UrbanShocker

The only thing that bothered me was the last half of the episode took place in 2020 and yet no one was wearing a mask, not even in prison. Either it's an alternate universe where Covid doesn't exist, or it's North Dakota where everyone pretended Covid didn't exist. Just having a stranger over for dinner in 2020 would be out of the question too, but I'm nitpicking. Otherwise, that last scene was so tense - you could see Dot knew the danger but Wayne and Scotty just were being nice. I kept waiting for Munch to go nuts but in the end he got some relief from his guilt, which is probably what he was looking for all along. And I don't buy that he was actually 600 years old, but that he just identified with his ancestors, whether they were literal sin-eaters or not.

Wait a minute ... Bill, is that you? Hi Bill! Anyway, I've watched Bill for probably 30 years now, from his days at Politically Incorrect, and over last few years he's completely lost me as a viewer. From his love of Elon Musk, to his anti-vax stance with RFK Jr, his cozying up to crazy right wingers like Rogan, DeSantis and Sage Steele, to his whining about the people who wouldn't let him put up a solar panel at his cave/house, he's become even more insufferable lately than he has been before. Oh, and he's also less funny than he used to be - over the last few years I've laughed less and less at his stuff. And he's a scab too. So I've stopped watching and I suggest all of you here should too. Put Bill out of his misery so he doesn't have the nuisance of a TV show to interrupt an hour of smoking pot.

Last year all the talk was about how the show was not perfect with the representations of some of the characters, especially Jerry West and Kareem. I haven't heard any of that this season, mostly because it's been much more factual (I would say this season is 95% fact while last season was closer to 80%). They really haven't had to embellish some of the stuff which was IRL crazy. But I think season 2 felt a bit too long at the beginning and way too quick at the end (2 years of NBA history in 45 minutes in the last episode). They should have had at least a 10-episode season to not fast forward through everything. At least next week they get to the '84 finals which are legendary (I'm a bit too young to remember it myself, but I remember the '86 Celtics and the '87 Finals with the Magic hook shot). Yes, that was Jay Mohr as Kareem's agent - and in real life he's Jeanie Buss' fiance. Also, the radio announcer doing a play-by-play late in the episode was NFL network host Rich Eisen, who I don't usually associate with basketball. But he's had a bunch of actors from the show (and the book's author Jeff Pearlman) on his daily radio show, so it made some sense. I really hope this series is picked up through four seasons, which I think was the original plan. There is some doubt it will be picked up but it's been a fun series and I would hate for it to end in the middle of the story.

Growing up in the 80's the story I always heard was that Magic (and him alone) got Westhead fired. The show is basically saying West, Riley and Sharman were also basically on board with getting rid of Westhead too, and maybe they were. But the show so far has been mostly accurate with that story. As for Westhead's "system", it did eventually pay off ... in college basketball when he became the head coach of Loyola Marymount University. His system then was to be as up-tempo as possible, and the star of that team was Hank Gathers, who lead the nation in both points and rebounds in the same season (which is unheard of). Unfortunately Gathers had a heart condition, and when he decided to not take his medication because it was making him sluggish, Gathers had a fatal heart attack on the court during LMU's conference tournament game in 1990. Westhead (unfairly) took some of the blame for that and went back to the NBA immediately afterwards.

Agreed. They were basically two different documentaries - the first part on the show itself (which I wish went into a little more depth) and the second was more like a mystery doc (which I think was mostly unnecessary) to answer the question "Who is Apache Dann Carr"? By the end I didn't really care. I would have more preferred a doc only about the show and only a passing mention to Carr and Johnny Ferraro the Elvis impersonator. I'm guessing the director met Johnny, thought he was a character and built the whole doc around him, but unfortunately, he's just not that interesting. The Walton doc has been pretty good so far. I didn't know there was such animosity toward Walton when he first got to Portland.

Forgot about Chayce Beckham, for some reason I thought he was from the south. So yes, I was wrong about that. But Iam is the first non-white male to win since Ruben, so that is correct. And as for Grammys, like I said, a bold prediction, but Mandisa has a Grammy (contemporary Christian) and she didn't even do that well on Idol. So Iam could do well as a niche artist in the "Roots" category.

Congrats to Iam, though I wish the show was a bit less heavy-handed (no pun intended) about Iam's father. I feel terrible for the kid that he had to go through that grief every week at the insistence of the Idol producers (I'm assuming they were behind it). But he seems like a good kid and I'll make a bold prediction - Iam's going to win a ton of Grammys. No, not in the pop categories, but rather in a category called "Regional Roots Album". He could clean up there (and Megan has a chance to do well in the contemporary Christian categories too). Here are some fun facts about Iam's win: 1. He's the first west coaster to win since Jordin Sparks in season 6. 2. He's the first non-white guy to win since Ruben 20 years ago. As for the finale, the Nutsa/Kylie duet looked like something out of the Eurovision Song Contest. Zach outsung Kevin Cronin and should probably be the next lead singer of REO. And I've never heard of Jelly Roll but I guess he's the country version of Post Malone?

