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S01.E12: Vanishing Point


ottoDbusdriver
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I'm surprised they are not playing up Olive's psychic connections to Cal.  Considering they're twins, I thought she was also going to become especially important.  

They sure brought Grandpa back to do important stuff.

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I agree with those who hated Grace's "And you LEFT". No. You're a grown woman, you don't "test" your husband like that. Just no. And while I somewhat agree that Ben's "just trust me" is old and tired writing, at least they TRIED to justify it with the whole "everyone who finds out about the callings dies or almost dies". 

I mostly loved the episode though and loved the addition of the hiker. I'm a sucker for cheesy intrigue, I reckon. I was pleasantly surprised at how fast Michaela realized that Autumn was the mole and that she had the missing piece from Cal's notebook. I really thought it would take much longer and more hand-wringing and then a MAN would figure it out. 

One scene that stood out for me though was the fingerprint scene. Why did we need to see the cops getting Grace's fingerprints "just to rule them out"? I think that will come in to play somehow, like Grace will be set up for a crime using her fingerprints. I may have watched too much Lost because I always expect every scene to come back to haunt us. 

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2 hours ago, stealinghome said:

Though I have to ask: when you have a very sick child, what does “tilting at windmills” even LOOK like? Wouldn’t most parents desperately research and try everything they can to make their child better? Is Grace seriously resenting Ben going balls to the wall to save their child? I mean, that might be par for the course for her based on what we’ve seen, but is she really THAT awful a person?

The writers aren’t very good but I also think this is the kind of thing that makes it obvious they want this to be a genre show and NBC is forcing them to add more family drama (to be just like This Is Us). The writers just so clearly don’t care about  truly fleshing out anything related to 6 years ago or Ben and Grace’s marriage. I don’t think the Grace actress is strong but they are giving her shit to work with.

I would guess it's a lot like how my friend dealt with the death of her Aunt from cancer.  The family wanted Aunt to go the traditional route of chemo, etc.  Tried and true methods that have worked, even if they're horrible to go through.  Aunt wanted to go holistic and spent her final two years of life in pain, but convinced that consuming various food items, waiving magnets, and chanting would cure her.  Now granted, in that real world scenario, the Aunt was an adult and could make her own decisions.  But I can fully see Ben and Grace wanting to try different paths to save Cal and not getting on the same page.  They clearly don't communicate well.

I agree the writers aren't doing neither Ben nor Grace any service by the terrible dialogue..  If I hadn't seen Josh Dallas doing other things, I would think neither of them were very strong actors. 

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8 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Shouldn't all of those countless "Find her" lines have been "Find me"? Maybe the script editor didn't know how to do a global edit-replace and thought it was too much trouble?

Do bits of tape heal frostbite on fingers?

I believe it was last episode where Michaela said this calling was different because it was not her voice that she heard. I think the "Find her" was frozen guy's voice saying "Find her," her being Michaela.

I hope they give the major story a rest for a while. I'm more interested in what happened to the plane and why it happened as opposed to how the major can use these people.

As for Grace, when they were in the hospital she told Ben "No more secrets. You have to tell me everything." To which he says "Okay, but it's gonna sound crazy." And she replies with "A plane traveled through time. I'm ready to believe anything." So Ben tells her and she responds with "You're crazy. Shut up." Maybe not verbatim but you get the gist. I can't blame Ben for continuing on and not telling her. She made it clear she didn't wanna know or hear what he had to say or thought. So I don't really understand how we're supposed to feel any sympathy toward Grace.

And Olive to continually bring Danny back into the picture and choose him over her dad is frustrating. And I want to like Olive.

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8 hours ago, fauntleroy said:

Yea weird that it does not occur to Cal that he should inform his dad of his various expeditionary urges. Ben believes Cal, so could simply drive him where needed, assuming he has a General Motors vehicle. Remove the many chasey chasington threads and you would have more time for actual plot. 1. X goes missing 2. episode devoted to search 3. found, wastes a lot of time.

And then they find him, and drama ensues with the person he was trying to save, and then he's all "*shrug*...I just knew I had to...'k, I'm tired, can I go now?" He's just so…blasé about the whole thing, and that's kinda weird.

(Side note – does he still have cancer or what?)

6 hours ago, basiltherat said:

There is a vast conspiracy, but NOT by the government, but by Chevrolet!  Just when you were talking above about Chevy, an AD APPEARED on my screen BETWEEN YOUR POSTS !!!  RUN, HIDE -- THEY ARE WATCHING US !!!

