aghst

I didn't rewatch so my recollection of how they came to decide to do a fine dining place. But the Original Beef was mostly a lunch place for local customers from a working-class neighborhood. They attracted some customers from other parts of the city, because of the rep it had, people who were willing to deal with the traffic to get there. For this high-end place, they're going to have to attract affluent clients from other parts of the city. Maybe when high end restaurants open with chefs who had the reputation that Carmy has, people would come anyways, including from other parts of the country or even the world. I don't go to fine dining places so I don't know, I know there are some hardcore fans who save up or have so much money that they can chase these places with great reps, even if they're sometimes hard to reach. I would trust that the writers did the research so maybe fine dining restaurants in working class neighborhoods aren't as rare as one might think. That place where Richie worked, they boasted of having a 5000 people waiting list and if people drop out, they send a car to fetch people next down on the waiting list. I don't know if that's a real thing, if there are people who are ready to drop whatever plans they may have to go to some place where they will spend hundreds or thousands on a meal. Or if 3 Michelin stars means the entire staff is obsessive, has drunk the Kool Aid. It's entertaining episode but not sure how real the scene it depicts is.

I feel it did pull focus from the regular cast. No Sydney, no Marcus, none of the other regular actors were in this episode since it was a flashback. That's fine, the other cast are featured enough. But I'm not so sure that the actors playing Carmy and Richie hold up in scenes with the more well-known actors. Olivia Colman was great but she's overkill. I think Richie had been converted by the time he ran into her peeling those mushrooms. Another way to show that real actors loved the show.

Hmm, the finale, Cary and Brooke suddenly realize how selfish they have been and quickly flips the switch. They both get good redemption arcs but it seems abrupt. Lot of the episodes leading up to the finale feel like SNL skits, absurd to the extreme. Then in this episode, they become human, compassionate, selfless. That's fine but for much of this season they showed no sign of those traits. I guess Pat was a good parent and the evidence is despite all of Cary and Brooke's selfish behavior, Chase has been a good seed for most of the series. It's almost as if they've forgotten that they toiled for years to succeed in the entertainment industry and was a bit salty that their young brother and then their mother saw massive fame without really even trying. Cary's epiphany was believable. He realized right away he'd been shitty to his manager who was watching over a sick relative, not enjoying herself at his expense in the Hamptons. Brooke was preoccupied about doing good all season and it just came naturally when she decided to take the bullet for Chase and Pat in one instant. In the end though, they still don't have their normal lives back. Chase and Pat are still megastars, thanks to Brooke. So they can only have family dinners out at the fake set.

Can’t believe Taniel described the house which the house hunter eventually chose as a grower not a shower. Did the guy really want to be close to the beach or just went for the most affordable one?

If HBO cut the show short because of bad behavior, they might also cancel the future project as well.

Seems kind of abrupt, as if the decision was made at the last minute, just a couple of days before the season and now series finale. Maybe there were some negotiations going on with WBD. Well they have a deal for another project on HBO. https://www.vulture.com/2021/10/the-other-two-chris-kelly-sarah-schneider-hbo-show.html

That would be the dealbreaker for Daisy, if he hasn't already committed the dealbreaker in Daisy's eyes. Nothing lower than getting between sisters. But she's not pushing him away either when Gary is flirting with her or grabbing at her.

Just watched this episode. All these actors known for other roles just took me out of the show. Of course these are other FX or Hulu stalwarts or buddies of the creator, who had Ramy Yousef direct an episode, from their association on that show. It just makes you aware that the first season was a phenomenon and so all the FX friends wanted to take part in season 2 in some way? Not that the performances weren't great but not sure if this isn't mostly a standalone episode. Yes it illuminates Carmy, Richie and Natalie's back stories, shows what kind of crazy, chaotic, emotionally exhausting milieu they came from. I guess they're all suppose to be survivors of chaos or maybe they thrive despite the chaos or because of it. Death of Mikey hangs over Carmy but their mother was something as well. However, it still seems like the episode was written to work in all these other stars who were interested in appearing on the show. The main things I learned are that Carmy went to train in Copenhagen and was the great chef that Luka, the guy who was teaching Marcus, couldn't match up to. So Carmy got his friends at Noma to train Marcus for that trip and it was cousin Michelle (Sarah Paulson) who got Camry the hell out of Chicago, probably helped him get gigs in NY and become the Michelin chef. As dysfunctional as the family is, that is why it's harder to understand why Camry comes back to take over the sandwich place and now is building his restaurant. How did Mikey, who never finishes anything, put aside that much money?

Bravo has put on Youtube and social media influencer types on Million Dollar Listing New York and tried to pass them off as people really looking to buy property or something. I wouldn't put it past them to put some personality and make up a fake back story or profession, like real estate broker, which is what this primary charter guest was suppose to be. Really people embellish resumes and Bravo makes up stuff so why not make up fake professions for these guests?

