CleoCaesar

And we’re back. No one seems to have changed. Beth is still pushy and rude. Randall is still inappropriately intense with Deja. Kate is still a tiresome wet blanket who shits on anything happy. Annie is still the cutest. So the “she” in the future is…Rebecca maybe? I don’t know what world TV writers live in, but I’ve never had anyone come up to me and spit out a 2-minute monologue while I silently listened. (Tonight’s example: Deja and her father. Or Jack in the car to Rebecca. Or Randall to Deja.) It’s just so staged and fake. Speaking of sounding fake, why does Milo do that weird voice/accent for this character? It sounds like he has rocks in his mouth and is attempting to sound Southern. He never – not once – sounded like this during Gilmore Girls. Ugh why did the fertility clinic lady cave? She had an excellent point about Kate’s weight and the associated risk. They're much better off exploring adoption.

Kem and Carter would have been a fine "fling in a foreign land"-type thing. They never seemed to have any kind of foundation for marriage much less a kid, so I'm not surprised it all came crashing down after Joshua died. They wanted to live in different places, lead different lives, and frankly Kem never seemed all that invested. It seemed like she was just trying to make the best out of an unexpected pregnancy with a great guy whose ideals matched her own, and Carter was in love with her and mentally building a life with her. Bad combo. Carter's series ending - no wife, no children, no happy family life he always craved - was one of the most bittersweet things about the show. We saw him go from plucky naive med student to a seasoned doctor, the new Dr. Greene who sets the tone. Any other show would have given him a happy conclusion. Not ER, though. Personally, I thought it was totally realistic, and I'm impressed the show had the guts not to tie up his story in a false happy Hollywood ending.

I guess I'll never understand this postmodern (?) approach to text analysis. IMO of course an author is more privvy to the characters he or she created. They literally wouldn't exist without the author, nor would anything that happens to the characters. An author's interpretation of his or her own text will always be the correct one, and certainly more correct than a fan's reading of it. I think it takes a certain amount of arrogance (no personal offense intended, Milburn Stone) to state that someone understands an author's words/character more than the author who wrote/created them. Or that a fan's reading and the author's reading is on the same level of "correctness."

Please tell me I wasn't the only one to yell "Run, Forrest, run!!" when Cole took off with the urn. I borderline loved this episode. Yes, I could have done without the Princeton scenes entirely. But the Noah and Helen scene was one of the best this show has had. I agree with posters saying Helen seems very much in love with Noah, but he's moved on. Helen saying she doesn't care about Vik's infidelity because she fucked Sienna too (and Noah's giggling reaction) was hilarious. Maura Tierney was so good this episode. I genuinely thought that Helen was going to jump off the building in the end there. I need season 5 to feature Whitney being run over by a truck.

How fitting that Alison the eternal victim dies as a literal victim (of a homicide). I'm not sorry to see her go. Her constant "everyone is against me" way of going through life got tiresome very quickly. And all the things she did have an active role in were just vile: cheating on Cole, playing a part in breaking up Noah and Helen's marriage, cheating on Noah, lying to Noah about Joanie's paternity, abandoning Joanie for six months, fighting Cole and Luisa for custody, the list goes on. Alison was a horrid, miserable person. I feel bad for Cole, Joanie and even Athena. But I'm glad we'll never have to see her "woe is me" POVs anymore.

I've hated Martin since the first ten minutes of the pilot for that sociopathic suicide prank. No normal person would do that to their parent. I guess it was a good sign that the Solloway family was fucked up even if it looked pretty on the surface.

To be fair, if my sons were even half as obnoxious and exhausting as Martin and Trevor, I too would latch onto the first sane, polite kid who took an interest in my work.

Not a bad episode. I hate all the characters I've seen her play, but I do think Maura Tierney is a very good actress. She adds a certain gravitas. So I liked her half of the episode. The neighbor chick is such a ditz that her whining about her late-20s existential crisis was very tiresome to listen to, but painfully realistic. Had to fast-forward most of Noah's scenes because I just don't care about him. It was delicious karmic punishment for him. He threw away a 20-year marriage and family life with 4 kids to chase some overly dramatic waitress...and this is his just deserts.

At this point I'd be fine with Luisa getting sole custody of Joanie. She's an ocean of sanity and responsibility compared to Joanie's flaky dumb biological parents. Add me to the list of people baffled at how Cole and Allison can just drop everything to fly across the country because of their precious fee fees. Damn, Tim Matheson has really aged. He'll always be John Hoynes and/or evil Trevor in the excellent A Very Brady Sequel. I more or less cheered when Helen told Allison to stop being the eternal victim. Long overdue. I wonder how much of the airplane scene actually happened, and how much was just Allison's unstable POV.