There's a Chevy ad right below your post on my screen right now. 🤯

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7 hours ago, stealinghome said:

Though I have to ask: when you have a very sick child, what does “tilting at windmills” even LOOK like? Wouldn’t most parents desperately research and try everything they can to make their child better? Is Grace seriously resenting Ben going balls to the wall to save their child? I mean, that might be par for the course for her based on what we’ve seen, but is she really THAT awful a person?

4 hours ago, kirkola said:

I would guess it's a lot like how my friend dealt with the death of her Aunt from cancer.  The family wanted Aunt to go the traditional route of chemo, etc.  Tried and true methods that have worked, even if they're horrible to go through.  Aunt wanted to go holistic and spent her final two years of life in pain, but convinced that consuming various food items, waiving magnets, and chanting would cure her.  Now granted, in that real world scenario, the Aunt was an adult and could make her own decisions.  But I can fully see Ben and Grace wanting to try different paths to save Cal and not getting on the same page.  They clearly don't communicate well.

 

Ben was/is a notable mathematician who was known for his analytical mind. How off the wall were his various inquiries? I suspect he was looking at some very legitimate cutting edge research and treatment and doing a really crappy job at translating it for a lay person like Grace. Seeing how short and impatient Grace has been when Ben tried to explain the weird new abilities/phenomena happening to them after they disappeared for 5 years AND NOT AGING while still dealing with Cal's illness, that it's much more likely that miscommunication was the issue rather than Ben tilting at windmills.

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10 hours ago, kirkola said:

And both characters are stupid and annoying because they aren't listening to one another.  But even that it slightly explained by the fact that their entire trip 5 years ago was to save their marriage.  They weren't in the same place then, and they aren't now. 

Good point, but I didn't remember this.
With the all the characters, couldn't they have someone casually remind us?
Something like maybe Michaela saying, "If you and Grace hadn't taken the vacation to reboot your marriage, Cal would be dead now."
Well, not that.
But something.

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14 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

Ben was/is a notable mathematician who was known for his analytical mind. How off the wall were his various inquiries? I suspect he was looking at some very legitimate cutting edge research and treatment and doing a really crappy job at translating it for a lay person like Grace. Seeing how short and impatient Grace has been when Ben tried to explain the weird new abilities/phenomena happening to them after they disappeared for 5 years AND NOT AGING while still dealing with Cal's illness, that it's much more likely that miscommunication was the issue rather than Ben tilting at windmills.

I'd like to see more of the brilliant analytical mathematician actually.  Instead of running around acting crazy Ben.  But yeah, you're probably right. 

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14 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

Ben was/is a notable mathematician who was known for his analytical mind. How off the wall were his various inquiries? I suspect he was looking at some very legitimate cutting edge research and treatment and doing a really crappy job at translating it for a lay person like Grace. Seeing how short and impatient Grace has been when Ben tried to explain the weird new abilities/phenomena happening to them after they disappeared for 5 years AND NOT AGING while still dealing with Cal's illness, that it's much more likely that miscommunication was the issue rather than Ben tilting at windmills.

So many TV plots depend on people not listening to each other. People not only interrupt but cut each other off, ending the discussion altogether. Her reaction is exactly backwards. How can she not want to know every last detail that Ben is thinking? That should be the priority, not this tiresome you don't care about me objection.

Okay Ben tell me what you got, down to the last damn detail. Then have a proper discussion, where you can argue the craziness if you want. Rank the theories in order of plausibility. Which should take all night. She should be his discussion partner! How best to proceed? What is more important than this? She can't just blurt out that's CRAZY and have that be the end. If initially rebuffed he should have said okay when you are willing to go through this in detail let's do it. If she then says I don't wanna hear about it ever at all, then she cannot later complain he kept secrets from her.

Veep has an ongoing joke about this, where Selina Meyer routinely ignores her people then chastises them for not telling her something. When they respond that they did tell her, her reaction is an eyeroll then we don't have time for your petty complaints. It's played for a (cringey) laugh! I mean, it's clear why they do it, to create short-term cheap drama. But it's annoying still.

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11 minutes ago, fauntleroy said:

So many TV plots depend on people not listening to each other. People not only interrupt but cut each other off, ending the discussion altogether. . . . Veep has an ongoing joke about this, where Selina Meyer routinely ignores her people then chastises them for not telling her something.

