I'm not sure about that. Unless she has future value she's nothing but a potential risk if they keep her alive. There's no reward for good work in that business as far as I can tell. It's all current and future value.

I think he does realize it, but Elizabeth does not. Philip is increasingly aware of the total futility of what they're doing - that they're just cogs in a machine that just runs around and around in circles. There's no end point. The Soviets are never going to "beat" the US any more than the US "beat" the Soviets (IMO…

It seemed like they kind of let that go… but it wasn't clear if it was because of mental illness or because of his age.

Overall our criminal justice system is ill prepared to manage mental illness. I was listening to something on the radio the other day and one of the people being interviewed said something to the effect of "but we no longer warehouse the mentally ill" (alluding to the way that mental illness was handled before the…

Forgot about that — it's an old, but good approach, i suppose.

Me, too - that was great.

Good point - the time warp they've been using is an easy way to run through a lot of things without taking the audience along.

And people inject between their toes.If you're determined to hide it you can.

It's also a lot more realistic to have all of the kids having to find their fatherly/motherly mentoring in a variety of places vs. finding one replacement person. That's the challenge of being those kids - sorting through the lessons you get from the world (adults and peers included) to construct your own parenting.

I think Carl actually really likes her dad. When he said that he was going over to watch the game I could have sworn he used her dad's name and not her name.

Yes to both of these - Probably was more there, but they probably are also keeping him light so that it's no big deal when he slides out of the picture.

Or, in a more realistic story, Caleb would have looked at that application and said "Before you hand it in, let's see if there's someone at Legal Aid who can tell you what your options are." But, that would have necessitated Caleb being appropriately helpful. If he had done that he could have determined if the…

Caleb definitely comes across as a placeholder. They have to do something to resolve the Mickey situation, b/c even if they never get back together the way that it ended did not acknowledge what a big deal that relationship would have been to Ian - multiple years when he was young, his first real relationship,…

"Seeing Ian acknowledge what he'd done and attempting to make amends with
Svetlana would have been a HELL of a lot more compelling than watching
Ian spend an entire episode hanging out with Caleb at a wedding."

I buy Lip's spiral, too - both for the childhood demons aspect and for the fact that up until now Lip hasn't really had to try for anything or think about who he wants to be. Mandy was the one who pushed him to go to college, and he was able to because he was just that smart - smart enough to ace the SAT and do great…

Frank is never looking out for anyone other than Frank. He only came up with this information because he was looking to "take out" Sean in any way possible. He just happened to luck into a situation where that also meant that he was saving Fiona from marrying an addict. If it had been anything else, he would have used…

I also worry about the bi-polar in EMT job because we haven't really seen enough of Ian dealing with his disorder to know if even he knows what it looks like when he's starting to slide into mania or depression. I'd trust the whole thing more if there was some transparency into how well Ian knows his own illness and…

And lazy - it's "hey, she's a 20-something woman- we've got to get her married off (or show her actively trying to do this)" approach. It would be particularly easy for her to move away from the "I've got to get a partner" path if they focus on her becoming more actively involved with Debbie.

God I hope so.There was a moment in this season where she said something about always hopping from relationship to relationship and how she should take a break - but then she just jumped into the Shaun thing. It would be REALLY good for them to give her a break on this. Getting married isn't the only way to be a grown…

At this point his character is also leaving to no narrative effect. What was the point of him having been there at all? So that they could have someone other than David ask over and over again "hey, Alicia, is Diane making a move to take over the firm?"