aghst

I don't know if she's necessarily bad at her job so much as hard to get along with, to be around. She knows she's been nagging people but she doesn't care, will keep doing it. Guess her personality doesn't work for being a manager because she's exhausting her workers, not just physically but emotionally. How about that Seth, coming for Lewis' job, even after Kerry shot him down. All to be bosun for a couple of weeks of shooting on a TV show. Come on they put him up to it and he's more than happy to play the villain for the air time. But I don't think Faye has to pretend to be anything, that's her real self and she's like scraping her nails on the proverbial chalkboard to just about every other member of the cast.

Yup, it's probably stunt casting. They had her pack those heavy medals to show off on the show. They have value, though she's obviously not the biggest name in women's tennis, so there's probably a risk in getting them lost or stolen. Camille brags bout defying authority in high school and thinks that's the way to operate the rest of her life. When she's in a job where they won't put up her poor work ethic, back talk, etc. she pouts and cries. The dumb experiment with splitting her between two departments is over. Now she's Fraser's headache, exclusively. Lee would be citing "chain of command!" repeatedly. But Bravo wants this, just like they had Rhylee curse at her bosun and constantly talking about how she did things when she captained some small trawler in Alaska or whatever. I think she got booted off one season and then she was brought back as a replacement. So being loud and rude has currency on these BD shows. IF not explicitly encouraged, the people who apply to be on these shows know that this kind of brattish behavior gets a lot of air time. Bravo isn't fooling anyone. They could easily screen out people with these kinds of personalities during casting. But instead, they repeatedly cast these types, intentionally. Alissa sobbing to Sandy was a little too much too. Katie will fuck Ross, then see him fuck someone else, probably on the ship, then she will fuck him again. So much for the women's empowerment she yakked about in this episode. You know one of the key things in BD is the cuisine, with the chefs always describing the dishes, what they were, what ingredients, etc. Honestly though, she could have put out slabs of meat and most of the BD guests would love it, doesn't have to be some fancy cut like Tomahawks. Oh we had one experiment recently with the chief stew trying to make a big deal of wine pairings, because the provisioner happened to offer cards with florid descriptions of wine and such. The chef wasn't even involved in making dishes to go along with the wines. The guests didn't care that much after a couple of glasses of different wines. I guess it's for TV, maybe what it's like to have private gourmet chefs who try to accommodate tastes, diet restrictions, etc., to sell these 5-star cruises.

I guess they did it for low cost and speed. That may have helped them keep both season 1 and 2 to just 6 episodes each and put out both seasons within one calendar year -- with probably plans to do the same for the next two seasons this year. Like I said, I don't think there is a town called Upshott. But it looks like they shot at different towns in the Cotswolds and represented the all as one town. When Kelly takes him to the airfield for that joyride flight, the walk by all these places, again possibly parts of several different towns, and you don't see any bystanders anywhere. In the books River must meet or encounter other people than just the family of three. Oh there was a pub scene where Kelly was bartending, may have been one or two patrons, with one having some lines and the others are extras in the background.

I like the look of brick and stone that you see in some European interior construction. But I wonder if those materials shed particulates that could get on and into your possessions or worse, get kicked up and you breathe them in.

Remember, Seth is the replacement for that Texas boy who tried very hard to get booted off the ship, lasted just a couple of episodes. That ouster was probably the original plan all along, bring on a wildcat to stir up some shit, bring on replacement. Seth may even have been available from the start of filming but they wanted to start with Texas starting some drama and Lewis as bosun and now Seth comes on and immediately starts going for Lewis' job. So cynical.

Yeah the Tarragona one, there must be a bus she can take instead of a 30 minute walk? They went for the school but there are other things to do than bars. It’s a coastal city so hang out on the beach? Barcelona is nearby, probably an hour by train. Even if that partner was unimaginative about how to spend her time, why didn’t the HHI writers make up something, like she wanted to be near the beach or she was going to work online so she needed an office? Curious about these Americans going to grad school in Europe. It’s one thing in an English-speaking country but in Spain? I may have missed that the other house hunter was fluent? Even if she gets her degree, would it get recognized in the US for job opportunities? Grad schools in US offer job placement services too, unless she plans to look for work in Spain or Europe. Maybe it’s easier to get admitted to schools, not have to take the GRE? Or maybe lower tuition or they offer scholarships? Housing is certainly affordable, under $1000.

Seems like Upshott is a fictional place in the Cotswolds. It's a composite of several small towns, with those neat rows of thatch roof cottages. You can't find a town called Upshott in Google. But if you look at some of the pictures, you see those cottages in different towns. Mick Herron the author apparently lives nearby.

