spaceghostess

My dad had both of the doohickies you mentioned to clean his instruments, but not the thing they showed. I was wondering if that’s a newer tool; it’s definitely more streamlined and nicer looking than what I’ve seen. So Jan was second chair after all. Or she is now…

^This.^ My dad was a bassoonist* with the Metropolitan Opera for 30+ years and could play pretty much anything by ear. I remember him endlessly practicing a passage from Carmen only to drift off into “Pennies from Heaven” (speaking of Steve Martin) or some other standard. Needless to say, I LOVE the bassoon of it all and hope Jan is endgame for Charles and not up to anything nefarious! *Second chair! He didn’t go for first chair, even when it became available, because he didn’t want the pressure. Also, back then you had to audition for the position even if you’d been there for years, and he hated auditioning so much he had to take Valium before doing it. He’d substitute for first chair when called upon, but happily stayed second chair until he retired. :)

I’m also suspicious of him because . . . I just am. He’s too nice and has had just enough scenes and lines so far that I can’t rule him out as an Agatha Christie-style, “What, that guy? Really???” suspect.

One of my favorite lines from this show so far was in last week’s episode: Oliver: “Don’t stand so close to Sting.” https://youtu.be/KNIZofPB8ZM

Thanks for that! One of my all-time favorite movie twists!

I love this show so much and give it a ton of credit for being brave enough to dig deeper into characters and reveal some pretty grim stuff. It’s a a gamble in that for every Jamie, whom I don’t think I’ll ever really be able to dislike again, you can also end up with a Nate, whom I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to like again. My issue with Nate is that he didn’t bank anywhere near enough good-guy points in season 1 for me to tolerate his toxic asshattery this season and root for him to come out the other side a better man. I’m not sure if this is because it’s easier to redeem a bad boy than to redeem a good boy-gone-bad or because I just find Nate’s behavior so extraordinarily gross and off-putting. Jamie’s asinine, in-your-face bullying cards were on the table for all to see last season; Nate is a sneakier brand who shows one face to those who outrank him and quite another to subordinates, and that is the FUCKING <RoyKent/> worst kind of bully. And, as other posters pointed out last week, that kind of emotional abuse doesn’t just stay at work, so yeah, it’s a good thing Nate’s not in a relationship. I know seeing where it comes from (another crappy dad) should give me more patience with Nate, but I’m not feeling it — especially after the confessional scene came and went without Nate even dipping a toe into the waters Ted dove into headfirst. If Nate had made his relatively superficial “confession” only to cast a guilt-ridden glance at Will, that would have gone a long way to showing that he has at least a bit of conscience about his behavior, even if he’s not willing/able to take responsibility for it yet, but alas, not a glimmer of self awareness. Harrumph. I’m another one struggling to get onboard the Rebecca/Sam (Sabecca?) train. I think it’s the combination of huge power imbalance and huge age difference that makes it a bridge too far for me. I could probably handwave one of those boundary crossings for the sake of TeeVee, but both. . . not so much. I feel bad not being into it because they’re both such wonderful (not to mention gorgeous) people, but ehhh. I also worry that this could end up being a big heartbreak for Sam, and I would hate that for him. :(

Oh, that sounds amazing. And the suits of armor—very Midsomer-ish!!

I began a MM binge yesterday — several episodes got me through the tedious double-whammy of sorting through papers for my taxes AND for taking my ex to family court (again, some more). It’s the perfect thing to have on in the background during mindless, un-fun tasks. I’m halfway through Garden of Death, but particularly enjoyed Beyond the Grave (last ep of season 3) because of the always-great Prunella Scales, aka Sybil Fawlty. My ex-sister in law, with whom I still have a good relationship because she recognizes that her brother is a shitbag and I am not, lives in East Sussex — a part of England that has so many Midsomer-ish features. They have a legit Tudor house for which, because it’s listed as a historical property, they needed special permission to add a tiny half-bath on the second floor. She’s a retired math (pardon me, “maths”) teacher who learned to make jewelry in her retirement and creates her designs in a studio she and her husband built on their property. Oh, and she was promoted to judge at the village fair, probably because everybody got sick of her winning all the events she entered as a contestant. 😄 She’s pretty much tailor-made to be a character in a MM episode—but not a victim, because she’s super-nice and I love her!

I’m thinking they know in the back (or front) of their minds that it’s there, but—like many evangelicals do re: Trump’s alleged rapes and sexual assaults of so many women—they hand-wave it in favor of their twisted idea of 8chan as a platform for Q’s “patriotic” voice. I also have the impression that they go along with whatever their husbands rubber-stamp, so...

I’m right there with you. When watching, I find myself in a weird mental space of zoning out during some of the coding/passwords/server wonkery; muttering profanities during every single interview with every single Q-Tuber and random Q followers; and feeling deep rage whenever Ron or Jim Watkins are onscreen, which is SO MUCH. But I feel like it’s important to know about this. But knowing about this feels totally gross. Tonight’s two episodes made me so fucking angry, I can’t even. The Watkinses are such vile nihilists, and probably sociopaths. They make my skin crawl and I wish they’d do something illegal enough to land them both in prison in the Philippines.

