shura

Frank Langella! Well, that explains it. I kept wondering why Alan Arkin looks so thin in this role. Oh, no argument there. It was just funny how at first Sandra was like "Oh, Stan, wrong answer. If only you were honest...", and when he went for the supposedly better answer, she was all "Ha, nope! Still don't care." Does that Kama Sutra pose really work? I mean, they were basically hopping on one leg while holding the other in the air. That's not easy to do for any extended period of time! And what was with the hands up, palms facing forward? How is that supposed to enhance anything?

I forgot, did they ever explain why Swedish Intelligence would be interested in the CIA-ISI interactions? Or did Annelise never ask herself this question? Stan never stood a chance, did he? Lie, tell the truth - it's all the same to Sandra.

Right? How is "pick the toxin / toss the whole box in" not genius poetry? I laughed and laughed when Prince Henry's army showed up armed with their tiny curved knives and not much more. The kid was pretty annoying though. I, too, hope that Yahoo or Amazon will pick up a second season. I'll watch it.

Speaking of the fourth programmer, the guy gets held up at gunpoint, crashes through a window and falls to the ground a couple stories below. If that were me, I'd be hightailing it out of there in full panic mode. What does he do? He dusts off and flags himself a cab. That's one composed innocent civilian, isn't he?

I think I'd prefer it if they didn't imply that the whole thing was planned from the beginning. It's not a good plan - it's too complicated and calling for unnecessary steps. If all Finch wanted was to break into the ISA truck and upload the worm, why not do just that? You know where the truck (or an equally suitable one) is - it's parked across the street from Control's house. Surely bugging that Samaritan phone will work just as well whether Control knows anything or not. Kidnapping her only introduces a lot more difficulty without increasing the chances of the payoff.

Actually, I thought at first the guy Control was hunting was the POI, and that was the reason Root and Reese were at the train station. It just seems that, to nab Control for this super-duper sting operation, they could have found an easier opportunity, something less likely to go wrong, like when she was alone in a park somewhere and not riding in a car with armed bodyguards.

I wanted to smack quite a few people in this episode. This Travers guy - WTF? What purpose does his smugness serve? Why does Greer stand for that? The Samaritan kid - attitude for the sake of attitude, and this is the entity that supposedly is striving to create a world where people don't exercise flaws like that. And, lastly, Root and Reese when they were torturing Control. I understand that they thought she must know about Shaw, but they were wrong, and I hate it when people act on their mistakes like that while displaying full certainty that they are right. I'm not sure I follow. Who set up whom, how and for what purpose? It must have gone completely over my head. No kidding. Does Samaritan have this kid materialize out of thin air now? Why would Samaritan even need to meet the President face to face, let alone through such a ridiculous intermediary? Why not, I don't know, text the President instead or something?

This makes sense. My issue with the button was that the system was actually down, and Shaw figured she had to use the button to bring the system back on. That confused me (mildly) because you don't normally see shut-off switches used for that purpose on TV. The funniest thing is, there is a big red button, totally looking like a mushroom, on the wall fifteen feet from where I am sitting at work. I'm sure I've looked at it thousands of times but never paid any attention to it. And now I am sitting here and fighting the urge to walk over and see what the button does.

What was that conveniently prominent elevator override button anyway? Are those common in real life? It didn't look like an emergency shut-off switch, more like the opposite. Depends on how it's done. It doesn't have to be conspicuous. Nobody had any problem with New York governor-elect being taken out in the middle of her acceptance speech. I thought those fit right in next to the original paintings by major artists...

Ah yes, the Degas. I swear to God, as the Degas kept getting it in simulation after simulation, I started thinking that the Machine really has to have someone take it down from that wall. And then Root goes ahead and does just that! What a fantastically enjoyable episode. I didn't think of it as Groundhog Day as much as that episode of Community where they went through different possible scenarios. I loved the humor, the not-quite-expectedly explicit Root-Shaw "simulated" stuff, even the unexpectedly poignant ending. And then the previews change the game again! Damn it, I love this show.

That was brilliant. I could watch Michael Emerson deliver the phrase "Mildly agitated declaration of mission completion" like that all day.

I don't think there's one just one rule to comedy. This was played very broadly because that's what was intended, with the actors in on the joke and letting us know that they knew. The only thing they didn't do was break the fourth wall, as Ted often did in "Better Off Ted." Breaking the fourth wall is also supposed to be "forbidden" in comedy. This is not really comedy anyway, or, rather, it is a special kind of comedy - a spoof. I think they played it exactly the way this genre is supposed to be played. Which is why I am a bit puzzled at the comments praising the actors for not taking themselves too seriously. Is there really an alternative? I mean, they know this is not Shakespeare, right? Why on earth would they even think to take themselves seriously if they chose to sign up for this?

Samaritan Kid: "I humbly place before you my east meets west patented Traeger turkey burger-- An Asian fusion burger made with Willow Farms organic turkey, a toasted tallegio-cheese crisp, papaya chutney, black truffle aioli, and micro-greens on a gluten-free brioche bun. Enjoy." Root: "Here's mine. It's a hamburger made out of meat on a bun with nothing." Shaw: "I am DOUBLY turned on right now."

Does Greer even consider Samaritan to be under his control? I thought Greer told Finch that his purpose in bringing Samaritan to life was pretty much to put Samaritan in charge of running the world. I assume "the world" would include Greer. And then, when Samaritan booted up, didn't Greer welcome it with something like "We are awaiting your command"? "I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords" indeed. Does Samaritan control its agents directly or does Greer handle that? If Greer were put in charge of organizing his own elimination, I think he is smart enough to reevaluate his views on Samaritan. Root, on the other hand... If the Machine told her to put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger, she'd probably do it.

