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Ramy is coming back on TV, Ramy Youssef that is, not Ramy Hassan, the character he created for his Hulu show. HBO comedy special which is part of a tour, called More Feelings. I don't know if he's done with the show. Otherwise, the next project he seems to be working on is an animated show about a Muslim-American family in the early 2000s, trying to "code-switch" in America. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18566094/?ref_=nm_flmg_unrel_2_act

You need to cut Elena a break. She's been breathing through a mask and breathing in all the mold spores!

So the cliffhanger at the end of the previous episode made it seem like Fraser and Barbie were going to butt heads again but she says she's spoiled and used to getting her way but she won't challenge his authority any more. Fraser is hopeful and does recognize that she's a great stew, especially in service. Of course at the end, when Fraser awards second stew to Xandi, who wants to fly under the radar, Barbie's glare gave away the game. You didn't have to see her saying "in my mind, I'm the real Second Stew." Barbie wants to eventually convert to judaism but is she talking about the religion or adopting the culture? One trip to Jerusalem did all that, give her the epiphany to change one's cultural identity? There was a time when some celebrities were dabbling with some Jewish mysticism. I forget what it was called but supposedly Madonna was into it and got all her trendy friends to get into it too, you know kind of like how young actors used to feign interest in Scientology to get cast in Tom Cruise movies. Otherwise, it just seems odd to talk about adopting a foreign culture like one might try on a shirt or something. Jared is easily set off, like he couldn't talk to his daughter at the appointed time so he gets drunk and is freaking out about not having cell service. Kerry is trying to be supportive, says if after this next charter, he can't deal, he'd understand if he had to leave. Meanwhile, Ben is looking at Jared having problems ordering towels and smirking, because he thinks it gets him closer to taking over. Cat doesn't give a fuck about folding the towels and bed sheets a certain way. But she doesn't care about actually cleaning the cabins either. So her problems fitting in may become moot soon enough. The preference sheet had some more fraud, another theme party and another guest with very particular demands. Why not get guests pretending that they're Van Halen and demanding M&Ms but not brown ones? But hey they can show a few scenes next episode of the demanding guest making the crew curse her out.

So this season, like the first is about discovery of Elliot's past life. He's a tourist in his own biography. Even the last scene of the season finale, he's discovering something about himself, like hearing Swan Lake brings out his love of ballet and he rediscovers the muscle memory. But the file that burns in the Dutch oven reveals another layer, another identity, than the one which unfolded in this season. The process involves both Elliot and Helen having doubts about his character, his core being, whether he was a monster, as his family and their arch rivals say that he was, as much of a gangster as they show themselves to be. They could have been content just being together, not learn anything more about his past. But Helen pushes or encourages him to go back to Ireland, based on the message, which turns out to be a ruse or bait to lure him back into a life he doesn't want to be a part of. The seasons are short so maybe they can do this for another season, maybe two at most to reveal more and more of his biography. If there are additional seasons, that would seem to be the plan. The supporting characters are crazy. Ethan actually provides comic relief at key moments and Ruairi, I guess it was suppose to be genuine grief and some emotional issues but in the end he didn't harm anyone. Both Elliot and Helen get abducted, could have been killed, but survive. Maybe that was the point of the Ruairi character, to show both of them enduring all kinds of stress and yet they return to each other? Helen apparently loved being a cop, even in the middle of nowhere in rural Australia and had aspirations to be a detective. So her inclination is to dig, to unearth things, like those letters which Niamh buried. So once they find out about this new identity from Elliot's past, she's probably going to be more driven than he is to find out more about it.

After the credits, they show some scenes from the rest of the season and then have some interviews with the cast and also the creator. They're juggling a lot of things. That state dinner was something, with her entrance. You can dismiss Elena as this loopy, hypochondriac authoritarian of some wannabe imperial Eastern European nation. She's not oblivious of geopolitics, the way she was telling the American businessman her POV. But then Zubak bends her to his will, looks like she's going to lean into the authoritarian, not the beloved leader she imagines herself to be. Maybe it's loosely modeled on Romania but there may be some Imelda Marcos as well.

