queenanne

That's what I thought too. I understood the people on the road and I can kind of understand the people to the side, but I thought they were stanchions, or grape arbors, or pegs. In fact, considering the cost of 100-300 extra extras, they might have been pegs in a diorama.

That's my guess too except technically wasn't Carl last year/season? No big if I'm wrong, I just like to keep this stuff straight in my head. But yeah, if you only get two "hard F-word" cusses/season, I can imagine a limit to the amount of sexual violence talk. I thought that was intended as a bit o'heavy-handed metaphor for the Three Questions.

I don't understand it either, and I think we're just supposed to not-understand it enough to think Vince did that as a red herring/to deflect suspicion, because Vince really killed Danny.

I think his skin is so sun-defyingly white, it just reflects light. (As a fishbelly-white person myself, I kid, I kid.)

I have a feeling this has something to do, thematically, with the fact that "The Three Questions" raised their heads again with Rick-Gabriel. "Have you killed humans? Why?"

"Significant", may be stretching it, but set design was clearly having a little fun: Ezekiel 37:7: "So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone." Matthew 27:52: "and the tombs broke open." Revelations 9:6: "During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them." Luke 24:5: "In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" If it's not just a fun little lagniappe, Gabriel has clearly been constructing thematic guilt sermons to preach, if he'd only opened the doors to the congregation.

I keep thinking that this show is the way it is because they are signaling to us clearly the denouement is going to be like Lost/St Elsewhere, where it's revealed that everybody is living in a dream/Coma Boy's fantasy and/or subjective totally wrong worldview; but it's probably too early for that and I'm grasping at straws. I thought that was meant as a positive (from their point of view), and that the girls were meant to be sincere if deleterious in their ana-envy, praising Emma for her "willpower over food", which was then paid out by her renewed determination not to eat anything, and to try to keep the envy of her peers. Actually IMO one of the more realistic things about eating disorders/real life/human nature this pile of crap has ever shown us (though I'm unsure about whose idea the eating journal was in the first place, doctors or sick-Emma's. I tend to think it's unhealthy but if the alternative is eating and drinking air and water...). If nothing else, I'm happy this show probably means Astro is making enough bank that he has moved himself and his mom outta Brownsville.

Was I seeing things, or did he at one point pack a navy blue sundress? It made no sense but I remember him tossing something that looked like it had a 1/4-inch strap involved, and otherwise was like a round tablecloth. Don't forget, the part where the mustachioed one characterized himself as a "young adult". I LOL'ed (and thought, "if by 'young adult', you mean "grown-ass man', then sure, knock yourself out"). Generally in my experience that's the mark of a big tool, the guy's pushing 40 and touting how nice he is at/towards the "soccer moms". I was like, um, dude, do you own a calendar? Maybe thirtysomethings nowadays still READ young adult literature; that's a reflection of the aging of the intended focus of the discipline, not how sprightly-youthful you are. If those women are soccer moms you could be a "soccer dad", talking like they're tired and raddled wrecks while you're a hot stud is moronic.

The part that frustrates me is that "not dropping the ball w/r/t what Monet thinks of as 'a traditional marriage' ", is easy. I don't know how you'd get out of the screening process simply mouthing "Tradition.... tradition!", unless the screeners were real morons who made no due diligence; or the goal was simply to get trainwrecky TV. We don't even know for certain if Vaughn would have been happy with, or if Monet tried, a nice piece of simply cooked meat, with some Dr. Praeger's pucks tossed in the toaster oven/box of lentils/whatever. It's just our assumption that they always had takeout, because it's what we've seen. I never heard/saw of any concept in my life, that "traditional marriage" meant "I, as wife, can sit around on the couch eating bonbons/going out with the girls, because my husband will provide; but don't actually have to do anything on my wifely end". (Though we did see Monet clean once, so there's that.) Even most early feminists wouldn't have dreamed of saying that SAHM/W wasn't "work". Termed it "boring drudgery", sure; but it not being a fair exchange/buttload of work for the woman, that I don't recall. Monet thinking "a traditional marriage doesn't involve me providing food, tra la lal!", kinda makes me wonder how she was raised, to be frank; "while not opening her eyes to how family units worked", is a strong suspicion.