I’m so with you on the bad spelling; I was clenching my teeth.

Too true re: the haircuts. The interviews with the abandoned family members of the cult, especially that poor woman who lost both her parents, were heartbreaking. The people who remain true believers like Sawyer are also really sad. Heaven’s Gate checked most of the boxes, except “money/property for leader.” (Sure, they found nice houses to rent, but it didn’t seem like any of them, including Applewhite, were living high on the hog). This makes it—in my mind, at least—more Manson Family-adjacent than others like Scientology and Nxium, which have/had a pyramid-scheme structure that drained low- to mid-level members of cash while indoctrinating them to constantly bring in more. Of course, the Heaven’s Gaters weren’t hopped up on goofballs and violent like the Mansonites so at least they didn’t take down anyone other than themselves. And there were no children IN the cult, thank god. I found it interesting that Applewhite allowed members to leave and return without punishment (he even bought Sawyer a plane ticket and gave him some money) which is pretty unusual for a cult but also proves how deeply entrenched the members were. Quite a few came back after leaving and some who didn’t still believed in the mission. The only thing missing was a clear idea of which of the two who founded Heaven’s Gate was really the “leader” and, between the two of them, who had the greater influence on whom. But that’s one of those fly-on-the-wall questions that’s probably unanswerable.

Wow. The finale made it really hard for me to remain loyal to my FORMER notion that Jeffrey probably isn’t guilty. Proof of his mountain of white-collar crime and apparently constant lying to Barbara, not to mention his doubling down on gaslighting and/or talking shit about anyone—living or dead—who questions him about ANYTHING makes him stink to high heaven. Manipulating those closest to him, refusing to take responsibility for anything, turning nasty on a dime, and being incapable of engagement, not mention introspection, on any serious matter are such classic hallmarks of a narcissist. Remind me never to get murdered in Madison; the MPD’s combination of arrogance and incompetence is not a good look. How frustrating for Madison (the human, not the town). Poor kid. At least he was able to conclusively eliminate Ali as a suspect AND attend her lovely wedding to that very nice man. Conway continues to be a mess, but every family has at least one.

Ah, I forgot they were still in court about the child support and other money (duh)! I totally buy the protracted and bitter battle over that, as I had a divorce trial over custody and support (my ex didn’t want to pay any AT ALL when he makes at least three times what I do [when he feels like working]) and we’ve been in and out of court multiple times since the divorce was finalized because of his delinquency. He’s currently 8k in arrears and also refuses to pay for the kids’ extracurriculars or contribute to any school-related expenses. I expect to have to bring him to court again soon because of his refusal to support the orthodonture they both need as well as his likely refusal to allow them to have Covid vaccines (don’t get me started). This doesn’t scratch the surface of the crazy with him—he’s a malignant narcissist, so. . . But even at his most batshit, I don’t think he’d have had me murdered—mainly because he’s too cheap to pay someone else to do it; he’d no longer have someone to take care of the kids whenever he decides to fuck off out of town on “business;” and it wouldn’t be worth the risk to his own freedom if something went wrong. Of course, he could just kill me himself if he wanted to (he has lethal hand-to-hand combat skills), but I (and my lawyer) have ample evidence of his nutso ranting, so I’m sure he knows he couldn’t get away with it. He has done a lot of creepy stuff, but it’s a bridge too far, I think, even for him. Clearly, my personal experience biases me re: this case, although not in the direction many would expect! I’m sorry about what your dad put you and your mom through; I sometimes still wonder how I managed to pick such a winner 🙄 If Jeffrey Hamburg did put a hit out on Barbara, it seems like a pretty sloppy job to me. On the other hand, Jeffrey’s still walking free, so mission accomplished if he did. 😞

This has been a really interesting watch for me, for many reasons, not the least of which are the weird family dynamics and the fact that the murder took place in Madison (WHY do you name your kid after the place where you’re raising him? 🙄), which is about half-an-hour south of where I live in Connecticut and has an excellent indie cinema where friends and I met for movies regularly, pre-‘rona. I actually like the production values of this doc, particularly the art direction and Madison’s use of sound bites from old films and/or radio describing idyllic settings and how to raise perfect (per mid-century values) families. I’d like to know whether all of this was done under Madison’s direction or if a much rougher original was HBO’d to spruce it up. Conway, IMHO, couldn’t get her act together to murder anybody; she is, however, one hundred percent guilty of being a shit-stirrer extraordinaire. I mean, to outright accuse Ali of killing her mother is beyond the pale—not because Conway doesn’t have a right to her suspicions, but because it’s completely unnecessary and basically nuts to go shouting them from the rooftops. IDK, the dad is a garbage human, but I just don’t think he killed Barbara. He’s a creepy, manipulative mental abuser, but seems like someone who literally wouldn’t have wanted to get his hands dirty; if he’d wanted Barbara gone, he’d have hired a pro who’d make it look like a robbery gone wrong or something. She hadn’t managed to take him to the cleaners in the divorce and there wasn’t a custody battle (...was there? Please correct me if I’m misremembering.) so what would his motive have been? I keep going back to the gifting tables scheme. You’ve got a hub of extremely entitled investors casting their nets wide for dupes: the likelihood of reeling in someone unstable and/or a greedy Karen going homicidal because she felt ripped off still seems very possible, IMHO.

