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I did not mean to imply that electromagnetic fields are unequivocally harmless and I'm sorry if I've done that. I'm just pointing out that people who claim to have acute physical reactions to EMF don't reliably reproduce those physical symptoms when tested in blind studies. That is, they will have physical reactions when EMF is not present (but have been told it is) and have no reaction when EMF is present (but have been told it is not.) Whether Chuck has apparently EMF induced brain tumors, infertility, or testicular cancer is probably beyond the scope of this discussion.

He's definitely not actually sensitive to EM. No one is. But his panic attacks when he believes he is being bombarded by electricity are real.

Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity is what's called a "nocebo effect." Essentially what this means is that the patient experiences very real negative physical reactions to an inert substance or environmental condition. People who claim to have EMH cannot actually sense electromagnetic forces when tested in blind studies. But it would be a mistake to say that they are faking their symptoms in any way. (Nocebo is very similar to placebo in that both are psychogenic. The only difference is that the patient experiences a detrimental effect from an inert substance or environmental condition as opposed to a positive effect.)

When my brother was 8 he stole a gluestick from a paper shop. Now he's in law enforcement. People change. There are many complete and utter screw-ups who fixed their lives and became human beings with a little support from friends and families. Say, Robert Downey, Jr. Jimmy seemed to be on that road--no trouble for years until his brother stabbed him in the back and he ended up living in a nail salon and arguing shit cases for pennies on top of the hours he spent each day meeting his mentally ill brother's exacting requirements for agoraphobic living. If Chuck had given Jimmy a chance (just as Kim says in this episode) he could have helped Jimmy become something more than a chimp with a gun. Chuck is getting exactly the brother he deserves.

I felt like Kim was my very own personal audience surrogate in this episode. She knows Jimmy did exactly what Chuck is saying but she also knows exactly where both of them are coming from. And, like me, she judged Chuck to be the guiltier of the two. I could have written her monologue and pretty much did in last week's episode thread. (Only not nearly as well, because I am not a writer for one of the best shows on television.) I am experiencing some sweet, sweet schadenfreude at Chuck's panic over the betrayal. Don't like how it feels, do you, Chuck? I'm glad he hit his stupid head. The actor is amazing, by the way. I never have intense feelings for characters played by terrible actors. I also loved the bedroom scene with Kim and Jimmy. "Chuck's a smart lawyer... no stone unturned... would have to be extremely careful to not leave any evidence behind..." Then she offers no further comment when Jimmy climbs out of bed and picks up his keys. I really dig the complexity of their relationship.

The actor was recently in an episode of Grimm where he was using magix to essentially create and sell a Fountain of Youth product/service. At one point he gets this crazed look on his face and proclaims that he's "69 years young!!"

Chuck may not hate Jimmy, but I don't think he's trying to do what's best for Jimmy in every case. It was one thing to convince Jimmy that two people couldn't handle a Rico case against Sandpiper--they really couldn't, and it was in the best interest of the clients to move the case to the firm. But his motivations for directly and wilfully sabotaging Jimmy are always selfish. He will endure any amount of EMR in order to keep Jimmy from being a success and has done so twice now. He barely cared about losing their newest client until Jimmy was mentioned. Eternal punishment for people who have had troubled pasts isn't fair to those attempting to reform. Jimmy was so proud of himself for passing the bar and Chuck told him that he wasn't a "real lawyer." The ABA doesn't agree. If Chuck hadn't sabotaged Jimmy's efforts to work for the firm he wouldn't have felt nearly as much pressure to return to his Slippin' Jimmy ways to keep a roof over his head and himself plied with illicit after-hours cucumber water. It's notable that Jimmy didn't question his actions with respect to the Kettleman money until after he found out about Chuck's machinations. And, as I pointed out earlier, he's graduated to fraud due to his anger at Chuck for screwing Kim over just because she had allied herself with Jimmy. It's not Chuck's fault that Jimmy's committing fraud, but I don't believe that Jimmy would have leapt into the abyss without Chuck's interference. There's an almost Shakespearean sense of the tragedy of inevitability in their relationship. And, frankly, when Chuck says that he would do the same (unearth him from the space blankets, provide sustenance and support, etc.) for Jimmy if their roles were reversed, I just don't believe him. Jimmy is the type of guy who will ask his brother to take off his shoes and feel the grass between his toes, come up with ingenious ways for his brother to feel safe at work by suggesting space liners for his suits, and go out of his way for over a year to cater to his brother's illness. When Jimmy's in trouble he doesn't even think of asking Chuck for help, because he knows that all he will find there is anger, judgment, and cruelty.