Gemstones are grifters and they bicker all the time yet they have some familial impulses and solidarity? Montgomerys were depicted as people that the rich Gemstones looked down upon but Eli and then the kids didn't turn their back on them. Trying to remember, have we seen any of them pray when they weren't in front of an audience at their sermons, which are obviously entertainment vehicles for making money?

Also, normally I'd roll my eyes at the casting of these guests, the outlandish gay guests, who seem stereotypical. But it was for Pride month and right now, you have stores being boycotted for selling Pride gear. This season was filmed months ago so they probably didn't know about the controversies of the moment, with the culture wars and drag performers being accused of being groomers of children. So it would have been cool if they had guests in drag. One of these guests had these big platform shoes but he couldn't wear them on deck.

IIRC, they found money in the wall and now they're going to convert from a lunch sandwich place to some fine dining place, because Sydney keeps talking about getting a (Michelin) star. They have a healthy budget it seems, because not only are they paying staff while they do this renovation, while not having money coming in, they are sending a couple of people to culinary school and Marcus to Copenhagen for him to learn to make fancy desserts. Then you had Sydney going around all the restaurants in the city, tasting food. That takes money as well as a bigger stomach than Sydney seems to have -- how is she putting away all that food in one day? They seem to be going for a higher end restaurant. I'm only through episode 4 so far. But you don't have Marcus learning to make those deserts which require using tweezers to put little pieces of sliced nuts into some sculpture. First of all, those deserts take a long time and I would think the only way they make sense is to price them much higher than the sandwiches they were serving to the local neighborhood residents. In season one there were indications that they were attracting clientele from across the city, who went out of their way to come at lunch time. Then Sydney pitched the idea of having dinner service, with fancier menu items, to Carmy. Then they found the money so I guess Carmy decided to get back into the fine dining game again. I don't know the restaurant business but it seems like these high end places are funded by investors, who love a chef and are willing to finance new restaurant ventures. Or there's a celebrity theme around it or it's tied to a celebrity. Like Mike Ditka's restaurant was suppose to be one of the most profitable restaurants in the country, after the Chicago Bears had won a Super Bowl. So they don't need investors but I don't recall Carmy's backstory, he ran acclaimed restaurants in NY but he didn't build them, he was an employee, wasn't he? So does he know how to start up a restaurant, the kind of money, logistics and apparently they don't even know what kind of menu they want to create. Still it seems this season is about them converting to this new restaurant, the journey to this new place. I like that he's loyal to all the employees of the old restaurant but they obviously don't have experience working at a different type of place than the beef sandwich place. Is it realistic that not only would he retain them but he'd pay them while they did the renovations and send them to culinary school and overseas trips to learn to learn from some top pastry chef?

Not to defend him but maybe he's not doing it consciously, trying to sabotage Daisy and Colin. He just grabs at Daisy as she walks by and she's not exactly telling him to buzz off, setting boundaries. She likes the attention to a certain extent. He says he wants a relationship with Daisy in the talking head but the things they say in them aren't reliable. So Daisy had him promise not to reveal that they'd had sex and Mads is openly joking that she likes other men in front of him. Gary probably doesn't mind as long as he gets sex but when he's sober, maybe he's starting to get some hurt feelings that women are loathe to admit that they have been involved with him at all. So both Daisy and Mads profess to like other guys but when Gary wants sex or some physical affection, they're not turning him down. Mads says good night to Alex as she walks into Gary's cabin for late night sex. Um a lot of guys wouldn't wait around, saying things like Mads deserves better. Maybe they had him film those dumb talking head segments and encouraged him to pretend to still want Mads, as she walks away to the arms of another man. Kind of makes Alex look like a dupe. Then you have Chase, trying his weak sauce with Ileisha, who's being too lenient as well. Chase thinks as long as she's not telling him to get lost, he has a chance. Another cringey situation. Gary has to be pretending outrage that Mads didn't tell him she's having her period before he went down? He probably doesn't care, in fact if she said she doesn't want to have sex because she's having her period, he'd be nagging her for it.

They still got like $20k tip from the guests they ignored. And more producer shenanigans, the multi course dinner. Again. At least the chef didn't have to prepare some BS beach picnic, probably got to spend a lot of time preparing for dinner. Daisy busted but come on, nobody believes this is real work, just do enough to get through the charters, occasionally have the captain dress them down for obvious mistakes. At least most of the crew gets along, you don't have the mean girl cliques of that witch from BD where she would gang up against one junior stew all the time. So yeah they were chatting it up when they thought it was downtime and normally it is, when docking, unless they're called on deck to help put up fenders or something. How did they know a guest would walk into a glass door head first? Yes they're suppose to be always ready to be at their service but again, this is not a real job.

