shura

Are they actually allowed to interfere with another team performing a task? Because that’s what Aparna was doing there with DeAngelo.

I took it that they simply couldn’t believe that he is telling them to cross right there in busy traffic and tried to ask him where the “normal” crossing was (“Do we go through that gate, is that where we cross?”). To which he was like, no, this is India, you just cross here. Only when they (or the show, I suspect) got a policeman to halt the traffic for them were they able to cross comfortably.

That’s the thing that baffles me - why have a whole call center full of operators like that? Isn’t this supposed to be a tech company? Why not program the whole thing, including tracking the person who placed the order, into the app the delivery person is using? Wouldn’t that be more efficient compared to paying all the operators? So the dentures aren’t really made right there while patient is waiting? I thought this was something as easy as going for a stroll along the street, popping in and out of shops, getting yourself a bangle, then some dentures, then a samosa, all within an hour. If it’s not like that, if you get your impression and then have to come back some other time to have the dentures fitted, then it’s just a regular dentist in a more open-air setup. There is nothing Indian about that.

How did this work with the dentures exactly? They were taking imprints from people with teeth, then somehow those were turned into dentures within minutes, and then fitted to entirely different people without teeth? I am a little confused about the Swiggy idea. The operator is the brain and the actual delivery people are the eyes and legs? How is this more efficient than having delivery people know the area they are delivering in? Is it intended for random people to sign up at a Swiggy kiosk and deliver a couple meals just like the contestants were doing? The blondes are absolutely terrific people. I have never seen anyone with such great attitude on TAR.

Did I understand it right - those things were literally phone booths you get into and enjoy music and strobe lights for four minutes? Man, Germans are weird. That’s why I love them. Beer yoga? Beer anything! Hey, they are not ashamed of it in Berlin. Ostalgie! One of the cars had a DDR sticker on it.

They don't have clocks in French cars? How can you not notice that you got into the car at 2-something and now it's 5... 6... hmm, getting dark... 7... 8?

I am actually starting to wonder if they are good even at engineering software... Is it me or was there no mention at all of Gary and DeAngelo for the first 25 minutes of the episode? Didn't see them start the leg, didn't see them board a plane, nothing - all the while everybody else was already driving in Paris and even finishing their painting-matching task. I thought I missed a minute at the beginning of the episode where the show explained how one of them got sick and they had to forfeit or something. Only when the Beards (after having finished the paintings thing!) mentioned their alliance with the football players I knew there were still there.

Yes and no. Yes, I suppose wanting to do something your own way is about control (both for the quiet person and for the person who wants him to share his every thought in real time). But no, I don’t think it necessarily implies discounting the other person’s ideas, although I can see how it can be taken that way. Think of it like this. Let me think things through, come up with some ideas, weigh their pros and cons, and not bother you with those that I think are no good. Then we discuss your ideas, and if you happen to suggest one of those that came to me too, I will be ready with the pros and cons. If you didn’t even think of an idea that I filtered out, then there probably was no point in discussing it in the first place. I think it accomplishes the same thing, there is an exchange of ideas, it just happens on a different schedule. Anyway, back to the episode, I don’t think Hung’s issue was that she felt Chee was shutting her out and thinking of his way of doing the task as opposed of their way. She seemed to simply want to hear his instructions and was not offering ideas of her own, there really was no two-way communication there. If anything, her bugging him just messed up his process and made solving the task harder.

Fair enough. The thing with me is, when I am trying to figure out how to do something, I am thinking about several approaches at the same time. I am trying to think which one is better, how can I test if it’s going to work, what ifs, etc. And when someone, usually my wife, asks me at that moment “How are you/we going to do this? What’s the plan?”, I do often just stand there because I simply don’t have the answer yet. I don’t have a plan yet, what can I answer? I will tell you as soon as I know. Now, if she asked specifically about the thought process, that might be different and I might describe it. I guess I am a literal person who is not going to answer a question that was not asked. Is this lack of communication? Yeah, probably.

I agree. I don't know if I would call her shrill or call what she did "blame" necessarily, it sounded civil enough to me. But yes, she was pestering him with her "You have to talk to me! Tell me what I need to do!" while he was simply trying to focus and analyze things and figure out what it is that she needs to do. Sometimes one just doesn't have the info at the moment, demanding it is not going to help, you know. And he was super docile about it, he was like "yes, we need better communication, my fault, I wasn't listening. Not rolling my eyes at all here, no sir." Reminded me of that commercial where a football ref was indifferent to players and coaches yelling at him because he has had a lot of training with his wife. At the same time, Leo declaring "he doesn't need help" dismissively bugged too. It's not up to you to decide for others what they do or don't need. These two teams definitely deserve each other. I don't think I have ever seen an f-word pixelated on TV before. I'm glad DeAngelo and Gary survived. To whoever suggested that they should have done the faster bottle challenge - I am not sure about that. Gary doesn't have any rythm in his DNA (or what was that line?). On the other hand, they didn't really dance to the music there, so who knows.