Kind of makes perfect sense that a woman showrunner explores how much men just won't do emotional labor.

So apparently no one can just keep it in their [married] pants on this show. Ugh. Just disgusting. Cheaters are pretty much the lowest of the low for me and this show actually does a bang-up job of illustrating why. Cowardly, weak, selfish idiots. That being said, good episode. Really enjoyed Vic's point of view, that was fresh. And for all of its fundamental sleaziness, Gabriel and Nan's story was a poignant one.

I think that honor goes to Abby Lockhart on ER...also played by Maura Tierney. She's certainly been typecast as a dour wet blanket.

After the stupidity of last season, this premiere left me feeling relieved and kind of charitable towards the show. I mean, nothing could be worse than season 3. I'm a New Yorker so I'll miss the original setting but I can get on board with seeing more ocean-view LA real estate porn. Vic has a jerkiness about him but he's a good husband and willing, capable stepfather to 2 (technically 4) kids so I'll cut him a lot of slack. Plus the attractiveness factor, that too. Don't care at ALL about Noah going all Dangerous Minds on his students. Had to fast forward all those scenes. Every main character is a cretin in their own ways, but it's been three seasons of that so it's nothing new. Helen still inspires a bit of sympathy for me but that's really stretching it. Calling it now: she is the one that has the affair with the neighbor, not Vic.

This is all the exact opposite of what we've been shown for 3 seasons of the Bobby/Wendy dynamic.

This episode was just awful on every level. Seasons 1-3 feel like an entirely different series. I can't believe how far this show - one of my very favorites - has fallen.

Everwood Revival: 'There's a Real Shot It Could Come Back,' Says Greg Berlanti Kind of mixed feelings about this (judging by the excrement that was the Gilmore Girls revival), but it could be cool to see everyone together again. Probably without Chris Pratt, I'd imagine, given his schedule.

I meant he loves her for some reason.

My Haley endgame is no one. She is way too young and immature to even think of getting married to any of these chuckleheads. She's flighty, dramatic, and irresponsible with no career or even stable job, no independent living situation, and she just seems like a child. She hasn't really grown up since season 1, aside from a better sisterly relationship with Alex. Her preferred method of communication in a romantic relationship is throwing tantrums and waiting for the guy to come chasing after her. (Case in point, this episode: She dramatically shrieks to Arvin over the phone that she is breaking up with him and that they're over. Then at the hospital she tells Andy that she and Arvin are "complicated." No, hon, you broke up with him an hour ago, remember? That's not complicated. But of course he apologizes and tells her he loves her. For some reason.) I'd rather she not end up married (or worse, pregnant) in her early 20s. What's the rush? I mean, yes, in the real world a Haley type would lock down an older, successful guy ASAP. But this is a nice sitcom about a likeable family and that would seem mean-spirited, albeit realistic.

I'm aware. I don't agree with that particular law.

My very unpopular opinions: My favorite female characters were Corday, Weaver, and Neela. Jeanie Boulet should not have been allowed to keep working in the ER. Benton and Corday was hot, and Eriq La Salle's telling the writers to stop it based on the fact that she was white is indeed racist. Season 13 was among my favorites. I also liked seasons 14 and 15 (in addition to the early seasons). Couldn't stand the middle period where the old-timers had all left but the newcomers weren't interesting yet.

The birth mother said very plainly that she'd never accept Kerry's sexuality. What was Kerry supposed to do, hang around and hope that her bigoted mother gets a clue one day? Christian fundamentalists aren't exactly a flexible bunch. Kerry was right to have respect for herself and leave that mess behind. Doesn't exactly make her intolerant, and nowhere near on the level of her birth mother.

Damn that was a good episode! I find myself in the unusual position of not having anything to nitpick. I wasn't a fan of Amy/Sheldon in their first few years but they really grew on me.

Haley and the professor continues to irritate me. Really he loves her? What, exactly? Her room-temperature IQ? Her Kardashian looks? Her flighty, dramatic personality? This relationship came out of nowhere and Haley went from being the fairly normal young woman she was with Andy back to being a complete dummy. She and the Brit have literally nothing in common, no chemistry (physical or otherwise), and I can't imagine what they see in each other.

That's exactly how I feel about Pacey and Joey. I wasn't comparing P/J to D/J. Both were absolutely ridiculous and childish pairings, but only one was absurdly venerated by the fandom and still is (P/J, obviously).

Preach it. Season 4 is my favorite but P/J was just such an eye-roll-worthy couple. They had a dramatic fight every single episode that season and always some cheesy makeup speech at the end. It was so immature and exhausting, and it always baffled me that people rooted so much for them as a couple. They were just awful together and brought out the absolute worst in each other. I never got the appeal.