Danielg342

Maybe this show isn't a train wreck...and maybe I write this knowing that, just like last season, it'll go off the rails because these writers really don't know what they're doing. Oh, and this episode made it quite clear that the rest of the cast runs acting circles around Max Thieriot...Bode feels like he weighs this show down, not lifts it up. ...but, despite all the inanity that goes on in this show, I'll give it this much- there is, at least some semblance of humanity. The characters might act all weird and do weird things to satisfy the plot, but they're at least not robots. Well, except maybe BroodyBot 3000, otherwise known as Bode...but, even he can have his moments. I'll also give this episode credit that it didn't follow all the predictable beats that I thought it would from last season, in that we didn't spend an entire episode where Bode has to clear his name and that his Edgewater townmates are still firmly behind him. I'll also give the show credit in that they found some humanity in Sleeper. I'm still not sure if this is a show that I'll go out of my way to watch...there's still too much nonsense going on that holds it back from being a great show. ...but, it's at least good enough that it passes the time. Since S.W.A.T. (which I also watch) is on before this show and has only one season left (this one), Fire Country will at least get one more ride out of me.

I have to start with a rant about how this show treats Latino characters. I cannot think of one instance where the show has had a well developed Latino character, and I can only think of very few instances (if that) where the show has had Latino characters who were not portrayed as "bad guys" or bad in some way. Christina Alonso was a main cast member for five seasons and her character went everywhere and got nowhere. The best Alexis Cabrera is known for is getting confused for the show's newest (?) permanent cast member, Zoe Powell. Marcos was interesting as the gang member who had a sense of morals and responsibility, but he also had a real heel turn last season. Then there was Rigoberto Sanchez, who was absolutely shady and was only there so we could hate him so Hondo could get his comeuppance. Which leaves the rest of the characters who have all been, literally, criminals. I suppose there's that Mexican captain, but I doubt she'll be developed much, if at all. So when the Mexican police officer- whose name escapes me right now, but not that it really matters- wound up turning on Powell and choked her (maybe?) to death, I could do nothing except roll my eyes. Yet another Latino bad guy. Sigh. S.W.A.T. deserves a lot of plaudits for how they've navigated issues pertaining to African Americans and has been incredibly trailblazing for African American TV shows, this being the first "mainstream" TV show with an African American lead that was actually aimed at everyone. ...but, just because the show has been great at race relations and race issues on one end doesn't mean it can't be criticized for how it handles race on another end, and how it consistently treats Latino characters leaves a lot to be desired. To be fair, the Mexican officer's heel turn wasn't all that's wrong with this episode. However, the episode's many other problems- its predictability, its usage of a quick pace to feign urgency, the plot holes, among others- have been there before in many other episodes, so they're not worth expanding upon too much. (I mean, did you really think, on a show where the cops are always presented as "the good guys" that Pia's vigilante tendencies wouldn't be shown as anything but stupid? I really got "Saint Hondo" vibes when Pia was dealing with Hondo in this episode) ...but, in an already terrible episode, the Mexican officer's heel turn, a predictable and cringe worthy moment, just put the proverbial icing on the cake of this turd.

Don't know why we're not going to see Hondo's and Nichelle's wedding. I would have thought that's how the series would have ended. I'm sad that Street and Luca have been demoted, but the truth is I feel like everyone other than Hondo, really, have been "demoted" for the past few seasons. As long as they're not disfigured or dead and their lives move in a positive direction, I'm OK with how their stories end.

I might still watch...it's on after S.W.A.T., so it's not like I have to go out of my way to watch the show...but, the events of the finale left a bad taste in my mouth. Once S.W.A.T. ends, Fire Country will need to improve because I doubt I'll give it a third chance.

That's a great story. :) I don't really recall any controversy surrounding "As Good As I Once Was" but I'll agree it was very funny (Toby had a lot of those videos). In the days before YouTube, my ex's dad would tape music videos he liked, and "As Good As I Once Was" was one of them (another was Lonestar's "Mr. Mom", and I'm sure there were others). There's so many favourites that I can't just pick one, but if I had to highlight one, it'd be one of his lesser known funny songs, "Big Blue Note". It's one of my favourite stories to follow along to.