Just rewatched the airport scene. The funniest thing about the fair/unfair discussion is that, at least at the airport, Brooke never said anything about fairness or lack thereof. The words "fair" or "unfair" were not spoken! She said it was very frustrating that Amy and Maya were not eliminated (Adam actually said the exact same thing there), that the previous stretch had been pointless (as quite a few people argue here), and when Brooke talked to the scientists, she very calmly and rationally agreed that they did not make the rules, but it was her right to feel frustrated with the existing rules. I didn't think she was being an ass. She was simply expressing her frustration. I wouldn't be offended if I was Amy or Maya, I thought Brooke was making a clear and thought out - on the fly! - argument. It was actually the first time when I could see her as an intelligent person rather than the dummy she came off as during the whole season. And then she made the joke about losing the mental task, and I saw more of that intelligence there - it was a good, self-deprecating joke. As far as the wrestlers and the dentists being disingenuous because they themselves had been saved by NELs, how is it disingenuous to honestly speak what's on your mind? It may be ugly or disagreeable, but disingenuous it certainly is not. If the other teams were not frustrated at those NELs, good for them. If they were frustrated, but did not show it, good for them again, it's their choice, although technically this last one is disingenuous. There is a third reaction to seeing a non-eliminated team - Brooke's. To me, it's just as valid as the other two. So Brooke has a different reaction to someone's NEL than that person had to hers - what's wrong about that?

Or they could have been working on their official, work-related project without reserving the room if they came and found it available. It's academia, everything is flexible. Some people do decide to work when they don't have to. Especially when the alternative is a Victorian dinner party. Were those Victorian parlor games historically accurate? I am trying to picture Dickens and Darwin blowing a wool ball across the table... Did they drink a lot?

How's this for a temporary, low-tech solution: borrow Root's bear costume, put it on and let Samaritan go crazy with that facial recognition thing? Wait, are you talking about Finch, Reese, and Shaw? Because Finch, Reese, and Shaw very definitely and very clearly had cover identities that Samaritan could access. And I'm pretty sure Root had a cover identity - moreover, an identity of an existing person - when Samaritan checked her out and noted the "gait mismatch".

I forgot, why is it that only Root can have a new identity every day? Was that server programmed to have a million identities available for Root and only a single identity for each of the other TM members?

Root referred to Samaritan as "her" as well, but I'm pretty sure what's-his-name said that Samaritan "wanted to show the Machine what the city looks like under his control". Or maybe it was "its control"? I'm just going to keep calling them all "it". Exactly. What was the meeting about then? Just idle curiosity about meeting the only other one of its kind? Nothing of practical importance could be negotiated there because Samaritan should know not to trust anything coming out of the Machine. Well, I suppose Samaritan did establish for a fact the important thing that its input does not correspond to reality as far as Team Machine is concerned since Root did not appear as Root to it. Ha, who was playing whom there?

Bear is probably much too smart to be into digestive issues. BTW, is the show using the same dog as before? Didn't Bear use to be much darker? And less yellow? Yes, but what does concern look like when experienced by a machine? It's probably no more than an acknowledgement of a new problem to solve (that is, pretty much what we saw). In the same vein, what's "false sense of security"? Just an incorrectly calculated numerical value. So if the Machine is "luring Samaritan into a false sense of security", it is simply feeding Samaritan bogus numbers. Which circles back to the question of input - how can Samaritan trust any input provided by the Machine?

Of course! What AI morality? There's no morality, there is only an objective to achieve. The Machine is at least into not harming humans (or some humans, at least), but Samaritan was not even programmed that way. I wonder why Samaritan cares about organizing and optimizing human behavior. So what that there is greed and hunger and wars in the world? There will still be enough humans for Samaritan to have his lifeblood. I doubt very much that Greer would say to the KGB guy "I'd like you and I to be friends." For a Brit in 1973, the proper grammar here would most certainly be "you and me." Did Martine give Reese the finger there? Is that kosher on network TV?

I just assumed that the manila envelope was there precisely because they were in Manila, not that it was a funny coincidence. More of a nerdy pun than anything else. I came here to see if anyone else noticed how Adam described the naked-kids-in-the-street situation using the words "That's pretty nuts!"

Because that's what plenty of parents do these days? And I'm talking parents much lower on the socio-economic scale than the Dunphys. I found that aspect of the story completely realistic. Seriously? I'm sure as hell not buying my kid a brand new car when he turns 21. That's like a couple years' worth of tuition in a nice state college! Although, I suppose, Haley has no use for her college savings, so might as well spend it. How much do the Dumphys make anyway?

I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean that taxis provided by production for use by racers? If so, I disagree. Yeah, I kinda doubt that Moscow driver who drove off with James and Abba's stuff was helpfully provided by TAR. The whole idea is probably a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I'm not saying the Save should have been edited out, my point is more that it is technically possible if TPTB were to decide that it was a complete failure. It wasn't, to be sure, but it didn't add much to my enjoyment or interest. I just don't really see a compelling reason to leave it in either. TAR edits out all the time things that actually happened, sometimes even whole tasks like Roadblocks or Detours. The fans are usually meh about it. Right, that's why I said that Maya and Amy are technically scientists. I'm sure they are good ones, too. You'd be surprised how many grad students have no idea what they are doing, and to me those grad students are hardly scientists.