Bastet

I can't remember a third, but "I can't/didn't remember" sums up my relationship to this show. The first instance was when a patient's parent asked if he was a father/had kids, he said yes, and that was that. The second was a similar situation, a patient's father asks Doug if he has children, and he says he has an 8-year-old son. This time, a nurse overhears. Then later, while waiting for an elevator together, the nurse (Wendy, I think) says, "I didn't know you have a son. What's his name?" He replies, "I don't know; I've never met him." I really don't think there's a third, but, again, I do not have remotely the memory bank for this show I do with several others.

Yes, that's why I didn't dislike it the way I thought I was going to based on the spoiler (and I have no idea if it was you; don't worry about it if it was - it was an innocent mistake, whoever it was). I don't like the juxtaposition between Grace and Frankie dealing with the consequences of their age while Robert and Sol - who are even a bit older, no? - are not (at least on anywhere near the same level), and are in fact being offered a threesome with some younger guy who for absolutely no reason that I can fathom wants to get with the two of them, but taken on its own I like the women's storyline as this season progressed. Even their non-malicious kids overreacted and dismissed their clear and reasonable wishes in favor of what some random online checklist said of the situation. That's good stuff to explore, and I can't wait to see their revenge now that they've busted out and returned home.

This was my least-favorite of Darin Morgan’s episodes, at least upon first viewing, which is not to say (at all!) that I disliked it, but just to say that while I thoroughly enjoyed this one, it’s not on the same level as the love beyond all reason I have for his others. While this had the humor, allusions, and biting, bittersweet commentary on society and the human condition he always provides, it wasn’t quite as layered and sharp as the others – maybe because this is the one he had the least time to write, and he’s notorious for needing a shit ton of time per script. So, while not the perfection I was hoping for, I had a great time watching it, and will enjoy going back and dissecting it. “Seems this past year all I’ve done is watch the news and worry the country has gone insane.” You and me both, Mulder. I’ve used whiskey to cope; maybe I should take up ‘squatchin. And on that level, I am all over the episode. I think my favorite bit of commentary on that was the cartoon with America First hugging a swastika, but, “No, because my false memory is real” is a close second. And the heavily-attended inauguration. And things having become too crazy even for Mulder. And “Drain the swamp.” And “Believe what you want to believe, that’s what everybody does now.” And the wall. And … okay, everything. The montage of Reggie’s government jobs was hilarious. Beyond that, Reggie as a fantasy whistleblower, being hauled away by men in white coats from the ‘60s, was the kind of thing Morgan does so well (especially “Our study is now complete; we no longer wish to have anything to do with you” and lying as the one trait unique to earthlings). As was “I want to remember how it was” as Scully declines to eat her childhood concoction and ruin the memory. I was initially musing that this was the first time we’ve just the standard The Truth is Out There this season, but later we got the version with a question mark, heh, when Reggie Something got added to the credits – a hilarious sequence. And Reggie’s being inserted into their old cases and delivering one-line commentary on them was fantastic. “If this turns out to be killer cats, I’m going to be very disappointed.” (And Reggie declaring he started the X-Files, and used to be partners with Mulder in the old days is funny, since Mulder had a pre-XF partner named Reggie.) Random thoughts from this initial viewing: - Yay, the guy who’s in all Darin’s episodes is in this one, the devil in the opening scene at the diner. (That diner resembles the one in JCFOS, just one of many things reminiscent of JCFOS, which makes sense given the exploration of what’s real and what’s a faulty memory – the whole “how can I possibly do that?” response to being asked to record the truth.) - Mulder’s videotapes, heh. “I’m not going to be able to eat until I find it. Ever again.” Of course he has kept them, despite having the series on DVD. - Mulder’s adult head on his kid body was still making me laugh at the commercial break, and made me laugh again now just writing about it. That was a truly hilarious image. - The duet of, “Wait, what?” when Mulder posited his parallel universe theory was great. In the pre-season promos, I had thought it was Skinner, not Reggie, saying it with Scully, heh (false memory!), so when an episode with Mulder, Scully, and Skinner in the parking lot passed without that happening, I thought it had been cut and was disappointed. - Oh, come on, Scully, you have to know what a lawn dart is. She’s the right age, and with all the places she lived as a Navy brat, I’d think she lived someplace where it was played enough for her to have at least heard of it so that when it was mentioned, it wasn't new to her. - The VO/stock footage combination gave me CC flashbacks, but Scully’s, “What the hell was that?” reaction made it worthwhile; at least Morgan knows such segments are ridiculous. In fact, parodying that shit was one of my favorite things about the episode. - “Who’s hiding? I’m in the phone book. But, nobody knows what a phone book is anymore.” - "As Orson Wells said ..." “It was George Orwell who said that.” “For now, maybe.”

