S02.E16: The Atheist Papers

[Trini]

Miles is crushed when Daryl Watkins (Kevin Carroll), a renowned author and atheist, criticizes Miles' podcast. But he must put aside his wounded pride to help Daryl when the God Account sends Miles his name. Also, Ali tests the waters of a new relationship as she deals with her cancer treatments.

Written by: Jessica Granger

Directed by: Erin Richards

Airdate: March 8, 2020

[mommalib]

So let me get this strait, Miles and Cara have only been separated for a few episodes and she's already going on a date with someone else. Damn she never valued Miles at all and to do it knowing what's going on with his sister is just cruel and selfish.

[Lonesome Rhodes]

How much did I LOVE this Watkins dude?!!!!!  His side-eyed insult right in Miles' face as he approached him in the library was delicious. 

Cara/Rakesh going to the brat to learn what a classification is?  Uh huh.  Of course, there is no chance that the government did not hang a super tight restraining order on him regarding DOD and the intelligence agencies?  Nah.

The selfishness throughout this ep was breathtaking.  Cara, Rakesh and Miles jussssst want to...whatever.  Write a story.  Solve a mystery.  Justified!  Watkins refuses to honor the love from and for a good woman.  Because..."Service to my intellectual integrity is EVERYTHING!"  Of course, like Miles, Watkins consciously refuses to examine data  antithetical to his great thesis.  But THEY are the honest ones!  Too rich.  The conceits never end.

Then Watkins finds humility and Miles will not see.  Then again, if he did, the show would be radically altered.  

Well, we'll always have Paris.

 

 

     

[Yeah No]

Another good episode.  This one hit close to home on more than one front.  First is I recognized the church this week as St. Paul's Carroll Street in Brooklyn - A church I have been to many times when a good friend was an acolyte there, and teacher of acolytes.  I knew the now retired priest there as well.  I lost track of the place after he left, but it was nice to see it again.

Watkins saw himself in Miles.  It was all about that when he criticized him.  That was his internal criticism leveled at Miles.  This is a guy for whom no intellectual argument for God would make him budge from his very well defended rational non-belief.  So of course the only way in would be via the back door of emotions, the one thing he did not have that much control over.  It wasn't just because Valerie told him that love was proof of God, it was because he was experiencing real love for the first time with her, and realized first hand that it transcended anything that he could create in his own mind or be generated by his nervous system.  And for something that profound he did not have a pat retort with which to shoot it down in his mind.  So he was left in a state of confusion and doubt, something he didn't know how to handle, and which was the reason he was so stuck that he couldn't continue with anything, either Valerie or his writing.

The thing about Miles, though, is his cluelessness.  He is actually diametrically opposed to  Watkins in the nature of his non-belief, though.  Despite Watkins giving him clever reasoning with which to hang on to, his motivations for non-belief are personal and emotional.  He is someone that once believed but turned away from that belief, while Watkins is just one of these super-rational "all in his head" guys that never really understood love so couldn't possibly relate to a personal being that transcends himself....until recently, of course.  He is super-aware of what is going on and why, while Miles continues to be so dense I can't even take it anymore.  That he couldn't figure out what was happening and kept making innocent but way off base suggestions to Watkins was maddening.  And even at the end when Watkins suggested that maybe the only difference between the God Account and God was the word "account", he still had the deer-in-the-headlights look.  OK, I get it that this is a lot for him to process coming from someone who was so instrumental in confirming his own Atheism, but still.  I guess the show has to continue to make Miles dense so as not to turn him into a believer, at least not yet.  Why do I think that this episode somehow foreshadows Miles' eventual return to faith through his relationship with Cara?  She herself seems to be realizing that she has deeper feelings for Miles than she can run away from.  At least I hope.

