fembotz

The episode was so sad. :( Re: Laurel, I am really enjoying her this season and I liked that she tested Oliver like she did and then told Connor he should thank her for saving his relationship. It reminded me of Laurel being aghast that Frank would think telling her he killed Lila proves he loves her. I just feel like she is a really well-written character this season. As for Wes being pissed at Laurel... he has reason be upset for sure, but am I alone in thinking that part of the reason he shut her out and is being so cold towards her has just as much to do with their kiss in Ohio? He definitely had a reaction when Laurel told Michela and Connor she had broken up with Frank. I wouldn't say he perked up exactly, but he was definitely absorbing that information, and I wasn't surprised to see them looking close to kissing again in the promo, although I feel like that scene may be more for Frank's benefit than anything else. (In the sense that he will see them together and have it out with Laurel.) Frank blew it by letting Laurel believe Annalise ordered Lila's murder. I actually didn't even realize how messed up that would make everything else she did seem from Laurel's perspective until Bonnie's conversation with Frank and Laurel drunkenly accusing Annalise of pulling their puppet strings the whole time. I don't get why we saw Frank sleep with that random lady, either. I feel like maybe the final two episodes this season are pushing him towards some kind of brink where all of this will make sense, hopefully. I will be so surprised if it turns out Caleb was the murderer or in league with Phillip... but it would make sense. I just feel like the actor played it all with so little ambiguity, I stopped thinking he was involved awhile ago. I know that doesn't mean anything, though.

I don't think the problem is that Laurel isn't letting Frank explain why he killed Lila. I think he would have explained his tearful "I had to" if they weren't interrupted by Annalise's phone call, but he is the one who chose to take the call, and I feel like all of their following interactions have been colored by Frank's perception based on Laurel's reaction that she won't be able to get over what he did. Why bother to explain when his reasons for killing Lila could be just as bad if not worse? The fact that Frank is allowing Laurel to believe it was on Annalise's orders rather than Sam's is really weird, though. What did he think Laurel was confronting Annalise about at the end of the last episode? He kept this huge secret, doesn't he care that she might confront Annalise about it?? I also wonder if the fact that Sam was a therapist who was at best "unprofessional," as Eve just reminded us in this episode, and at worst an abusive user will play into Frank murdering Lila. Annalise was his patient and fell in love with him, Bonnie was his patient and fell in love with him, he slept with his students... It makes me wonder if Frank killing Lila was purely a blackmail situation or if there was some sort of psychological/abusive element going on there too. The writers clearly care about Frank, and writing him as the killer was a gotcha twist they came up with on the fly. Maybe they can find a way to diminish his culpability in the eyes of Laurel and the viewers enough to make him work as a main character with people (Laurel, at least, perhaps others eventually) actually knowing he killed Lila. Otherwise I have my doubts about him working as a main character longterm.

Re: Flaurel, I think there is a substantial difference between strangling a pregnant teenager with your own two hands in cold blood and being involved in the crazy stuff the Keating 4 have been. Sam was a desperate killer, even if by proxy, and he went for Rebecca; Asher's murder coverup was foisted on them; Annalise goaded Wes into shooting her on purpose. I just don't buy that what Laurel has done is on the same level as what we saw Frank do, whatever Sam had on him to make him do it. I am glad we are getting to know Laurel, though. I thought she was going to turn out to be a sociopath at the end of S1 where she basically tried to bat her eyelashes and manipulate Frank into killing Rebecca, and he ironically said he wasn't a hit man. Now we know a bit more of her backstory, if her dad is a mob boss or whatever, it makes sense that in a moment of thinking Rebecca was going to send her and the others to jail, she turned to her "father" and wanted him to just take care of it and make her go away. Her instincts about Frank were right on.

Give it a rewatch. She totally loses her bearing in the middle of the dance. You can see Mark talking her through it. At one point he forcibly removes her arm from around his shoulders and maneuvers her into the correct position. ETA: Oops, Bitsy beat me to it. What she said! :) I agree Mark has done a good job with Candace, though, and I've enjoyed their partnership this season.

I'm glad they didn't put Meryl with Mark. He's already won two MBTs with two gold-medal Olympians, including a figure skater. It's better for the show to mix it up who gets those kinds of partners, IMO.

I think Candace flubbing her Viennese Waltz sealed her fate, unfortunately.

