LilyoftheValley

Well I know I am a little late to the party here, but I liked the time jump. I thought it made perfect sense in the arc of the story, and quite frankly, Rollo and Ragnar were bordering on a spy versus spy plot if the story did not move on to something else. In most shows I watch I do not like so many new characters and killing off old ones, but I think that Vikings does it very, very well and it fits in perfectly with the main theme of the story, which so many television shows like. Vikings is not really about badass vikings conquering the world; it's about everything you lose on the quest for power and wealth. This show has a true emotional heart, which is shocking to me because most shows that focus heavily on battles and violence totally neglect that part. I am glad that the story is going to shift more to Ragnar's grown sons. I think it will be more interesting than watching Ragnar go on yet another journey to get all those things he thinks will make him finally satisfied but that never do. Now we can see how Ragnar handles dealing with the sons he wanted more than nothing else, barely raised, abandoned, yet who will expect to be great leaders and warriors (just 'cause!). On a side note I wish Ragnar would have had some daughters (like he did in real life). It could have added an extra dimension to the show that I think would have been interesting.

Poor little Siggy. Auslag has finally hit bottom and Ragnar will ditch her ass as soon as he gets back home. I wonder if he will put Lagertha back where she belongs on the throne as queen (though I doubt Lagertha can swallow that much pride).

(This is not about who is the bigger asshole.) I think that who Jimmy was and what he did is simply unforgivable to Chuck, and Jimmy just has not yet figured that out. No matter what, Chuck can never let Jimmy have a redemption. He is always going to find a way to stop it. Jimmy only thinks he can do his penance and get Chuck's love and approval. Once it dawns on him that he can never be whole again in Chuck's eyes, he will become Saul.

I do agree that calories is a big problem, but I think that perhaps Dr. Now focuses on it too much and that the patients therefore "do the math" and decide that they can lose a pound a day if they just cut out that midnight XL pizza. Obviously weight loss just doesn't work that way.

It seems fairly obvious to me that the "calories in, calories out" is only one factor in how much a person weighs. I think that carbs - mainly processed food and sugar, as well as a physiological predisposition to super obesity, are the culprits here. Don't get me wrong, I think these people are taking in a lot of calories, but I think that the math here is faulty. Like I do not think that for every pound gained there is an excess of 3500 calories or that there is a reduction of 3500 calories for each pound lost. Clearly, the human body is more complex than that. Even Dr. Now puts them on a low carb diet to shift a lot of weight fast. At the hospital it is grilled chicken and steamed veggies. I do believe that this is one of the reasons that some of his patients are sincerely confused about what their diet should look like. On the one hand, Dr. Now constantly talks about calories, but on the other hand, his method for weight loss is low carb more than low calorie. So when the patients "cut back" on what they normally eat, they think they should be losing weight, but they can't lose any weight because even though they might be eating fewer calories than before, their sugar and carb intake is high enough that their insulin stays constantly elevated. Essentially from we see I do not think that Dr. Now does an effective job of explaining how the body produces and stores fat. He keeps talking about "calories" so that should mean that eliminating one large pizza from your daily diet would result in a one pound weight loss per day, which of course it doesn't. So the calories thing really cannot be the entire story here.

I thought Ragnar's vision was very emotionally powerful and not at all cheesy. It really captured that ache you feel when you're longing for a time in your life you let go of but shouldn't have. Ragnar needed more sons because he chased after power. Had he remained content he could have spent his life on the farm with Lagertha and his priest slave and kids. I thought it perfectly summed up how so many people feel when we do get richer and perhaps a little more powerful but then we realize we were actually happiest when we had less. Ragnar was a much, much happier person living with Lagertha on the farm.

OT but I am in the same position - tell your rellies you have a really bad credit score and a loan you once defaulted on. Trust me on this one. BTW, it seems that many families on this show live a lot like Lupe and her husband. They're all just sort of barely going through the motions of existing, and the highlight of their lives in their smart phone and regular trips to the grocery store.

I think Gilbert gets something huge out of being married to Lupe: he does not have to work. They live in California so she gets disability and he gets the caretaker's income. When all you can get is low-paying, crappy work, then having a "job" like taking care of a family member in your home is a massive step up. I strongly suspect that is what drew Gilbert to Lupe. He strikes me as the kind of guy who never got a strong foothold in adulthood and really needed some security but who was not willing to get a real job.

My grandma was an alcoholic and she had a huge nose too (nothing like the perfect nose she had before she started drinking). Alcohol really does seem to change the body more than any other drug.

Intervention enablers meet T. T handled that in the perfect anti-enabler way. Also, that is the third butch I have seen in my life named T. I also do not think Kacy is long for this world. It's really sad because both her children seemed like really great people she could have a lot of love for. The only way she could possibly recover is to quit drinking for good and live off the small amount of remaining liver she has left. But sadly that won't happen.

Fundies are slaves to the baser instincts of humans. They're all just monkeys in shoes (or flip flops as the case may be).

