PinkRibbons

Friend breakups in your tweens and teens are seriously shattering. I don't think I'll ever forgive that fair-weather bitch. *Ahem* I actually mean to say, THERE WAS A GIRL OBSESSED WITH BEES AND SHE WASN'T INTRODUCED TO HONEYBEE?

This episode reminds me of the (ultimately fruitless) hunt we undertook looking for my great-grandmother (and namesake)'s grave. Except not with snow but under blinding sun. I always thought massive cemeteries were more of a west coast thing? We have a canon name for Grandma Belcher! I always wondered if any of the kids were named after her. I'm Jewish, so recycling names through the generations is basically a foregone conclusion, but I know a lot of people don't feel comfortable reusing a whole name and go with the first initial. Unless Louise's middle name is Lily, I'm guessing that naming her something starting with an L is a tribute to her grandmother. We know from the movie that her hat is a reminder of Lily too. This was really a lovely episode, honestly. I hope they submit it at Emmy Award time. The perfect blend of comedy and heart that this show really nails. And OMG the fact that Linda is game to take anyone out if you ask 😂.

I thought the show was being released semi-simultaneously in both countries? (Like the US being a day behind at most.)

Oh I don't think it's been the success they wanted it to be. I'm just glad they adapted the whole thing! It's hands down one of the best adaptations of source material I've ever seen.

Ah the "you're immature" moment. All big sisters do it at some point, which in my mind is a good reason to push said big sister into a lake. But very relatable, and I appreciate this show working with age-appropriate behavior (such as Gene getting left home alone for the first time at arguably the same age as most people). Ok, Louise has gotten too moral. I was a rule-worshipping tattle-tale beloved by adults and not particularly appreciated by the other kids, and I would never have copped to breaking that Yeti. They had it fixed long enough to get away! Take the win!

Judy is seeming hornier this season, and I just realized that I think they're trying to differentiate her from Tina Belcher. 16 and 13 are eons away from each other, and Judy knows a lot more of what she's talking about. Although not what the mezzanine is, lol.

It wasn't on Hulu when I checked last night... Ah yeah, the show's FB says they were preempted by sports. Didn't give a definite return date.

I'm a little surprised at the lack of Judy's creativity. She seems like the type of girl who could throw together a new costume with whatever's on hand. Moon made me laugh so hard when he showed up outside!!! I like that Honeybee and Jerry's family is getting some more background. While they haven't fallen into the trap of just being funny for their obsession with curtains (omg the fact that a family member claims to be The Zodiac!), it's nice to see them get more fleshed out. It also explains how Honeybee fits so well into her in-law family, since they seem to have about the same level of eccentricity. That being said, holy shit are the Shaws hardcore. I mean faking Grandma's death was...commitment. No wonder Jerry got scarred from that one.

I liked the Misommar vibe this had going on. Also what the hell were the farm people thinking in those costumes, Holy Moses! I'm a full grown adult and running away screaming would have been my reaction too. Bob's lucky he didn't bother those bees, it could have ended really badly for him. I can't say I understood the reference for the kids' costumes, but I love that they tailored them towards something parents would appreciate. That's just smart planning.

This series started out great but really fudged the landing. It just...didn't happen that way. And Catherine deserves to have her actual story told, not some weird fantasy that ends with her receiving her win by getting it gifted to her by a man. Honestly I'm very salty that this was renewed and Becoming Elizabeth was canceled. As to the question of Mary's stupidity...kind of a tricky answer but yes and no. She was highly intelligent in terms of book-learning, but absolute shit as a ruler and worse at intrigue. She had no idea what she was doing. She was not the zealot shown here and for most of Francis's reign her uncles completely controlled the couple, and not the other way around. The Guises essentially ruled. Most of the series showed how little real power Catherine seems to have had throughout her own marriage despite the ten kids, and Mary was in the same position (although Francis did take her advice. It's just that being fairly young she just parroted what her uncles told her.) The Rahima plot seemed ridiculously circuitous and unnecessary. Rahima easily could have been clued in on what Catherine wanted her to do and not risk anything by trying to dupe her. Also again, the whole reason for her plot was ridiculous. IRL Mary stayed long enough that there was it was clear that she wasn't pregnant with Francis's child, and then she went home. (The show did seem to touch on what some historians believe - that Mary and Francis never consummated their marriage. The thing is if that's true, that was probably because Francis was considered too delicate to risk dying from literally overdoing it. The show makes it seem like Mary was too religious to be able to face sex when in fact, she had a talent for falling is lust with the worst guys.)

