aghst

Didn't they have a bunch of Survivor and BB alums in the last season too? But they're not being invited back, so one and done? There was one woman who had won one of these other shows and she seemed like a contender but they got rid of her early.

I thought the dancing scene brought out real emotions and joy, not that they're just doing a job. The original JS the cast was real most of the time. Now, they're older with families, very rich and they're showing up for their payday. But they can still have some genuine moments, the Mike redemption tour was real, he changed for the better, became a positive presence. Petulant Vinny is real. Snookie wanting to be a pleaser and draw attention to herself is real. So in the first couple of seasons of Family Vacation, they were sharing homes, luxurious homes but still one home and they had to double up in the bedrooms. In this season, they all have separate rooms or suites at this resort so some personal space and they don't have to literally sleep with each other. I don't recall if in the Poconos they shared rooms. In Lake Las Vegas they had separate rooms and only came together for meals and some events. Also had a lounge where they hung out. But maybe this will be a trend, them insisting on bringing family and each having separate rooms. They can still have food fights because they usually eat together.

They all seemed to be large, higher-end homes, very immaculate, not in need of much renovation and they had a lot of nice outdoor areas. At least two of them had pools as well. I don't think they saved $900k only by living with his parents in Essex. Maybe had some other equity or inheritance. But they remarked more than once about how much bigger the spaces were, like the kitchens and the outdoor space. I don't know how expensive housing is in Essex but if it's in the Southeast of England, it would be expensive and small. So maybe they see their money going much father and were willing to stretch to get a real nice place.

Season 4 will be the final season and both leads will be replaced by older actresses as they enter later adulthood, probably approaching middle age. https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/alba-rohrwacher-elena-hbo-my-brilliant-friend-season-4-1235192813/

And she laughed at them. Think he’s her ex. No matter how good friends she is with her or is familiar, pretty rude though it’s suppose to be clever that she’s judging them without saying a word? Looks like the young one is also going to be a drama magnet like her older sisters. Good that she volunteers at school. Are six graders a respite from her daughters? Or does she need to parent her daughters rather than trying to be their friend? Suppose to be sad that the oldest one can’t tell her that she’s had an abortion or Sam’s oblivious — don’t they say mothers always know?

Yeah most people wouldn't act that way towards service people, who could mess up their food. And even if he were inclined to talk shit like that in their faces, even horrible people will balk at doing that in front of cameras, where they could end up crucified for behaving badly. They'd really have to be convinced by other people to act out on camera. Would not surprise me if they are actors and the names are fictional so they're playing roles that producers wanted. But let's say they were real. Why would the producers re-book these people, who were horrible to the cast last season? Because it's good TV! And they're sadists.

Options for women were limited at that time. Especially one without any education. Girls are taken out of school as soon as they're big enough to do some menial labor. That is still the case in many developing countries, forget about educating kids out of poverty, as soon as they're able, they go to work. But after hearing Lila's sad tale, Lenu seems to recognize that she could have had the same fate, probably married to some oaf and then having a lot of kids before 30. Lila refused to put up with Stefano or give in to Marcello or Michele Solara because she found them all revolting. But clearly there are women who are willing to sleep with them and treat them like kings while they mistreat them. Not just for the money but they probably saw their mother in similar relationships and that was their main reference. So Lila is smart but also a martyr of sorts, denied ways to better her lot the way Lenu was able to find a way out of that neighborhood and mindset.

S03.E02 The Fever Lenu’s fiancé Pietro meets her family and asks her father for her hand in marriage. Her mother demands to know why they aren’t getting married in the church. Pietro deftly dodges these questions. But as he puts the engagement ring on her, she feels like she’s being coerced, suffocated? She may not love him but he’s her ticket out of the neighborhood that she’s come to despise, coming from a well-off family and having a prestigious job with steady income. But Lenu has apparently made some money herself from her book, as she bought her family a TV and a telephone, luxuries which few of their neighbors have. Her mother suspects she’s planning to buy a car and going to learn to drive. Before she can map out her future, Lila summons her and makes her promise to take care of her son should something happen to her. While Elena has been graduating and has a chance for a much better life, Lila has gone though hell in that salami factory, which has made her sick and angry, beaten down. She ran away from her husband and the neighborhood, believing that the shitty place and job at least separated her from the neighborhood and the ruthless Solaras. But Bruno the owner of the salami factory is in debt to the Solaras so she can’t get away. Michele Solara is quite something, begging her to work for him, be his mistress, while at the same time insulting her looks yet wanting to conquer her and put her in her place. Elena realizes that Lila’s depressing life could have also been her fate and she’d be stuck in that hellish place too if not for Lila driving her to excel academically, even giving her money to continue her studies. She’s indebted to Lila in many ways. If Lenu becomes a successful writer, she’d probably help Lila escape.

