a bowl and not change his underwear till the cops show up in five days, or until he dies of starvation because his mother decides that should be part of the new policy.

I have watched "Endeavour" from the beginning, after watching "Inspector Morse" and "Lewis" as they came out, but I was so foolish as to have never come here to discuss it till now. I therefore had to spend much of this week reading all the pages before I could comment on the finale. A main reason for coming here was to be reminded of what the Blenheim Vale case was all about; I vaguely knew it was something several seasons ago, and I vividly remembered the awful season finale with Thursday almost fatally wounded in hospital and Morse looking stunned and devastated in jail, but I had not remembered those things were related. The show asked a LOT of its loyal viewers: to remember the names and details, in order to understand the final season, of an episode that aired NINE YEARS AGO???!!!??? But in any case, I watched "Exeunt" with two friends, and we were all satisfied but saddened; when it became apparent that Morse was going to end up separated from all the people he'd had connections with in the series, one friend said "Oh, how sad!" But I was specially devastated at one particular point in Morse's pub confrontation with Thursday. We had indeed been teased with the idea that Thursday would drop dead, but this was worse: he was the murderer in one of the cases??? Tootsie, above, cited the moment that slew me: Morse described Thursday as coming home from the killing unrecognizable as the captain he would have followed into Hell, and then, with fervent emotion, quoted "I know thee not, old man!" Which are the words the new-crowned King Henry V uses in "Henry IV, Part Two" to tell Falstaff, his beloved mentor and second father in his carefree days as Prince Hal, that he now casts him off! It's a heartbreaking moment in Shakespeare, Falstaff is so shocked by it that it basically kills him, and for Morse to use it to Thursday was just devastating. I burst into tears and distressed my friends after the show when explaining the reference to them. But then, thank God, Morse walked it back a bit. Thursday explained what had happened, it looked as if it was a quasi-accident while defending himself in the process of protecting his son, and I think Morse got that. So he didn't cast him off like Henry; Thursday and his wife and son had to go farther away than where he'd been transferred to avoid being killed by the bikers if they ever figured out who killed their guy, but that-- and not because they parted in alienation-- was why Morse never spoke of or saw the Thursday family in "Inspector Morse". (Besides the fact that they didn't exist yet when that series was made, I mean. In-universe explanation.) But Morse spared Thursday from the knowledge that he'd killed the corrupted adult version of the kid they'd been looking for, and he gave him back his retirement money so he and Win now can relax and go dancing, and they parted with some affection. I say Morse was not playing, but toying with the idea of playing Russian roulette: "What would be the result if I spun it and really aimed at my head?" So he pointed it somewhere else and found that it would have been a nasty result. Then he got on with his life. But I was very satisfied with his singing like an angel in the chorus, handing in his music and driving away, and passing his older self as he drove up to continue to sing in the chorus. Music, in particular, and opera in especial particular, of the things we know the older Morse loved, definitely can fill life with joy even without a regular family life.

Awww, shucks. I was hoping Ryan would heroically deliver Esme's baby.

Both the aspects of that sweet but boring wedding that people are questioning are legit and standard. It's always been in the church marriage service that, before starting, the officiant first asks the congregation whether they know any just cause why these people may not be joined together; then, second, asks the bride and groom (or nowadays any would-be spouses?) if they know anything. The old Episcopal service has good scary language about that: "I charge you both, as you shall answer to God at the dreadful Day of Judgement..." Laura was lovably informal and relaxed about that bit. Then asking the congregation to support the vows they're witnessing is something churches have brought in in recent decades for all kinds of public avowals. We're supposed to answer "We will!" to whether we'll support these people at baptisms and church membership ceremonies as well as weddings. I take it it's an attempt to bind the congregation as a community. Heather is not going to be pleased when she finds out that, when they escape, Ryan wants to stop off to pick up Ava to take with.

If there's a "Pennsylvania side of the river", Port Charles has to be on Lake Erie, not Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario is completely surrounded by New York and Ontario; no Pennsylvania is involved. It is very, very ludicrous that Port Charles is tucked away in that remote western corner of New York State and yet it's a major, essential port worthy of multi-mob activity, they can still casually visit New York City and all the other silly indicators of being unmoored from normal geography. All allegedly newborn babies on TV shows are too big, even on "Call the Midwife". I mock at it, but assume that it's a rule: nobody wants to subject a baby to bright hot lights and such till it's had a few weeks' experience in the world. Amelia Grace is certainly one of the biggest TV newborns I've seen, though. Surely the fact that the half-heart necklace was brought up again, and Nina even mentioned that Willow had a twin, means that Nelle is alive, will emerge from Lake Erie on a seashell, and will demand that Willow give her Wiley in exchange for bone marrow. No, that would only lead to further awful scenes of Martyr Willow choosing to die rather than do so. Nelle just needs to turn up and show Willow what a real bad relative looks like. And plague her for years.