Rabbi Tuckman: Here's your knife. King Richard: Sword. Rabbi Tuckman: Whatever. Right? Those unnaturally bright green underwear things they were wearing for a dance still had creases on them! They looked like they were made of some stiff synthetic fiber and must have been super uncomfortable to wear. Not sure about ingredients always leading to a cooking challenge. Sometimes they simply have to deliver their purchase someplace. Besides, if you picked the roof/wall covering side of the Detour, you would avoid the cooking. Did they even use anything from their shopping list in building those roof? Liked "Arigatou... oh, I mean obrigada." It's awesome to see when people actually hear themselves and make corrections on the fly.

Amen to that. Why did he keep saying "It's Croatia!" in this weird way as if there was a mental wink there like it was a pun or a witty reference to something? Was there more to it than him trying too hard to be witty? If there was, it went completely over my head and just sounded annoying. This was my favorite episode of the season. I found the whole season up to this point pretty bland. There had been nothing really exciting to me, they were just retreading all the tired situations that I had seen dozens of times already. Who knew that they just needed to go back to real basics like airport shuffling, bald snarks, etc., to become awesome again?

It's a paradox then, isn't it? Exposing the truth about Pemberton would make Sheldon and Amy look selfish, so they decline to do it for the selfish reason that they don't want to look that way. And really, why should it make them look bad? I know it would, some/many people would say "oh, they are only exposing him because it benefits them," but I think it should not be taken that way. The truth is the truth, it has to be judged on its own merits. If a person did something that really disqualifies them, then it shouldn't matter one bit whether it happened 20 years ago or how the truth came to be known. I wonder why society doesn't work like this. Gotta love the episode that makes you think about these things. Chuck Lorre, who knew?

Depends where on the East Coast, I guess. Here in New Hampshire you just show up for your written test with no appointment, and if you go early enough, chances are that they will have slots the same day for a driving test (that you do need an appointment for, technically). Did his license show his occupation for some reason? Or did he just call himself a doctor and the cop bought it? Anyway, I'm sure Joey has IDs for all occasions. Maybe he felt this was more of a doctor situation rather than a Father one. Mike: "Did Helen take the driving test for you?" - Peg, without missing a bit: "After all these years, are you really surprised by anything that woman does?"

Joey: "Now that you are not a priest anymore, I've always wanted to ask - this is all a bunch of nonsense, right?" What does Lawrence do? I remember Mike telling him that, even though he left the seminary, he should still get some kind of education. I forgot, did they ever say if Lawrence enrolled in college? Or does he just sit around commenting on things?

Maybe it was the parking brake. After all, the whole "left-in-neutral" explanation is based solely on something said by a teenager who may be too young to drive herself. Maybe she just didn't know exactly how things work. The thing about Cooper is that he never seems bitter or resentful about his parents not being there. It's like he doesn't know that he should be sad about it.

Nobody would give up just because someone called their theory wrong. I took it that the paper had all the math to show that the asymmetry theory is incorrect, and Sheldon saw the math and agreed. Math is universal, you can often follow the math in a foreign language paper even if you don't understand the text. Maybe Sheldon saw a formula or a calculation there that he knew proved him and Amy wrong.

Jimmy? I've been hearing "Joey" for two episodes. And it's a treehouse. That Dad let him build because he was impressed how Joey/Jimmy likes to do things with his hands. I am really liking this show, both the stories and the background. The thing that sold me in the pilot was when Joey is bumped off from the dinner table to make room for Lawrence with a throwaway line "Go eat it over the sink." Then, in a different scene a couple minutes later, when all of this has been forgotten already, Timmy is talking to Mom in the kitchen, and there, in the background, over the sink, is Joey enjoying his dinner. Mom shoots down Timmy's audition idea, starts saying something - and in the background Joey drops everything and bolts, moments before she sends Timmy out with the collection box. That is some seriously good writing.

Right, but regardless of how sincerely Philip believes in what he is saying, it is simply not true that this last mission is finally, after all these years, something that is actually of consequence. To Philip's feelings maybe, but not to Stan or even to Elizabeth. Everything they did has done real damage to the US and its people. You think Philip does not realize that as he is EST-bombing Stan with his "weaponized sincerity" (love the phrase) in an effort to get Stan to let them go? Maybe, I don't know. It's hard to imagine that, when he lists "following Americans, recruiting Americans, being afraid of Americans", he forgets to include the "killing Americans" part because he sincerely doesn't remember about it at that moment. It is something that has been bothering him, how can he forget? No, he is choosing what to say and what to omit. It is manipulative.

