WearyTraveler

I suppose it depends on where you are when you look at it. If you are, let's say, a woman running away from a serial killer who chained you to a wall in his basement, made you help him recruit other women to be his slaves, and then fed you their bodies when they died, you'd think you are living a true horror story. BTW what I described is not an exaggeration. I've forgotten the name of the woman and the killer now, but that was a real case.

The thing with traveling this episode didn't bother me because they showed people making the decision to travel and then showed them at their destination withouth telling us how long it took them to get there. For all we know, Elsa delivered Pepper to her sister 2 weeks after her conversation with Desiree and it took Maggie and Desiree over 48 hours to get to Mass. Had they shown us Elsa back at the freak show the very next day, or Maggie and Desiree immediately attacking Stanley while wearing the same clothes they had on when they went to the museum, I might have noticed something. But the show was careful to not make any time references. Just because one scene follows another, it doesn't mean it happened the very next hour, day, or even week after the first scene. It may appear so to us watching because see them one after the other, but the show was actually careful to not mention time. In the next episode, Dell might ask Desiree where she went to for an entire week, and it would establish a timeline. But, even if he doesn't, how are we to know how many days they were supposedly gone in the show's universe if the characters don't make any time reference? Like I said, for all we know, Murphy is doing the timeline right, but he just doesn't think it's important to specify exactly how many days it took people to get from A to B and back again. FWIW, I once drove from Philadelphia to Miami in 26 hours (only stopping for gas - and yes, I can stay up that long because my sleep patterns are very weird). The roads in the 50s were probably not as good and connected as they are today, but if Desiree and Maggie took turns driving, they might have been able to make the trip to Boston and back in 7-8 days. I also found the episode to be sad, but I wouldn't say it had no horror. I find the most terrible horrors are not supernatural or pseudo-scientific, I think there's nothing scarier than a truly evil human being. Pepper's story was scary because it is plausible, and I have no doubt that many mentally challenged people have been framed for a crime by someone who just wanted to get rid of them. Evil. Real, plausible evil. That scares me more than the ghost of Edward Mondrake! I'm hoping against hope that the hands displayed at the museum are not Jimmy's, but I don't have a lot of faith that they will not be his :( Poor Jimmy!

Nobody wins all the battles in a job, no matter what kind of boss they have.