Unsure if we have any statistics on what happens but part of me would not be surprised to learn, that the reason why arranged marriages are so largely "successful" is the Cortney situation in reverse; the same family who brokered/encouraged the marriage, won't hear of its ending, and peer pressure the arrangees to stay married. As for the "falling in love", I was a little uneasy last week already when everybody started referring to their trial-balloon marriages as "the experiment". This cast an unappealing cold-water effect over the entire operation. I think one of the hamsters was scrupulous about doing so throughout, but all of a sudden they were doing it in chorus.

^^ Indeed. At one point in one of the lobby scenes, at least 3 sentences in his weekly Proclamation o'Disgust were clearly looped as studio voiceovers (the ones right before the fade to commercial). You (a) couldn't see his mouth; and (b), the lines echoed.

^^ Actually he has termed someone "Ignorant Lady", which was my LOL moment of the previews. (Possibly also "idiot", but different intended audience donkeys, I think.) It's like "Stupid Bitch by way of Professor Frink."

I haven't specifically asked my friend in the NYC medical field lately, but once when a girlfriend was asking if they didn't have any nice male residents they could set us up with, the response was "no, because overwhelmingly they have already paired up by the time they graduate med school, with the female residents."

Admittedly, for all we know Monet could be in control of takeout every night, but I live in NYC and that ish is expensive. $12-15 is an averagely healthy workplace lunch, $22-25 is a singleton's dinner. I'm also speaking as a person who hates to cook for myself, not the cooking itself but the prep and maneuvering around my tiny apartment kitchen with little prep space; but I do it because the alternative is shelling out all that money, and it would make a difference for me if I was cooking for a friend or mate. I think the problem with Vaughn is probably "internal language", as others have suggested. He didn't answer the experts' questions 100% honestly, possibly because he doesn't know himself that well. I do think he is making a mountain out of a molehill in respect of brunch, but give him his due, he was very charming and made an effort when he did brunch. I think the "silence all day long" on Sundays a bit absurd although I am also an introvert, but learning that, said to me that Vaughn is indeed VERY introverted if he's worse than me, heh. I'm not ambitious on Sunday but I do allow talking, and I think I'd be more ambitious with a mate. Monet blew up too fiercely over the "civil" comment as well, IMO it didn't warrant her reaction. I don't think she would have liked it that much better if he had upped it to "accommodating" or something a bit warmer, because in Monet's eyes she's either (a) bending over backwards to please; or (b), her "husband" shouldn't be invoking "civil" because he's "her husband". She somehow twinned that with "he's treating me like an unaccommodating stranger" but they ARE, in fact, strangers. To me "civil" is "veering away from blowing up", but maybe to someone as volatile as Monet it's an insult, and she needs to have the high-emotional reaction to feel like she's actually invoked a reaction or made a difference. In which case she herself would have a hard time making do with someone as cool and detached as Vaughn. Agreed that's not the issue for me; I absolutely do believe a woman has a right to hold out and not "settle" in terms of physical pulchritude - as long as she can actually "pull" that man. Jamie's romantic history shows that she can get the interest of a more classically handsome man. She just can't keep or parlay that into an LTR. Which either proves the conventional wisdom that "overwhelmingly a very good-looking man is likely to be a jackass", or "Jamie looks good enough to snag their interest, but her personality, "quirks", whatever, means she can't hold said interest." Thus, I think she absolutely should be willing to trade in looks for personality, and someone else has made the decision, to the point where she has already gotten to know a man "less handsome than" what she would normally opt for. It would be different, maybe, if she were still looking at still photos and had no idea of the personality behind the photo. We have gotten to know Doug a little as a person, and some of us are attached to him as a person, hoping Jamie feels the same way because that would just be sensible of her.

