aghst

On Reddit, there are comparisons to this season being like a telenovela. Oh I get it, the show runner is a Latina! 😒

Hmm more reviews have come in and they’re brutal.

If they just stuck to scenes of the investigation, it would be a 2-hour movie, not a 6-episode season of 1 hour episodes. I'm sure previous TD seasons have this padding to go over B-plots that wasn't directly related to the main case story. In fact, in the streaming era, a lot of show seasons are like that, they could fold the main season arc into a couple of hours but they have to deliver 6 or 8 or 10 episodes. Back in the broadcast and basically cable days, they had to deliver 2 dozen episodes a season so you had a lot of stand-alone episodes and there wasn't often one overarching story for the whole season.

In the early seasons, Mike flipping his persona around was the best story. The Incarceration was making amends not just with the cast but society. They didn’t show how low he’d gotten or that Laurens was there for him. They didn’t even note that he went to rehab. Usually people who go through rehab for addiction are like evangelists, since 12 Steps is based on religion. But Mike wasn’t annoying to the roomies that way. He was just sure that he was finally on the right path and took some ball-busting and being a good sport bout it. His winning personality made the group bond again, though back in the OG days, he was a source of antagonism for many. That father of Angelina probably bailed on her when she was born. She doesn’t owe him anything because she got genes from him. Sounds like she grew up in a better environment than what her biological Father would have provided. Still amazed at what MTV must be paying at best a marginal cast member. She’s only been back a couple of seasons and she’s bought a new home — or maybe more than one — and several cars. Now she’s driving a Porsche SUV, wearing Rolexes. Is it a wonder that Her “fiancée” buys himself a Porsche truck and running up bills on an Amex that she apparently gave him to use? Hope she’s putting away some money because she can’t assume it will be forever. Seriously how much money could Chippendales be paying Vinnie? How many would go to that show because he’s in it, some F-list reality TV celeb? Then again apparently Pauly sells a lot of tickets to his DJ shows — which are so 2000s. Now people go to see them at casinos, not clubs? I thought the Chippendales thing was a cheesy little story line. But he claims women are coming up to him in bars now though that may be from being on TV more than Chippendales.

Barbie and Sunny seem to be bonding over their perception that they're the two hottest girls. Or they want to set up a Mean Girls clique. We haven't seen the way these people party but there probably won't be many surprises, a couple of them will get black out drunk and act out. Did they purposely set up Jared for failure, so that Ben could knife him in the back? Same with Cat and Barbie, you could pairs of deckies and stews who seem ready to carry on extended feuds.

Even Susie and Jeff are wealthy that they don’t have to depend on Airbnb. They could afford the best hotels. But why is Larry staying with them in the first place? In real life, LD is probably used to 5-star service. Not Below Deck 5-star service but the 5-star hotels which can cost thousands a night. I really don’t see him as an Airbnb guest.

Wonder how his business has been doing. mortgage rates are up but people buying high end properties often buy in cash. stock market was shaky in 2022 but picked up later in 2023. so some buyers may feel wealth effect. But Europe and UK economies are lagging and maybe Russian buyers evaporated since the war.

But Larry could easily reimburse her. It was his idea to move it.

No discussion of ep 4? Buck or Bucky apparently shot down? Why didn’t they show the mission? They had to count the forts returning to base. Liked the glimpses of London, occupied Belgium and France. Man in the previously, they show one wing of a bomber being sheared off by one hit. That would be a sight few humans have witnessed.

First review is literally 4 stars from the BBC: The New Look review: Four stars for Coco Chanel and Christian Dior Nazi drama https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240213-the-new-look-review-four-stars-for-coco-chanel-and-christian-dior-nazi-drama Wow, didn't realize this story would get so heavy. Downloading the first 3 episodes for a long flight now.

I just finished a trip to Thailand. Hot, humid and sunny. Suppose to be the driest time of the year. Unfortunately, it's burning season for countries in the region so the skies are always hazy with smoke. Real challenge for respiratory issues.

On The Ringer podcast, they said Hawkes, the actor playing Hank, Maybe it will be confirmed in the finale.

I forget what happened with the spite store. Both stores burned down at the end of last season? And Mocha Joe seemed ruined? So of course he's going to come back to take his shot at revenge.

Giuliani with the dripping hair dye was within the past year, not years ago.

The Giuliani crack was pretty obvious, as was the dye dribbling down Jeff's face. LD still peeved that he didn't get paid yet hangs out in Atlanta for a bit. May have to return for trial and that may be how it ends, maybe a prison sentence in the finale? Maybe he does still quibble over money. $500 or even $650 is nothing to him but his personality won't let him not say something about exorbitantly priced things like at that shop of bad taste fashions.

