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Her name is Elizaveta Tuktamysheva (also known as Liza). Liza had a rough season last year and didn't qualify for Sochi (she was 10th in Russian Nationals). She competed more than any other skater in major and minor competitions (13 IIRC) to get her confidence back and placed 1st in most of them. She's not the best spinner or most flexible but her jumps are pretty amazing, including the 3A she reeled off like it was a double. Shows you can never count someone out. Last year, nobody would've bet she would win Worlds. I liked this years Worlds better than last years. No gifting of medals (ahem Kostner last year) and all new winners. BelleBrit summed up my thoughts on the US Ladies, although I'm a fan of Ashley's and have to disagree with flingle about her arms. I actually think Ashley uses her arms really well, perhaps it was the choreography? I think Jason Brown was phenomenal, coming in 4th w/o the Q word and skating last in the FS. I'm still not in love with his programs this year but I think he grew into them (and happy that he got rid of the tan pants and boot covers in his costume). He's starting to look like a man on the ice, not a kid. Well, they are going to show mens and pairs, I believe in 2 weeks. But by then, who cares? Anyone who cares about skating will have sought out the videos online anyway. I wonder if NBC will show Josh Farris, since he was not in the final two groups.

Well, if C&B win the gold over W&P (they are currently in first place after the Short Dance), I think NBC will at least show their winning freeskate (if that happens). I wonder if Tanith wasn't available for commentary?

I think this makes sense for some kind of motive, as much as this show can make sense. But at the end of the show, the Liars haven't escaped so will he still plan to gas them? Clearly he can't kill them all, b/c we'd have no show otherwise. It could be a mind game, too. If Charles actually killed all the Liars, he'd have nothing to amuse himself with. Like most of you, I am just happy to have Mona back and clearly Tanner will have to release Ali if Mona is alive. I'm happy that Tanner finally got on the A train b/c she was so frustrating. I wonder if Toby's "she takes whatever info I give her and twists it to fit her theories" was some kind of shout out to the fans who do the same with whatever crumbs IMK provides in each episode, lol.

The only program of Ashley’s I really liked before this season was her Black Swan, the arm movements were cheesy but effective, her others kind of left me cold, even Samson and Delilah. I absolutely love her Moulin Rouge and the music cut is perfect for her – I give a lot of credit to Shae Lynn Bourne who choreographed it. I think she and Ashley are a great match of skater and choreographer (the same could be said for Jeff Buttle and Josh Farris) as Shae Lynn seems to really get Ashley’s style and brings out her strengths. The program has also evolved over the season and I’ve heard that they were adding some more transitions for Worlds. I do hope they keep the lyrics going forward and this will open up more options for the skaters. They can’t keep doing Phantom and Carmen ad nauseum.

So I caved and read the Reddit spoilers. I am thrilled that Mona isn't dead, but how can they not explain the body in the trunk? If we never saw that, I could believe this one more. I love how A is shown as being increasingly insane in the dollhouse. As if A wasn't insane enough already, lol. I suppose ABCF will call their #BigAReveal is about Mona not being dead. Lame!

This ep was crazy as usual but I loved Caleb, who was the only one making any sense. I loved his tirade at Tanner - the actress has smug and condescending down pat. I don't understand that Ali didn't explain in the trial that she and her bunkmate fixed the archery results. Maybe she gave up and knew she was going to be convicted. Anyway, I don't see the correlation that being good in archery means you have brute strength to throw a girl into a wall. It's not like she won a weightlifting trophy! For some reason I thought this was the finale, so I was hoping they would show A in the end tag - was hoping it was Mona again. We know Mona liked dolls (with all the ones still in her bedroom), so clearly A loves playing with dolls too. I don't watch "Parks and Rec" so I was clueless about the Perd Hapley thing. Did like Sara Shepard's cameo - maybe she's A, lol since she's been there since the beginning. Anyway, after all this time, any A reveal is going to be a letdown.