Oh, she absolutely has to. And they can probably get 13 cool guest stars for them. It's easy to bring Miles back into the fold; he could be a network executive (a la Kinsella and then Lansing), as they'll probably have a new, next-generation character as the executive producer. Shaud participates in reunions and specials about the show, so I certainly wouldn't rule out them reaching a deal with him for this. He absolutely loved doing the show, especially working with Bergen.

For the 30th anniversary of its premiere, Murphy Brown is getting a 13-episode revival. Candice Bergen and Diane English are both set to return; talks are underway with other original cast members. The show, centered around production of a weekly newsmagazine show, was very tied into current events, but I've watched season one as recently as last year, and it's freaky how many times the name has changed but the storyline is exactly the same - or how many times even the name is the same. I will definitely watch this. (Plus, if this led to the rest of the series finally being released on DVD, I'd be over the moon; music licensing costs are astronomical, due to how this show used music [a different Motown song to open the show each week, for starters, rather than a theme song], so we only got season one.)

Yes, Grace and Frankie got it in the divorce (that's how they got stuck together to begin with, and it's why Grace wanted Frankie to come home and add her signature to Sheree's lease), after it had originally belonged to all four of them. It sounded like the kids were just handling the sale of it, since Grace and Frankie were off at the home; I can't imagine any scenario in which Grace and Frankie signed title over to them. I'm afraid that Nick will turn out to be the buyer, which is better than a random person, certainly, as Grace and Frankie can just buy it back from him (they certainly don't need to be renting from him!), but I'd like it a lot better if it was Sheree, helping them get their house back just like they'd helped her get hers, instead of some damn white knight scenario, especially with a man who has already been a problematic character. But I don't think Sheree has that kind of money. I want to re-watch this episode. I was spoiled via another thread that they wound up in a home, and it sounded awful, so I was kind of dreading this episode, but I wound up liking it. It was filled to the brim with fantastic dialogue, and I love that how they wound up in what sounded like a completely implausible scenario is that they each went for the other (even though I don't believe the kids would have been successful in convincing Grace that Frankie being Frankie suddenly meant she couldn't take care of herself with Grace helping, or convincing Frankie that Grace being temporarily hobbled meant the same). Mallory having eleventy kids and Coyote living in a shoe meaning they're punishing themselves was entertaining, too, and I can't wait to see what they do to Brianna and Bud for this little stunt. And I like that the kids weren't doing this to get them out of their hair, get their hands on money, or any of the typical stories; they were over-reacting, dismissive, manipulative in telling Frankie it was for Grace and Grace it was for Frankie, and ultimately out of line (so they very much need another mic drop scene in which they get told about themselves), but they'd genuinely gotten themselves worked up to believe that stupid checklist was right.

I like that, after realizing Bud was faking a delay in order to force them to spend time together, Coyote and Allison had an open conversation about it, tried to bond for Bud's sake, and then just accepted that they don't like each other. And I really liked when they sat Bud down and explained it to him, just like parents telling their kid they are getting a divorce. Bud and Coyote are close, so they could have made a storyline out of Coyote and Allison not liking each other, how that's a big thing for Bud now that Allison isn't just his girlfriend, but is going to be his wife and the mother of his child, but instead they dispatched with it in about five minutes of screen time. And I like that, too.