So anyway, with regard to Watkins, I guess he is more of an agnostic now in that he admits to the possibility of the existence of God if not outright believing in God.  But that's how it starts.  It started that way with me.  I was raised in the Episcopal church but went through an adolescent phase in high school where I questioned God and called myself a "scientific atheist".  That wasn't a hard thing to do in a high school of science.  It wasn't until I attended a Jesuit university that my views changed.  For me, it wasn't my heart that needed changing, it was my mind.  I questioned God on the basis of science.  This bothered me so much that I ended up studying Metaphysics and soon became convinced on a purely rational basis that there were enough reasons to consider the possibility of the existence of God.  And yes, one of those reasons (and the greatest) was love, because I believed and felt intuitively that it was much more than just a feeling or a projection of desires or whatever non-believers say it is.  And I knew that it was much more than anything science could reduce it to, nor could it have been created by humans.  It felt so awesome as to have everything to do with the ultimate nature and meaning of reality.  And then came the personal experience of God that is usually called a "conversion experience" after which nothing was ever the same again with me.  So I spent my 4 years in college majoring in Philosophy and Theology.  And the Jesuits didn't push me into any of it, not the belief or anything - Proselytizing was not their style.  I was the one that felt it was that important to me to ponder the ultimate questions.

Anyway, I'm tired and have gone on enough, but that's what I have to say so far.

[mommalib]

4 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

Another good episode.  This one hit close to home on more than one front.  First is I recognized the church this week as St. Paul's Carroll Street in Brooklyn - A church I have been to many times when a good friend was an acolyte there, and teacher of acolytes.  I knew the now retired priest there as well.  I lost track of the place after he left, but it was nice to see it again.

Watkins saw himself in Miles.  It was all about that when he criticized him.  That was his internal criticism leveled at Miles.  This is a guy for whom no intellectual argument for God would make him budge from his very well defended rational non-belief.  So of course the only way in would be via the back door of emotions, the one thing he did not have that much control over.  It wasn't just because Valerie told him that love was proof of God, it was because he was experiencing real love for the first time with her, and realized first hand that it transcended anything that he could create in his own mind or be generated by his nervous system.  And for something that profound he did not have a pat retort with which to shoot it down in his mind.  So he was left in a state of confusion and doubt, something he didn't know how to handle, and which was the reason he was so stuck that he couldn't continue with anything, either Valerie or his writing.

The thing about Miles, though, is his cluelessness.  He is actually diametrically opposed to  Watkins in the nature of his non-belief, though.  Despite Watkins giving him clever reasoning with which to hang on to, his motivations for non-belief are personal and emotional.  He is someone that once believed but turned away from that belief, while Watkins is just one of these super-rational "all in his head" guys that never really understood love so couldn't possibly relate to a personal being that transcends himself....until recently, of course.  He is super-aware of what is going on and why, while Miles continues to be so dense I can't even take it anymore.  That he couldn't figure out what was happening and kept making innocent but way off base suggestions to Watkins was maddening.  And even at the end when Watkins suggested that maybe the only difference between the God Account and God was the word "account", he still had the deer-in-the-headlights look.  OK, I get it that this is a lot for him to process coming from someone who was so instrumental in confirming his own Atheism, but still.  I guess the show has to continue to make Miles dense so as not to turn him into a believer, at least not yet.  Why do I think that this episode somehow foreshadows Miles' eventual return to faith through his relationship with Cara?  She herself seems to be realizing that she has deeper feelings for Miles than she can run away from.  At least I hope.

So anyway, with regard to Watkins, I guess he is more of an agnostic now in that he admits to the possibility of the existence of God if not outright believing in God.  But that's how it starts.  It started that way with me.  I was raised in the Episcopal church but went through an adolescent phase in high school where I questioned God and called myself a "scientific atheist".  That wasn't a hard thing to do in a high school of science.  It wasn't until I attended a Jesuit university that my views changed.  For me, it wasn't my heart that needed changing, it was my mind.  I questioned God on the basis of science.  This bothered me so much that I ended up studying Metaphysics and soon became convinced on a purely rational basis that there were enough reasons to consider the possibility of the existence of God.  And yes, one of those reasons (and the greatest) was love, because I believed and felt intuitively that it was much more than just a feeling or a projection of desires or whatever non-believers say it is.  And I knew that it was much more than anything science could reduce it to, nor could it have been created by humans.  It felt so awesome as to have everything to do with the ultimate nature and meaning of reality.  And then came the personal experience of God that is usually called a "conversion experience" after which nothing was ever the same again with me.  So I spent my 4 years in college majoring in Philosophy and Theology.  And the Jesuits didn't push me into any of it, not the belief or anything - Proselytizing was not their style.  I was the one that felt it was that important to me to ponder the ultimate questions.

