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So the main character doesn't have a name, just known as The Captain, a Vietcong mole who managed to ingratiate himself to one of the top generals of South Vietnam. But they humanized him. He had gone to college in America so his English is flawless and he loves American culture, especially popular music, which also gets him close to Claude, a CIA honcho. He seems to have genuine affection for some of these people, at least Bon, a South Vietnamese paratrooper. The Captain is not only a drinking buddy but also the godfather to Doc, Bon's toddler. Turns out him and Bon, as well as Man, who's also Vietcong, were all close growing up, saw themselves as The Three Musketeers. He's trying to get names of all the South Vietnamese secret police and The General gives him the assignment of choosing which ones get some of the limited seats on the escape plane for America. The Captain makes sure to keep the worse ones in Vietnam, so that they will face trial and reeducation when the Vietcong takes Saigon. He doesn't even want to escape to America but Man, who's his handler, tells him to go to America with The General, to keep tabs on him. The Captain seems to believe in the Vietcong cause but also seems to have nostalgia for Vietnam before the war.

I believe the strikes pushed it about a year later than originally planned, Meanwhile looks like Moss has had a couple of other projects which will have been released before THT season 6. Coming at the end of this month exclusively on Hulu is the limited series “The Veil.” But bad news for viewers if THT who couldn’t stomach June Osborne being too much like a badass female action star, beating up people. Looks like in The Veil, Moss plays a badass female spy, who will presumably do her share of beating up people, including probably men bigger than her.🤭

Beautifully filmed and he seemed to enjoy many of his experiences. Certainly seemed more game to try more things. Liked how he recalled enjoying a train ride at 8 years old to New York and how he hadn’t ridden trains much as an adult. Apple TV + likes to showcase the picture quality so it puts in golden sun-drenched scenes as much as it can, even on shows like Trying or Bad Sisters, which take place in England and Ireland, which are not known for a lot of sun. But no problems finding sunny scenes in St. Tropez, Andalusia or Greece. So no shortage of scenery porn and this season they related a lot of Eugene’s personal life like visiting Scotland where his mother grew up. His narration talked about doing another trip as he looked at those whales close to his boat so he seems willing to do more episodes.

I get that she has family back in Scotland but that has to be a downgrade on lifestyle. Big adjustment in weather. Guess they liked cashing out on selling their Melbourne home and saving money on housing in Scotland. Usually, Australians move to the UK for career opportunities but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Daily was a fun setup. Must cost money to have a crane available and all those nostalgic vehicles. yeah the first team which did it kind of got screwed. Janelle probably makes good income and has a comfortable life. Prize is not enough to make her put up with the aggravation. The Challenge and other reality shows want confrontational people, especially when they get drunk. Janelle is a mother of young children and a professional. She doesn’t need to get loud and angry on TV. Makes you wonder why she came back for a second All Stars season, I thought she said she had some friends among this cast. So TJ explained the game before either Laurel or Nicole committed to competing, like he was trying to entice one of them. He never gives the game away until the competitors are determined. Nicole may be right, Laurel still has feelings for her and she’s putting up a coldhearted front. Laurel doth protest too much.

Main thing about this episode is that they pushed the prize money down. No more million dollar prizes? It must cost money to fly down so many to South Africa. That Challenge house looks expensive. Did they build the water slide just for this season? Maybe also filming so many variations and releasing/broadcasting each year — feel like we’ve been Getting 2 or 3 seasons of the different flavors each year — they have to spread the prize money more. Or maybe TJ is wetting his beak into some of the prize money.😊 The Daily and elimination were good. It wasn’t about running up and down that hill more than others, looks like the star winners studied the next box and then went back and looked for the right configuration of pegs. The elimination didn’t necessarily favor the stronger guy but they will probably spring Hall Brawl and Pole Wrestle at some point. Though I’m not sure how Tyri built up a big lead unless he muscled Steve out of them. i recognize a lot of the faces and names but some of these people haven’t been on any of the Challenges in over 20 years so I don’t recall their antics at all. Averey couldn’t have been on the show that long ago. She must be at least 5-7 years younger than any of the others. Well maybe not Leroy and Cam, and Derek and what’s his name the guy who quit the Final because he couldn’t eat.