It was a voter suppression law. They cut down the number of polls in certain districts so that the queue is long and people have to wait hours in the hot weather to vote. Larry making a political comment?

Kate was trying to sweet talk Hank, calling him Henry. Hank said he’s not a murderer but the sweet talk must have worked, he was all in on taking out Otis.

I'm at a hotel now, not a 5-star. But you rarely see the drain stopper down or closed so that if you run the water it pools up. In decades of travel, I've maybe seen it a handful of times. But most people won't care either way unless it's broken and you can't open or close it. I rarely close and let water pool up on the sink. Once I tried hand washing some clothes, didn't work out too well, so I'd rather go to a laundromat even if it takes time out of my vacation.

Wow, can't complain about this one being boring. I knew it was trouble as soon as Liz took off her gun and holster while Otis was getting high in her bathroom. Hank says he's not a killer but instead of just making Otis disappeared, he executes him in front of Liz, whom he would have killed next. Like after being scammed on the Russian mail order bride thing, he no longer GAF? Singing sad songs didn't soothe the heartbreak? Liz should have hooked him up with Tinder, though maybe in some remote Alaskan village above the Arctic Circle, the ration of men to women is astronomical. Damn, Danvers and Navarro didn't cover their tracks too well, didn't notice he was left-handed. And Pete doesn't know about data security. So Liz was always wary of Hank, who was obviously obstructing justice, stashing case files in his home. How did she know to trust Pete in the first place? Then she had him move into her shed rather than stay with Hank. That place looked uninsulated and unheated! The True Detectives had a moral dilemma here but they didn't deliberate too long. They want to find the truth of Annie's murder and the Tsalal case. Not sure if they're interested in brining people to justice though. Yet of course, they're technically obstructing justice, destroying evidence by getting rid of Hank and Otis' bodies. So they're pursuing a truth in one case but hiding the truth in this new crime. They really want to uncover the conspiracy so greater good and Pete doesn't deserve to go down? Actually what Pete did was defensible, Hank would have shot Liz. Navarro and Danvers to a lesser extent, want to know what happened to Annie K. -- and believe that will lead to finding out about Tsalal as well. Navarro really obsesses over it but maybe I missed where Liz decided that Connelly is not going to blackmail her or stop her from pursuing the case. Maybe when she realized Pete gave the game away about Wheeler, which they were using to try to make her back off. She told Navarro that it's over, that they know about Wheeler, then went and got Otis, got smack for him to get intel, then called Navarro over to her place.

Yeah they padded out the series with an episode where a few things happened but didn't need a whole episode to move the story. Just want to get this over with and start on Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which is has apparently got a much bigger viewership as well as better reviews. They have two ends of the expat experience. I know the story (and the book) isn't trying to represent what like if like in HK for expats living there but this story could have been set elsewhere. Why did NK choose this project? It's not even being shown in HK or I would imagine mainland China. So it's not tapping into some vast Asian audience. Not sure Americans can relate as they may not be familiar enough with HK either.

Ontario to Tamarindo, Costa Rica. This is a real move, they sold their home, cars and bought a business, seems like a beach shack serving American foods. They'd never visited previously, just bought the business first, before supposedly even renting a place to live. High school sweethearts, now with a couple of kids. They cite weather. For instance, would rather put up with tropical storms than snow. They're both tanned and fit so they must have spent a lot of time in sunny places. Want 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, with pool, near the beach or town, for $1200. I forget all the details of the choices but one was 40 minutes away from their little lunch place so that is what they eliminate. The real nice place is $1500 with a jacuzzi, which the husband pretends to like. But they choose the one close by and closest to their budget. Even if they never visited, they must have been assured the place would grow with expats and tourists so the business would be sustainable. Forget what they did previously, they seemed to have a similar business before but he has training as carpenter too. It's kind of a real-life Mosquito Coast situation? They're not escaping the rat race per se but the parents are towing their kids to a place far away from where they were born and grew up, though the kids are very young. But they might want the kids to grow and have more options. Like where would they be educated, home-schooled and no chance of university if they happen to show academic aptitude? They might for instance want to become an engineer or maybe a hockey player. Not likely to happen in Costa Rica, in some small coastal tourist spot. Maybe they grow to love the oceans and jungles and the wild life there and aspire to become marine biologists or something in that vein. Maybe despite having sold everything, they plan to go back to Canada in a few years when the kids are ready to go to school.

