All this makes me fairly optimistic for Ragnar's survival to the next season. The visiting princess was clearly setting up a storyline for the next season that would hinge on a Ragnar/Ecbert alliance (no way that's going to pay off in the next episode), and since Ecbert is currently also allied with Aella, it wouldn't…

Just as neutral as Oleg's. Wouldn't turn my head, wouldn't repell me either.

Probably not from Philip's perspective (assuming he's straight. But mostly because Larrick is a more dangerous target, so the whole affair would be necessarily more fraught.)

Yep, Stuart Townsend also works. Or possibly, Velvet Goldmine era Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

As a former 19 year old girl attending college parties, I take umbrage. Not saying I've always been above playing along with the lit-snobbery (if he were very pretty, for instance…), but I'd ask you not to draw hasty conclusions as to what exactly I'd have been impressed with in such a scenario.

Symbolism doesn't _always_ have to be subtle =/= Symbolism _ never_ needs to be subtle. I thought you were all about nuance; well, here, have some.

I think it's a bit convenient that so far petty much all of Philip's honeytrap assignments have been implausibly appealing (I think Martha is cute, for the record) - very much in contrast to his wife's. Larrick-Philip honeytrap would even things out.

There are lot of men I consider impossibly, implausibly beautiful - Gosling, Fassbender, Hiddleston - and I still wouldn't cast them as Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray is not just about beauty, it's about a very specific sort of beauty, and the first living example that comes to my mind is always a young Jude Law. "Uncanny"…

Interesting theory. If I remember correctly, he won me over a bit faster than Nina, but not much. Could be a factor indeed.

Jude Law at peak hotness had that Dorian Gray style beauty that you could really see enthralling/corrupting/undoing people of all classes and genders left and right - a belle-dame-sans-merci type deal. To me, Paul Bettany at peak hotness (eg. Chaucer in a Knight's Tale) is actually more attractive, but the appeal,…

I admit this with some trepidation, but I think the tennis rom-com was actually one of the more sufferable ones, as far as rom-coms go. Something like Priest or Legion seems even more unwatchable to me.

We all have our pet peeves…

And Paul Bettany too, while we're at it.

But you don't have to choose any more - they're cooperating pretty well at this point. I only got on the Oleg train when he stopped being such a dick to Arkady.

The actor is the kind of guy who wouldn't turn my head if he passed me on the street. (I say this, of course, as someone who's never turned anyone's head either). There's nothing specifically unappealing about his looks, but there's nothing specifically appealing either. He's young and seems reasonably fit and that's…

Oh, I like subtext and nuance too, and I think Masters of Sex sometimes has that as well. Messages are usually more powerful when they are just implied rather than stated explicitely. I just don't think that _everthing_ has to be a puzzle.

Agree. The on-the-nose symbolism in Masters of Sex never bothers me either. The point is not to make you feel all sophisticated and accomplished to spot the connection; the point is to make you feel.

I'm not watching for Don either.

This is not the kind of show one watches for the plot.

California Pete is such a doll.