Hoping that Caroline recovers successfully, and if she chooses to resume competitive skating in the future, I wish her the best. Worlds is starting in about a week, anyone care to make predictions/wishes? I just want everyone to skate well, no splatfests. Would be happy with some American medals in the mix (and not just ice dance) this year. I think Ashley has a shot at the podium - and it will be her, Elena and Liza battling it out. Ashley has the best PCS generally speaking so if she doesn't flutz and skates like she did at nationals, I think she will break the drought. I'm not counting Gracie out either - hope she can finally deliver this season. Polina is the wild card, too, but I think she will be top 5 or 6. I think Yuzu will win again unless he's not in good shape after his surgery. I think it will be Javi and Denis on the podium but would love it if Josh could sneak on there somehow but now that he's announced he's not putting a quad in his short, I don't think it's possible.

There were parts of this I enjoyed (the cousins!) but overall it was a little flat, mostly due to plotting and too many shifts in tone (Send up? Family drama? Fun romp? - this show can't decide what it is and doesn't blend these three things well) I also didn't understand King Simon's wanting to abolish the monarchy b/c his son died in the military and it's tradition. So break the tradition without breaking the monarchy. Besides he doesn't have any political power, the Prime Minister does. I assume we will have someone in that role? I don't mind Ophelia (except her name) - she seems to be the character who is most grounded in reality and I assume is supposed to be the audience surrogate (similar to how Dan was in Gossip Girl).

I'd like to know how the prosecutor knew that Jason was sleeping with Ashley? Is A sending information to the DA's office? It happened one time in her house, so clearly each PLL has their home under surveillance. I don't understand why they dont' have their homes repeatedly swept for bugs/cameras, etc.

I actually didn’t notice that the credit card VO was Will’s voice. I thought it was some inside joke about JM’s VO for Chase. When watching again with the close caption on it said Will’s voice. Yes, fake Will was really bad, but I think Alicia needed to say goodbye to him in some way. I thought in some ways this ep was brilliant (in concept) and in others cringeworthy (in execution). We didn’t need to see how much she still resents that Kalinda slept with Peter. We know that because they haven’t shared a scene (except by phone) in years. I hope Canning is dead – I love MJF but enough of this character. I love Marissa and I hope Sarah Steele becomes a regular if her theater career doesn’t get in the way. She and AC are a great comedy team. I’d watch their spinoff (The Golds), if they had one.

Seeing Spencer and Melissa trying to mend fences was sweet, but we all knew that wasn't gonna last long. I did like Spencer's date with English guy, and Troian really looked her age when she's dressed up. I was trying really hard to remember what Melissa's secret was - and I had to look it up online. She was the one who buried Bethany b/c she thought Spencer had killed her, right. Poor Hanna being framed and thinking that Ali sold her out. I would like to know who beat up Ali in prison - didn't anyone ask her when she went to infirmary to get cleaned up what happened? The Marins have no luck - Ashley was framed for Wilden's murder and now Hanna for Mona's. Whomever "A" is hates the Marins the most, IMO. Glad Ezria is no more, finally. It really is twisted that now Aria is of legal age, he's not interested anymore.

What was up with the Bishop storyline and his son's bullying? Was it to humanize him or manipulate Kalinda into thinking that he's not such a bad guy b/c of his love for his son. I bet Kalinda didn't want to tell about the bullying b/c Bishop would somehow "arrange" for the child to be beaten up or worse, instead of just placing a call to the boy's father, like a "normal" parent would do. I didn't mind Colin Sweeney's storyline only b/c we got to see Laura Benanti as his twisted wife, Renata. I like her character on "Nashville" but she must have fun with this role. Her agent must be working overtime between these two shows and her Radio City gig coming up (which was shown during the commercials in NY). I watched the Letterman segment where they talked about her $10K wig. Her wig always looks wiggy to me, even though it's made of real hair and it's colored beautifully. I have curly hair like she does and yes, it can take up to an hour to wash/blow dry it pin straight (and I've been to Dry Bar on occasion - nice plug for them, lol), so I can see why they invested in the wigs.

I know this is OT but I remember that show! Jean Marsh wrote and produced it, IIRC. Loved the designing Elliott sisters and yes, they must've sunk most of their budget into the costumes b/c the sets looked cheap. I think it was also videotaped and not filmed. That was back when A&E was more of a PBS kind of network and not full of reality shows.

