Funnily enough, Lawrence hasn’t been working on the show this season, as I understand it, as his time has been taken up with Shrinking. I think Ted Lasso would be better if he was still working on it, but then, I also thought this was a highlight episode of the season.

“He seems very wealthy. And nice-like.”

I thought season 1 was legitimately great, but the show has simultaneously gotten longer while spending less time on what made it great.

I’d say Jimi, myself. (And funnily enough I just realized you could make this call by comparing their versions of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)“ if you wanted to.)

Yeah, my wife thought Rupert was going to try to fuck Jade, whereas I just thought he was going to try to fuck with their relationship in some way. Wasn't the way I expected, but I think Rupert was just more interested in molding Nate to be more like him, particularly in that sense of "We're powerful men; women are…

I'd consider Prince a bit too modern to be considered "classic rock." (Even if classic rock stations have started playing stuff from the 90s, I still think of "classic rock" as a genre being tied to a pretty specific time period.)

I remember, but that was three weeks ago and one line. It feels like a lot of extrapolation to base it just on that, without, say, a little more of this applying to Roy beyond Rebecca's perspective on his relationship with Keeley. 

Marcus! Have we even seen him since season 1? 

Yeah, damn, I forgot about “worthwhile.” It’s more obvious when Jade tells Nate that Rupert is “nice-like,” but boy, “worthwhile” is really loaded, huh? More like “It was worthwhile to find out what a piece of shit my boyfriend is working for.”

Undersell of the Year here in this article; specifically, in terms of just what kind of an impact being tied up with the mob can have. I mean, they’ll kill you, you know.

Also, I always get a kick out of Chris Powell’s ridiculous lines.

Well, my knowledge of musical theater is not as thorough as yours, but my enjoyment of this episode was much more thorough.

The disappearing part actually does make sense, especially with not getting too attached to anyone around them or any outside activities. I’m more doubtful on the darker interpretation because I tend to think that Barry is just such a fucking delusional mess of a person that he thinks you can raise a kid this way,…

“You have too many dogs!” is a perfect button on that scene. It’s funny watching Gene in the background getting chased by a preposterous number of dogs... then it explodes when we get it bluntly that, yes, he is not the only one in the scene thinking this is a preposterous number of dogs.

Ah, always love a good Franklin Sherman reference.

Thanks, and I appreciate your comments; they’ve helped me fill in some things I’ve overlooked or gaps in my reasoning. I think I may be being a little too harsh on the show, because I think it’s still good, but it hasn’t been delivering as much on what makes it great the way it did those first two seasons, if that…

I thought about that, and I suppose it does follow, but it doesn’t feel as necessary as some of the other horrible things Barry has done, I suppose. Like I mentioned from season 1, Barry kills Chris and then Moss because his options are effectively “kill them or go to prison a long time for committing many, many…

“Reality” and “plausibility” aren’t the same thing. I never said “reality.”

For example, this episode— if Sally has a Google Alert set for any news about Barry, surely the two of them would’ve found out about the biopic before Gene got involved. (The way Gene talks about it elliptically— “If your boss is doing what I think he’s doing, he’s gonna want to talk to me”— suggests that maybe it’s…

its braintrust had not thought out at all how they wanted it to end.