Huh, I thought Blue Jasmine was one of his rare late-period successes. Though it’s mostly on Cate Blanchett.

And in this iteration of the photo, the third generation is sitting on Jax’s lap. How depressing.

To be fair to Jax, he and Tara have swung back and forth about leaving/staying so many times, and she’s had so many opportunities to nope out after some horrendous experience, ad infinitum, I don’t completely blame him for not reading this one as less than serious.

“I would also like to express knowledge of that particular band’s lyrics.”  -Richard Nixon

I literally haven’t thought of that joke in over 30 years. And I absolutely spread it around at the time.

This is more anecdotal than factual, but there seems to be a long history of Emmys being one year out of step, i.e. awarded based on how voters felt about the season before the one nominated. Also some Emmys end up going to the last season of a good series regardless of that season’s quality, becoming more like a…

Fair enough - I read some critiques of the (intentionally) thin characterization, and I get it, I just think there’s so much other stuff going on that makes the book worth reading. I enjoy all kinds of novels for all kinds of reasons - I dig showy theatricality now and then, and for me the style suited the ideas…

I was in the same boat when I watched it my kids, and I was shocked at how good “Prince Ali” is. I remember “Never Had a Friend Like Me” being the memorable number back in the day, but I think “Ali” edges it out.

It’s not just the power ballad sound and structure that makes it great (key change after gratuitous key change! metaphors beaten to death!), it’s the visuals straight out of an 80s music video. If I hadn’t seen the movie before hearing “Lost in the Woods,” it wouldn’t have had quite the same impact. Olaf’s song is…

I hope this won’t discourage anyone from reading White Tears. Yes, the lead character is something of a void, but it turns out it’s not really his story. It’s set up as a typical book about New York hipster privilege, then explodes the structure and launches a full-on assault of historical mystery, ghost story and dark…

You still have Tig. [points] You ALL still have Tig!

Written on the plaque under the gold cross in the first scene:

“Awarded for highest number of daytime prayers by a nun”

It took me until Tara’s speech to Jax in their hospital scene to really think about the name Charming. The obvious irony aside, to charm also means to captivate, even hypnotize, brainwash. “Charming won’t let you leave,” says Tara, immediately making me think of Lost’s island and It’s Derry. The only thing close to…

#1, in the sense that Will Riker is Number One to Picard.

It’s been established, pretty sure by Wayne, that Gemma is the one who brought the club with her when she came back to Charming after taking off as a kid. (Maybe this is fleshed out in later seasons; I don’t want to check because I’m only up to this point in the series.)

The accent has always sounded Scottish to me. But also in the episode where Cammie was shot, he called Chibs “Scotsman” when he heard his voice.

If we’re going by the previous episode ending after the very last sound cue, he was always fine.

Clay tells Gemma that Opie and Kuzyk are heading up north to deal with the Irish.

Brian Tallerico’s review comes to basically the same conclusion. I kept waiting for the Toys That Made Us comparison, and it’s like he did everything to invoke it without actually saying the title. The closest he comes is mentioning how much it resembles a VH1 special.

That ominous final scene was nicely done. In the past, SAMCRO has shown that its response to adversity is to celebrate what makes these guys tick - have a balls-out party, even - and make it a bolstering moment for the viewer. But something about this celebration in the wreckage of the clubhouse smacks of fiddling…