Late to the party, but anyhow: without being too hard on Finn Jones who I'm sure is doing his best (and leaving all the white saviour stuff aside for a moment), I think it was a terrible misstep not to cast someone who already had a strong background in dance, martial arts, or preferably both. Danny Rand as this show…

I'm saying it's not specific to Asian language learners that R and L sounds can be tricky, despite the stereotype that it is. It really depends on the language. Vietnamese to my limited knowledge doesn't have an R sound at all (except in the south) so it would make sense that your students struggle with it in English…

There are plenty of Mandarin surnames beginning with R - names like Ren, Ran, Rao, and Ruan could become "Rand". Plus several very common non-R names like Tan could conceivably have been anglicized as Rand back in the day. And that's before we even touch other Chinese languages. No shortage of possibilities.

On my most optimistic days I like to imagine that in as little as oh, say 10 years we'll feel this way. "What a bizarre thing, I just suddenly remembered that for a little while fucking Donald Trump was the actual president. Huh. What a world."

I don't disagree with your general premise, but this wasn't precisely a walking away situation, was it? This was handing him over to his mother. Either way Reynard is off the board, so part of what happens is Julia starts to think about her own best interests rather than the need to protect others, and about the right…

I think you're supposed to feel robbed. Our instincts are to agree with Kady. But conversely would revenge have achieved anything?

Alice is Alice, albeit with memories of being a niffin. Apparently the missing ingredient to niffin cures is the piece of their soul that they've lost. Which since the study of shades seems to be uncommon (and shades as far as we can tell can only be recovered from the underworld) is why nobody had restored a niffin…

I've been liking how sticky the alternate personalities are. So often in these types of plots the evil/brainwashed versions just slough right off at the first bit of tension with their true selves. I appreciate that something more will obviously need to happen here. Makes the whole affair feel much more threatening…

I was skeptical about the Libya intervention as well (and I think that skepticism has been largely born out, although obviously the situation is still anything but stable), but it's ludicrous to compare Libya to Syria. Even before the civil war Syria's circumstances were an order of magnitude more complex. It's much…

Completely agreed. And even if there were some precise, carefully calibrated military intervention (based on, I presume, a deep and nuanced understanding of the many factions at play and the movement of people and a gazillion other considerations) that could help in some fashion, Trump would be the last person I'd…

When I’m with you
I want to be the kind of hero
I wanted to be
when I was seven years old
a perfect man

I wish there was a treaty we could sign
I do not care who takes this bloody hill
I'm angry and I'm tired all the time
So fuck it, tomahawk missiles

"There's an old orientalist curse…"

The counterargument is that there's no realistic prospect that this helps anyone. No fewer people will die in Syria as a result of this US intervention. Most likely exactly the opposite will happen. Even if doing nothing feels awful, sometimes that's the best course when there's no active step you can take that will…

That or widespread homophobia.

Wait'll the people find out you can both be a gay man AND have a girlfriend.

Hopefully Lenny will linger on in David's mind even if the Shadow King is gone. I'm certainly of the school of thought that he really is schizophrenic, so am presuming that the voices and delusions will persist to some degree.

I don't even entirely know why but for me the throwaway line from Penny to the effect of "Are you surprised? Dean Fogg really isn't that helpful." might be the funniest this show has ever managed. I laughed so hard I hurt myself. And then I started thinking about Dumbledore, also not a helper, and couldn't stop…

The thing, I might go so far as to say the over-arching theme, I get from this season with all the Alice and Quentin near-misses and alternate-version-encounters is the idea that when you lose someone important, to death or some other sort of separation, they don't suddenly disappear from your life. In fact you run…

That's… a surprisingly apropos comparison. Good job.