Anyway, I'm tired and have gone on enough, but that's what I have to say so far.

Yeah but you can't expect Miles to just flip a switch, something dramatic and painful led to his non-belief. Maybe he's just not ready or maybe he will never be ready and that should okay.

[Trini]

Didn't think we'd see that DOD intern again so soon. ...With the same annoying attitude.

I know the God Account mystery is (and will be) a running theme for the show, but I feel like they need to wrap it up in some semi-definitive way soon-ish, because the longer it goes on, the more convoluted and nonsensical it's going to get. And it will end up just being a long series of red herrings, dead ends, and yet another clue. But I admit I'm biased, because I was never invested in who is behind the God Account.

I did like seeing Cara investing leads with Rakesh, though. Glad that Ali's got her own story going on.

So I'm not concerned about Cara dating Adam - although I still think it's dumb that Miles and Cara can't date because *reasons* - it's clearly not going to be that serious since he didn't even appear in this episode. If the writers didn't want Miles and Cara to be together so soon, they could have just ... not put them together so soon.

Friend Suggestion of the Week: Saw the 'open to God' twist coming, didn't see the 'fell in love with a reverend' twist, though. Seems highly unlikely -- but that's typical to this show! The atheist author was the most resistant/hostile FSotW we've had, I think. But it did emphasize that these plots rarely work without everyone being willing to spill their guts with random strangers - which the author ended up doing anyway. Also being able to hack into anything. They need to cut back on those writing crutches.

Cara's outfits continue to be on point! Nice color coordination with the coat and shirt near the end. Her brown(?) top and matching check skirt were nice too!

Edited March 10, 2020 by Trini
deleted extra "not"

[Yeah No]

17 minutes ago, mommalib said:

Yeah but you can't expect Miles to just flip a switch, something dramatic and painful led to his non-belief. Maybe he's just not ready or maybe he will never be ready and that should okay.

Miles has to have his own experience relevant to his own issues that makes him see the light.  I know that he wouldn't be able to get there on the same road as Watkins, nor would it happen any time soon (although he has had almost 2 seasons to get there), but the show is making him so dense that he can't even connect the dots and see what so many others see like the nose on their faces about his dedication to the God Account and his podcast.  Watkins is far more self-aware than Miles.  He had Miles figured out but Miles seems completely lost in understanding Watkins....or himself.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Yeah No

[MissLucas]

Yeah, not feeling this one for a variety of reasons. The return of DOD brat probably being number one. I have such a visceral reaction to that character that part of me feels bad for the actor. As for Watkins: he was an interesting character but I honestly did not get his big conflict. An atheist should be able to reconcile the existence of love with his worldview. I'm not an atheist but I don't see how that should constitute such a big challenge. I get it that this was supposed to be his road to Damascus but it just didn't work for me.

I also think it's odd that nobody is challenging Miles' on his weird belief that sticking to the God Account will cure Ali's cancer. I'm not sure he's shared that with others than just Cara though. I get it that it's an emotional crutch for him but it's a dangerous one.

Interesting that in one and the same episode they're offering the two explanations for the GA: God and AI (via DARPA). It's the ongoing debate at the core of the show although nobody has so far been willing to really address it. I don't see how the writers can pull this off convincingly either way or even if they pull 'it's both'. 

I'm still trying to ignore the whole mess with Cara but it does not get any easier. Why not just have her stick to her job for a while and deal with the fallout of her decision to break things up? They're really throwing her character under the bus here. 

 

[Yeah No]

1 hour ago, MissLucas said:

Yeah, not feeling this one for a variety of reasons. The return of DOD brat probably being number one. I have such a visceral reaction to that character that part of me feels bad for the actor. As for Watkins: he was an interesting character but I honestly did not get his big conflict. An atheist should be able to reconcile the existence of love with his worldview. I'm not an atheist but I don't see how that should constitute such a big challenge. I get it that this was supposed to be his road to Damascus but it just didn't work for me.

