#amy is the only character who knew David before episode one (and is a reasonable person)

[2003daredevil]

Ok so tonight I wanna talk about pre-canon David. I am in just about EVERYTHING I am into I fixate a lot on pre-canon and Legion raises more questions than most.

Specifically a lot of the early episodes in season 1 deal with the Summerland team trying to get an idea of who David is and solve the mystery of his corrupted memories around the Dr.Poole incident. Division 3 end up derailing this investigation along with the discovery of the Shadow King's presence. As soon as they find Farouk, they stop looking into it, but they never really find out what happened.

Ultimately two versions of what happened are put together.

In one, the one David remembers, he started seeing Dr.Poole and initially things were going well. Then he met Lenny, got into drugs, and robbed him in a moment of moral weakness.

The other one more supported by the evidence they find is that yes David started seeing Dr.Poole and things were going well before he got into the blue vapors with Benny after which he stopped being so easy to work with. But the idea of robbing him, if there even was one, was not what made him break in. During a discussion after Poole asked "What do the stars say?" He answered something which revealed something important. After that, Poole noticed David began to act differently. He increased their sessions and started being open and curious again. Then David broke in to Poole's office to destroy the incriminating tapes and beat Dr.Poole so badly they had to put him into a medically induced coma.

Given we never hear of David going to jail, I'm guessing Poole either didn't want to press charges when he woke up out of sympathy for his patient OR David's parents paid him off (the idea that the Hallers have a significant amount of money is reoccuring to me but more on that in another post) OR David "persuaded" him to forget about the whole thing.

The Summerland team probably assume that what David said revealed the presence of the Shadow King who then took control, covered his tracks, and made sure Poole wouldn't be involved with David anymore. This tracks with Lenny being there over Benny in the memory as well as the way we know Shadow!David to act as in his scene with Amy, calm and seemingly easygoing compared with the way David usually is.

But what if Ptonomy's initial assessment is right? "The guy's a bomb". The third option for this story is that Farouk didn't play a role at all in this, nor did drugs. David revealed something he was hiding (and David hides a lot, including his alters) and went back to destroy the evidence and injured Dr.Poole for getting in his way and then editing his own memory to absolve himself.

Which brings us to another concept; the David we meet in episode 1 is not who he was pre-canon. This is evidenced by the alters telling him that the idea that he is "a good person (who) deserve(s) love" is a delusion born the moment he saw Syd. He wanted to be with her and so he tried to become the kind of person who could have what he wanted to have with her. Not the kind of person who would beat the shit out of his therapist. But maybe he was. After all, even without the Shadow King, David is plenty capable of that kind of rage and violence. In the pilot alone he stabbed Clark with a pen and lit him on fire, very much on purpose. Ptonomy tried to warn Syd that she really didn't know David very well, and from his track record maybe hes not the safest person to be around. I'm not sure if I believe that David really did all that without Farouk's influence but I do believe that he's capable of it and I wish Noah Hawley had brought that back up again later especially in season 3. I kinda wish we were able to find out ultimately what the stars said.

[pochapal]

I hate doctor 11 but ive never been able to explain why in like words lmao. He feels like such a mary sue character imo and like theres something about his characterisation that was always just really ineffective (like the stuff about fishfingers and custard or whatever it was). Imo i'd love to hear you give top 5 worst things about the 11 era because i rlly just love when it gets torn apart

i hold nothing but a seething contempt and loathing for that man. every time he appeared on screen i felt ready to snap like a riled up chimpanzee in my enclosure. i am frothing at the mouth and overcome with a desire to start flinging heavy objects. this might be incoherent and inconsistent but i started this rewatch in feb 2020 and only finished this week so i got through 11′s episodes last august/september time and i refuse to revisit it to jog my memory or fact check anything i’m saying here because this man does not deserve the space in my mind for that.

the first thing is i can’t fucking STAND the quirky whimsy timey wimey bit he has going on all of the time. i can’t even say this is because this is a kids show and i was a teen and then adult when i first properly watched him but actually!! when i was eleven years old i’d sleep over at a friend’s house most weekends and it always coincided with the airing of a new season 5 episode and i remember we watched the finale with the dumb time hopping to get out of the box prison that was never explained and didn’t make sense and i thought at the time “this is really stupid”. and before that my only other doctor who exposure was watching the david tennant christmas specials with another friend and throughout childhood my only opinion on doctor who was “this is a tv show that is not for me but is one that all the boys i am friends with like so i will put up with it to maintain our friendships” but at least those episodes were both suspenseful and engaging enough to keep me watching all the way through. like who the fuck does an end of the world sci fi plot and approaches it with an “oopsy woopsy i am a funny little alien man who is going to stop you all by making you do a hecking silly” like it’s unneeded and self-parodies an already cheesy show to the point where it becomes unwatchable and makes it impossible to ever take this man seriously.

next thing that downright sucks ass so badly is the stupid fucking overwritten constantly escalating plotlines. like everything from season 5 up until his regeneration at the end of season 7 is meant to be this grand interconnected cosmic plot about how...the doctor trying to bring back his planet will end the universe or something so all the top powers across all of reality tried again and again to stop him from doing that except he doesn’t know what’s going on so he keeps thwarting these people who supposedly mean good?? i mean i sure don’t fucking know what they were trying to say!! like for some reason we never get the doctor suddenly becomes this superdemon that threatens everything so these people (whoever they are) decide to, in sequence: suck him through a time rift to erase him from existence, trap him in a prison and remake a universe without him, take his companion’s baby and turn her into a perfectly trained doctor killer, form two(!!) secret societies to hunt him throughout history that are only stopped by his companion splintering herself across his personal timeline to protect him, and repeatedly cause reality collapsing events because it’s a kinder outcome for the universe than what he will do. this grand and terrible event turns out to be...he spends a few hundred years chilling by a rift that leads to his home planet and protects a few generations of children from monsters which convinces them to give him infinite regeneration power then fuck off back to their pocket universe. and it’s like!! what is the point of anything that happens in this man’s era when everything is always “the darkest moment” or whatever the fuck!! i don’t care!! we never get a compelling reason to believe this bumbling clown of a man could ever be a universal threat!! the whole thing is so dumb i hate it!!!

thing number three i hate is how the eleventh doctor is ALSO characterised as this abrasive egotistic male supergenius to the point where he becomes genuinely indistinguishable from bbc sherlock. genuinely who enjoyed seeing this guy constantly tell people their tiny human minds can’t comprehend what he’s doing and then basically just wave his magic wand to solve whatever problem each episode is facing. 2012 is the year of human sin because this fucking shitsmear character archetype somehow became both a redditor role model AND a tumblr sexyman and it’s like!! nobody is enjoying this stop making this seem cool! him saying timey wimey thing any time he does anything is frustrating and dumb and locks the viewer out of giving a fuck about anything that is happening! smartest man in the room syndrome is a disease and the eleventh doctor is terminal with it. like remember how they established river as an accomplished scientist (when she wasn’t being a child soldier or a time paradox or whatever the fuck) and every time that came up mr doctor eleven man was like “oh this thing is obvious because i’m a genius and you didn’t realise because your brain is tiny so get out of the way and let the grownups think” or that time it turned out amy had been replaced with a slime clone for half the season and the doctor chewed rory (audience surrogate) out for somehow not realising this fact we didn’t know right from the start and like. this served no purpose other than to draw into severe question why the doctor is also this super beloved magical figure implicitly trusted by all children everywhere like. mr steven moffat is totally allergic to writing and solving mysteries in his tv show and fuck you for wanting to figure things out as you go along based on the new evidence you uncover at strategic plot intervals just let this asshole man use magical thinking to reveal he knew the answer all along and you’re a fucking idiot for not also realising this thing which had no basis or precedent anywhere else in the show.

speaking of dumb things let us not forget the absolute shitshow that was minority representation in this era. i’m not even talking about the low hanging fruit of how genuinely unironically sexist amy and clara were written where each episode moffat either seemed to loathe them or was incredibly horny over them and they had no character growth or arc or fucking anything. i’m talking about how fucking shit terrible the incidental representation was. god remember how every single fucking gay person who appeared in this era was written as one incredibly fucking stupid joke and how the women were all either sexy dominatrix, feeble girl in love, or Mother (or all three in some really terrible cases) and i’m not qualified to talk about this but also how incredibly white this era was and how on two separate occasions we had monarchs reimagined as sexy girlbosses with a gun played by black women who the doctor leched over. nothing about any of this was good ESPECIALLY coming off the back of rtd who was surprisingly forward thinking for 2005 and did a really good job of positing travel with the doctor as queer allegory. in comparison moffat gave us THE MOST heterosexual shlock i’ve ever had to endure. amy and rory could have been interesting characters were they not hemmed into this domestic bickering young straight married couple bullshit that was in no way changed or altered by traveling with the doctor except for the quasi incestuous river song reveal that was dumb and bad and stupid.

the last major mega gripe i have with the series is moffat’s fucking jingoistic boner for british military aesthetics. this carried over throughout his entire tenure as showrunner but was super terrible vomit inducing in eleven’s era. the unironic admiration for ww2 britain and winston churchill is downright wretched. are you incapable of telling a second world war story outside of churchill’s london and plucky blitz fighters. shit gives me hives so badly. and then!!! that weird church owned army that features in the future that end up being bad not for the concept of what basically amounts to an imperialistic intergalactic rendition of the fucking crusades but because they’re part of the nonsense go nowhere puzzlebox narrative that says the doctor is a not good man who will do bad things to the universe :(. remember how rtd’s doctor was a freshly traumatised man hot off the war criminal press who time and time again vehemently refuses to engage in military violence, but who tragically inadvertently turns every one of his companions into soldiers in his own personal army, and he has this moment of complete horror at the realisation and it is this which causes the downward spiral that ends in 10′s regeneration. and then how there’s this cringe line about how there’s a force of people who are “the doctor’s army, always ready to fight his battles when he’s not around” or some shit and then it turns out this is actually massive literal military operation and we’re meant to celebrate this. fuck off.

bonus round because this needs to be said but i have never hated anything like i hated that fucking human tardis episode. everything about it induced violent anger in me from the sickening overindulgence of that softgoth dark whimsy helena bonham carter tim burton aesthetic to the bafflingly terrible evil carny stereotype of those junk scavengers to the overblown sudden tragic shipbait romance of human tardis and the doctor. every word out of her mouth was trite shit and the fact that the death of her body was presented as this super emotional dramatic scene despite there being no buy in or incentive to care and the fact that every single person on tumblr in 2012 ate that shit up like it was fucking gourmet. i loathe every single thing about that episode so much.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Belated “Early” Live Blog - All the rest

So I watched the rest of the week and I have some thoughts...

Spoilers under the cut

So the Kim stuff was...a thing. I guess. I mean, I’ll give them some credit in that there were a few tiny twists in there. I did think they were just going to go the obvious route and have it be Will but that’s also because I wanted that revelation to lead to Kim eventually finding Malone’s body and that story finally ending, which actually to me would have been better. 

As it is with it being Jamie, I’m back to my “so what was the point of this story?” thing because really...what will the long term consequences of this be? I mean sure, she’s thrown him out now but they literally disown each other every other week. Will it actually last now? Will he leave? Will he stick around and become an actual adversary of hers? Or does it just sort of abruptly disappear like everything else. Jamie and Dawn have broken up but who even cares? They literally break up every other week. They’ve been off more than they’ve been on. I suppose Will and Kim have told each other “I love you” but this relationship has always fallen flat for me because it came out of nowhere and social distancing doesn’t help and they spend more time arguing than anything else. It just doesn’t feel believable. I guess if them getting closer can finally give me my ending the Malone story, I will take it. Because that was the reason for him working up there in the first place. I’m still waiting for the pay off of not having this dumb pointless story lurking out there unfinished. 

So the twists were minor and consequences mostly seem pointless right now but I also feel like they telegraphed the twists entirely too much. I don’t know why they did the whole “Kim’s dead!” spoilers because that to me just told me she wasn’t going to be because why would they spoil that. I feel like I would have had her not fill Jamie in on the whole plan but still have him watching and seeing Will put the drugs in her cup and the shown her dead (without the spoilers), maybe it would have had more impact? But also, they revealed it instantly in that same episode and then literally had her pop up in the next to confront Jamie so it all just felt anticlimactic? And I guess Kim fake poisoning Jamie was a thing that was dramatic but you knew he was going to be fine. And none of what they said was stuff we hadn’t heard before. And it was A LOT of monologuing. 

Also...those flashbacks were ridiculous. 

Sigh...I don’t know. I knew I’d end up being disappointed by it all. I enjoyed the Bernice hijinks last week better. 

Speaking of Bernice, I enjoy her attempt at being calm about all the Liam stuff and I continue to enjoy her relationship with Diane and the way they play off of each other. Those are still some of the most enjoyable scenes for me in this mess of a show. 

I honestly find the whole Jacob thing insane. The proposal out of nowhere was ridiculous and then him getting this upset about it is infuriating. Leanna has every right to react the way she has. He’s reminding me of a character in the book series I’ve been reading who has this whole argument with the girl he likes where he’s upset that she won’t sleep with him and risk pregnancy (pregnancy is really dangerous for her in the circumstance they’re in and there’s no contraception) and decides that she can’t possibly love him then and it’s all really over dramatic teenage nonsense and I wanted to punch him. And that’s how I feel about Jacob right now. Haha. Although it is all making me like Leanna more because she’s actually being sensible. So there’s that. 

But also this being the thing that David needs to help Jacob with, which in turn pisses off Meena is....a choice. Sigh.

The brief Faith and Liv stuff was sort of fun. I appreciate that Faith’s plans don’t include locking people in houses but actually trying to relate to her. And watering down the vodka is at least something I guess. I assume they were trying to imitate Aaron since he walked in and said the same thing. I don’t know...it was fine I guess. 

As far as the Tracy stuff goes, I’m glad at least this week has moved us into a new phase of the story where she’s going to try and avoid Frankie now. I feel like that will be more noticeable and will hopefully get her a diagnosis. I feel bad being so impatient with this story because I do get that it’s important and it’s hard to diagnose perhaps. And I do think Amy Walsh is doing a good job with it. It really is that they made her so unlikeable during the pregnancy part of the story already and that she has to share most of her scenes with Nate. And it’s just like the same scene every time with him. He comes in, he’s useless, she yells at him, he stands there and then goes upstairs. I feel like if she had a better screen partner then maybe it would be better? I liked the scenes with Eric better at least. I don’t know, I hope she gets a diagnosis soon. There’s only so much more of this I can put up with. 

The tiny Jai and Laurel scenes in the Friday episode were interesting. That’s become such a quiet little story that has just continued on throughout all the rest of the nonsense going on in this show. It’s hard to believe that Friday would have been her due date already. I’m just glad they’ve made it through all of this and continue to have these little bittersweet scenes together helping each other get through it all. They’re one of the only couples I like these days. I hope they get to stay that way. 

