Sandman

That was Steven Bauer? Has he always been that bad? Jeepers.

What if she does realize it, but her concerns are brushed aside as (say it with me now) "the hysterical fears of some excitable WAC." Or is that too on-the-nose?

I was surprised that the show dispensed with Dwayne so quickly. I mean, he's Annoying Tertiary Character Guy, he's not a redshirt! I will be truly shocked if Topher dies. I just don't think the show would go there -- especially since it would most likely send Tragic Consequences into a permanent tailspin that even Doctor Sexy couldn't fix.

Well, shit.

Pretty sure Caroline has more self-awareness than Abigail. Come to think of it, Caroline's purse might have more self-awareness than Abigail.

No. I've never understood this kind of hairsplitting, the kind that says the unmarried person involved with a married person is not the one committing adultery. Not to say that "the other woman" (or man) is more responsible than the married person (or that the unmarried person "convinced" the married one to cheat), but marriage vows are not a private matter between the spouses, they're public; they're not valid without a witness -- standing in for the larger community. It's unethical for an unmarried person to get involved with someone already committed. If Abigail is absolving herself of guilt because she herself made no specific commitment to Sami, she's deluding herself. She's not responsible for Elvis's choices, but she is for her own.

A sense of proportion has been seriously lacking in the show for at least the last couple of years; time after time, the various baroque revenge plots have lacked either any sense that the scale of the revenge matches the hurt being avenged, or that all the scheming will actually achieve anything meaningful. Look at John's and Kristen's ridiculous scheming to achieve revenge sex: both of them claimed to care about Brady, and each of them was doing to the other exactly the same thing (or perhaps I should just say doing the other) in order to "destroy" the token object of their revenge. (ETA: I barely remember the purpose of Stefano's complex efforts to reawaken or reconstruct the Princess Gina and Pawn personalities in Hope and John, but it had something to with one of Stefano's little earth-shaking tchotchkes, and also because Marlena.) Nick's various plots and Gabi's counterplot against him were no more coherent than Sami's and Kate's elaborate-yet-rickety ruse to jail, defraud, or just embarrass Elvis and/or Stefano. It's as if the writers believe that all that is required is that the "avenging" party do something completely unexpected. It doesn't have to be a smart, effective, or even rational plan. It just has to be "shocking."

Well, they do wear all that blue and yellow. (Or at least they used to.)

Wait -- so Audrey and Jack were both tortured by Cheng Zhi? That's a hell of a thing to tell your future couples' therapist!

I hope Sami sets Kristen and her obviously flammable Day-Glo beach wear on fire.

I'm actually beginning to think that Ginger Ale Ben/Ben Gay wasn't that bad. (Hold me. I'm scared!) Pop-Up Stefano's such a wannabe.

Don't forget his lack of any discernible ability to act.

Cognitive dissonance? Elvis? Scott isn't incapable, but there isn't much subtlety in his performance; I've never thought Elvis was drowning in remorse.

Is the graduation in July a product of the shooting schedule that's five (nearly six) months ahead? Or is it just the writers don't care that sometimes a day takes the better part of two weeks to unroll in Salem, and a criminal arrest, trial and verdict can flash by in a matters of weeks, if not days? The timeline of the show has been messed up for years.

The promo monkeys think counting is hard.

Not to defend Mansi's acting choices too much, but I think it's in character for Abigail to react with shock -- I am quite sure she thinks of herself as an innocent, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Abigail can be judgmental and smug. I don't that's a failure on the actress's part, at least not solely. The writing, performance and direction don't really acknowledge what Abigail is; that's a problem. Mansi's interpretation of the storyline in the press comes off as wrongheaded to the point of inanity, but that's a bit of different problem. If the writing or the performance gave us some reason to think well of Abigail, this story would be unfolding very differently.

Whenever someone does something stupid? When would the poor man sleep? Even Pop-Up Victor doesn't have that kind of time.

I had to make a couple of attempts to log in, too.

We did have Weepy!Toph last week, though. Honestly, it didn't occur to me that Krista was crying because she was Being The Girl; I thought she cried more readily because of her relative inexperience, and (related to that) her bond with Wilson was atypically strong. If Doctor Mole becomes Regularly Weeping Mole (... ew, sorry) then that's different.

Bailey the Trauma Surgeon is no doubt alerting the media as we speak.

Not for nothing, but if you'd asked me back when I was watching Roswell (I see your side-eyes of ... judging, but we're watching this show, ain't we?) I probably would have said that Fehr probably didn't have a problem playing a gay (or at least hetero-flexible) character, because judging by his chemistry with Jason Behr's character, Fehr's Michael Guerin? Not a Kinsey 0. I'm just saying.

I can see Lucas almost having a tiny twinge of sympathy for Elvis: "Dude, my mom *and* Sami are gunning for your ass? Nice knowing you! Heh."

Was that an actual folded flag? It looked like a little plush toy. I assumed it was the kind of thing that platoons carry for emergencies. (Yeah, I dunno. Does it count as fanwanking if I don't entirely like the show?) The mariachi band "Taps" definitely was -- you should pardon the expression -- overkill. Can you imagine the other patients panicking? ("From ER intake to jazz funeral inside an hour? Really? This is one nutty but efficient hospital!")

I thought we agreed we don't use the F-word in polite company.

I saw the interview, and while I found it disappointing, I don't think I saw discomfort in the performance; or if it was there, it was appropriate to Drew's level of apprehension with outing himself. I'm waiting to see where the storyline goes, I guess.