Wordsworth

It was nice to see the loose ends tie up. Edith's Wedding. Her parents finally happy for her. Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes calling each other by their first names for once. The beautiful Christmas and snow scenes. The Dowager Countess' laughter when she read Spratt's article. (Has she ever laughed like that on the show?) Violet and Isobel busting in to rescue Dickie. Rose sharing photos of her baby...and pointedly mentioning she's not named for her mother. Brief acknowledgment of Martha Levinson. That nice scene with Thomas and the kids. But, yes, his goodbyes took too long considering the show was projecting Carson's health problems/retirement a mile away.

Loved it. Except I'm not convinced Talbot is the man for Mary, but TPTB say so, so it must be true! The pacing was fast, but they fit in a bunch. The Mary & Edith fight I'd been waiting for...and the ultimate resolution that Edith loves her sister, but doesn't always like her. Seeing Tom, Cora, Rosamund, Violet and, then, even Robert lecture her about her unkindness made me happy. Suicide attempt was coming. Very little about this show is unpredictable. But we never see the important scenes or hear the important conversations. We only see how others react to them. Where the heck is Larry Grey? Is Amelia going to represent the annoying side of the Merton clan now? I loved the giggles from everyone about poor Mrs. Patmore's issue. Especially when the scene cuts from Carson wanting to keep this from everyone to Mary & Anna laughing over it in front of the mirror. I'll give the show one kudo for unpredictability, though. I thought Cassandra Jones was a man. I just didn't know it was Spratt! Mr. Wordsworth and I burst out laughing at the "bananas" scene in the office.

Cora and the Coat: We've all said things we've regretted at one time or another because of fatigue or irritation. Mary told the women more than once that her mother wouldn't mind. She probably ordinarily wouldn't have save that she'd been through the ringer that afternoon and took her anger out on the wrong people. She admitted as much and made amends. That's what makes Cora great. Spratt & Denker: I can take or leave Denker, but, since Molesley is no longer the most hapless character on screen, they had to give his spot to someone. Spratt, with his rigid worldview and his bulging eyes, is perfect. I love his scenes. They're just what I need to get through Anna's miscarriages and this whole hospital business. The Incredible Re-emerging Tom: I saw him in the background before he was noticed. Glad to see him; sorry Boston's food has agreed with him too much. Yes, I'm shipping Baxter and Molesley. Is it Bolesley or Maxter? I loved that nothing ruined the wedding. That's just what I wanted to see.

Don't worry about the Carsons. There's a period of getting used to the way other people do things when they get married. I don't think Carson's a jerk. He's just never been married before and is used to being the one in charge in the big house, too. And they do love each other. They just have to figure the whole thing out. Yes, he's being difficult with Thomas. Thomas is a difficult person. Carson hasn't cared for him since season 1 when he was caught stealing. He spent four years plotting with Miss O'Brien, causing random trouble in the house. He lorded it over the servants when he represented the army during the war. He dabbled in the Black Market. He nearly caused a scandal himself by being misled by O'Brien over Jimmy. Carson's a traditionalist. It's as hard for him to accept the change in The Way Things Are as it has been for Robert. Robert seems to be coming around. Carson's a little older than he is, so it will take more time. I still enjoy watching him.

But since there appears to be no Drewe grandmother and all the children, even the daughter, attends school, then Mrs. Drewe would have spent a good chunk of her weekdays with Marigold.

