aghst

What are they going to do, have the whole extended family there? Ryan will probably have to pick up the tab whenever the relatives go out to eat with them or Uber and other expenses from entertaining them. Maybe the plan was to have a big brownstone with a ton of rooms and multiple floors, renovate it, live in it and flip it for a big gain. But now the big Greek Extended Family wants dedicated rooms, decorate it to their personal taste, etc. Ryan probably wasn't signing up for that, unless they show him a lot of love, tell him how great he is, how his corny stunts are cool etc.

What the hell was that, Heidi was performing in front of their friends? They saw her titty pop out, didn't seem too impressed. Adrian pretty much shut Rod Stewart's chunky son down. Now she's jumping on Brody? So they've known each other 15 years but you can tell they don't really hang out other than on the show.

I didn't mind seeing house hunters with rather modest budget for an expensive place like central London. But I'd rather have seen more apartments.

I thought Kirsten said she's sold 13 properties since 2017? Or it was a much lower number than one might have thought, though she may be clearing 6-figure commissions on most of those sales?

Angelina already divorced? She didn't give the vibe that she was really into him. She seemed more into Vinny. maybe MTV threw enough money that she figured she would take the money and then dump him.

For a high-end broker who supposedly rakes in big money, hard to believe a second Bravo show would be a huge monetary incentive for him. In fact I don't understand why Frederick would do the show, if he's selling up to a billion dollars in properties each year. Even a percent or two of that would be huge money. And Bravo offers maybe a million or two at most? Or maybe they don't sell that much property,, the numbers are inflated. But Ryan was an aspiring actor so maybe he's willing to put in time for these shows because he likes being a ham.

I would think he'd just hire a designer or have the wife guide all that. They show him being involved just for the show probably. Certainly he's seen a lot of finishes and so forth, worked with remodeling people, staging people, etc. so he'd know what kind of things are out there. But how much time would he wanted to devote to that compared to making money and being at the office? If Bravo wasn't paying him for this other show, would he bother much?

From the second floor, would there be a lot of noise from the cars? And people on the streets can be noisy even very late at night. So there were two properties shown where the sellers spent a lot of money on air rights, to preserve views. I remember articles about them at the height of the Manhattan RE boom, about 5-6 years ago. Must have been other properties on the show which featured them. Yeah at that time there must have been constant coronavirus news on TV but until it hits you personally, like your kids' school being closed or someone you know getting hospitalized and you wouldn't allowed to go visit, people probably aren't getting that emotional. Some New Yorkers were saying that for some periods, they would constantly hear ambulances, taking people to hospitals, around that time, March and April of 2020. Now why is it that the agents all decided to stop shaving, not putting on make up and so on? Well maybe those shots of them were at home, through Zoom or something and they hadn't had time to shave or put on make up before turning on the webcam. Maybe the producers encouraged them to do it that way. Also a contrast because you know they're doing professional hair and makeup usually before the cameras are rolling, the scenes are blocked and professionally lit, etc. So the rest of the episodes for this season is after a time jump, after things have calmed down and they've resumed the supposed transactions? (because I've been skeptical of some of the supposed deals made on the show over the years). Like for instance, Ryan tries to get listing for that building in Brooklyn, where he had to climb ladders to get to the penthouse, but the developer says they have to meet with other brokers. That's probably bullshit, why would that developer agree to have all those cameras filming him with Ryan if Ryan wasn't going to sell those apartments? They probably had a deal already but they staged this listing meeting, with Ryan sucking up to the developer and so on.

The Corona beer commercial with Snoop Dog. Never liked him, based on the things he's said on social media. It belies the genial guy presented in the commercial, spreading Corona beers to his "friends" on some Mexican beach. Snoop is all dapper, smiling, looks very genial Of course you don't expect a celebrity pushing a product on a commercial to represent his real personality but it's so opposite of what he can be like. Corona or their ad agency must hope that people who see the commercial are unaware of Snoop's douchey behavior?

Yeah I wondered about that. Not wanting to pay high rent, I get. But if they plunk their whole savings or a lot of their savings in an asset that depreciates, what is the point? That rental apt. wasn't good for them but why not say look to spend up to $2500 say? That is the equivalent of over 30 months of their savings. But they both got jobs so they could have paid a higher rent than the one apt. Richard showed. Of course their money would go further if they were not in central London. So neither presumably wanted to commute but could they have tried to find a place near his family? I don't think high-cost London is a good place to raise a child, especially since both seem to be starting out in their careers, not necessarily making a lot of money. Parents probably helped buy that houseboat though, can't imagine they'd saved $110k already with him not really working in the US. The first houseboat was right along the sidewalk so really no privacy. The one they chose seemed to be set off from the sidewalk but the boardwalk seemed accessible to anyone. That area seemed to have a lot of high rise office buildings so maybe it's quiet in the area at night.