[cheddar-the-dog]

b99 podcast episode 2:

relationship goals

@jake-and-ames and I have summarized what we think are the highlights of the second episode of the brooklyn nine-nine podcast. maybe those of you who can’t listen to the podcast for whatever reason can profit from it a bit

it’s under the cut because it’s quite long

[[MORE]]

Part 1 with David Phillips, Tony Nahar, Dirk Blocker, Joel McKinnon Miller

a season that’s focussed on Ensemble rather than singular performances

not filmed on stage usually but practical locations (rooms with walls)

3 cameras and their crews —> “single camera” style but multiple cameras that open opportunities to cross-shoot scenes

MEJ plays in the B99 softball team

they have 35 background actors of which 90% were there since s1

Scully and Hitchcock almost never have full storylines and often have punchlines or chime in (requires timing)

S7 spoilers around minute 14 but I blanked out tbh

Episode 12 of Season 2 The Beach House is a very significant episode for the cast and crew

Beach House Cold Open is where Holt spilled soup on his pants and Andy only needed one take for him to go into Holt’s office and spill soup on his own pants

Whole episode was originally Boyle story and his divorce but they went ensemble because it didn’t work

the Amy-Drink-Scale and 6-Drink-Amy (aka Gina’s Sasquatch) is elaborated throughout the episode (not revealed though if there is a 7-Drink-Amy)

Boyle’s borderline creepy lines are discussed around Minute 25

they spent 2 days shooting on location in Malibu and some of the cast stayed overnight and got to know each other more (Andy, Joel, Joe, Melissa and Chelsea and her then boyfriend now husband Jordan Peele)

it was so far away that on the first day when their call time was 7 AM they started shooting at 10:30 AM and it was hot but they had to pretend it’s winter

“Scully is a quintessential rennesaince man” - Joel McKinnon Miller

The bubbles in the hot tub were silent

there were lots of alts and the cast and crew just had fun and tried making each other break and corpse the scene - especially Andre

they intentionally made Holt apologize as an example of how a boss can behave vs how he would be expected to behave (Jake apologizing to him)

Part 2: Stephanie Beatriz, Laura McCreary, Luke Del Tredici

relationships (friendships, romantic relationships, bromances and Rosas coming out)

Steph doesn’t get recognized on the streets because of voice and mannerisms

in the beginning it was more focused on the Rosa/Charles relationship than Jake/Amy because Jake needed a lot of character work before they could think about getting them together/ him more fitting to Amy

Jake/Amy: pacing but also they don’t know how long they have, there’s no opportunity to really plan years ahead - if they would’ve know how long they have they would’ve held back longer with the romance but they knew from the beginning that they’re endgame

they try to avoid making Amy only “the wife”

“RIP Cheddar Number 3” - Laura McCreary

Rosa/Charles: they had Charles pining over Rosa in the pilot and according to Luke you repeat a lot of storylines in the beginning of a series because you’re trying to figure out who these characters are but as the show grew older so did the writers and eventually they realized it felt very inappropriate to not take no for an answer (Luke describes it as a “mistake” to not resolve it sooner)

Steph felt like it was inappropriate early on but didn’t have the courage to go to the writers and tell them how she felt because she was scared of losing her job and she didn’t know how things worked in that particular workplace bc she originally is a theatre actress

Charles and Rosa remain friends though and their relationship grows stronger. So much so that Rosa comes out to him first which Steph loved a lot

MEJ is still waiting for the vow renewal of Holt and Kevin (he pitched another idea during that episode)

Boyle/Peralta: McCreary said that because Jake can’t really mess up at his job because of stakes and he’s not perfect they made him mess up a lot with Charles’ friendship (also the ladies but mainly Charles)

Rosa had a good amount of relationships

“She’s trying. I don’t know if she’s living it but she’s trying.” - Steph

Rosa/Adrian: very opposite characters and she described Jason abd Pimento respectively as loose canons. Mantzoukas also taught Steph how to relax more in scenes (she’s praising his improv skills a lot as well as “he’s like a thorough bred dressage horse but kinda like crazy” - Stephanie Beatriz)

Rosa/Marcus: first on screen relationship that the writers used to get a Rosa/Holt dynamic going

Steph played Rosa queer from the beginning (she built on talking about Tonya Harding being hot for example)

the coming out episode: Steph was involved in creating the 99th episode and the coming out of her character a lot - she wanted Rosa to use the word bisexual repeatedly and the language that was used is a lot of what she had to hear personally. She talks about bi-erasure as well

The writers wanted to incorporate real life experiences into their show more to make it authentic and it was important to them to involve Steph and not just go for it because they had nobody who could speak for her specific experience

they emphasize the complexity of the characters and not just token diversity for brownie points. also different takes on classic masculinity tropes (a subject that repeats often also in Episode 1)

it’s meant to be a socially relevant show but they want to normalize the subjects they target and don’t make it 30 minutes of education and “here’s everything that’s wrong with x”

Terry/Sharon: a stable loving marriage between two black people

“Title of your sex tape” is a favorite joke, and since the series starts with established dynamics everyone in the squad is cool with joking about it/ it doesn’t feel inappropriate in their workplace because they’ve known each other for quite a long time

there’s a cut scene from the s6 finale where the vulture heard Jake say “title of your sex tape” and stole it to use himself which Jake in return hated more than anything he did, ever. And a similar instance (also a cut scene) where Hitchcock heard it and stole it as well

[dukereviewstv]

Duke Reviews TV: Smallville 1x10 Shimmer

Hi, Everyone, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews TV Where We Continue Our Look At Smallville By Talking About Episode 10 Of Season 1, Shimmer...

This Episode Is About A Girl Named Amy Palmer Whose Family Lives On The Luthor Mansion Grounds And Has A Serious Crush On Lex Despite Being Incredibly Jealous Of Victoria So, When Victoria Gets Attacked By An Invisible Man One Night When She's Taking A Bath Clark Tries To Find Out Who Is Behind The Attack And When Evidence Points To Amy The Question Lies Is Amy Behind The Attack? Or Does She Have A Guardian Angel Watching Over Her?

Well, If She Does, He May Be More Phantom Of The Opera Than Frankie Avalon. So, Let's Watch Shimmer To See Who This Person Is...

The Episode Starts At Smallville High, Where It's Blood Donation Week With Lana At The Helm Of Getting Donations. But As Clark And Lana Talk, We Meet Amy Palmer, Who Is Sitting In The Stands, Writing In Her Diary About Lex Luthor As A Kid Named Troy Swipes It From Amy But Luckily Her Brother, Jeff (Who Looks Like Johnny Yong Bosch On Power Rangers Turbo) Goes To Get It Back From Troy...

Eventually, Amy Gets Her Diary Back As Troy Tells Her That Lex Luthor Will Never Fall For Her...

(Amy) Oh, I Hope You Get Eaten By A Werewolf Someday...

Meanwhile In The Boys Locker Room...

(Start At 1:23)

Meeting Chloe At The Beanery, Clark Tells Her About Troy And His Invisible Man While Noticing That Whitney And Lana Are Having A Little Spat About How He Talked To Her For About A Week And She's Getting Concerned But Whitney Just Tells Her That He Needs A Little Space....

Walking Off Shortly After That Statement, Lana Talks With Clark And Chloe As Chloe Offers To Donate A Pint Of Blood Tomorrow, But Clark Lies To Lana Saying That He Doesn't Know When He'll Donate (Instead Of Saying That Needles Bend Off Of His Skin) But He Will Help Sign People Up And Pass Out Cookies...

Meanwhile At The Luthor Mansion, Victoria Talks With Her Father Who Asks Lex If He's Going To Sell The Mansion After They Sell Out Lionel, But Victoria Doesn't Really Get An Answer Out Of Lex, Who Kisses Her Only To Be Interrupted By Amy Who's There To Give Them Their Drinks By Dumping Them Right On Victoria...

With Victoria Knowing That She Did That On Purpose, Lex Just Tells Her That It's Just A Harmless Little Crush And That It'll Pass...

Running Back To Her Family's Home On The Mansion Grounds, Amy's Mother Talks With Her About Lex With Her Brother, Jeff Listening Saying That They May Live On The Mansion Grounds But They're Not Part Of That World And She Needs To Know Her Place...

Back At The Kent Farm, Clark Tells His Parents About The Blood Drive Which Is When They Remind Him That He Can't Donate Blood Because Of That "Needle Problem" Which He Knows But If He Can't Tell Lana The Truth Then He Should Say That He Has A Problem With Needles...

(Start At 0:12)

Arriving At The Mansion With Freshly Picked Tulips, Clark Finds Lex On The Floor Looking For A Watch That His Mother Gave To Him Before She Died, But Getting Back To Flowers, Lex Tells Clark That They're Victoria's Favorites Which Causes An Unknown Force To Knock Them Down...

With Clark Realizing That Things Must Be Going Good With Victoria, Despite Her Not Seeming To Be Lex's Type, Lex Tells Clark That Relationships Aren't Always About Love But Sometimes Of Mutual Goals...

Going To Search The Library To Try To Find Lex's Watch, Clark, Lex And Victoria Hear A Door Rattling Upstairs...

(Start At 2:49, End At 3:16)

Okay, That Doesn't Happen, But If It Did It Would Be Freaking Hysterical!

Opening The Door, Lex And Clark Enter To Find It Completely In Blacklight With Graffiti That Says Leave And Get Out...

With Chloe Getting Pictures Of It, Clark Explains To Her That The Door Was Shaking And When Lex Opened It, He Felt Something Brush Past Him Which Has Chloe Wondering If The Scottish Castle That Makes Up Lex's House, Came With A Poltergeist Despite The Police Believing That It's Vandals...

Asking About The Blood Drive, Clark Tells Chloe That Him And Lana Are Getting Together Tonight Which Has Chloe Warning Clark That Once He Crosses That Line, He Won't Be Able To Hide Behind His Cloak Of Friendship Anymore...

Back At The Luthor Mansion, Lex Gets A Visit From Lionel Who Is There To Talk With Lex About His Relationship With Victoria...

(Start At 2:07, End At 3:10)

With Victoria Listening In Amy Catches Her As She Grumbles Off About What A Bitch Victoria Is, As She Heads Back To Her Family's House To Tell Jeff What Happened...

Later That Night, Clark And Lana Go Over Schedules For The Blood Drive Which Leads Lana To Wonder What Time To Fit Clark In Which Leads Clark To Lie Her, Saying That He Has A Problem With Needles, Understanding Completely This Leads The 2 To Talk On Her Porch...

(Start At 0:39, End At 2:20)

With Auntie Buzzkill Interrupting, Clark And Lana Stop But Before He Goes, Clark Invites Lana To The Loft Tomorrow To See The Sunset...

The Next Day At School, He Tells Pete About Sunset With Lana Before Going To His Locker To See Whitney Talking With A Councilor Before Eventually Dropping His Books To Which Clark Comes To Help Him But In Doing So, Clark Finds A Bag For Smallville Pharmacy And Uses His X-Ray Vision To Discover That, What A Shocker, It's Drugs Specifically Amlodipine Which Clark Discovers Is Used To Treat High Blood Pressure And Chest Pains...

Running Into Amy At The Beanery, She Tells Clark That Victoria Was Going Through Lex's Stuff While Her And Her Mom Were In There While Also Relaying Why She Likes Lex, Stating That He Was The Only Person At The Mansion Who Treated Her Like A Person...

Visiting Lex That Night, Clark Tells Him About Victoria Saying That When He Saw Her In Here Last Night She Was Going Through The Files On His Computer, Knowing This Lex Tells Clark They're Basically Playing A Game Of Chess Which Has Clark Wondering If Lex Doesn't Love Her Why Is She Even Around? To Which Lex Tells Him That It's Complicated...

Telling Lex About What He Discovered About Whitney, He Recognizes The Medication As His Mom Was On It Before She Died Which Leads Lex To Tell Him About The Watch He Lost, Turns Out His Mom Gave It To Him When She Knew That She Was Going To Die Soon...

Well, At Least This Mom Had The Nerve To Die Instead Of Becoming A Megalomaniac Like On Supergirl...

The Watch Apparently Has A Franc From The Napoleonic Period Wondering Why Napoleon? Lex Tells Clark About Napoleon's Coronation By David Saying That When Napoleon's Mother Couldn't Make It To His Coronation, He Had David Paint Her In It As If She Was There...

But As The Boys Talk, Victoria Is Upstairs Getting Ready To Take A Bath...

But As She Jumps In Trouble Stirs As Our Mysterious Force, Starts Drowning Her But Luckily Clark Runs In And Manages To Save Victoria Before She Drowns Completely Which Pisses Off Our Mysterious Force Who Pushes Clark Into A Mirror Causing The Mirror To Shatter And Causes Our Mysterious Force To Bleed Proving That It's Not A Ghost But An Invisible Man...

Taking The Mirror Shard With The Blood To Chloe, She Finds Some Green Dust On The Shard Which Makes Half Of Her Thumb Invisible, Wiping It Off Chloe Starts Wondering Who Might Have An Axe To Grind Against Victoria Which Leads Clark To Suspect Amy As Victoria Said That She Didn't See Amy When She Was In The Bedroom With Her Mom...

Asking If Amy Gave Blood, Clark Says That She Did Which Leads Chloe To See If Their Blood Sample Matches Amy's. Finding Whitney In The Cafeteria, Clark Confronts Him On Lana And On The Heart Medication In His Bag And It Turns Out That It's For His Dad As He's Been In Metropolis All Week For Test With The Doctors Are Uncertain If He'll Survive...

And The Reason That He Didn't Tell Lana Was Because She's Been Through Enough Pain With Her Parents And He Didn't Want Her To Go Through It With Him. Which Leads Clark To Tell Whitney That Lana's A Strong Person And She Can Take It....

Running Into Lex At The Beanery, He Tells Clark That Victoria Is Fine And She's In Metropolis Resting Up For A Few Days Till They Get Answers, But As Clark Tells Lex About Whitney's Dad, Amy Enters To Say Hi As Clark X-Rays Her Hand To Discover Lex's Watch On Her Wrist And Once Amy Leaves Clark Tells Lex About What He Saw Which Leads Clark And Lex To Investigate Amy's Room Where They Find A Shrine To Lex Where They Find The Watch...

With Amy's Mom Apologizing For Her Daughter, Lex Has No Intention Of Pursuing Charges But It's Clear That Amy Needs Help. Making It To His Loft At Sunset, Lana Stands By The Window So They Can Watch The Sunset...

(Start At O:27, End At 2:59)

As Amy And Her Mom Drive Off For Metropolis, Lex Calls Victoria Only Get His Phone Knocked Out Of His Hand And To Get Sucker Punched By Our Invisible Man...

Back On The Kent Farm, Chloe Drops By With The Blood Test Results And It Turns Out That Amy Did Not Match The Invisible Man's Blood Type But Her Brother, Jeff Does...

(Sighs) It's Always The Quiet Ones, But Yeah, Jeff Is Our Invisible Man...

(Start At 1:05, End At 3:55)

So, With Lex Saved And Jeff Arrested, Clark Returns To The Barn To See Lana Talking With Whitney About His Dad On Her Porch...

And That's Shimmer And It Was A Good Episode...

The Story And Characters Are Good And The Idea Of An Invisible Man As A Bad Guy Is An Interesting One To The Point That I Say See It...

Till Next Time, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

[purplesurveys]

409

A little F•R•I•E•N•D•S survey just because.

Characters Favourite character? I relate to Monica the most but my favorite has got to be Chandler. Favourite male character? Chandler by a long shot. Favourite female character? Monica. Man, three questions in and I’ve already got my biases established ha. Favourite non-main character? Probably Jack Geller. Least favourite character (main)? Joey. I was always too impatient for his dumb ass. He’s adorable though.

Least favourite character (not main)? EMILY for days. They wasted so many episodes and storylines dragging her ass through them. I also kinda hated Amy. Funniest? Chandler, and this is going to be unpopular: Ross. He’s funny when he’s not being a jackass. Sweetest? ...Chandler. That episode where Monica ‘freaked’ him out by pretending to book a wedding venue when it turned out Chandler loved the place and ended up proposing to her was the sweetest. Best looking? Rachel. Girl’s style was always on point. Most mature? Phoebe trumps them all so hard. She lived through the Civil War, World War I, lost her mom, lived on the streets, and did so many shady things before landing in that apartment of theirs – she’s a kook but she’s a hella smart kook. Most immature? Has to be a mix of Joey and Rachel. And Ross.

Most annoying? Joey had his annoying moments especially the episode where he tries to speak French!!!!!!!!! but I love all of them just the same. Relationships Favourite couple? CHANDLER AND MONICA Least favourite couple? Joey and Rachel when they got together. I liked the slow burn that preceded the whole thing, but when the writers mashed them together, the execution was just ughhhh. I hated Ross/Julie, Monica/Pete, and Ross/Emily too. Favourite couple that wasn’t a main couple? Oh oof, I guess I’ve listed them all there. ^ Couple you wish would’ve happened? Chandler and Rachel. Their cheesecake episode was awesome.