I'm not surprised by television much these days, but seeing Dar Adal in that car totally surprised me. So, I've been trying to connect the dots, and here's what I'm thinking. Considering these points: 1) The scene they showed in the "previously on Homeland" segment is not some random scene. The actor has been on the show for two seasons, so they had a decent selection of clips, but if chose show this one in particular, there must be something important about it. Just like they chose a scene where Aayan is saying good bye to his girlfriend. It reminded us that she cared about him and that she probably still though he was safe and sound somewhere, both of which are essential for us to buy that she would go along with Peter's plan. 2) For Dar, they chose the scene where Saul and Dar are discussing their different approaches to CIA operations from last season. If you recall, Saul wanted to get the Iranian top security guy working for the US and Dar was saying it would never fly. Dar is the man in charge of Black Ops. Those are the guys the US sends to do the really, really dirty work. They do all the truly super secret operations, off the books, no records. Only the president and a couple of more people know about there- Dar is the guy that plans, coordinates and executes the operations that the US government publicly denies. Do you need somebody to infiltrate a political party in another country to cause disruption, chaos and maybe even civil war? Dar is your guy! Do you want to assassinate the president of a country that causes the US pain and publicly declare your outrage at the tragedy afterward? Dar is your guy! Do you have a diplomatic relationship with a country that doesn't authorize you to perform certain missions in their territory? Yeap, you guessed it, call Dar! So, in this particular scene, Saul was advocating for a more subtle approach, where you make the enemy work for you and Dar was saying it is better to just get in, get your job done and get out; no traces, no records, no public accountability. 3) Saul is not the same man he was when he had that conversation with Dar. He was abducted and broken. He had held a gun to his head, fully intending to use it. He saw the Taliban and its current leader up close and personal. It's not just a theoretical discussion anymore. And even before that, he wasn't happy in the public sector. So much so, that he decided to follow a known terrorist in the airport, with no weapons, no surveillance and no ground support, other than Carrie with disastrous consequences to Saul, to be sure, but still, he did all that partly because the private security consulting gig wasn't cutting it for him anymore. 4) We also saw Saul asking Carrie if she was staying for Quinn, which she confirmed. She told him Quinn, who was one of Dar's guys in S2 and who Dar personally pushed to not leave the agency this season (see Dar's visit to Quinn at the redhead's apartment where he handed Quinn the video of Sandy's murder that got Quinn onto the action again) had gone off, without support, to get Haqqani. And then Saul headed off to the US, where Dar presumably was at the time. 5) Lockhart tells Carrie that they are looking for his replacement as Director of the CIA and that he can see something is going on, but, since he is on his way out, nobody is telling him anything. 6) Pakistan was a chief station, so, several countries reported to the Station Chief in Pakistan, including Carrie at the beginning of the season. But Lockhart handed out the entire network to Haqqani during the invasion of the embassy so, all the asses close by, with connections, or a way to get close to Haqqani have been compromised. Whatever plan Lockhart suspects is being hatched, it can't involve any of the assets on the ground in Pakistan or the neighboring countries. Neither can it involve the CIA handlers, as those guys would be compromised too (thanks to Lockhart's recless actions) 7) Kahn is not happy with Tasneem and he is not happy that he's taking orders from the Taliban. I believe what happened was: 1) Saul got the US and was debriefed by Dar. He told Dar everything, including the fact that Peter was after Haqqani all on his own. 2) Dar decided to take action. At this point, Saul could have been an active participant, designing the plan with Dar or he could have been a passive participant, giving them the information, washing his hands of the whole mess after that and returning to Mira. That probably depends on whether Patinkin is returning to the show next year. If he is, my guess is that Saul had a very big involvement in the plan- And that he will be chosen to lead the CIA after Lockhart is fired. After all, no vice-presidents were killed under his watch; neither was the CIA HQ bombed or a US embassy attacked. 3) So, it is agreed that Dar must go himself. Remember that the first time he appeared on the show several characters discussed his mysterious ways, that he still had many contacts, and the fact that not many people got to actually see his face because he was the head of the Black Ops. He is working with Kahn, who wants the Taliban out as much as the US does. That's why Kahn knew that Dar was CIA, that Carrie would recognize him, and that he would be in the car with Haqqani.

I don't know. When it comes to Sorkin and women, I can see how some people find some of his female characters subpar, but he's the guy who wrote CJ and Abigail on TWW, and he wrote Sloan for The Newsroom. I don't think those are terribly written female characters, although I would agree he seems to put more care / realism in his male characters. It might be because he's a man and he knows men better, I suppose. If I ever wrote a female character, it would be, let's say, atypical... I'm not what you'd call an average female, he. he! But I'm fine with Sorkin's writing. Some of it misses, some of it is really good. I enjoy the good and don't get too involved with the bad. I want to be a happy person, so, anything negative that I can ignore, I will. I only spend time on negative things that I can change for the better, and those that impact me and my loved ones, the rest...meh! I don't have time for that. JMMV, off course.

Yes and no. I remember it very clearly because I like Dmitry, so when he opted for a jumpsuit, all I could think was "et tut, Brutus?". In the talking heads when they were explaining their designs, Dmitry did say he was going to do a jumpsuit, and he explained how it was going to be asymmetrical, off the shoulder and so on. Later, when Zanna was talking to him he said he was going to do a two-piece but that his original plan was to make a jumpsuit, and that if he had enough time he would do it. To which Zanna replied with support for the jumpsuit (if he had time); she siad he should try to go for that. I didn't have any particular feelings about jumpsuits before. I thought they were fine, not my cup of tea, but, whatever makes people feel good, you know? Now, I cringe at the very mention of the word. It all started with Gretchen and her winning jumpsuit in the first runway of her season. After that, every season in regular PR and PRAS, everyone is in awe of jumpsuits and one, or usually more than one designer, makes them.

