lasu

After seeing her on the reunion, I'm firmly in the "she's faking it" camp.

I didn't like Jisela back in the day, but I couldn't remember why, and I tried to mostly start fresh with this group since they've all hopefully done a lot of growing up since I last saw them. I didn't like Jisela during the season, but I LOATHED her during this reunion. She definitely thought she was the belle of the ball, and I'm not even buying her leg injury. Sorry/not sorry. She just seemed WAY too pleased to show off the brace, and I'll fully admit I don't know about these types of injuries, but it seemed like she went from hurt in the arena, to completely fine for the remainder of the season. I also despised the way she was all too thrilled to let Jemmye cosign why she was upset with Aneesa, but then when Derrick tried to say something Jisela flipped her fucking shit that he had no right to comment on her relationship. Hypocrite. Was she really the first call for this season?? Serious talk: WHY? Even though I really don't like her at this point, I just don't see where her resume makes her the number one call. And finally, her smugness that she didn't "coast" to the finals. OK, first, the idea that people have to go into the arena in order for their place in the "count"? Hard pass. I'm not going to risk going home just to get your stupid approval. Jemmye is not wrong about that. Yes's win counts every bit as much and his money spends just as well as if he had gone into every elimination. And A) Jisela didn't exactly volunteer to go in so she could "prove" herself, and B) she DIDN'T prove herself. She did nothing. Eric did all the work while she...coasted. That's right, I said it. In other news, Jonna is just lovely. I've had a soft spot for her since Zach did her so dirty, not only by ghosting out of a serious, live-in relationship, but then to be forced to watch the beginning of him with Jenna. It just squeezed my heart for her, and I'm really glad to see who she has become. It's easy to see she is a far better person than her ex. What the actual fuck was the host wearing? A one puffy sleeved demin business length shorts pants suit? I...no. Just, no.

Now this? Yes. Getting his name is stupid.

Only if you are concerned about your tattoos showing at a formal occasion. I do have tattoos, but they are easily coverable. However, while I can understand if other people don't, I actually love the contrast of a formal gown with visible tattoos, ie Angelina Jolie, Lady Gaga, etc. I can't imagine that Porsha is the type to let her ink dictate what she is going to wear!

Woah. The man is accused of a violent crime towards your sister and her husband, and you defend him?? That's...I don't even have words. Even though they haven't spoken in years, I can't imagine this didn't further hurt Dina after being victimized in such a traumatic way. What a shitty thing to do.