He went the Chadwick Boseman/Norm MacDonald route of not sharing much publicly about his diagnosis. I knew about his diagnosis when the story first broke, but I had thought he'd gotten better. Sure, he lost a lot of weight (Toby Keith made an appearance at the People's Choice Awards in September and joked about being able to fit into skinny jeans), but he was talking about touring this year. Unfortunately, abdominal cancers can be tricky (my own mother died when her cancer spread to her pancreas), so while I'm sad I'm not surprised. He'll at least get to reunite with his dad (a former veteran who died in March 2001).

Toby Keith has passed away at 62. This is from his official Facebook account, which I doubt would make the story up. No details yet, but he was battling stomach cancer for the last few years. He was a polarizing figure for sure, but a big one, and not just because he was a very big man (before his cancer battle, unfortunately). Whether you liked his stuff or not (he was one of my favourites, I must admit), his songs always had a lot of heart, and no one could quite pivot between "serious" and "funny" quite like he could. I'll miss him anyway.

Good for her. I guess S.W.A.T. opted for familiarity for its final season, so they opted to keep Zoe Powell. It's a safe choice, even if it's not ideal.

I feel that Will's imminent departure is to do nothing except give JJ "womanpain". The writing for the past several seasons has leaned on JJ having angst for quite some time, but we've never really had a moment where JJ had to really lose herself and let out her emotions. Kind of like how the writers seem to give Joe Mantegna multiple excuses to raise his voice in a bid to give Rossi a "strong, emotional presence", we seem due for an Emmy-baiting, bawl-her-eyes-out moment from JJ. Which...I don't know. I think JJ as a character has done far better since the writers gave up the whole "Mary Sue" thing in S10 and made her someone for whom the job takes an incredible toll, but a crying scene is no joke. I mean, since AJ Cook got to Hollywood she has to have some skills, but I find those moments of pure, unbridled sadness are difficult to pull off, even for the best of actors, and I'm not sure I would say AJ is up there in calibre. So I'm fearing the trainwreck that is coming.

Evolution hinted at marital problems between JJ and Will, and that is my preferred route as opposed to killing off Will. The "LEO married to the job who loses their romantic marriage" hasn't really been done from a female perspective, so that would be a nice storyline to explore. Plus, AJ Cook is hot and does the whole "deer in the headlight" thing so well...seeing JJ have to go back to dating could be a fun storyline to watch.

Definitely agree that Sharon and Vince deserve the title of "best couple". I haven't seen a couple like theirs that has the chemistry that they do as well as all the layers the two actors- Diane Farr and Billy Burke- bring to their portrayal. They display so much without having to say or do a lot, and that's rare. Sharon and Vince are the real MVPs of the series, and they're a better centre for the series than the one-note "Broody Sue" this series thinks is their star. One other note: Kane Brown's turn as the drifter in "Off The Rails" managed to "win" TVLine's title for "Lamest Cameo", which is another decision I can agree with. I'm still puzzled about why anyone thought that was a great idea. Sad TVLine didn't award "worst decision by a character this season" because it should have gone to Bode in the season finale. Never seen a series shoot itself in the foot quite like this one did with Bode in the finale.

So CBS is going to do with Edgewater what NBC did with Chicago. Interesting...I'll leave it at that.

I don't ever really recall a time on Criminal Minds where the show justified the use of a private jet. I can only recall two instances where it actually was useful- in Season 8, when they were hunting an active killer, since it was faster to use the plane (and even then, the killer got away) and in Season 15, in the original series finale, when the team literally blew up the plane with the serial killer they were chasing inside of it. That last moment the team justified the move because one of their teammates, David Rossi, said he could afford to buy the team a new one (and this serial killer was "personal" for Rossi, so he justified the expense from an emotional standpoint). Which I guess makes sense...but I'm still not sure the FBI would sanction the destruction of something that surely cost them tens of millions of dollars to acquire (if not a lot more) even if Rossi promised to pay them back (never mind his own ability to afford such a purchase). Meanwhile, The Mentalist poked fun at CM for having a jet. When Patrick Jane joined the FBI, the first time he flew to a crime scene, they had to fly via conventional commercial airline. He remarked with surprise, saying "I thought we would have a jet."