He was SO nasty. At least some of the people on this show eat with utensils. I gasped when he said that putting him in the hospital seemed "excessive". Dude, you're literally on your death bed all day. How is hospitalizing a person in that condition excessive? It sounds to me that Sean has some mental/learning disability that caused him to be overly emotional. Overly emotional kids are "spazzes" to other kids and so other kids reject them. Thus mom made up for it ten fold by spoiling him. He hurts his foot and then the spoiling finally reaches peak levels of bliss. Sean gets to stay home with his mom and get everything he wants, he does not have to deal with his peers, and mom gets a perpetually dependent child. I mean there was no one else around in Sean's life. I think that is the first time we have seen that on this show. Most people at least have two people or more in their lives. Some are enablers but some are also truthful and honest. All Sean had was an enabler. He only had one person in his life. Sadly I do not see long term success for him. Even when they were planning things he would do when he lost weight it was all stuff the two of them were going to do together. A man is his mid 20's should not have a social life that revolves entirely around doing things with his mommy. Jeff on Intervention once called the relationship of a junkie mother and son "unconsummated incest" and that is sort of what Sean and Mom's relationship is like. Not quite a gross, but they are living like a "couple". They're going to go to the movies together, go to Disneyland together, go on a cruise together. He's the man in her life and she is the woman in his life. So messed up.

Maybe Derrick is just going for that Christ on a Cross look. I mean seriously, I am convinced he grew out the beard to look slightly less emaciated. He looks about ten years older than he did at their wedding.

It seems that Jinger has at least been attempting to have her own personal style lately. Derrick looks like a homeless junkie. Does Jill not feed him or something? Bad wife Jill, bad wife.

At any rate, if it suited the king of Wessex and the king of Northumbria to have female ruler of Mercia then why would't they support her? Would it perhaps be to their benefit to have a ruler of the kingdom sandwiched between them unable to effectively lead armies of her own? I dunno, maybe. Again, it is not as though these guys are doing this because they are motivated by women's rights. They see some benefit in it for themselves.

She was a still a ruler who was making decisions. Just because they were on someone else's behalf does not mean that she was not in charge. Look, I agree that women could never wield a great deal of power because power back then inextricably linked to leading warriors. But most people's ideas of what the middle ages were like stems from Victorian era propaganda about the middle ages and not reality.

Gee so all these people saying that there is JUST NO WAY a woman could have been ruler back then are basing that statement purely on speculation and not any real understanding of actual history?

So this will be my last post on this because I do not want to get too OT. Kwen would not have been called queen in the times in which she lived. Similarly, Matilda was not called queen either. In fact, she never called herself queen. She called herself "Lady of the English". Even her son called himself Henry Fitzempress. He was the son of the empress (Matilda having been married at one point to the Holy Roman Emperor), but not a queen. I am sure that historians and documentary filmmakers call her "queen" because we currently use that term to describe a female monarch who is ruler in her own right, but until the early Renaissance, a queen was the wife of the king.

I disagree. Technically the church had lots of rules, but in reality human relationships are what they are. Sure as a husband or a father you could serve your wife a daughters church-sanctioned smackdowns till the cows came home but then what do you have in your life? A bitter wife and bitter children? If your wife is princess of Northumbria do you really want her as your enemy? Surely you want her in a position to potentially convince her father the king of you position? Women and bastards could have been supported by others for the throne. Clearly Ecbert is supporting her for his own political reasons, not because he is some feminist ahead of his time. BTW, women were in line for the English throne by law. Matilda of the 12th century was the heir by law. Naturally a lot of people had a problem with a woman in power, but just as many people didn't. This was two hundred years later but the church was the same as were views on women and their "place" yet Matilda had enough support to fight for twelve long years and at least secure the throne for her son. I agree that much of Vikings is historically inaccurate (the French did not have table cloths until the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine). But women have always had certain levels of power. The reason so many people believe that medieval women did not have any power is because we are still living under Victorian age propaganda about the middle ages. It was a highly romanticized version of medieval culture that was totally inaccurate.

I think they are using "queen" for the show for the benefit of the viewer. Kwenthrith rightly called herself "king" last night. The reason bloody Mary was the first "queen" is because there was always some controversy in calling a female monarch in her own right "queen". We do it all the time now but the queen was always just the title for the wife of the king. Like, if Hillary Clinton become president, we won't be calling her First Lady; we're going to call her President. It was the same concept back then. Isabella and Ferdinand called themselves the Catholic Kings in the 1400's for that reason. Isabella was a queen as she was wife a king, but she was a also a king in her own right.

The way we keep our children and ourselves safe is by making judgments. People who don't judge are first-class morons.

Most flash cards don't have first grade work on one side and fifth grade work on the other side. I think those are definitely his flashcards. I do not think that Michelle has a clue that her son should be doing long division right now. I mean she posted this on facey to show what a great mom she is - they're studying at the dentist's office! I would bet anything that most of the howlers are at least two grades behind where they should be. My guess is that most of Jackson's "education" involves tossing him a pile of flashcards.

Normally I would be horrified at the thought of one spouse getting fixed without discussing it with the other spouse, but in this case, Josh would be completely justified.

I just do not think that a consequence of bad actions - whatever they may be - should be forced reproduction to the tune of 15 kids.

Josh is a product of his upbringing. In a lot of ways, he cannot help being a bigoted tool. And, since he is smug he sees nothing wrong with his hypocrisy. There are a lot of things wrong with Josh, but to me it seems like a very unfair "punishment" to make him have 15 kids. It is unfair to him, his wife, and above all to those kids.