I'm not so sure about that. Noah and Huntergirl didn't split the vote last year - they finished 1-2. Scotty and Lauren didn't split it either and they beat out Haley Reinhart. The country (and Christian) vote is massive and Iam being from Hawaii doesn't help as much with voting - the show starts at 2 pm over there. At this point with only three left I think he finishes third (and then becomes the house entertainer at the Disney Aulani resort). I think Colin wins as he has all the demographics on his side, but I'm rooting for Megan since I think she's the best singer left (she was great on both her songs this week). I wouldn't be surprised to see her win either but I'm picking Colin in a close vote.

According to Wikipedia, Gattman is a town of only 77 people (and half of them are probably related to Colin). Amory is the basically the big city suburb of Gattman (6,600 people) so I'm guessing they share a radio and TV station. In any event, I don't think Zach will get through this week but you never know.

Good guess - you were correct. Though it's not that much of a surprise especially since Oliver, Warren and Colin are basically in the same male country "box", so that split votes a bit (and Oliver started at a much lower vote total from last week). For the final five, we really don't have any "boxes" left. You can make the case for Megan and Colin being in the "country" box, but as we saw last year with Noah and Hunter there's room for both. My hunch is Megan, Colin and Iam seem pretty safe to make the top 3 and I would be fine with that. My personal choice of the five is Megan, who I have been more and more impressed with each week - she's much better than I originally thought. My only concern is if she's too Christian for some voters, but I don't think that should limit her fan base too much (if anything it might add to it). I believe the top 3 usually get a hometown visit, which would be a long plane ride for Iam. Also, I noticed both Colin and Zach are listed with a hometown of Amory, Mississippi - if they both make the top 3 then I guess they would get a combo hometown visit? I don't think that's ever happened before.

Here's how I see the remaining finalists by what "box" they are in: Male Country Box: Oliver, Colin, Warren Divas Box: WeAni, Lucy, Nutsa Singer/Songwriter Box: Iam, Haven, Tyson Female Country Box: MaryBeth, Megan Rock Box: Zachariah So this means to me that Zach is locked into 5th place, since usually all the other boxes will have to be settled before he gets voted out (unless he's terrible one week). But there is really no one in his box.

I haven't been the biggest Colin fan so far this season but his version of Dancing On My Own was great. He checks all the boxes of an Idol winner (country, guitar playing, loves his mama, Southern, blue collar job) - after that performance I'll be shocked if he doesn't win. I would have put through Kaeyra and Nailyah instead of Nutsa and Lucy but I don't expect either of them to last long anyway.

A bit underwhelming but I guess that was to be expected after last week's killing of Teddy (usually shows have their "shocking" death the penultimate week and then an "aftermath" show for the finale). By the way I'm not convinced Teddy was going to just give up $37 million so there was no guarantee Franklin was going to get that money even if Cissy didn't kill Teddy. She kept her word though - she never talked to Franklin again even though he tried. In any event, Franklin got much more greedy this season than he was previously - I always thought he was more power mad than money mad though I guess in his world there's not much difference. But in the end it turned out Veronique was even more greedy than Franklin and got out before he could do anything about it. Ending with alcoholic Franklin destitute was a bit sad but I would have thought Franklin would have ended up in prison trying to steal back his money. Fortunately none of Lonesome Rhodes' predictions happened - I was surprised Leon made it to 1990 and though Louie is still a fugitive she hasn't been caught yet (as of 1989 anyway). Hopefully Oso can make his way to North Carolina. Leon even hinted at the (potential) spinoff about Wanda and LA hip-hop in the 90's. And Parissa was nowhere to be found so we'll never know what became of her. Postscript: The best part of the episode was the inside joke of Franklin and Leon finding a movie set and yelling "You won't win an Oscar for that!" - of course that references Boyz n the Hood and John Singleton was nominated for an Oscar for it. A fitting tribute.

Looking forward to it - I used to watch @midnight all the time on CC. For host, how about Ian Karmel, the Late Late Show's head writer who's now out of a job? Or you could go with one of the two people who ruled the original @midnight - Ron Funches or Milana Vanytrub.

Was Jeanie really naive enough to think her dad was going make her treasurer? Well at least her dad didn't make one of her drunk brothers the treasurer and went with Claire instead (good call). I'm surprised they didn't show (or maybe they did and I missed it) that Dr. Buss eventually paid off his loan by making Great Western Bank the sponsor of the Forum. Also, I know they needed it for a plot device so I'll look the other way, but famously game 6 of the 1980 Finals was only broadcast live in LA, Philly and handful of west coast cities. It was on tape delay at 11:30 pm everywhere else, so Magic's family in Detroit would not have watched it live.