aghst

April Ludgate all grown up is a drag. Yeah they missed a chance to have Aubrey Plaza be the snarky one. Ethan looks like a college boy, much younger than Harper. Cameron is obnoxious and Daphne is suppose to be oblivious? Mike White must enjoy creating despicable rich people characters. Will be curious about how they handle the murder. Seems like they're using the hook or a murder mystery to drive the season again. Two murders at two different WL resorts? That should kill the brand. Would even Tanya return to another WL? Jennifer Coolidge is funny in the Inside the Episode. Now, Dominic doesn't seem to terrible but his ex really wanted to be rid of him from her life. So his true character is yet to emerge? Christofuh was pretty transparent as far as what his character was about from the beginning. Are Lucia and Mia suppose to be the common locals, kind of like the waiter kid in season 1?

The price difference is $200 a month between the final two choices in Ireland. Would they have hotels in that suburb or would they have to stay in Dublin hotels? Probably hotels there are easily $200 a night if not more. Working for a coffee roaster must pay well enough. Doesn't sound like the kind of professional job you'd move overseas for. There was also the Costa Rica episode on Thursday, a guy who hosted parties in Brooklyn moves down chooses the cheapest place though he was talking like he wanted some extravagant pad.

Well Americans don't have to get visas in a lot of places, like pretty much all of Western Europe. They do need visas for some Asian countries, probably African countries, Middle East.

Wow it bombed after like 3 weeks?

But would they even know which cities or even countries they're going to before the race starts? They could really study and prep if they knew the locations. That would be unfortunate, if they didn't get a chance to socialize a bit during off hours as previous racers did. It would also depend on when this season was shot. I would think the restrictions would be more lax in 2022 than in 2021, even though a more infectious variant was in circulation in 2022. But people were definitely more free to act like things were back to normal in 2022 than 2021. In Europe, they still required masks indoors and on public transportation. Otherwise, there were fewer restrictions on dining indoors. People certainly seemed more willing to dine in restaurants this year than last year. Presumably the racers weren't barred from going to the stores to pick up supplies or going to get meals. Maybe they were encouraged to take out instead of dine-in or at least seek to dine outside. In France and Italy, there are plenty of places with outdoor dining in the summer. Presume that's the case in Jordan as well but I would think people would want to go inside to air conditioned spaces.

I believe they use preservatives, even if they're not produced out of a factory like the salami you can buy in America. But the preservatives may cause cancer.

But then later in the episode, when he's talking up New Bethlehem, it sounds a bit like the America which he helped overthrow, so which is it Lawrence? He didn't like America but wants to have diplomatic relations and trade with America's former allies? New Bethlehem freedoms go away in a second as soon as Nick or some other commander decide they've had enough of Lawrence and decides to take him out like Putnam was taken out. Tuello was begging June not to go to NB, because what's left of Americans in exile is dwindling. But then all of a sudden they have some kind of special forces to attempt a raid in Gilead, which owns most of the arsenal that America used to have? There's no internal logic here, the show keeps adding things out of the blue, things which were inconsistent of what they depicted before, NML, Serena groupies in Canada with candlelights, Americans go home protesters, the Wheelers and now apparently the exile govt. hasn't all these capabilities. Unless they bungle it. I think June and Luke are celebrating a little too early.

If they have to quarantine for any number of days, it probably disrupts their shooting schedule and all the tasks they'd set up, including the people they hired, cars, camera crews, etc. If all or most of the teams test positive and had to quarantine, they might make allowances and delay the schedule. But for just one team they probably weren't going to modify their schedule.

Cancelled.

It was panned by critics when it was first built. But it's been popular to both residents and visitors over the years. You can see it from all parts of the city, especially at night.

Don't know about that one but some places will rebuild antiquity ruins.

All the dancer teams are great. But the dancing tasks give them an advantage though it was different than anything they encountered. But they seemed to relish doing something new to them. There are no teams to root against, at least so far. There were maybe a couple of carts which could actually be rolled with the stuff they were suppose to cart? But maybe none would hold up to them trying to sprint to the finish. Big challenge for all of them was to flag down anyone who could speak English, usually Caucasian tourists whom they assumed spoke English, to borrow their phones. So they can’t have phones but they just borrowed phones from bystanders. They just have to use GPS on other people’s devices, not their own.

