PaulE

It's been a long time but I think the non-smoking was at the back whenever I flew back then, which I admit wasn't that often, so maybe I'm not remembering correctly. I hated smoke so I was always in that section. I also remember that, in both airplanes and restaurants, the non-smoking section was pretty small. You were made to feel that these areas were grudgingly provided because you were an annoying pain in the ass and that all "normal" Americans smoked or at least didn't mind it. When I was a little boy in the late 1960s, we once drove a relative to Kennedy Airport in New York to catch a flight to Germany. We all went into the boarding lounge to wait with him (no metal detectors) and, when it was time to board, watched from the windows as he walked across the tarmac to the plane (no passenger boarding bridge). I remember he turned and waved to us when he got to the top of the steps. Also, when I flew in the late 1970s, the only photo I.D. I had was my college I.D. because New York State drivers' licenses didn't have photos on them until at least the mid-1980s. I'm not even sure I had to show any I.D., which seems impossible but I honestly don't remember ever taking it out. If I did, it was probably only one time. There are times I have trouble believing things were actually like that once upon a time. When I would tell stories like this to the students at the university I worked at, they'd accuse me at first of making them up.

Loved the so-called non-smoking airline tickets. Ah, the good old days of the 1980s when airlines believed that if they arbitrarily created a non-smoking section IN THE SAME CABIN of the plane, there'd be an invisible barrier that the smoke somehow would be utterly unable to permeate, and everyone would be happy! Not to mention the fact that it would circulate anyway through the ventilation system. We've come a long way. Another sweet moment with Sam's validation of Pete. He's always the one trying to bolster the others so it was nice that someone did it for him. Loved Sass's reaction to Pete's cluelessness: "Those names scream travel agents."

I've read several interviews with Brandon discussing Isaac, and I've always found it interesting that he can be pretty hard on Isaac's character flaws--harsher than many of us. I always think that, because actors need to be able to inhabit and understand their characters, they're more apt to become sympathetic to them and even make excuses sometimes for bad behavior. For instance, Rob James-Collier always defended the behavior of the often-villainous footman Thomas in "Downton Abbey" by saying he was simply misunderstood (there was a lot more to it than that), and Brian Cox occasionally tried to soften the awful Logan Roy in "Succession" (not too convincingly, in my opinion). But Brandon seems to have taken the opposite path and hasn't cut Isaac much slack regarding his selfishness and self-absorption. So paradoxically, his portrayal of Isaac's self-realization might actually seem more realistic because he's not rationalizing Isaac's past behavior.

I tend to feel that Isaac's self-centeredness and lack of consideration for others were always genuine character traits, though possibly they were exacerbated by his sexuality struggles and his unimportance during his lifetime, plus his inability to accept the fact that he'd probably never achieve anything exceptional because he simply didn't have any exceptional abilities. However, I also think he's slowly beginning to realize these flaws and is making an honest effort to change, and for me the real turning point was his jilting of Nigel. For the first time, he clearly saw (eventually) how deeply he wounded the man who had genuinely loved him, and the scuffle over the dinosaur bed made him realize how generous in spirit Nigel was, especially in comparison to him. I think he was just devastated when Nigel told him he'd made a point of learning about dinosaurs so that he could share Isaac's interests and that it was going to be a wedding present. That would have made me feel like absolute human garbage if I'd been Isaac, and I think he felt genuine regret and remorse. But that kind of character change takes a long time, and probably he'll fall off the wagon every now and then, so I don't think we've seen the last of his narcissism. Still, his efforts seem sincere to me--I think he really wants to be a better person.

Yeah, that was definitely a hand-wave. I mean, sure, I can cook but I'm slow in the kitchen (I always laugh at the prep times given in recipes) because I just don't have the techniques that professionals have. Even with the ghosts' help it was a stretch. But it did at least result in a happy ending. And I'm really stoked that the restaurant has finally opened! We've been waiting for it so long that it seemed it might never become a reality. I wonder if the writers will center some episodes around it, which would be a change from the mansion-centric focus so far.

I was glad that, for once, Hetty didn’t end up with the upper hand. As others have said, I didn’t realize she and Trevor had become sort of estranged. The fact that he was hurt by that shows he cares more than he’d like everyone to believe.

Kudos to Sam for finally sticking up for Jay and getting angry that Flower ruined something that was so important to him instead of just trying to make excuses for her--though I also liked the fact that she couldn't stay angry with her and came to make up, realizing that Flower meant well. And double kudos for her taking the bullet for Isaac's stench instead of blaming it on Jay. It was a poignant moment when Flower revealed that she knew all along that no one took her seriously and the others talked up her good qualities. Also, it was heartwarming to see how the ghosts pitched in to make Jay's opening night a success. When Jay gave his speech about family, he was including the ghosts, even though only Sam and Bela would have realized that. I imagine he thinks of them more as family now because he was able to see them, however briefly, and so they're real in a way they weren't quite before. It really was a very nice episode about family coming together, caring about each other, and helping each other in a pinch. I especially liked the fact that, in this case, "family" wasn't rigidly defined as "relatives."

So this evening I attended an Off-Broadway play called "Conversations with Mother," a two-person comedy about the relationship between an opinionated Italian-American mother and her son over the course of fifty years. The actress playing the mother looked familiar and her gravelly voice sounded familiar--it was Caroline Aaron! That woman sure gets around. Her character, by the way, could at times be as obnoxious as Carol but far more lovable. The play runs until mid-May, so I don't expect we'll be seeing her on any more episodes this season--though the play just opened so I guess it's possible she filmed one far enough in advance to make it to New York.

Whoops! Thanks; it's definitely hours!