It was great, so many elements that worked. But this season, he's really packing a lot in each episode. They don't necessary integrate with each other, they're like standalone bits, several of which hit. Freddie/Vince Vaughn being a snob about what kind of career the woman he dates has seemed uncharacteristic. Not even sure what his job is suppose to be but he seems to have a lot of free time yet he has a Porsche. Wasn't crazy about the exchanges with the Chinese waiter though, too much trading on stereotypes but does the fish stuck bit requires the waiter character to have poor command of English? Again with Larry acting like he doesn't have all kinds of resources to get his way. For instance, he could hire people to buy bricks and say whatever he wants, though of course, it's better comedically to have Cheryl, Ted and Susie refuse to do his bidding. Hobie Turner was the husband of the unprofessional psychiatrist who blabbed about all the things her patients told her, so Larry probably called her out on it and Hobie says that's being disrespectful to women. It takes some doing to antagonize Sean Hayes but OTOH, Daniel Levy is perfect for the character who easily takes offense.

I remember enjoying the book. I also read Tai Pan and maybe some other Clavell books. I have very little recollection of the mini series though. I remember Chamberlain and also that Mifune was a big deal casting-wise. I wonder how it would hold up to watch after almost 40 years!

Not surprising. If you think about the logistics of searching for and buying a home, it probably takes too long for a TV show to be involved from beginning to end. Even renting probably takes a long time to decide and actually finish the lease, especially for someone leasing a place in another country. In fact the analogy might be a cooking show, where they can't film in real time the preparation and actual cooking of a recipe so they show some parts but they had already started cooking before they start filming so that they can show the finished dish. Then the sheer volume of shows that HH and HHI put out, what is the likelihood of finding house hunters who are willing to go through being filmed from beginning to end? And from the production POV, the process is unpredictable so if they tried to film from beginning to end, they don't know how many would finish the process in time to complete a given episode. So they pretty much HAVE to find people who already have a place and then work backwards and come up with fake alternative choices. Most of us who've been watching for years know about the process being faked, about fake realtors, maybe house hunters not really making a big move but living for a year or even less but pretending to make a permanent or long-term move. Show is still very watchable and the house hunters can be entertaining for snark reasons if nothing else.

Who was financing these voyages? They had ships, dozens or hundreds of crew and provisions and ammo for intercontinental expeditions, with uncertain outcomes. Would it be a private company like the Dutch India Company? Or would it be the crown, as in the case of Columbus getting financial and political backing from Ferdinand and Isabella? It was a risky mission so which entity can and would be willing to risk the resources?

This BUS chick asking are we better off than 4 years ago but says are we better off than 2018. 4 years ago was 2020, first year of the pandemic, with MASSIVE job losses, because Trump bungled the response to covid. But sure let's compare to 2018. Way more new jobs created in the last 4 years than under Trump's first 3 years, before the pandemic. Unemployment rate under 4%. Unemployment rate wasn't that low back then. My savings and brokerage balances are at all-time highs. So should everyone else who has any kind of retirement savings like 401k and IRA, including this BUS person. As bill noted, US has recovered way better economically than the other "big boy" nations or the G8. Yes inflation has been bad the past 2-3 years but that was a GLOBAL problem and even there, we're doing much better driving down inflation than just about every other nation. BTW, the immigration "problem" is a fraud, amped up by Russian disinformation. In fact the CBO estimates that half of the economic growth in 2023 was due to immigrant workers, filling jobs that American workers were unable or unwilling to take on. That's all immigrant workers, both legally immigrated and undocumented workers. As Tim Ryan noted, a Republican senator wrote a new immigration bill which passed in the Senate with several Republican votes but the House refuses to take it up because Trump ordered the Speaker not to, so that he can use it as a political issue. Yeah Putin wants Trump to win because Trump will cut off Ukraine support, you know, the country that Putin invaded?

A retrospective of Richard Lewis' career, including some highlights of his interviews on Fresh Air. https://www.npr.org/2024/03/01/1234862319/remembering-richard-lewis-a-veteran-stand-up-comedian-with-a-caustic-wit So I'd forgotten that Richard starred in an ABC sitcom with Jamie Lee Curtis called Anything But Love which ran for 4 seasons. In fact it started in '89, the same year as Seinfeld. If the timing worked out differently, maybe Lewis and LD would have collaborated on a show. Richard started doing standup in 1971 and it would be about 8 years before he gained national prominence. He became a regular on late night talk shows, especially Letterman who had him on often. He cultivated this neurotic, hypochondriac persona, always wore black. That is what he played up on his Letterman appearances and his HBO specials were on the same theme such as "I'm Exhausted." It was a deliberate plan to keep up a national profile, which was great for his standup bookings but probably also angling for regular TV work. So when LD was finally available, Richard was on the very first episode of CYE or the special which spawned the series, in '99. Interesting that he really didn't play up his neurotic persona on CYE. Instead he was more of a foil, a buddy with whom LD would argue all the time.