Just re-watched, picked up a couple things I don't think I've seen mentioned. In the garage, Philip says to Stan "All these years we watched Americans, recruited Americans - and now we finally, actually got something - and it's the fucking Russians," Finally, actually? As if everything they'd done in the previous twenty plus years wasn't that serious and didn't really amount to much? That's one hundred percent manipulation on Philip's part. On the other hand, when Paige comes out of the blue with "You have to take care of Henry!", I don't believe for a second that it's something calculated. It's Paige, she is not that good. Stan knows that, that's why he addresses her when he confronts the three of them in the garage. Her saying that has got to be what convinces Stan that Henry actually knows nothing. Last, Philip and Elizabeth are crossing the Soviet border from Poland, not Finland, the Volvo notwithstanding. The sign on the booth says "Kontrola Pasportowa/Паспортный Контроль/Passport Control" in Polish, Russian and English.

That's pretty much how I have come to think of the writers' choices on this show. They are not showing the most probable real-life course of action; if they were, Pastor Tim would have never been allowed to live after Paige's call, Philip would have never been allowed to stay in the US when he started cracking under pressure, etc. Instead, the writers chose to show things that were simply not impossible. It's not impossible (just improbable ;)) that someone in the KGB would make a judgement call to let Pastor Tim live and see how it would play out, or decided that Philip's value staying is greater than the risk of him breaking down and giving away everything he knows. And it's fine with me. I notice the improbable things and mention them, but they don't ruin anything for me. I loved the finale. When they started talking about calling Henry, I was hoping against hope they wouldn't. I knew I was going to lose it if I had to watch that scene. And then they go and show them looking at Henry's Canadian passport and discarding it... It's actually the other way, the unstressed O is pronounced as A (or, rather, as "ah") except in some regional dialects. It's just that the emphasis in Oleg is on the E the way Russians pronounce it. And when the G is not followed by a vowel, it often sounds as K. That's how you get from Oleg to Alec.

I'm a bit less cynical than that. I think that Claudia was doing her damndest to prep Paige for the life, but recognized that Elizabeth's squeamishness was impeding her efforts. Claudia was trying to toughen them both up at the same time, and the failure for Elizabeth to rise to her expectations meant that Paige would inevitably fall short as well. I'll be be more cynical than that. It's most probably not what the writers intended, but in real life it could just very well be a classic example of Russian imitation of activity on Claudia's part. The out-of-touch higher-ups come up with a (stupid) idea and issue orders that everybody must follow without questioning (or else). So the middle management develops half-ass plans to implement the order, the people on the ground go through the motions of executing the plans, and nobody really cares whether the result is achieved or not, because the point is simply to demonstrate that everybody is doing something to follow the orders. BTW, what's so special about Claudia that she can't go and spray the guy with the cyanide herself? Or shoot him from a rooftop across the street? She is in on the coup plans, the excuse of having too few people doesn't work here. I think that's exactly how Stan took it, actually - just a different person with the same name. It also looked like the date of birth made the guy in the database way older than Philip, although I may be wrong here.

They have stuff on Oleg from his Rezidentura days, don't they? There is record of his being a spy under diplomatic cover, both the FBI and the CIA (from their Moscow experiment) can testify to that. And now that Oleg has no cover and is just a private citizen really interested in transportation optimization, they have proof that he picked up a dead drop (even if they may not know what it says). Plus, I'm sure they have searched his hotel room and found all his decoding accoutrements there. I don't know for sure if that's enough, but it doesn't seem unreasonable.

She is probably trained, but it is ridiculous that they chose her for the mission. Tatiana is officially a Soviet diplomat with a position at the embassy, a deputy attachée of some sort or something like that. Sending her is not really that different from having the ambassador himself do it. You have to think about risk management - if something goes wrong and she is exposed, imagine what it would look like in the papers, a Soviet diplomat tries to assassinate one of their own in the middle of the summit. Is it really worth a try? And really, there is no reason Nesterenko's assassination should be a requirement for the coup success. It's only a plot device to get Elizabeth into conflict with Claudia and the KGB. Well, if Father Victor was talking to the FBI that very day, there was at least a chance the FBI wouldn't be quick enough to have someone on Father Andrei already. Not that he made that calculation, necessarily, of course. At least he didn't wait a few days, at which point his message to Philip would be "I wanted to tell you, in person, that the FBI is following me 24/7."

He must have been really depressed by the movie then. It's not exactly a movie that would inspire Soviet patriotism or reinforce commitment to die for the country. It is about people infighting and backstabbing in an effort to get some parking spaces, and it touches on the injustices of life in the USSR, things like corruption and the need to be connected to get something. Kind of like Oleg's story from last season (but a comedy, believe it or not). Not intending this to be a knock on the writing, but that's not some brilliant idea the writers had to be particularly talented to come up with. It's all real life.