So, does anyone else find it weird that Damian Dahrk is married to a woman named Ruvé and that Neal McDonough's actual wife's name is also Ruvé? I mean, if we were talking about a name like "Elizabeth" I wouldn't be so taken aback, but I was legit confused a few messages back when people were talking about Ruvé. I was all, "Wait, Neal's wife is on this show?!" Anyway. I'm fine with Laurel being dead. There are too many masks on this show. I prefer ensembles where one or two guys/gals do the heavy action lifting and everyone else is logistics and emotional support. That it was rather hamfisted is also fine with me. At least they're consistent. Add me to the chorus of people sending mad props to Blackthorne. Amell really ups his game in scenes with this actor.

Sure, with the benefit of watching a prequel to a series where Saul is an established character, we all know that Slippin' Jimmy/Saul Goodman are endgame. However, the interesting thing to me is that Chuck's machinations seem to hasten the emergence of Saul. We have evidence, on this show, that Jimmy can and will do the right thing even if Chuck knows nothing about it. No Chuck pressure to speak of. To wit: he and Mike dealt with the Kettleman money with much more integrity than Chuck would have believed possible from Slippin' Jimmy. To the point where he even throws in his own cash to square things up. He spent years doing a shitty mailroom job while working on a law degree in an effort to show his brother that he could fly straight after his most recent bailout. If we extract BrBa from the equation, I don't think that Jimmy's downfall was necessarily written in stone. Would Walter White have become Heisenberg without cancer? Would Jimmy have become Saul without Chuck? That's what I think episodes like Fifi really dig into. If we could magically roll back Chuck's betrayal, I see no reason why Jimmy wouldn't have an office and still be trying to be a good boy for Chuck. In this episode we really see Jimmy being a criminal lawyer. And why? To get back at Chuck.

Iris West in the pilot: See, they had to bring up the brother/not brother awkwardness right away, which just brought it to the forefront for some people. Add that to the many, many scenes emphasizing the "second father" nature of Barry's relationship with JWest and I can see why many viewers end up trying to picture themselves falling in love with someone they've seen tucked into bed wearing Spiderman underoos and just not being able to understand romantic love emerging from that situation. It's certainly not textbook incest--they aren't related at all. But for some people, it's hard to relate to. Count me as one of them. However, as I said in an episode thread, I don't care if they finally put Iris and Barry together. I'm just not feeling the "epic love" that supposedly happens in the comics.

I never read the comics but a friend of mine who is well-versed in the history of The Flash is convinced that the Time Wraiths are at least partially inspired by Black Flash, particularly because their design seems to feature a partial cowl.

Maybe I've been watching too much of The Fosters, but I have always been slightly squicked out by the idea of falling in romantic love with someone you grew up with and share father figures with. So I'm not at all invested in Barry's OTP on this show. I don't begrudge the screen time dedicated to the development of the relationship, but it also fails to move me when Barry takes time out from saving the world in the dumbest way possible to heal Iris' broken heart muscle. Speaking of being dumb, what the hell, Barry? I get that the show is boring if he doesn't make mistakes because all the drama disappears, but he wasn't even trying to act surprised when Wells/Thawne was sitting in a normal chair while he was strapped to the wheelchair. That is the first thing he should have mentioned, not this whole stuttery "wtaf dude" thing he immediately committed to. Wells/Thawne's ability to see through Future Barry would have been even creepier and more disturbing if Barry had actually made an effort. Meh. I guess no new episodes for three weeks or so? It's hard to stay excited about this show with all these breaks.

I think the implication that she will need continued help was made when she was pressing for Mike's approval and doing a hard sell on the benefits of the home and neighborhood. If he was just handing over a down payment, all of that would really be just up to her. I was mesmerized by the flashback that opened the episode and the inflatable montage. I loved that Chuck was right again, but still not fully genuine. He told Kim that his dad couldn't see anything bad in anyone and that it was impossible to convince him that Jimmy'd been skimming the till. But we got to see that his dad was skimming his own till, too. I saw Jimmy's theft as rebellion and self-affirmation. He tried to help his dad and be a good guy, but his dad wouldn't listen. It embarrassed him that his dad was a well-known sheep. He wasn't going to be member of the herd. I also loved the scene where Kim turns Jimmy down again. Jimmy knows who he is now, and he's finally realized that he can't just shape himself into whatever anyone else wants him to be. He'll always chew and worry that bit. It was great to see him say it out loud and even better when Kim didn't just dump him on the spot. No on the partnership, sure, but she clearly likes Jimmy for who he is just as long as he isn't impacting her own trajectory.

