I like this episode. I got no problems with it. Massive Genius is a great one-shot character—I especially like when he tells Tony that yes, he does have a degree.

Thanks, FJ. I hope the comment I just posted re: Gatsby doesn't reads as too snippy.

Play that fiddle, you: That is, without question, the best pedantic correction of questionable grammar ever uttered on this board. However, DPA's "Chiles'" is within acceptable usage guidelines.

No, DPA, but that's pretty good. Seriously though, I count it as misogynistic when a gangster who wears cuff links made of human molars is presented as more sympathetic than a pretty girl who cheats at golf, wallows in gossip like a pig in slop and drives carelessly. FJ hurled the complaint at me that all the women…

FJ, there's flawed and there's terrible. Nick and Jay are flawed, Daisy, Myrtle and Jordan are terrible.

To be more clear: after "EotM," Melfi stopped being a character in her own right and became instead merely a useful storytelling tool vis-a-vis Tony, just as you observe.

They are the big three and they are all really bad people—plus, Myrtle's anti-Semitic sister, plus the woman who cheated Gatsby of his inheritance from Dan Cody.

As far as Tom is concerned, he exists to be the asshole that makes the nice guys say "See! Chicks dig assholes!" Essentially, he exists to indict Daisy. Gatsby is ultimately sympathetic, I think—flawed, but sympathetic.

I'm just saying "EotM" came too early in her "arc."

Every woman in that book is portrayed as a piece of utter filth. The gangster Wolfsheim is presented more sympathetically than the best of them. Hell, Gatz is even screwed out of his inheritance by a woman we never see.

Hey! Nice appropriation of the annoying Starz gimmick.

SPOILER BELOW

Actually, it's Father Phil who corrects her, right before laying a guilt trip on her for committing adultery.

Thing is, DPA, Wegler—douchebag though he was—was essentially correct. Chase himself has called Carmela a whore. There was never any question where the show (or, at the very least, show runner) came down with her. I think Hugh would have loved to comfort her but he couldn't because he knew he would have to lie in…

Maybe a B- if we're grading on a curve. This just isn't among their better work.

I like that lyric but I think that, overall, this album is a major disappointment. No way in hell is this album better than Duty Now for the Future. Sorry, but that's just crazy talk. The only album this new one may be better than is Smooth Noodle Maps. I'll have to listen to it a few more times but I'd say it's…

Devo's best album was definitely the first but they remained a great band up through "Total Devo," stumbling only a little bit with "Shout." "Smooth Noodle Maps" was pretty weak and this album is almost as poor a showing.

What annoys me is that DEVO could easily have fit all 16 songs on a CD. Instead, they threw it open to the public to narrow it down to 12 and ignored at least one of our decisions—iirc, "Watch Us Work It" was a runaway vote grabber and it's nowhere to be seen (heard). Indeed, a sticker on the album says "88% focus…

It's a C+.

She sounds realistic to me.