Brisbane wife demanding beach access can’t have been serious? There seemed to be plenty of parks including waterfront public spaces. Or drive to the beach occasionally. first place looked great but they weren’t willing to go over budget.

🤣

Showtime likely wouldn't have renewed without him coming back, since the show has featured him. They probably outlined multiple seasons to the network, including the general trajectories of each major character. So Jackie possibly being out of the game is not really a cliffhanger. They will find a way to reinstate the character somehow.

Renewed for season 3, production later this year, premiere in 2022. https://deadline.com/2021/06/city-on-a-hill-renewed-season-3-showtime-1234767957/

The wife didn't care about the outdoor space. She might have preferred that second house if they didn't have to wait 6 weeks for it. But are they responsible for maintaining that space since it was shared? Maybe there is a big tractor mower to maintain that huge lawn, which was uphill no less. Strange that the NATO base where he works would be near such a rural area. Sarah is more chipper than snarky, unless they harsh her buzz by not reacting well to her positivity, putting the homes in the best light. Is she really a realtor or just plays one on HHI? She commented that this place was a remote corner of the Netherlands, sounded almost weary about what she puts up with for HHI sometimes. Maybe Floor didn't want anything to do with Limburg.😊

Well if Ronnie is suspended from the show, maybe Sammi reconsiders coming on for that sweet, sweet MTV money.

If you think about the two police cases featured in the show, they're both perfect for tabloid headlines. Both of them would be national, maybe international stories -- the sex slave one ending in a shootout rescue and then the 13-year old shooting his cousin in an attempt to scare her off from pursuing his father. Potts was lucky he wasn't caught earlier. He's not particularly some mastermind, driving around in a truck which was easy to identify and seen around the streets when the victims were abducted. Ryan of course had help from his parents and uncle but these people aren't savvy about police investigations so they should have been caught earlier. That is assuming they would try to conceal the death, which they could have said was initially an accident and self defense. Then you had this young teen mother fooling Dylan's family and the whole town with the identity of the father of the "secret love child." Real tabloid stuff. And Mare should have tracked down the ballistics for a murder weapon which is relatively rare. They could have cross tracked it to cops and former cops living in this small town. So the cases weren't that compelling but the show drew the audience very effectively into the lives of these characters. Like we said, the pilot episode didn't move the murder plot so much as establish the setting of this specific place and the personal lives of these characters. I think probably the most memorable moment in that pilot was the bullying of Erin, the ambush at the park. That caused a strong reaction and instantly established the villains in this story, got viewers on Team Mare and Team Erin. That bullying scene is not unlike the Game of Thrones pilot where Joffrey gets humiliated by Arya and the poor baker's boy is punished, establishing the Lannisters as villains and Joffrey as the first of many MUST-DIE characters on that show. It's effective but manipulative, lacking in subtlety and grace. It just so happens the I've been catching up on Mr. InBetween, which also features a child being bullied. Ray, who's a professional killer, tries to talk to the mother of the girl who's bullying his daughter. But instead of resorting to violence, which he's very skillful at using, he gets a bigger girl to threaten the girl who was bullying Ray's daughter. So much more deft way to depict bullying in this instance.

Unkind thing to say but does it still happen? It supposedly happened a lot during the studio system days. But I remember hearing on the radio that when the Brangelina thing happened, especially the way he left American's Sweetheart Jennifer Anniston, it resulted in a mountain of publicity for all of them. They quantified it by the number of magazine covers they got, how much it shot up for each of them, probably helped their box office draw, etc. Krazinski's response was good though, smart to take it in stride.

You could say the seeds were sown when they kept showing Ryan looking at things and reacting to them. Then the cafeteria attack with the tray. Still a reach that a young teen would feel like he has to "protect" his family by taking matters into his own hands or in this case, brandishing a gun at his older cousin. Besides all the logistical obstacles he had to overcome, didn't they say the park where Erin was shot was too far away for her to have rode her bicycle there, but Ryan could get out there, shoot the girl and make it back? It would be more believable if he shot his father for stepping out on mom again.