Marathoned the second-fourth episodes yesterday. Edith: I think her editor resents the fact that he ultimately answers to a woman with no experience running a magazine. But, it's possible he also sees her as just a dilettante who just thinks it's fun to be the boss in between hair appointments and luncheons. As for Marigold, I think most of us agree that the whole situation with the Drewes was botched from the beginning. Mrs. Drewe didn't know the child was Edith's, she thought Marigold was theirs forever, if Edith was paying them any cash, Margie wasn't in on that. fishcakes and others have mentioned in previous posts that she was probably fine with Edith coming around at first, but, by the time the first episode, 5th season, came around, it would seem that Edith was wearing out her welcome. Even Robert and Cora, clueless at the time, noticed this and warned Edith not to make a nuisance of herself. I've read in this thread, especially early on, that some people thought of 5th season Margie as obsessive and desperate, but I would use those to describe Edith, not Mrs. Drewe. Yes, Edith is Marigold's mother, but Margie didn't know that. All she knew was that the rich lady from the manor house was coming around all the time, petting on Marigold and behaving very clingy. She constantly wanted to play with Marigold or put her to bed or do other things that an aristocrat would never really do for a farmer's child. She ignored the other Drewe children (yes, there is one Drewe daughter). If Margie feared that Edith was going to take Marigold, it's because Edith looked about every time like that's exactly what she wanted to do. She came home one day, didn't find Marigold in the house and, because she was already upset with Edith and felt, in the back of her mind, that Edith wanted her child, allowed herself to fear the worst. It's not unhinged to fear that someone who acts like they want to take a child has actually taken said child. Margie wasn't out of line to reject money from Edith for Marigold when Edith ultimately decided to change tactics and offer to be the girl's patron because she very likely felt that taking money would then obligate her to share Marigold with someone she was already uncomfortable having around so much. When Edith showed up with Rosamund in tow, Mrs. Drewe decided that enough was enough. Then Edith turned the tables on her and took the child away, exactly what Margie feared she would do. In one fell swoop, she found out that her husband had lied to her and that the child she'd been lovingly raising as her own for the last year was being taken. In the 1920s, if servants were finding their voices, then the tenant farmers were, too. Mrs. Drewe felt betrayed and let Cora know it. In the present, Cora sees that Mrs. Drewe hasn't been able to move past the loss of the child. That doesn't mean Margie is unhinged or mentally ill, but that she isn't seeing straight. When Cora mentioned that they needed to get back to luncheon, it appeared to me that Mrs. Drewe got a mental image of Marigold in a large, cold house, eating with other children, being trotted out at tea-time for the adults to look at and not getting the one-on-one time with a mother that she had provided the girl. At the auction, she confirmed her belief that Marigold was being ignored and took her. It was wrong. It wasn't within her right to do. But that's what she did. Even sane people do random senseless things sometimes. Anna/Bates: I am tired of the prolonged legal dramas of the Bateses. Scotland Yard would never have spent as much time on the death of a servant as they did on this Green business. Now Anna thinks that Bates doesn't want adopted children? Do those two ever actually communicate? They seem to constantly jump to conclusions. Of course, there are secrets they must keep because they're servants in a manor house. Thomas: Most of what Thomas has done during his time here is self-serving. Not all of it, I grant you. But he seems to have accepted his life as a servant; he just wants to be at the top of the pecking order. He started working as a footman, has brought himself up to a position of almost second in the household staff...only to find that the changing times have altered the rules. He can't go anywhere else and get the same position of authority he has at Downton. He would either be overworked while doing the jobs of several types of servants, some of which he considers to be beneath him or he would be the sole employee with no one to lord it over. I also felt that the interviewer figured out he was gay. His line about Thomas not having "found the right person" was a type of code for his suspicions. After all, Thomas is a man in his early-to-mid thirties who has a decent job as underbutler in a grand manor house in a country with a shortage of eligible men. For him to be unmarried, especially during a time, as the butler interviewing him pointed out, servants are now getting married with little interruption to their work, likely red-flagged him. And, his poor reputation at Downton is his own fault. Most of the senior servants remember him plotting with Miss O'Brien, bossing people around while being the military attache to Downton during the war, dabbling in the black market and overall being unpleasant to people. Carson has certainly never cared for him since he was caught stealing in season 1. Thomas has only remained at Downton because of his own good luck that Grantham happens to be a fair-minded, if somewhat clueless, boss. * I agree that Mrs. Hughes is not being unreasonable to not want to celebrate her wedding in a house that's not her own, where she has spent the last couple of two or three decades working for a living and where she can't have the celebration she wants. And I love that Cora seems to understand that. * Ugh, Daisy. For God's sake, how old are you now? It's been 13 years since season one, anyone know how old Daisy is? I could tolerate her naivete in 1914, but not 1925. Mary: I'm beginning to think of Mary as being kind of like Scarlet O'Hara. We're not actually supposed to like her, but we can admire her.

I watch it for entertainment value. Most reality shows are just as scripted as regular programs. I don't even pretend that these guys are that bad at cooking or as clueless as they seem. It's just for fun. Dean Cain: Sorry to see him go. I've met him and he's really nice in person. Barry Williams: I guess I just don't focus on people's appearances. He looks fine to me. I've also met him and he's also pretty nice. Chris Soules: Never watched his show. If Anne would have stopped drooling over him, I might have been able to get into him as a contestant more. Ellen Cleghorne: She started off strong, but she seemed really off in the clouds on this week's episode. J-WOWW/Jenny?: Never watched her show either. She seems harmless and not nearly as bad a cook as she pretends. Kendra Wilkinson: Also not as clueless as she seems.

He was my favorite character, actually. I had a hard time getting into this show. It didn't help that season 1 was largely disposable with unlikeable characters. But I really liked Chris' upbeatness.

