EyesGlazed

I agree with all of the above posts about how this season is too short, too rushed, too compressed. And I really miss the hundred dancers battling it out in Vegas. I was captivated by the Viennese waltz even though there wasn't much waltz. The Bocelli music and the lovely choreography and costuming and the fact that Jordan (especially) and Beau were terrific all did it for me. I had chills. So I was sad that Jordan was auf'ed. She deserved better. I already know that Beau is going to go all the way because he's not that great a dancer (waltz excepted) and he has PERSONALITY so it will be an INSPIRATION to all of us rubes.

I am so happy this show is back! The dancers and the choreography move me. I love Cat and tWitch always. The audition episodes were fine, but IMHO it's the 5th episode where we see the contestants dance real choreography that it is getting really good. My only complaint is: Where is Alex Fucking Wong???? Bring him back as a judge please!

I quite enjoyed this show, more than I expected. This was definitely more hardass than the other P.R.s, these candidates had to be business people and merchandisers, not just be able to sew a garment. The trajectories of the different designers were interesting. The last 5-6 of them were consistently talented enough that I really looked forward to seeing what they created. The judges were generally good though I could have done without the social media influencer whom I'd never heard of. I enjoyed the visits to cool areas of Paris and Tokyo. And I'm buying something from Esther right now (truly - I am emailing with her about a jacket). My suggestions for future seasons: 1. Show the damn clothes more. Don't rush the runway, let us enjoy the looks. Show the judges examining the clothes, or at least the top and bottom looks, up close after the runway. (I always enjoyed Zak Posen's comments as he eyeballed and touched the top and bottom looks). 2. Agree with other posters, tone down the music and stop using 6-second snippets of songs continuously throughout each show. 3. Stick with Carine as a judge, or another experienced fashion magazine editor. And this:

Clearly an Unpopular Opinion on this board, but I'm thrilled Michelle won. She makes interesting, offbeat clothes and always has a unique and often beautiful take on the challenge. I love her 70s and 80s references. Her collection was the best, though Dmitry's was a close second. I also like her personality. People have complained about her snarking, but really? Dmitry and Irina were completely high on themselves and scornful of everyone else, to a degree both extreme and boring. I liked Biddell and his ideas, but his collection didn't draw you in. Go Michelle! I hope you can make it work.

Oh God I watched this episode with my hand clutching my own throat the whole time. That was amazing. I'm a mess. How on earth am I going to go to work tomorrow? RIP Jorah, Theon and Lyanna, you all had the deaths that you would have chosen. AND ARYA SAVES THE DAY! I fully expected it to be Jon Snow, and thank you Show for upending that old trope! The Night King didn't see that one coming either heh heh.

Holy HELL! I am so shocked and sad! When Noah went into the morgue to view the body, I fully expected it would not be Alison and he'd look up at Cole and shake his head no, and then they'd be back on the road looking for her. Gawd! It was just heartbreaking. I always wondered why the opening credits every season showed Alison in water when her son died by drowning and she never went swimming. It was foreshadowing I guess. But I'm glad this isn't the last season because it would just be too sorrowful to leave all the characters like this, with Alison dead and Vik dying. So here are my guesses: Alison did something loopy like going out on the jetty in the storm to say a sort of goodbye to her son and try to restart her life as a new "story" as Helen suggested, but then she was caught by a wave and died accidentally. Cole and Luisa stay together because now he really needs her and she doesn't know he was going to leave her. Ben f**ks off. Anton goes to Princeton and his mother moves to NJ and takes a good job at a school there. Sierra is pregnant and confesses all to Helen, who tells Vik, who is happy but continues dying. Next season, Sierra has the baby and Helen and Noah get back together and move back to New York. Noah writes another book. Or, maybe Cole and Sierra hook up. Ha ha just kidding.

Love all the comments, posters! And had a good chuckle over "fuckabout". If Sienna (who I warmed to in this episode, as others did) has Vik's baby, she better also get the life insurance and the car. And she'll likely be stuck with Vik's parents hanging all over her child. Perhaps they'll even sue for custody of the child. It's not an optimistic picture. I don't blame Helen at all for not wanting to be the incubator and caretaker of Vik's genetic material for the next 18 years. For sure, Delphine added the "sleep with someone else" card to get into Cole's pants. Yes, it was a mistake for the show to endow Cole and Allison with money. The class difference between them and the other characters was interesting and could have kept on being interesting. However, white privileged people experience pain and love just like other people do, and this show is basically a soap opera, so I'm not going to hate on the characters just because they have money. Poor Luisa. I actually sympathize with her. About to be divorced from the man she loves, and no green card. Why can't Cole get her a green card before they divorce? I thought that if a non-citizen marries a U.S. citizen and lives here, that person could get a green card eventually. Does anyone know about this?

