“I Believe” is a lot of fun. Lifes Rich Pageant is so great.

Ah, I missed that about “Departure” somehow. I wrote about New Adventures a couple of years ago— it’s my favorite R.E.M. album, although Fables and Lifes Rich Pageant are close— and I discovered the “So Fast, So Numb” trivia while doing a little research for it, but I didn’t find anything about “Departure” to that end.

Thanks for the reply, nice to hear some insight into the process! Those are all very deserving almost-made-its.

I doubt they actually put Colin in at striker (unless they showed that during the match and I didn’t see it)-- I’m sure they just moved Jamie up there and Colin into his usual role.

I was coming back to this to look up something, and this reminded me how much I find the criticism that “You’re overthinking it” annoying. To me it’s like saying, “You’ll enjoy it a lot more if you just pretend to be stupid!” Is that supposed to be an endorsement of the story?

The bummer is that season 1 was so good about doing things the right way. Ted winning the respect of the team was a very gradual and steady process, as everyone slowly realized how his methods were actually improving them, and that he was consistent day-to-day and in living out his values, even when it was difficult…

Ohh, I must not have noticed the draws, that makes a lot of sense.

Related, how frequently are Premier League matches? The announcer at the beginning said Richmond hadn’t won in seven weeks, but looking at the standings it only seemed like a three-game losing streak?

Heh, I used that line as the title for my article on New Adventures a couple of years ago.

Nerd alert: Those three are Root, Dave Foley, and Andy Dick.

I love this scene so much, and part of it is how good Maura Tierney is physically, and how she can let Root just grab her arm and wave it up and down while Jimmy’s ranting about Snuffleupagus.

I was literally going to complain about the “recurring character” part-- he’s part of the main cast and one of only three actors who appeared in every single episode.

Wasn’t Custer massacred?

Oh, no, the Guy Who Plays Mr. Belvedere Fan Club has broken containment!

Oh, “Finest Worksong” belongs on here, too.

Yep, I agree. And she’s eavesdropping the whole conversation, too, and it seems like she only starts expressing any interest at all when Nate starts talking about how much the restaurant has meant to him and his family over the years.

“Cuyahoga” is about the actual Cuyahoga River catching fire.

That was one of the things that frustrated me about season 2— all the talk about Rebecca as a “boss ass bitch” but we spent almost no time on her doing boss ass bitch stuff, on the challenges of being a woman in a man’s world and how she rises up to them. We spent most of the season worrying about her love life and…

If Shandy is supposed to be a parallel to Zava, I don’t see it at all. Zava is a genuine superstar who is very weird and self-absorbed but still seems to understand the team looks up to him and at least goes through the motions of trying to bring them together and inspire them, whatever you think of his sincerity.…

Yeah, that was one of the things that frustrated me about last season, was how often we just wouldn’t see how the team was doing or coming together, and we’d just be told about their latest streak right before they decided to show a match. The whiplash here is having the same effect. Oh, Zava joins and they go on a…