If she wins, they should go back and shoot a tag that involves her Oscar, as a follow-up to the one about her Emmy.

Frankie's face when Bud told her she couldn't babysit Faith was heartbreaking. The actor playing Roy very recently played a rapist in a several traumatic episodes of Major Crimes, so I keep having flashbacks to that when I see him. Frankie suggesting making a molotov cocktail to deal with the rats was out of character; she'd be yelling at Grace to make peace with them.

Sol and Robert not knowing about "the go-ahead" (neither did I), and that there's this whole world out there they know nothing about, was mildly entertaining. But mostly this episode made me sad, seeing Grace get scammed and Frankie get lost.

Great job casting Lorraine Toussaint; I'm not really interested in Robert and Sol's therapy sessions for them (although Robert's opening statement amused me), but I'll happily watch for her. A couple of 20-year-olds sitting around monitoring each other's text messages is stupid. Two people in their seventies? I miss Playing House, so seeing Jessica St. Clair was another treat, even though Lauren is awful. Yeah, every time I want to think Frankie has a valid argument about Grace not treating her like a true partner, I just watch how Frankie acts as a partner and lose any sympathy.

Yes, it truly is an honor to be nominated.

Yes, the chemistry between Roseanne Barr and Laurie Metcalf was so great, they started writing Jackie into situations that had been intended for Crystal, making Crystal more of a peripheral character. Thank the universe.

I haven't seen the other two performances in that category, but Metcalf, Janney, and Spencer were all fantastic, and it's almost a shame they all happened in the same year and are thus up against each other, because I'd like each of them to win. As awards season got underway, it seemed like Metcalf was the front-runner, but Janney has the momentum now. I'll be quite happy for any of those three, but, yeah, it would be pretty damn cool to see Aunt Jackie win an Oscar. Take that, Shirley Fisk!

Jacob wanting “couple time” when Frankie is enjoying the initial days of her first grandchild and letting the sleep-deprived first-time parents get some rest is ridiculous. If this was still going on months later, by all means, raise a fuss. But in the immediate aftermath? Get stuffed, even if she hadn’t tried moving her entire life for his retiring near family ass, and because she had? Piss off. Frankie was just as ridiculous objecting to him watching a TV show without her, and the Longmire commercial was obnoxious on general principle. I like, though, that ultimately the break-up wasn't because of any of that foolishness, but simply an acknowledgment of the inevitable happening sooner than they'd expected. And Grace finally getting up and hobbling over to her was beautiful. Grace shouldn’t be constantly sitting there with a pillow propping her new knee into a bent position, she should have a pillow under her ankle to force the knee into a straight position; it’s one of the most important aspects of post-replacement therapy, to ensure range of motion. But it’s uncomfortable, and people try to skate on it, then wonder why they spent all this money on surgery and can’t fully extend their leg. When Nick presents Grace’s walker to her, inviting her to go for a walk (before he attempts to summon his chef to make her an omelette), he holds it backwards; had she taken his up on his offer and gotten up, she'd have had to turn it around to use it. That was distracting. There being more room in Coyote's girlfriend's backseat than in his tiny home was funny, but wasn't it established that they were jumping the gun on a sexual relationship by having sex after the non-sexy chili? I think it was a matter of weeks, so not really an issue, but I'd been enjoying seeing two addicts adhere to the recommendation not to commit to a romantic relationship during the first year of recovery instead of just shrugging that off because, but, feelings, man.

This one was thoroughly a wacky hijincks ensue episode (as is every comedy series that does a birth episode), but I liked it. Sol pointing out, “I am a 75-year-old man” when Frankie instructed him to carry Grace was such a minor thing, but really tickled me. The obvious things, such as the three phases of non-drinking Grace, also cracked me the hell up, especially: “Phase one, irritability, the complete loss of all politeness and social courtesy.” “How will we tell?” I recognized the cop right away from the burglary, so as dumb as the monkey lockdown was, I got a laugh out of Grace’s “Oh god, this fucking guy.” Also, “You didn’t know Bud was adopted?” I like Mallory stepping up help with the at-home delivery, given her history, but also Frankie ultimately getting to be there. That is some serious hair on a "newborn," though. Rober guzzling Harvey Wallbangers by the pitcher made me laugh – and want to have a Harvey Wallbanger for the first time in 20+ years. I loved the call back to Grace telling pre-surgery Robert he can’t die because she’s not through telling him off, and that hug between them was lovely. Theirs is probably the most interesting to me other than Grace and Frankie's.