We just took a trip down south and completely missed that Aaron has a restaurant in New Orleans (Johnny Sanchez), but we did eat at Maneet's place in Nashville, TN. It was yummy. No Maneet, though. :(

No, you were not. Mr. Wordsworth did the same thing.

Meh, that didn't bother me. I've seen regular episodes where a contestant overheard what the judges said about an ingredient. They sit the judges so close to the kitchen, it's no wonder it doesn't happen more often than it does. But, I think Dante's frustration was about A) embarassment and B) there's his chance at college. It was emotional, yes, but he's a teenager and they act on their emotions. He'll pull out of it and figure out some way to make it happen.

vanillamountain, that's pretty much how I felt about it, too. Once they graduated high school, the idea that Blair would be going to local Langley College with Jo was a bit of a stretch. Jo got them kicked out of the dorm, but Blair could have gotten an apartment on her own. To be honest, the show could have ended with Blair & Jo's graduation. It would have been more realistic. But we would have missed a few pretty good episodes after that. My thinking is that Natalie and Tootie's parents knew Mrs. Garrett by that time and, as she had done a good job of raising their daughters the last couple of years, they were okay with the girls staying with her after that, even if she wasn't an employee anymore. I do recall the events surrounding the van the same way: * The girls are expelled. Mrs. Garrett arranges for them to stay in school but she will take responsibility for them. The parents agree to allow the girls to live with her under her supervision. * The van is paid off, right as the girls reach the peak of irritation with each other. Mrs. Garrett has them repaint the room for the new set of girls (I, too, was confused as to why new girls would be moving in with Mrs. Garrett. Doesn't say much for Eastland if they're constantly having to put their students under close guard. But, maybe, she made it up....), they get into a paint fight that will cost money to clean up, so they're stuck in the same room. Frankly, I think the parents would all get together and pay for the repainting of the daggone room at this point. Unless they're getting a break on room & board because their daughters aren't actually living in the school, I can't imagine why any parent would continue to pay full price for their child to go to a private boarding school when she's living in an attic with three other girls. * This arrangement lasts until Jo & Blair graduate. Mrs. Garrett quits her job, opens Edna's Edibles, and ends up with all four girls living in what looks like the same dumb attic room. They live through the next few years involving the fire, Over Our Heads, Mrs. G's marriage and departure and the arrival of Beverly Ann. There's no reason for them to be living together at all. Shortly after Beverly Ann shows up, Tootie is out of Eastland. There's no need for any type of adult supervision anymore. In real life, they'd be at different schools, living their own lives.

I have to agree about Jo's attitude. I've been watching some of the reruns lately and caught the watch episode. It reeks of classism. Blair is rich so it's okay to take her things without asking and blow off accidentally damaging them? It showed a huge lack of respect for Blair. How much someone does or doesn't have isn't important. Taking things without asking is wrong. Breaking them, even accidentally, without an offer to replace or repair is also wrong. Blair was unhappy, but was willing to let it go until Jo started acting like it wasn't a big deal anyway. If Mrs. Garrett hadn't been studying, I'm sure she would have said the same thing. The computer episode rubbed me the wrong way, too, for that reason. Blair can be overbearing sometimes, but Jo is at this stage of her life and hasn't yet recognized that Blair is a friend? If these episodes had been earlier in the series, I might have accepted it. The girls had little in common and were forced to live together. By this episode, they were in college and living together by choice. I guess, looking back, Jo should have matured.

You're right. In fact, Frasier and Niles should really not give each other advice at all...or least, stay out of each other's love lives. No wonder Martin is always angry at them. We've reached the Niles/Daphne relationship in our Netflixing. I'd missed much of the episodes when they'd aired, so never really got to see the Niles/Mel relationship begin. I picked up right before the wedding episode. By then, she was just some random girlfriend that Niles married on a whim. I didn't like her and totally believed the shrewish behavior she threw at him later. But seeing some of the episodes for the first time, in order, I now see that Mel really wasn't that bad. She was manipulative, yes, but it didn't seem to be for her sake. Even Daphne realized that Mel wanted what was best for Niles. Her petty demands after the wedding were certaintly over-the-top, but I understood completely how betrayed and hurt she felt. It was as if they'd needed to make her look really bad so that we wouldn't think too harshly of Niles & Daphne. I admit I'm less sympathetic toward them now than I was then.

