Reishe

Same here.

I kept my mom's slow cooker and stand mixer when she passed; both appliances are now over 40 years old and still going strong. However I am home when the slow cooker is in use, and I always unplug it once it's done.

Nope, I'm right there with you. I think it was kind of genius, b/c the writers needed a way to expand our understanding of Odo's character, so they lock him in a small space with a character who will push and push and not stop pushing, until he finally opens up about himself. The moment when Lwaxana says "Let me take care of you" is one of my favorite moments.

Joining in the conversation now b/c I just finished binging the series as a first-time watcher. I like this epi well enough for a season-1 standalone; as a writer/editor, I like it when something points out just how important words and communication really are. However, I was frustrated by the actual babblespeak that the actors were given; if I were to imagine an aphasia condition, people would speak normally and with normal intonation, but the words just wouldn't hold meaning. The aphasic "dialogue," however, was more a static list of words, like "expect. cartridge. eat," (like, just nouns and the occasional verb and no other parts of speech that connect and add flow) and it was often delivered that way. If I were to write the dialogue, I would have written it more like "the wish is breading under in no kidding stop monkey," read very conversationally, with the emotion of the moment. It's a language-nerd thing; that would've sounded more natural to me. ETA: I'm not a novelist or tv writer or even a wannabe, just this is how I wish they had written it.

They've been laying this out for a long time. Vic's been carrying a torch since that episode (I forget which season, but I think it's when he first hooked up with the first blonde) when she spruced herself up and showed up at Walt's door all fake-casual with a six-pack of his favorite beer to suggest they "hang out," and her meltdown when she thought the crazy kidnapping family had killed Walt was also an indicator. I think that Walt's hyperprotectiveness re: Vic in later seasons was supposed to indicate he was starting to let himself have feelings for her as well. (Yes, it can also be read as fatherly, I'm just saying the writers probably intended it to signal he felt this way.) I'm not saying I wanted it to happen, watching the two of them together, I never wanted them to be a couple, but whatchagonna do. I was so happy at this. Add my voice to the chorus of disappointed people over Cady's story line. But then again, I've hated Cady's plotline from the beginning. She's supposed to be bright, and we know she has a Longmire heart and wants to help people, but omg she's been so clueless the whole time. She finally admits that maybe her one-woman crusade to help the Cheyenne might have been premature b/c she hasn't learned about them. But if she wants to help them, and enjoyed helping them before--why not try to learn more about them? Go out in the community and meet the families?* Read a book about the culture, or ask people? And surely there must be some lawyers or law offices dealing with Indians in a similar capacity, so could she not work for them for a while and learn the ropes? Just b/c she fell on her face this first time, and Jacob pulled a lot of her funding, doesn't mean she couldn't do that kind of work, work that would seem to be well suited for her. Finally, mad props on the music choices, really throughout the series, but this season in particular. They were well chosen, and I found myself hitting the Shazam app on a regular basis to look up the songs. *ETA as I think about it more, well, she was pretty much persona non grata on the rez, so maybe that ship has sailed, but you know what I mean...

While I agree that Neville's example of a child wasn't the best, I think he was basically saying "don't be such a dick." It's hard, b/c I know a lot of people watch reality shows for the opportunity to tear the contestants to pieces in forums, and they consider that part of the fun. (I don't share that opinion.) Others subscribe to the philosophy that you shouldn't say anything in an anonymous forum that you wouldn't say to, say, the neighbor you have to see on a daily basis. I think Neville is asking for more of the latter. He's asking that we consider the humanity of the artists. There is more than one way to criticize. What we love about the judges is that they are perfectly fine with saying something didn't work, but they say it in a way that doesn't break down, but rather builds up. They don't say "this was talentless crap," they say "this didn't work, it should have been done in a different way, take that information and learn from it for next time." As for the "shop foreman" business, it's an artificial construct and pretty out-of-place in this setting. It's not like electing a jury foreman. In a setting like a makeup shop, you work your way up to head of the team by serving on teams, by observing how leaders manage people/time/conflicts and how they allocate talent. The head of a shop has probably hired the team him or herself, and knows their strengths and weaknesses. Assembling a group of complete strangers and electing one leader doesn't endow them with the skill set. I think Ve was trying to make a teachable moment by calling out the Twisted Six leader on what the judges expect of a team leader, but I don't feel it is a reasonable expectation. It's nice that one contestant already ran his own shop and had the skills, but if you look at the fact that many of the contestants end up working for a lead makeup artist like Ve on her projects, the skills that are expected of them are those of a team member, someone who would work their way up to being lead makeup artist after paying their dues and learning the industry.