I have a boss like this. I guess spouses can be the same. Maybe that's what the Ben-Grace relationship is supposed to depict, but the show is such a jumble of plots that none of them make sense.

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1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

I have a boss like this. I guess spouses can be the same. Maybe that's what the Ben-Grace relationship is supposed to depict, but the show is such a jumble of plots that none of them make sense.

Yeah, I think that's the core problem--how they have portrayed Ben/Grace COULD make sense if we are supposed to see them as a doomed couple that can't communicate. But whether that is actually how we are supposed to see them seems to vary from episode to episode (maybe even scene to scene within individual episodes).

Edited by stealinghome
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On ‎1‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 12:24 AM, green said:

When was that?  I saw ever episode but last week's and all I remember douche-bag Ben ever saying is "trust me" this and "trust me" that and never telling her anything but small bits that made no sense without the bigger picture he always hid.  And he admitted it this episode too.

"Didn't tell you cause I'm the big manly man and I had to protect you, lowly weak woman folks.  Just walk 10 feet behind me and don't ask me to tell you anything and I will save you from things I won't tell you cause you poor woman folk would be all in danger if you knew what was going on.  Better to be in the dark and not worry yer pretty little heads about such things that are best left to us manly men."  God I hate this type of man beyond mere mortal words!!!!

And once he finally HAD to tell her stuff what did he do?  He STILL (and immediately) turned around in seconds and pulled the exact same crap but on his daughter now.  "I can't tell you anything.  Stay home.  Trust me."

I swear if he says "trust me" to one more woman my TV is in danger of me smashing it to bits!

Ben is THE worst!  Worse than that stupid Knights Templar guy in Knight Fall and if you ever saw that show then you know that means Ben is the worst of the worst!

Yikes, I thought I was going to have to sit at that table all by myself! This was probably the first episode where I HAVEN'T wanted to smack Grace.

She and Ben finally talked (and listened) to each other. And now Grace can be on board with the "Scooby Gang", running around trying to solve this mystery. Because I was really tired of Ben acting like he's the only one who knows anything about anything, and justifying every reckless act with, "MY SON!! I HAVE TO SAVE MY SON!!" (the Allcaps are completely intentional, because I swear he shouts it every time)

I blame the script mostly. Why would anyone look sideways at anything Ben has been saying? After all, a planeload of people reappeared after 5 1/2 years without them ageing a day-what else could be "crazy" after that? But the way this show is written, no one seems to acknowledge the weirdness of all of this. Except for the shadowy government muckety-mucks, only the weirdos who follow the passengers around chanting and holding signs act much like anything was amiss. It was nice watching Ben and Grace (with Olive helping from home) work together for the first time. Hopefully this new dynamic can continue.

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On 1/22/2019 at 8:19 PM, ottoDbusdriver said:

Big mystery -- did Zeke find that magazine in the cave or did he bring it with him ?   The Celebrity Dossier Magazine cover had a picture of a Montego Air plane under the headline "Years and Still No Answers".  When the camera focused on the crumpled page that Zeke put on the fire the print on the page was in Latin.  Which is very mysterious.

 

I didn't see this, but part of one of my prior jobs was reviewing the content and layout of marketing materials.  Whenever they didn't have the full text yet, or were waiting on legal disclaimers etc, the spaces was filled in with text that was Latin jibberish.  I bet that's what happened here - they did a mock up of the magazine and never replaced the filler text. 

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Did it by any chance say "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua..."? If so it's a conspiracy of typesetters! And, pretty comical that they left it in there.

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4 hours ago, TexasGal said:

I didn't see this, but part of one of my prior jobs was reviewing the content and layout of marketing materials.  Whenever they didn't have the full text yet, or were waiting on legal disclaimers etc, the spaces was filled in with text that was Latin jibberish.  I bet that's what happened here - they did a mock up of the magazine and never replaced the filler text. 

That's probably the case.

2 hours ago, fauntleroy said:

Did it by any chance say "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua..."? If so it's a conspiracy of typesetters! And, pretty comical that they left it in there.

I was hard to make out, but you could see the words 'commodo' and 'lobortis'.

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On 1/22/2019 at 1:22 PM, Jacks-Son said:

I hate to say it, but when the scene shifted to all of Cal's family members in the house with NINETpolice officers (she counted?) looking frantically for him, I thought Olive looked like she just wanted to call Danny and cry on his shoulder. She didn't even hug her parents for comfort. She stood on the opposite side of the room, not even near her parents; like she's not a part of the family.