Sure but in his mind, Ryan should have been with him and Catherine took that away from him. But he could see all the mementos of Ryan's childhood, how Ryan was surrounded by very caring relatives, gave him a better upbringing than he had and that he could provide. So he's grudgingly accepting that while he felt wronged, it was probably for Ryan's best interests.

They ran commercial for the new season during BDSY. Jason dancing, shirtless, to “I’m too sexy for my shirt. “ Hope they don’t lean too much into the sexy captain thing.

My episode shows no new episodes for almost the next two weeks. Anyone seeing different?

To me the ending left it a little more ambiguous that Tommy is this monster and nothing else. He was glad that Catherine raised Ryan in better circumstances and probably did better than he would have. Tommy's reaction to seeing Ryan seemed genuine, like seeing him brought him some joy. Of course it's unrealistic of him to expect that Ryan would run off with him, since Catherine has been taking care of him all his life. But it makes you wonder if Tommy isn't right that Catherine never gave him a chance, wrote him off early and tried to keep Ryan from him. It's not unlike the Rutger Hauer character at the end of Blade Runner, where this figure who inspired terror turns out to have some nobility, some motives other than killing or wreaking sadistic violence on others. Not saying there's nobility in Tommy, just that me may not be as bad as Catherine always seen him. He wasn't going to be a good father and he probably wasn't going to stay out of trouble or avoid violence, given how he grew up. He wasn't victimized by circumstance and he was certainly not a victim -- he was going to kill rather than be killed, as we saw once again. Catherine's main concern was whether Ryan would inherit Tommy's inclination towards violence and destroying people like she believed that he destroyed her daughter. So she may not have seen beyond the monstrous acts, nor should she as a policewoman and guardian of her grandson.

It's definitely more than that. It is a human level drama and the characters show distinct personalities as the story unfolds. Yeah they took liberties. I am not so sure the greatest wine experts can just sniff a glass of wine a couple of times and be able to tell where and when it was made. They do kind of a gimmicky thing, Camille smells and tastes the wine and she's literally taken or transported somewhere else, specifically wine cellars where they have the actual names of the wineries, the vintages. She later calls it her superpower. She hasn't studied wine like Issei but she's got hypersensitive senses of smell and taste. The ending seems pretty settled yet Apple lists it as a season finale, not a series finale. Camille and Issei both find love and come out happy after The Contest, which could have made one or the other miserable. I'd be surprised if this is a big hit. I think Silo probably gets more attention as well as Platonic and later this month the Hijack series with Idris Elba. Also it's a mix of foreign languages so that may be another obstacle for this show to find a bigger audience in America. Thought they briefly touched on the politics, in the wine world with a guide making or breaking wineries and wielding all kinds of power, and also the prejudice in Japan against interracial marriages and the fact that Issei being of mixed race would not be accepted by his own family or other parts of Japanese society.

I have such a huge backlog of HH episodes. And I've stopped recording certain episodes, in places that don't seem as interesting to me or I've deleted them after recording. But HHI, I try to keep up with the new episodes as they air.

Sure he liked the house but the first house they eliminated was really close to his work, though not close to the beach at all for her. Maybe he's an avid bicyclist so he wanted the longer commute for a workout. Just seemed like she is used to getting her way.

The Christchurch, NZ episode? There was no compromise, she got the house she wanted, with the long commute for the husband, who didn't put up a fight. It was the most spectacular house but inconveniently up a hill (hence the spectacular views) so it made for a tough commute on bike, with her getting to use the one car they have.

Maybe budget was the reason The Hague house hunter ruled out the bigger, more expensive home. She also was insistent on not living below someone so she did get that. She was fed up with taking the subway so she wanted to bike everywhere. If she had a 3 bedroom home in Brooklyn, as part of a divorce settlement, she'd probably be able to afford more than $425k, you'd think. Unless she wanted to save some of it for retirement or helping her kids out.

Speaking of which, I haven't tracked it but it seems the more recent seasons in the BD-verse have had cast with minimal or zero super yacht experience more frequently. At the start they had people who worked on as big or bigger yachts but not as much lately.

Those House Hunters tried even Richard's patience. Richard didn't drive them, all the houses seemed to be close to each other so it seemed they just walked around, including stopping at that pastry shop and taking coffees to go and heading to House #3. Sounds like the one guy got a big enough pay raise from taking the job in London that the other guy didn't have to work. I wonder what's more common, people moving for higher-paying jobs or people moving despite taking a pay cut. We've had both on HHI but I would think most people wouldn't take a big step back in compensation.