Mike observed that Sam being silent and not looking at him indicates there's some emotions there. Did he say hate, love, indifference? I can see the first two but not indifference. That's what Sam is trying to project, that she's moved on, she's in a good place in her life. But is it denial or repressing something. Fact that Vinny mentioned the note and that ticked her off suggests something is going on. I don't think she still has feelings for Ron but her trying to play it off like she has no emotions for him may be denial too. She thought she was ready for it, that she could coexist with him within the big group. But it's not so easy if she shuts down almost completely while he's around. Maybe she'll argue with Angelina so she doesn't have to think about it, though all the roomies are poking, saying "awkward" every few minutes.

Great for her career but he's young to not be working in a career-track job himself. They chose to have a family rather early, just before she got the big job. But they did seem to sightsee around France a bit, there were some snapshots including a selfie with Mont St. Michel.

The coughing was method acting. Toranaga was doing it on the other side of those shoji walls. But they think he's at death's door because of a little cough? Well he leaned on his servant as he walked, like he was going to fall over. So no such thing as an inner circle with Toranaga. He's not telling anyone else his strategy, even if his most loyal right-hand man threatens to commit seppuku. He looks at his people like they're birds of prey. But he only respects the peregrines. Doesn't the Church try to reform everyone? So maybe being next to the tea house isn't so bad. Not only that, the movers and shakers go to visit these courtesans so the Father can use that?

I've only recently saw previews for this. Don't know about the book. Looks to be getting good reviews. Hope Downey fares better in this than Winslet did in The Regime. Two historical, geopolitic shows in a row HBO?

One of my DVRs recorded what appears to be a Paris episode on the 10th of April. But my cloud DVR didn't. Anyone else get this Paris episode?

It changed from palace satire to some kind of action/survival for a bit and then back as Elena regains power, plays ball with the Americans. Herbert took a shot to the face or head yet he’s perfectly embalmed or has been done up by a taxidermist like animal trophies? Will Tracy refers to the interrogations being inspired by Solzhenitsyn. Like viewers are suppose to recognize that? Probably some references to Ceaucescu and other Eastern Bloc figures too. Still not sure what to make of it.

Didn't Larry say something questioning whether phones really endanger airliner operation? They were just taxing but they could have had the plane do a temporary plunge like the Seinfeld finale and the cast panicking and turns out all of them turned their phones on. LD made some comments recently which showed where his political leanings lie. So this Georgia law for voter suppression of black voters is certainly a political statement. Instead of challenging the law, the trial was more about his character, which used to matter with politicians.

Trial was basically a relitigation of Larry’s antics over the years. Call backs going back all the way to The Pants Tent episode, the very first one. First thing, those earlier seasons the entire episodes had a plot with the payoff at the end. This season it seemed more about getting in as many scenes with celebrity guests. Many of the things they brought up made Larry look bad but there were often extenuating circumstances or misunderstandings like the bottle of water he hid in his pants or him trying to deflate the doll and Cheryl walks in on him seemingly humping it. If Larry is unapologetic about these situations, in many cases he has no reason to be. Certainly scamming the recipe from Auntie Mae isn’t good but rather than being about malevolence or being a bad person, it was more about own-goals or self-sabotage. Seinfeld characters were shown as being selfish people and were also hurt by being victims of circumstances. Did they deserve prison time? No way Larry, without a criminal record, should be getting a prison sentence. LD keeps saying his shows are not about lessons or character growth. Yet this season plot was loosely about an unjust law enacted for voter suppression, so it did have a political opinion being expressed.

I caught up to this show over the last week or two. I hadn’t watched because it had relatively lukewarm reviews, praise for Maya but not sure this was the best vehicle. Well I wouldn’t say it’s as good as The Good Place but definitely watchable. I couldn’t stay with Acapulco despite the rave reviews for that show. Nobody as good as Maya on that show or on Shrinking for that matter. Molly shows growth and comes to lean on the small staff at her foundation and they seem to like and want to support her. A bit unrealistic given the huge power imbalance dynamics. But it’s not so far fetched that you constantly roll Your eyes because Maya of course always portrays a winning, positive personality. The second episode of the second season where Molly and Howard sets up Sofia with the architect seems genuine or as genuine as a rom-com trope can be. Even though she’s pledged to give up all her wealth, they’re going to unwind the lifestyles of the rich and famous bits, the extravagant luxury, slowly it seems. Like how she downsized to an oceanfront mansion.

