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I look at black and white being used as an artistic affectation. B&W film and photography was historically a technical limitation. So some film makers and photographers choose to use B&W sometimes. For photos, it's a simple click in photo editing software, though some people may put in subtle grading and tones and use a lot of Photoshop operations to achieve a look. I'm sure in a show like this, B&W is heavily post-processed as well. Whatever the process, the effect is to reduce immersion because it calls attention to itself. We obviously don't view the world this way nor have we viewed photos and films this way for decades now. It calls attention to the artifice. But for what end? Yeah we get it, Kim and Gene were living drab, colorless, joyless lives after the thrill of the grifting they did together. To me it's a heavy-handed way to convey these themes, the use of a blunt instrument. I identify more with the coastal elites than flyover country but to represent Omaha and whatever part of FL as this colorless, nondescript places is probably going to offend people. It's not impossible that there is something in these places that either or both enjoy, which adds color to an otherwise drab existence, like the thrill of pulling off the heist for Jimmy, enjoying someone else's fancy cigars and booze. It's not inconceivable that Kim was into whatever dishes or interests that her social circle was into. Sure the lugubrious air, the colorless light that hung over them was their guilt, their conscience. They may not have obsessed a lot about their misdeeds but they were always on the verge of breakdowns, such as Kim sobbing in that bus. Though I recall a lot of shots in earlier seasons where Kim and Jimmy were hanging out behind HHM, smoking and talking and they played around a lot with shadows. It wasn't B&W but obviously the goal was a noir-ish effect.

That's got to be egged on. She probably is too much to be around but she and Jenni were going at it and everyone else wanted to get outside. I guess that's what they have to do for that TV money, try to have some beef on social media to drive story ideas for the show. Producers aren't going to have them be civil or even friendly all the time. This is a reality show and it's suppose to be JS. At first I thought they must have a huge budget. But Hard Rock Cafe probably comped them all the rooms. Still, they were bringing the whole extended family, not just spouses and kids but grandparents to watch the kids. In previous trips they've gotten private jets for them. I looked up ratings a bit. In the OG run, they were reaching like 10 million viewers a week. That's just about 10-12 years ago. Now they're getting 300-500k and while that's a fraction, it's enough to win the night among cable shows for the week. So that's why the cast all bought big McMansions, all have nice luxury cars. Probably why Ronnie is itching to come back. BTW in the opening credits, one of the pictures in the montage shows Ronnie. I don't know if that's always been the case this season or they just slipped that in there this week. I don't know why Pauly wasn't there, since he's nearby. But he supposedly arranged the pool party -- like there wouldn't be a pool party at a big hotel pool all the time -- then said it was radio silence so they must be fighting. Talk about scripted. I do think Angelina and Jenni do get agitated and they don't mind screaming, ultimately they know MTV wants that, the way they repeatedly run clips of those arguments. Angelina's role is to be "messy" on the show. The meatballs still get drunk on the show but otherwise live sedate lives. So they have to have Angelina have the wild single life. Is that what she's like on camera? When her sister appeared a couple of times, she was nothing like Angelina -- no heavy makeup with those lashes, clothing style different, sounded more educated. Angelina may have taken a different path but what is her nickname, the "Staten Island dump?" She also said last week when she's always around, Vinny has a boner. This week she says Vinny has been hiding a girlfriend, either from the other cast or maybe from the show?