So Gary has kissed Ashley, going to kiss Daisy and now make out with Gabby who's in her underwear. Maybe he looks better in person? Or again, the pickings are slim?

They must have cared about winning after all. Maybe belies the "the money isn't going to change our lives" narrative. As for working on TAR, don't they have young kids? What are they going to do leave them with the grandparents at least once a year? TAR must require production staff to work more than when they are actually filming the race though. So a much bigger demand on their time and unless they can dod the work from home, they'd have to be away from their family.

Dave is the older woman lawyer that Chuck hired to replace Sacker.

So would TAR fans support either of the runner ups this season for an All-Star season? Or maybe even the train guys who couldn't make it for the restart? I think the All-Stars are supposedly racers who were good but couldn't win their seasons? Though they gave the Globetrotters more than one shot because they had personalities which made them popular. I don't know that the racers on this season were necessarily that charismatic. Penn has an "on" personality but if he and Kim didn't win, they would be invited back for being very good racers and DESPITE his personality.

MTV probably reserved enough rooms so that they could have grandparents or baby sitters for those kids, freeing the parents to be filmed in their drunken shenanigans.

Yeah Chuck and Wendy interacted this episode because of their kids. But no sight of them anywhere. Show really never leaned in that much into them being parents. Well Axe, only for him to show his boys how to be rich entitled assholes like himself, like trying to take over their private school a season or two ago.

Figures. Bravo cast her knowing her agenda.

Why is Prince so stuck on his ex, what's her name? Mother of his children but that doesn't stop the billionaires from getting trophy wives. But Prince wants his ex to live in NYC, near him, once he wins the Olympics bid, while she's talking about needing to train at base camp in near Denver. A quick Google search shows that the only climbing event is called Sports Climbing, introduced for the 2020 Tokyo Games and it's entirely done on rock walls, entirely man-made. So why is she blabbing about needing to live out West? Maybe she's not that into you Michael. Prince is funding scholarships and letting the IOC commissioners select scholarship winners and Chuck is unhappy about that. Prince has to be doing something wrong. Dave doesn't understand why Chuck is so against scholarships and Olympics in NYC. Chuck tries to explain his crusade against Prince and the "billies" to Dave, who doesn't quite buy it. Says Prince thinks he's above the law, without showing proof how Prince has broken any laws. Dave says successful men like Prince are role models to her children so why try to take him down unless he's broken laws? She points out the obvious, that Chuck himself comes from a privileged background himself and it's a kind of privilege to preach about the ultra-rich threatening democracy. Chuck, the AG of New York state, is trying to help New Jersey instead get the Olympics, just to deny Prince his win. Taylor decides to help the Olympics bid by trying to tank the MTA's credit rating, so that they would have to take Prince's idea of the Olympics Express subway train. They think crowd-sourcing can drive down MTA's credit rating. Imagine that, they get people to do the hard work of analyzing financials for free so that they get free work done and they get paid millions. They threaten a credit rating agency, by trash-talking some punk scion of the Rankin Credit Bureau and MTA's credit rating drops. That forces the governor and the mayor to come crawling back to Prince. Chuck and Wendy both work a fundraiser for their children's school and they bond over taking down some asshole who calls Wendy a Karen. They set up a date. Prince wins the Olympics bid and Chuck wants to show up right there at the celebrations to nab the fixer Prince worked with but Rhoads comes up empty again. He's very salty about it and Wendy tells him to smile. So neither of them show up for their date. He'd rather beat Prince than have a shot at getting his wife back, or at least some relapse or mercy fuck from Wendy. Speaking of exes, Prince's ex tells him that he has to earn her love by being willing to come to her in Denver while she trains new climbers. She seems like a real PITA and the brutal truth is, women will be throwing themselves at Prince in NY while she's off in Denver thinking she's some Olympian just because she's involved with some second-rate Olympics event which few people will watch compared to "real" events like track, swimming, basketball, gymnastics, etc.

30% for charities? That is a lot. Charities should be tax write-offs though, especially if they set up a business.