I'm actually surprised they'd allow a kill of a traitor. Why wouldn't they just apprehend him and throw him in jail? This is Britain, not Russia. Maybe there's more to that story. Standish seems loyal to Partner.

It is kind of confusing. At the start of season 2, it seemed that the old guy getting killed on the bus/train and then Min and Louisa working on the protection detail were separate cases. Then Lamb going to see Katinsky, who was suppose to be this old KGB guy who wasn't considered a threat. But it turned out he was the mastermind and everything was connected. I don't think we were suppose to connect all the dots necessarily. For instance, River guessed that the cicada or sleeper was the husband, not the wife. Apparently in the books, it turns out the whole village are Russian sleeper cell agents and that Kelly was the only innocent one. So the show is making moderations and fitting it into a 6-episode season, with very little slack or filler. Not too many subplots or rather there was one big plot and it was broken up into these smaller plots which all fit together in the end.

She was going to LA for Sam though. Ridiculous, taking the kids to LA just so she can more easily fuck Sam, away from his wife.

Toby repeatedly talked about how he liked the patient interface, actually treating patients instead of becoming more of an administrator or a consultant like the job she wanted him to take. Of course, some of that was a rationalization on his part, especially when he didn't get the promotion. In general, it's regrettable when doctors try to maximize income. It takes a lot of time and money, not just for doctors but for society as a whole, to train the limited number of doctors produced each year. With shortages of doctors and sky high health care costs, the idea of doctors getting out of medicine or going into lucrative but narrow specialties, often for elective procedures like cosmetic surgery is hard to defend. Or becoming consultants in medicine-related sectors, like the pharma consultant job they talked about. Of course it's a free country and doctors can pursue whatever path they want. They can live pretty well on Toby's salary, even in Manhattan. Rachel also has a right to pursue whatever career she wants and use her income to upsize their lifestyle by a lot. But when she tries to push him into getting out of medicine for a big payday, she seems more concerned with herself rather than him, whether he might like doing the more lucrative job, not even considering that he might feel miserable doing it.

Lot of good tension and viewers saw it unfold about the same time characters like River and Louisa were figuring out the larger plot. Lamb was ahead of the game though, called armed response ahead, though River needed to warn his gramps. Lamb is also quick with the gun. He was holding it haphazardly, or so it seemed, but when it came time to grab the guns, he beat Katinsky to his and then emptied out Katinsky's gun in rapid fire, but leaving one bullet for Katinsky to kill himself. Louisa was really grieving Min, even though they only had a short fling. But really, if not for Marcus, she might have been killed on that roof. Or in that boardroom, because you wouldn't expect Min to stash a gun there I can't recall, did Marcus say Lamb told him to stash the gun? They don't really outline which of these are field agents. River, Shirley and looks like Marcus are, probably have hand to hand and gun combat training. Not sure Louisa or Min does or did. Ho is a desk jockey and Standish is meant to be office person only but both were out in the field this season. Of course Lamb was out in the field and handled himself very well, not just tactically but probably gained more respect from Taverner. May have to re-watch season 1 because I'm still hazy on Standish and why she's haunted by Partner, who was a traitor.

Well those rankings may change a bit after the season 2 finale.

When Toby said he makes $300k and Rachel said it wasn't enough, wanted him to take that job Sam was offering for a million, how many viewers relates to that? Maybe Toby made the whole thing up. But she also got them to that luxury apt. and then said her kids need to network or only have friends from the right people. Not too relatable. Can't imagine how much they paid for that apt. or how much Toby is paying just for that place where things don't even work.

I don't feel a lot of sympathy for these characters. Libby is unfulfilled professionally. At the end, she looks in on her kids and her husband and I guess we're suppose to get that she came to her senses, decided she had a good thing or at least would try to re-commit to family life. It just doesn't seem that convincing that she turned around in those brief moments, overcame her malaise. Seth is leaving the glamorous single life and thinks marriage is the next step into his path of personal growth or whatever. Like something millions of other people decide to do every day. Toby is maybe getting over his bitterness and will have a good co-parenting relationship with Rachel. He may have sounded jaded at Seth's engagement party but he looked out at people living separate lives and he didn't like that view. Rachel maybe heals, re-establishes her connections to her children. I forget how Libby as narrator phrased it, the abandonment issues Rachel had all her life but it was a nice turn of the phrase. But I'm not convinced that she had this breakdown or crisis because Sam fucking Rothenberg abandoned her. She reacts to being abandoned by abandoning her kids? You'd think given her absent parents, that would be the last thing she'd do. I don't want to hand wave the trials these characters go through as first world or "rich people problems" but maybe that's where the lack of empathy comes from. Rich people also deserve empathy but they or anyone else can endure and survive emotional wounds, especially if they have basic necessities and a supportive network around. Seth, Libby and Toby had each other, Libby and Toby had children for whom they wanted to put their problems behind, Seth had a significant other. And if they needed to, they could get professional counseling. But in the end, there's nothing remarkable about upper middle class people looking back with regret about unfulfilled dreams or having some difficulties adjusting after a divorce. Or people breaking up after having a brief affair and having a break down.