Episode 7 - P51 Mustangs are a game changer. But while the bomber squadron were celebrating 14 of 15 forts returning, practically untouched, there must have been some attrition of the fighter squadron that protected the bombers? Not a surprise Rosie re-upped. But they changed the mission, now to destroy the Luftwaffe fighters for the invasion of Europe. Makes sense but a big sacrifice for the bomber crews, to bait the fighters up. Why wouldn’t they just destroy the bases where the fighters were? The tactic now is to destroy runways so enemy fighters can’t even take off or land. Also not a surprise that Crosby’s coping mechanism to deal with all the squadron’s losses is to have an affair with subaltern Sandra Westgate.

Big Lies season 3 is coming back right? Her character was mother of young children on that show as well.

From Fraser's perspective: 1. Barbie mean-girled Cat on the first day or charter. 2. Pushed back on the whole margarita order, insisting it must have orange juice, based on her binder. 3. Gave him attitude when he asked her to be kind to Cat 4. Accused him of having attitude too when he tried to have a little heart to heart at the bar. It sucks but at some point, you have to shut up and do what your boss asks.

The priest in the prison where Blackthorne was. He was the one who said they had a base in Macao, was running guns with ronin.

Barbie pushed back. When he took her aside at the night out, tried to talk to her, she told him right away he was giving her attitude too. As her superior, he's allowed to have a certain attitude. A lot different when she has an attitude against her boss. That is what Fraser wasn't going to put up with. Maybe that's not the best way of managing people but he's entitled to try his way.

But he understood the impact right away. Probably really believed that Spain and Portugal eventually planned to conquer China and Japan so a secret base made sense.

Maybe in the early 17th century, Spanish and Portuguese were more widely spoken than English. Spain certainly was far ahead of England and the Northern European nations in colonization so for navigators, they'd learn Spanish?

Ah, May 2 seems a long time away. Can't wait!

Good reviews so far. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_regime/s01/reviews?type=top_critics

Wow Shawna really triggered some skepticism. Hmm she said cooking was important to her because she connected to her grandmother through it. Yet she passes up the place with the nice kitchen and decides she likes to eat out? She says she left behind the party scene in Winnipeg but moves to a Mexican resort town which seems to be a big party scene. Well at least she chose the place away from party central.

There may be some mean girl thing going on from Barbie to Cat that we haven't seen on air. That may be why Cat is feeling that she's not fitting in.

Well I think the whole season is already filmed. So who knows how many times Richard Lewis was able to film this last season. Richard used to be so energetic about 20-30 years ago, used to appear all the time on the late night talk shows. And his appearances in the early seasons he was also more energetic, kind of like a foil or rival, like the episode where they're getting to the restaurant earlier and earlier to claim a coveted seat. He was about as well known as Seinfeld for doing standup before Seinfeld hit it big with the sitcom. Who knows, maybe LD could have collaborated with RL instead of JS on a sitcom in the early '90s. I don't think RL ever appeared on Seinfeld, now that I think about it.

Yabushige is a great character. I don't quite remember him from the books but liked him going down the cliff. Then he gives up the ship and the spoils rather than fight Hiromatsu. Then he rescues anjin. Loyal to the nth degree, was ready to accept his fate if they killed Toranaga. But always seems to be in good humor.

I was a kid when I read the novel and don't recall the mini-series at all. I think there wasn't so much emphasis on the differences between the English/Dutch vs. the Spanish/Portuguese in the book at all. It was more from Blackthorne and Mariko's POVs. Also some by some peasants. The Hulu description says it's set in 1600? So 12 years after the Spanish Armada? If England lost that battle, it would likely have fallen. So there has to be quite a bit of antagonism between the English and the Spanish. But I remember the Rodrigues character calling Blackthorne Ingles all the time. Obviously, the European nations were seeking wealth, competing for trade with the Far East. Though realistically, what did this expedition expect, the Portuguese were well-established there. Even if they made it with 5 ships and full crews, would they be in a position to battle the Portuguese and the Japanese? By then they'd be low on ammo and provisions. Also don't recall as much palace intrigue between Toronaga vs. Ishido and the others. Some reviewers compared this to Game of Thrones a bit. Well the credit sequence which they show at the start of the second episode is kind of like the GoT opening too, a top down view of this world.