John as the murder was a little too pat. But I would have been okay with it if that's where they ended up. Still if his main crime was having an affair with Erin and trying to cover up the murderer, why was he considering killing Billy or himself over it? Maybe just to have another little cliffhanger, with Mare coming to the rescue? BTW, she has one good hand and she kept John from reaching the gun? In Inside the Episode, Kate Winslett said she loved the script and one reason was that each episode ended with a cliffhanger. I don't know if that's good writing or just a good way to hook the viewers into keep watching. They obviously threw a lot of red herrings and potential suspects, Deacon Mark, Dylan, Potts, etc. Again, maybe that captivates some viewers because it keeps them guessing in a whodunnit. Or maybe, they were given a spec, to produce an hour an episode of content and maybe at least a half dozen episodes, so they had to load it up with these other possible suspects, as well as the family and community scenes. The case itself may be simple. Usually murderers knew the victim and they didn't recover the murder weapon with John Ross so the thing would be to search his family and look for people who would have that specific type of gun. Who were the former cops living in the town for instance? As opposed to what they did, which was to have Mare happen to learn that Mr. Carroll was a former cop who owned that specific type of gun. So it case could have been wrapped up in 3 or 4 episodes but they also layered in these previous cases of the missing young women. Still despite all these manipulative mise en scene elements -- remember the suspense about Drew drowning or Jesse being abducted by Dylan -- it was engrossing TV. Temptation would be to do more seasons but how many more serious crimes is this little community likely to have? It appears the Katie Bailey and Erin McMenamin cases were two of the most notable in Mare's career. Plus I think they really used up how her personal circumstances affected her work as well as her life in general around the time of these cases. Can they build up more about how her personal life informs what kind of a cop she is in another season? The ending scene was closure as she goes up into that attic. Maybe as the therapist mentioned, she might move to another town. Or at least to another house, if they were to do another season. Mare seemed to patch things up with Lori, though how does she just walk into the home there at the end? But she can't have another case where her closest friends are involved again. One the one hand, she's not happy that Lori lied to her, obstructed her investigation. But OTOH, she arrests her best friend's young son. It would be better if any future cases didn't involve people she knew all her life.

They are in studio. My sense is Bill never liked OT. Probably prodded to do them by staff or the network. He used to say something slightly derisive about OT is where they talk to people on the Internets or something like that. I'm guessing his producers and staff are mostly comedy writers, not news researchers like say John Oliver's staff would be. So I don't know how much research they do or how much information Bill tries to digest. He says he reads some of the books of the guests, so maybe some on his staff give him a good synopses of books and maybe some major news items of the week.

A couple of good reviews but not getting much notice. https://variety.com/2021/tv/reviews/flatbush-misdemeanors-review-1234977610/ It's about a white teacher and a black artist friend who live in Brooklyn. I don't recognize any of the cast except Drew, who's played by the same actor who played WeBay on The Wired. Drew is a minor gangster who accuses Kevin, the black artist, of causing damage and owing him a lot of money, which he repays by giving him free food from the restaurant where he works. Dan, the teacher gets roped into this because one of his pupils is Drew's niece and he has to give her good grades. They come across a lot of offbeat characters, which as the Variety review notes, is similar in feel to High Maintenance. They don't go for obvious punchline jokes, mostly the wack things some characters say and do. For instance, Dan's mother has married a black man named Kareem, who's trolling Dan about being his daddy and how he got with his mom. Drew wanted to accost the mother of a classmate of his niece who posted about having sex with her but decides he'd like to get together with the mother, who catches on and throws them out -- he asks the mother if she's gay.

Emmitt was a player. He doesn't seem like the type who'd be racked with guilt that he'd finally crumble and tell Tiff, unless he has reasons to distrust his father. Now that Tiffany has gotten the revenge hookup, guess they're headed for a lot of drama. Maybe that guy was right, Tiffany didn't sound too excited about being married to Emmitt. OK, I don't know about Chicago but is the black community generally tolerant of LGBQT? Kevin and Keisha's mother and her wife are one thing but it's kind of surprising that Shaad who got out of prison after apparently a long stint didn't remark on Imani -- maybe that's to come. I thought that many black people were socially conservative and black male gangsters tend to be homophobic? The young cast members have really grown out of the cute phase from just a season or two ago. But still jarring that they have Kevin and Jake be so sexually active this season. Yet makes sense since they're already looking at colleges so they're at least juniors in high school. Douda is kind of going authoritarian. Not sure that the Chicago mayor has all these powers. For one thing, the Aldermen in the city seem to have some power. But unilaterally firing a cop, instantly, is possible? You'd think the police union would combat it. Also questionable if he can make a big budgetary decision like defunding the police on his own. Seems like the writers want to hit on all the greatest hits on the progressive activists wishlists. Again are these politics reflective of the South Side or whichever neighborhood or part of the city which this show is representing?

I don't know when I'll watch S3, if ever. But it is interesting that Aziz is taking inspiration from great directors, like he did in season 2. Louis CK did the same with his show, supposedly was very exacting about having just about every frame of the show be exactly the way he envisioned it. So these comedians who gained fame as standups and sitcom actors are looking to establish their artiste cred. They have received a certain amount of critical acclaim for their shows, even if they have some personal behavior issues. Maybe they're trying to follow in Woody Allen's footsteps -- speaking of someone who got some flak for putting out works which were deemed not as funny as those that came before these "serious" works.

I wonder if it was the owner's idea to shorten the existing kitchen and put in the kosher kitchen or the contractor suggested it, since it means more work for him.