They’re still human characters. We’ve seen noble acts of sacrifice in fiction. Even 7 years at a country club prison is a hardship. Bernie Madoff died in prison. Nobody wants to spend a minute in prison. If there’s not some innate drive to be free, the idea of freedom as something to be cherished, as something not to be taken for granted, is something that’s internalized BY everyone in the culture. Any fictional work pretending to depict human motivation or nature can’t be asking it’s human viewers to believe someone would choose to leave himself vulnerable to the most harsh punishment. We’ve speeded or gone through a red light as it turned or double parked somewhere brIefly. Do we go to the police and ask for citations? Or maybe bumped into or scraped another car in a parking lot and drove away. Do people go back and seek out the owner? Or even worse, maybe run over someone, panics and speeds away. None of these are ethical behaviors but the very first impulse is to flee, avoid punishment, penalties and potentially beIng ruined financially. I know they wanted to show Jimmy being virtuous in the end but it’s a very strange act. It would be better if he made a mistake and got a sentence which he didn’t expect at all. but they said the penalty could be as much as 200 years. Saul demanding ice cream is very much in character, not because of the perk itself but because he was winning again over these prosecutors, who probably had greater legal pedigrees — prestigious legal schools, great track records, etc. But to immediately change and go against a lifetime of hubris, you’d think it was a deathbed confession. Except he wasn’t on his deathbed.

Sunshine Coast. In the end, they went with his choice, despite her seeming too demanding. Maybe her appearing a diva was affected by the cameras. Does he still work? Because he’s suppose to take her to the beach every day? Guess she doesn’t work. Who knows how long it will last.

What does that have to do with Saul? He’s not poor or unable to live comfortably. He’s not homeless, hadn’t been incarcerated before. He negotiated to get fancy ice cream and a county club prison but he not only opts into a much greater sentence, he’s willing to go to a facility with hardened criminals? He had no way of knowing that all the prisoners there were fans of his because of his commercials, another premise which is also highly dubious. He wasn’t happy living as Gene so maybe he had emotional problems. The judge should have had him see a psychiatrist to see if he’s mentally competent for asking for an 86 year sentence instead of the 7 years the prosecution had agreed to. Such a huge disparity in outcomes and it’s the defendant choosing the worst outcome. If he was represented by a lawyer, that lawyer would be sued for malpractice.

What's happening on Twitter, the eliminated challengers are all salty?

That's even more stupid. So it was self-motivation to have himself incarcerated for the rest of his life? People just don't do that, no matter how much they feel guilty, how much remorse they may have.

Gene was upset with that phone call, when at the end Kim suggested he turn himself in. So upset he almost messed up that robbery, sticking around too long to smoke the guy's cigars and drink his expensive booze. Almost murdered the guy to get away and had an impulse to strangle the Carol Burnett character. So I guess he had an epiphany and even though he tried to escape, he accepted his fate when captured. Those who praise the ending said Jimmy was accepting his guilt, coming to peace with it. Yet he was able to negotiate a relatively cushy deal and throw it all away for the chance to see Kim again and get her to like him again. How many people would choose life in prison, little or no probability of parole, because their ex spouse might respect them more for it? It would be believable if they sacrificed their lives for a loved one instead. But the writers were saying life in prison is still better than death? Because Jimmy wasn't going to be attacked by the other prisoners because of his commercials. Wasn't he prosecuted by federal prosecutors so he would be in federal prison, maybe not even in New Mexico? In any event they couldn't do the sacrificing of his life for others thing because they already did that with WW.

I think Jackie could potentially have legal liability. A prosecutor could charge him as an accomplice or accessory after the fact. Especially if Jackie refuses to testify against Dryden. Also, accepting that car from Dryden is not technically a crime. But it looks shady.

The Daily was good but not as good as it sounded when described. Really the last car standing was the one that never got stopped by other cars, barrels or the walls. They didn't make it clear that going into a wall would cause the black smoke to come out eliminating the car. When TJ talked about knocking other cars out, I thought some teams were going to try to T-bone or ram cars from behind that were stuck. So for safety, if the car got stuck, it makes sense to rule them out. As for taking the shot it was good, they were going to get one of the top 3 performers out of there. But probably the move would be to take out those who could just outrun your for miles and miles. Kyland is one of those certainly. But it won't be pure fitness, they will have to do puzzles and probably eat some gnarly stuff. Wasn't sure Alyssa would be able to lift the balls over her head. Kyra was struggling too. I don't know how many total balls they had for the 6 slots. It could have been trial and error at the end but there were some answers which they could be sure of. It just worked out that the finish was close so there was some tension and suspense. Really one of the best eliminations like TJ said. Now Leo is talking about how he won't go home after all. Looks like most of them now have enough to go to the Final but of course there will be some culling probably to get down to maybe 10 total challengers for the final, with them winnowed down further after the first day. So the algorithm is gone, maybe it won't be a team game any more.