I guess my theory about Catherine's flashbacks being the result of unreliable narration was wrong, because Mary's version does Mary no favors and shows stuff she probably wouldn't have seen or even known about. On the other hand, the actress is playing Mary completely loony-tunes and I am here for it. If that's the path you want to take, go all-in, I say. Alas, Diane left with so little delicious revenge. Were we supposed to feel bad for her when she basically killed Henri by having the splinter removed? Was it supposed to be tragic when he died in her arms? I will say, Sam Morton's blocking Diane from going in to see Henri was some magnificent acting. She just went icy and terrifying, I loved it. That aside, I really felt the wrongness of the time-skip here. How come Catherine's already being called The Serpent Queen? Why weren't we shown how Diane alienated Catherine's children from her? Why was all this an afterthought? We needed an entire series of Liv Hill, then maybe a second season with Sam Morton. The latter being awesome still can't make up for losing so much plot for an excuse to put her on screen sooner. Rahima...I don't think I like you. You're so clearly trying to emulate Catherine with your insanely obvious lies, but it's way too soon for the student to teach the master anything. Someone running a con is really only interesting if they're good at it.

Yeah, this whole episode was pretty pure cringe. My theory is that, judging by Sheila's lifestyle, Kat has some family money. Not at all weird for a 2nd or 3rd gen American Jewish person (not to generalize, but yeah. Since I'm first gen I'm always a little awed by generational wealth, but that's the dream!), but I can see either Sheila not letting her access the funds for the cafe and/or Kat being determined to make the business work on her own. In any case, funding attempts at a baby? Again, not to generalize, but IME Jewish families will spend every cent we have on that. I know an Orthodox Jewish woman who never got married (presumably a virgin) but her Rabbi gave her explicit permission to get artificially inseminated on the grounds that marriage or not, it's good to bring a new person into the world.

Aw, damn it. I was really hoping to see more Romola Garai as Mary I.

Nope, definitely not. It's a straight up fact-based historical biography. The second one actually does have the tiniest root in historical fact; part of the marriage contract that Mary was forced to sign stipulated that if she died without heirs, Scotland would become French property. If she and Francis had had a son, that child would have been by default the ruler of both France and Scotland, uniting the countries in much the same way that Scotland and England became united through Mary's son succeeding Elizabeth. As it was, since Francis predeceased Mary and she was a Queen in her own right, France didn't have much of a claim on her or her country. (I always forget whether Francis became King of Scotland upon his marriage. If he had, his retaining the throne - and therefore eventually merging Scotland with France - if Mary died before he did would make a kind of sense, provided that he was recognized as King in his own right. Over in England, Mary Tudor's husband, Philip II of Spain, had the title of King of England and Ireland, but only as long as his wife held that title, and he lost it upon her death.) Anyway, the show presenting it as Mary losing her throne while alive because of a lack of children is ridiculous. I mean for one thing, at which point would that rule kick in? After five years? Ten? When she hit menopause? I have this feeling that we're supposed to think Mary and Francis are playing 13 or so - they keep referring to them as children too young to get married, although by the standards of the time, that's hardly true. Also the actors cannot possibly pull that off. But it would explain Mary's absurdly trusting nature and childlike ideals. Bringing over the Holy Roman Emperor? That was a daft idea, and one she should have been soundly chastised for. I would say that really depended on the viewer. I personally never saw it as romantic (only in the sense that you could see how a naive teen could misread an older man's intentions so badly), and the writers certainly never meant it to be seen that way. Still, props to this show for not leaning into some gross hot for teacher thing where everyone acts like it's okay for an older woman to seduce a boy if she's sexy enough. I think that Rahima is being groomed as a specific sacrifice. At this point Catherine has been making sacrifices of convenience - sort of - and I think by now she's decided to get ahead of any sacrificing by having someone at the ready. Thus she's making Rahima important to her as a confidant and quasi-friend, but not pulling her close enough that her loss would really hurt too much.