I enjoyed the hell out of this season. But I'm not into the show's positioning Taylor and Connerty and Sacker as the bad guys to be taken down by Axe and Chuck. Axe is an amoral predator who thinks he's superman and doesn't have to live by other people's rules. Chuck is less interesting now that he isn't the US Attorney and, just because he's not the big cheese any more, has apparently given up caring that Axe is an amoral predator. Taylor didn't do anything that's so terrible in the financial world; they left the firm and took clients with them. It happens all the time. And Connerty got blackballed because he wouldn't turn a blind eye to Chuck and Wendy's illegal behavior. I can't hate either one of them. And I'm not into Wendy being vengeful either, though I would watch that actress read the phone book. I agree with other posters that it's not consistent with Sacker or Connerty's characters that they'd turn in Chuck to Jeffcoat, who makes them prosecute innocent people to pander to racist voters. My hope is that one of the AUSAs decides to take on the role of Jeffcoat-killer, because that guy is a shitheel.

Just once, I'd like to yell at someone annoying: I'M CIA, MOTHERFUCKER! And no, the beating the crap out of the 4chan troll was not meant to be "female empowerment." Carrie was out of control, and the previews for next week appear to show that she realizes it. I'd like to know how the hacking subplot plays into the season as a whole. Carrie did take the troll's computer on her way out, right? Maybe she finds useful information on it, or she and Max use it to snoop, I mean investigate. But I must admit, I cheered when Carrie head-butted that scumbag. Carrie's sister is a saint. Having Carrie around is a daily strain on her whole family. I miss Quinn too.

Well said, 'Jam. I can't disagree with you about the unflattering shiny fabric and the not-runway-friendly prints. I just think they should have judged Ayana on her entire season and her versatility, not only on the runway show. But I am a mere couch potato who can barely sew a button on my blouses, so all I can do is scream impotently at the judges from my living room.

WTF, WTF, WTF?!! I may be a lonely minority here, but Ayana should have won! I was screaming at the TV in rage! Ayana has shown that she can do anything: beautiful dresses, sharp pants and jackets, "young" looks, gorgeous head wraps, and even avant garde, all while having a distinct point of view. Kentaro was hit and miss the entire season! He was on the bottom a few times even! His runway show was well done, and I did love the atmospheric music, but hardly any of those clothes were wearable. Yeah yeah, I know a runway show is supposed to be kind of out there, but his clothes were just as costumey in their own way as Margarita's were. And can you see Kentaro designing for the JC Penney woman? Nope, me neither. Whereas Ayana would have nailed it. Bad, bad call by the judges. As for Brandon, he became too cocky and his show was boring, but I did feel bad seeing him so destroyed by the loss. I think and hope he'll be fine. Margarita's collection was like throwing a lot of prints and sequins at the wall and seeing what stuck, and I thought the judges were avoiding a hard critique by praising the "exuberance" of it. I will give her this though: the yellow caftan thing with the giant sequined fish on it actually worked on the runway. Ayana's final dress was one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen in PR, and I've watched nearly all seasons. She has it all, and I really hope some design house snaps her up. Again, I may be a lonely minority, but I like hearing from the models and I enjoyed getting to know their personalities.

It's so unrealistic that nobody but Alicia survived the Pantry. Come on. There was no kid who didn't need as much air as the others, or no adult who was laying off to the side and wasn't attacked by the infected? Plus it would have been more interesting to add a couple new characters in addition to Crazy Dog. As someone said upthread, the whole Ranch story arc yielded nothing lasting except for nutter Troy and his weird bromance with Nick (yeah, Troy came to warn you all about the herd, right) and one additional character. What a waste. Also: With the grenade launcher and a truck, Nick and Troy couldn't lure the herd away from the Ranch? And why did they drive to the helicopter and then sit in it doing f--k-all to help the people in the Pantry? Why do FTWD and TWD always have to have a bad guy who drives all the action? Why can't we have a season that just examines the challenges of living in a community in a post-apocalyptic world where survival is hard and interpersonal conflicts have to be managed for the greater good? I thought FTWD was going there with the ranchers and Indians trying to live and work together, but no, we had to have nutter Troy f--k everything up. Yeah, the Dam's days are numbered.

