Cementhead

That has been some highly effective and very intentional editing on TLC's part. It's pulled on my heart strings a few times for sure thinking of the regret that will no doubt hit Zach once his anger subsides. Right now he's too busy trying really hard to convince himself that his kids are better off and aren't missing a thing. It's the classic biting off one's nose to spite one's face move. I am sure Zach has told himself more than once re:Matt "he'll regret this!" not realizing that one day he himself will regret it more. Especially if the kids are too old at that point to enjoy the farm in the same way.

But did he barbecue anything?

To this day, my husband and I will say "boards on boards" to each other at least a couple of times a week to get a laugh and it works every single time. It never gets old. And every once in a while we will reminisce about Howard and wonder how he would feel knowing that people are still making fun of that all these years later. *I just read that Howard was a she. How about that. I always thought it was some dude on a power trip living in his mom's basement.

Oh, how I can relate. Admittedly, this is me:

The only thing even remotely interesting was watching the sister drive 15 hrs. over 3 days on the highway wearing a pair of flip flops. The mind boggles.

So nothing happened after her phone call with Dr. Now? Last thing I saw before I turned it off was her standing up with her walker, talking about how it will be so much easier to 'get back' to the exercise program when she moves in with her friend but also asking herself how she is going to cover her part of the rent. Then she sat back down and ate rice and chicken salad that she wrapped in tortillas. This one should never had made it to air. Talk about a road to nowhere. Should have been scrapped.

I almost watched it but I have recently caught on to Dateline's trick of luring us in to watch what is basically a repeat with their promise of there being something "new" to the story. Now, to be fair, when I pulled up the information description on my tv guide it said that the killer's plastic surgeon was going to be interviewed this time which would have been some new content to add to the original episode but it wasn't enough to get me to tune in.

The movie is one of my top favourites so I knew this was going to a hard sell for me but I was intrigued enough to be open to the idea of it; especially considering I have such a hard time finding anything worth watching anymore. I suppose if I had never seen the movie I would have made it a lot further than I did but as it stands, I only made it through episode one and the first half of the second because I just missed Matt Damon & Jude Law too much. By the time Freddie enters the picture I am missing the brilliance of Philip Seymour Hoffman and decide to just pack it in because now all I really want to do is just go re-watch the movie. The casting of the movie was perfection. It was like one of those lightning in a bottle moments where the leads formed the perfect ensemble. I am unfamiliar with the 2 leads in the netflix series having never watched them in anything before. While I am sure they are both fine actors, they are both too old for me to suit these roles. I could maybe believe Andrew Scott is Tom Ripley if I stuck with it because he's 'from the streets' and can get away with looking a bit more 'lived in' but Johnny Flynn is too weathered to play the pampered & spoiled rich kid who lives the life of leisure for me. Dakota Fanning seems to be doing an okay job of it but she is lacking the haughtiness and joie de vivre that Paltrow brought so easily and naturally to the role.

Tori overdoes it on the nickname usage too much. Zach almost always calls them by their proper name, but Tori is all "Sis" this and "J" and "Si-si" that, about 25x an episode. It's not as cute or cool as she thinks she it is. It's annoying. Someone mentioned the dog, either here or on one of the other topic threads. He is definitely a background player this year. Most notable scene I saw him in this year was when Zach was trying to convince us all how much Jackson loves their backyard and they showed the scene where Jackson suddenly goes tearing away in his jeep and the poor dog was laying in front of it and quickly jumped up and got the hell out of his way. The second time I noticed him was when he was laying in front of the front door and one of them came storming in and again, he quickly flew out of there before he got nailed with it.

Oh, this is too cute, @TattleTeeny Picturing in my head him standing there all earnest with his phone held out is giving me a good chuckle. Thanks for sharing this one and you told it perfectly. 🥰

My husband was watching this with me last night for the very first time and he mentioned how they were treating Lilah. I told him if he thought that was bad, he should have been around when Tori ran Lilah and her jeep into the tree and then laughed her fool head off about it. I also pointed out the subtitles that TLC has to put up when Lilah speaks because her parents missed the boat on providing her access to early speech therapy. I tried to explain to him how Jackson owns everything but the episode was very Jackson-light so he didn't quite get it.

The saddest part of this episode for me was when Zach said that Jackson doesn't miss the farm at all -- because I didn't believe him and I don't see how he could possibly believe that either. I think trying to convince himself that this is true is harder than trying to convince us viewers. He knows that Jackson misses the farm and no amount of "funning up" his janky backyard is going to change that. Zach's sadness and regret is palpable in that moment.

Thanks for telling me that I can skip right over this one and not miss a thing because that is exactly what I did. Though I did love the choir singing Roar at the very beginning and watched that a couple of times.

I was shocked at that, too, but then after seeing what happens at the market, this earlier scene was both foreshadowing and telling to the viewer, in that it showed the dismissive and cavalier attitude Mom had with Gus. On the one hand, she's complaining because she sees Essie 'crossing a line' and getting too close but then on the other hand, when she's all alone in watching Gus and in mom-mode, she can't really handle dealing with him much past sticking him out in the hallway for a time-out. So, which is it? She couldn't have it both ways, it seems. I love watching shows like this. It's all about human scruples and behaviour and how life can change on you in an instant based on something seemingly innocuous that you did or did not do.