I understand where you're coming from, but Ellie paid Lucy for information. That's not really something a police officer should do because it looks bad and any competent defense attorney will call them on it. It may not have been an actual bribe, but based on Lucy's poor performance on the stand, it very much looked that way to the jury. And while we know that Ellie didn't beat up Joe because she was trying to frame him, the fact that she did beat him is what brought up the question of police brutality in the first place and led Sharon to speculate that Joe's confession could have been forced. So Ellie paying Lucy for information and beating up Joe were procedural failures that severely damaged the prosecution's case. Regardless of what Ellie's motives actually were for doing them, she was wrong. And she did lie on the stand when she tried to argue that she didn't give Lucy the money for information.

Much more complicated. We know Joe was probably grooming Danny and may have molested him if Danny had not rebuffed his affections and lived. The jury doesn't know that. As it was, the trial barely acknowledged that Joe had been meeting privately with Danny at all. So the jury knowingly letting off a sex offender is not nearly as simple as we want it to be. They certainly didn't knowingly let off a child killer. They didn't want to do that, but Jocelyn didn't provide sufficient evidence that Joe was the guilty party. What evidence she did provide was successfully countered by Sharon's defense. So it's not on their heads. They're just the jury. They can only go by the evidence provided and how credible it is or isn't. Anything that happens after his acquittal is on Joe's head. However, if there is blame to go around: 1) Hardy and Ellie. They didn't follow procedure. * Ellie paid Lucy for her dubious statement. Whether she had helped or not helped Lucy in the past, she did pay Lucy this time because she was desperate to get information that might lead to the killer. That was wrong. Lucy had virtually no information to give and the situation was made worse when Sharon was later able to demonstrate to the jury that her accusation of Ellie trying to frame her husband was plausible. * Ellie beat up Joe in the interrogation room despite Hardy's admonition not to touch him. Hardy let her near him in the first place. This caused the single most important piece of evidence, Joe's confession, to be thrown out, as well as serve as reinforcement of the accusation that Joe was being set up. Add to that the unknown pal at the police station that let Mark in to see Joe and the jury has sufficient reason to believe that the police are incompetent, corrupt or both. All of the above made good drama...it can destroy a case against someone in real life, though. 2) Jocelyn's inadequate and unprepared prosecution: * She failed to sufficiently impress upon her witnesses how important it was that she not be left out of the loop when it came to details or about being honest on the stand. Both Lucy and Ellie lied on the stand. Lucy lied when she said she saw Joe that night and Ellie lied about not bribing her sister for information. This allowed Sharon to point out inconsistencies in Lucy's original statement versus her testimony. Once the check from Ellie was found, Sharon was also able to demonstrate a possible cover-up, as well as proving that Lucy perjured herself on the stand. Mark failed to completely disclose his whereabouts on the night of Danny's murder or his affair with Becca Fisher. Jocelyn may have thought twice about putting him on the stand, Tom or no Tom, had she known this. This forced Mark to admit that he'd been within 100 feet of his son the night of his murder, with another woman and gave the jury a possible motive for Mark killing Danny instead. * And apparently she was either not given access to police statements regarding Lucy, Becca and Mark or she did not bother to read them. If so, she would have known Lucy didn't tell them she specifically saw Joe, known that Mark's alibi was bogus and that he was released from custody only because Becca had shown up to confess she was with him that night. There is no evidence she knew anything of this ahead of time. * It also does not appear that Jocelyn tried to tie Joe specifically to the phone and the messages sent to Danny. Remember, Joe bought the phone for Danny. A phone his parents didn't know he had. Those facts do not appear to have come up in the trial. if we assume Tom didn't buy the phone for Danny, couldn't Jocelyn determine who bought the phone? Who paid the phone bill (assuming it wasn't Danny)? The dates and times messages were sent versus Ellie's work schedule and Tom's school? Once Sharon argued that Ellie or Tom could have sent the messages, I got the impression that Jocelyn decided her hands were tied in that area (Sorry, I'm just remembering a case in the U.S. in which investigators were trying to determine if a mother or a daughter committed a crime and were able to prove that the daughter was at school at the time an incriminating note was written on the home computer). * Her closing statement consisted basically of, "Hey, he didn't take the stand in his defense" only to be followed up by the judge's instructions to the jury that the defendant doesn't have to do that. 3) Ollie for failing to control his testosterone. Last year, he let whatsherface manipulate him into investigating Jack Marshall, resulting in the latter's reputation being destroyed and his subsequent suicide. This year, he let Abby seduce him - despite a clear conflict of interest - so that she could rifle though Lucy's paperwork and find the incriminating check that was used to give the jury reason to believe Sharon's accusation of a police set up. So, plenty of blame to go around. It demonstrates how nothing is a sure thing in a trial and how the whims and personalities of the people involved can mean the difference between a conviction and an acquittal. Once acquitted, Joe is a free man, as free as anyone who's found not guilty is. He is not required to move. He's not required to stay away from kids. He's not required to get counseling or anything else. What were Ellie & her friends supposed to do? Harass him every day? Stalk him? Try to get him to confess on tape? They let him know he wasn't welcome in Broadchurch. That's really all they could do. Even then, they applied a bit more pressure than they were legally allowed to do. Especially if Ellie is serious about killing him if he tries to contact the boys.