And then A was in Mike's room with a wrench of some sort? Although for him to be A is just really random, who is this guy? Hanna's dance was awesome - I expect to see lots of animated gifs of that for sometime to come. How sweet of Emily to offer to do the pageant and give her the money if she wins. What a great friend she is. So if Mona was taking her own blood (another one of her talents) no wonder she fainted during the Xmas auditions. Would love for her to still be alive but her plan made my head hurt.

4CC's was certainly a mixed bag this year. The men were mostly fantastic and congrats to Denis Ten on his well deserved win as well as Josh Farris and Han Yan, who both overcame challenges from the Grand Prix series to medal here. The ladies, OTOT, were not so great. I loved Zijun Li and wish she had placed higher - she has the prettiest layback I've seen in a long time. Congrats to Polina for surprising everyone with 2 clean performances and winning here. Gracie, what can I say? She could have easily taken gold here, but her nerves and mental issues got to her. I'm glad I'm not a huge Gracie fan b/c I'd be so disappointed that she continues to struggle this season (I have enough of that w/Mirai!). I love Samantha Cesario and her portrayal of Carmen, but she needs to retire that routine and work on her speed and edge issues. She almost always skates clean and is a great performer and I wish her results were higher. Not so into pairs and Ice Dance, but glad the Shibs had an awesome showing in their SD. Congrats to Duhamel/Radford on another win - I don't love their style but love how they push the technical envelope. And I loved Pang/Tong's routines, even though they weren't perfect. Nice to see some old folks show them how it's done! Now we have a long break until Worlds in late March. That should be exciting :)

Denis' SP was gorgeous to watch - what a huge 3A he had. He's so far ahead points wise, I think he will take gold over Shoma Uno, who's another junior to senior level superstar in the making. It was nice to see that most of the top men had SB points. Josh Farris is in 5th place - he was the only US man to skate clean. Good for Jason for trying, but I think he got about 2 points for his quad, which hurt him. Otherwise he would've been in the low 80s with his score. Ladies' was more underwhelming - Gracie is in 2nd behind Satoko Miyahara, despite a subpar SP where she singled her axel and ran into the boards during her 3-3. If Gracie wasn't Gracie, her score would've been much lower, IMO.

I think if you didn't cry last night, you are a sociopath - a four hankie ep for sure. All the buildup in the promo with Jeremy's exit and the Steroline kiss - I wasn't sure they were going to kill Liz off - thought they might wait until the season's end. (For the record, I like S/C together, have ever since he helped her with her transition but that shipper name sounds like a disinfectant!) Agree about the Enzo hate. I don't like to hate TV characters but he just irritates. Being a bully to Matt and getting revenge on Stefan with Sarah is just boring. I loved that Elena had the munchies and was eating fries like a human. I suppose vampires still have appetites for things other than blood on this show?

I'm usually good at recognizing actors I know from other shows, but it must've been my flu-like haze that prevented me from realizing that the journalist was Jones (Sharif Atkins) from "White Collar." Maybe it was the facial hair or seeing him out of a FBI suit that did it. I felt this ep was trying very hard to recapture some S1 goodness and felt that they succeeded on some level, but not quite. Was so happy to be Katrina free until she showed up at the end. It's so true, KW has maybe one or two expressions in her acting arsenal. I think I liked the Frank/Jenny stuff the best. And I like reading Orlando Jones' tweets during the show - he's got some crazy notions and hashtags. I like when he called Ichabod Dickabod. I'm assuming he must have all of his tweets written before the show airs and then just posts them. He's not coming up with that on the fly.

Agreed, and don't forget Gracie's stress fracture. It took Karen a long time to recover from her ankle injury to get the point where she could skate lights out like she did at Nationals. I always wonder why some skaters are more prone to injury than others. It could be their coaching schedule and possibly technique or a mixture of those.

Hope this isn't spoilery, since NBC isn't showing Europeans until next weekend. http://www.isuresults.com/results/ec2015/CAT002RS.HTM As predicted, the Russian Ladies are in the top 3 with Elena and Liza battling it out for the Gold. Elena won Nationals, but Liza won the GPF so we'll see what happens in the long. Good for Kiira Korpi in 4th - she's having a good comeback season so far.