Fessy would still beat him. Maybe something involving running, either sprint or distance, though if Fessy kept in football shape, he probably could sprint well for bursts, since he was a TE at the collegiate level.

I don't think it's up to these captains. Producers have the last say. If they want conflict and drama with Seth going for Lewis' job, it's going to happen. If Kerry doesn't like it, they can get a new captain, though he has a chance to do the show for multiple seasons so I doubt he's going to die on that hill, considering that this crew are playing to a script.

Wow forgot about that. So for Tori to ask Jordan to spare Fessy probably antagonized him.

BTW, it's cool that Jordan is volunteering in Ukraine, moving supplies in and getting civilians out. His good work was partly overshadowed by "I don't negotiate with terrorists!"😆 But he referred to winning on the Challenge allowing him to volunteer. So he doesn't hold a regular job apparently and is able to go volunteer for weeks or months. Did he ever win one of the $1 million prize seasons? Even if he did, he'd have to split part of it and after taxes, maybe around $200-300k? That would cover living expenses for a few years but not more than 5-6 years or so. Maybe he has some Ukrainian ancestry.

Or for the winning pair, one member is given the option of splitting the money or taking it all again.

TJ would have made them re-vote. Fessy as the direct vote was the right move. Was another strength elimination. But I don’t think Nelson would have done better in a puzzle. Johnny threw Fessy under the bus, probably convinced Jordan that Fessy was the biggest threat to the other team. The Daily was cool, again the producers could have easily have made up who won. In fact the design could be all about time, probably tested to make sure all 6 players could easily hit the targets, as the helicopter flew slowly and the targets were plenty large enough for everyone to hit targets on their first try, assuming there really was just one try for each team. Looks like eating or drinking challenge in the next daily, don’t think they ever had that other than in a Final?

Is this first or second child for Zack and Jenna? They haven't been on for awhile. Well they got the #1 reason to return to The Challenge. #Igotstofeedmychild! Followed by the associated: #Wanttobeanexampletomykid!

They're basically hiring adventure companies already in that area to organize these outings. You want to rely on them for safety, not some person who auditioned to be on a reality show. For instance, the paraglider people maintain the equipment including harnesses so they will strap them in and themselves, since these were all tandem jumps. They probably also have insurance. Only Faye was at the top, recording movies on her phone. She had nothing to do with getting the guests ready to do their flights. I'm sure there were also producers and production crew up there, for instance, putting on the GoPro cameras so that it would have footage when they were flying. The "Adventure" part of it would be more earned if the guests were licensed paraglider pilots and they went up and jumped on their own. Or they're rock climbers and they set out to scale up a cliff. Instead the guests are no different than guests on other BD shows. If this BDA continues, there will probably be stunt casting of guests, like social influencers and other Bravo celebrities like some Rich Housewife. I still enjoy it for seeing scenery which is different from other BD shows. I think BDDU was also different because they featured a lot of underwater photography, showing the reefs and fish.

You could tell Jess didn't want to set up another picnic. She could have just sent some sandwiches and pasta salad. But no, she made lamb and she carved it there herself, then complained about having to do the picnic, no deck crew being around. They just set up a table in the middle of the field. No cover, probably cool enough despite it being sunny -- lucky it didn't rain. I looked up that village, Andalnes. It's small but it looks like there are restaurants. Picnic was purely for TV, dump more work on the chef and the crew.

Romantic Zone seems like a tourist area. How is that more authentic Mexico? Is he going to take his little boys to the bars? But what do you know, he agreed to eliminate the only choice in the Romantic Zone. Totally producer-driven. Their notion of good TV is fake binary choices, supposedly dramatic tension. They didn't even mention where the kids' school was. This may have been snowbirds, live in Mexico during the winter, while maintaining permanent residence back in Chicago. They traveled all over and their favorite place is Mexico?