Usually rational types like that would need to be convinced via their minds first, such as suddenly read an argument for God's existence that makes rational sense to them, and that usually doesn't happen because like Watkins they are very well defended that way and have a rational argument against every rational argument for God already.  So that was not going to move him.  Having a very profound love experience like he never knew was possible before convinced him that maybe there was something about love that could not be reduced rationally into to something less than he was feeling it was in his heart.  I think his heart was feeling that it was something uniquely spiritual rather than purely subjective and psychological, which for him allowed the possibility that God might exist.  So that's why it was a big challenge for him.  If he attempted to explain it away into something more mundane than that he knew he wouldn't be doing his experience justice, nor being "intellectually honest".  I think that for him it was just that he had never had a profound spiritual experience like that before, and that was all it took to insert some grain of doubt into his former worldview.  Of course that wouldn't work with a lot of atheists, but atheists do convert into agnostics and believers and as one myself I know it is possible.  And yeah, it's not going to make sense - love itself makes a lot of things possible that otherwise would not seem to make sense.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Yeah No

[Lonesome Rhodes]

If Miles saw his shadow in the Cave, would we have an expedited or delayed Summer?  We all know it would not have any actual significance to anything important, right Miles?

Isn't it interesting that Ali gets to be totally selfish?  She was warned to not begin a relationship with the onset of chemo.  Now, she won't even receive Emily, who has been nothing if not unusually understanding.  When's the last time we heard mention of Minister Ali?  To be super clear...a really sick person gets to handle things their own way.  But, it is in those dark moments when true character is revealed.  Ali is fearful and selfish.  Some minister she'd make.  Not.  She would be a heckuva Bishop, though!  😉

[UNOSEZ]

11 hours ago, MissLucas said:

also think it's odd that nobody is challenging Miles' on his weird belief that sticking to the God Account will cure Ali's cancer. I'm not sure he's shared that with others than just Cara though. I get it that it's an emotional crutch for him but it's a dangerous one.

And unfortunately Caramel just can't be counted on to ask the tough questions... Especially about what the GA can do... Then again I'm not sure she's forgiven the GA for her step dad... So maybe she does think its powerful enough to help... But she's a journalist so you'd think some sober skepticism would apply... But nope.. She's got a date with Adam and that's easier than dealing with the random breakup her messy family or the fact that her desperate ex thinks helping FS will cure his sister of cancer 

[tennisgurl]

I still have no clue why Miles thinks that figuring out who is behind the GA will possibly cure Ali's cancer, unless he really does think that the GA is run by God, and can do miracles. 

Interesting episode, the Friend Request this week was probably the most resistant to Miles so far, to the point where he accuses Miles of faking the GA to get attention for his podcast. Of course it turns out that its more than that, he is feeling defensive because he is starting to believe in God, which is not only a big existential question, but also could lead to the end of his livelihood. It was an interesting idea, but I feel like his interest in a higher power could have been explained a bit better. So he started to believe in God because he fell in love? Lots of people, of all levels of belief, love people. In many forms of atheism that revolves around humanism, thats a big part of the whole belief system. I do like the idea that a persons faith is ever changing, and that searching for what gives your life meaning is an important thing to do, even when its inconvenient, inconsistent with what you thought before, or confusing and painful. The talk that Miles had with Arthur I think did a better job of dealing with the complicated and every changing path that many people take to finding their peace in the world did a really good job at that, which tied things together pretty well. Also, who can be mean to Miles?! Look at that big happy smile! 

Rakesh and Cara going around investigating was decently fun, but unfortunately it intersected with both Cara dating some other random guy (which, again, we have done before!!) and the return of that smug twerp we got a few weeks ago. Normally I love seeing past Friend Requests again, but I am not thrilled to see his smirky face again, even if he is doing the team a solid. I dont at all want to watch Cara date, and its really kind of weird that she is moving on so fast, especially considering she and Miles still hang out all of the time, and she and Miles still have feelings for each other, and only broke up because...reasons. I am trying to ignore this whole stupid plot but the show is making it so hard!