I'm sorry. It wasn't my intent to criticize you. Posting about it is important for anyone that wants to keep up with the trial. I was critical of USA Today of writing a news piece treating the motion like it's some kind of monumental event in the trial when it isn't. They didn't mention at all that the motion to dismiss is pretty standard for trials and that filing the motion likely doesn't change the legal course of the case. The USA Today piece feels like a very pro-Lizzo piece, if I'm being completely honest. They treat the motion like it was some act of defiance (when it's not) and spent a lot of time talking about how thankful Lizzo was for receiving positive news (getting an award) in her time of crisis. Barely any mention was made of the mere fact allegations were brought against her. I grant that the allegations were not proven, but I've seen other writers in other cases who seem to love re-hashing, in detail, the allegations that the court will eventually decide on. The USA Today writer treats the Lizzo allegations very vaguely, as if they almost don't exist.

First, the article I linked to wrote that motions to dismiss are based on "technical grounds", and the article was written by a U.S. federal lawyer. So I'm assuming the lawyer knows what he's talking about and, besides, they're not exactly my words. In any case, it's semantics really. No matter what we call the cornucopia of terms that cover the many ways something could be informally described as a "legal technicality", the truth is, "off on a technicality" is a Hollywood myth. Most of the time, if a case stalls because of an error made by a lawyer, the worst that happens is that the case simply gets re-filed and is heard at a later date. You'll never see, as Hollywood paints it, such a strong case fall apart simply because, say, a lawyer literally forgot to dot his "i's" in the briefing. As it pertains to Lizzo's case, USA Today (and I'm sure other outlets) deeming the motion to dismiss as an important news story is a huge stretch. The motion is common, the motion almost always fails, and, even if it did succeed, the Lizzo case would be (likely) far from over- it would just have to get re-filed with the error corrected. The extent that it is "news" should simply be that it's something that happened during the trial and that's it- the motion itself is not monumental and shouldn't be treated as such.

Standard procedure, really. Every defence team- whether it's a civil trial or a criminal trial- makes a motion before the trial begins to dismiss the case, usually, but not always, on technical grounds. The motion almost always fails, but sometimes it works- which is why the defence tries it. So Lizzo's lawyers filing the motion isn't that significant. What would be significant is if the judge grants the motion. It doesn't mean the legal action is necessarily over- the other side has the ability to address the technicality and correct the mistake. This is what is happening in the Romeo and Juliet trial- the case was initially dismissed because the plaintiffs didn't file the lawsuit in time for the temporary suspension of California's statute of limitations to still apply to their case. In response, they will try the case in federal court.

Sad to see what happened on the sets of the classics, especially the older ones when times (and standards) were different. The story of the people who played Romeo and Juliet, though, sounds more depressing than the Shakespearean play itself. They've been taken advantage of their entire lives, and it seems like they're being taken advantage of again. I do hope one day there's justice for Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, because their lives don't deserve to be a tragedy.

Jian Ghomeshi did the same thing before his own allegations came to light and saw him get charged. Ghomeshi wound up winning his case because he had a very good lawyer. I wonder if Russel Brand hired Marie Henein too. I think for Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, it's a cute anecdote. They got married, after all, and they're still married. Kunis could not have been that troubled by what happened and, in the 1990s, something like that wouldn't have seemed so bad. The interview itself, with Rosie O'Donnell, happened in 2002, well before #MeToo changed our perception of such things. I can only hope that, now, Kutcher understands that he was lucky the incident could have been much worse for him with a different woman. I would also hope that, now, Kutcher wouldn't think of doing something like that now if he was in the same situation. Bad as he was back then, as far as we know Kutcher didn't do anything as bad as Danny Masterson did, so at some point Kutcher should have some benefit of the doubt for simply being "young and stupid". Or if any of them had said, "the Danny that did those acts then isn't the same person now- he's grown since then". I can only speculate that, perhaps, legalities prevent the letter writers from saying, directly, that Masterson committed the rapes, but it does bother me that none of the letters so much as even hint at possible remorse by Masterson for what he had done in the past.