Portland to Cardiff - married teachers and a dog, moving so he can get a masters in jazz performance, which would help his career as a music teacher. She is a history nerd, liked her stay in UK when she was a student. She wants an apartment that looks like she's in Cardiff but not too insistent. They want to be close to city center and his school. He wants to stick to $1100 a month budget, which comes from their savings. She wants 2 bedrooms to have her relatives visit them. They get the cheapest property, $100 under budget, because it's closest to school and city center. She said it was his preference but agreed with his arguments. She sees staying in Wales as an adventure before they start a family back in Portland. He wants to live in Portland while she's wanted to explore beyond. Neither of them will work, even remotely.

And Walter White sacrificed himself for his family and Jesse. A pattern? Does Gilligan want people to accept Jesus as their Savior or something? There's a distinct whiff of fan service in the air. People who do bad things -- break bad -- must go out doing one Good Thing, admit they were bad and accept punishment. OK, even if Jimmy wanted to do good and make good with Kim, I don't see him leaning into 86 years. Prison for the rest of your life so your ex-wife thinks well of you again? Gilligan and Gould have been out in New Mexico too long.

I don't remember it but Dolores says sentient life on earth is over? So this series just backed into an extinction tale? At least with season 3, they showed what the stakes were. Here you see flies and then the next episode, humans are all drones, controlled by Hale. Then she was going to end it but MIB host beat her to the punch, having humans kill each other and hosts rather than putting them in cold storage. I think that would take years to accomplish, extinguishing billions by hand to hand and shoot outs with mostly hand guns. Not even people going around spraying automatic rifles all over. If William wanted to kill everyone, again why not unleash WMDs, either nuclear devices or bio weapons. Hell these WW writers didn't hear about the pandemic? But they wanted to have that montage of people killing each other. So if the show continues, it's some simulation in the Sublime and any humans in there will be what Dolores remembers. I don't know if there were ever any good humans. Maybe Ford at one time? Maybe some of the people running the park in season 1, like Elsie? Now the humans left standing are Frankie and her gf and a bunch of faceless outliers. Not much for viewers to identify with. They brought back Maeve for a brief stint, made her MIA in the finale.

That may be true but one thing to consider is that US dentists have greater incentives to recommend more costly procedures. I once chipped one of my front teeth and what they did was to put in a temporary crown while it took the lab a few days to fashion a permanent crown to cover the chipped tooth. I don't recall if the nerve was exposed. Wasn't in big pain but maybe sensitive to temperature. It may be that Kyle couldn't go back for repeated procedures. Or maybe the season was going to end before they could do something permanent for him. So Kyle may have opted for the cheapest, quickest option, not thinking through that replacing the teeth, especially if they were molars, would be much more costly later on. Or maybe thinking he could just chew on the other side but that may overuse those teeth.