I agree. They seem to want to escalate each season: "This season, we're doing X, which we have never. done. before!" As if we wouldn't watch it if it were just the same show of interesting challenges and fun creative people having fun together. I'm not there for the escalation. If they've exhausted the existing talent pool of people with sufficient experience and training, why not wrap up what's been a very good run. I've got to say that I hate werewolf makeup, and I've never seen a werewolf makeup that I felt worked, even in tv/movies. Superimposing lupine anatomy onto a human frame doesn't make sense to me. So I'm always disappointed when F/O does werewolf challenges. Making it the first challenge is just kind of mean. When they announced the "shop" concept, was anyone else worried for a second that they were going to have the losing "shop" choose the team member to be sent home?

I agree. I don't think the flashbacks are ever meant to make us feel more sympathetic--they're just meant to show us that what people see in Litchfield is who these people are inside those walls. Incarceration is one of those unique experiences where you are expected to box up who you were before hand, put on a uniform and completely change your behavior out of self-preservation, so I think it's particularly apt in an unfolding story to show who these people were before undergoing that transformation. Piscatella's flashback showed us that he cared too much for an inmate and yet failed to protect him; what he resented about Red was the devotion of her prison family and her vigilance to protect them (he was vocal about it while monologuing at her). It's a bit of a stretch, really, but whatever. Maybe as a closeted (in the beginning) gay man he had felt he had to hide his nurturing impulses and resents women for not having to hide it? I felt it was pretty darned Animal Farm/Lord of the Flies, myself. Dehumanization and humiliation. "Cavity searches" in front of a crowd, denial of insulin (I felt that was a misstep by the writers, as we never saw any health implications from denying that guard his insulin), verbal abuse, being locked in close quarters with multiple people and no reasonable place to sleep and a communal bucket. And, as has been mentioned upthread, the guards they rounded up weren't necessarily the ones that had brutalized the inmates over the years. If the inmates' objection was that the COs hadn't been trained properly, then it certainly isn't fair to punish them for the lack of training provided by their employers.

I agree. The best man and maid of honor toast the bride and groom, not the bride-to-be and the groom-to-be. Here it's a writers' cheat; they need Nomi to say her piece despite her parents' disapproval and underline the sibling relationship before the wedding, because Dad will have the opportunity to stand up for his daughter afterward, at the wedding. Hopefully JMS and co. had the decency to feel a little bad about it, but it had to be done. There is a "sad theme" that the show has played a couple of times, including this episode around the time Riley went to see Will's dad. Does anyone know if it is deliberate that that theme borrows the chords from Mad World? It really jumps out at you. Add me to the list of people who cringed when Nomi started out her toast with a story that was all about her, but it did end up in character. I also agree that Nomi doesn't seem as fleshed-out a character as some of the others, which is ironic, b/c I would assume that a writer choosing to include a trans character in the society we have right now would be doing so in part to further the message that being trans isn't the only defining element of her life. But I guess when you're telling the story of 8+ people in 13 episodes a season along with a conspiracy plot, maybe you don't get everything done that you set out to do.

Thinking about the differences...I wonder if the sensate experience is a more...palatable form of telepathy? In B5, the positive part of being a telepath was the sense of connection, breaking down the wall that separates us as individuals. But sharing in someone's thoughts is a jarring, disorienting thing, particularly if that person's mind is wired differently (like scanning the mind of an alien, or that of a mentally unbalanced criminal, or simply someone who is consumed by an emotion like hate or fear). But the sensate experience seems to allow the connection while still retaining separate thoughts, creating a virtual space where the two--or however many--personalities can interact, but remain discrete. Even in those instances where we see someone step in to take over another's body to fight or say something particularly meaningful, it seems more like a body-sharing than a mind-sharing, less of a loss of self or boundaries.