If they have millions of subscribers on Youtube, they may already be making good money. Plus whatever they may have saved from their days in TV. So if they're not spending more after winning TAR prize, probably more money to leave to their kids but that's a long ways off.

Price difference between the two homes they chose between was almost 20% and about $10k a year. Think they could afford the higher priced home all along so the budget may have been artificial in the first place. She preferred that canal place and despite her complaints about the stairs, she was wiling to bear it. Don't think the laundry room situation was a big deal as much as just a nicer place in her opinion. Husband might have preferred the more expensive place as well but pretended to prefer the lower-priced place because of budget. Because a little conflict which is overcome in the end makes good TV right? Can you imagine if in one of these "3 Months Later" scenes one of the spouses said something like "I knew we should have chosen the other one, this place sucks." Instead it's always a happy ending, the one house hunter who wasn't initially for the house they chose says it worked out well or his or her objections were no big deal. I'd rather see some saltiness from the house hunter who didn't get their way once in awhile.😊

I think as they become more familiar with Laurens, they're willing to draw her into the sniping that they do to each other. Like Vinny whining about Mike getting all the parties. Probably the producers organizing these parties for the filming and he wonders why he doesn't get one when Mike is obviously a bigger personality. Was kind of funny though, one of the things he said was Mike farted, lets have a party. Well if the cast were really surprised by the murder mystery prank, they sold it. They were really enjoying the camaraderie, bonding from a fake murder? They also seemed to be having fun when Vinny was doing imitations, which were basically mocking some of the mannerisms of the girls. But why is Deena getting credit? She didn't write the prank, she just hired the company which had the script and the actors. Supposedly. Producers would have to vet the company, get them to sign releases, work with them to film it. So all Deena did was she was in on the prank, didn't plan or execute it. Not a surprise, the cast likes to drink, though Mike is coming up on 6 years being sober. As soon as Snookie arrives she's looking for a drink. Some of it is that she's expected to provide drunken shenanigans for the show. But it isn't just treating themselves to a glass of wine at the end of the evening or in get-togethers. Other thing is, they were reminiscing and they showed old clips which included Ronnie. But nobody talked about Ronnie at all.

Wow if nothing else, Holmes has inspired several books and TV shows. Will be interested to see how far this goes, what is the verdict after all the episodes are streamed. Super Pumped is not getting good reviews at all.

So 7 legs in about 20-21 days. Is that typical of the shooting schedule in other seasons or did they comprise it more? I thought in previous seasons racers had free time to explore the places on their own.

Their last name looked like it could be Dutch. Husband said they got a special 2-year visa for starting a business in the Netherlands but I wonder if his background has something to do with it. Some European countries give citizenship to people who have ancestors in those countries. So maybe that's why they chose Amsterdam instead of other places in Europe, even though they must have known about steep stairs in that country -- because the homes used to be taxed on the width of the houses, not the height (or the value as US property taxes are determined). WIfe kept saying they were bored living in the FL suburbs, wanted to have an adventure but that might be another HHI meme. Their teen daughter was a hard sell because she had friends but she was convinced by stroopwafels?🤔 I do believe she's being sincere when she says she wanted to live in the center, overlooking a canal vs. living further away where there might be more room. But all the homes they showed had about the same space and all had steep stairs. In one previous Amsterdam or Netherlands episode, they showed a modern home which had a huge footprint so they didn't have to have those narrow and steep stairs but they had them anyways. Maybe in addition to a visa to start a business, they got some money as well. Because $4200 is a very healthy budget and they chose to live in an expensive big city, in the most expensive part of the city too. For instance, maybe other cities in The Netherlands would have lower rents or they could live in smaller towns or villages. That's not even to mention that other European cities wouldn't have problems with stairs, would probably have lower rents as well, such as Lisbon or some Spanish cities other than Madrid and Barcelona. So they chose a pretty swanky place and that is their adventure, get to look at the canal. No talk about having more money to travel or do things which cost money. Or maybe they're rich -- husband said he did well with his business in FL -- and are confident in his new business there and she's used to a certain lifestyle or level of comfort.

Curious about this one, looks like the writers are the ones who wrote all episodes of The Missing and Baptiste.

106 isn't evenly divisible by 4. I get the sense that it's not easy for them to find people wanting to do the TAR, which may be why they're prompting people to go to the website if you're interested in being on the show. So they may be beggars, not choosers, when it comes to finding good racers -- good in the sense of good on TV, not that they're good at playing the game.