I really, really, REALLY hope they're not getting ready for an epic four-way custody fight among Nik, Spencer, Esme and, say, Laura over baby Ace when it's born. Maybe Victor could try for custody too. Heather and Ryan could weigh in after outing themselves and taking DNA tests, on the grounds that they'd be better for the baby than its parents or brother. On the other hand, I'd like it better than the previous fuss about Wiley, because I like any of the above people much better than Michael. That is, I don't hate them.

People are disturbed by Curtis's eagerness to have a child with Portia, mostly because of her age. The real reason to be disturbed is the baby-storyline glut this would lead to, but I just wanted to say her age wouldn't necessarily be an obstacle. I am very closely related to someone who had her first and only baby-- quite some time ago, in mid-20th century-- at the age of 45. Without trying. It was an accident. I can't exactly recommend this course of action to Portia, since the pregnancy was not without danger (she had to have a C-section) and it did ruin her career; I would hope being fired for pregnancy would not be a factor in this day and age. But I think she liked the result otherwise, and Portia might. I don't care very much about the storyline, though I do care about Trina and Spencer's friendship developing as they want it, but what tiny modicum of caring I have about the Big Secret is that I don't want Taggart to be saddened by being deprived of Trina as his daughter. Phooey on that, I say.

I didn't think the pregnant young woman at the door in an ethereal blue head-shawl was the Hook; I wondered if they were going with her being the ACTUAL Virgin Mary, and she and the baby would disappear in a burst of radiance after it was born. But no. Olivia got the reference but it wasn't literal. If Ned and Austin are first cousins, as they are, Ned's daughter is Austin's first cousin once removed. If Austin has a kid, it would be BL's second cousin. Merry Christmas to all! I have no business being here reading and writing this! I hope everyone else is more prepared for their Christmas guests than I am!

AAAAAAAND the tree in Sonny's penthouse, amid the brown, the black and the starkly lighted face fragments on sticks, has all-white lights, not pretty coloured ones. Worse and worse for Christmas cheer, though I know all-white ones can be very pretty if there's any prettiness in the surrounding scenery. Oh dear oh dear. On the other hand, I am very, very happy about Ryan and Heather's retcon of a past. In my spotty past history of watching, I never came across Heather before her current incarnation (had to look her up in a wiki to find out why she was a dangerous criminal lunatic), so I apologize to people who feel that this is an outrage on her past history. But as a new acquaintance doing a funny new thing, she's great, and her interaction with Ryan is so very satisfying. Today's episode was dreary because it didn't have this dynamite couple and their resolve to find and help their psycho child. On the third hand, Elizabeth's story that the baby she got the vitamins for is hers with Nik makes me so very, very tired, so profoundly tired, so epically tired, that I may not be able to get and decorate a Christmas tree. My cozy living room may look as sad as Sonny's because of Elizabeth's stupendously tiresome idiocy.

Oh how awful is that penthouse of Sonny's as a place to celebrate Christmas in. Or to live in at all, really. The brown! The black! The half-faces on sticks! It depresses me just to contemplate Nina and Donna trying to counter that décor with any amount of Christmas decoration. Actually, Nina should have an intervention to get Sonny to redecorate; it might cheer him up too so that he doesn't relapse into his off-putting, un-Mikelike mob boss mode.

Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night did, in fact, threaten to kill not Olivia's actual other lover, Sebastian, but Cesario, the "boy" Olivia had fallen for who was actually Viola, Sebastian's twin sister, in disguise. Orsino erroneously thought Cesario had betrayed him. Annika was right in saying he (very temporarily) threatened to kill the person he loved rather than let another have them, but he didn't realize yet that Cesario/Viola was the person he really loved. All this was too complicated for Annika to convey to a murderer crazed with rage and regret from the trunk of the car as he drove to his death, so I excuse her inaccuracy. So I saw the last episode last Sunday night and (being with two loquacious friends, and in a postprandial food coma) missed the last line. I just rewatched it and said "WHOA!!" I then came here, for the first time, to see if I'd understood right, and got the unfortunate reveal of Morgan's paternal parentage on the first page. So it's confirmed; I did understand right. I'm glad I wasn't spoiled; it really worked for me. I too love that Nicola Walker is playing someone cheerful, and I love her fourth-wall breaking. Like Shakespeare and Hathaway, which has referenced a Shakespeare work in each episode, the episodes here don't always chime with the literary classic she tells us each week, but it's fun to look for parallels.