So again another result that could easily have been manipulated. First of all, you have all these vets talking up the two rookie teams. Was that done after the Daily Challenge and Elimination, based on those results? Or were they shaping a narrative they wanted to put out there? Johnny/Ravyn and Horacio/Olivia were threats because they've one well in Dailies and H/O won an elimination as well. You would think MTV would want to build up some of these younger Challengers rather than favoring all the old vets, because who nows how long they are going to keep returning? Not to mention advertisers generally prefer younger viewers, who you'd think would gravitate more to younger cast members. I don't know outside of the Challenge which of these personalities are better known, like how many social media followers or how well their other shows did. It might be that all these Challenge vets have been around longer so MTV has reason to think they help ratings more than these newcomers. In any event, they even featured Fessy a little, like he can't make up his decisions and Bananas was wondering whom Fessy was aligned with, what kind of decision he'd make. And wouldn't you know it, Fessy and his partner win. But in an event where they could easily have shown on-screen timers, though the way these events are edited that could be manipulated as well, since they don't show the Daily in one continuous sequence but as a series of montages and quick jump cuts. We just have to accept TJ's word that the fastest team did indeed win, because that really improved the chances of the old vets for the rest of the season. Though of course the deliberations, they could have fed Fessy and his partner lines to say why they chose the 4 teams. For the elimination, it's shocking that they didn't put the team with the smallest guy and girl in as one of the teams but it wasn't really Hall Battle, rather a pretty could modification of it, though they made the teams more or less evenly matched. Johnny was stronger than Horacio, but the latter noticed Johnny was slipping -- they all were to an extent but he timed his thrusts well. I think Olivia was clearly stronger than Ravyn, had height and weight on her, pretty much beat her both times when they were up top and also when they were on the bottom level. They started the season with numbers favoring the rookie teams but they gradually took that away, as they kept adding vets. Not only are rookies being sent home, they're adding more vets so the balance has really swung. TJ's twists, some more surprises than others, lose their shock value if he's doing it every damn week. But they'll probably do some more after the last of the vet teams arrive.

But I think people who haven't visited Paris or studied literature and art of that period may not be familiar with the lore about them in Paris in that period. Of course Paris has drawn generations of artists at different times, such as Picasso in the 1900s. So maybe the producers think this is some novel story they can tell and that's probably true for a lot of viewers. Certainly if they didn't think Tricia talking about Hemingway so much was interesting, they could have edited that out. Yeah the 7th is really nice. You see the skyline there, especially the golden dome of the Invalides (where Napoleon's tomb is) from different angles, not to mention the Eiffel Tower of course. There's the Rodin Museum which is popular and it has a garden and I recall seeing the golden dome from there as well. I've usually stayed in the 6th when I visited, like being near the Luxembourg Garden. The 15th, not sure where the apt is but it borders on the 6th and the 7th so it's a high-traffic area with Gare Montparnasse and proximity to the Luxembourg Garden. But the street they showed looked residential and quiet, which may or may not be a good thing depending on the person. She probably might have to walk a couple of blocks to reach the cafes and restaurants.

Yeah a bit cliched. I wonder if this is where the writers crafted this narrative as the reason for her to move. For all we know she really didn't care that much about the Latin Quarter. She certainly had no hesitation to eliminate that one choice, which they probably dug up to present in the episode.

The 15 minutes was from the place she didn't choose. But I don't think it's that far from the 7th to the Latin Quarter either. Especially if she takes a bus or the metro. The better value was the one in the 15th, cost less for a bigger place. But may not have amenities right outside the building like cafes and stores.

Someone has to request a new forum or just create a thread.

Surprised to hear the 5th quarter is more expensive than the 7th. Latin quarter should have a lot of university students? Do many of them live in apts or are there dorms in the city center? Sounds like for all her talk, she went for more value, ruling out the most expensive place.

Here's a reason the results of the Challenge look fishy. You know Bananas can talk shit about Turbo and some other guys because we've not seen him in any physical elimination vs. a big or bigger competitor. Hall Brawls are usually mismatches between a small guy and a big guy. And never is one of the "regulars" ever put in a disadvantageous situation. That applies to a certain extent to CT and maybe one or two other favored vets. Of they will only face guys they outweigh by 50 pounds or more. Probably not going to change any time soon.

Wait who did Meadow end up with? The spoiled princess made her own choices. I remember one sequence where Meadow seemed to be reflecting on her bad behavior, like the time she yelled at her parents "is there nothing to eat in this house!?!" That was when Tony was shot and in hospital. I know it sounds bleak at the end. Maybe the business wasn't going to be as lucrative and his oldest friends are dead or incapacitated. But for all his problems, Tony was incredibly adaptable. Presumably he was killed by the Brooklyn mob as payback for Leotardo.

Ms. 7- star service loved the stripper's pole and drinking straight out of some facet. The women charter guests didn’t want to eat fish especially if it’s too fishy. Kyle blubbering any chance he got. They have a couple of days left so what’s the big deal? I don’t remember any crew on any BD show being stiffed on the tip. They’re probably promised a certain amount per season so the producers make sure that happens. Would be fun if someone stiffed them and the cast runs into them after they get drunk.

That's one thing Otto wanted to slaughter the blacks, not offer terms at all. I guess Raynys breaking out ended that element of surprise.

🙄 Yeah Amond is a totally chill dude. He didn't have a rock cocked in his arm ready to brain all of them. But an eye for a dragon and a life is a fair tradeoff isn't it?

From the Puglia episode. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/stanley-tucci-searching-for-italy-restaurants-season-2/index.html When I visited Puglia before the pandemic, I saw a lot about Lecce, Monopoli, Ostuni. They didn't go to any of these places. They did show some shots of Monopoli, the houses hugging the cliffs above the water. Matera is great though, I'm sure Stanley knew about the town, how dramatic the views were. But it's in another province, though it's close to Puglia.

BTW, what ever happened to Cara Maria and that guy she was with when she was last on the Challenge? They seemed to have a plan to dominate Challenges together but they stopped appearing. Are they still together? Did they opt out of appearing on Challenges, not even All-Stars, or did B-M shut them out?