I'm not sure I'm remembering correctly, if anyone knows, feel free to correct me, but, wasn't Pepper in the Asylum in the very first episode? If so, that would mean Sister Mary Eunice got Pepper before she was possessed by a demon. So, if we see the sister, it would be the sweet, innocent one from the first few episodes of Asylum, not the more interesting possessed sister.

I'd take their rankings more seriously if they'd spell their categories right; "sexist" is not the same as "sexiest".

I agree. Coincidentally, I stumbled across an interesting TED talk by psychologist Elizabeth's Loftus that provides a few examples. And these are even more heartbreaking because the people doing the accusing actually believe what they were saying. Here's the complete talk in TED (not too long at 17 minutes), and below are the key points related to this discussion: Steve Titus, a 31 year old restaurant manager, was wrongly convicted of rape. It took a whole year and the work of a dedicated journalist to get him out of prison. And later, there was a confession from the real perpetrator, who had committed 50 more other rapes. But, in the meantime he lost his job and couldn't get it back even after he'd been freed, he lost his fiancee, and he lost his entire savings. He also developed a high level of anger and frustration at a system that would allow these things to happen to him. He was in the process of suing for damages when he dropped dead of a stress-related heart attack. He was only 35 years old. In one project in the United States, information has been gathered on 300 innocent people, 300 defendants who were convicted of crimes they didn't do. They spent 10, 20, 30 years in prison for these crimes, and now DNA testing has proven that they are actually innocent. Elizabeth Loftus also suffered the consequences: "But probably the worst was I suspected that a woman was innocent of abuse that was being claimed by her grown daughter. She accused her mother of sexual abuse based on a repressed memory. And this accusing daughter had actually allowed her story to be filmed and presented in public places. I was suspicious of this story, and so I started to investigate, and eventually found information that convinced me that this mother was innocent. I published an exposé on the case, and a little while later, the accusing daughter filed a lawsuit. Even though I'd never mentioned her name, she sued me for defamation and invasion of privacy. And I went through nearly five years of dealing with this messy, unpleasant litigation, but finally, finally, it was over and I could really get back to my work. In the process, however, I became part of a disturbing trend in America where scientists are being sued for simply speaking out on matters of great public controversy." All this to say that false accusations are not some minor problem that can be cleared up with no damage to the wrongly accused. The consequences are severe, painful, stressful, time consuming, resource-draining, and emotionally intensive. They may even result in death. Was Mary prepared to bear the responsibility if someone who was wrongly accused on her website went to jail and lost everything like Titus did only to be proven innocent later on? Are we? I know that I would have a horrible time dealing with the fact that something I did caused an innocent person so much suffering or even death. And I think Don's point was about that as well, Mary might have felt that she got some relief, some justice, but if a website she created to help the innocent victims of rape ended up hurting other innocents who are wrongly accused, would she really feel good about that? One could say that Don should have then chosen to do a scathing story on the unfairness of the system toward rape victims and tried to help Mary that way, and who knows, maybe if the show had more seasons he would do just that. But, in the circumstances Don found himself in during this episode, working for a network that wanted nothing to do with serious journalism and was only striving for scandal, sensationalist based ratings and internet hits, he can't offer Mary that option. All he can do is let her know his objections to her approach.

I think the difference is that Brunch is during the day and a bit more casual, while Gallery openings are usually in the evening and might require a cocktail dress. Off course, this all depends on the restaurant you're having brunch in, the status of the gallery and the city where these events take place. Brunch in a Country Club is not the same as Brunch in TGIF's, and gallery opening in Paris is not the same as a gallery opening in Tallahassee.