While I'm glad that the cat's out of the bag with Brallie, I'm annoyed that the natural next step will likely be a CPS investigation into the Fosters and/or a rescindment of the adoption. (Foster siblings having sex and inappropriate intimacy on more than one occasion, a sex offender having contact with minor children with the parents' knowledge and consent.) I'm not a parent, but I would find it very difficult to love Callie. She's fueled by a need for self-centered melodrama and impulse-driven behavior to the point where I wonder if it's pathological. I would have had her ass in weekly therapy, court-mandated or not. Especially after the AJ incident. The situation with Liam was abusive but it might have set her up for a pattern of inappropriate sexual behavior that may not even be fueled by genuine attraction to Brandon or AJ or whomever--it's like she just needs to replay that power dynamic over and over again. With respect to Jude, I think it's in character. He has always resisted the label and he even said that he was "gay for Connor" at the LGBT prom. The behind-the-scenes stuff might be driving this storyline, but it's fine. The actor is young and shouldn't feel pressured to do anything he isn't comfortable with to satisfy a tv show narrative. Brandon is just annoying. That's quite an apartment. He's definitely a rescuer personality type. The problem with this is that he will either fail to fix a situation and then suffer, or the problem is solved and then he will be bored and off to rescue the next damsel. Meh. The cliffhanger was annoying. We've had a lot of shooting on this show. I'm not really up for more.

This show is really frustrating to watch. I just glommed it on Netflix and caught up to this episode today. I'm not sure why TPTB is trying to sell us a star-crossed love story that they haven't actually written. If you go all the way back to how Brallie was introduced, it is very much an infatuation fueled by newness and excitement brought on by the Jude melodrama. These kids have very little in common--she has a passing interest in music and he seems to be primarily interested in coming to her rescue. The main problem is that all of the drama is entirely manufactured. She could have become Brandon's lover at any point and just let her father adopt her. The continued insistence that she become a Foster--that this was the only way she could get a real family--is just nonsense. If her bio dad was a jerk or a criminal I would have much more empathy for the couple. But the R&J episode just cements the overarching theme of the show--Drama brought on by Big Misunderstandings coupled with Keeping Secrets. The flashback/fantasy style of this episode was manipulative to the point of being aggravating, which gave me a little taste of what it would be like to actually know Callie if she were a real person. And I guess that's why I am annoyed by this show. It had a lot of promise, but I am finding it impossible to like any of the children except Mariana. Brandon is a lot smarter than his actions would indicate. Callie is manipulative and controlling. Jude has become an uninteresting shell, reduced to storylines only about his sexuality. Jesus is just all over the place and hard to have empathy for because he's vapid. Mariana I get. She's a teenager who makes mistakes, but she seems to learn from them and work on changing herself for the better. Everyone else lives on a hamster wheel. I was hoping that R&J was going to teach Brallie a lesson, but not so much.

I think he was being picayune because he thought that killing Tuco was the worst choice, so he was downplaying the merits of Nacho's fairly simple plan. I think Mike was absolutely in character--when dealing with idiotic, drug addled, or skittish criminals (Walt, Nacho, Humvee Nerd Drug Dealer, Lydia, Jesse) Mike has always taken on this practical, naysaying persona and has been known to playact in elaborate schemes to gain a psychological advantage. On BrBa there was this whole thing where Jesse "saves" Mike from "rival dealers" who were actually working for Mike in order to get Jesse on Fring's side and cement his break with Walt. I saw this scene with Tuco and Nacho as more of the same. One thing has always been true of Mike--his client's best interests are his chief concern because they are usually also his best interests. Mo' money, fewer problems. If he sees his client behaving in an unnecessarily risky manner, he either ends the relationship or does his utmost to convince them that they're wrong. The most deferential I ever saw him was to Fring.

We were, however, shown very specifically and pointedly that he was wearing a watch. And last season he spent an extended period of time outdoors with Jimmy, feeling the grass between his toes while the spectre of a power line loomed overhead. I think the show has given us enough clues to demonstrate that Chunk knows that he isn't actually sensitive to EMF. But I don't think he is faking his illness or his fear, so you're mischaracterizing my posts if you're insinuating that. I think his mental illness is absolutely legit and I have no doubt that he is suffering. But I do think he uses his illness as a tool, and he has more than enough information and intellect to recognize that his fears are irrational even if he continues to be a slave to them.

I honestly can't decide if they're styling Ali poorly to punish the actress for gaining weight or if they're just terrible at dressing normal people. We're not talking Skyler-level of steroid fueled weight-gain here. She's got a little meat on her bones, that's it. It's not like firefighters have to break down a wall to get her to work every day.

Hiding under his space blanket after Jimmy disappoints or upsets him is clear manipulation. He has very carefully cleansed his house of EMF, so there is literally nothing to protect himself from in his house.

