Rickster

Muppets were way overused, especially when they forced them to edit down the Donut Hole. I’ll be using the FF button more in the future if they’re still around. Zipline stopped short of the pole on last season’s Polecano, but this one seemed to stop even shorter.

Gotta point out that this episode might have been a two-fer for provinces, since he also visited Friuli. While I was joking about running out of places to visit, it might be the case that not every province will be judged to be interesting enough to devote an entire episode to it. Friuli has a very unique cuisine, but this might be all we see of it.

I have to assume that a covid resurgence interfered with the filming, which is why they’ve ended up with an episode in London. Or they ran out of interesting food destinations in Italy?

In general, I thought the songs for the celebrity edition shows were easier than on last year’s show (maybe because I’m old) so I enjoyed them more. I wonder if that will change when they go back to regular contestants. I think Randy looks less emaciated this year.

I sort of suspected they reshot the ending, too. It seemed odd for Ken to wait to walk off. I could see where he immediately walked off, Robin perhaps left to persuade him to come back, and they reshot the judges showing Ken with his arms folded.

I know the previous episode had a disclaimer at the end that at least some audience shots were from prior seasons. So what FOX chooses to show is not necessarily reality, at least in regard to the audience.

I was surprised they would even bother to put the knee guy on the show if they didn't have a resolution to show. I was also amazed that, on what look like a complex case, she didn't have preliminary x-rays/MRI before diving right in and poking around.

I thought the rape accusation was after the affair story broke. Good point about timelines. I couldn't figure out how the prosecutor could be reviewing a case file when the police hadn't even interviewed the suspect. I didn't care for the blowback effect at the end. Too literal. I've watched the first two episodes and the beginning of a third and am having trouble getting into this.

One could speculate, if events happened the way they were shown, why did they need to show Ken walking off at all? It could have been easily edited out since it was right at the very end. I guess just to make people tune in next week for the supposed aftermath?

Hate to do the book comparison, but…. In the book, in my fuzzy recollection, this goes down in a train and tube station. They clear the station and shut down the transit on River’s orders and in the panic, several civilians are injured and one has a stroke. It’s not immediately apparent that River’s right about the white shirt/blue shirt issue like it is in the show. Lamb implies it is only River’s grandfather’s connection that keeps him from being drummed out of the service. But I agree there are aspects that don’t stand up to close examination.

Really interesting article. Thanks for posting the link. Wish I had seen the segment, but I don’t have the patience to sit through hours of mediocrity for the occasional gold nugget.

So this morning, Lidia Bastianich is on, making a frittata omelet with Savannah’s assistance. Lidia is cutting ham slices into matchstick sized pieces and describing what she is doing. Savannah adds excitedly, “that’s Giuliani-ing! I learned that on my cooking show!” 😳

I wonder if this season’s format had something to do with production constraints and/or the willingness of contestants to devote time and effort to the show. I agree it doesn’t work well. Never seen Dog’s shows, but we were surprised how short he was.

Still not sold on Oldman as Lamb, but I am enjoying it. Like the rest of the cast. Glad to see non book readers can follow it, as it seems to me some scenes are compressed vs. the book ( or maybe I just took my time reading it).

One of the very few times my guess was right! Came to me after the playing card clue.

My question is: Is the show now permanently back in NY? Or is this just a kick off week for the fourth hour and will they retreat back to the bunker?

I would say it a bit differently, that there are some contestants that commit to a show or two and are voted off first, the rest are probably committed for the duration.

Pretty sure there was a title at the end that said this was filmed in Dublin, Ireland. Went by pretty fast.

I guess…and agree about the farting and smoking (which are overdone in the books), but the physicality is a big part of the character. I would have seen a bigger bulkier actor like a Brendan Gleeson or Robbie Coltrane type as a better fit (both are probably too old though). My complaints remind me of all the flak about Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher.

Huge fan of the book series. Looking forward to this, but more than a little concerned with the casting of Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb. He seems just physically wrong for the part. The accent he uses, as far as I can tell from the trailer, also doesn’t seem to fit the character (at least in my mental conception). Seems to have been chosen to underline the contrast between Lamb and Kristin Scott Thomas’s upper crusty characterization of Taverner.

Sarma has a blog, sarmaraw.com, for anyone who’s interested. She mentions that she was paid by the producers for her participation. The money went directly to an attorney for her former employees to settle a suit for back wages. I think as a result the documentary is not really an objective view of the situation. As others have mentioned, and I agree, one of the big failings of this series is the lack of probing into Sarma - it’s basically her perspective on things, which is often puzzling. (Full disclosure - I’ve only watched the first two episodes)

Inquiring minds (actually my girlfriend) want to know, why do Kenny and Chris always wear the same clothes in every show? Don’t they even have a change of shirts? Or are they filming all this in one day?

I loved the first 4 episodes of this series, sort of like a Coen brothers movie in the Outback. My opinion started to change in episode 5, where I thought the LSD trip went on a bit too long, and I hated, hated, hated the final episode starting from when the Russian woman entered the picture. It seemed like such a wrong way for the series to end. About the only justification I can think of is setting up a Season 2, where what we saw will be shown to be a misdirect, like so much else in the show.

Pretty sure I saw Tank’s head being petted early in the last episode. Was trying to figure out why an Albanian police station had shields on the wall with “ Polska” on them.

Don’t know what time the press conference was, but we had TODAY on in the background from 7-9 and I’m pretty sure there was no press conference on.