I think Cage was not concrned about Harper because she wasn't one of his people.

Could the controversial scene be that Sansa willingly sleeps with Littlefinger?

I said you have a right to form that opinion, but you don't have a right to act on that opinion to the detriment of the person you think is guilty. If you do so, said person can sue you for discrimination, libel or damages. You are free to think OJ is a murderer, but you can't punish him yourself for thinking that. You can't beat him up, build a cell in your house to hold him prisoner for his crime, or execute him for it. Even if you believe, in your heart of hearts, that he's completely guilty. So, the system is not only saying that judge and jury believe the accused of being innocent until proven guilty, it's also saying the citizens must uphold that belief, if it weren't so, you'd be allowed to punish OJ because you think he's guilty. (Brackets are my addition for clarity). You can in the sense that you are able to do so, and I'd agree that it totally happens, but you are not supposed to do so under the law. For example, you are free to believe (as despicable as that might be) that white people are superior to black people, that's your constitutional right. But you are not free to deny service to a black person in your restaurant. Likewise, you are free to believe that OJ (to continue using Don's example in the episode) is a murderer, I stated that clearly. You are free to choose not to interact with the man, if you don't want to; but, if you own a restaurant you can't deny him a table solely because you think that. Do people discriminate against people that have been accused but not convicted of a crime? Absolutely, but if that person can prove in a court of law that you discriminated against them because they were accused but not convicted of a crime, you face legal consequences of your own. So, according to the law, you are not allowed to discriminate against anyone accused but not convicted of a crime (hence my use of the word can't). According to the law, you are required to act as if the person were innocent until proven guilty, even if you are free to believe them guilty anyway. If OJ can prove in a court of law that he was qualified for the position and the only reason you did not hire him was because you thought he was guilty of murder when a court of law did not convict him of such a crime, you face legal penalties. The problem for OJ is that he would probably have a difficult time proving that in a court of law, because you are presumed innocent until proven guilty, just as he was, and the rules of evidence that make it so hard for victims of rape to bring their rapists to justice would also make it very hard for OJ to prove his case against you. So you can, in the sense that you have the ability to do so, discriminate against OJ for believing him a murderer, but you are not legally allowed to so.

