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Of course Mary was a bitch this episode. Her maid was wrongly imprisoned for murder. You'd be mad too if you had to break in another maid. I will hand over the title to my house if Julian Fellowes would create a flashback episode of the Princess/Countess teen-age fight.

Fran so did the right thing by getting the f**k out of there. Good for him. Lena Dunham is clearly having a fantasy of what teachers actually do. A world where students are enraptured by your (the teacher's) explanation of Oedipus Rex and nobody is on his/her phone, a world where all of their comments are mature and somewhat eloquent, and where they high five you in the hallway. I had that fantasy before I actually started teaching. How late is she out? School begins awfully early. I gotta be in bed by 9:30 in order to wake up at 5 and be up at 5:25, although I'll admit that during my first year I went out nearly every night. And does it ever snow or get cold in Girls' world? Surely by now it's October? November? (The Good Wife has the same problem by never showing a real Chicago winter.)

You almost owed me a new keyboard there! I nearly spit out my ginger-ale trying not to laugh!

Here is a very interesting comment about the Afghan pot from a NYTimes reader (after the Times' recap): "Patricia Pasadena 1 hour ago 'Okay two big mistakes in this show that probably nobody in America will notice: First, Afghans do not use pot. They do not smoke marijuana buds, to be more accurate. They process all of their cannabis into hashish. They believe hashish is better for the lungs. Their native marijuana culture is based 100% on hashish. Second, the hashish in Afghanistan was only powerful up until about 1973. The DEA was created in 1973, and in 1973, a puritanical hashish-hating nationalist dictator who was the cousin of the pro-hashish, pro-hippie King overthrew the King and let the DEA and the Afghan military go around burning down cannabis fields and beating and arresting cannabis farmers. This was part of Nixon's War on Pot that people don't really know about. Marijuana policy played an important role in the collapse of Afghanistan into serial dictatorship and civil war. After the 1973 coup, Afghan cannabis farmers were forced into the mountains, where the weather was cold and wet. The quality of Afghan hashish went into a steep decline. A decline reversed only after the Taliban were toppled in 2001. So this idea that Phillip's handler is going to bring him some really strong buds from Afghanistan in 1982 is completely wrong. They don't trim their marijuana plants into buds in Afghanistan and the hashish from 1982 would have been weak and disappointing and probably heavily adulterated with soap and other binding agents from the times.' " Two things: 1. Yaz was sorely missed this episode. 2. Yes, Philip was going to have to learn to seduce men, but just as his seduction-in-training began with an attractive woman and worked its way to the elderly lady, certainly he could have started with some mega-hottie from the Bolshoi and then worked his way up to fat naked guy.

I'm picturing a kennel with loads of beagles and labs, all wearing collars with little hammers and sickles on them.

Really motivated students who have had parents involved in their education only need exposure to certain ideas for them to run with them. They can handle the high-stakes testing no problem. Great teachers who work at public schools (I'm biased) deal with barely literate and unmotivated kids who have been pushed into high-level courses.

Oh my God this bored me tonight, except for Susan and Lord Sinderby. We need snarks like them every week. Too many people are becoming 21st century nice and understanding. Anna and Bates: You better run before you get caught for murdering Isis and Archduke Ferdinand as well. Seriously - if Mr. Greene fell in front of a carriage, how is someone Anna's size responsible? A murder like that in plain sight requires the strength and cunning of a Mr. Bates. (Even Frank Underwood pushed a much smaller person in front of the DC metro.) All we know is that Greene had been arguing with someone short before he was killed. Murder seems like a huge stretch. More like, very fortunate coincidence for the person/people who hated him, and unfortunate for Tony who now had to hire a new valet.

I teach at a public school, but my friends who teach at a private school make next to nothing. Some have their MA's while others just prefer the private setting. But the megabucks tuition does not go to salaries: it goes to massive resources and upkeep of beautiful grounds.

I would never judge Mimi-Rose for getting an abortion. Unexpected pregnancy happens for myriad reasons. It's odd, though, that she's had more than 2, and that she seems unfazed by this. Perhaps she ought to reconsider her current birth control. Whatever - I don't know women who have had more than one only because after the first they made sure to use at least two forms of birth control. How did Adam get his old apartment back? Who paid for it while he lived at Hannah's? Was Scott played by Jason Street from Friday Night Lights? Oh Hannah, so many people look at teaching like a back up profession. Go the private route if you just want to be a sage on the stage. If you are doing public, be aware that NYC schools get redesigned constantly. And there are no free snacks. (Faculty meetings occasionally have pizza but you have to fight other hungry teachers.)

A quick note to the writers: in 1982, nobody said, "Dad got me the new Yaz album," because it was the first album. I was a theatre kid in the 1980's. We would sing this at our cast parties. Then we'd put the Chess soundtrack on and all hell would break loose.

