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Helen was an absolute bitch in this episode. Wow. Also just completely ridiculous that all of those people would just rush to the hospital. Seriously? It’s amazing that anyone gets fed at Sullivans, Dana Sue, Isaac and Erik, when he isn’t sulking, are practically never there! And do none of the rest of them work? Who was at the spa? Have they never heard of phones?

She was triggered cause she knows they’re right but doesn’t want to admit it. To then or to herself.

Thank you! I can’t believe how these people communicate. It’s ridiculous. Everyone is so earnest, overly helpful and sensitive, it’s cloying. I especially cringe during scenes between the men, while I applaud scenes showing that men should support and check in on each other, it’s the WAY they do this that has me rolling my eyes. For a bunch of Christian folks, they’re also judgemental and gossipy. Add me to the list of people who can’t stand Ryan. The actor is terrible, the character is boring (even his clothes are beige). I just can’t see why Helen has pined for him all these years. Do kids actually ask the other parents for permission to date their daughters like that? First Jackson, now Kyle, maybe it was supposed to be sweet, but those scenes also made me cringe.

Aaron Smith-Levin confirmed it on the Supporters of Leah Remini and the Aftermath FB page (he also has a YouTube channel where he discusses it https://youtu.be/GS7EXnnKRcg)

Prosecutors can’t find Miscavige to serve him in trafficking suit

Paul Haggis found guilty of rape in civil trial Tony Ortega covered the Black Ops special filmed by Bryan Seymour for Channel 7 in Australia that was pulled before it aired and largely revolved around Haggis and this case. https://tonyortega.org/2020/10/09/scientology-black-ops-episode-10-bryan-seymour-wraps-up-his-series-axed-by-seven-news/

Kirsty Alley passed away

I can agree to a point. They’ve cut off drones, yes, but not other Borg queens. I find it impossible to believe they didn’t know she existed and try to eliminate her. It’s also somewhat unbelievable that Agnes has only one ship, at the very least she should have been going around picking up the drones she knows about like Hugh and Seven and that colony from Voyager. She’d also have knowledge of other ships that she could possibly take over. Plus you’d think she’d want to intervene at something like, I don’t know… Wolf 359? For people who were trying not to create any ‘butterflies’ creating a hybrid Borg Queen seems like a mighty big fail.

I found most of the first season boring and was going to skip season 2 until I found out Q and Guinan would be in it. Watched the first two eps of season 2 and thought the premise was great til we got to time travel back to 2024 (they have done this so many times in every Trek that it’s complete unoriginal at this point. Would have been better to make the time point where it diverged in the Third World War, or something more interesting than two years in from the crap we’re all currently living in). From the time jump back I was bored for 8 straight episodes. The ‘Jean-Luc experienced a childhood trauma that effects the fate of the universe’ thing was ridiculous and watching him go through 8 episodes of therapy was SO VERY BORING. Agnes is my least favourite new character and making her central to this plot and then making a new Borg Queen out of her was beyond stupid. If she’s now been around for four hundred years, then wouldn’t that mean that the original Borg doesn’t exist? That would have huge ramifications for the TNG, DS9 and Voyager crews at the very least. Like, you know, Locutus and Seven never existing. There was absolutely no reason for Soong or Kore to be in this season other than to feature those two actors. That that storyline led to Wil’s cameo as Wesley was the only saving grace. I enjoyed that moment mostly for what I know it means to Wil. As for the completely out of nowhere contrived crap of Laris and Picard’s romance, if he’s bound to find romance with someone now he’s no longer closed off then Beverly ‘been here all along’ Crusher for that storyline please. I was glad Chris stayed in the past, if only so we won’t have to see him in the future. Seven and Raffi were the only good thing in this season. Since Picard is over after season 3, please give us the Seven spin-off that Jeri Ryan deserves.