Best friendship? Monica/Chandler and Joey/Chandler. The two that had the worst friendship? Phoebe and Ross were the two that just clicked the least lmao. Ross was too serious and too nerdy and Phoebe was more liberal and very eccentric. They had that debate on evolution once which I found hard to watch lmao, and not to mention that Ross is the biggest baby in the group whereas Phoebe had to grow up earlier than all of them because of her awful childhood. Couple you’re surprised happened? Rachel and Joey, obviously. Overrated couple? Ross and Rachel. They’re so hyped up when in reality, they were on and off for ten deadass seasons??? It was stretched for so long that it’s very easy to lose interest in it. Most underrated friendship? Phoebe and Ross, I guess. They weren’t very close, but I remember how Ross got Phoebe a bike when he found out she never had her own. That gets overshadowed a lot but I found that episode very sweet. Phoebe/Joey is also pretty underrated. You and them Which character would you be? I’m already Monica. Which character would you wanna be bffs with? Rachel hahaha. Monica’s too high-strung, Phoebe’s crazy, I’d get annoyed with Ross’ bitchfests, Joey is a little immature for my liking, and I feel like I’ll eventually get offended by Chandler’s sarcasm, so I’d go with Rachel.   Who would you date? Chandler. Who would get on your nerves? Joey or Ross. Who can you relate to the most? Monica AF. Organized, obsessed with weddings, obsessed with kids, loves spreadsheets, makes everything a competition, loves food, the mom of the group...all of this is me. Which character pulls on your heartstrings the most (gives you feels)? Chandler aaaahhhhhhhhh. Who would you makeout with? Monica. Show Funniest moment or episode? There’s a lot of em, so let me keep a list:

The episode with the quiz

Joey putting the pieces together about Chandler and Monica

“Ross hasn’t worked in the museum for a year” “Monica and Chandler aRE LIVING TOGETHER” “Ross married Rachel in Vegas anD GOT DIVORCED, /AGAIN/” “I love Jacques Costeau” “I wasn’t supposed to put beef in the trifle” “I wanna GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”

Ross spelling out F-I-N-E

They don’t know that we know they know they now

Saddest moment or episode? Monica finding out they can’t have kids, Phoebe having to part with the triplets, Erica almost giving up on Chandler and Monica because they lied, and the final goshdarn episode. Moment or episode that melted your heart? When Monica made Thanksgiving dinner, only for Joey to ruin it because Monica had to answer the phone, then when Chandler told on Joey, she was like “I don’t care, the adoption agency called and we’re having a baby” :’( Best episode/moment? I can think of so many depending on what kind of episode you’re asking for, but the first ones I can think of off the top of my head are the quiz, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s resolutions episodes, and the one where Chandler and Phoebe pretend to be into each other to see who breaks first. Cringiest moment? A lot of Season 10 stuff was cringey just cos everything felt forced by that point. I also didn’t like the scene where Chandler was checking out their home-sitter’s bra because Monica was convinced she was stealing from her wardrobe lmao. Oh and the one with Ross’ list about Rachel. OH and Joey failing so bad at French. They def had their cringey moments lmao. Worst moment/episode? The one where Pete decides to be a UFC star(????) was so fucking random. There’s also an episode that shows their alternative lives - Monica was still chubby, Phoebe was a bitchy executive...I forget the rest because I’ve only seen it once cos the whole thing was pretty pointless. Best season? The ones in the middle. Best quote? “It’s an electric drill. You get me, YOU KILL ME” or “Gum would be perfection.” Joey Best trait? He’s adorably clumsy and he’s also pretty confident. Worst trait? He has his creepy tendencies, he doesn’t share food, and he’s too stupid for my humor to appreciate him. Who should he have ended up with? Definitely Phoebe. Was he just a player or a sweetheart? Meh. He was a player. If Matt LeBlanc couldn’t play him, who should’ve? Chandler His best season? I’m not familiar which season it is but it has to be the one where he decided he was going to marry Monica. Chandler was always the most insecure out of the six who had a lot of childhood issues and as a result, was perpetually afraid of committing and being serious and actually being an adult. Deciding that he knew he wanted to marry Monica is such an underrated pivotal moment for him. Funny or annoying? FUNNY.  Why did he have trouble with girls? Because he’s so awkward.  If Matthew Perry couldn’t play him who should’ve? Best trait? He really cares.

Worst trait? He hates himself and uses humor to mask everything lol. Ross Best trait? He’s a sweetheart and looks after the girls the most.  Worst trait? Immature and cocky as fuck and loves to kiss his own ass. Which of his gfs/wives do you like best? Rachel. Funny or annoying? I’m split. Everyone hates Ross but he’s actually pretty funny to me lmao, but only when he’s not being sexist or trash. If David couldn’t play him who should’ve? Smart or dumb? Academically smart, pretty dumb in life. Phoebe Best trait? She’s highkey the most mature of all of the friends. Worst trait? She can be a liar. Weird or awesome? She can be both!!! Best song? Either the Santa song (”Rachel and Chandler, hshsshhshsh handler!”) or the shower song (”And tegrin spelled backwards is nirget”). Both slap. Best relationship? That guy from Minsk, David. That highkey should’ve happened. Did she have a better friendship with Monica or Rachel? Tbh Rachel. Monica’s very...analytic and Phoebe doesn’t care. Total opposites. Did she really wanna get with Joey or was it all a joke? It’s all a joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised or offended if they ended up together in some alternative universe. Did she really hate Ross? Probably aspects of Ross, but not fully. Rachel Was she secretly a bitch? She was openly a bitch lmao. Best relationship besides Ross? I hated all of her boyfriends. Probably Joey. YEA I SAID IT Best trait? She grew up so much in the show and I’m so proud of her <3 She went from fully dependent on her dad’s credit cards to getting her dream jobs and being a really good mother and ugh, I just feel for her. Worst trait? She was still the biggest baby in the show. Monica Best trait? She’s the mom of the group. Nothing better than that. Worst trait? She was overly competitive sometimes. Put together & organized or a stressed mess? Definitely put together and organized. She was also stressed, but she was never a mess. Would you find it hard to live with her cause of her cleaning issues? No, we’d be the same more or less. Was Richard too old for her? Yes. Richard knew her since she was little, which makes it worse. Short or long hair? Long. Do you think the fat jokes are funny or mean? Mean, but then again they were jokes of their time so idk why people today are being SO LOUD crying foul over it. More questions Were they on a break? Yes they were. I will defend this to my death. They were on a break after that very bad phone call and Rachel immediately invited his dude-friend over without thinking of Ross. Ross had every reason to be with a girl. Was Gunther weird or kinda cool? He was cool. I loved that they kept him as a recurring character.

Should it have ended sooner, later or when it did? They ended it perfectly. Some elements of season 10 already felt inorganic and unnecessary, but if we didn’t get the last season then we never would’ve seen Chandler and Monica’s twins and Rachel getting off the plane. I’m fine with the way they ultimately paced the show. Based off looks, who of the six would’ve looked best together? Chandler and Monica.

[mshelenahandbag]

2017 - Year of the Laura Dern

Laura Dern is having the best year of her career, or anyone else’s for that matter. 

I could just end this article here, but you know I have to tell you WHY. Laura Dern has, for me, been constantly impressive with her acting prowess from a young age. My first memory is seeing her as Dr. Ellie Sattler in Jurassic Park, and even back then, little didn’t-know-I-was-gay-yet me loved the cool female paleontologist. (Looking back she also had THE best lines (“we can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back!”), most famous of them all being during Goldblum’s “Man creates dinosaurs” soliloquy – “Dinosaurs EAT man….woman inherits the Earth.”) She’s always played interesting characters, but, for me, has never really had her breakthrough with mainstream television and film.

Until this year where Laura Dern has excelled in four projects and netted her first Emmy victory!

Sure, she’s had her accolades with David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart and her notable appearance as the woman Ellen DeGeneres came out to on Ellen. But never anything truly concrete to make a large cross-section of people go “wow.” She’s always, at least to me, been good for niche groups.  Her last Golden Globe win was for the HBO series Enlightened where she played self-destructive executive Amy Jellicoe, and she got an Oscar nomination for 2015’s Wild as Reese Witherspoon’s mother.

Wild director Jean-Marc Vallee is one of the main reasons we’re buzzing about Laura Dern’s 2017 renaissance. He definitely saw something in Dern, and her chemistry with Witherspoon, because the two would reunite and butt heads in HBO’s Big Little Lies – exhibit A in her best year. While everyone was obsessed with the performances Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley gave as the main trio of Madeline, Celeste and Jane (as they rightly should because the series is just that flawless), my focus was on Laura Dern embodying Renata Klein, queen of the helicopter moms in Monterey.

Dern’s Renata had me shouting EMMY long before others jumped on the bandwagon. There’s a scene in the second episode where the birthday party for Amabella, Renata’s daughter, is derailed by Madeline - out for blood when Renata didn’t invite Ziggy, Jane’s son. So Madeline comes back and gets plenty of comped tickets for Disney on Ice so everyone cancels on the birthday party. Renata hits the ceiling, calmly, telling her friend Harper (who bears the unfortunate duty of informing Renata) “Ok. Thank you.”

Harper tries to mediate with “Let us all get along-”

But Renata comes back with the AMAZING over the top…well…this.

“I SAID THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!”

Whether ad-libbed on the spot or script, this moment of hilarity, for me, from Renata made her one of the best characters this year on any show. Showing perfectly poised Renata lose it time and time again, especially when threatening her husband (“I will take my hands and put them around your throat!”) or Madeline (“I’ll even get Snow White to sit on your husband’s face. Maybe Dumbo can take a squat on yours”) was a highlight week after week. The entire series was worth of every Emmy it garnered and survived a potential shutout from FX’s Feud: Bette and Joan but if anything, Laura Dern was the only one out of those nominated that truly deserved to win.

From here, Laura Dern turned from psycho mom to plain old psycho in Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt as Wendy Hebert – who’s set to marry Kimmy’s old pastor. It’s a brief guest starring role, but Dern adds so much in those 20 minutes and delivers a fully-formed character. Wendy starts off so innocent, but the more we spend time with her and Kimmy (Ellie Kemper), the more we realize how unstable she is. Plus she helps Kimmy to confront some real traumas the reverend has inflicted on her, and she also delivers one of my favorite lines in the three seasons of the show as she confides in Titus (Tituss Burgess): “If we only see each other one hour a week, he’ll never realize what a useless piece of crap I am and he’ll love me forever, and that’s what I deserve!” In short, Dern’s portrayal of a woman with absolutely zero self-worth is hysterical.

And from here, Laura Dern’s year hits its zenith with Twin Peaks as she plays long-heard-about-but-never-seen Diane: Agent Dale Cooper’s secretary to whom he has dictated all of his many tapes. Laura Dern’s work with David Lynch has always been fantastic: whether in Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Industrial Symphony No. 1, or Inland Empire – it’s clear that Lynch knows how to get the best results out of her craft. And that’s the reason why her work as Diane is probably a role we will be talking about for years to come.

We meet Diane Evans as a chain-smoking foul-mouthed goddess who was my favorite part of the mindfuck of this 18-part opus. I seriously loved every time Dern, in her platinum bob wig would take a drag off her cigarette and generally her conversations would consist of “Fuck you [insert name here].” She played so well off her director Lynch as FBI agent Gordon Cole and the late Miguel Ferrer as FBI agent Albert Rosenfeld. But one of my favorite moments came when newbie Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) tries to thank Diane for helping them, only to be met with this-

Diane: “What did you say your name was again?”

Tammy: “Tammy.”

Diane: “Fuck you, Tammy.”

I laughed way too hard at this, for way too long. Diane’s modus was basically this for a few episodes but about halfway through the series, her mood changed. We saw her visibly uncomfortable speaking with Mr. C, Cooper’s evil doppelganger BOB created. She revealed that Cooper (Mr. C) had come to see he years ago, but refused to elaborate. We later her she and Mr. C were in cahoots, via text. Was THAT why Diane was so crazy? Diane seemed to be cool when Gordon Cole offered her a slot on the infamous Blue Rose team – investigating supposed paranormal encounters.

“Let’s rock.” Diane said, her index and middle fingers down.

Here is where I said “Something’s up.” You could easily explain her wayward associations with Mr. C, but those two words were uttered by The Man From Another Place in the original series. It’s not just a nudge-wink happenstance, it’s a deliberate clue from Lynch that something is off with Diane. And that comes to fruition twice as the series comes to a close. In part 14, we learn that Dougie Jones’s fingerprints match Cooper’s, and Diane reveals that Janey-E, Dougie’s wife is Diane’s half-sister. No simple coincidence, again.

In part 16 when the actual Cooper emerges from a coma (long story….), Diane receives another text from Mr. C. She goes to meet with Cole, Albert and Tammy and finally reveals what happened the night Mr. C came to see her. He raped her – and it affected her. Dern’s face telling this story is so genuinely pained and she just nails this. Then Diane begins to act odd….really odd, even for this show. She convulses and says “I’m in the sheriff’s station. I’m in the sheriff’s station. I sent him those coordinates, because…I’m not me.” Diane eyes the gun in her purse, Albert’s on edge and Diane pulls hers out only to be shot by Albert and Tammy before being whisked away by some unseen force. Tammy remarks she’s seen a real tulpa (a manifestation) and we cut to the Red Room in the Black Lodge. Yep, Diane was “manufactured.” But what about her cryptic statement “I’m in the sheriff’s station”? Well as luck would have it, we wouldn’t have to wait long to find that out.

In the finale of the series, we learn that the eyeless Naido who helped Cooper out of the Lodge and who Andy rescued, was actually our Diane. A quick fight took care of Mr. C and once the genuine article Dale Cooper lays eyes on Naido, she becomes our Laura Dern again and they kiss.

Then it gets weird.

Cooper pulls a Back to the Future Part II seeing the events of Fire Walk With Me play out – only this time he stops Laura Palmer from being murdered. We cut to the Black Lodge and Cooper and Diane are both there. Then they’re driving on a highway for 430 miles, cross over an electrical grid and check into a motel to have sex.

This is Diane’s final scene of the series and I love how Dern hearkens back to what she told Cole and the FBI earlier about her rape. You still see the pain and confusion on Dern’s face, especially because we’re unsure if this is OUR Cooper, Mr. C or a hybrid of the two. It’s such a fitting end for her work on one of the best shows of 2017, and her exit opens a whole new mystery.

The next morning, Diane’s gone and a note from “Linda” to “Richard” is left for Cooper and leaves us wondering if in a world where Laura Palmer has been saved – has absolutely everything changed? Is Dale Cooper now Richard and is Diane Evans now Linda? (Way more to say on this for a Twin Peaks fan theory thesis later, especially with the role of Carrie Page.)

I didn’t even need to see Laura Dern in Star Wars Episode VIII-The Last Jedi in her role as Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo to know it will be amazing. I knew that from the casting, from her stills with the late Carrie Fisher (something I’m eagerly looking forward to) and the gorgeous Annie Leibowitz photos in Vanity Fair revealing that gorgeous lilac hair. But upon seeing Rian Johnson’s masterpiece that has become the crown jewel for me and many other (but not all) STAR WARS fans, I got to see Dern cap her banner year off in the most fabulous and wonderful style.

When General Leia Organa is unconscious from a First Order attack on the Resistance, command falls to Holdo. Dern and Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron immediately clash, and it’s breathtaking to watch. Holdo wants to load unarmed transports to try and escape to nearby Crait – home of an abandoned Resistance base – and Poe so strongly disagrees with her that he mutinies and relieves her of command (only for himself to be relieved by General Organa stunning him). Holdo remains on ship while the remaining Resistance flee to Crait, and as the First Order begins firing on transport ships. Holdo decides to make a stand and engage the ship to lightspeed, directly at the First Order’s ships. Hyperspace jumps only work when a ship is totally free and clear to maneuver. So if a ship’s in the way, it’s not gonna be pretty.

And it isn’t. Rian Johnson shows the devastation in a soundless scene that cements Holdo’s beautiful and poignant sacrifice. Dern’s time in the Star Wars universe may have been brief but Holdo is a character anyone should be proud to look up to: willing to step up when it matters and sacrifice everything for the needs of the many (…Wait that’s Star Trek…)

Laura Dern’s 2017 is something that won’t be duplicated any time soon, and it’s a career testament to one of Hollywood’s best actresses finally getting the recognition she has beyond deserved.

[the-desolated-quill]

The Girl Who Waited - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Tom MacRae is back for the first time since his Cyberman two parter back in the David Tennant era. That story was pretty decent overall. Much preferred Age Of Steel over Rise Of The Cybermen, but as a whole it’s pretty good as Cyberman stories go. Truth be told I wasn’t expecting much from The Girl Who Waited. I guessed it would be fairly decent, but nothing special.

Boy was I wrong.

MacRae, I didn’t know you had it in you. I LOVE this episode! It’s such a simple and inventive idea as well as a wonderfully constructed, character driven story. I’m in awe.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive on Apalapucia, the second best holiday destination in the universe according to the Doctor. Upon arrival they discover the entire planet is under quarantine due to a plague that kills the two hearted citizens of Apalapucia in one day. As a result, ‘kindness centres’ have been created where the infected citizens are placed in separate time streams, allowing them to live out their lives whilst in communication with their loved ones through giant magnifying glasses. Already I’m hooked. It’s a great setting. I love the minimalist set design and the whole time stream idea. The Handbots are really creepy too. They’re not evil alien invaders. They’re just robots that want to help, but don’t understand that Amy and Rory are aliens and could be harmed by their medicine. Their inability to reason and their insistence that what they’re doing is ‘a kindness’ makes them pretty disconcerting to watch. It’s also a great excuse to keep the Doctor out of the action since he’s vulnerable to the plague because he has two hearts.