I thought so too.

What I found ludicrous (okay maybe minor on top of everything else) is that those nineteen cops let them go into a room all by themselves to have a discussion. Really? If they had been involved in Cal's disappearance (as family members, sadly, often are) they could be cooking up a story.

Also, how did Cal's backpack with his notebook appear on the bed. It wasn't there at first. And boy is he dramatic, - he couldn't have snuck out of the front or back doors, instead of going out his window and down a drainpipe (or however he got to the ground - it is a two story house, right?)

On 1/22/2019 at 5:03 PM, ParadoxLost said:

She probably did want him to do that.  So far both Ben and Danny have offered to let the other guy have her and told her that it was the kids that were hard to let go of.

This made me laugh, because it's true, and I almost feel for Grace that it's her kids that her men are having problems leaving. I'm not a fan of hers - but I think it is how she's written. For what it's worth, I'm not that crazy about Ben either.

On 1/22/2019 at 5:45 PM, ParadoxLost said:

I don't get why the magazine would single out Michaela but it is kind of funny that Jared seems to have declined to participate.

Since he burned a lot of pages, I didn't think she was singled out, more that it was the last page left.

I do like the guy in the cave who was missing for a year. But that gets pretty complicated. What happened a year ago, or are we just talking different realities?

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6 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

What happened a year ago, or are we just talking different realities?

Maybe he was stuck by an ancient computer, typing in a sequence of numbers every hour or so.  And, yes, it did smell like carrots in there.

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18 hours ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

I was hard to make out, but you could see the words 'commodo' and 'lobortis'.

For completeneseses' sake here is the entire quote, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

Commodo and laboris perhaps? In case anyone is not familiar this is bad Latin used as placeholder text by typesetters so they can lay out a page before they get the real text. So if that was in snowman's magazine then ha ha a cute oversight and well-spotted!

If that's not the text then it's evidence of time-travelling Romans.

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3 hours ago, fauntleroy said:

For completeneseses' sake here is the entire quote, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

Commodo and laboris perhaps? In case anyone is not familiar this is bad Latin used as placeholder text by typesetters so they can lay out a page before they get the real text. So if that was in snowman's magazine then ha ha a cute oversight and well-spotted!

If that's not the text then it's evidence of time-travelling Romans.

I like these random lorem Ipsum generators - a bit more fun than faux latin: https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/79940998-15-funny-lorem-ipsum-generators-to-shake-up-your-design-mockups

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Get rid of the unfaithful pig Jared ! Can’t stand him and he really adds nothing to the show and is a waste of space ! Michaela can do so much better ! 

 Love Ben and Grace and hope they can work out their problems and stay together ! It would be refreshing  to see a married couple actually stay married and not go  the infidelity route ! 

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On 1/25/2019 at 1:50 PM, fauntleroy said:

If that's not the text then it's evidence of time-travelling Romans.

Oh please please please let it be time-traveling Romans!  That sounds far more interesting and exciting than this current show.

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So, Mikeala trapped hiker dude into some kind of time warp when he tapped into her telepathic powers by saying her name three times? lmao  Is the gov't or "the major" now conducting experiments in the woods that just so happened to affect this hiker?  Do I care?  I'm really not sure at this point.

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2 hours ago, kelslamu said:

So, Mikeala trapped hiker dude into some kind of time warp when he tapped into her telepathic powers by saying her name three times?

That depends. Was he clicking the heels of his ruby red slippers together at the same time? 

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What an intriguing ending of the episode! It turns out that not only the passengers of the plane disappeared and returned, but also a strange man. Only those disappeared for 5 years, and a man for a year ...
Who is he ??? Is he somehow related to the passengers? Or is it associated with experiments on people ???
And it is time for the boy to immediately tell his parents what he sees and where he is going. Enough nerves to spoil them ...😣

Edited by Friendly kitty
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Oooh boy,  someone was just introduced to Zeke.  (the strange man)  You're in for a treat.  This can be fun.  Please post your thoughts about the series as you progress, if you have time.   Zeke is a member of our "PtSA" Club.  (People tSnark About). However,  please remember most of us have already seen the entire season,  so when you post,  be wary that you might run into a spoiler.  Enjoy! 

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