It seems odd that Mimi-Rose has moved in with Adam. She seems to be doing very well for herself. If she graduated from RISD in 2007, then she is 29ish and has gotten real-job experience and probably has something groovy going on. Furthermore, the fact that she has a Ted-Talk of her very own shows she is at least a semi-mover/shaker in the professional world she inhabits. My point is that she probably has a decent job that pays for a nice apartment, something she probably wouldn't give up to move in with a guy she has known for a month, and who she was introduced to by Jessa of all people.

Please file me under "sick of Anna and Bates, the Angelic Couple." For the love of Isis, dear show, quit turning these two into the Victim Couple. Either write them into a happily-ever-after world and say goodbye, or have one of them actually murder someone. Not someone who deserves it either (you're safe, cousin Larry). And definitely not Edith's next suitor because that's just too fucking easy.

Edith looked great in London, anxiety notwithstanding. She inhabits the role of business woman much easier than aristocrat, so I'm surprised she's going to stick around DA. Edith wants to run the publishing company, but she has to be in London to do this, right? Unless the plan was for Marigold to be at the big house while Edith runs the company in London. Surely Edith can't run it from DA, and why would she want to? She has to put up with Mary's bitchiness, possible malicious gossip from the Mrs. Drewe, and watching her father dote on everyone else before even remembering that she is his daughter. She can set herself up (with help from Cora and her grandmother) in London and know she's happy being independent and out of everyone's hair.

Isis is clearly the favorite daughter, and with good reason. I must confess that I'm surprised Robert hasn't had Isis up in the bed already. Cora is an "anything goes" American so I'm sure she'd have been fine with it. A double bed (the bed doesn't look big at all) isn't much to hold a fully grown lab and two adults so Cora and Robert don't really know what they're in for. Me and the Mr. share our queen size bed with our 60 pound Pit/Aussie Shepherd mix, and we usually wake up at the edges of the bed while she stretches out fully in the middle. Poor Isis. Perhaps they'll replace her with a puppy they steal from the Drewes.

Jessa was Jessa: she did something shitty but her reasoning wasn't really unsound. Hannah was going away for two years, and Adam deserved to be happy. At this point it's clear that Jessa is closer to Adam, even though she has more history with Hannah. But anyway, even if Jessa is no longer friends with Hannah I want her around just to hear lines like, "Are you on furlough?"

My grandmother rode sidesaddle, and I learned just a bit from her. I was nervous at the time because I'd only ridden on a traditional English saddle, but I was surprised by how secure I was and how much control I had. There has to be more core work, or course, to stay balanced during cantering, and the horse has to be trained to get signals from one leg and from signals from the reins. It's a cool way to ride, although I'm sure as hell not going to do a steeple chase in a skirt and sidesaddle.

Not true. Both Tom and Mary see the kids before dinner dressing gong every day, we've seen it several times. Mary isn't known for her quality time with George. Her sex tour with Tony was never, to my recollection, occasionally interrupted by, "How is my son doing?" Edith, on the other hand, spent loads of welcome and unwelcome quality time with her daughter. Yes, I know Edith is lonely and not even Isis wants to hang out with her but I honestly believe that Edith would much prefer time with her child than time with a good-looking horny guy. I know how ridiculous that sounds but I still believe it. Speaking of Isis, this show is running out of story lines, so now Isis has to have drama. Can't she just die, like normal dogs do? I hope she's fine, actually since it's possible that the scene was written only to show how truly heartless Mary is. She doesn't even care about the dog!

Emotional well-being of anyone let alone children was hardly a concern for anyone in post-WWI Great Britain. That's how the British were so fucking British, by gum, and how they saved the King's empire. Marigold would have been a hearty young land girl ready for WWII had she stayed with the pig farming Drewes (who I must admit I feel very badly for) but now with French boarding school as one possibility, she will be ready to spy on the Vichy or else she will help her mother run the publishing company in which she will send coded messages to the troops. George, on the other hand, never sees his mother. That kid is going to be a complete mess, probably joining the foreign service and screwing up British foreign policy even more than it already was. (We can probably blame him for the Palestine debacle.) That's before he marries somebody just like his mother: beautiful yet unable to show him the warmth he deserves.

Something is clearly up with Hannah's dad. It was sweet when he said, "Let's leave and run away together." Hannah naturally took this to be creepy because she is who she is, but this was so out of character for her dad. She couldn't even for one second step away from herself and ask him what was wrong in his life to make him want to "run away." Didn't Adam once say that if Hannah died the earth would stop moving? Or something equally dramatic? Turns out, she only needs to leave town for a month for him to replace her and move on. Loss isn't a big deal for Adam, apparently. Seriously - Adam is not a "move on" type of guy who deals with the practical aspects of situations. I can imagine him sleeping with someone else, but not allowing her to stay at the apartment past dawn. He'd feel too guilty.