My heart is broken, but I knew Madison's time would come eventually. I had a feeling his fish might end up overcooked when he stuck it in the oven. Ah, well. He's still a stand-up guy.

Finally saw the Danushka episode a.k.a "Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful".

Me, too. I don't trust the editing of reality tv. They want drama and if they don't get it, they try to create it. I know someone who was on a reality show and something she read off of a list of phrases when recording audio bits was played over a scene with her in it that made it sound like she said something unflattering about another person in the scene.

They stay in the house because they still have to pay the mortgage/rent even if they don't live there and they just don't have the money to do that and pay to live somewhere else at the same time. And, of course, because the house isn't really haunted. I have also learned from your examples above. Plus always believe someone who tries to warn you the house is haunted. And always ask your realtor to disclose any murders or weird deaths that have happened in the past.

A is for Andrew. Carter's first name.

In watching the MeTV reruns, I've noticed how often Captain Stubing prays. The Christmas episode with Mickey Rooney, he prays what would be considered a very religious prayer over dinner. He also prayed on the deserted island when he and the crew were being held captive by John Astin. I knew Gavin MacLeod was a Christian, so I thought that was very neat that he would be able to put some of himself into Stubing. But I've learned that his conversion was very late into "The Love Boat"'s run. Interesting that the writers would give that material to the captain 1) when he showed no other outward signs of religiosity and 2) without knowing that their actor would someday embrace it.

I was invited to a Basic Seminar by my dad & stepmother back in 1992. I attended, thought some of the ideas were interesting, but that Gothard seemed a little old-fashioned. I put the red book on a shelf and didn't think much of it. I even met Gothard himself once. Sitting in a church where he was speaking, I found myself next to him. He asked me about myself, found out I was going to college and asked me why I would do that. I got the impression that it was a rebuke rather than genuine interest. But, again, I brushed it off as just him being old-fashioned. Keep in mind that my family is conservative evangelical. For me to consider someone old-fashioned is saying something. Flash-forward two years later. My marriage ended, I pulled out the red book, read a few things and decided I wouldn't remarry. I also prayed and fasted on my anniversary date every month that my marriage would be restored. After a year, God told me that my spouse was not coming back and to move on. The red book went back on the shelf. I think it went into the Goodwill pile at some point. I live in Indianapolis, IN and remember the news articles about the training institute and the problems there. After several years, I remarried and have been happily so since then. It wasn't until I discovered www.recoveringgrace.org last year that I got the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey used to say) of the lasting impact that Gothard's misuse of scripture has had on countless lives. I began to recognize within the last year how that very brief exposure to him has affected my spiritual life. I realized that I had begun memorizing scripture based on the ideas in that red book (starting with his favorite, the book of James). I realized where I had placed obstacles in my growth; been judgmental; took some of his stories at face value. I was never a member of IBLP nor did I know anyone who was. I wore pants, I listened to modern music, I went to movies and watched tons of television. That's my Gothard story. I attended exactly one Basic Seminar over 20 years ago. That's it. But he had an impact on my spiritual life for almost two decades. My exposure to him and his teachings was as minimal as it could be. Can you imagine Joshua, John-David, Jana and the others? They have been raised with this. They didn't get their first exposure as a young Christian age 22. They got their first exposure at birth and it's been reinforced for years through their parents, through their participation in IBLP/ATI events, through their parents' association with like-minded families. If I've had to unlearn what I have learned, where would they even begin? Would they recognize the need to do so? These kids are victims. They've been sold a bill of goods and given virtually no way out.

Walking Distance with little Ronnie Howard in it, too!

You are not the only one that thought so. When I saw the E! True Hollywood Story episode focusing on TC, I laughed at the notion that Jack & Janet on "Three's A Crowd" wouldn't have worked. The story goes that Jack & Janet were rejected because the premise of TAC was that Jack's girlfriend's father was going to be a foil to their relationship, that we'd met Janet's father already and he was okay with her living with Jack. I thought that was dumb. Janet's father accepted Jack the Platonic Roommate who slept in a separate bedroom and provided some form of protection for his daughter. That doesn't mean he would have accepted Jack and Janet living together romantically.