Another article about the suit. https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/scientology-accused-of-child-trafficking-forced-labour-of-australians-20220427-p5aghi.html Three Australian residents have accused Scientology of child trafficking, covering up multiple sexual assaults, forced labour and other abuses in a significant legal claim lodged in a Florida court overnight. The plaintiffs, Australian Gawain Baxter and residents Laura Baxter and Valeska Paris, are seeking significant “compensatory and punitive damages” against Scientology leader David Miscavige and five Church-related organisations for alleged human trafficking. The three were part of Scientology’s “Sea Org” and “Cadet Org” entities that involved them signing billion-year contracts to provide free or cheap labour to Scientology. The lawsuit alleges that their pay was sometimes withheld or set at a maximum of $US50 per week. They say they endured years of emotional, physical and psychological abuse, in particular while spending more than a decade aboard Scientology’s Freewinds cruise ship in the Caribbean in what the lawsuit described as “a world filled with abuse, violence, intimidation and fear”. One of the plaintiffs alleged they were confined to a hot engine room for days after being accused of “monopolising” the attention of a prominent celebrity who had their birthday on the ship in 2004, and who is believed to be actor Tom Cruise. There is no suggestion Cruise was aware of the plaintiff’s situation. The case, brought by leading US plaintiff law firms, alleges the free labour on the cruise ship allowed Scientology leader Miscavige to “maintain a facade of legitimacy, a luxurious lifestyle … and influence over members including celebrities”. Scientology was founded by US science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s and has long attracted celebrities including Elisabeth Moss, John Travolta and Cruise. Some former adherents have accused it of being a dangerous money-focused cult. Scientology has been approached for comment. The 86-page legal claim from US law firms Kohn, Swift & Graf, Preti Flaherty and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, details allegations of how children as young as six years old were separated from their parents who relinquished custody to the “Cadet Org” and later “Sea Org”, with family visits limited to once a week. While public members of Scientology can live in their homes, members of “Orgs” work as indentured labour both on sea and on land, the lawsuit alleges. They accumulate large debts from their time in the Orgs, which is then held over them if they ever leave. Gawain Baxter was raised a Scientologist and in 1982, at only a few weeks old, his family moved from Australia to Scientology’s Flag Base in Clearwater Florida. He became a Cadet Org member at six while living in a dormitory with 100 other children. By the age of 10 he saw his parents for only three hours a week and received very little education while labouring five to 10 hours unpaid a day including food preparation, landscaping and garbage removal, he alleges. He says he was regularly verbally and physically abused by adults connected to Scientology and subject as a teenager to explicit questions about his sexual experiences by adult Sea Org leaders. While living on the Freewinds – which never docks in US ports or territorial waters – he had his passport confiscated and worked 16 to 24 hours a day in unsafe working conditions, he alleges. That included repainting pipes, cleaning the ship decks and cleaning fuel tanks without safety equipment. He claims after working with blue asbestos and concrete dust he later coughed up blood. “To this day, there are completely defenceless minors being mistreated by Scientology leadership. Just as I was, they are isolated from family and have no way to protect themselves,” Baxter said in a statement. “Scientology must be held accountable for the human rights abuses and trauma it has inflicted without a shred of remorse.” Baxter and co-plaintiff Laura Baxter, who married, were later able to leave Freewinds after they came up with a plan to get pregnant to escape. They were told to terminate the pregnancy but refused and were later let off the boat after weeks of punishment and isolation, the lawsuit alleges. In 2004 Laura Baxter alleges she was punished and confined to a hot engine room on the ship for three days, only allowed to leave for short periods at a time, after being accused of “monopolising” the attention of a celebrity during their birthday celebrations. Tom Cruise had a party for his 42nd birthday on Freewinds in 2004. The other plaintiff, Valeska Paris, who now lives in Australia, had parents who were Sea Org members and was brought up as a Scientologist. By six years old she was in the Cadet Org and over more than a decade was sexually assaulted on multiple occasions as a minor, she claims. She alleged the physical and sexual abuse was commonplace in the Cadet Org, and she had witnessed an adult Sea Org member masturbate on a boy’s bed. She said she was reprimanded for reporting the behaviour. Paris alleged a senior Sea Org member rubbed his erect penis against her genitals. She said she had to relive her sexual assaults with adult male interrogators and was punished for reporting them and forced, on one occasion, to do the laundry of her alleged abuser. Paris said she was a personal assistant to Miscavige and worked 16-hour days as a 15-year-old and was “sleep-deprived, poorly fed and constantly verbally abused by adult supervisors”. She said she became suicidal and eventually ended up doing forced labour at a Scientology site in Australia and had her passport confiscated. Scientology has been accused of running a “penal colony” at a western Sydney site. “Scientology is a system that is designed to perpetuate fear, and I continue to struggle with the trauma. No person – child or adult – should have to go through the daily abuse and manipulation I faced,” said Paris. The lawsuit describes how Org members have to self-report deviant thoughts and behaviour during repeated interrogations, material that is then later used against them. “Scientology cannot be allowed to continue exploiting the labour of its members and inflicting emotional and physical abuse without facing justice,” said Ted Leopold, a lawyer for the plaintiffs from Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll. A 2021 investigation by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald uncovered some of the most detailed financial information available anywhere in the world on Scientology. It found it had shifted tens of millions of dollars into Australia, which has become an international haven and makes tax-free profits with minimal scrutiny.