I haven't done an MFA in writing but I used to work at an acting conservatory where actors got MFAs, and while there is a lot of cattiness that goes on, there is also a lot of support for people. Of course, where there is one person who disrupts the dynamic in a deeply negative way, then all of the actors band together and collectively work against that one person. Of course, writing is solitary and unlike actors, the writers don't need one another to really get their work done. Having said that, I still can't believe that the writers portrayed at the IWW are so immature. Really? A Robotic Horse? This is a place that in reality churns out some wonderful and successful writers. Not all of them are as young as this group, and most of them are pretty focused. This undergraduate-whinyness that's occurring probably would not fly so well. (I did love it, however, when the program director said you'd have to be "really violent" and "not just a little violent" to get kicked out.) Ah Marnie. Been there, done that. Ray should annoy me more, but I think he's awesome. "This is a private moment between me and all of them." Hee. A one-man attempt to stop the honking in Brooklyn. You go, Ray. At least Shosh is getting interviews. 7 in two weeks? I know folks who got maybe 1-2 in a span of 3 months. She's doing something right, although we aren't see what that is.

It looks like I'm in the minority here because I thought that fight scene at the start was a load of crap. In fact before it even started I thought "and Elizabeth will somehow show superhuman strength and beat up two men." She had her head slammed into a car three times and is fine, yet one punch from her flattens Gaad? And they look like shit the next day while she looks great, aside from shoulder bruises? And why was Gaad out on the street anyway? Between Elizabeth's superman strength and Philip's wonderdick, I'm getting a wee irritated with these characters' untouchable-ness. And why has Martha never run her hands through her husband's hair? That wig just creeps me out. Oleg is far and away the best character.

Right now Jessa rings true for me. I've seen people with their 1st/2nd/3rd time out of rehab and still not have any sense of personal accountability for how badly they act. Jessa was gross by squatting mid-day in front of God and everyone, and sadly, I've known a few "free spirit types" who pull this and make sure to enunciate that it's everyone else's problem should anyone dare comment on it. Jessa thinks the the world exists for her, and she is very well written and acted. Her vulnerability at the end was touching too. I don't think Adam is foolish enough to sleep with her; he is written as a bizarrely grounded person in different respects, and he takes his sobriety seriously, as he does with other boundaries. Just because the writers can doesn't mean they will... I would love to be in charge of cardigans and trendy jewelry at Ann Taylor Loft, even though it's not my dream-job. (My dream job is part-time goal keeper for the US soccer team, part-time rock singer, and part-time Nobel-prize winning professor of something awesome at the University of Awesome) That would have been my vicarious job, had Shosh not been such a tool and flushed away her chance of ever doing that. I know that the Iowa Writer's Workshop has an excellent turnout with successful writers not only getting published but winning awards. This felt very undergrad-juvenile to me. I'm sure the workshop has its ebbs and flows, but I think it's really the lesser-quality workshops that has people nastily reducing peers to "this/that type" of writer. That would kill the soul. Will Hannah even last a year there?

For me, this episode was all about Cary. I didn't like that the tension was constantly cut by the silly note story - I have to wonder how someone as clueless as Alicia survived as Peter's wife during the early years. She is shocked by patronage, she doesn't know that her sense of humor could be misinterpreted, and she only now sees that campaigns can get ugly and dirty. Did Peter drug her during his first State's Attorney campaign? I think he must have, and that she just stood there next to him, stoned out of her gourd like a nice Stepford Wife. (Oh, and private school teachers aren't in unions in Illinois. That's a public school thing. And right now, with the public school teachers in Chicago getting royally screwed over, it would have been interesting to see how real Democrats would have handled this. ) Kalinda looked scared to death at Lemond's, for good reason. However, how did she not realize that Lemond would try and intimidate Dante into lying? Why didn't the defense get a deposition, or some closed-door testimony? I suppose that's all about the judge. By the way, what was up with the Neil Diamond concert and the dude who told Geneva "We have to talk"? Just to show us distractors?

Doesn't Jenna Coleman have to show up now and then since she is The Impossible Girl? Her timeline is woven with The Doctor's and as long as he regenerates she'll be there to advise him somehow. Maybe just a Polaroid of her taped up on the TARDIS control center is all that they'll do. Nice knowing you, Clara. I am heartbroken over Danny. Heartbroken!! I loved his sweetness and strength, and I wanted him to be the next companion. He was my favorite out of the three main people. Hope to see Courtney, our beloved disruptive influence soon enough then. I hope Zyborg Osgood was offed, not the real Osgood, otherwise I'm going to be awfully grumpy for a spell. Peter Capaldi has been great but he has been given some very fuzzy stuff to work with. I'm not sure Moffat can really write dark AND likable. I accept that every time the Doctor regenerates we get a whole new personality who remembers all of the stuff he is supposed to remember, once the kinks are sorted out, but Moffat spends soooooo much time hitting us over the head that THIS Doctor is not warm and cuddly, except for when he is. Yay Nick Frost! WTF Santa?

I wondered that myself…unless it was a previous Scottish companion whom i don't know about.