I think Bravo contracts out these smaller production companies to plan, cast and film the episodes. Of course Bravo gets final say on things like casting. I don't know if Bravo has a chance to micromanage though, like look at dailies and tell them to shoot something else or edit it a certain way. That would be the case with network scripted shows, where network execs presumably justify their highly-paid jobs by giving notes to production and making sure the shows are produced well or in the way the network wants. Or maybe the production company shoots a ton of footage, a lot of it where producers try to manipulate certain situations, and then as they edit, Bravo is more hands on. Regardless of how much micromanaging Bravo does during the shooting, they probably let the producers know the kind of things they want, like relationship drama, meltdowns from too much drinking (and who knows, the crew are consuming drugs but the cameras don't film them or they won't air anything like that), and then these contrived situations which could produce drama. They probably have some general directions on casting the charter guests, especially stunt casting like people who are semi-famous or infamous, like casting the Queen of Versailles people more than once or Roy Orbison's son more than once. In any event the small production companies are under pressure to deliver drama, stuff that could fit into clips to make viewers want to watch. Because these shows have to remain on the air for the companies to make money and keep producing more seasons. They have to compete not only with other reality shows on Bravo and other outlets, they have to worry about Bravo replacing them with other production companies. So the manipulations will increase or they will use the same playbooks or try to create the similar situations which has worked in the past.

BTW is this a common thing, MILFs lusting after young priests? I'm rewatching The Sopranos and you had that story line there. Now this show, but is it just a copycat thing or is it common enough that these TV show writers come up with it? Maybe in the '90s it was harder for married women of a certain age to find extramarital affairs. Not the case now with dating apps and such.

In most cases, the charter guests are visiting other places before or after the charter. OR both. They're not flying all the way to Europe just for a 2-day charter. And if they don't bring a lot of luggage, producers will probably think about adding additional luggage, just so the crew works more.

Either that or she used Eric in her first year at Pierpoint to make it through and now is seizing on a big opportunity. Convinced Bloom to invest billions when he's usually not long on any transaction and now convinced him to buy the controlling interest in the company, so they could deploy reforms. Harper is maybe 25 but Bloom, who made his fortune with savvy trades on his own is going to listen to someone with such limited experience? Apparently so. If Bloom really profits like Harper thinks he can, she'll have more power and cachet, maybe not have to work for Eric any more. Yasmin meanwhile oversteps and displeases her private wealth management boss, after failing to get her father to take her seriously as a professional. Gus is trying to tutor Bloom's son for his Oxbridge application but he is getting nowhere with the kid, who didn't like his Eton classmates and don't want to put up with them again at University The Ringer Prestige TV podcast says that this show uses sex to develop character. So Harper tries to fuck Danny, who bails. Then tries to get it on with Robert, who can't get it up. So she lies down by the tub and takes care of herself. Not sure if Robert stuck around to watch. Then you have the convo between Yasmin and Robert, talking about the time they almost slept with each other. Robert says he wishes he were so worthy to put his head between her legs. OK so Harper is aggressive, while her colleague Danny maybe didn't want to fraternize at that level -- Harper and Rishi were doing a lot of coke but he didn't partake. And in Robert's case, he's not so confident yet sexually? Or maybe they just want to mix in some salacious, outré scenes?

Both of the brunettes have messy personal lives. Why would Natasha get engaged to someone she didn’t love? Natalya says 99% of her boyfriends cheat on her but she doesn’t “do deep” or get emotionally involved. She doesn’t seem to mind the results but the way she turned on Storm could be a reason she hasn’t had much luck. Tasha probably badmouthed her ex to Dave a lot but she doesn’t want to have him repeat those things back to her. That may be enough to make him see her with clearer eyes. Kyle was moaning in pain. Did it not occur to him to ask Sandy if he could go to hospital? As soon as the boat docked, I’d have jumped off. Courtney likes to talk like a sailor, also to twerk. She was talking about her cast mates seeing her vagina because of the short dress. Sandy tells the crew to keep the doors closed but not why — because the AC gets stressed and draws too much power not leaving enough for the stabilizers to function.

They could wrap it up in a 2-2.5 hour movie.

When Christina and Dolores were in the same shot, Dolores' dress made it appeared she had some junk in the trunk. So that's a bustle?