About the location of the fictional Woodstone Manor: The Hudson River Valley is way way long so how upstate it is from NYC is questionable. Jay said they were a 2 hours drive away from Fort Ticonderoga so maybe somebody can do the math. I believe the show is set in Ulster County, which is about a 2.5-hour drive north of New York and technically considered part of the New York Metropolitan Area, so it's not unlikely that they'd get a lot of weekenders and vacationers from the city for much of the year (there are even commuter train and bus lines that go up that way, since there are some residents who work in Manhattan--though that's a pretty deadly commute twice a day). The climate during winter isn't quite as extreme as it is further north, and it's a very scenic area as well as historical (Dutch and British colonial), so there'd be tourists from other areas as well. Once the place gets going and develops a reputation, they might even be able to serve as a venue for small weddings or other family events, given how picturesque it is, so I think they could do pretty well even if there are down periods. If memory serves, I think we've seen the property coated with snow once or twice, specifically the first Christmas episode (the one where Isaac wouldn't kiss Nigel under the mistletoe). But, no, we've never seen the place in deep snow. These days, though, that's not so inaccurate; an increasing number of winters are proving less snowy than they used to be, even upstate.

You brought up a potential bombshell for Thor if he ever finds out: Norway was part of Denmark for about 500 years. Then it was under Sweden for another century before becoming independent. And, since the ancient royal family was extinct, they chose a (wait for it) Danish prince to become the first king of modern Norway and he was married to a half-Danish princess, so their son and successor was three-quarters Danish. Even now, the current king has no Norwegian blood, though he married a Norwegian so at least his successors do. If Thor ever finds this out we will see Thorapy part 3, 4, and 5. But think about what those poor Vikings in Norway must have gone though all those years seeing their country ruled by Danes!! At least Thor never knew what was going on over there. A Norwegian friend once explained that, as you said, Norwegian vocabulary is influenced by Danish, but the pronunciation is more influenced by Swedish. So there's a joke among linguists: Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish.

I was glad to see that Sass has been living up to his end of the bargain not to use Jay's dreams to manipulate him. In this one they really seemed to have become friends, and I'd guess that means as much to Sass as to Jay. I wonder if, though Sam, they set up dream dates or whether Sass just drops in unannounced. I still think it would be great if, somehow, Sass could bring other ghosts into Jay's dreams. That would be a great way for Jay to meet Pete, who ironically was the only one he couldn't see when he was out of his body. If they ever do meet and get to hug, my eyes will be damp. I think it's a bid odd that we never see Jay and Sam with any friends (even allowing for the fact that the writers can't possibly be introducing new characters all the time). Probably the premise is that most of them are back in New York, but given that the two of them are generally nice people to be around, especially Jay (who wouldn't want a friend like Jay?), you'd think by now they'd have made friends with some local couples. It would be cool to have a few characters visiting socially now and then, especially if there were ghosts shenanigans that Sam and Jay would have to find explanations for or try to hide. I've always liked the way this show inserts those little human-interest moments and life lessons without sacrificing the comedy and without being preachy or moralizing. The same with Trevor's remarks about his brother, and Jay's interaction with Bela (all in all, he was probably a pretty decent brother when they were growing up). I hope she'll be a more frequently recurring character than she has been. The fact that she, too, knows about the ghosts but can't see them is another bond between the siblings.

Whoa, whoa. This is a gross mischaracterization of what happened. They were already halfway across the Atlantic AND they had taken the long route to avoid the Great Monster. It was just not feasible to go back, unfortunately, but they cared (probably). I liked the explanation of how they miscounted the shipmates. First Ivar had his helmet on, but then he took it off… Wait a minute. Are Ivar and Other Ivar the same person, just with and sans the helmet? We've all been wondering so long why Thor was abandoned that, in a way, it was almost an anticlimax to discover that the reason was something as simple as it was. I agree that, at the time, the Vikings probably did the only thing they could by just continuing on home. Think of how long it would have taken them just to get halfway across the ocean in the first place--probably a good month or so depending on the wind. It would have taken that long again to return and, for all they knew, Thor might have died or disappeared in the meantime--in fact, given that he was alone and without resources all that time, they probably assumed he had. And of course, all the sailing back and forth would have put all their own lives at greater risk. Given the circumstances, I suspect they made the sensible choice, hard-hearted though it seems to us today. But I also think they were a bunch of ass-hats if they miscounted simply because of someone's headgear and then didn't notice Thor was gone until they were halfway home. I mean, we're talking a Viking longship here, not the QE2, so they'd have been in pretty close quarters. You'd think someone fairly early on would've said, "Wait, where's Thor?" Gotta love the fact that the Viking ghosts in Norway spoke English almost better than Thor. I realize most Norwegians these days speak English with a high degree of fluency, but I think that's only been the case since the 20th century, so those guys would have had to pick it up pretty quickly. Plus they'd also have had to learn Norwegian along the way, since Old Norse isn't the same language. So much for Duolingo and Rosetta Stone!

Viking men, including the warriors, were supposedly decent fathers (at least, given the standards of the time) when they weren't off raping and pillaging, and we saw in the flashback with baby Bjorn that Thor showed affection for him, so I've often thought that his tenderness toward Hetty first as a child and then as a grown woman stemmed at least in part from the fact that he was robbed of fatherhood. She was, in a way, a substitute for his son, whom he never was able to raise. I imagine that, during his early years as a ghost, he must have missed his family and worried about what was happening to them without him there to look after them. That was on top of the abandonment and (until Sass came along) isolation. He's had a pretty tough ghost life, if you think about it.

I was glad he did that. Throughout the episode up to that point I was thinking, "This is all your fault, Isaac, and you're not even competent as a silent partner." Deep down, Isaac isn't a bad person, but if he hadn't made things right he'd have been a complete villain.