At least Cara had some extra great outfits this week! Especially loved the plaid skirt and sweater combo! 

I feel like the show is going to keep drawing out who/what the GA actually is, and a part of me wants it to be over, as its already gone on for so long, but the other part kind of wants to keep things ambiguous so that the show is never forced to "take sides" or anything, between the GA being divine and being something with a logical explanation. I like the ambiguity of it all, and that at the end of the day, it doesent matter who is running the GA or why, just that Miles is helping people and has found a purpose in his life. 

[andromeda331]

Oh, God, the brat was back. I was so hoping we'd never see him again. Of course he was as smug as ever. 

I did like Waktins as the person of the week and how he didn't like Miles at first. It made sense. I don't mind him questioning his atheism and reasons for his worry, he built his entire life and career around it That work is what inspired Miles. I agree with others that him falling in love doesn't really have to count as believing in God. Atheists fall in love. It happens.  I wouldn't mind Miles still not believing in God despite his own hero changing his mind but the needle should be moved a little after everything he's seen. The God Account keeps sending him people who need help and they always managed to fix it. But it hasn't at all. Miles still convinced in his episode and it doesn't even come off like Miles is trying to willfully stick to his believes or anything. That makes me worry about whether the show can pull off Miles becoming a believer in an organic way. I have a feeling the answer is no. Especially since Miles somehow thinks he get the person behind the God Account to cure Ali's cancer. 

If the cut out Cara dating Adam I'd have liked the episode almost completely. Her and Rakesh investigating who's behind the God Account was fun and felt more normal then the break up and dating stuff.

Arthur brought up again being tested. I wonder if that's going to end up being what this season is about? But their doing badly. If that is the case I hope Cara gets a failure or realize she messed up at some point. I'm just not sure that's going to happen either.

I want to like Ali's storyline because I love the character and I'm happy to see her getting more to do. But I still worry its going to go the way all of her other storylines like whatever happen to her becoming a minister, her degree, and girlfriend.  Trying to keep doing everything the same, insisting that she doesn't need any help and is find to her brother and father who tried to help get the bar ready, and wanting to out with Emily only for both to backfire. I hope this isn't the last we've seen of Emily. I wish Ali had seen her instead of having Miles send her away. Yeah its a lot for a new girlfriend to have to deal with but it should be up to Emily to decide whether or not she can handle dating someone with cancer.

I loved Miles and Arthur helping Ali set up it was really cute. I'm a little annoyed that when Rakesh and Cara showed up a few minutes later it wasn't to help her out. At least have them show up hours later and not have Cara say we didn't come to help. It made them come off as thoughtless to just show up a couple minutes later but not to help. Their best friend and possible love's sister has cancer, they spend a lot of time with Ali hanging out at her bar, who gives them advice and their not helping?  

Edited March 10, 2020 by andromeda331

[Yeah No]

I hear people saying that they don't get a necessary connection between falling in love and believing in God because of humanistic and other non-spiritual explanations of love that could suffice.  No, there's no necessary connection, but if the person's intensely subjective experience makes them believe that love implies something more transcendent that goes beyond what those explanations can capture, it can make them unable to feel that those explanations work for them anymore.   Hence a seed of doubt in their former philosophy.

A lot of modern atheists are scientific materialists that don't believe in a spiritual world beyond what exists in the human mind.  Spiritualism for them is about communing with other people, aka humanism, not communing with a transcendent spiritual world.  For them, that world does not exist.  Having an experience that defies any attempt to explain it in non-transcendent terms can be an intense emotional and intellectual paradigm shift.  It's not something that happens purely in the mind, but involves the entire person - their feelings, their intellect, their intuition, their senses, etc. 