I need to give a little background here to explain where my response to the points I bolded in your post comes from and how it relates to the points raised by the characters in this episode, so, my apologies if it results boring. I wasn't born in the United States but I lived there for many years and graduated from an American University back in 1994. I've also lived in other countries around the world for somewhat shorter periods of time (anywhere from 1 to 9 months) including: New Zealand, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, England, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Jamaica and now Spain. I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela (where Neil is now hiding), currently the murder capital of the world with 122 murders per every 100k inhabitants, according to a UN report. These circumstances have exposed me to many legal systems and ways of life. In Caracas, the presumption of innocence was only recently added to the law, but in practice, it's not really embedded in the fabric of every day life. In Caracas, if you're accused of a crime, you're guilty (i.e. there must be a reason why you are accused); while this situation is not the sole reason for the disaster that my country has become (financially, politically, socially), it is one major contributing factor. IMO. Not only can the government jail you (and believe me, the jails in the worst Hollywood jail inspired movies pale in comparison to the jails down there) under any pretext they choose, but also, the citizens feel entitled to carry out justice by their own hand and according to their own judgement. In contrast, the American system demands that not only the judge and jury presume innocence, but also that the rest of the citizens do so too. You are innocent until proven guilty, in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of everyone else. Nobody can deny you a job because you are an alleged bank robber, drug dealer, murderer or rapist. Nobody can discriminate against you in any facet of social interaction because you were accused but not convicted of a crime. You may think OJ is a murderer (you are entitled to your opinion and can express it), but if OJ were to apply for a job in your company, you can't deny him that job because you think he's guilty; if you do, he's entitled to sue you for discrimination and libel. Is the American system absolutely perfect? Absolutely not. Is it fair to rape victims? Hell, no! But the system does have mechanisms and venues designed to help it evolve and improve and the citizens should avail themselves of those venues to effect change. Is the American system better than other countries' (for example, Venezuela)? By leaps and bounds, IMO. I think this is what Don was saying and feeling. He felt Mary was being truthful and a victim of rape, who had also been failed by the system; but he couldn't condemn her alleged rapist and proclaim on the news that he was a true rapist. And he couldn't support Mary's website because while being beneficial to true rape victims and potential rape victims, it infringes the rights of others and violates one of the most important precepts of the American way of life: you are innocent until proven guilty. If you have to violate the rights of other citizens to correct the failures of the system, are you really being fair? Or are you just becoming another criminal (albeit of a lesser crime)? Another tenet of the American systems is that all rights are equally important and inviolable; your right to not be raped is as important as someone else's right to not be falsely accused. When you start assigning priorities to rights you get into dangerous territory that could eventually lead to total chaos (see other countries for examples of this). Is Don saying that Mary should not fight to get justice or that victims of rape whom the system has failed should just shut up and take it? I don't think so. And that brings me to this other post: I don't think he chose to disregard the argument or considered one violation more important than the other. I think he considered them equally important and he was, perhaps, as frustrated as she was. He wants her to get justice but he knows she won't under the current state of the system, but, more importantly, he doesn't believe that violating someone else's rights is the way to go about trying to make change happen. I think he understands it's a long, arduous process to right the wrongs the system has, and there are no quick fixes, but he also knows that he can't tell her that, because it will be of no comfort to her and her current, entirely justified trauma. Should Sorkin have the character expand on these issues? Perhaps. Maybe if he had done so, the arguments about this episode wouldn't be so fierce at the moment, but Sorkin is not writing a show that deals with the unfairness of the system against rape victims, he's writing a show about journalists who want to uphold the principles of the American way of life as they were set forth by the founding fathers (see Will's speech in the pilot episode), no matter how difficult upholding those principles may be under different circumstances. The integrity of the characters is completely dependent upon them upholding those principles precisely when it is very difficult to do so. It's easy to defend the system when it does its job well, it's not as easy to uphold the principles when the system is failing. But those are the times when one must uphold and defend those principles, if one truly believes they are the rules that one must live by; otherwise, the characters are just big, fat hypocrites. I think this is the situation where Don finds himself in during the episode. When faced with Mary's circumstances, he finds it difficult to uphold the principle that every person is innocent until proven guilty, but he believes this is an important principle, a building block of the American way of life, a fundamental piece of the ideals set forth by the founding fathers; so, he must uphold this principle even in this circumstance, when it's incredibly hard for him to do so.