Premiers August 19 with two episodes. I assumed this is created by Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) but IMDB lists her just as one of the writers and in only 1 of the 10 episodes of this first season. But the trailer features her a lot and she seems to be the best-known cast member. Or at least I don't recognize the others. I'd normally give anything from Horgan a try but Apple TV + shows have been uneven. Will probably still watch it though. Trailer features some gorgeous scenery, no doubt shot in 4K HDR. But as with Trying, it seems they manage to film a lot of bright, brilliant sunlight in gray London so they probably are going to do the same for Dublin and Ireland. BTW, reviews are starting to roll in, mostly good but not rave reviews, it appears.

Republicans have been undermining science for decades, mostly to dispute the findings and warnings of climate scientists. So they went to the same playbook to undermine Fauci, since he wouldn't go along with Trump trying to minimize the dangers of covid, because all Trump cared was that the threat of the pandemic caused the stock market to plunge in February and March 2020. He didn't want case numbers to go against his record when he stood for re-election -- same rationale for why DeSantis suppressed Florida pandemic stats. So the whole party got on board to vilify Fauci and anyone else whom they deemed a threat to their electoral chances. Republican anti-intellectualism has been around for at least half the 20th century. Democrats after WWII promoted the GI Bill, not only so vets could go to college but learn to think critically and be better citizens for democracy. GI Bill wasn't used to get vets to vocational school, not that that wouldn't have been useful but they wanted more rounded citizens. McCarthy's targets often were academics. When Reagan was governor of CA, he didn't like independent thinkers who were usually college graduates. He tried to undermine the University of California, said famously that the state wasn't going to pay for the "intellectual curiosity" of people who might oppose him. He eventually got enough power to force fees (University of California didn't have tuition per se) to be raised and appointed lackeys to the university board. That playbook was used in other states with Republican governors. Scott Walker tried to really weaken the University of Wisconsin, tried to change the mission statement to exclude general pursuit of knowledge, only to limit it to meeting vocational needs. https://budget.wisc.edu/walker-proposal-would-modify-uw-mission-language/ So anti-intellectualism is deep in the GOP DNA because most educated people see through their tactics to court low-information voters.

I guess it sets up the final season — “one last loop around the bend.” Get it? Bernard’s gambit was to convince Hale to stop host William from destroying everything including the Sublime and giving Christina/Dolores “one final test” to see if humans and hosts deserved to survive or be extinguished. So season 5 would be running the WW park again to see if they treat each other better, not rape and kill each other? Would be circular! It’s as if they’re gods, setting up a game to see if the species deserves to survive, which is kind of an offensive notion. Hale is locked out of the system so she can’t stop the tones making everyone homicidal. How about just destroying the tower and not trying to control the humans any more? Well then there would be no reason to bring back the series, assuming WBD renews it. If the show comes back they will find a way to bring back the most popular characters, assuming the whole cast wants to return. After all, Dolores will rebuild WW as a simulation and it doesn’t matter which hosts were killed. Even the pearls which were crushed to dust, there are copies somewhere. OTOH if they feature just Dolores, Teddy, Frankie in S5, then they’d really be messing up, finishing the series without other more popular characters.

Dryden gets Victoria out of the way by sending her to London. But they're up to more shenanigans, the wife coming onto Jackie hard, him not really resisting. After banging the wife, he sees that Dryden has drugged and raped another young woman. Dryden practically flaunting it in Jackie's face. Jackie not in a hurry to bring his boss to justice. He just dropped off Benedetta at NYU and got to sleep with Dryden's wife so he's not exactly complaining. Are we suppose to believe Jackie is waiting for conclusive evidence? Or for another young woman Dryden's raped to die under mysterious circumstances? Or he has a strong hunch, especially since Victoria basically accuses her father of murdering the first young woman, her friend. He doesn't want to lose his gig, at least for now. Hell the Dryden's are giving him cars and sex so why wouldn't he look the other way? DeCourcy would never look the other way. That is why the notion of them being some crime-fighting team is absurd. Maybe if they happen to have a common enemy. Otherwise Jackie isn't prioritizing truth or justice. Another guy trying to do the right thing, Caysen now is a suspect in the shooting of the crooked cop who killed Caysen's protege.