There is a lot of baggage between fans of the pros, it guess. Lots of grievances carried for many seasons! I think it is fair to accuse Maks x Meryl of showmancing, though. A few weeks ago I even had a friend who knows I am a big D/W fan who e-mailed me to ask if there was something going on with them. It's hard to miss how they're constantly hanging all over each other on the show. Maks is cuddly in general, I realize, but Meryl was never (even remotely) like this with Charlie so it's raised my eyebrows a bit. But maybe she takes her cues from Maks and he's extra cuddly this season because he's in a better mood, IDK. But the showmance label seems applicable. I also think you could say it about Willa and Erin (although they were actually involved, so does that count?) and perhaps for Brandy because I remember their (awkward tbh) staged "date" for their rehearsal package, but I don't get it re: Mel, Lalia's, and Kirstie. There was never any confusion there IMO. The first two had spouses/finances who visited their rehearsals even. I agree this topic seems played out to me, though!

Maybe we should wait to see the freestyle and what's actually in it before we start condemning Maks for this or that? Revisiting the red shoes comment, I really wish someone would do a freestyle of that one day. It's one or my favorite movies and one person could be the magician/shoe maker/villain and another the dancer. /pie in the sky dreams, lol

Ugh, can we not link to that lunatic and give them hits? They're pretty much the worst and also literally delusional.

Aaah, I'm nervous for their freestyle now. I'm so surprised Maks is going to try and pull off another contemporary but here's hoping it works this time! At least Meryl will look great doing it as long as she points her toes. /ALM Hahaha. :)

Aw, I used to be obsessed with that song Tiffany did for The Jetsons movie. And in my day it was all about the Backstreet Boys vs. N*SYNC. You couldn't like both!

It worked out for her and Donald Driver. TBH I thought their freestyle was a hot mess but everyone else loved it and they won.

LOL @ the thought of Charlie holding Meryl back, but I did read a very thoughtful post after Meryl and Maks's foxtrot by a huge Meryl/Charlie fan who said that the moment in the middle of the dance was the kind of moment Charlie and Meryl were never successfully able to create on the ice, which I think is a fair critique. I personally really like Charlie and Meryl's dance chemistry, but since chemistry is one of the greatest strengths of their rivals (who are also not in love, as far as I know!), it was always a point of criticism for them. Even their coach has said they don't have the on-ice connection Tessa and Scott have and that they had to find another way to win. It has been interesting to see that Meryl is capable of creating the heat that I think a lot of people feel was missing from Meryl and Charlie's routines, but I don't think it's totally fair to blame it on Charlie. Every performer has strengths and weaknesses, and creating sexual chemistry with his partners is obviously one of Maks's strengths and something he prioritizes and focuses on. I think what it comes down to is Charlie is an amazing performer with natural joie de vivre, but he is not a natural actor by any means and has a limited range. I think that combined with Sharna not prioritizing chemistry in the way that Maks did for most of their routines meant Charlie had less chemistry with her than Meryl did with Maks, and as a result people are now blaming Charlie for his and Meryl's past struggles to create romantic chemistry in their performances. But I actually thought in the weeks where romantic chemistry was a focus for them (like their Week 1 contemporary to "Let Her Go") that they had great chemistry -- nothing brother/sister about it! That last look he gave Sharna was intense! I also think he had good chemistry with Candace in their "Stay With Me" contemporary duo dance where his character is trying to ditch Sharna for her. I think if you work on having romantic chemistry with Charlie he can do it, but for whatever reason Sharna didn't make it a priority and most of their dances either didn't focus on that or asked Charlie to embody a more intense character which I just personally feel is not his forte.

I don't think the producers would ever pair someone of Maks' patience level (or lack thereof) with Amy, and I think they knew better than to pair Meryl with Derek, which would have been equivalent to handing Derek mirror ball numero six (and the third in a row) and made tons of fans irate, not only because Meryl is another ringer for Derek but because she had worked with him previously.

Yeah, I agree with this. I remember reading an interview with Sharna where she talks about how she fast forwards through a taped version of the show every week and she just watches the dances and her packages to see how she and Charlie are presented. This was in response to someone asking if she watches the packages and knew how much shorter theirs were. And therein lies the problem. She needs to package herself and Charlie and their journey and be a part of that process, she needs to give the producers something to focus on, she needs to help create the narrative in her little sit down interviews. She needs to study the successful packaging of other contestants and partnerships and try to start doing that herself. (To be clear, I am NOT talking about showmances and manufactured drama, I am talking about just finding more interesting things and angles to their week together and thinking about this like a story she is telling because that's what it is once the editors get ahold of their week and package it into a minute and thirty seconds (or forty seconds, sometimes, in Charlie's case.) She can't control how they are packaged but she can focus the producers on certain aspects of their week or their partnership, she can try and thread a narrative that is more than just "ice skating is different" and "we're working on his hip movement." And yeah, I actually do remember her rehearsals with Cody more than most of her rehearsals with Charlie, probably because she had that little existential crisis about feeling old when she found out he was born in 1997 and was telling him to pull his pants up and being firm with him and stuff.