I think this actually supports my point. I wasn't comparing celebrities to rape victims, BTW, I was comparing the celebrities Sloan was defending (the Jimmy Kimmels, to use her own example that are accused of being drunk in a bar by an anonymous poster on the ACN app when in reality they are miles away with their families) with the people Don was defending, namely those falsely accused of rape on the internet by an anonymous poster on Mary's website. So, because celebrities signed up to be celebrities, Sloan is right in defending their right to not be falsely accused of being drunk in a bar but Don is wrong to defend the right of regular people to not be falsely accused of rape on Mary's website? To continue with comparisons, I agree no woman signs up to be raped, but, by the same token, no man/woman signs up to be falsely accused of rape either. Why do we so fervently defend the rights of one type of victim (rape) and not the rights of another type of victim (falsely accused victim)? They are both victims. They are both wronged, both their lives could be destroyed by the crimes committed against them. They can both be traumatized by the experience. Both can be destroyed psychologically and physically by it. Why are the rights of one type of victim more important than the other type victim? I don't know, it seems to me that the 2% is being thrown in there as such a low number that somehow it's insignificant, but I bet you it's not insignificant to those people that are actually falsely accused of rape. They may lose their job, their friends, their spouse and their children because, let's face it, given that the crime of rape is such a horrific one most people tend to side with those that claim to be a victim of it, even without proof. It's all well and good as long as it happens to some faceless, tiny 2% of the accused, but these 2% are people too, with lives, jobs, friends and family. What if one of your family members, or your best friend were falsely accused, would that be ok because it's not statistically significant? How in the world can Mary fact-check every accusations made on her website? First she would have to at least partially remove the anonymity feature. She would have to know the name of the victim, she would have to interview the victim, interview the accused, interview the witnesses, run forensic tests on the victim's clothes and the accused's clothes and on anything their bodies might have come in contact with during the rape. She would also have to perform or have access to the victim's rape kit (and not all victims choose to have one done), she'd have to run prints and DNA.... It would be a full time job, or a very time consuming one at least. Mary didn't strike me as someone who wanted to dedicate her life, or a large chunk of it, to such pursuits. She just wanted to provide a venue for real victims who had not gotten justice to express themselves and to warn others about the rapists in her school, but she also continued with her own studies, she was still living in a dorm, on campus, so, she was still studying to finish her own education. She didn't think of the potential of people lying on her website. And I think part of the reason she was crying was that she could see that during her conversation with Don and she was frustrated by it. She had good intentions, but her website could have harmful, unintended consequences too. That's why Don looked so sad while talking to her too, IMO. He saw that she wanted and probably deserved a venue to tell her story, and that other women would benefit from knowing who the rapists in their campus are, but he also saw the potential for harm. Because it's not up to Don and Mary to be honest and moral in Mary's website. It's up to the posters who post in it. And both, Don and Mary, knew that not all the posters in Mary's website would be honest and moral.

Sloan's points were that ACNtracker: 1) Is a bad app because anonymous users can post lies (such as, 'Jimmy Kimmel is drunk at XYZ bar right now!!!' when the guy was actually with his family thousands of miles away from XYZ bar) and lies are damaging to the innocent celebrities 2) Is an invasion of privacy (where is it written that just because you're famous people have a right to pry into your personal life?) 3) Is dangerous because a stalker could actually cause physical harm (even death) to the targeted celebrity Don's points were (among others) that Mary's website: 1) Is a place were anonymous users can post lies (such as, 'John Smith raped me!!' when John Smith is just a guy who the poster hates for non-criminal reasons) and lies can be damaging to the innocent person that is falsely accused 2) Is an invasion of privacy (people can accuse anybody, innocent or guilty; the accused's life will be scrutinized and his/her privacy invaded, even if the accused is innocent) 3) Is dangerous because someone may take it upon him/herself to punish the accused by not hiring him/her, causing physical harm (even death), etc to the targeted accused I find it ironic that although both, Sloan and Don, were making very similar (if not completely identical) points, somehow Sloan is this great crusader and Don is just Sorkin's mouthpiece, through whom the writer can validate, even impose on us, his "misogynistic" views. What's the percentage of celebrities about whom people post lies on the internet? probably higher than 2%, so does that mean that because a higher percentage of celebrities are affected, they are somehow entitled to a better defense of their rights? How much damage can come to a celebrity from such lies? It depends, but a celebrity certainly has more financial resources to fight back. Not very many celebrities end up dead because of a stalker, their lives and reputations are likely salvageable after a lie has been posted about them; but when a regular person is falsely accused of such a serious crime as rape, it is probably not as easy for him/her to repair the damage. Are celebrities' rights somehow more important than those of the regular men and women out there? I think because Mary was a sympathetic, believable character, we feel for her and we instinctively want her to get justice. She got raped and then she didn't get any justice, and there was not much she could do. Bree, OTOH, came off as an arrogant, unsympathetic asshole who didn't care about anyone but himself. What if Bree had been depicted as a shy, young man who had grown up poor but whose life drastically changed when he created this app that Pruitt bought? What if selling that app allowed him to take his parents and siblings out of a miserable, poor, crime-ridden neighborhood? Would we feel even a little bad for him then? For the record, I'm a 42 year old woman who has never been raped, thank God, but I have been stalked (and it's terrifying). And when I was younger somebody who had a fight with my mother threatened to actually LIE so that an academic full college scholarship I'd earned with blood, sweat and tears would be taken away from me (and I wasn't even involved in the particular incident with my mother and this person, she just wanted to hurt my mom where it would be most painful -her children). I took action to prevent that from happening but I can't tell you how much anguish that caused me. At the end of the day, I think one of the points that Sorkin was trying to make is that these are not simple issues and there isn't a simple solution. There are drawbacks and sometimes horrible consequences, no matter what solution we explore. Also, I don't think Sorkin hates the internet. I think he hates the irresponsible, immature, amoral, stupid assholes out there that ruin the internet for everyone. And there are plenty of those. I also think that Don made up his mind about airing the story when he saw Sloan and Mac fighting back for their belief that they should report the news properly against Charlie, of all people; someone who up until 52 days ago would have completely agreed with them and was fully on board (enthusiastically) with that idea. I thought Don felt, at that moment, that he had to stand up for what he believed too. As for his decision taking away Mary's choices, that's not true at all. Mary can contact any number of networks out there who would salivate at the very idea of her confronting her rapist on a live broadcast on TV.

