Yeah, my sense was that the mumble-ese at the end was her failing to convince herself as much or more than the stubborn owner/tenant. Based on what we know about her character, his soliloquy about “giving a little money to charity” so she could think of herself as the “good rich” is totally off (she fights hard to do g…

THANK YOU. I am so tired of people buying into Mike’s self-serving rationalization sh*t. Not to mention the sexism inherent to his chivalry...

She was popular in both English and journalism courses in the early 2000s. I was a double major.

My unabashed hatred for Didion and her writing has always gotten me into trouble with my fellow reading/writing nerds. Are you familiar with “Joan Didion: Only Disconnect” (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/103/didion-per-harrison.html)? It has a hell of an opening line.

eternity without the possibility of an end

Seriously though, the showrunners’ interpretive choices are somewhat more interesting as a foil to the original 1897 source material.

The preceding scene with her un-self-consciously singing along to David Bowie was easily the season highlight for me—it felt so real and intimate, even as it dramatized the way the changes in British culture are playing out in the different generations of the Windsor family.

I’m really sad no one is seeing my amazing GP theory. Someone ungray me, please!

Definitely the last one.

It’s the first corollary to history being written by the victors. The people who win the privilege of telling the story inevitably make themselves the hero(es).

See, I think you may just have different taste in books than some other readers. Oryx and Crake is one of my all time favorites.

I really liked La Belle Sauvage, haven’t had time to make it to The Secret Commonwealth yet because my job’s a nightmare this time of year. Is it good?

As much as Nicole Kidman was perfect, I can see Ruth Wilson being perfect for that role, too—albeit more in terms of Ms. Coulter’s personality than her physical description.

I just want to comment—for all of the people saying kids will miss the larger religious themes, I was at least one thoughtful middle schooler who did not, and I credit His Dark Materials (in combination with reading Anne Rice’s vampire books later on in high school—no difference in quality there) with inspiring me to…

I can’t tell if your conflation of Pastiches and Palisades (Palisades is next to Pastiches; Bo-Jack leaves Pastiches for good after dropping Doctor Champ off at Palisades) is an extension of the show’s gag or an honest mistake.

Did that scene/line stutter/repeat for anyone else? As far as I can tell, there has been a moment like that in every episode—but just one.

I mean, he’s pretty much the only option in terms of major male characters of color. Unless they’re going to make up new ones to stretch things out.

Speaking of drug-themed songs from that era—I knew that “Under the Bridge” was about drug use, but I don’t know how many times I’d heard the song until I finally figured out that the creepy kid choir was singing “Under the Bridge Downtown” in my mid-20s. The title made so much more sense.

And it featured a lot of people below the age of consent jamming out or performing the song!

I don’t think it’s about masculinity perse and more about power over his family: the traditional female equivalent would be Bree from desperate housewives. Mike wants his famility to depend on his money, Bree wants them to depend on her cooking and cleaning.