No, thanks; I'm not aware of any epidemic of chefs being cited for cooking their red meats properly, rather than to what has traditionally been the too-high recommended temperature from the FDA, so it's not anything to which I feel the need to devote my energy. Tanya wasn't asked what the FDA listed as a minimum temperature, she was asked what temperature she wanted her finished product to be. Knowing how she wanted the lamb to turn out (which turned out to be spot-on), but not knowing, by her own admission, what temperature that target doneness would register as, she pulled a number out of her ass. It was thus incredibly off, so that when her perfectly-cooked lamb was presented, it didn't match what she'd stated as her goal (again, because of the pulling out of her ass due to not knowing factor, not because she was reciting a government guideline), and, this being the precision round, she lost a lot of points right off the bat.

Yes, this. It's not so much about the time frame - although I'm hard-pressed to imagine a situation in which dating for six months does not inspire a person to give the other something for Christmas - as about the fact agreeing to go away together, not for a long weekend, but for TWO WEEKS, implies a significant level of intimacy, compatibility, and possibility of a long-term future for the relationship (something that, on the flip side, I'm as surprised to see happen after only six months as I am to see a present not happen after six whole months). So for me it's really the disconnect between what that indicates versus what talking about breaking up when alcohol loosened his tongue plus not giving so much as a box of candy for Christmas indicates. It's screwy, and I think the latter is a better barometer of his commitment (or lack thereof). I wouldn't go on a trip with him under the circumstances, and would likely quit seeing him altogether, but at the very least it calls for a frank conversation.

That clip actually doesn't look as good as I find most two-minute segments of any given Darin Morgan episode, but I'm missing context, and I'm still very excited for the episode. I've seen more than one reviewer say it's even better than the weremonster episode, and I fucking love the weremonster episode (as I do every Darin Morgan episode). But the X in the window isn't Mulder's all-purpose secret rendezvous signal; it was something he used to summon X. I don't think we ever saw him (or her, that one time) use it with anyone else. Did we?

Ugh. I cannot imagine a different cast and script falling into place as perfectly as the original did, but I can recite the movie verbatim and watch it several times a year, so I am obviously an obsessed fan.

Only if you didn't want anyone to eat there. I'm being flippant, of course, but I've also never been served lamb cooked to anything near 145 degrees, because that's hideously over-cooked and chefs wouldn't do that unless the customer ordered it well done. And, in fact, there are chefs who refuse to do that to a piece of meat, even when a customer asks. I have a friend who inexplicably orders prime rib well done, and half the time she does so she has to end up ordering something else, because they simply won't serve it that way. And I overheard a customer in a New Orleans restaurant being kindly but decisively informed that no, she could not have the "study of lamb" dish (lamb three ways, all of them delicious; it was what I ordered, which is why the conversation caught my ear) well done; the chef's name is on the restaurant, and he won't be serving food that he feels is improperly cooked.