Blugh to everyone. I've been fairly neutral on Leah, but I truly disliked her this episode. I think the most egregious was calling Ramona a dumb bitch to R's employee. That puts the employee in such an awkward position where she is almost forced to defend Ramona, regardless of how she actually feels. She's just there trying to do her job - don't try to bring her into the middle of your nonsense and get her on your side. Absolute foul. Also, I don't have a problem with the word bitch on tshirts and masks or whatever. (As an aside, the "good dick will imprison you" tshirt actually made me lol, because: truth. Nothing worse than a good dick attached to a garbage man!) That said, if you are going to try to reclaim the word bitch, you cannot also use it as a slur against other women. You can't do both. The latter undermines the former completely. Next, if you take a vow of silence, that doesn't just mean not using your voice literally. You didn't vow to try to communicate in any way except your voice, and doing so only proves what an attention grab the whole charade (PUN INTENDED) was. I was really annoyed with Eboni especially but all of them for playing into it. Sonja was the only one with any sense when she was like, just ignore her. Yes. That's exactly what you do. Finally, I wish someone there was quick enough to shock her back about her ass eating comments when she said if she was a man she would be all over it. Um...all those men you expect to toss your salad? They also have asses. Get busy on that or shut your mouth. Speaking of Sonja...woah. Y'all, this isn't ok! Whether you think Sonja has brought her problems on herself or not, it has to be clear to anyone that the woman isn't ok and needs help. And honestly, I think Bravo owes her something at this point. I'm not saying it's their fault, but they have continued to employee her, film her, and put her on national television when anyone can see she's in crisis. I feel like Bravo is trying to see if they can get their first on screen death. I've never been one to say "so and so is ruining the show" or even thought about stopping watching a show because of a character (the ones that make my blood boil are the ones I tend to talk about, no coincidence there), but Sonja makes me feel unethical watching. Sonja makes me feel like I might have a moral obligation to stop watching this show. I'm sad and scared for her, and I truly help she finds the help she so desperately needs. I totally understand the people in her life being frustrated and angry and snapping - I truly do, but my heart also breaks to see someone so damaged, regardless of her own role in getting there. Damaged is damaged and I can't root for anything but help. And on that note, I think Lu was completely right and also pretty wrong when it came to Sonja/Tom. Luanne knows her marriage was shit, and I'm sure Sonja essentially making a LARGER claim to Tom has to just compound that. I totally get where she is coming from that it would be infuriating to listen to, and it would just seem like Sonja is further denigrating an already shitty situation. As I said above, I don't blame her for snapping. But it's also pointless. Eboni was right that screaming at Sonja is just making things worse. On the other hand, I'm not bothered at all at her giddiness over Garth. She may look silly, but she seems happy with him, so who cares? Life is short so climb that tall man like a tree. Oh Heather, so much cringe. I don't hate her or love her, but man, I felt bad for her walking into that shit show. It was clear she wasn't expecting it. She came in fully thinking Sonja would help her with her hair, and I literally said, OH NO, when she obviously did it herself and didn't know how. No shade - I couldn't have done it either. And while I'm not sure why she thought there would be no reaction to what appeared to be some pretty shitty things about these women, I couldn't help but feel bad for her when it was so obvious she was being frozen out. Ramona was great by Ramona standards. Saying that about mortgages was stupid - again like with Luanne, being right but also why bother saying? While Sonja's reaction was insane, no question about that, it also wasn't exactly unpredictable. Eboni - stop cosigning Leah's idiotic behavior and we'll be fine.

I've been listening to 60 Songs That Explain the 90s on Spotify and it's excellent. I'm definitely the right age for some 90s nostalgia, but at about an hour an episode, it's the perfect deep dive into the background of the band and song. And especially once the guest/s comes on, it tends to get hilarious. I know sometimes I look like a fool walking through the neighborhood cackling my head off, but I don't care. 😵

Yep. No idea who this Andrew person is, totally pulled that from no where.