That was a good finale. I didn't think Zach still had any feelings for his father. The series had really good characters, different from the usual disaster-scenario cardboard cutouts.

Just like I thought: Operation NitWight accomplished nothing except giving the Night King a new weapon with which to destroy the planet. Cersei, you treacherous bitch. I hope you watch Jaime get killed and then give agonizing birth to a troll before being stabbed in the gut with the Ice King's javelin. Why was Tyrion skulking outside Dany's room looking all sad that Jon and Dany were, uh, together? He wants a successor to Dany, right? And even if he too believes she can't get pregnant, then what's the harm in a fling between allies? I don't care if Jon is too honest, I heart him anyway. I really wish they'd shown more of the love scene between him and Dany. Who is coming for the Mountain? Jaime, maybe you grew a little bit of spine, but what good are you to anyone now? How utterly useless is Bran??? Has he ever prevented an evil or provided useful information in a timely way??

Operation NitWight is such a stupid plan on so many levels. Tyrion's battle plans have been crap this season and Dany knows it, so why does she agree to this? Why send your two best warriors, Jon and Jorah, on this likely fatal escapade? How do you "capture" a wight without killing it? How do you get it from above the Wall to Knight's Landing and how long would that take? And then all the characters ignore the fact the Cersei is batshit crazy. What do they think is going to happen, that she'll take one look at the wight and say "okay, I get it, let's band together and be allies right away!" Nooooo! More likely she'd want to give the wight to her Maester to turn it into another weapon she can use against Dany and take anyone who brought the wight prisoner. While I certainly enjoyed the Magnificent Seven heading out into the blizzard, that was a small bit of icing on an otherwise crap plot cake. Also: there better not be a real break between Sansa and Arya or I'll be pissed. They have both gone through so much. It's time to be mature, Arya, instead of sniping at Sansa about things you don't understand and weren't around for. Also, Arya better not be stupid enough to fall for Littlefinger's clunkingly obvious "clues" "Yeah, I'm going to conspire about a secret scroll right out in the hallway in front of my room so anyone passing by can hear it or see it." Don't fall for it.

Thanks Umbelina, and for the tip to go to the Book Questions thread. I'm a little afraid of the answers! Also, I had forgotten TPTB were replacing all the English language signs with symbols. So goddamned creepy. I've seen several complaints about this, but the show did explain it. In the same episode as the visit from the Mexican delegation, Commander Waterford is shown telling his wife that Gilead is short on resources and its currency is plunging, and so they desperately need to trade with Mexico or the whole new country will go under. They're so desperate they'll trade Handmaids. And remember it's not like we are seeing all the Handmaids in Gilead. We're seeing a certain group in a certain small region of the country.

As other posters have observed, I fear that Janine is going to be made an incubator while comatose. The sicko powers that be will make that happen. At worst, there'll be no baby or no viable baby, but at least you're taking another shot at that potentially fertile womb. I wonder a lot about the non-privileged citizens of Gilead, the ones who aren't in the government. Is Gilead really enforcing its non-procreative sex ban on everybody in the country? Are they patrolling every apartment and house for illicit female reading? Are all non-Handmaid women now expected to be Wives, Marthas or Jezebels since they can't have normal paying jobs? How does that work in practice? If girls are no longer being taught to read, then how can they grow up to operate a washing machine or cook a recipe? Do the lower classes have to wear color-coded clothing? I have so many questions!

I do. It's so that the June character will have a longer period of being in her "fertile" years; hence more potential seasons of a show about a Handmaid. I'm onto you, Hulu!

Same here. I don't have a problem with Luke. It would be unrealistic if he were Superman, or SuperEnlightenedMan for that matter. And it looks like he has done some growing up and wising up in Little America. The ending scene with him crying and holding the note was very powerful. I too appreciated this episode for (1) getting us the hell out of Dodge for a while (meaning the Waterford horrowshow), (2) telling us more of the story of how Gilead took over, and (3) giving us more information about the resistance and the remnants of the U.S.A. I just wish they didn't have kill off every sympathetic secondary character that we start getting to know. And I am NOT looking forward to seeing what they've done to OfGlen . . .