I recently had to spend a week dog and catsitting while a relative went on vacation, and I spent it glued to Investigation Discovery because I don't have cable at home. The show that drives me absolutely crazy is Obsession: Dark Desires. I have tons of empathy for victims of stalking, but sometimes they do things I cannot fathom at all. Then I feel guilty because I recognize that I am, at the very least, skirting on the edge of victim blaming. Obviously the asshat attacking their ex in a remote desert location is ultimately responsible for his illegal and unethical behavior, but I can't help but want to throw things at the tv when the victim reports that she has agreed to meet her stalker alone in a remote location on more than one occasion. WHY, victim, WHY? I also find myself sort of drooling at the television in shocked disbelief when victims report erasing evidence of stalking from electronic devices and giving up on the police when phone calls don't do anything to resolve the situation. I want to travel back in time and beg them to go to the damn police station in person if the phone isn't getting results and to stop erasing voice mails, texts, and emails from the stalker. And in one episode, a woman was having a terrible time convincing people that a dude was videotaping her openly in her home for months on end. Lady, GET YOUR OWN DAMN CAMERA AND RECORD HIS STALKER ASS. Ugh. I suppose when you're in the middle of these insane situations it's probably difficult to access common sense through the fear and stress. Which is why the apparent tendency to keep stalking a secret is also mystifying. An objective friend might be useful in such situations. Am I a jerk for thinking this way? I think I probably am.

They were angry with Kim for not being transparent about Jimmy's activities at D&M. Kim and co. (except for Chuck, obviously) recommended Jimmy to D&M, so anything he does to hurt the firm will reflect poorly on HHM. As others have mentioned, Kim could have easily saved herself by telling them that Jimmy lied to her about D&M's involvement with the commercial, but chose not to for whatever reason. I'm reasonably certain that if she had done so, HHM would have eased up on her. At Jimmy's expense, of course--they would have told D&M about the deception. Co-counsel situations can be complicated arrangements, but they are not in competition for clients at all. Each firm agrees to take on various responsibilities (billing, client acquisition and management, court filings and arguments, settlement negotiation, research, etc.) and determines what percentage each will take from the final settlement and what that percentage is based on. It's fairly common for small firms and/or single lawyers to get screwed by big firms if they're inexperienced, but smart lawyers bringing an impossibly large case to a bigger firm will insist on minimum percentages regardless of which firm puts in more billable hours or acquires the most clients for a class.

I think it's more complicated than that. It's entirely possible to have a severe anxiety disorder/ocd and be completely aware of how irrational all of your fears and phobias are and how those issues affect everyone around you. Not only have I personally experienced this, I've also known many people with severe anxiety, OCD, and phobias who suffer not just because of the primary disorder but because of their painful awareness of how much they affect everyone around them. That's the problem with Chuck. He's got the intellectual capacity to recognize his own irrationality. Even if he's too paralyzed to do anything about it right now, which is completely understandable, he's a scumbag for not even acknowledging to everyone around him that he has a problem and to apologize for requiring enablers to help him survive. He could be taking steps to minimize the negative effects he has on people due to his illness, but he just uses his disease as a hook to manipulate others. I would say the same thing if he had a physical illness (cancer, MS, whatever) and was using that to manipulate people.

That was the very first thing my friend and I talked about during our post-Flash after action report. I was like, "Dude.. dude! Someone at ARGUS was like, we have a giant shark man in an aquarium, but his junk is all floppin' up against the glass. We must engage a giant manpants tailor immediately." I am amazed at how much money The Flash spends on SFX for what I would normally consider to be throwaway villains. I mean, the SFX aren't good, but they use a lot of them.

This crystallizes exactly how I was feeling about these scenes. Jimmy works incredibly hard for a guy who turns into a criminal lawyer. Much of what he's done so far is ethically (and even legally) sketchy, but he mostly seems to break rules that he thinks are dumb and/or irrelevant in order to get results. When he begs his brother to extort him, there is a brief look of confusion on his face when Chuck explains that Jimmy's request is actually illegal. Then he just digs in, plowing forward stubbornly due to his anger and frustration. What's funny is that I actually think that Jimmy is very bright and even a good attorney, but he has zero reverence for the law as an institution of ideals. Chuck's completely right about this. But I still hate Chuck because he's never, ever willing to turn that discerning lens of truth on himself. Jimmy at least seems to be pretty self-aware, both on BCS and BrBa.

While I greatly appreciate that they're only using the first movie as canon (and not the horrendous remake), the clothing, vehicles, and props from the first movie are impossibly dated and difficult to handwave. The intense use of the movie music was also supremely distracting. Finding 666 tattooed on his skull was expected but also amusing--there is actually some fairly new scholarship that shows 666 to be a translation error, and that the actual NotB is 616. It would have been neat if the show knew that and made a nod. Oh well. I might give this one more episode.