I agree, it’s not like I equate cooking with some kind of 1:1 duty or exchange but I LOL’ed back when Vaughn said he wanted to pay all the bills, and Monet said she wouldn’t mind. Because I realized, I’m all for a traditional marriage in theory, but I wouldn’t even let a spouse volunteer to be sole breadwinner, if I wasn’t cooking some meals or doing much that contributed to “homemaking”. He wants to pay everything, just so that he can say he pays? I should accept this, because I breathe, and am awesome enough to let myself exist in this man’s orbit and he should be grateful? It didn’t make me think that Monet had spent a lot of time in her mind thinking on what a “traditional marriage” would consist of, because it definitely means some type of equality where husband gives/provides something, and wife gives/provides something else relatively equal to what hubby is providing, even if it means each chore isn't split 50/50.

Dr. C. seems very set on people's "authenticity", unfortunately as they say, "it is possible to be both completely sincere and sincerely deluded". You can fool a lie detector answering questions with "what I firmly think and believe is the truth, regardless of whether or not everyone would agree it is the truth". His response allots ... not very much towards the existence of people's internal subjective dictionaries.

I think this is the inexperience of the showrunner shining through, because all these ideas by themselves are resonant and imagination-firing. They’re just set up weirdly and wrong, dropping red herrings/subtle “Gotchas!” that the audience either can’t get past or can’t remember. They shine their lantern on things that aren’t important and bury their lede when it counts, thinking it’s “understated”. We had so many false starts on “who Joe was”, that people were still speculating whether or not the roof/mother story was a lie, when clearly this was designed as an “Ah-ha!” moment to someone. Joe is mentally disturbed like his mother and longs to “be a creative” even more than “he wants to create”, and thinks he has discovered his mother (or maybe his Donna, even) in Cameron. This is great stuff. But it’s great when you discover it, it’s not great when you need it stitched together and someone to go back and tell you what plot happened among the nonsense and dross. I liked Joe better as a sociopath or at least as a mystery, but trying to keep him a mystery I think is what sank them, by the sixth fakeout iteration of his backstory I was rolling my eyes, OMG, I don't caaaaaaare anymore, can we find out what the Giant is going to be or do? A waste, really.

Many online biographies of Ramsay I've seen cite his "degree in hotel management". I've never seen them say "where" so I suppose there's room to think it's a fudge, but he seems to have gotten education on the topic.

So, the deal about the "Symphonic" is that it... had a synthesizer keyboard attached to it?! Yeah, I can see why that didn't fly... but it does have a nice tie-in to Donna's talents. I feel guilty picking on what I found an otherwise exciting episode (was actually disappointed when it neared the 45-minute mark and I just then realized that we weren't going to COMDEX this week), but really... they programmed the Giant to ... tell an end-user they have nice manners?!? With 1983 tech? On the extremely realistic, I'm sure, chance that people were going to be thanking it? Yeah right...

I think that's what her people start out asking, not what everybody winds up paying... then again, I guess casinos do have big talent budgets.

I'm a sucker for some Derek and Ivy, for me they had true dramatic resonance in the simple theory, and then Jack and Megan clearly tapdanced their little actors' hearts out selling it to us. The show concept and structure brought any problem the pairing had, requiring him to keep one foot so firmly planted in Camp Karen at all times, that he almost always looked like some fickle jerk.

I thought it was a bit of an open secret that Marc Shaiman arranged for the iTunes "Don't Forget Me", as he'd have the master in his possession at his home studio...? I got this impression because I seem to remember somebody applying to him for a full version of Megan's "20th Century Fox Mambo" (? think that was it, the one with Kathie Lee), and his reply that what was aired was what was recorded, unfortunately. And yes, I'm not in love with Kat's rendition, not a fan of the choice to husk/rasp the decrescendoes but being charitable, perhaps she was ill.