I dunno, I feel like we have an understanding about it.

My goodness, thank you. I'm feeling much better today, by the way. I'm going to chalk that up to the healing powers of Lakoda Rayne.

They're clearly grooming her to be a Beyonce-type diva, but nearly all of B's superhits are upbeat and fun and dancey. Hopefully they take that into consideration. I would LOVE to see Melanie do "Countdown."

I'm sure we'll see more of that next week, and I'm sure I will have at least one thought on the subject. Pleased to see Josh found some shampoo, though.

James is a friend of mine from way back - couldn't be happier for him. This is going to be fantastic.

Sounds about right. There's something so unashamedly sexist about the two female judges getting the pity acts, but it also makes me realize that I'd probably like this show slightly, *slightly* better if it was just LA and Simon up there.

I believe AVC is currently wait-and-seeing about further coverage of GG this season. I guess this is as good a place as any to gauge everyone's desire for weekly coverage… please don't all shout at once!

Oh my GOD. I didn't realize that was them (I'll admit I don't have Ben Gibbard's visage committed to memory.) Yeah that's plenty weird, but no weirder than Sonic Youth playing Rufus and Lily's wedding. Eek.

Agree 100%. It was a long journey of acceptance realizing that this show would never be as fun and shocking as I wanted it to be. The closest they ever came was the Georgina stuff and the "I killed someone" plot in Season One, and the letdown after that was just the first of many to come.

Doesn't she drink later on? And if I recall correctly, Ms. Van Der Woodsen had been pretty chaste in the last chunk of Season 4. Who would the dad be?

My secondary goal with these recaps, other than to enlighten and inform, obviously, is to get cast on the Nicole Scherzinger episode of H8R. That was sort of lazy for a first effort, but trust me, we're just getting started.

Nobody knows. She just kind of wandered in for a few minutes. I don't believe she'll be making any more appearances, if that makes you feel better.

Where did I say the rest was weak? The montage didn't do it for me, I'm sorry. But I gave it a B because I liked 85-89% of tonight's episode. That's a lot of percent!

Okay, to be fair, they were CGI/composite shots. The view of the ocean out the window, some of the water shots were obviously composites, Dee's cornrow ripping out, the fireworks on the beach.

Hah! I was a little nervous about aging myself there, but now I feel awesome! I also posted a comment on the New Girl post about being 10 when Empire Records came out (same year.) Hi A.V. Club, I'm 25!

I think I referred to it as a "reality competition," and I agree with your classification. Idol shows very little of the interactions between the contestants and their personal lives, so I still think of it as just a very big game show, and I expect X Factor will be the same.

If I try to dig up and take apart my particular loathing of The New Girl then I'll never get to sleep and I have an early wakeup call tomorrow, but I will say that a friend of mine - twentysomething, kind of nerdy, not terribly discerning in her choice of televised entertainment, and the biggest offender I know of…

Don't worry, you won't have to wait very long for Fat Shirtless Mac…

I always forget how foul-mouthed Sunny is… and then I make the mistake of watching with my mom and realizing, wow, yeah, they sure say "shit" a lot. I think that just proves how much the "shit"s and "ass-dicks" have become a natural part of the language of the show. I really don't think they're trying to be shocking…

I think this is one of those shows where the gap is huge between how bad it is if you walk in mid-season vs. how great it is if you start from the beginning and let it get under your skin. I used to think the same things about TVD re: the dialogue, acting, the fake-seeming sense of import, but once I got invested in…