I thought this season was ok, but a lot of what seemed to be major plot points were glossed over. There were three or four episodes of Maddie imploring Kyle to tell her what happened, as though it was some huge secret but I assume what we saw in the finale is all there was to it? Miss Francis dies off-screen? There’s a scene with Maddie, her mother and the kids discussing going to visit the new baby, but we don’t see that, yet we see the whole town drop over and give her gifts (which seemed way OTT). Just some really curious choices. Helen has a miscarriage and is still angsty from losing Ryan again, but bounces back to fall for Eric very quickly and then seems to regress immediately when Ryan shows up again? I agree with JillyBean that Ryan is boring, plus he’s jerked Helen around enough. Dana-Sue is hard to take. I couldn’t fathom why either guy found her attractive. She’s so shrill and judgemental. I was glad Ronnie called her on that and that she started to realise she had faults too, but honestly don’t think either of them is good for the other. Maddie and Cal are booooorrrring. And his anger issues seem manufactured just to give him something to do. Didn’t care about any of the kid storylines, and too much time was wasted on them. The Issac’s parentage storyline was my favourite, right til the end. Any of the other guys as his father would have been a better choice. Can you imagine if he was the mayor’s son and what that would have done to that family? But to make him Bill’s 5th kid was ridiculous. Maddie’s reaction was also over the top. I could understand it if he knew and never said anything, but given that he was never told, not sure how she could reasonably expect him to stop repeating that mistake. I assume she was thinking more of having to weather yet more gossip and what this would do to her kids, but still.

She has THE WORST clothes. And I’m sorry, but with that brassy hair colour she needs to stop wearing so many reddish browns/orange shades.

Have to agree with Leah on that one, but guess everyone has to make their own peace with their past. I certainly respect Leah and Mike and everyone who spoke out as part of Aftermath (or any of the other avenues) more than I do the Laura Prepon’s of the world. I still don’t get why the press don’t ask them more about this stuff though.

Great article about Jean in Variety with quotes from Annie Potts and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, mentions Delta and Dixie as well. Jean Smart Has Been TV’s MVP for Years. With ‘Hacks’ and ‘Mare of Easttown,’ the World Finally Noticed

I wondered that too. And if she left that long ago she could have spoken up as part of Aftermath, but I guess she didn’t want to draw fire her way? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Also be interesting to see her thoughts on the Masterson case. Don’t know why the press never asks these obvious questions.