I still remember all the countdowns to when people like Emma Watson would turn 18.

I don't know why Hollywood hasn't done a series about a high school like yours. The problems of poorly funded, "lower-tier" high schools are well-known, and there's a lot within those settings that can be explored and milked for great drama. A lot of it, too, would be realistic- Hollywood wouldn't have to "manufacture" drama like they do in other high school shows. My town had two high schools- one with 2,000 students, which was part of the secular school system, and one with 700, which was part of the Catholic school system (Ontario's school system allows Catholic schools to be publicly funded). The one with 700 students definitely had a "popular" crowd and was incredibly cliquey. So cliquey that- literally- many who were in my graduating year went to the same university. The school with 2,000 students was definitely not cliquey. At least not in the Hollywood sense with tiers. Everyone had their own friend groups, and they usually stuck with them, but I don't recall any "class warfare" going on at the school. It was an eye-opener for me because it helped show to me that I needed to be in the city, not a small town, because I just didn't "fit in" with the town. Which is something Hollywood never seems to acknowledge. If you don't "fit in" in a small town, you'll never have a good time. That's a history teacher I would have loved to have. Was your teacher not qualified to teach history? I would say that's a byproduct of not knowing the material you are teaching- because someone with a real grasp of history would know what would be important and what isn't, and not go on tangents.

A lot depends on the circumstances, like if the defendant is a repeat offender, the type of crime that was committed and temperament of the judge considering the sentence, but character reference letters can help reduce a defendant's sentence. It's possible that the letters for Danny Masterson were not going to help him one bit, but I don't blame his family and friends for trying. It is, @Annber03, the only logical reason I can give for why Masterson's friends wrote the letters. I know Phylicia Rashad was basically roasted for sticking up for Bill Cosby, but Rashad wasn't writing a letter to a judge in Cosby's defence, she sent out a tweet after Cosby was (momentarily) freed. That's a crucial difference. I don't know the legalities surrounding whether or not sentencing letters to the judge can be released to the public or not, and, I grant, perhaps Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis et all should have known better about it, but I don't believe Masterson's friends wrote the letters believing they would be seen by the public, let alone get any attention. More importantly, I believe Masterson's friends wrote the letters within the context of talking to the judge to make her consider the person they knew when she considers her sentence. This is substantially different than loudly proclaiming, in public, that Masterson is innocent. No, Kutcher et all wrote to the judge knowing that Masterson was found guilty. A number of letters- including Kutcher's- tried to tell the judge that while Masterson did a really horrible thing, he is not a horrible person and he can be rehabilitated and be a productive member of society. The context these letters were written in have to matter. We can quibble about whether or not Masterson is a truly bad person or if he's simply someone who did something bad at some point in his life, but that's not at the centre of this issue. No. I'm sure those who wrote letters in support of Masterson would all say, to a person, that they do not deny what Masterson did and that he should be punished for it. They are merely saying, "don't throw the book at him to teach him a lesson, because the light sentence would be enough of a lesson". Look, I'm not trying to say that those who chose to support Masterson are above criticism. They're choosing to support someone who was convicted of a heinous and serious crime, and they can't escape that. I'm just not sure writing a letter of support makes them as bad as Masterson, and I think if anyone criticizes them for writing the letters, they should at least consider the context upon which they were written.