So Amy gets trapped in a separate time stream because she presses the wrong button (bit of a contrivance I admit. Why didn’t Rory tell her which button to push when she asked?), and the Doctor and Rory are unable to follow her in because of the quarantine. So they use the TARDIS to break into her time stream, only to discover that they’ve arrived over 30 years too late and Amy is now a fifty something year old woman.

Oops.

Tom MacRae essentially takes the ‘Girl Who Waited’ moniker that Moffat has slapped on Amy to its very extreme. Exploring what would happen if the Doctor made Amy wait for such a long time that no amount of fish fingers and custard can possibly justify it. 

Now I’ve mentioned numerous times how much I dislike Amy, citing her severe lack of proper characterisation as well as her often obnoxious attitude. That’s not to say I don’t like Karen Gillan. Quite the opposite in fact. When you actually give her some good material to work with, Gillan is phenomenally good, and The Girl Who Waited proves that without a shadow of a doubt. Okay I admit she’s not 100% convincing as a middle aged woman, but it almost doesn’t matter because of the emotional weight and gravitas to her performance. Not only is this a great showcase for Gillan’s acting ability, it’s also the first time I’ve ever come close to actually empathising with Amy and began seeing her as an actual character as opposed to a Moffat plot device.

Years of isolation and fighting for survival has left Amy feeling bitter and cold. Not only does she resent the Doctor because of his tardiness, but also resents his willingness to play God with her life. He wants to save past Amy, but doing so would mean erasing older Amy from existence. On the surface that seems like a good idea, but older Amy makes a good point that it’s not fair to erase 30 years of her life and pretend it never happened, questioning whether it’s for her benefit or the Doctor’s.

As I said, Gillan is phenomenal in this episode, constructing a character that’s very uptight and full of bile, but is still recognisably Amy. I particularly loved the way she spat out the words ‘Raggedy Man’ at the Doctor with such venom. One of my favourite scenes is where she has a conversation with her past self and is convinced to let the Doctor help her for the sake of Rory. This episode really explores the relationship between Amy and Rory and how much they mean to each other. I especially liked the memory the two Amys use to bridge the two time streams together. If it was Moffat writing this, he’d probably go with the fish fingers and custard shit again, but MacRae chooses the Macarena, the song that was playing when Amy and Rory had their first kiss. It’s little details like this that help to really humanise Amy and gives her relationship with Rory more depth and credibility than it did before.

While Karen Gillan is the undisputed star of this episode, Arthur Darvill also deserves a ton of credit for his performance as Rory. He clearly cares for Amy, but not in that faux action hero way Moffat was trying to shove down our throats in A Good Man Goes To War, which just came across as hollow and unconvincing. Here it’s much more believable because Rory is talking like how an actual person would talk. He regrets losing the chance to grow old with Amy and expresses profound guilt at making Amy wait. He clearly loves Amy very much and it comes across in Darvill’s performance, particularly in his emotional rant about the Doctor’s irresponsibility at not checking Apalapucia’s history before arriving.

Eventually older Amy agrees to help the Doctor, on the condition that they take both past and older Amys with them. I think we all knew that was never going to happen and MacRae doesn’t try to suggest otherwise. The minute past Amy shows up, the flaws in older Amy’s plan immediately become apparent. Which Amy does Rory consider to be his Amy? And how are two Amys supposed to coexist? This is where elements of ageism start to creep in. Rory gravitates more toward younger Amy because he’s more familiar with her, and this doesn’t go unnoticed by older Amy. So yeah, I suspected that older Amy was due for the chop at some point toward the end. What I didn’t suspect was how they were going to remove older Amy from the picture. Young Amy gets knocked unconscious by a Handbot, Rory gallantly carries her into the TARDIS, older Amy rushes to join them... and the Doctor slams the door in her face.

I love episodes that cast the Doctor in an unsavoury light. While he is a good person who cares deeply for the lives of others, he’s not a saint or a superhero. That’s what makes him so interesting and why he’s endured as a character for so long. While he’ll always try to find a peaceful solution to problems, he’s not above getting his hands dirty. The Girl Who Waited shows the Doctor at his most insidious. Blatantly lying to Rory and older Amy and manipulating them to achieve his own goals. He’s vowed not only to save Amy, but also to fix everything. To put everything back the way it was by any means necessary. And that’s exactly what he does. He has good intentions, but his actions are shocking to the point where it borders on cruel, even going so far as to convince Rory and himself that older Amy isn’t real. On a second viewing, the extent of the Doctor’s manipulation becomes very apparent and it’s really a testament to Matt Smith’s performance that he’s able to trick the audience into believing his sincerity. He really tones down his trademark goofiness in favour of a more subtle, multi-layered performance that makes you realise just how cold and calculating the Doctor really is at his core. We’ve seen him manipulate his enemies many times, but the ease with which he’s able to manipulate his own friends without even so much as a guilty twinge is chilling to say the least.

I do however have one problem with how this is resolved, but I’m actually going to save that for the next episode because that’s when it really becomes apparent.

In my opinion, The Girl Who Waited is up there with The Doctor’s Wife as strong contender for best episode of Series 6. It’s an emotional character piece that provides some much needed nuance for Amy as well as providing a very frightening insight into just how far the Doctor is prepared to go for the so called greater good. A truly impressive effort from Tom MacRae.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Possible Clara-return scenarios

With Series 10 soon to end and filming to begin very soon on the Christmas special, for some of us the question remains if there are any plans for Jenna Coleman to make one final appearance as Clara before Peter Capaldi (and Steven Moffat) passes the torch. There are Clara haters and there are River Song haters in fandom, but on this we are united: once Chris Chibnall arrives, the odds of us hearing from either character again drops to about the same odds as Brian Blessed being cast as the next James Bond. It would be cool if it happened, but it’s pretty unlikely.

This past weekend, Jenna Coleman gave an old-fashioned “non-denial denial” when asked at a convention if she was coming back, which some took as confirmation, but it really doesn’t mean a thing. Same goes for David Bradley’s comments, by the way. I remember seeing Benedict Cumberbatch give an identical non-denial denial about being in The Force Awakens and of course we all remember the role he didn’t play in that film.

But I remain an optimist. Even as Series 10 has had some surprising lost opportunities, we know a major reference was filmed for The Pilot but cut, and they even included a reference in Class. So I’m hoping that with Capaldi’s final episode, Moffat will do the right thing.

As I see it there are a few scenarios that could happen. This is all speculative, no spoilers here. But I get wordy, as usual, so a page break first.

Possibility 1: Jenna filmed her scene sometime during Series 9 production, probably during Hell Bent, and it’ll be inserted into the Christmas special.

Precedent: Moffat had Matt Smith do this for Deep Breath.

Odds of happening: Not impossible, especially now the director of Peter’s final episode is the same as the person who directed Hell Bent. If - as I personally believe - an exit strategy for Capaldi was already in place (remember Clara’s exit was planned out a year in advance, too) and Rachel Talalay was already lined up to direct the special, or there was a good reason to suspect she would, it would simplify matters for her to utilize footage she shot herself. Also, it would solve any problems regarding contracts Jenna might have with ITV, her availability, etc. to have footage already in the can (same with Matt’s scene - he wouldn’t have been available to film anything later). Plus since it has already been filmed it might be easier to keep the spoiler contained.

Possibility 2: Full-fledged guest appearance.

Precedent: Donna Noble and Wilf Mott in End of Time, even though Donna’s was more of a glorified cameo.

Bringing Jenna Coleman back as the “big name guest star” would be amazing, and a best-case scenario. But it won’t happen. Not with ITV doing its own Victoria Christmas special. Plus, even though it’s assumed Jenna is due for a mid-series filming break (just as she had for Series 1), it’s doubtful she would be available for the month or so it would take to film. I’d love to see it, but this one won’t happen. The logistics just don’t work.

Possibility 3: No appearance.

Precedent: Appearances by past companions is pretty much a Modern Era thing and really only started with Tennant’s regeneration. It never happened in the original series with the sole exception of Caves of Androzani when they got all of Five’s companions to come back for a hallucination sequence. In Time of the Doctor, Moffat planned for Amy to be accompanied by River and Rory in the regeneration. Alex Kingston and Arthur Darvill were unavailable, so it ended up being just Karen Gillan.

Sadly, this is possible. It may simply not work out to get Jenna Coleman in, or Moffat - who has repeatedly said the regeneration will be handled differently this time, and who has said S10 was an attempt to get back to the Classic Era - may decide not to have past companions come back. We never saw Liz and Jo in Planet of the Spiders (though Jo was referenced); Susan never appeared in The Tenth Planet; Peri didn’t turn up when Six changed at the start of Time and the Rani; Ace was nowhere to be found when Seven changed in the TV movie; and Eight just read off a list of names in Night of the Doctor. Obviously the worst-case scenario that would leave a lot of people dissatisfied.

Possibility 4: Flashback footage.

Precedent: Logopolis. Before Tom Baker changes, we get a montage of the companions he knew, using archival footage. It’s the only time in the Classic Era this was done for a regeneration.

This would certainly be the easiest and simplest and probably least expensive approach ... and could be utilized if the plot at all touches on the Doctor restoring his memories of Clara. Of course if they take this approach they would probably be obligated to have flashbacks of River, Bill and Nardole, too, assuming none of them appear in the special in person.

Possibility 5: A shared appearance.

Precedent: The End of Time, where all of Ten’s companions appeared along with a few other key individuals like Joan Redfern’s granddaughter. Also, as noted above, Time of the Doctor was going to do this.

Much as some of us still think of Clara as the Twelfth Doctor’s primary companion, the show doesn’t work that way. His era is now connected with other companions - Bill Potts, Nardole and, yes, River Song too. Moffat may decide to follow Russell T Davies’ lead and feature appearances by other companions not just Clara (depending on what happens at the end of S10). As the end of his era I wouldn’t put it past Moffat to include other characters too - the Paternoster Gang, Osgood and Kate, and of course Missy. Clara may not have the Doctor all to herself.

Possibility 6: A cameo at the very end, a la Amy in The Time of the Doctor

Precedent: Uh, Amy in The Time of the Doctor

In my opinion this is most likely. A brief cameo appearance would be easy to film during a break in shooting Victoria, and probably could be negotiated with ITV easier than a full-out guest role. There’s a rumour - so far unconfirmed - that a certain Cardiff location has been booked for a couple of days of filming that might suggest something of this nature is planned. Despite what I just wrote in #5, having Clara appear by herself would make sense and be in keeping with the “first face” tradition that was started with Tennant. A lot, I think, will depend on how Episode 12 ends. If Bill, Nardole and Missy’s stories end with full resolutions, then that would in theory leave just one loose character thread hanging. But having said that, Moffat gave River not one but three full stops (her death in Forest of the Dead, the minisode Last Night where Eleven supposedly left for Darillium, and Name of the Doctor which was supposed to be the final goodbye to the character). And then he decided to write The Husbands of River Song. Full stops don’t seem to be Moffat’s thing (which is one reason, for any skeptics out there, that so many of us are hoping for - and outright expecting - an appearance by Clara before Capaldi leaves).

All speculation. Any of these may happen. None of these may happen. It’s going to be a long 6 months...

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Jenny’s Belated Live Blogging - 6th June 2019

- Still teary eyed from that. 

- I know Ryan’s holiday messed up Robert being able to go to the funeral, but I’m very glad that they took pity on us and filmed that scene at the Mill to put before hand. They didn’t have to but I appreciated it. And the fact that he gave Aaron a hug. It was sweet. 

- The funeral stuff was lovely and perfect. Belle’s poem was a bit cringey but it was still sweet. And I liked getting to hear Charity’s eulogy again, including her breaking down momentarily to get in a few extra personal words. That was good. And it was in the preview, but putting the blanket over the casket was a nice touch. 

- The pig racing was amazing. More of that please! I love that they attached little stuffed animal riders to them too. Also, I hope Spamela won. Haha. 

- Did Aaron actually speak to Ryan? Was that the first time they’ve ever acknowledged each other? That was weird. Haha. I wish I actually liked Ryan at this point so I could have enjoyed that moment more.

- In general it was nice seeing glimpses of Aaron’s face throughout the episode and I always love seeing him laugh and smile. So the pig race scenes were nice for that. And I loved him hanging at the bar with Diane and Faith. The banter in the pub scene was great in general. 

- The Sam and Lydia scenes were lovely, plus Samson. Please let them get married soon! I need it! They’ve had to wait too long. (Some of Lydia’s looks were making me weirdly nervous)

- The letters were perfect too. (slightly bitter Aaron didn’t seem to get one. Maybe we just didn’t see it.) Anyway, I love that she told Sam that he was her son since that’s exactly what he’s been needing to hear. Blah blah Grace, yeah, I know I’m supposed to feel something there, but if I never have to see Chas standing at her grave again....But the Charity letter was great. And I LOVE that she just didn’t actually give Marlon the rabbit stew recipe in the end. That was brilliant. A nice little moment of levity. And thank god Lisa can do what months of repetitive nonsense with Debbie and Cain couldn’t do, get them to hug it out and be done with whatever inconsistent conflict still lies between them. Thanks Lisa! 

- All in all, it was a beautiful send off ending with Belle’s letter. I like that Zak couldn’t read his. I wonder if we’ll get it later. 

- Elsewhere in the episode...I don’t totally understand what’s going on with Bernice and Liam. I guess he is hiding something perhaps? I guess we’ll find out. 

- This Andrea vs Kim stuff is still weird but I guess they need some family drama up there. There should be that up there. I just wish it wasn’t going to involve Graham. Home Farm is so much better without him. 

- Kim and Rhona are clearly still loved up. Haha. I don’t get it but it’s wonderful. You don’t matter anymore Pete, Rhona has Kim now. Clearly, she’s just moved in since they’re joined at the hip. 

- And then...David...and Leyla. God. I knew it was going to go there and I was almost proud of David when he said he should leave before they kissed the first time. Sigh. They just...can’t seem to help themselves but continue to mess up. David needs to understand that, even though he’s not to blame for Maya’s behavior, he still does have a massive problem with the rate at which he goes through relationships that does very much affect Jacob. He can’t seem to be alone and that’s a problem. And Eric was right when he said that Leyla is only a mum to Jacob when it’s convenient to her. Harsh, but true. The pair of them really need to get it together and stop talking about what they should be doing for Jacob and about how he’s lost forever and start actually being there for him properly, whether he wants them to be or not. And you know...therapy. At this point, yes, I do think Eric is better equipped to be looking after him. I just can’t wait for Jacob to realize how much Maya has messed him up so he can start getting help. This transition period is tough to watch. 

- I did love having Matty and Ellis around at the Mill with Vic though. My dream really is all the younger characters just hanging out there (with Aaron and Robert too). But I love that they’re there to support her and that they’re all dealing with their own issues too. Matty with his transition and Ellis with the after effects of the stabbing on his mental state. It’s nice that they can all band together. Now Amy just needs to return from her mystery trip to Belfast. (I assume she was just on holiday too and they needed a legit reason for her not to be there for Vic)

- Speaking of holidays...I assume Sandra Mavin is on holiday too since Jessie has been at the longest conference known to man.

- Lastly...was Robert really going to see recast Seb? Or was he stalking Lee? Haha. Who can say. I hope Ryan had a fun holiday. 