Man, how much gold glitter did they have to mix into Diane's makeup this episode? Not just the scene of her dipping herself fully in it, but the whole episode you could see the makeup team had mixed it into the actress's foundation, so she has a thin sheen of gold at all times. Kind of makes her look sweaty. Interesting that they decided Henri would start questioning his relationship with Diane (pretty sure in reality he died wearing her colors - Dude went to his grave without ever waking up from her mishegas) when he sees his son about to marry another forceful woman. He came so close to realizing she had been grooming him, but whoops, he got dead first. (It actually took several days for him to die, so maybe we'll still hear his remorse about how he treated Catherine, who knows.) I realize that Royal Mistresses were something people easily did mental gymnastics around (seriously though, it's an ENTIRE COMMANDMENT, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery), but if they're trying to play up Mary as this wide-eyed naive Catholic zealot, why would she consort with Diane for any reason? She's by definition a woman of low morals.

The first season (which I realize most of us don't really want to rewatch) had a whole episode devoted to Kat deciding whether or not to have children, because she needed to choose whether to freeze her eggs. I'm pretty sure she came down on the side of, "I'm not sure I want to have children, but I'm not sure I don't want to have children, so better be sure". She did freeze her eggs, so her deciding she wants a baby isn't out of left field. On another note, it is amusing to see a character who is completely inept at babies being played by a woman who literally wrote a parenting book.

Trinette cut off Archer's access to the Wee Baby Seamus after Archer got his name tattooed on Seamus's back during the cancer arc. Also Archer is the only one who definitely knows that Seamus is Cyril's; he himself switched out the blood samples for the paternity test. 😂

33 here and yeah, I needed this episode.

This has definitely shot into my top five funniest Great North episodes. So consistently hilarious from beginning to end, with just the right dash of sweetness.

Fun fact: we know Diane took gold because it was still in her remains. I wonder if she was chugging it like in-show. I'm interested in this narrative of Mary being a religious zealot. To begin with, I'm fairly certain she wasn't, more that she wanted to take up the Catholic cause in Scotland but figured out really quickly it was not a good path. A lot of her overt Catholicism seems to have been posturing to make herself a contrast to Elizabeth Tudor. That's also why it seems absurd that those two queens would conspire on anything, least of all on dethroning Catherine. They built up an apparently good relationship through letter-writing, that is true, but that was later on. Although hmm...when Mary realized she had to flee Scotland, she had a choice to go to England or France. She chose England on the false assumption that Elizabeth saw her as a sister and would help her regain her throne, not imprison her. If she had gone back to France she wouldn't have much of a reason to think Catherine would do the same to her (Catherine too was politically pragmatic about religion for quite a long time, but she was firmly Catholic). Maybe not help her get Scotland back, but France would have no reason to imprison her, as she was never in fact a rival for the throne the way she was for Elizabeth. Perhaps the show is trying to set up the answer for why Mary didn't go back to France as being her fear of Catherine? I can't even with Diane murdering someone in the King's presence and not even getting a perfunctory temporary banishment from court. Lol, she really will. Rahima lied about not being able to read. Catherine seems to have learned to be one step ahead at all times and she told Rahima not to lie to her again. I'm guessing this is why she's setting her up.

I'm going crazy trying to find Kat's new glasses frames. I have some similar...strong Jewish features and finding the right frames is a bitch and a half. Love the shape of her new ones. (Mayim does seem to wear glasses in real life except for certain special events; however as Amy on Big Bang Theory the ones she wore weren't functional. Amy, Leonard and Bernadette's glasses never had lenses in them because of the glare they would make to the camera. According to Mayim this seems to be a sitcom standard thing?) My dad recently stopped driving after a thankfully mild fender bender. He has glaucoma and a bunch of different procedures constantly going on with his eyes, and it was a wake-up call. Honestly we expected him to take the loss of independence much harder; he's actually taken to the bus like a duck to water. He enjoys the everyday theater of it. Sheila would clearly never be on a bus for love or money though. She's lucky she lives in the time of ride-sharing apps, even if she does think it's all some sort of evil scam. I still remember when Uber had just started; I don't drive and it was revelatory. Public trans is good for a lot, but there are some places the buses and trains just don't go.