Anybody else watching this on HBO Max? I’m finding it fascinating and a standout in the way it really digs deep into how this bizarro (as if there’s any other kind) cult formed and worked. An impressive array of interviewees, plenty of video footage, and excellent editing and production design.

Yeah, the whole, “we met in 2002 at college” was so patently ridiculous and distracting, I was forced to fanwank that they were both older grad students at Harvard. I mean, I graduated college in 1993 and am four years younger than NK; my younger son is nearly 10 and I had him at the ripe old age of 39, so this show trying to make me believe Nicole Kidman is younger than I am got on my last middle-aged nerve. Hugh Grant being older would have worked in the plot had they not decided to put them both at Harvard—apparently as undergrads—together. One line about PhD studies would have taken this issue right off the table. Good grief—between the elaborate backstory I had to create to justify NK’s sus American accent and the age thing, this show made me do way too much work. ETA: A-ha! In reading through the thread (which I should have done completely before posting), I now realize that I should have made the connection between Grace’s PhD from Harvard —which I guess was mentioned when she testified but I wasn’t paying attention?—and her meeting Jonathan at Harvard. So that would be proof that they maybe were both there for graduate studies and hence in their 30s and 40s, respectively. Okay, Show; you’re off the hook for this one.

...and Douglas Hodge, who played the schlubby public defender, is also British! It’s water under the bridge now, but it was hard for me not to notice Nicole Kidman’s accent slipping on many occasions (and she had a dialect coach). I found myself creating a backstory that Grace’s dead mother was an aristocratic Australian who fell in love with Franklin when he was traveling there and they raised Grace in Oz until she was in her late teens, when they moved to NYC and lived in the palatial apartment/penthouse/entire building that’s been in Franklin’s family since the Gilded Age and that’s why Grace sounds Australian at least a third of the time. It’s weird, because I’m sure I’ve seen Kidman in other projects where her American accent was better.

Quoting just to say I share your love of The Others!* *But IMHO, the work has affected NK’s ability to emote with her face, unfortunately.

Yes, and yes. Grandpa Sutherland and his eyebrows have been at the top of my suspects list for quite some time. Whether or not Henry’s the killer or covering for his dad, I can’t for the life of me figure out how/why he would use the violin case to hide the hammer. You can’t fit the violin AND the hammer in there, which means he’d have to take the hammer out and hide it elsewhere whenever he has a violin lesson, so this makes zero sense other than it’s kind of a cool set piece/reveal. Something else that I found weird was the conversation in the restaurant (setting aside the preposterous notion that anybody, especially rich people who value their PRIVACY [pronounced PRIV-acy in the British fashion] would go out to eat under these particular circumstances), when Jonathan said Grace told him Henry had seen him outside the school with Elena, and Jonathan was like, “I’m so sorry you (Henry) had to witness that.” We (and Grace) know, per Henry, that Jonathan saw him seeing them. So either Henry or Jonathan is lying about that whole scene, but neither contradicted the other’s story in the restaurant. And not to be That Guy, but my willing suspension of disbelief is always strained when a killer who has easy access to any number of waterways keeps the murder weapon lying around the house.

I think Henry stands as a suspect because in this case, the hammer does most of the work. It’s a pretty good murder weapon for a whodunit if you want to be able to write in suspects of all shapes and sizes. It only takes one well-aimed swing of that sucker to kill someone, leaving the killer spare time to smash them to bits (not to be gross, but there you go).

I still can’t figure out why anybody in this show—including attorneys—thinks it’s a good idea to bring children of suspects and/or victims to a murder trial. You’re not even supposed to bring your kids into family court during divorce proceedings. People sometimes do if they can’t find a sitter, but everyone realizes you should avoid it if at all possible.

Henry’s not 10 — I believe it was established in a prior episode that he’s 13? It’s actually Miguel who’s 10, but I take your point that a kid being the murderer would be horrible.

Wow, I was positive it was the same guy; I just figured he was putting on a doofy voice when playing the burglar!

Does anyone else find it distracting that Robbert Larson (Retired Burglar and Family Man) from the SimpliSafe ads is the same actor who plays the owner of "BeardBrand" on the postage.com (or whatever) ads? Good for him, though. Those spots are in crazy-heavy rotation on CNN (where I’m spending way too much time these, days, but that’s a whole other story).