[cheddar-the-dog]

b99 the podcast episode 5:

ain‘t no heist like a halloween heist

@jake-and-ames and I have summarized what we think are the highlights of the fifth episode of the brooklyn nine-nine podcast. maybe those of you who can’t listen to the podcast for whatever reason can profit from it a bit

under the cut as usual

[[MORE]]

Part 1 with Melissa Fumero, David Phillips, Cortney Carrillo

they expected the heist episode to be a one-off thing but the reception was so good they decided to do more of these episodes

inspiration were Halloween episodes of different shows

eventually it was a given that there‘ll be a heist episode

there is a video of Mel geeking out because she‘s on a harness going through the ceiling in S1 like in Mission Impossible

there’s generally a lot of MI elements

the Halloween episodes are especially long shoots

shooting the Handmaiden scene in S5 took so long that Mel started texting with a friend and they did astrology charts of people and analyzed them together

initially in the 3rd halloween heist the woman opening the door on the 16th floor was supposed to be Kylie but the writers didnt feel it was right so they changed it

they didnt plan Terry hating heists to use that as a tactic later on but they realized in S5 that they could use it in S6

roman numerals are used for many things in the writer‘s room but they only stuck for the heist episodes

for one of the heists (sorry I didn’t catch which one) they tried emulating the Ocean‘s 11 score

when Holt explains the whole flutist thing there is a flute playing in the background

there’s a “Babysitter’s Club” theme when Amy and Rosa team up and there’s a few instances when Mel and Steph tried sneaking in the theme song

HalloVeen: the cold open is Mel‘s favorite

‘you’re being so mean do it harder’ was an alt-line and thats how that bit became a thing

the Jake/Amy dynamic in HalloVeen is a throwback to early Jake/Amy dynamics

Andy ripping Andre’s shirt open and vice versa was done in one take

where does Bill come from? the writers felt like they wrote themselves into a hole with Bill because they worried it wouldnt be funny or they wouldnt find an actor who could make it work

but they saw the actor for Bill walk into the audition room and they knew it would work with him, and he can imitate Joe very well

there were theories about next heist winners: Kevin or Cheddar

SPOILER: Scully‘s medical probems will be explored a bit more in S7

there weren’t a lot of people in the room when the proposal was filmed but a lot of production people came down before the filming, including Dan Goor - it made Mel realize that it‘s a meaningful moment and she says she wont forget how she felt

Andy came up with the “I love how you pretend to love Die Hard” line

they mention Andy‘s heart eyes and they talk about them and that one panel, when a girl in the audience asked him to look at her like that and she burst into tears immediately after

everyone loves how in the wedding what made Jake cry is Amy saying “your butt is the bomb“ and how he responded with “you’re my dream girl”

“Kevin and Holt should get their vows renewed” - MEJ

Part 2 with Alexis Jacks, Chris Call, Walter Eckert

property master is in charge of everything an actor touches and interacts with (watches, phones, computers, glasses, jewelry etc) not interior design in itself though

art director: overlooks the look of the show (sets, costumes, paint, architecture, design) makes sure it all gets done

set dressing and constructing: build sets and dresses it (sofas, tables, carpet etc)

costume department: 10 people (shoppers, continuity supervisors, fittings and dressers)

the characters have closets so the costumes can be reworn and give the characters and the show a “normal people” vibe

stuff gets changed mid-week and in the beginning people had to change a lot of things or scrap everything they compiled so far and start over so now they make drafts first because they expect changes mid-week before they start

if there’s bigger things that are needed the departments get a heads-up, also for calculations and adjustments

the B99-seamstress (they call her Monina so I’m assuming it’s Monina Arellano) is very low-key but a fast and impeccable worker and “a master” at what she does. she came to B99 after Parks ended

The Bullpen is a standing set (meaning it’s there the full year)

Shaw’s bar is a stage over but it gets taken down and sent away each season because they use that stage for different sets

The builders can construct and deconstruct stages in less than a day

a lot of props are get ordered online but many things are built from scratch

The cake in the cake shop was a prototype constructed of the Die Hard DVD Boxset (it comes in a Nakatomi tower) covered in fondant and a figurine scaling down on a string of licorice

the actual cake was never fully constructed, they built the shell of the broken tower in pieces, and laid them on the floor and then stuffed them with real cake

Gina’s statue was made of hard density foam and then spray painted

Cinco de Mayo Terry was spray painted and the clothing was color matched

Cummerbund: they created 2 belts with different inscriptions for HalloVeen

The belt in 6 was remade because they couldn’t find the original anymore

Terry wears suspenders because they wanted him to have a retro detective look and no jackets to show off his physique

Jake’s jeans are more often than not Andy’s own jeans

Holt wears either his uniform or navy suits to echo his work uniform

Rosa can run in her heeled boots but the show is not always accurate to actual work life and a real life detective would most likely not wear heeled boots to work

“Boyle is a Boyle” with tones of beige, butter and brown. the whole family wears it, even Nikolaj

Amy wore pant suits and now her uniform which is, like in reality, ill-fitting and when she’s out of work, Costumes try to put her in very casual clothing

the utility belts are super heavy so now it’s just foam and rubber. and there are belt keepers that snap the utility belt to the belt of your pants because otherwise you would have to strap it so tight that you cant move or it would pull all your clothing down with it (it carries a gun magazine, a baton, handcuffs, belt keepers, pepper spray, the Walkie-Talkie [case], a gloves pouch, taser etc)

the NYPD tasers are yellow but props went with black ones

props handle all real and fake weapons as long as they’re not automatic ones. then they’d have to bring in an Armor, a certified fire-arms specialist

they never used a real gun so far but air soft guns are used as the guns while shooting and gun shots are added in post

Props is also responsible for animals

there was a time when Props could go to a pet store and rent a hamster, shoot with it and bring it back now there’s an animal trainer for any animal you can think of

animal trainers have headshots of their animals as well and someone has to look at them and choose which animals they want to cast

[douxreviews]

The Punisher - ‘Collision Course’ Review

Madani: "Frank is not a criminal. He is not a hero either. He's just...he's Frank."

The dragging state of exposition and interpretation of what makes up The Punisher rather than actually seeing The Punisher in action thankfully comes a close in 'Collision Course'.

Aside from Frank's brief raid of Russo's compound two episodes ago, Season 2 for me has taken a prolonged time over the course of the last few episodes favoring the dissection of Frank Castle's psychology rather than showing him do a lot of punishing. I'm all for character profiling but with Season 2, it feels like there's been one too many side-tracks lately into the talking point of judgment, e,g. how should we judge the actions of Frank and Billy? Who has the right to judge them? Is it Pilgrim? Madani? Dumont?

That being said, 'Collision Course' finally is able to give the series some breathing room from that dialogue and kicks the action back towards overdrive, what with Frank now having made his escape from the hospital. Quite immediately, Frank and Mahoney are ambushed by Pilgrim and run off the road in a nasty crash. I've thoroughly enjoyed Mahoney's expanded presence and dry wit this season (even if it's a little lacking without Foggy Nelson for him to butt heads with) and was worried he may not have made it there, had it not been for Frank's quick-thinking; Frank is able to clear him and Mahoney away from the wreckage before Frank departs on his own, this time, his ambition turned towards the Schultzs.

The antagonistic threat of the Schultzs and their hitman Pilgrim has felt like it's taken a back seat to the Frank-Billy rivalry this season, and for that reason, it feels a little disjointed here that Frank all of a sudden now has his attention on the Schultzs' only son David. Frank does what Frank does best though and drags a beaten and bloody David back to the trailer park to see how much he knows about Pilgrim.

At the same time, Pilgrim is relentless as ever in his pursuit of Frank and Amy; however, this late into the game, I was finally beginning to feel as if even Pilgrim had forgotten what the entirety of his mission was; rather than bring up the photographs of David being used as blackmail, he now eerily only seems interested in Amy when he confronts Curtis at the trailer park. His journey too isn't as captivating either, it more just feels like a series of plot contrivances guiding him. Who knows how he knew which hospital room to look for Frank in? Who knows how he knew which trailer park to look in? Ordinarily, the Marvel-Netflix series have been pretty good at juggling multiple villains in their narratives, but Pilgrim feels profoundly overshadowed by the threat, and admittedly the charm, of Russo.

Curtis refuses to give up Amy and Frank's whereabouts to Pilgrim and once Amy unexpectedly rushes in, a grisly brawl ensues, ending once Pilgrim gives chase after Amy (in his haste, refusing again to grab the incriminating photos of David that are three feet away from him), not knowing she's stowed away in his trunk. Because of the looming threat that Netflix could cancel this series very soon, as was the case when Season 3 of Daredevil came out, this actually raised the stakes in a way for me, as it made me feel suddenly that no one is safe as we wind down in the last few battles of the season. That included Curtis too, someone I was hoping we wouldn't have to violently part with. Fortunately, Curtis too survives the fist-fight and regretfully tells Frank when he shows up that Amy's supposedly been captured.

Meanwhile, Madani's begun to suspect the worst of Dumont after noticing eerie similarities between her own patterns of dialogue, and Russo's taunting phone call to Frank in the hospital. I'm sure most of us already had two and two put together the second Russo hung up on Frank, but I'm so glad Madani was the first to actually speculate that Dumont isn't at all what she's cracked up to be. It also felt like a nice little redemption for her arc too - last season, Russo was able to manipulate much of Madani's investigation into Frank and Rawlins, and it's haunted Madani ever since; now in Season 2, we have Dumont trying to succeed with a similar intent, only this time around, Madani's wise to the act.

Following a violent confrontation, Madani shoves Dumont out of her apartment window and to the pavement below. It felt a little silly for one seeing this NOT be a completely one-sided duel. I can't figure for the life of me how a shrink could hold her own against an exceptionally trained Homeland Security agent. And it also floored me a little still seeing Dumont put everything she has on the line against Madani, all for Russo. As toxic relationships go, this is probably one of the oddest and most contrived ones I've ever seen in a Netflix series.

Russo arrives on scene following Dumont's demise and all the joy and ecstasy on his face is drained when he witnesses Madani the last one standing at the window. Ben Barnes has been able to do something for Billy Russo I would have never thought possible last season, and that is making Russo a sympathetic character. Everything from his brain trauma to his journey to piece back together his lost memories, Barnes has practically played Russo this time around as arguably a very different character, and for all the scorn I've had this season for his character's pairing with Dumont, Barnes himself has become one of Season 2's most captivating segments.

I suppose it's morbid for me to be relieved that Dumont has bitten the dust, but just as she preached that it was Russo's injuries that bought her and him together, it will be her death that brings the final battle between Frank, Russo, and Madani together too.

Aaron Studer loves spending his time reading, writing and defending the existence of cryptids because they can’t do it themselves.

[frazzledsoul]

Disclaimer: I am less than proud of this post. I was going to keep it in my drafts, but I figured I’ll just put most of it under a cut instead. It’s pretty ugly and angry and irrational and I can’t back up most of the claims I make, but it is what it is. As I said the other day on here, no one thinks less of Amy Sherman Palladino than me. I don’t like her or trust her and while I might begrudgingly respect her for the show she created in the first place, I will not touch anything new she does in the future ever again. I think she’s earned that in spades: most of what I talk about here can be applied not just to love triangle shenanigans that happened a decade ago but to Rory’s plot in general in the revival, which was in its way a much bigger betrayal of everything the show stood for. It’s definitely a pattern and it’s not a positive one.

I will also say that one of the major reasons that the events at the end of season six hit me so hard is because I lived a much uglier, messier, more devastating version of these events in my family twice over the past 15 years. I’m obfuscating the details to protect the guilty, but in real life the damage is so much worse than what we saw played out on screen. There are some things that will never, ever be okay with me, that there are just no excuses for, no matter what. I don’t think I ever really processed that part of it, nor did I ever really process what it felt like to be dealt the final blow in what seemed to be a long, contentious battle between the creator of this show and the fans who kept hoping that Amy wouldn’t do the one thing we always feared she would resort to in order to achieve her own ends. So much of the time it felt like we (and Luke, but he’s fictional, so he’ll get over it) were just bugs waiting to be squashed.

So maybe this is because I am in a melancholy mood lately, but I just had some things to get off my chest about why I’m still so angry about the end of season 6 eleven long years after the fact. I still take it personally, and I still feel betrayed by that whole wretched plot development, and I still will never, ever forgive ASP for what she did. The revival may have worked out to my satisfaction, but I still don’t want the woman to write new episodes of the series because I don’t trust her. There’s no reason to believe she wouldn’t take everything positive she last left us with and obliterate it just because she could. She’s got a long track record of doing exactly that.

The bottom line is that we talk about this damn showrunner too much. It’s not a good reflection on her work. If what she was writing was good enough to speak for itself, we wouldn’t spend so much time trying to justify her choices and going WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF over and over again. Honestly, it shouldn’t be this hard. This is coming from someone who does still make a lot of excuses for her, from Luke and Lorelai not having kids to their decision to delay marriage to Rory’s surprise pregnancy and dour, unimaginative fate. The idea that everything she does is inviolable because she’s the one controlling the puppet strings and nothing else matters is a really unhealthy mentality.

Sometimes it’s okay to just flat-out say that a lot of the stuff she forced on us was simply wrong.

Of course, part of this is my fault because I come at it from the other side, too. It’s not in the best interest of an invested fan to pay too much attention to what the writing team says. They don’t see it like we do. It’s mostly pieces to move around on a chessboard to them and they’ll never understand why we care so much. I think the fan culture is much more balanced these days, or maybe I just say that because the only other shows I keep up with are genre shows where being a fan is an experience that’s so much bigger than what happens in those 42 minutes we see onscreen. It’s not to say that problems don’t exist or that there isn’t fan discontent, but it’s not like it was ten years ago. We’re all part of the whole for so much of the experience.

Showrunners like ASP (and I would count the notoriously sadistic Shonda Rhimes in here, too) don’t play that game, of course. I can definitively say that if I had never read any of her interviews, this would have been a way more pleasant viewing experience for me. What if I hadn’t known that ASP kept come up with excuses to keep Luke and Lorelai apart because she didn’t think she could get it right? What if I didn’t know that she only hooked them up because the show got into trouble ratings-wise and she knew David Sutcliffe was available for Christopher to “cause problems” if she got bored? What if I didn’t read that interview where she essentially said that anyone who cared about Luke would have to accept him being relegated to the sidelines because it was time for Christopher to show how good he was at a relationship?

What if this entire fandom experience didn’t feel like a huge battle to keep ASP from bringing it all crashing down in the most disastrous way possible so that she could pursue the relationship outcome that she really wanted? What if it didn’t feel like a constant fight not to have one of my favorite characters be replaced? What if I didn’t feel that it was only a matter of time before Lorelai would betray Luke in the worst way possible, and do the one thing that he and the fans always feared the most, just so that ASP could have her favorite swoop in on his white horse to rescue her from the love interest who would always only be humble and ordinary?

Maybe it’s never a good idea to know what’s going on behind the curtain. Knowing all of this definitely made what was already a deeply upsetting plot twist that much worse. It’s impossible to have faith that any of this is ever going to be fixed when it seems the person in control is always fighting against you. There was no reason to think that it was going to get better, because she didn’t seem to want the same things that we did. We were just standing in the way of the happy ending that she preferred.

I didn’t have many expectations for what I wanted from this show. All I wanted (during the OS and the revival) was for Lorelai not to run off with Christopher and break Luke’s heart after they had been together. When Amy wrote that ending that so many of us feared would eventually come, it felt like a spit in the face, a final triumph on her part for this adversarial process. It was anyone who care about Luke and Lorelai as a couple or even Luke by himself against her and her Christopher fantasy, and she won. The worst part was that I had quit watching months earlier because I knew it would always come back to this. I tuned into the last half of Partings hoping that she wouldn’t do what I always dreaded, that she wouldn’t take it that far. But I had been right all along. 

Of course, maybe Christopher was just a diversion in the first place. It doesn’t change the fact that Amy twisted Luke into something he wasn’t in order to build up his rival simply because she was bored. None of this had to happen, but she wanted more time with her favorite and the rest of us had to suffer the consequences. I really, really want to say that what she planned was temporary and that the happy ending we got was in the cards all along, but in my heart of hearts I’m never be able to talk myself into completely believing that. She still can’t bring herself to talk of the happy ending she eventually gave us as anything other than what the fans forced on her.

Why shouldn’t I believe that she would choose the worst possible outcome if left to her own devices? She already did it once before.

You’ll notice I haven’t talked a lot about the actual plot twist in question. There’s nothing I can say about it that hasn’t been said before. The truth is that we can argue about whose fault it was until the cows come home, but it was a plot machination whipped up so that ASP could write the Christopher/Lorelai romance that she always seemed to really want. The Lorelai I knew and loved for six seasons (because despite some immature passive-aggressive behavior earlier in the season, she still remains very sympathetic to me right up until the end here) would not go as far she did. No matter how upset she was, no matter how betrayed she felt by Luke telling her no, she would not hurt him the way she did. She wouldn’t blatantly use Christopher like that. She wouldn’t put Rory in the position of having to sift through the ramifications of her fucked-up latethirtysomething love triangle and put her on shaky terms with both of her father figures.

The Lorelai Gilmore I knew wouldn’t have hurt the people she most cared about that way. She wasn’t that type of person. I’m intimately familiar with that type of person, and Lorelai was better than that. But if that’s what needed to happen for ASP to get what she wanted, that’s what was going to happen.