That suggests to me he doesn’t have a particular standard, just making things up, like who cares about sink stoppers?

But we're talking about Larry's personality. It's totally in character that he'd get overly emotional with technology. Or if it worked well, LD would quibble and nitpick, since a lot of CYE and Seinfeld was about picking nits.

I was really surprised by the audience reaction at the Grammies to a now gray-haired Tracy Chapman performing Fast Car with Luke Combs. I got the CD, liked it enough at the time, though I chose it as one of many free CDs for joining Columbia House. Tracy was one of many new “alternative” artists who hit big at the time. There were some cynical takes that she got a contract because she had an alternative look but not too alternative. Dreads weren’t as common back then and hers were short. Song got a lot of airplay and the video too on MTV and VH1 — remember when they played music videos? It didn’t resonate deeply with me, just mostly liked the tune and her vaguely plaintive vocals. Never thought much about the lyrics but now see this as yearning, to change her relationship, her life, a fast car being a metaphor for making this change. Or the singer wishing just to get on a car and start again, reset. The reaction in the audience and online was surprising. It was a big hit so maybe some nostalgia? The other part of it is that Combs cover alienated people, a white male country singer expropriating? So Tracy singing with him on stage was suppose to be a kumbaya moment? Country music hasn’t been particularly friendly to women or people of color in recent years so Combs covering this song from a black woman, who hasn’t discussed her sexual orientation but Alice walker said they were in a relationship in the 1990s. So the politics of alternative and country artists would seem to be diametrically opposite each other. Or she didn’t mind the cover because it probably brought her a lot in royalties? So she was happy to perform with him, giving her blessing to the cover, which could make it more popular and bring more royalties?

I was really surprised by the audience reaction at the Grammies to a now gray-haired Tracy Chapman performing Fast Car with Luke Combs. I got the CD, liked it enough at the time, though I chose it as one of many free CDs for joining Columbia House. Tracy was one of many new “alternative” artists who hit big at the time. There were some cynical takes that she got a contract because she had an alternative look but not too alternative. Dreads weren’t as common back then and hers were short. Song got a lot of airplay and the video too on MTV and VH1 — remember when they played music videos? It didn’t resonate deeply with me, just mostly liked the tune and her vaguely plaintive vocals. Never thought much about the lyrics but now see this as yearning, to change her relationship, her life, a fast car being a metaphor for making this change. Or the singer wishing just to get on a car and start again, reset. The reaction in the audience and online was surprising. It was a big hit so maybe some nostalgia? The other part of it is that Combs cover alienated people, a white male country singer expropriating? So Tracy singing with him on stage was suppose to be a kumbaya moment? Country music hasn’t been particularly friendly to women or people of color in recent years so Combs covering this song from a black woman, who hasn’t discussed her sexual orientation but Alice walker said they were in a relationship in the 1990s. So the politics of alternative and country artists would seem to be diametrically opposite each other. Or she didn’t mind the cover because it probably brought her a lot in royalties? So she was happy to perform with him, giving her blessing to the cover, which could make it more popular and bring more royalties? I was really surprised by the audience reaction at the Grammies to a now gray-haired Tracy Chapman performing Fast Car with Luke Combs. I got the CD, liked it enough at the time, though I chose it as one of many free CDs for joining Columbia House. Tracy was one of many new “alternative” artists who hit big at the time. There were some cynical takes that she got a contract because she had an alternative look but not too alternative. Dreads weren’t as common back then and hers were short. Song got a lot of airplay and the video too on MTV and VH1 — remember when they played music videos? It didn’t resonate deeply with me, just mostly liked the tune and her vaguely plaintive vocals. Never thought much about the lyrics but now see this as yearning, to change her relationship, her life, a fast car being a metaphor for making this change. Or the singer wishing just to get on a car and start again, reset. The reaction in the audience and online was surprising. It was a big hit so maybe some nostalgia? The other part of it is that Combs cover alienated people, a white male country singer expropriating? So Tracy singing with him on stage was suppose to be a kumbaya moment? Country music hasn’t been particularly friendly to women or people of color in recent years so Combs covering this song from a black woman, who hasn’t discussed her sexual orientation but Alice walker said they were in a relationship in the 1990s. So the politics of alternative and country artists would seem to be diametrically opposite each other. Or she didn’t mind the cover because it probably brought her a lot in royalties? So she was happy to perform with him, giving her blessing to the cover, which could make it more popular and bring more royalties?