To paraphrase REM, everybody sucks...sometimes. So here we go: Jackie - Just infuriated me all over again how badly the played the hand Theresa dealt her. She had Tre dead to right. And then she had to bring Gia into it. I'm not clutching my pearls over that - Gia's over 18 and could be off the show if she wanted to be. She has made a choice to stay on the show and get that sweet, sweet Bravo money. So as far as I'm concerned, she's fair game at this point, just like any other "character" making their own appearances on WWHL. But! It was insanely predictable that Jackie would lose her higher ground as soon as she said it. She gave Teresa a get out of jail free card, and it's annoying. Points for laughing about the shitty hair extensions. No good way to play that, really. Teresa - even if Margaret sat at home and decided to make up a rumor about Jackie, Teresa is STILL responsible for it being on camera and being a storyline this season. Teresa went to Jackie's home, with their real life friends and family, for Evan's birthday - a party celebrating him - and she goes and tells everyone about the rumor she heard. She also loses points for being too stupid to understand that "I heard a rumor Evan is cheating" and "I heard Evan is cheating" are the exact same sentence. Painfully dumb. And while I definitely do NOT like Teresa, I hope her new guy isn't toxic or just using her. It's not that I think she deserves a great man, but I don't enjoy watching ANY woman be mistreated by a man who claims to care about her, so I genuinely hope that's not where this is going. Jennifer - OK, I really liked her for the most part this season. While I don't like her clothes personally, she always wore her outfits, she never let them wear her. And while I too can understand how she might not have understood Marge's story about her boss when she first told it, that's no excuse to try to use it as an insult of Marge's sloppiness. Not cool. Her family is fucked up. She shouldn't have brought up the abuse stuff with both her mother and father in the room. Why would you do that? That said, Jenn's mom should find a better person to talk to about her husband. My mother likes to talk crap about my grandmother, and I'm like, naw. I'm not going to try to tell my mom what her relationship was like with her mother, but my grandmother was amazing to me and I'll not hear a bad word about her. My mom needs to find a different audience. Jenn is losing me on the reunion though. She's too smug and too happy to be part of gang up. Smug isn't a good look for her. Marge - WOMAN. You created the Jenn monster and now you can't handle the results. Marge has been completely irrational when it comes to Jenn, and it's all too easy see how much Jenn gets under her skin. It's infuriating to watch. She should be able to run circles around Jenn, but instead she's coming completely unhinged. Very frustrating. And while I don't think she needs to put on her hairshirt and I don't think she needs to feel undying shame, she should stop trying to make having an affair a meet-cute. I don't think she should lie about it, I think making light of it isn't a good look. Not just because society frowns on affairs, but more because her children and her ex watch this. It's not about shame, it's about decorum and thinking about other people feelings. Dolores - Oh no to the lip clip. I have no idea why I'm drawing this weird line. Like, she got her THIGHS lifted, and I was just like, weird, but do you. But feeling like your labia needs to be "fixed"? I can't explain why this feels so much more like self-directed misogyny than even getting one's boobs done. I imagine she's getting either free or heavily discounted procedures, but I hope she keeps it under control. Teresa better hope her man is on the up and up, because I don't think there is anyone Dee wouldn't murder if he fucked around with one of her kids. Mel & Joe - you know, maybe they did agree to do this as a storyline. But I bet it started feeling real pretty quickly. Melissa is ripe for divorce. Her husband is a pig, but when you're a stay-at-home mom to three kids, you know your options for leaving aren't ideal. But now she's the one holding the purse strings. She also just turned 40, which is going to likely provoke you to look at your life - especially when coupled with being stuck at home during a pandemic. She's also extremely attractive and not a complete idiot...so, yeah. They might have been faking for a storyline, but...I smell smoke. I think there's fire. Also, Divorcing Melissa, Single Melissa, Newly In Love Melissa - that's three seasons right there. I wonder if JoeGo knows how much trouble he's in.

Darrell carrying Ruthie with I Will Always Love You, all The Bodyguard was hilarious. Except it stopped mid lyric, which drove me insane. But otherwise it totally cracked me up.

That is infuriating, not least of all because the character as presented on screen is a cis woman. For the Oscar wins, I think Carey's performance was good enough to warrant a win. But this was a crowded season. I was highly disappointed that neither Saoirse Ronan or Kate Winslet weren't even nominated for Mennonite. Their performances were excellent, especially Kate, no big shocker there. While I still have real problems about the ending, this movie really has stayed with me, and I definitely keep coming back to this forum when I see there are new posts, so obviously it got under my skin.

FWIW, I read another story where she said one of the men described what he was going to do to her with the neck of a bottle. Not that that is true, but that's another claim she made. It really bugs me that no one has discredited her about all this. I know it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference, but I still wish it would happen.