I know it was fixed eventually. Fate intervened before ASP could write that Christopher plot she wanted so badly, and we got not one but two happy endings for Luke and Lorelai. Believe me, I’m grateful for all of that. But it doesn’t change what happened, and it doesn’t make it any less of a betrayal as far as I am concerned. I really wish I had been less Internet savvy back when I was watching the show, that I didn’t view everything in terms of this fight I felt ASP was having with the fans through the media. In the end, I don’t know if it would have made any of it make any more sense to me, though.

I’m glad we got the ending we did, but the fact that we had to suffer through so much to get it was completely unnecessary. I no longer let myself get emotionally attached to ships or characters: I still fangirl, but in a more general way. It’s not worth it to fight another war with someone who’s at such cross purposes with what makes her enterprise work, or who seems to delight in making her fans as miserable as possible. I haven’t encountered a situation like this with anything else I’ve gotten interested in, but there are always things out there that end up slamming the door in your face at the last moment. The finale of HIMYM is probably what comes closest.

If we have to focus this much attention on the writer’s motivations in order to justify what she put forth, something clearly isn’t working right. If it can’t stand on its own, maybe the creator needs to take a step back and focus a little less on forcing her own agenda on something that isn’t right.

Or to put it much more simply, the shippers aren’t always wrong.

[milquetoast-on-acid]

Reloaded, A Reactionary Post

Major Crimes, S1xE1: Episode Review

And so begins my Major Crimes rewatch with reactionary posts all the way from the first episode. Enjoy!

What this episode is about: Changes (for better and for worse) // Provenza's Leadership vs. Raydor's Leadership // Deal or No Deal // The Kid: Rusty Beck Alliances and Divisions // Sharon vs Provenza // The oddity of Amy Sykes // Sharon & Andy

The Case (and Greg Miller) There are always parallels between the cases and the personal story involving our detectives. For this particular episode, there isn't a very definitive personal line. There are however some parallels that pop up. 

The Vet The killer in the case, Greg is a young war vet with the rest of his life ahead of himself. Amy, our new squad member is also a war vet. But unlike Greg, Amy is (for the most part) a well adjusted person. We don't know that much about Amy's life as an MP, and what she saw specifically. But if she did ever have PTSD, it is something she dealt with. 

The Son (who's suffering from PTSD) Greg is also the son of a police detective. Him and his friends could not adjust back into normal society. Unfortunately for Greg, his father didn't push him to seek help with his PTSD. Similar to Rusty Beck who's clearly suffering with issues from the abandonment of his mother, abuse from her boyfriend and effects from his prostituting on the streets. By the end of the episode Sharon takes Rusty home. And thus the start of a long emotional journey between the two of them.

Changes

Deal or No Deal

One of the biggest changes the show made as well as verses the way Sharon does things as opposed to the way Brenda did things. Brenda way of doing things was about creating a situation in order to get a suspect to confess their crimes. Sharon's way of doing things is more about making deals with the criminals. It's something that keeps Taylor (and the other upper Brass happy) by saving time and money. Not only does it get criminals a definite sentence but it also has the added benefit of bypassing trials. Trials which are hugely costly, time consuming and traumatic for the victims and their family.

Provenza's Leadership vs. Raydor's Leadership Since Chief Johnson left, Provenza has been in charge. He's got the experience and leadership qualities but he lacks any appreciation for procedure. When skirting the rules is a big reason why Chief Johnson is gone. Her actions in the shoot'n newton case caused some serious issues by opening up the department to law suits. 

Provenza's lack of use of proper procedure, laws and rules is made very clear from the opening sequence. In particular when Andy goes and talks to their suspect. He attempts to have someone 'play' a d.a. in order for the boy to confess. A very Brenda type move. 

Who better to keep the squad in line than someone obsessed with the rules, laws and procedure but Sharon Raydor. However, Sharon's leadership also has issues. What she makes up for in appreciation for the procedure and her ability to make changes in the department. She sorely lacks in experience. This is made evident by the new rule she put in place that stopped Major Crimes from properly doing their job and ultimately cause their suspected to be killed.

"I told you we should have waited." "No, this is the moment." This is such an interesting scene between Sharon and Taylor. What we see here is that the show is making a clear distinction that Sharon and Taylor are not similar. Nor is Sharon part of the brass despite her earlier position as an IA Captain. Neither is she a part of the squad, yet. Taylor's main concern with changes in the division is about saving money from trials. Sharon's main concern is a guaranteed conviction, even if it means a shortened conviction. 

Another point the show is making here is putting Taylor in Sharon's old position. Taylor has always been a sometime antagonist for the show. And now with him in Pope's old position what better way to create some tension between him, Raydor and the rest of the squad then to have him push his position on all of them. 

Taylor's Power Plays Both Sharon and Provenza ended up getting screwed by Taylor. Provenza was in charge of MC for a week and was not told that Sharon would be eventually transferred over as the head. Then Taylor reneges on a promised promotion to Sharon. He's making some very distinct power moves here. He's letting them know he's the one in charge, that he's holding all the cards. It would have been nice if he'd tried to work with them instead of against them. Instead here he decides to threaten Provenza with guaranteed retirement if Provenza asks to transfer.

"Lieutenant Tao, it's Captain Raydor."  "...okay." Mike is such a laid back character who doesn't let things effect him (or doesn't show it) as much as the rest of the squad. So as quiet as this moment that are so telling with what's going on emotionally with his character. It reminds me of that very unexpected moment in Living Proof when Mike says: "I hate her." Mike doesn't like her anymore than the rest of the squad but he doesn't yell and shout about it the way Andy and Provenza do.

Andy the Interrogator

Even though there was some lying involved in this particular scene between Andy and Larry Martin. Andy very clearly cared about the boy and I don't think he was lying to him when he said he wanted make the best deal for him that he could. It's really more about him using someone who wasn't an actual D.A. But the thing that stricks me about this interrogation is that Andy is actually rather skilled at this but it wasn't something that we had seen very often when Brenda was in charge. Under Sharon's leadership, this is something that's pushed and encouraged in him. 

Another interesting thing about this scene is how often Andy stresses to Martin making him a deal. Before Sharon is even the squads commanding officer, we are seeing that not only is Andy open to deal making but it's actually something that he wants.

The Kid: Rusty Beck Rusty is a character the show uses to help us understand who Sharon is away from work. What is she really like underneath all of the rules, laws and procedures. Brenda had Fritz to show us who she was and now Sharon needed someone to help us open her up. 

I like that little nod to Brenda when Sharon opens up her desk and finds the candy drawer. Brenda's candy was a huge part of her character, to the point where it was almost another character. It's also a very nice transition. Sharon opens the drawer to find the candy and puts Rusty's file in there. Effectively replacing Brenda's candy with Sharon's Rusty. 

Later when Fritz comes to get Brenda's candy. He gives her a ding dong (passing the torch) and she in turn puts it in Rusty's backpack. Then of course it's followed up with Rusty finding the ding dong, taking it out of his back pack and putting it on Sharon's coffee table.

Alliances and Divisions (the players are the same (for the most part) the positions have changed)).

This episode begins a theme that plays throughout the season. The squad starts to split up in tiny groups and we start to see the beginnings of where relationships go and which characters end up gravitating or repeling each other. 

Sharon & Provenza The biggest division happens between Sharon and Provenza. Sharon represents change and a new way of doing things. Provenza represents the old way of doing things. As I mentioned earlier the squad needs both Sharon and Provenza in order to function properly. But the issue is the two of them need to learn to work together. Sharon does her best to extend out an olive branch but Provenza is stubborn and set in his ways. 

The oddity of Amy Sykes At this point none of the squad members care very much for Sharon. So she decides to bring Amy into the squad. Much to the annoyance of Provenza, who takes issue with her jumping the gun and rather abrasive way of doing things.  Amy (at this time) is a bit of a wild card. The only thing we can say for certain is that Amy has her own agenda. She hasn't quite made up her mind about the squad and her place in it. 

"Sykes doesn't like you. She's just pretending to like you. To get the job." "Still." I just love how there are times that Sharon behaves in ways that we don't expect. Provenza thought that once Sharon knew Amy's real motivations. He'd get his way and she'd let Amy go back to her old squad. Instead Sharon let's Amy stay. It's one of the things that I love about Sharon's character. Is that she sees things in people that other's over look. She sees the potential in people and wants to bring that out in them. Rusty, Andy, Amy, Brenda. It's also a fault as well because there are people that take advantage of that - Jack.

Sharon & Andy The goal of the show, at this point is to try to turn Sharon from the (sometime) antagonist into the protagonist and what better way to do that than to have another character take to her. We've got Amy and Rusty but both of them are wild cards and new. And because both of those characters are new we needed a character we already know to help with Sharon's transition. Oddly enough the writers choose Andy for this job. It's an interesting choice because of how vocal Andy has been in the past regarding Sharon and her ideas. It's also interesting because of how different the pairs personalities are. Knowing what we know now there are a few reasons that I can think of as to why they choose Andy. 

1. Sharon needed a right hand man. And it needed to be one of the senior members of the squad. Especially since the other senior member is pitted against her. It makes for an interesting power struggle. 

Brenda's right hand was Gabriel. Someone that she could count on in and someone that she always gravitated towards. Sharon is a very different character then Brenda, there for Sharon needs a very different kind of right hand. Andy is also someone that Sharon can always count on but he's a completely different personality than David. It also strikes me that Sharon is a rather contradictory character. At this point (season 5) we know her and how she behaves but in Season 1. We didn't know her that well. So for her to gravitate towards someone with a personality so completely different to her own is a bit odd. 

2. Andy is a favored character. If a character we like so much, also likes Sharon than it will help us like her more. 

Andy is another conduit for us audiences to understand who Sharon is as a person. While Rusty will help us understand who she is at home. Andy is the one who will help us understand who she really is at work. 

3. To later help setup Sharon and Andy as a couple. 

I'm not sure when the writers decided to go down the Sharon/Andy path. But I rather think (from all of the little clues in the show) it was something they decided when they were developing Major Crimes. I wasn't a viewer of The Closer when it was on but I gather that Sharon/Andy were somewhat popular as a non-canon couple. My biggest reason for this is that Jack Raydor is based on Andy's character.  And what would be the point in having Sharon's Husband based on Andy other than to eventually pair the characters together.

Andy is the first to give Sharon information on the case When Sharon starts to ask questions regarding the case. Everyone is rather stingy with the information they've gathered. Andy ends up being the first of the squad to start directly giving her information and the others follow suit afterward. 

It's interesting to note that both Sharon and Andy are wearing beige. Wardrobe is yet another way for us to know how the characters relate to each other. Mostly everyone else is wearing blue but Sharon and Andy stand out in beige because they are the only two wearing that color. So what does beige say specifically? Beige is dependable, conservative, reliable and flexible. The color beige is neutral, calm, and relaxing. It's saying that Andy is someone that Sharon will eventually come to depend on. Even as early as this case when the two of them don't fully understand the other yet.

Andy yells at Sharon 

Later when Sharon and Andy are at the morgue. Andy unloads on Sharon. He tells her it's important to create a connection with the victims and points out (rather angerly) that their victim could still have been alive if it weren't for a particular regulation she put into place. Now it's important to note that even though Andy is coming around to Sharon's way of doing things. He still isn't 100% there yet. 

I mentioned earlier that Sharon needed a right hand man just like Gabriel was Brenda's right hand. In the beginning of The Closer Gabriel is really the first member to accept Brenda and help her transition into the unit. We are seeing the same thing here. Andy is the first to accept Sharon (the first to be accepting of her way of doing things) and he's also not afraid to point out if something is wrong. In effect he's also helping her transition from the IA investigator into a detective. 

Another interesting thing about the scene is right after Andy yells at Sharon. While Andy's yelling at Sharon she is in blue scrubs and he is wearing his beige suit. As soon as she realizes her mistake, she pulls off her scrubs and tells him that he was right. A few things to note once the scrubs are off.

1. She is now wearing beige again. Thus connecting the two of them together again. They are now both of the same mind. His rant gives her the vital piece of information on the crime. Information that neither of them would have realized if it weren't for the other. Making it clear that when these two personalities work together they make a really great team. Instead of their personalities clashing. We see the two of them balancing the other out. 

2. She addresses Andy by his first name instead of his rank. Setting another Sharon verses Brenda distinction. Brenda always kept her squad at arms length, she invited the squad to her wedding reception but not her wedding. She would almost always call them by their ranks and last names. Ex, Lieutenant Tao, Lieutenant Flynn. Sharon is more inclusive and the squad feels more like a family under her leadership. 

Favorite Line(s) "If you don't knock it off and I mean right now. The next place you go will have locks on the doors and bars on the windows. Do you want to spend the next two years in a juvenile detention center. Keep talking and see what happens."

"Having raised two teenagers of my own. I have tremendous capacity for ingratitude."

Can we just take a moment to appreciate this woman's wit and sense of humor?

What I didn't like about this episode: As a premiere it's not very exciting. Although I think because this show has another show's shoulder to stand on it didn't need to be. It's a hard thing to do for spin-offs is to stand on their own to feet and make distinctions yet not over shadow a previous beloved show. On the other hand it could still have been a more interesting episode. 

What I did like about this episode: We get the same characters we love so much from The Closer but their all in new positions now. I love the turn in Andy's character that we see starting from that interrogation.

Next Week: Before and After Review

I’m aiming to post these reactionary posts on Wednesdays. ;)

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 1x01-- Inauguration

For those of you familiar with my posts, you know what this is. For those of you new to this fandom, I write obnoxiously long recaps of every episode (and you can find them all here). I started doing this with 6x01 of The Good Wife and I’m continuing the tradition for The Good Fight. They’re obnoxiously long because I try to be detailed, but they’re in bullet points so it should be easy to skip around and find comments on a particular scene. 

As always, I’m happy to elaborate/explain/discuss any of the ideas in here. I’m hoping to get a 1x02 recap up before 1x03 goes live, but we’ll see. 

Often, it’s easy to tell what a show wants to be from the way it introduces itself to the audience. First impressions aren’t all that matter—but they’re important. They’re especially important on the spinoff of a show that had an opening scene so iconic the writers recreated it seven years later, expecting viewers to get the reference. TGW’s opening scene set the tone for the whole series, so the bar was high for TGF, a show that exists essentially because CBS wants more money. How do you craft an opening scene that sets the tone for a show where the premise is PLEASE GIVE US YOUR MONEY?

The answer, it turns out, is to begin the series with a scene that acts as an argument in favor of its own existence. As Diane watches last month’s inauguration, we’re given a reason to care about this show about a diverse group of women fighting back. Why should we tune in to this show? Because we’re ready for a fight, too.

So, the opening moments of TGF—Diane, alone, watching that man’s inauguration—are irrelevant to most of what follows. You could argue (as I think the Kings have tried to, bizarrely) that Diane decides to retire to run away from the shitshow, but, come on. You and I both know that Diane decided to retire because the Kings needed a way to make her extremely vulnerable to the scandal they created. We know she would’ve retired if Hillary had won (that “shattered every glass ceiling” line they say they had to replace was terrible, btw), and we know she would’ve retired if this spinoff had aired a year earlier. As far as I’m concerned, the opening scene stands alone, and that’s fine.

In fact, since it sets the tone for the whole show (which will, undoubtedly, become more political as we get into the episodes written/filmed post-election), I’d argue it works (much, much) better as an opening scene than the Maia intro (here’s a new woman you’ve never seen before! She is a lawyer!) or the Diane intro (here is a house in France that will be important to this episode and only this episode!).

As much as I hate to admit it—because admitting it means that we’re really living in a world where that man is POTUS, the most recent presidential election gave TGF the reason it needed to exist. The moment I saw the tagline “GET NASTY”, it clicked into place. Suddenly I was excited about TGF as more than a weekly check-in with some characters I used to love. Suddenly I liked the name The Good Fight much more than The Greater Good (the show’s working title). Nothing had changed about the show itself—the “fight” in the title was still about recovering from a fictional scandal; the show was still something that came about because CBS wanted to profit more off of TGW—but it felt different. It felt necessary. And, even better: the show knew it.

The Kings claim they didn’t expect Trump to win, but they do have a knack for being eerily good at predicting what the political mood will be like in a few months. They seem to be right on the money with The Good Fight, even if they had to rethink the opening. The name and premise of the show, both decided in advance of the election, are about struggling.

(I know the Kings think there’s something darkly funny about watching Diane watch the inauguration or whatever but come on. They’re marketing to an audience that would not only understand that “Get Nasty” is a reference to “Nasty Woman” but be driven to watch by that reference.)