Milos is nice but it's not even the most popular Greek island. I guess they wanted to feature him with a tight group of people showing him around. He refused to eat the octopus. I thought it was a principled thing but it was more of a squeamishness thing, which he got over in the end. Maybe if they do more seasons, he'll go back to some of these countries but do other destinations. He's really improved since season 1 at getting into the experiences, seems more relaxed and natural at it but maybe had to fight some jet lag and fatigue.

Was it temporary graffiti or have they marked up one of their public spaces permanently with something done for a TV show?

The striking thing about this episode was how much young Columbians had absorbed American pop culture. It happens everywhere and probably TV, film and now things like Youtube reinforces their draw. I wonder if the choice of getting into break dancing was deliberately about doing something retro or it's something that was just only discovered there relatively recently. Even the graffiti artist who painted the puzzle they had to solve made it around an English phrase. Is there a delay in American pop culture reaching a relatively poorer nation like Columbia?

Second season seems to have been pretty well received. So I may move it up the queue.

So anyone watch?

Ohio to Bellarine Peninsula, Australia. A couple with two young children, one of them autistic, which requires the wife to be full-time home school teacher and caretaker. They're moving for the husband's job, which transferred to Melbourne. However he will also be working from home and she insists they be close to the beach if they're doing this move. So Bellarine Peninsula is 50-60 miles from central Melbourne and he needs to be near public transportation to make this work. She wants either beachfront or within walking distance. She promised the kids they'd go to the beach a lot. Their budget is $3000 a month for a home by the beach or within walking distance, 4 bedrooms because they need two office areas, one for the husband and one to home-school the 8-year old autistic son. Homes they saw are all some distance from the beach. The closest is about 15-minutes away. They choose budget and space which meets their space requirements, a home that is the furthest from the beach, because the reasoning is that they have to deal with the space every day and when they do go to the beach, they have to pack up a lot of stuff so they need to pack it up in a car anyways. This is a real move, says they've sold their home and cars back in small town/suburban OH. They're happy to get away from the winters.

Well if things went smoothly all the time, there would be no conflict, tension, drama. Bravo wouldn't want that. In fact most of the footage they record may be routine, unremarkable as far as nothing going wrong. But they want to show the things that don't go smoothly. And if things go smoothly too much, they are biased towards stirring things up, because they believe confrontations and how people react to stress brings ratings.

I've forgotten what the crime Toranaga is supposedly guilty of, punishable by death. First time we see him, he's in Osaka, there for a Regents Council meeting. Already they're making accusations, how he had Ochiba back at his castle, kind of to guarantee that the other Regents won't kill him. Vaguely that he's a threat to the Heir because his family line descends from the last Shogun so he's a threat to usurp power and destroy the peace imposed by the late Taiko?

BTW, the boy doesn't die in the books. But he apparently doesn't do much in the books either.

Whoever they get is someone who probably would have been auditioned and chosen by the producers. Then signed a contract. They're not getting some random person from a yacht staffing agency and then putting him or her on the show. So that's got to be some fiction. It would be irresponsible if they started filming a season without having one or two spares stashed nearby. These chronic crew shortages -- every season of every BD show usually has a couple of charters where they're short of the staffing levels they first started with -- is part of the drama, the season plot. Any replacement who comes on the show would have long-been vetted so it's not some employment brokers finding random people. Dylan, the new deckie, is working out whenever he can. There was another deck like that, always shown doing pull-ups, even when there aren't any pull-up bars. The casting people can't even find different types of people, they keep re-casting the same types. Did she ever opine on how other things should be run, like hotels or restaurants or maybe stores? Or maybe something beyond hospitality like a charity or maybe a hospital? So it would be on brand for her to pontificate like she's used to running yacht charters. Or the producers encouraged her to behave like that. Certainly they like her behavior to feature a lot of scenes of her telling the crew how things should be.