Could they merge Tristan and Aegon? Maybe the TV Martells passed Aegon as their own (or will say that Tristan is Aegon even if he's not).

They have BIshop's underlings on tape discussing how to hypothetically commit a crime, but not Bishop himself. Any decent attorney would argue that just because Bishop knows these guys, it doesn't mean he was involved in whatever "business" they were discussing with Cary. And Bishop can afford much more than a decent attorney. What I don't get is how the undercover cop never got anything juicy on Bishop himself, seeing as he was so deep into the organization that he was hanging out with Bishop's guys, discussing hypothetical heroine shipment with Bishop's lawyer in Bishop's house. That couldn't have been the only time the undercover cop recorded something, but none of his other recordings have been discussed at all.

But are there any states where you can practice law if you're a convicted felon?

It's all true, unfortunately. I could write a lot about it, but in the spirit of not derailing the conversation too much, let me just recommend the Facebook Group Apocalypse-A-Go-Go for further reading materials, as well as a new documentary coming out soon called Ten Billion (based on the book by the same name, and directed by Peter Webber of Girl with a Pearl Earring and Hannibal Rising fame), which also has a Facebook page where you can see the trailer. _____________________ Wedding shenanigans: I come from a big Spanish family (one set of grandparents had 12 children, the other set 6; I have 54 first cousins on my mother's side alone) and while I was growing up there was always someone in the family getting married. I've seen it all in that regard and, in my experience, anything can happen. Absolutely anything. Even the most meek, even keeled, level-headed brides and grooms can go bananas over the smallest detail, so, I don't find any wedding related events on the show to be outside the realm of possibility.

All is right in the world!

I thought the connection was that the new diamond collection by Zales was called "Past, Present and Future". That's why all the jewelry pieces had three diamonds each.

JIMMY: "I want to keep my balls!" LMAO!

who played Krumholtz' father in Numbers; so, it's all in the family! ;)

I don't find that so contrived. I think that sometimes life can be that way. It has certainly been for me a few times when EVERYTHING was happening all at once (to me and to people around me) and I barely had a chance to catch my breath. I remember, for instance, one time when all of the members of my immediate family (mom, dad and sister) were ill with totally unrelated medical conditions. Mom had a cast on her arm, dad was just home from the hospital recovering from thrombosis surgery, and my sister had been rushed to the ER (a couple of days after dad was sent home) because she had hemorrhagic dengue fever. Meanwhile, I had clients that wanted their projects completed, so I was hauling my computer back and forth from my home to the hospital, where I had to sleep in case my sister needed a blood transfusion. Hectic doesn't even begin to cover it. And that was just me. My friends and other family had their own stuff going on too. It happens.