Before I move on: Hi, Diane… I’m sorry, but I have a message from the future—one fucking month in the future—this is really happening and it is a horrific shitshow.

Diane turns off the TV, drops the remote, and walks out of the frame as Erin McKewon’s “You Were Right About Everything” begins to play. She has the right idea.

A few seconds in and TGF is already spot-on with its music choices. Yay! (I don’t know if I like the songs used in The Good Universe because I associate them with the shows or because the people choosing them and I have similar tastes in music, but I’ll take it either way.)  

Diane’s dark living room gives way to an image of an unfamiliar face against a black background. Moments later, the lights come on, and we see Maia Rindell, nervously waiting to take the bar exam. It’s hard to make much of her from this glimpse—who wouldn’t be nervous waiting to take the bar exam? Why would a character be on this show and not be a lawyer? One thing, though, is clear: she’s just starting out her career.

Cut to the French countryside, where Diane is touring a beautiful estate. She takes in the view and smiles: she’s going to love it here.

Then we’re back with Maia, sometime later. She’s waiting impatiently for her bar exam results. When she learns that she’s passed, she screams, alarming her sleeping girlfriend, Amy.

Maia begins to jump up and down on the bed and then jumps on top of Amy. It’s super adorable.  

(Before I continue: I’m happy that a) Maia is queer, b) this is not remarked upon or treated as a huge reveal, and c) she’s in a committed long-term relationship. Seeing as TGW had a total of zero lead characters in relationships that resemble the ones most people actually have, this is a welcome change.)

Also: Maia and Amy’s apartment is amazing; they live behind a giant clock.

The music continues, and now Diane’s in a setting both familiar and unfamiliar: it’s familiar because David Lee and Howard Lyman are there; it’s unfamiliar because it’s an office in New York City instead of the old L/G/KeyboardSmash offices. Okay, I know they’re still in Chicago. But that... is definitely New York…

Anyway. Diane’s announcing her retirement. She stands and walks around the room, totally in control. The firm has grown since we last saw it. David and Howard congratulate her, and David secretly rejoices as the music ends. More power for him!

You know what I find odd? Lucca isn’t in the opening sequence. She’s ostensibly also a co-lead, so where is she in this sequence that starts of the show? My hope is that this doesn’t indicate she’s less of a co-lead and was instead an intentional move so her appearance later is more sudden. (Then again, this sequence doesn’t hint that Diane knows Maia or that Maia’s going to work at Diane’s firm, so… I see no reason Lucca couldn’t have been included too.)

The firm now has NINE name partners (LDGLLGLKT) because the Kings think they’re clever. I’m less amused by this than I am excited to know they (finally) understand that the audience is so over the name changes.

It’s Maia’s first day at LockhartKeyboardSmash, and she’s making friends one of the other new associates.

Maia wears a rosary ring, but she is not religious. Hm.

She is, however, nervous. She seems to be a very nervous person in general, though maybe that’s just my impression because we’re mostly seeing her in environments where she’s uncomfortable. (Maia is such an Alicia-esque character—the original casting call for her said it, not me!—that I wonder if Alicia used to act like that, too. Did Alicia struggle to put together a sentence without hesitating, the way Maia does? If so, when did she get that out of her system and learn to pause strategically instead? Law school? Being a politician’s wife? Gradually over time? Ok back to Maia now.)

I would never want to receive a job orientation from David Lee, and that’s all I have to say about that.

David calls off names of the new associates, and his tone changes when he gets to Maia. Be a little more obvious with your ass kissing, would you?

“Say hello to your parents for me, would you?” David tells her. He also informs her that some flowers have arrived for her, because apparently her parents are clueless as to the fact that she might not want to publicize, on her first day of work, that she’s the daughter of prominent billionaires.

Maia tells her mom not to send any more gifts; she doesn’t want to seem “entitled.” At least someone has some self-awareness! “Are people not being nice to you?” Maia’s mom, Bernadette Peters (!!!!!) asks. That one line is enough for me to recognize that it’s amazing Maia even understands that entitled is a thing people might call her.

Lenore, sitting in her office that looks like a living room but is really adjacent to a trading floor (what?), asks Maia if she wants Diane to give her her own office. Oh boy.

(Maia may not want to be seen as entitled… but I have to ask why, right out of law school, she took a job at her godmother’s firm. I’m not saying she shouldn’t have taken the job or anything... I’m just saying that while she understands she’s being perceived as entitled, she’s not exactly rocking the boat trying to accomplish things without her privilege. She seems pretty damn comfortable benefitting from it.)

Maia tries to rid herself of the Flowers of Privilege by mixing them in with the other LGKeyboardSmash floral arrangements. Howard walks by and assumes she’s a florist. Heh.

Maia is then called into Diane’s office. I love Diane’s new office, especially the wallpaper.

Diane also offers to give Maia her own office. This is because Diane is Maia’s godmother and she wants to spoil her. Oof. I get the impulse to help, but in what world is that helping to do anything other than make instant enemies for Maia?

Diane gives Maia a folio (is that what those things are called? I’m blanking on the word) that was given to her by Chicago’s first female public defender. She calls it a “baton” and tells Maia it’s her turn to carry it. Awww. It’s amazing how instantly I buy that Diane has a goddaughter even after seven seasons without a single mention of Maia.

Diane brings Maia into a deposition. Before we find out the topic of our COTW, we learn that Lucca’s not at LGSKGJSLG38527;;jslfj82745K anymore. What a shock.

Lucca’s been at Reddick and Boseman, the firm she’s at now, for four months. “Alicia too?” Diane wonders. “No, just me,” Lucca says pleasantly, but she doesn’t offer any further comments, so it comes off like unspoken shit went down. I don’t really care, though. I know why Alicia and Lucca aren’t working together and aren’t as close as they were, and it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with TGF’s plot. I don’t want TGF to tell me what Alicia’s up to, because I have my own headcanons. This line is the bare minimum for addressing her absence, and that’s fine by me. (I hope she and Lucca didn’t have a falling out, though. I would love to think they’re still friendly and working together, but obviously, if that were the case, there’d be a strong reason for Alicia to still show up frequently in TGF, and that’s not going to happen.)

Adrian Boseman walks in, interrupting any chance we had at learning more about Alicia’s whereabouts. I like you already, Adrian! No, but really: I like Adrian.

He sizes up the room, noting that all of the lawyers his firm brought are black and Diane’s whole team is white. Diane laughs off his comment. Sure, Diane.

The case is a police brutality case, and there’s a video. Case stuff happens; we spend a lot of time watching Maia react to it. Also there’s metadata, a word the Kings will never tire of using.

Maia thinks they should settle for 4 million (Diane’s asked for her opinion). Diane says they’ve been asked to settle for under $500,000. See, they’re representing Cook County now.

Adrian encourages Lucca to “play the radical” but she doesn’t want to; she thinks Diane will know. Lucca does anyway.

Diane makes an argument about Adrian’s firm taking on police brutality cases to make a profit. This is something I’d be interested in learning more about. The Kings said they’ve done their research on this, but I’d like to do a little research of my own.

“We’re both using this case, Lucca; why don’t you just stick to the facts?” Diane says. This is one of those arguments where it’s hard for me to determine who’s right and who’s wrong because we’re not given all the facts, but I think I’m going to side with Lucca here. There’s using a case to make a profit, and using a case to do good and make a profit. Only one of those sides contains “doing good,” so why would I suddenly only focus on the profit part?

Maia has the same questions I do. “Are we on the right side on this one?” she asks.

“We are on a necessary side,” Diane explains. Hold up. I understand that it’s necessary because this is how legal procedure works in this country and all that. But how is it necessary that Diane defend racist police departments who use unwarranted force and beat the shit out of black people? How is that a necessary side? Diane didn’t take on this case because she believes in the innocence of these particular policemen. She took on this case because Cook County is a good client to have. If she can sleep at night, then fine. But don’t tell me it’s a necessary side just because they might be innocent. You could say that about literally every single side of every single case. Isn’t that the whole point of trials? Everyone’s entitled to representation, innocent until proven guilty?

Diane continues with her speech: “People I’ve thought with all my heart were guilty turned out to be innocent, and people I thought were saints, they, um, they weren’t. That’s why you don’t go on instinct. You wait. You listen. And watch. Eventually everyone reveals themselves.” Argh. I find this so unsatisfying as an answer. It’s not bad advice to keep an open mind, but it feels like Diane’s not saying “keep an open mind instead of making snap judgments” but rather saying “keep an open mind because it’ll make you feel better about representing people you’d rather not be representing.” On second thought, that is useful advice. After all, Maia still has to defend clients she thinks are guilty, and maybe that would help her do it.

“People I thought were saints, they, um, they weren’t.” The Kings have said this line is about Alicia. If you follow me on Twitter, you know this has been under my skin for days now. At first, I thought Diane would never say these words. I’ve reconsidered. While I still think it’s odd she’d think of Alicia before, I dunno, the liberal legend who turned out to be a rapist (W205—I’m writing W in front of TGW episode numbers and F in front of TGF episode numbers, btw) or her dad who accused his best friend of being a communist (W419) or her husband who she discovered cheated on her, I suppose it’s possible, especially since this scene comes right after a meeting with Lucca. (Also, why would Diane have learned this lesson from Alicia’s betrayal in W722 and not from 40 years of being a lawyer?)

But, it irks me a little that Diane would use Saint Alicia as an example here. If anything, Diane was one of Alicia’s biggest critics throughout TGW’s run, and she was always suspicious of her (she never bought into the Saint Alicia myth!). In W101, Diane believes Alicia’s being entitled and trying to upstage her (Alicia is really attempting to help a client and clumsily moves a little too fast). There’s another season 1 episode where Diane is and remains convinced Alicia’s using SLG to fight Peter’s battles (this thought has not crossed Alicia’s mind). There’s a season two episode where Diane asks Alicia to join her new firm behind Will’s back, and the second Diane finds out Will knows about the new firm, she says that Alicia must’ve told him (Will didn’t know that Alicia knew). Diane befriends Alicia in season 3 in order to discourage her from sleeping with Will. Even in the later seasons, there are episodes like W620, where a misunderstanding is enough for Diane to believe Alicia’s scheming against her, or W703, where an even sillier misunderstanding leads Diane, for the second time in like five episodes, to mistrust Alicia. And that’s not even including the time that, you know, Alicia plotted for months to leave Diane’s firm and take clients with her. But sure. Diane thought Alicia was a saint.

I think what’s happening here is that the Kings thought they’d be cute by referring to Alicia as a saint, because SAINT ALICIA. The problem is that they put those words in Diane’s mouth, and now it sounds like Diane is saying she actually bought into the Saint Alicia crap. But maybe that’s the part of the point. Maybe Diane’s trying to save face just a little bit. After all, it’s easier to admit that you mistakenly believed in the same larger-than-life myth everyone else bought into than it is to admit that you had your suspicions, truly believed you knew someone, and were proven wrong. Ironically, if Diane’s trying to teach Maia that people aren’t always what they seem, she’d be better off telling her the full story.

(Um, also, I’m being a little unfair. Obviously a lot of the reason why Diane would reference Alicia here is that she was hurt—whether she “should have been” or not—by Alicia’s actions. I’m not questioning why Diane would mention Alicia; I’m questioning why she’d use the word saint to describe her own views towards a woman she’s been suspicious of since day one.)

At Reddick/Boseman, the attorneys are having an internal meeting about settlements, and we get our first glimpse of Barbara Kolstad, who would be my new favorite character if I didn’t also love all of the other characters. Barbara asks Lucca for advice on how to handle this. “I think Diane’s got something to prove and she’s out to prove it,” Lucca says. (Oh yeah! In all of my talk about Diane’s reasoning, I forgot to mention that this is her last case and she doesn’t want to lose it. Also, that reminds me that the last time Diane thought she was working her last case, the client fired her and hired Alicia instead. Yes. Diane definitely thought Alicia was a saint.)

Barbara understands what Lucca’s saying. I really like the way Erica Tazel plays Barbara’s thought process—her eyes express everything.

Seriously, I can’t wait to see more from Barbara and Adrian.

Reddick/Boseman is quite obviously the old LGksadjklasjflkahg set after some (minor) renovations. I think, mostly, they just painted, redecorated, and took out the central conference room. I don’t think there’s an in-universe reason they’re in the same space; I think there’s a budget reason.

Lucca has to put on a British accent so Adrian’s call will be put through faster. Haha, it’s just incredible that Lucca has a believable British accent. I don’t know how in the world they came up with that one.

Adrian is amused by Lucca’s fake/real accent, and I’m amused by his amusement. Unamused? Lucca.

Now we’re watching a retirement slide show for Diane. “Good Luck Diane! We’ll miss you!” a slide reads in an ugly font. The narration on the slideshow says that Diane was an assistant district attorney. Wait. So she practiced law somewhere other than Chicago (since it’s ADA and not ASA), and she didn’t start out in a private firm?! Woah. Also, omg, young Diane!

Diane’s many friends congratulate her and joke that if she wants to come out of retirement, they’ll have work for her.

The Rindells appear and briefly talk finances. Hmmm. Then Maia and Amy arrive, and Lenore asks when they’re getting married—they don’t have the Supreme Court excuse anymore. (So, Maia and Amy have been together for a while.)

A photo of Diane and Will pops up the slideshow next, and Diane wistfully stares at it. I’m glad that made it in. <3

Then the party’s over, and… that was fast. I was expecting to spend a whole act there.

Outside in the valet line, Maia’s dad gives her a weird warning about her uncle Jax.

Case stuff happens. Maia notices that there’s a car in the background of the video that has its own camera, so there’s an alternate recording of the events somewhere. What a great thing it is that Maia has enough money to know that! (I kid, I kid. It’s an important find.)

The familiar TGUniverse score is back now, but it sounds a bit more up-tempo and seems to have percussions now. Fine by me.

Maia feels triumphant for a moment, then Lyman mistakes her for a florist again (… ffs, I just wrote “florrist,” with two rs like I’m writing Florrick, because habit), and then she gets a call from Amy, informing her that their apartment is being searched.

Two things of note on the search warrant: one, Maia’s address is listed and it is a bogus address that gives no indication of where in the city she might live, and two, it’s dated 2/24/2017, so TGF takes place a few days ahead of realtime. I expect that TGF will be as bad with timeline as TGW was, so…

Amy tells Maia that the search is connected to Maia’s parents, then gets off the phone to argue with some agents who are trying to tell her what she is and isn’t allowed to do.

Maia calls her dad, who doesn’t pick up: he’s having a drink. Then Diane’s called out of a deposition to talk to her accountant. Uh oh.

Maia arrives at her family’s home just in time to see her dad being taken away in handcuffs. “I didn’t do it, Maia,” he says. “I know,” she replies. But does she? 

Diane hasn’t heard the news yet. She turns on the TV and sees what’s going on: BILLIONAIRE INVESTOR HENRY RINDELL ARRESTED. He ran a Ponzi scheme… and now all of Diane’s retirement money is gone. 

“FUCK,” Diane says when she learns all her savings are gone. That’s a very well deserved inaugural f-bomb, show!

Now it’s time for the credits sequence. At first, they seem like nothing special: cast names in an ugly font and images of objects you’d find in an office. Then the objects BEGIN TO SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST IN SLOW MOTION as the score gets more operatic. I’m not sure I understand, but I’m not sure I need to.

(I don’t associate most of the TGW/TGF score with Alicia—more with the general feel of TGUniverse’s Chicago—but it’s weird to me that the piece of music in the TGF credits is the one from the 6x21 scene where Alicia and Grace turn Zach’s room into a home office. It’s possible they’ve used it before, but it only took me a second to place it. And I’m bad at identifying instrumental music, so I must strongly associate it with Alicia. Weird. 6x21 is an episode so Alicia-centric that when I wrote about it, I suggested that TGW no longer needed most of its non-Alicia series regulars!)

This episode was directed by Brooke Kennedy. I like it when Brooke directs, since she’s the producer most involved with the day-to-day on set. She has a very good understanding of the show’s themes, and she’s usually able to find interesting ways to visualize those themes.

This show was not just created by the Kings: there’s some other dude listed as a creator. I’m not even going to bother to write his name here, because… well, because I haven’t heard much about his role in the creative process, which I take to mean that he was called in to help with the show when it looked like the Kings weren’t going to be involved, and the moment the Kings returned, his level of involvement decreased significantly. I’m curious to know the real story.

Apparently you can see some dude’s bare ass in the first scene of act 2, but it’s so hidden in shadow I’d have to raise my screen’s brightness all the way and really look to see it. And, I’m sorry, CBS, but I really don’t care enough about this guy’s ass to get excited about the nudity.