At least in my high school, my teachers were generally unqualified for the subjects they taught because, unless it was something like math, the school believed "anyone" could do the subject...and they were horribly wrong. I have a history degree too. I've had a love of history basically my entire life. I actually knew more about history than the teacher who was assigned to teach it to me in my tenth grade. I even corrected her numerous times, and she even asked me questions to understand what she was teaching the class. One time, the class called for a map of Europe in 1914. I drew it on the blackboard from memory (albeit I will grant the map of Europe in 1914 is pretty easy to draw). Then there was another time she confused Crete with Cyprus (which, for some reason, she pronounced it as "cippers"...don't know how you get that). This was the one time she tried to stand up to me, so another student helped me out, pulled out the textbook and found a map that proved I was right. She only got the history gig because the school needed bodies. She was usually a religion teacher (I was in a Catholic high school until my last year of high school) and she was tasked with teaching "modern" Canadian history (which, for some reason, didn't go past 1960), so the school likely didn't think her lack of knowledge was a big deal. I could go on another rant about how much stuff high school history courses tend to leave out, but I'll just conclude with the one thing that irritates me more about how history class is presented. Despite what you think, history is not "names and dates". Sure, knowing that Alexander the Great came before Julius Caesar is important, but no real history teacher will fault you if you don't know the exact dates of their lifespans. It's more important to understand their contributions to history and how it fits into the wider historical narrative. I had a great memory so I was never that bad with names and dates to begin with, but I think a lot more people would be interested in history if they realized it's really not about rote memorization of details but about knowing "the story of the past".

If I'm giving Danny Masterson's supporters the benefit of the doubt, I would say they made a calculation between the importance of sticking up for their friend and the inevitable backlash they would receive because of it. They probably thought sticking up for Masterson was worth the backlash they would receive. Typically, while stories that "X stood up for Masterson" generate some buzz, the supporter likely knows by the end of the next news cycle, the wider public will have forgotten that the person wrote a letter in support of Masterson in the first place. I mean, Masterson's supporters didn't actually commit the crime, Masterson did. I know I'm (not yet) a celebrity, but my guess writing a letter of support is probably far lower on the totem pole of scandalous actions a celebrity could do than other activities. A few of them said, "I'm a judge of character, and I don't see how Danny could be seen as a predator"...which is how a predator usually operates. Only a victim really sees the predator side of a predator. There may be a few "telltale" signs if you really look for them, but you would have to actually look for them and most people don't. I still find it telling that none of the letters ever address the crimes Masterson committed or hint at any remorse for those actions. I wonder if, legally, the letter writers are told they can't talk about the crimes Masterson was convicted of, out of fears it could jeopardize an appeal. It's the only non-malicious explanation I can give for why the writers ignore Masterson's crimes.

Many people believe the Earth is flat. They claim to have sources too. Are they telling the truth? There are two named sources peddling this story, and both have an axe to grind against Scientology. So, right from the beginning, I'm hesitant to believe their story because their bias is quite clear. That's not at issue. At issue is the fact that, if this alternate story about Ashton Kutcher is true, lawyers risked putting someone who was going to peddle a faulty story on the stand. No lawyer who is even halfway competent would do that. If they did, the other side of the courtroom would metaphorically rip the witness apart. So, if the prosecution put Kutcher on the stand with a faulty story, the defence would certainly expose him. You may not think that matters, but juries have acquitted people for far less. We can quibble about whether or not courts actually reach the level of truthfulness they set to achieve. However, the point remains that a court of law has a higher standard of proof than some Internet podcast. I'm not a lawyer either, so I don't know if Michael Gargiulo could win an appeal based simply on Kutcher's story being faulty. However, his defence would absolute morons if they didn't at least try. The fact they have not is telling. The perjury point is a good one. I thought of that myself but didn't raise it. It's another point that raises skepticism about the alternate story about Kutcher, because, if it were indeed true, Kutcher would have been shown to be lying on the stand and a prosecutor would have a field day with him- and I'm sure he would get prosecuted, since glory hound prosecutors love the attention such a case would bring.

Which only really reinforces my point. A lot of people, including people in position of authority, knew this supposed "truth" and yet Ashton Kutcher still told his story in a court of law without it getting challenged at all. In related news, the saga of Chrissie Bixler continues: (Source)