I am just starting the series for what I think it the fifth time. It's might be the fourth - I watched it with my ex in real time - almost 20 years ago. I did a rewatch after, maybe two. I honestly can't remember. A few years ago, I started dating someone else who had never seen SFU, and we watched. And now I've just started again. Man, I am HATING Nate right out of the gate. I'm only partway through the third episode, but I find him infuriating. He is the epitome of "the unearned confidence of a mediocre white guy." He just comes waltzing in, and undermines David at every turn. I can concede that some of his ideas about grieving make sense, but if you want to change things, you need to first understand why they are the way they are. At the point of the pilot episode, David has been working at the funeral home for over a decade and Nate doesn't know the first thing about it, but he decides he has a gift for it. Blugh. I've never felt this way about him from the very beginning before. Obviously knowing where he ends up is influencing this, but he also reminds me WAY too much of the second ex I watched the show with, and obviously I don't mean it as a compliment. I still think Peter Krause is excellent (though I think now he was the worst in the pilot), but I just want to punch Nate now, and I'm fairly sure that's not going to stop until he dies. And while I wasn't sorry to see him die, what an absolute mindfuck for Brenda, to never have resolution on his absolute fuckery. Even though the fuckery was all him, I can't think of many things than to have a loved one die like that and never being able to deal with what he did.

I've got this on my library hold. I read another TJR book, Maybe in Another Life, and didn't really like it. Without realizing it was the same author, I then listened to the audio version of Daisy Jones, which is ah-maze-ing. I think the voice actors do a phenomenal job and make it an even better story. I strongly recommend the audio version over the print, in this instance. I recently read My Dark Vanessa and Circe, both recs from here that I absolutely loved. Excellent suggestions. HOWEVER, I just finished 50 Words for Rain which was awful. If someone here recommended that, we duel at noon. It started out alright, but at the same time absolutely hilarious because it began like a blueprint from Flowers in the Attic: It started going downhill pretty fast, but by the time I realized it was actually bad, I figured I was too close to the end to not just finish it off. This...was a mistake. Infuriating.

No, I watched it over because I was shocked by it...she says AFTER SHE WENT PUBLIC WITH HER STORY, a "police chief" told her "in that situation, if you called the police, we would have arrested you since you were the only one who employed a lethal weapon." There is nothing in what is presented on LWT that indicates there is any corroborating evidence to this story. Here's how it was described in this NY Times article: (eta: I can't seem to fix the formatting in this quote - my comments start with "Y'all, this story isn't true" in case you couldn't figure that out, lol)

Ugh, yes! One of my friends who did the concealed carry with me (my book club did this. It's hard to explain how a book club ends up in a gun class, but it was the least of the weird things we did), her (now ex) husband was a gun nut. He kept a gun in his SUV, in the console. He apparently left it unlocked, and someone stole it and then used it in a crime (not a violent one, but truly I can't quite remember exactly what it was). The police returned it to him. Um, what? Honestly, I think if you don't properly secure your gun and it is stolen because of your carelessness and then used in a crime, you should also be charged with that crime. Or at least A crime. Or at the very least the police shouldn't return the damn gun! This same guy, I was talking about how I leave my porch light on as a deterrent, and he was like, why would you do that? you have a gun! Um, I dunno because I would like to avoid a potentially violent situation?? I'm not pressed to think that using my gun would have profoundly changed me, no matter how "justified" it was. ETA: Honestly? Shooting guns is a lot of fun. I would go skeet shooting at the drop of the hat. I just don't buy into the madness surrounding guns. I also like playing bocci, but if bocci balls were used in widespread violence, I would sour on those as well.

That article just says they were trying, not that it was going to happen or was scheduled. From the article linked:

Y'all, I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but the crazy NRA lady who was accosted by a carful of men? Did she say she was told IF she has called the police, she would have been arrested? IF?? And John repeated it later in the segment, "if." Is that "if" implying she did NOT call the police? So her story is she was in a parking deck, a car full of men tried to abduct her, she pulled her gun in the beam of her headlights, one screamed THE BITCH HAS A GUN...and then what? She just went on about her day after warding off a death-defying experience? And she didn't call the police? She just let a random group of men drive away to abduct a different woman who is dumb enough not to carry a firearm? I mean, let's be clear - even if she filed a police report at the time, I would still side eye this story if there isn't corroborating evidence. But if she didn't file a report...did this even happen? I mean, what are the chances that this happens to the (former at that point?) NRA president? And is picture perfect to start the stampeded of Stand Your Ground laws? Has a third of our nation issued white people get out jail free cards to kill black people based on a completely lie? Not that these laws are ok even if this story is 100% true, but IS IT?? Am I missing something? I took a firearms class and then got my concealed carry a few years ago. I no longer own a gun because...well, a lot of reasons. But I briefly dated my gun instructor and in our concealed carry class, there was an older man who was so clearly there to see how he could get away with murdering someone. It was extremely disturbing. My instructor was actually a good enough guy, and he taught that it was a gun owner's responsibility to ALWAYS retreat when possible and that using lethal force should only be done as an absolute last resort. He advocated for well lit properties, alarm systems, etc to help deter would-be criminals. But this dude was having none of it. It was a lot of "ok, but what does the LAW say?" I asked the instructor about it, and he told me there was at least one in every class, and that there wasn't anything he could do if they passed the requirements for the permit. I don't blame every person who has ever used a gun in self defense, even though for myself I realized I was less safe because I don't think that when push comes to shove, I could shoot someone even to defend myself. But there is a huge, huge difference between someone who is legitimately in a life-or-death situation and these insane people who are dying (unfortunately not literally) to kill another human being. I get so sick of all of this.

Isn't this new dude the one who wasn't supposedly going to be there for Girls' Night, but actually was hovering in the background the whole time? And Faylyn had to stay in a hotel in SC with him, rather than stay over? Ugh, girl. Waves of Cordell here. I hope she's not pregnant, but I'd bet folding money she is.

Ooop, you are right! I still don't think it was a domestic abuse situation (I think it would be weird if he didn't tell her that and he said something about how he felt when he saw her calling, but didn't mention that she also came over and smashed up coffee cups which would be weird), but I do agree the fact there was a coffee cup makes it more ambiguous. I just don't think there was any set up to abuse from his wife, but it could have been where the writers planned to take things. Definitely a Choose Your Own Adventure at this point. I just rewatched that scene to see for myself (I wasn't trying to be persnickety, obviously my memory can be faulty!), and I had to laugh that Will had three cans of Progresso soup pyramided on his counter. So random! (I know it's product placement.)

Why would you say it's not a "crime" punishable by break up? I agree it's not a crime, but it seems like going to your ex's workplace when she knows that would upset you is a break up offense if you want it to be. You can chose to move past it if you want, but this strikes me as a very valid reason to break up with someone. Especially, when as you pointed out, this is the first time Annie had problematic boundary issues. This doesn't sound quite the same to me from how you're describing it - the new girlfriend just happened to be in the same place as you. I'd suspect she knew it was you the same as you heard about her meltdown - someone told her. But even still, even though this girl didn't do anything "wrong", I would be hesitant to date someone who was so emotionally fragile she freaked out just by being in the same place as my ex. But that's a different story than tracking down and going into someone's workplace. That's completely psycho. If someone had ever involved MY FATHER in this kind of bullshit, there would have been hell to pay. Well, sure. I didn't say these things are unusual, but I don't think frequency has anything to do with how egregious the behavior is. Take cheating for example, that's incredibly common, but most of us would agree it's a valid reason to end a relationship (even if you choose not to). But I don't even think you need a valid reason to stop dating someone. You just...can stop. Again, I'm not saying Annie is an awful person; she's not. I've done worse things than these, TRUST me, lol. I think the writers were purposely showing her fucking up in a relationship because she still has room to grow (plus, they didn't know this was the final season so they still need to have storyline, which almost always means fucking up the romantic relationships). Keep in mind, the only relationship she had prior to this was with Ryan in which she was the one who was ahead of him, so it makes sense that both in the real world and for storylines, she would have some growing pains being in a relationship with someone her emotional equal. Think about, for example, if she had just randomly announced she and Ryan were moving in together - he would have been thrilled and not concerned about being told not asked. Annie was in charge of that relationship. So she has to learn to navigate someone she's not in charge of in the same way. On a different topic, for those who were wondering about Will cleaning up before Annie got there (and some wondering if he was cleaning up a domestic abuse situation??), but it was established earlier that he finds cleaning to be very soothing when he's upset. He was angry with Annie, so he was cleaning to self-soothe in the meantime. I wish I cleaned instead of eating ice cream when I'm upset, lol.