The naked guy is with Lucca. Lucca’s watching the Rindell scandal unfold on TV. She recognizes Maia and watches carefully.

Maia, Amy, and Lenore wait for the family lawyer to arrive. Maia was on the board of a foundation, which might’ve been a front. Amy realizes this is bad: Maia needs her own lawyer. Lenore tries to convince Maia otherwise, but Maia knows Amy’s right.

Some dude on the news is insisting that Maia must’ve been in on the scheme. As the news plays, Maia showers. Amy joins her and comforts her. I’m excited to get more moments like this from Amy and Maia—not shower scenes, but scenes that show how they support each other from day to day, how well they know each other, and stuff like that.

Diane and her accountant go over the details of her new financial reality. It’s bad. Her money’s gone, even money that wasn’t involved in the fund is at risk (including Kurt’s money; they haven’t divorced yet), and all the charities she’s steered towards the Rindells have also lost their money. The house in France is gone. And Diane can’t even retire. She might not even be able to keep her apartment.

Christine Baranski is amazing. Have I said that yet?

At the next Lockhart Deckler Lee whatever meeting, Diane sits at the head of the table. Brooke positions the camera behind Diane, so we see everyone staring at her. She commanded the room in the earlier scene where she announced her retirement, but here, she’s not the one with the power. And everyone can see right through her speech about not wanting to retire.

Diane’s lost most of her leverage, but not all of it: she can still remind the partners they’re going to lose Cook County’s business without her. The score from W601 beings to play. Not sure why.

In the elevator at work, someone recognizes Maia and begins to yell at her. “I know where you work, you stupid bitch,” he screams. You ruined everything, you stupid bitch, SING WITH ME!

Maia’s new lawyer, Yesha, is waiting for her when she gets off the elevator. Yesha is 25, so Maia doesn’t trust her. Yesha seems capable, but inexperienced, and Maia resents having to get a lawyer at all.

Diane embarks on a quest to find a new job. Might one of her friends that said they’d always have a position open for her be willing to take her on? Everyone thinks she’s looking for an emeritus position. She’s not. And not even her friends have room for her, not now.

Diane gets to say “bullshit” and it feels so natural and appropriate to the moment it was only on rewatch that I processed it as a curse word. I’m glad—and unsurprised—to see that the Kings know how and when to use swear words.

“You’re poison. No firm will hire you,” Diane’s friend, Renee, informs her. Quick! Where’s the nearest desk!? Shove everything off of it!!! Now!!!

After a long and frustrating day, Diane returns home to find Kurt waiting on the stairs outside her home. She invites him in for a drink, and they discuss divorce. “It’s about money. It’s not about us,” she insists. Kurt doesn’t seem to care. Diane says it’s in his lap. Kurt says he didn’t leave her; Diane says that actually, he did—when he slept with Holly. I’m not sure I understand why Diane wouldn’t initiate the divorce? Does she not really want to? Does she not want to accept that it’s over? Does she want Kurt to accept responsibility? Maybe her reasons will become clearer later on. Or maybe she’ll stay married to but estranged from Kurt until season seven and beyond. (Sound familiar?)

Kurt isn’t even sure where they stand now. Honestly, neither am I. Did Kurt really cheat on Diane while they were married?! I still can’t believe that.

At any rate, Kurt still knows how to be there for Diane. She explains her current predicament to him and starts to cry. “How is my life suddenly so fucking meaningless?” Diane wonders. “It isn’t,” Kurt reassures her. I’ve said it before and I have a feeling I’ll be saying it many times over the course of TGF’s run: Christine Baranski is amazing.

I’m rereading this section of my recap, and it just occurred to me that I didn’t even think to comment about what it means for someone as successful as Diane to lose everything she’s known. I think part of the reason my mind didn’t go there is that this screams “NEW SHOW, NEW SCANDAL” instead of “NATURAL PLOT DEVELOPMENT,” but I think I should try to treat it as the latter. Diane’s emotional arc, no matter why it came about, is something that’ll drive this show going forward. For ages, I’ve thought of Diane as a character who works best in a supporting role. She’s well-defined enough to be a lead, but she’s so stable and successful—where’s the story? I can picture her leading a procedural, or a character study drama, but a huge part of her character was that she’d worked so hard, pre-TGW, that aside from firm drama bullshit and ambitions of getting a judgeship, her life was already the way she wanted it to be. She was more captivating than her story arc, if that makes sense. Because of the way the Kings like to write, it makes a lot of sense to me that to promote Diane to lead, they’d want to turn her into an unlikely fish out of water. Now she’s a captivating character with a captivating plot. And better still, a lot of the reason this plot is likely to work is that we know what Diane’s accomplished and how hard she’s worked. When she cries about her life feeling meaningless, we know exactly what meaning she used to find in her life. And, because she was always so stable and self-assured (and well-written!) as a secondary character on TGW, watching her lose everything hits even harder.

Maia’s playing with her rosary ring and lurking in reception, waiting to greet Diane. Diane’s not in a great mood, to say the least.

“We have a little opening right here,” Adrian advises Lucca, observing the icy Maia/Diane interaction. "Go for jugular.” As he says this, from approximately his POV, Maia is literally standing in the opening between two panes of glass.

Case stuff happens. This case is barely there. Lucca makes things personal, and Diane steps out.

Elevator Asshole who called Maia a stupid bitch has returned to complain more about Maia. Dude. It sucks that you lost your money, but you’re a misogynistic asshole who’s hanging around lobbies all day to harass a 25 year old woman at her place of work. You’re pathetic. And scary. And please don’t follow Maia, you creep.

Maia runs into the ladies’ room. Lucca takes care of the creep. He screams he’s going to sue Maia, and Lucca screams at him, “THEN DO IT. BUT RIGHT NOW, FUCK OFF!” YAY LUCCA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I want so much more from Lucca in this series. In the first episode, she’s pretty much just playing lawyer and supportive friend. I’ll have more to say about Lucca in episode two.)

Lucca walks into the bathroom, and Maia scurries into a stall, not sure if whoever opened the door is a friend or a foe. Lucca looks straight into the mirror and gives Maia a pep talk.

“When they see you cry, it makes them happy. So get it out of your system here,” she begins. Maia eyes her through the opening in the stall door—Lucca’s positioned herself where she can easily be seen. And she knows Maia’s watching.

Maia doesn’t understand why Lucca, who’s on the opposing side of the case, would be helping her. So Lucca explains it’s because Maia is the New Alicia. At least, that’s the (not very sub) subtext of her words.

No, but really: why is Lucca helping Maia? Lucca may like to say she’s out for herself, and she speaks with the non-nonsense, hard, strident tone of someone you wouldn’t necessarily want to befriend… but Lucca is actually a really kind person. And she’s not just kind to people she knows or had a reason to be kind to. She’s kind to people who should be her competition. I don’t know if there’s something she finds compelling about victims of scandals (my two examples of “Lucca is a kind person” are Lucca helping Alicia and Lucca helping Maia, and obviously Alicia and Maia have some significant things in common) or if she’s normally the kind who would reach out without realizing what she’s doing, though. I have a feeling she doesn’t do this too often, because anyone that’s constantly looking out for strangers is going to have at least a few friends.

(Which makes me wonder: Lucca helps Alicia right away, but only becomes her friend after months of working with each other and watching Alicia’s 7x13 breakdown. Does Lucca help Maia because she realizes she can help, because she wants to help, or because Maia reminds her of Alicia? Or all three?)

“I had a friend. Went through the same thing. Said it was hell for a few months,” Lucca says. Maia opens the door. Lucca doesn’t turn around the whole time, and when she’s done with her speech, she turns sharply and leaves.

Lucca’s speech is long, at least by the Kings’ standards. It’s also nearly identical to the speech Alicia gives her client in W101. I wish I could appreciate this more as a moment for Lucca, but it just makes me think about Alicia. To her credit, Lucca delivers the speech in a different manner than Alicia does. Alicia manages to be empathetic without getting emotional (which is, I think, why she made such a good handholder for clients—they felt her connecting with them but she still always came across as professional). Lucca is clearly sympathetic to Maia’s situation—she’s giving the speech, after all—but it kinda sounds like she’s trying to keep her tone as impersonal as David Lee’s orientation spiel, with only occasional glances (via the mirror) to let Maia know she’s a friend.  

Diane gets a case related video and it’s bad for her client.

Adrian stops by to see Diane. She seems almost too tired to talk. But then he says something interesting: “I want you to join our firm.” Diane laughs, but Adrian is serious. He offers to let Diane be their diversity hire. Heh.

Why isn’t Adrian afraid of the Rindell scandal? His firm wasn’t affected by it, because the Rindell fund “never invited black folk.”

Adrian offers Diane the opportunity to “fuck them back” for fucking her over. Why do I feel like Adrian is going to be responsible for most of the swearing on this show?

Adrian—whose office really looks like Will’s office, because I’m pretty sure it is—and Barbara fight over the offer Adrian extended to Diane.

Barbara’s concern about Diane is that “she doesn’t know her place. She’s not gonna be happy until she’s in the inner circle.” I’m not sure what new, desperate Diane looks like, but that totally describes the old, confident Diane. You don’t get to be that self-assured and content making big decisions quickly without fully believing you deserve a seat at the table.

(In the TGW Pilot, Diane had a similar suspicion about Alicia—a junior associate who doesn’t think she’s a junior associate—and that was way off base.)

Adrian argues that he and Barbara are also ambitious like that, and ambition is a good thing. Barbara’s point isn’t that ambition is bad, though: it’s that they don’t want “people who are only happy when they’re giving orders.” She calls in Lucca for backup.

Lucca’s dress has a friggin’ cat on it. I love this show’s costume department.

Lucca argues in favor of bringing Diane in because she’s a good lawyer, idealistic, and cunning. Adrian laughs at Barbara’s move backfiring on her. And now Diane’s a junior partner.

Amy is watching a sex tape. Someone’s put some generic lesbian sex tape on TMZ and is claiming it’s Maia and Amy. “This isn’t even us! This person has a tattoo!” Amy exclaims. Maia tells her to ignore it—she’s a quick study.

Diane’s in her office, looking at a picture of her and Will, when Kurt shows up.

Kurt says he doesn’t want a divorce—he “doesn’t want the door to close completely.” Is the door really open, though? “It is closed between us,” Diane states. Kurt gets a bit agitated: “Then divorce me. But I won’t do it.” I’m curious, everyone: why do you think Diane’s insisting that Kurt be the one to initiate a divorce?

“You Were Right About Everything” begins to play again. Maia and Amy are in bed getting ready to go to sleep. “My parents saw the tape,” Amy says. They don’t believe it’s not her, and that breaks my heart a little.

Diane’s back in the Lockhart/Deckler conference room. Like the first partner meeting scene, she’s standing up. She’s in control, announcing her new firm. She walks around the table on her way out, drops the bombshell that they’re going to have to agree to a $6 million payout on the police brutality case, and defiantly exits the room. “Want the door closed?” she says. She leaves before she gets the answer.

David Lee fires Maia, who’s already having a rough day (week). Maia’s returned the folio to Diane, as though to indicate that she’s giving up (Diane said the folio would force her to accomplish something that would make her feel she deserved it). When Diane goes to return it, she sees that Maia’s being fired.

As Maia leaves the firm, Howard stops her to say he’s sorry she was fired; he likes the flowers. Wait, he knows she was fired but still thinks she was in charge of the flowers? Why would that be the case?

As Diane’s packing up her office, she calls Adrian to let him know Maia’s role in the COTW. She suggests that Adrian hire Maia. This is one of those moments that seems innocent enough—Diane’s just trying to help out her goddaughter who’s going through an awful scandal—but when you think about it, Diane’s first act at the predominantly black firm that took her in when no one else would is to get her (formerly) wealthy white goddaughter a job. YMMV on this. It’s not wrong of Diane to make this suggestion, but it’s this kind of thing that, when unchecked, leads to the lack of diversity Geneva called Peter out on in W412.

Maia sits outside of the firm, staring off into space and watching a WALK sign turn to DON’T WALK. I was going to write something about how Alicia also stared at a WALK/DON’T WALK sign when she found out Will died, but apparently my memory has mixed up Alicia’s feelings after Will’s death with a visual from the scene where Prady realizes he’s lost the SA election. Don’t know what happened there. (I think I mixed up the insert of Alicia watching a mother and child cross the street with the WALK/DON’T WALK?) At any rate, the writers have used this before to symbolize an existential crisis. I think it works because it suggests that there should be movement—walk when it says walk; run when the light starts blinking; don’t get stuck at the light for another traffic cycle—when there isn’t any. Maia’s at a standstill, stuck even when she should be moving with urgency.

Diane sees Maia sitting there and approaches with the folio. “You left this,” she says. “Give it to someone who needs it. I’m done,” Maia responds. “No, you’re not. Let’s go,” Diane decides. “Where?” Maia wants to know. “Someplace,” Diane says. “Why?” Maia can’t wrap her head around this. “Because it’s not over yet,” Diane reassures her. No, it’s not. The Good Fight is just beginning.

[sueboohscorner]

#Legion chapter 4 "King Nothing" Recap & Review

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Chapter 4 opens up with a continuous shot of a brand new character who we later learn is Oliver, Melanie's husband.  He is in a mysterious icy room speaking directly to the audience.  He draws parallels between David's life and stories of fear vs. empathy, leaving us wondering, who is the fuzzy bunny in this tale?

We then return to David still "consciously" unconscious, and the team of Dr. Melanie, Ptonomy (the memory whisperer), Syd, and Kary later joined by Kerry (pun intended) in an attempt to find answers to some of the questions David's mind has shown them.

This leads Syd and Ptonomy to listen to Dr poole's tape recorder and see a memory of David's meeting w/ him. What do the stars say is asked again triggering another glitch in his memory.  This phrase is spoken throughout the episode and then further examined by Syd.  Whatever the stars say is the key to something, that is for sure. Ptonomy explains how massively powerful David is compared to any of them as Syd grapes for reasons or excuses for why David did some of the things in his past which now include murder.

Amy is celled up and starving, realizes she can speak with the person in the cell next to her.  It turns out this is where the real Dr. Poole is.  It appears the people after David have now erased both of them but still is using them to find out more and lure in David.  Amy confides that she knew David had abilities and that he would have conversations, especially with King.  To which Dr. Poole said yes the family dog.  Amy reveals there is no dog.  Yet another rug pulled from us the viewer.

Syd, Ptonomy and Kerry continue looking for clues, and we learn about Cary and Kerry's backstory which is awesome.  Their coexisting within one body seems to be bringing the audience closer to understanding David.  The trip brings them to David's ex who's earrings mirror the Ladder David climbs to Oliver's room in the Astro plane.  In the most chilling scene in the episode, Syd asks David's ex if there is a message they could pass to him if they find him.  Her reply, "They're watching."

David, in the Astro plane is lured by Oliver to his abode in the same scuba suit he was ghosting Melanie in before we learned that his body is contained in that suit in an icy room beneath the ward.

Oliver is more Austin powers then any threat and looks like someone willing to help David even though I don't believe either can save the other from their current state.  Oliver can see the yellow eyed demon who up until now only David could see so that was very telling.

Meanwhile, Syd, Ptonomy, and Kerry visit Dr. Poole after seeing a memory through David's ex.  It is soon clear that this is a trap and Poole is actually The Eye who we learn cannot be shot.  He makes quick work of Ptonomy before Syd slyly switches bodies with him by touching his skin.  Kerry finally got the fight she was clambering for all episode only to...get whooped so I'm interested to see if she becomes a more powerful fighter in the future.

Lenny finds David she is able to show him events happening in real life prompting him to get emotional and transport his body in front of the Truck driven by Syd in The Eye's body.  David frees The Eye who is in Syd's body and almost is stabbed as a result.  The Eye and Syd switch back leading to The Eye pulling out and firing a gun at them.  Kerry runs across and takes the bullet which we find out also puts Cary in a possibly fatal situation as well. The episode ends with Lenny peering over David's shoulder with her arm around his other side but her arm is grey and resembles the yellow eyed demon.

So many questions, why did David make up King? Are Lenny, Benny, the yellow eyed demon and King all the same person? Are all of them plus the psych ward in David's head? What will be the fate of Ptonomy and Kerry/Cary? They were not in good shape at episode's end. I cannot wait to see some of this answered and see David go after Amy, it doesn't look like anyone will be able to convince him otherwise. Enjoy! We are Many.

I would give this episode a 9.