Just saw this on Lin-Manuel Miranda's Instagram! FULL TRAILER PEOPLE!

Theoretically speaking if Mary had reason to believe she was pregnant with her late husband's child son, that claim would supercede the claim of Catherine's next oldest son as King of France. And assuming the mother would be the regent for an underage child (as Mary's own mother was at the time for Scotland, and as Catherine is soon to become for Charles), Mary would have control of the throne for about 15 years before her child could rule in his own right. And that's still a stretch because since both Catherine and Mary are foreigners (despite both of them having noble French mothers), they're on about equal ground with the people of France, even if Mary is already a queen of another country and Catherine is a commoner. There would be just as much of a good reason to elect Catherine the regent for her grandchild, considering by this point she has prior experience regent...ing? Not to mention Mary's Guise uncles trying to grasp for power through her would step forth as regency candidates. I suppose Mary may be plotting to put herself forth as Regent for her brother-in-law Charles, with the help of her uncles. But she absolutely has no rights to the throne through her childless marriage, and I'm guessing the only argument she would have for being Charles's regent is because...she's there and still a Queen? Of a country she hasn't seen in at least a decade? I'm pretty sure the most Mary got out of being Dowager Queen of France was permission to add it to her coat of arms. (Incidentally this is another thing that ticks me off about the timeline change. Catherine and Mary were two reigning queens sharing a court the whole time Mary was in France. By not making Catherine Queen until so much later, she as a Princess would have to give precedence to the little girl she was raising with her own children. Their dynamic as two queens in one castle was weird enough already, this story change to Catherine as Princess while Mary was a Queen makes things so very much more weird. Other than the King and Queen, Mary maintained a higher rank than anyone at court including the Royal Children.)

Eh, I'm not a fan of the time skip at all. To begin with, after having Liv Hill on screen for the majority, it's too hard to believe Samantha Morton as playing early 30s. I think what's bothering me most is that they completely fucked the timeline here, keeping the Old King alive for an extra decade. By doing that, Henri will have the throne for only a couple of years as opposed to the decade he had it. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to believe that Catherine De Medici spent 15 years being meek and quiet? In the first episode, the whole kitchen staff was afraid of her. Did she somehow gain her reputation in only a handful of years? And why should I believe the Old King knew how smart she is when the last time we heard of anything she did for the kingdom was a decade and a half ago? It's just skipping way too much interesting material. Even when she wasn't involved in the government of the realm, Catherine was a unusually loving mother (except to Margo) for the time who put a lot of effort into finding her children good marriages and educating them. Diane did insert herself into their lives, but the children were still close to their mother. The scene when she arrives with sweets struck me as incredibly weird, as they knew their mother had been ill, and for some crazy reason they were just outside the door when she lost their youngest sibling in a traumatic delivery. They should have come running to her the second they saw her. If the show wants to portray Catherine as a distant mother whose children don't particularly care about her (or prefer Diane), well that needed some build-up. Other things we didn't see that I wanted: the arrival of Mary at court, and how she and Catherine got along through the former's childhood. Why is Mary being such a bitch to the woman who effectively raised her? How about Catherine's relationships with her children as they grew; when she chose her favorites and maybe a bit of why she hated Margo so much? What about her and Henri's reactions to the Protestant/Catholic/Protestant pendulum swing around England? WHAT ABOUT THE MULTIPLE RELIGIOUS WARS ABOUT TO START? They didn't come from nowhere. I know the show is still trying to set them up, but in a much more compressed timeline. Honestly I think they needed the younger cast for one more episode covering about five years at least, and then they should have gone to Sam Morton as Queen. Yeah so, to me this episode was a misstep, but there's a good chance they can salvage it. I'm guessing they just wanted to get to Sam as quickly as they could.

I don't think you can say that you took care of a close friend's business while completely jettisoning the heart of it. Especially when it was a largely altruistic endeavor. Yeah they homed the cats that were already there, but Cat Cafes help socialize cats so they can be adopted, which is the ultimate goal for the cats in residence. There's a revolving roster as more cats are taken out of line for euthanasia and more shelter spots are freed. So Randi's changes may have literally cost lives. I want to appreciate that she made the business much more financially lucrative, but not at the cost of its soul.