A has been stepping up his/her scares for the PLLs lately and Caleb (who is now the 5th Liar). Is A counting on one of the others to save them or is A trying to really kill them? What if Emily hadn't gotten to "Sparia" (#SaveSparia - who comes up with these hashtags?) in time? Doesn't really make sense if A is trying to frame Hanna or one of the others, b/c you have to be ALIVE to be framed and go to prison. Speaking of Caleb, I'm really glad he's back in Rosewood. One bright spot in this crazy season so far. After building up the "What's in the Barrell?" drama, I was surprised we didn't even get to see what was in there. Assuming it's someone's remains, I suppose we will find out that (unless they've been altered chemically beyond being ID'ed) along with the blood sample on the floor. I bet the blood sample is Mona's whether left there accidentally or on purpose, we'll see. (I'm still wondering what happened to blood sample that Mona had when she fainted.) Just as Ezra decides that he doesn't want to be with Aria as she goes to college, we have Thalia, who appears to be Ezra's age, interested in our Emily. Are there no other lesbians her own age in Rosewood she could date?

Did you see him strumming his guitar and singing? Like a young John Mayer without the ick factor. Me too. Ice Dancing is so full of politics so they have to wait their turn. (True all of FS is political, but Ice Dancing more so b/c it's even more subjective). IMO, I would've put the Shibs (so elegant!) in 1st, C/B in 2nd and H/B in third. H/B remind me of a young Virtue/Moir with their grace and chemistry. H/D are a hot mess and remind me of the US version of Bobrova/Soliev of Russia. There's a lot of dislike for Ashley on this board, but I'm thrilled for her. I love her FS and so happy she skated so well, w/o two foots or URs. Did she deserve her scores? Inflated for sure, but she deserved the win with Gracie's small mistakes. Also thrilled for her BFF Adam Rippon, a long time coming for him to deliver on his promise. Silver is the best he could've hoped for with Jason being the anointed one this year. I like Jason's skating and boy does he work hard, but I liked his programs last season better. Karen Chen made a huge splash - I've followed her on the junior circuit and knew she could deliver and make the podium if clean. Honorable mention to Mariah Bell being in sixth. I've liked her programs for a while now, and she delivered here with her joyful skating and her elegance.

I only watched the Frank Irving B plot because that’s really all I care about at this point. Pairing up the Cranes to solve a mystery while on a date is just something I don’t want to see. This is not why I watch this show. I thought the Frank parts were well acted (especially OJ) and I liked Abbie’s skepticism about his true nature, since he is supposed to be dead. I think his wife’s reaction was more of shock than disinterest. The scene with Jenny and the bullets was awesome b/c it was gross and scary and then funny when she yelled her frustration at Hawley. More of this, less of the Cranes and their date night. And why was Katrina dressed more or less like a modern woman while Crane is still in period dress? (or maybe this is subtle way of the costume designers showing they are mismatched?) When I heard Michelle Trachtenberg was going to play Abigail Adams, I was excited to hear this since I’ve watched her on Gossip Girl, Buffy and even as a kid on Pete & Pete. But it sounds like it was a disappointing role for her.

So, maybe I wasn't paying attention but did Hanna admit she was "H" (not Holbrook) and sent the flowers? Maybe Holbrook is in the barrel - Mona would be too easy/obvious. Count me in as fan of Caleb and Spencer's doing the Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew thing, even if both need a pair of gloves. I had to laugh when Aria's email to Jackie came out of the register. How in the world does A (the writers) do these things or think of these crazy ways to torture the girls?

I'm still laughing that former do-rag juvie Toby is now a member of the Rosewood PD. It is ironic that he joined the PD to help Spencer and the Liars and now of course he and Spencer are at odds over the knife. Not sure how I feel about Jason and Ashley. We've mostly seen older men perving on teenage girls, so part of me is "you go girl" and the other part screams "mommy issues." Poor Hanna - first she was subjected to the boring tour guide, then A puts dead deer meet in her stuffed animal, and then she sees Jason leaving her house.