I don't think that if not for having a blinding experience of, and epiphany about what exactly God's love means, I would not believe in God.  I would probably still be able to reduce spiritualism to the purely subjective and mundane.  For different people, that blinding experience can be initiated by completely different subjective experiences.  For me the seed  was planted in my philosophy classes that it is not irrational to believe in a "first cause", and that accepting a "first cause" doesn't even have to mean believing in God (if you really understand it), but my first real belief came after an insight about love that for me made no sense at all unless that love was not of my own creation and that I was gifted with it by a spiritual world that transcended the worldly one.  So powerful is this kind of experience that you intuitively know and believe that there HAS to be something more than just your feelings involved in this, and it must be something essential to the meaning of everything, not just you or your little life.  I have to wonder if perhaps that was a similar experience to the one Watkins had.  Oh sure, some people like him might have been able to slough it off as a trick of the mind to think it was more than his own emotions, but for some reason unique to Watkins, he was not able to do that.

[Brian Cronin]

I get that this is something that almost every show goes through, but boy, it sure is annoying to keep seeing people do stuff simply for the sake of the plot. Like the ridiculous retcon that "The God Account told Miles he had to be alone." I don't even mind if that was Kara's delusional take on what happened in their relationship (as people will always find someone else to blame), but it is pretty clear that the show is establishing that that is the TRUTH of the situation, even though it is, you know, nonsense. And MIles' "I HAVE to work with the God Account, because then it will save my sister" nonsense.

And now Adam comes back out of nowhere and they just start dating off camera and it is all a secret and they can't even afford the actor to appear in the episodes (or his schedule wasn't free, which might be why he left in the first place). 

Or Ali deciding to blow off Emily, or heck, even Ali's nebulously defined chemotherapy symptoms (you sure as fuck should not be passing out at dinner while in treatment), which, again, is typical for TV (TV thinks that chemotherapy is the same in 2020 as it was in 1985). 

It's all just stuff that happens for no reason, just to move the story forward. You can move the story forward WITHOUT this sort of nonsense. Lots of good shows do it. God Friended Me COULD be one of those good shows. 

Stress could.

Oh, one last bit - holy shit, show, have you ever heard of "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"? Miles and the gang have had the rug pulled out from underneath them every time they think they've found the God Account, but still, every time they get a new clue, they tell themselves, "This must be it!" Why? Why would you continue to think that EVERY TIME?!

[Trini]

1 hour ago, Brian Cronin said:

It's all just stuff that happens for no reason, just to move the story forward. You can move the story forward WITHOUT this sort of nonsense. Lots of good shows do it. God Friended Me COULD be one of those good shows. 

Stress could.

Oh, one last bit - holy shit, show, have you ever heard of "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"? Miles and the gang have had the rug pulled out from underneath them every time they think they've found the God Account, but still, every time they get a new clue, they tell themselves, "This must be it!" Why? Why would you continue to think that EVERY TIME?!

Yeah, I think the show is getting stuck in its own ruts - despite it being only the second season. They need to tighten up the storytelling.

[MissLucas]

Well, at the end of the day this is just another high-concept show and we all know that very few of them tend to get the landing right. If we're lucky this is just a sophomore slump.

The show is best when the drama surrounding the strangers Miles tries to help takes center stage - neither love triangles nor the chase for the truth about the GA can ever pack that sort of punch (like last week's episode did).

[KaveDweller]

On 3/9/2020 at 3:27 PM, Lonesome Rhodes said:

Isn't it interesting that Ali gets to be totally selfish?  She was warned to not begin a relationship with the onset of chemo.  Now, she won't even receive Emily, who has been nothing if not unusually understanding.  When's the last time we heard mention of Minister Ali?  To be super clear...a really sick person gets to handle things their own way.  But, it is in those dark moments when true character is revealed.  Ali is fearful and selfish.  Some minister she'd make.  Not.  She would be a heckuva Bishop, though!  😉

But Ali is the one who didn't want to start a relationship. Everyone else talked her into it. And then when she explained her diagnosis to Emily, Emily said how she was willing to do it. I don't think Ali is being selfish to withdraw as she is experiencing what chemo is really like. I highly doubt that is the end of Emily though.

On 3/10/2020 at 5:54 PM, Brian Cronin said:

Oh, one last bit - holy shit, show, have you ever heard of "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"? Miles and the gang have had the rug pulled out from underneath them every time they think they've found the God Account, but still, every time they get a new clue, they tell themselves, "This must be it!" Why? Why would you continue to think that EVERY TIME?!