Ha ha, I agree, Sean. The power of this show will not be questioned. On another topic, I notice there are no more recaps of this show after Chapter 5. I'm bingeing my way through the season and am going to miss the recaps. Why did they stop? I guess this is a question to the Mods.

I too thought that was a false correlation and took Noah's self-awareness in the wrong direction. Having an affair is not the same as beating your wife, sorry. As much as I think Noah has been a jerk over past seasons, he's not as bad as the writers seem to want to portray him now. The season has veered too far off the central theme of exploring what happens when an affair breaks up two marriages. Too much focus on Noah's jail time and Madame ESF. Also, while at first it was easy to hate the cheating characters, now I think the show is veering too far in the direction of portraying Noah and Alison as fundamentally screwed up human beings whose affair was only a product of their character failings and who must be punished for straying. It was far more interesting when the show made it ambiguous whether Noah and Alison were really in love or were really suited for each other. Especially now that the show has done a good job (I think) of presenting each of the marriages in a complex way. I am still in on this show, however. I am curious what they will do in the final season. Also, it was great to spend some time in Paris this episode, regardless of whether it advanced the plot!

And here's another thing that bugged me. Noah talked to Martin about the importance of having conversations while people are still alive so you don't have to regret the lack of communication after they're gone. Which is very true, and touching, and a good philosophy to have. But Noah's way of implementing it is to yack at Martin about his (Noah's) own issues. Earlier in the episode, when Martin was starting to confide in Noah about how he hated school, Noah couldn't be bothered to engage! Instead of asking why Martin hates school, or asking whether something could be done to help him like school more, or following up AT ALL, Noah just farted around with the box of old mail and ignored what his son has to say. It's supposed to work both ways Noah, you self-involved navel-gazer. The only time I felt remotely sorry for Noah was when Steve the fat blowhard was being rude to him at dinner. Steve is the biggest dick of the season so far. Hey, if you dislike your high school classmate that much, maybe don't invite yourself to dinner with him?

As everyone else has hit the big themes, I'm going to hit the trivial. First, how could "grandma" tell Martin it was okay for him to visit the lake house whenever he wanted to be alone when grandma kicked the bucket 30 years ago? Second, how do these characters get from back and forth from Manhattan to "eastern Pennsylvania" in no time at all? Third, was that white pus in Noah's wound there at the end? Gross! Also, why was the wound a roundish hole instead of a slash like you'd get from someone knifing you? Fourth, why were there all the art supplies and paintings in the house? Were those Noah's mother's? Also: the box TV in the bedroom was another set designer anvil that these were poor, plain people. Come on, it's 2017 and everybody has a flat screen. I just can't imagine why the writers think Eau So Franch is a useful character. And how cliche to make her French in a show supposedly about romantic and erotic love. (And I like the French, don't get me wrong.) It would have been at least marginally more interesting if she were Russian or from a Muslim culture. Uh, what? All I saw was a teenager being nice and giving the boy from out of town a chance to escape the uncomfortable dinner with her. It's disturbing that based on no evidence you assume "that girl" is some scheming gold-digger.

Zach is a little puke with a nuke. And there's no redeeming him now. He'll do whatever bad stuff the Master wants because he's mad about his undead dead mother. Seriously, why would the Master want to kill off the food supply for the strigoi? They were already taking over the cities before they dropped the bomb. That was one dark finale. I am pretty curious where this goes next season. How are humans going to survive? Things were bad enough before. And I'm still bummed out that they killed off Justine.

ITA. I like it that we are following the characters through different adventures in the ZA rather than [ahem] wasting 8 episodes sitting on a farm or watching sweaty talks about manhood and keepin' your woman safe. Of course I love TWD original flavor, but this show has got its advantages. I like Madison becoming a leader. Her negotiation strategy was good and it worked. (FWIW, I expect the screwup of the alliance here to come from the MOB, who will probably show up waving a gun after she finds out her daughter is now fully dead.) I also thought that Madison's facial expressions while leading the walkers off the pier were consistent with someone being alert and worried. Luciana, I'll assume you were just addled by grief at losing your brother and that's why Nick was somewhat appetizing.