It was fairly obvious what was going on with Shannon, come Season 2, but that was almost definitely a decision made between seasons.

I don't really like either of these episodes, but Hearts and Minds is, IMO, a pretty bad episode — to the point where the show largely writes off the implications of the Boone/Shannon background.

You actually work on Looking?

The reviewer bashed this episode a lot and while I understand it's opinion (laden with grammatical error mind you)

Also the original show's… not good, despite the strength of the cast.

Wasn't she? Up until episode 13 or whatever (the Las Vegas one, where she gets the monologue about how she's changed) she was barely given any dialogue. A big change for the nominal hero of the show.

I rewatched the scene, and it's pretty explicit about the timing. Lang's all, "we laughed at you and your crush", and then Pottinger asks "really", and then Lang replies "until the aliens attacked, then no more laughing".

Certainly, but the point I'm making is that Pottinger expressed a crush prior to the Votan attack, not after it.

I really like this theory. They've deliberately downplayed the gold spaghetti the last few episodes, so I'd be really excited if they pulled this kind of twist.

Anything's possible — ten to one whatever Yewll was up to was part and parcel with whatever took place at that school. Hell, she was probably there.

There seems to have been an attraction beforehand though, with the reference to the watch Pottinger gave Connor, that he and the other school-boys, Pottinger worries, probably laughed about. That suggests pre-Votan assault to me.

Surely it's deliberate? They're spent a decent amount of time in the previous few episodes demonstrating exactly why someone would become a card carrying member of the Earth Republic, while also demonstrating that the problems are inherently institutional (through Berlin) rather than manifest through the dominance of…

Are the E-Rep necessarily that bad? Sure they're, a nationalistic, privatised, Brobigian bureaucratic nightmare, with corporate interests and police state elements, (AKA the organisation is clearly shit) but the second season's gone to some effort to suggest that not everyone who works for them are jackbooted thugs —…

I got the strong sense that Pottinger was, at the very least, sexually attracted to Lang. Lang (i.e. Pottinger) describes the relationship as a crush, and Pottinger melts and cringes when he thinks Lang could have, maybe, mocked him for it.

Same.

I have no idea what to make of Mayor Pottinger. On the one hand, I really like that they're doing with the character, but, on the other, my gut instinct says that revealing him as Amanda's rapist is a move too monstrous, and I worry that's where they're going.

Based on how other shows have similarly treated characters, her situation is similar to that in which the writers, having decided that they don't like a character or actor, but for some reason find themselves unable to write that character out, marginalise the character in order to reduce the burden. e.g. Charlie in…

Since this might be a thing, my iteration on the Top Ten, in No Particular Order:

Rectify perhaps? It was from last season, but maybe you saw the previously, or recently caught up?

What happened to the Defiance review? I can't seem to find it…