aghst

I was going to snark about Paige again bailing on another chance to hang out with the rest of the cast. But I wonder if they went cheap on the trip and could only have a certain number of the cast, not their SOs on this trip. Obviously the resort comped the rooms, meals and drinks for mentioning the place and showing off some shots. But the place looked deserted? Maybe they filmed in the off season -- didn't look like sunbathing weather though I would think it would always be warm in the Caribbean. Another fake therapy session. No way a real therapist would consent to film sessions for which he or she would charge hundreds. Some of them like hanging out in the Caribbean but not sure this resort or Jamaica would have been their first choice. Not terribly Southern nor charming. All they got out of it was more fake boy-girl drama. They're probably sick of talking about Austen's supposed love life so they forced Madison to talk to him. When they were in transit, Rod was talking about his back hair and ass hair? OK, he's given up on Olivia since he talked about personal grooming in her presence. Or maybe he never really GAF.

Mohammed is the ultimate royals fan, a wannabe, who bought the place in Paris because Edward lived there. He's not the first rich guy who wanted to buy his way into the aristocracy. Who can blame him for trying, after all other had done it and he had been able to buy just about anything with his money. From the start of the series, it was clear that the Royals benefitted from modern celebrity, from the first overseas trips that Elizabeth took shortly after she was coronated, to the chase that led to the crash in the tunnel. Diana was going to be popular because of whom she married and what she married into. She was personable on her international trips and praised for hugging that AIDS orphan. But did most of the people remember her trips by the time she died? Did her immense popularity also have to do with how she was perceived to have been mistreated? The popularity of the RF probably kept the govt money coming, keeping at bay any critics of the English monarchy. Hell Diana alone probably kept Australia in the fold, at least according to the show.

Ashlie didn’t take falling behind the other teams too well. When Todd said something like money isn’t everything she said that’s the way losers talk. But she took getting elimination well by the time they got to the mat. At least she had her mind changed about skydiving — she may do it again.

Looks like AL was the only one to count flowers for the wreath. She crushed it while Ashlie was talking about layers and seemed to be more deliberate but maybe slower. I don’t think they recovered from that but at least she enjoyed the skydive. Rob and Corey seemed stunned that AL and Steve caught up and passed them because they couldn’t find the violinist in the opera house so that is probably why they asked AL and Steve why they were in the bus, because they weren’t confident in their navigation. AL was of course begging the bus driver to leave before Rob and Corey came into the bus. They were too shaken to play it cool and just go look for the subway. Serve task was less physically demanding but the teams enjoyed smashing things at the sort recyclables task. But the server brother saw the pattern or order or the prize winners and just looked for unique identifier in the dish names, as programmers do. They would have won if they had the correct directions but they figured they would just outrun the other teams.

Good challenges, both the Daily for the simplicity and the elimination for the entertainment value of Devin hamming it up and then both Devin and Callum rushing to make corrections. After he spilled that one box, he should have been out of it. Girls couldn’t help Callum. So Michele and Callum were more than a showmance? Which one is going to spend on airfare to be with the other? Michelle won Survivor? She’s been coming on Challenges since to win more money? Not sure why they keep having her back. Is she more edgy because she likes a guy with neck and face tattoos?

So a long setup to introduce the new villain for the season? Sean Donovan gets too close to his target/lover in Istanbul, fails at his objective and sees the target killed. Out of that failure he shows up in London a year later surveilling Standish, turning up in her AA meeting, befriending her and then abducting her. The team takes a bit of time to figure out that Standish has been abducted and River receives a picture of Standish with a gun pointed to her head, sending him on a goose chase through the Park Lamb meanwhile sees that he's been under surveillance so he tries to ascertain the organizations which have the wherewithal and willingness to take operations against the Park (MI5). Louisa is still moping over Min's death, going around having "meaningless sex" as Lamb calls it, until one pickup almost eats the diamond which she has hidden in her ice cream after lifting it from the scene where the Russian villain (season 2) was killed. Maybe the new case will snap her out of her torpor, so she can fend off Ho's sudden interest in her. The new case is a break for River as well because he was caught in filing hell until that point. He feels guilty because he called Standish a martyr just before she was abducted and now is more motivated to help rescue her. Lamb announces that the "tiger team" has got Standish, which sets off a light bulb in River's head but not in the viewers'. It looks like Marcus and Dander will be teaming up, for no reason other than Dander decks Ho, who was blackmailing Marcus about his gambling. Meanwhile, Webb, who was shot at the end of season 2, is out of the service, since his little play to make contact with the Russians turned out to be a false Russian plot to steal diamonds, one of which is still missing.

