Fleabag first led me to Crashing, which is not quite as well-conceived or executed. But you can still see the raw talent, both acting and writing, in that series anyway.

And I loved The Terror, so I am totally going to give it a shot.

Yeah, I was pained sitting through the movie because I thought the characters were largely unsympathetic, and in many cases underdeveloped. And while the twist was kinda clever, getting there was such a slog for me I just didn’t like the movie overall.

Interestingly, from what I read she is much more developed than Fellowes originally planned, and they actually brought in some new executive producers and writers to help turn her into a fully realized character with compelling stories. This is coming from interviews with Denée Benton, who apparently led the effort to…

Yeah, just that one scene where Mrs. Chamberlain was cautioning Marian about Raikes stood out to me as particularly nuanced and compelling, and that is possible due to a combination of Mrs. Chamberlain having a distinct backstory, and Tripplehorn being a fine actor.

I suspect he would say something like they are just people, some good and some bad and mostly a mix.

I know Bertha rightly has this contest locked down, but narratively, my favorite dress this week was the one Agnes wore when she barged into the traitorous luncheon. It has a vaguely military vibe, and she looked very powerful crossing the street (no horse dared to trample her!). But then when she entered the house,…

I so much want George to really be guilty. That would fix the one major complaint that I have had all along with this show (that George seemed too likable, including that before this, the only known victims of his rapacious activities were unsympathetic rich people themselves).

I have to applaud the show for making me genuinely conflicted for how to feel about Marian. On the one hand, I of course agree it is wrong for Mrs. Chamberlain to be permanently isolated for “breaking the rules,” and on the other, I think Marian is wrong to be so frequently deceitful with her aunt, who did in fact…

That is not quite accurate. Amazon apparently has the rights to do a long-form TV adaptation of the Appendices to the LOTR, which covers a lot of Second Age history, including references to the major known characters of the Second Age.

I think absent an agreed open marriage, cheating on your spouse is being a creep, even if it is somewhat more common in the entertainment business than other fields (although I am not sure how true that is, in the sense part of that impression may just be more public scrutiny).

Yeah, the sense in which I meant that was mostly that this was breaking new ground in the U.S., and at the time most U.S. viewers would have had no exposure to the U.K. version.

At the time it was pretty groundbreaking and set the stage for shows like Parks and Rec. And I still think when the show hit its stride in Seasons 2 and 3, there is a reason it settled into being pretty popular, particularly among younger adults—the combination of cast and writing, at least at the time, made the…

Yeah, it was a lot of, “oof, that didn’t land” for me.

As I suspected, Lennon is very close to my age, which means Al is over 10 years older, and plausibly Lennon was a fan of Al while Lennon was still a kid.

Yeah, my wife worked for a while on the due diligence side at a large bank, and so it made sense to me Sorokin was never actually able to get her loan application approved. Now the people at a bank whose job it is to try to get such business to come to their bank—sure, they might well advocate for Anna. But banks…

Yeah, if people actually love it, that will get around soon enough.

I never quite get to a Robin Hood vibe personally. Because while they take from the rich, the giving to the poor part does not seem to be on their agenda.

I very much want to love this, but did not particularly like the teaser or trailer, so . . . uh-oh.

I really liked the first part of this final season, and hope it finishes up in a satisfying way.