It's really kind of funny that they keep thinking they can easily find out who is behind it. I get why Miles wants to, but I feel like if that happens, the show ends. So the writers are kind of stuck with that plotline.

[Brian Cronin]

6 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

It's really kind of funny that they keep thinking they can easily find out who is behind it. I get why Miles wants to, but I feel like if that happens, the show ends. So the writers are kind of stuck with that plotline.

I don't even mind them trying to find out who the God Account is, but every time they get a clue, it's "I guess X is behind the God Account!" And then X is never actually behind the God Account! 

And they typically aren't even slick about checking X out. It's always, like, "I know you're behind the God Account X," and X is always, "Huh? What? No, you dummy."

[Yeah No]

4 hours ago, Brian Cronin said:

I don't even mind them trying to find out who the God Account is, but every time they get a clue, it's "I guess X is behind the God Account!" And then X is never actually behind the God Account! 

And they typically aren't even slick about checking X out. It's always, like, "I know you're behind the God Account X," and X is always, "Huh? What? No, you dummy."

Yep, pretty much.  This is probably the first week I haven't complained on this board about just that this season.

Plus we had Rakesh, who was absolutely sure his matchmaking program would yield him Jaya as his one and only soulmate, out of millions of possible matches.  Yeah, right, sure.

[MissLucas]

 

15 hours ago, Brian Cronin said:

And they typically aren't even slick about checking X out. It's always, like, "I know you're behind the God Account X," and X is always, "Huh? What? No, you dummy."

Slick went out the window a long time ago. I often cringe when Miles just walks up to someone explaining to them that they need his help because God said so - often followed by presenting them with a bunch of personal and private data gained by more than dubious means.

[Lonesome Rhodes]

21 hours ago, Brian Cronin said:

I don't even mind them trying to find out who the God Account is, but every time they get a clue, it's "I guess X is behind the God Account!" And then X is never actually behind the God Account! 

And they typically aren't even slick about checking X out. It's always, like, "I know you're behind the God Account X," and X is always, "Huh? What? No, you dummy."

Sherwood Schwartz would recognize.  Who was he?  Creator of Gilligan's Island and any number of other hits, including The Brady Bunch.

One of the most overused/hackneyed devices he would use was to have Gilligan come up with some (typically) hare-brained scheme to solve whatever crisis, and the Skipper and others would praise him to the high heavens.  "You did it again!" Alan Hale, Jr. would joyously exclaim.  Gilligan would nearly always reply (to himself), "I don't know what I keep doing, but I sure hope I keep doing it!"

Miles as Gilligan is a bad look.

[SnarkySheep]

On 3/8/2020 at 9:52 PM, Lonesome Rhodes said:

Cara/Rakesh going to the brat to learn what a classification is?  Uh huh.  Of course, there is no chance that the government did not hang a super tight restraining order on him regarding DOD and the intelligence agencies?  Nah.

Not to mention, what are the odds of a teenage intern "overhearing" classified info at the DoD??

On 3/8/2020 at 9:52 PM, Lonesome Rhodes said:

The selfishness throughout this ep was breathtaking.  Cara, Rakesh and Miles jussssst want to...whatever.  Write a story.  Solve a mystery.  Justified! 

I literally LOL'd when Cara casually told her coworker that she was "off to work on something for the God Account" smack in the middle of the work day! Yeah, I get that she's a journalist and has a lot more freedom to move around than most of us do, and also that that's her friend - but it's also true that people tend to stay on the down-low about doing personal stuff during work time. How does Cara know someone didn't overhear? Or that her coworker won't get jealous/upset with her at some point and rat her out to a supervisor? It's like Cara and company just take for granted that the whole world will treat the God Account as sacredly and as valid a thing as they do. 

 

On 3/13/2020 at 12:23 AM, Lonesome Rhodes said:

Miles as Gilligan is a bad look.

Eh, I dunno...I think Miles could pull off the red sweater look quite handsomely... 😁

Edited March 30, 2020 by SnarkySheep