It does seem like she was giving into him too much. But it seems like she really liked him, breaking her 1-hour date rule. She was going to go join him in LA until this opportunity in the Netherlands came up. One of them alluded to him giving up his dream job to move for her job. She said she was indifferent to where they lived, though she wouldn't have minded the short commute. But he cited that there would be more things to do in Utrecht and that it was closer to the airport. Did they plan to fly a lot or have visitors fly in? Maybe for now she wanted to give him what he wanted to shut him up.

The Ringer Prestige TV podcast is recapping season 5. https://www.theringer.com/2023/11/29/23980075/fargo-season-5-episodes-1-3-recap-fx-hulu They kind of summarize the series, briefly discuss each season, how the show has related to the movie. They quote Hawley as saying he wants the series to be an exploration of American life, especially the capitalistic system. I guess it's true in a way, several of the characters across the seasons have been involved in big business, like the Ewan MacGregor character and this season, it's Lorraine. Other seasons featured organized crime, which is also a hierarchical business organization.

Yeah they could have had a conventional backstory for him and it would still have kept the character interesting. Just because he talks in a weird way, why come up with some exotic back story? But Hawley often had this kind of digression in Legion all the time, instead of maintaining a linear narrative for several episodes, it would go in all these different directions. In any event, he wanted to be paid, more than they agreed. Then maybe he would have gone his way and never have been heard from again? Dot just wanted some warning that they were coming, which is the idea behind the street signs, to make the invaders hesitate, try to confirm they're at the right place. Roy thought Dot/Nadine was dead and now thinks it's some gift that she's still alive. So basically he wants her back, wants her more than his current wife? But again delegates the task to Gator and his summer camp buddies -- something tells me they're even less competent than Gator. How about Lorraine's dismissive attitude of the police? Yeah that works in a small town but she's supposedly running a big business. She'd never talk to the cops directly, she'd have some smooth lawyer who'd be more diplomatic.

The male stripping thing is a staple on all the BD shows. They cast for fit young men and probably let them know that they’d have to do these kinds of things. They might have went there with female cast but because of #MeToo, Bravo doesn’t dare. Are the guests always wanting it? That’s dubious too, probably producer-prompted at least some of the times. Lara was right, did the guests just ask for a water taxi from Genoa to Portofino? It’s a nice ride but if the main attractions are water sports, why do so many older guests go on charters? Often you see these huge yachts just anchored at Mediterranean ports or close to the shore. You don’t see too much jet ski activity. There must be restricted areas. The rich may be spending a lot of time at these ports rather than on the yachts, because there are a lot of luxury hotels and fine dining restaurants all along the French and Italian Rivieras. Portofino attracts the jet set yachts but also a lot of day trippers willing to pay inflated prices. In any event, they could have taken the guests by tender for their visit, which looked very short. But I guess they really wanted to film the docking, even did drone shots. It was a triumph and the deck crew morale was lifted after the successful dock. Kyle was contrite for a minute but now has targeted Jack, who was sweet on Natalya. In the previews for the rest of the season, Natalya makes another appearance and tries to entice Luka so Jessika goes for some other male cast? Of course this is Bravo so you knew there would Be some more manufactured drama.

I wouldn't be surprised if these alliances are unofficially arranged. Easy enough for people to contact each other by social media and such but the obvious alliances are all because they came from the same country or are not American?

I bet they're saving the Hall Brawl and Pole Wrestle eliminations. And it will probably be mismatched challengers, one much larger and stronger than the other.

In the opening scene of S05.E01, you saw her eyes wide open processing the scene of the riot while clutching her daughter. Then she makes her way slowly through and was going to pounce anyone who physically accosted them. So her reactions are razor sharp. She's not just being lucky. And I don't know about this Fargo formula. The Kristin Dunst character and her husband were getting away with a lot of dumb luck, maybe even implausibly dumb luck. Scandia Minnesota is about 8 hours by car from Stark County, ND. I would guess if she went to LA, Roy would still try to get at her there if he found out that she was there. Or AL or HA.

They were coached to say those things about Kathryn by Bravo PR. So Bravo doesn't want to rule her out from returning, just in case the ratings dive without the stupid manufactured drama that she engages in.

I mean is Bisquik necessarily healthier than popping a couple of frozen waffles in the toaster -- I don't know if there is such a thing as frozen pancakes.? It must be faster than making pancakes or waffles from scratch so presumably you wouldn't have to add eggs or any other ingredients than water? Maybe Bisquik was featured because she's going to MacGuyver it at some point in the season.

Eh I don’t know if this is necessarily an award winning performance.

The premise is that these are all challengers who've never won, are not rookies, so they excluded the vets who've won. But why didn't they let Cory and some other vets who've never won it compete this season so he could have a better chance to finally win? They probably wanted to boost younger cast members, as older ones maybe retire.