As a diehard fan of Babylon 5 and someone who has watched at least part of Jeremiah and Crusade, I thought it might be fun to start a discussion of elements of Sense8 that seem familiar from J. Michael Straczynski's earlier works. For example, in the concept of the sensates, and the way they virtually interact, I see an extension of his conception of telepaths in B5, as well as the idea that they are afraid of the way they're perceived by "normals" and their potential for being weaponized and used by nefarious forces. I also see that he hasn't lost his fondness for characters speechifying. ? Recognizing, of course, that JMS is part of a creative team, and not intending to downplay the Wachowskis' part in creating/running the show.

Hee--when I saw that person, I thought for a minute they were bringing in Ang from The Last Airbender (the animated series). Do you by chance have TiVo? I do, and the Netflix streaming quality has been terrible since the spring update. Vacillates between HD and HorribleD constantly; other users have been reporting same issues at tivocommunity.com (not a plug, I have no connection, just citing my source). It's apparently something about the TiVo Netflix streaming app. Last night I decided I could just watch the show as geography porn and be happy. All of these places are beautiful in their own way and full of life, except Berlin, which is ironic for me b/c I used to live there and it is one of my favorite cities, but the Berlin action is mostly mob underworld stuff, so no surprise it doesn't call to me the way the other places do. The team also excels in making moments that are just so special it almost hurts not to be part of it, like the glitter scene at the disco or the pride parade.

Sorry, I had read elsewhere that it would only be six episodes.

The braids might also have been chosen to make Cady look more childlike (theme of new beginnings, childlike openness), b/c in non-Indian U.S. culture braids are typically worn by younger girls, and it might also have been to help her look more attractive in the sweat, if they didn't like the way she looked with damp hair. I'm not saying it can't be cultural appropriation, just offering other motivations. I've always hated the way the Cady character has been handled. Too naive, never holding her cards close enough to her chest. Being adopted into the tribe is only the latest. Okay, she shot a guy and she opened up a law office. We know she genuinely wants to help, but I wish they had waited until she had put in some time on the rez, formed more bonds with people, before taking that step. I agree to that. In a show filled with men on their own Batman crusades, he's solid and yet not-boring. As for Vic's pregnancy, I agree with everyone else who is frustrated by it. As far as the show has told us anything, really, about Vic, we know that the one thing in her life that is her anchor is that she is a cop. It's the one thing she seems to be competent at, it's the part of her life that is stable and meaningful to her. But it is a job that appears to have endless hours, and gets her injured on a regular basis. While I know there are police officers who are moms out there, I would think that for Vic to be a single mother, without much of a support system (Travis notwithstanding), remaining a cop (in Absaroca, where there is a murder a week and she gets beaten up regularly) would be ridiculously hard. So she's got some choices to make. And judging from her face when she heard the heartbeat, I suspect termination of the pregnancy isn't on the table. I've read that the next (final) season will be short, so they won't have much time to wrap this up. Hard to see where they will go. I can almost see her choosing not to get a paternity test and declaring Travis to be the father on the birth certificate, giving him primary custody, the way it's played out so far. [Ducking to avoid projectiles; I'm just saying the writers might make this happen.] Agree with everyone else that Walt has become insufferable and his schtick has played out its welcome. He hires job candidates based on literature discussions, but he's unwilling to see his own entitlement in refusing to carry a cell phone. Also curious how the writers put a bow on this story.

Clanstarling I see your point, but in the writers' defense, queasiness is simply a much easier sign to work into the episode. Vic's life has been in upheaval and she has demonstrated that she hasn't really been on top of things (evidenced by her "surprise" eviction and stack o'unanswered mail), so if she wasn't on the pill, I can believe she wouldn't have noticed being late. And signs like being late, or sore boobs, are more difficult to bring up either visually or in dialogue for a character like Vic who doesn't appear to have any girlfriends with whom she shares that kind of thing. So a symptom like queasiness, which she assumes is just tummy troubles, is a "safe" topic of discussion for the boy's club of the sheriff's office. I think they were also bundling tiredness in there, what with her coworkers telling her she looked like crap (in a concerned way). In your defense, they didn't have to show her barfing. People can be queasy without tossing their cookies. Oh btw I was watching another series this week and one of the characters fainted as her "tell," and I hearkened back to our conversation and laughed.