Oh my gods, they killed Starbuck! I was just plugging along, enjoying getting more of Kara's backstory, and loving the scene where she, knocked out in the cockpit, was remembering the last conversation she had with her mom, and then - boom. Wow. That's going to be a big hole in the show. I guess only Laura and Adama are the characters I truly cannot imagine the show going on without, but to lose Starbuck is only one level down from that. I'd rather lose Lee than her, and I like Lee. Per Moore's commentary, that's not how it was scripted; the idea of paying off what they'd set up with Leoben, the symbol she'd always been drawing, etc. in terms of showing what this destiny that's been alluded to is, and how she winds up embracing it, was always the concept. But the destiny was for her to, in the end, resist the siren call of death that she was being led to, and in doing that, she discovered something that gave them new information about their path to Earth. But the end just wasn't coming together in a way that packed the punch they were looking for, and Moore said - in the writers' room - that what they should really do is kill her. And, of course, everyone initially brushed that off, but then they really started getting into discussion of how that would play. So the next thing they knew, Moore and Eick were on the phone with Katee Sackhoff, telling her they were going to kill off Kara in the next script. What he doesn't explain to my satisfaction/understanding, is what her destiny instead being to die in this moment means. Okay, so she embraces her death. That seems like a rather shitty destiny to me; she's gone, and it's not as if in dying she accomplished something that will save or even help those left behind. Now, these commentaries are simply podcasts that he did at the time the show was airing (which is why I'm listening to them as I go along rather than waiting until the end; it's his thoughts at the time, rather than post-series reflection [which generally includes some revisionist history]). So maybe, especially because changing the script to kill her in the end was something of a last-minute decision, he hadn't fully worked that through yet, and it will be fleshed out in future episodes as the characters deal with the aftermath. He revealed that, once they decided to kill her, it was written that what wound up being the final conversation between Adama and Starbuck was a vicious confrontation. There was a strategy meeting with Laura, Adama, Starbuck, Tigh, and Lee, and Kara was amusing herself watching the interaction between Adama and Laura, ultimately saying out loud, "Why don't you two get a room?" Everyone was uncomfortable and just moved on, but afterward, Adama cornered her alone and lit into her like crazy for saying something like that in that setting. The director opted not to shoot it, because he thought it was piling on; after three years, the emotion of Adama losing his surrogate daughter stands on its own, and it's unnecessary to add on him living with the guilt of his final words to her having been ugly. I find myself agreeing -- yet wishing it had been filmed and then cut (and included as a deleted scene), because now I really want to see Kara entertain herself watching the Bill and Laura show and tell them to get a room. Because someone who calls them The Old Man and Madame Prez just as often as she addresses them properly would totally do that. The commentary ended on a funny note that gave me nice relief from the emotion of watching it again, because the final moment where Adama destroys his model ship was not scripted; they were going to fade to black on him crying after attaching the piece she'd given him. But the actors were all upset that Katee had been written out, so as EJO was playing the emotion of that scene, he was particularly in touch with Adama's anger/frustration, and improvised destroying the ship. Well, turns out, that wasn't a prop they'd made for the show, it was a museum-quality piece they were renting, and he just destroyed something worth a couple hundred thousand dollars. Oops! Anyway, going back to the wow, they seriously just killed Starbuck reaction - I am now extra curious to see the final episodes of the season, because Moore said part of the "should we really do it?" discussion of killing off Starbuck was how it could help them get where they knew they wanted to end up in the season finale. I won't be able to get started on those until tomorrow night, dammit.

There has not yet been any announcement that it will be renewed for a fifth season. Thus far, it has been one season per year, so if we do get another season, it may very well not be until 2019. Although seasons one and two were in May, season three in March, and season four in January, so the wait between seasons has shortened as the series went on, so maybe late 2018.

I underwent a significant change of opinion on Pratt, and quite gradually. He was just another Malucci to me at the beginning, and by the end I was crying along with him in that trauma room. It took a long time, but by his last couple of seasons (or something like that; with this compressed time frame it's hard to tell), he was a pleasant, steadying presence for me. As I mentioned before, I think it was his support of Chen as she set her father free that marks the time I started to come around on him. But it wasn't a sudden shift; more like somewhere down the line after that it dawned on me, "You know, I've been liking him lately."

Tanya isn't even the one who first reacted negatively to Carrie's tone-deaf at best, stupid at worst (but I believe well-intentioned) interjection; it was one of the bears, I think, and than Tanya agreed and furthered it. I believe it was the other Joe, but whomever it was, it was directly to Adrienne, saying this is the same thing Claudette did when the two of them were on the bottom, standing before the judges. That has been the very line of questioning/criticism from the judges in similar situations over the years, so I was immediately curious whether it truly didn't come up, or simply wasn't shown.