My rando memory of this movie: Probably about 15 years ago, I had a tiny gay man who lived in the apartment under me. I would see him occasionally, and it was clear it was an old southern drunk. Sweet as a button, but it was hard to talk to him and not feel Tennessee Williams level tragedy. He would sometimes sit on my patio and tell me all these stories - mainly about how he wrote most of Ouiser's lines in the movie. I knew that wasn't true, but there are some people you just let have their stories. He did end up passing away while we lived there, and I was always glad I was nice to him and let him tell me his stories.

This is true for Uber and Lyft as well. I drove for both, and anything less than 5 stars is really unacceptable. But it's completely unfair because obviously people think 4 stars is really good, and 5 is perfect. But at least at that time (maybe 4 years ago), you would never see a driver with a 4.0 rating because they would have been deactivated. I think 4.2 might have been the area you should start getting really nervous. I tried to explain this to as many riders as I could (if they seemed open not only to being chatty but talking about Lyft's rating system, lol), because I think the vast majority of people would be pretty upset to find out giving a "good" 4 star rating could lead to someone losing their job. THAT SAID, I would never yell at a damn passenger who gave me a four-star rating.

Kenya's head explodes.

I really disagree with people who think Annie going to the bakery was no big deal. Maybe if she had just driven by, but actually going in and acting such a fool she got busted? It's not a good look. He had JUST told her it was important to be sensitive to his ex's feelings, and she does something that is going to be seen as provocative at best. I understand the impulse, I'm not saying Annie's a bad person. But from Will's point of view, she has given off many warning signs: she acted awfully on their first date (even if she did apologize and explain later - that doesn't mean he owed her another chance), but then much more importantly, you have the one-two punch of telling her parents they were moving in together and then stalking his ex. These are really big red flags, honestly. And then for the ex? She has her estranged husband's new girlfriend (that happened fairly fast as far as I can tell) show up at her work. I would feel VERY, VERY, VERY INCREDIBLY violated if that happened to me. I wouldn't have anyway of knowing if this woman was going to be dangerous to me. We the audience know Annie, but the ex doesn't. I didn't see it as Will being still hung up on his ex. It seemed clear to me he really liked Annie, but he was also being cautious. This actually seems really smart to me, when you have just gotten out of the only relationship you've been in for your entire romantic life. But when you combine that caution with Annie's ignoring his boundaries, in Will's shoes, I would end things. I think story-wise, this would have been the way to go. So far in the series, Annie's relationships (both times with Ryan and then whatever went on with Nick) ended because Annie was growing and realized she wanted/deserved better. This time, she's the one who is screwing things up and needs to do better. They didn't know this was going to be the final season, so if I had to guess, we saw both Fran and Annie sabotage their relationships at the end of season three, but would have patched them up in season four. At least Fran and Em for sure. Even though I liked Will and I liked him with Annie, I also would have liked the juxtaposition of her losing a good guy because of dumb mistakes after Ryan lost his relationship with Annie, even though he didn't do anything wrong per se and wasn't a bad person. Annie's not a bad person, but she might have made enough mistakes to cost her the relationship. Finally, Gabe in the TV show isn't really based on Andrew Savage. The character in West's book is, but the character in the TV show is more John Cameron Mitchell's creation. He said that he specifically didn't read the parts of the book that had the Andrew Savage character as he was developing Gabe. He said Savage is a friend of his, and he wanted to do something different. West has confirmed that Gabe "occupies the same space" that Savage did in her real life. Also, after the book came out, West ran into Savage and was more than a little nervous, but that he simply congratulated her seemingly without ill will.