Characters were also saying aboot. Osmosis from proximity to Canada?

AL and Steve started last and were supposedly way beyond the others but they passed up Robin and Chelsea in the first task and then drove past the beard guys. These were tough tasks like assembling all those wooden utensils, then assembling the dragon, then kayaking which must be difficult for people who haven't. Were there only a certain number of special buoys so Rob and Corey had to find the one they took out by mistake or could there have been more special buoys for them to find? Looked like the barnacle cleaning could go faster than searching for random buoys unless the team was really comfortable kayaking around. Todd and Ashlie and Robbin and Chelsea navigation mistakes really put them back in the rear. Todd said they had to go 30 kilometers before they could turn back? The production team really got their money's worth in Slovenia, using it for two legs, despite it being such a small country. But alpine lakes, Adriatic Coast and mountains offered a lot of variety of backdrops. Oh and castles, there is a castle an average of every 15 miles in Slovenia!

I guess they can't have Daily games with odd number of teams because two of the teams can game it to eliminate the third team. That mud pit looked nasty. They must have hosed up before returning to the villa. For the elimination, I do also wonder what is that third sword or whatever they pull out for the draw. So these champions may be hanging out for a week or two until they get pulled into the Chaos eliminations? Bet they get paid something for the time they put in to travel, hang out then return. The US team could eliminate all the others and then have to throw themselves in against each other because it seems too large a group to all go to the Final.

Saw this a couple of days on a flight. Happened to have Wifi so I looked up the reviews and saw it was rated very high. I didn't read the book -- guy here -- but the title had some familiar ring to it. When Barbara's parents reached out it was moving, until the father wanted to know which religion Margaret was going to practice.

The early scene with Dot and Indira talking to each other that way, it seemed like self-parody, consciously mocking the accents on this show and by extension, the movie. Especially when Indira seems least likely to have that accent. Then it's revealed that Dot was putting on the accent all this time. Whatever Dot was in her previous life, she must have been more than Roy's wife or now Wayne's wife. Which makes you wonder why she seems to be content whisking Bisquik and working PTA meetings. Is it a long con to get at Wayne's trust? Because it's been about a decade that they've been married and when she tells Lorraine that nobody is going to prevent her from getting hers, it could be interpreted as she's waiting for a big payday. But why would she threaten the one person who can revoke the trust if that's her game? Maybe she just wants a nice family life, but with security of course -- how can a car dealership owner not afford an alarm system? So the things Roy was telling the FBI agents is a real movement, the constitutional sheriffs movement, which holds that only local law enforcement are the true defenders of the Constitution. Was it a coincidence that Gator tells his partner to stop by the same convenience store where Dot took down both assassins? He must have seen the police reports? In any event Stark County is on the western part of ND while Fargo is on the eastern part, right on the border with MN. Minneapolis is much further east. It's about a 7-8 hour drive from Stark County, ND to Minneapolis and Scandia is a further 25 miles NE of Minneapolis. Roy may be some small town despot but is he going to really go up against the FBI or come to the Minneapolis suburbs and do whatever he wants? The montage of "coming this season" seems to show a lot of action, like pseudo-military tactical action, not something you associate with Fargo. BTW, I never know what to make of "this is a true story" disclaimer at the start of every episode. I would think if these events occurred as depicted, many of these would be national stories, like the wife of a scion from a rich family being abducted but then denying she was abducted and it turned out she escaped like a combination of MacGuyver and a ninja.

I hadn't heard of Maratea but they said it's a popular summer place for wealthy people from Napoli. Hmm near anational parks and UNESCO Heritage sites. Was the boyfriend her gardener? Or the reason she moved down there? Her parents only go down in the summer, it sounds like, whereas she plans to live there year round.

Episode was labeled as series finale, not season finale. Everyone's expectations seemed to be one and done. Maybe that is all Larson would commit to. Yeah happy ending for all. Arguably, she would have more impact doing the TV show than teaching undergrads. We knew Harriet winning the vote was unlikely, given history. Looks like Mad isn't as into science as her parents.

The Ringer has been discussing the season 6 episodes. They've really been complaining about the poor digital effects like Diana on the high diving board on the yacht in front of a cliff or Elizabeth giving her TV speech with the crowd in front of Buckingham Palace. They said they're too obviously faked so it throws them out of the moment. In some cases, the shots are recreations of famous photos or video sequences and the CGI doesn't render them well. I haven't noticed them being too off. When Elizabeth spoke with the crowd over her shoulders in the background, I understood that wasn't real nor did they have some number of extras in the background and then digitally multiplied them to fill the frame. Some people who followed these events or viewed old news footage or photos, who might be more into the subject matter, might be more critical, especially the shots in the show which are suppose to be recreations of famous photos.