Yeah, but that's because Sybil helped her and she (Gwen) was properly grateful for it. Elevating yourself is ok as long as you do it all respectful-like (or in Branson's case, learn respect eventually). Or I guess as long as Sybil helped you. Alas, Sybil is no longer around.

He is terrific in Friday Night Lights. Actually, everything about that show is terrific, especially the first season.

You must. One of the best movies of the last 20 years (if not longer), and one of my all-time favorites. So excited for Manchester!

Yeah, I'm a socialist myself and I cringed every time either Branson (in his socialist phase) or Miss Bunting opened their mouth. But then, that's clearly probably how Julian Fellowes sees/hears them.

This recap is spot-on about the show's retrograde class politics. I don't really watch it anymore except if I happen to be around when my husband's watching it, but whenever I do I always get struck by the same things:

Yeah, I know - I meant he wasn't physically with them anymore. He was clearly never spiritually with them.

Man, that spy chick does not mess around. (Well, except when it's part of her job.) She's cut from the same cloth as Elizabeth from "The Americans." (Jim Meeks OTOH is no Philip Jennings.)

Uh, I don't think the doctor is with the aspiring jihadist group anymore. I thought he stayed in Berlin.

Well, I enjoyed this episode very much - except for the Quinn storyline, which has been getting tedious ever since he left Berlin. I don't find Allison to be a cipher at all, though it might be Miranda Otto's strong performance - I could believe she'd be so jaded by a job (Bagdad circa mid-200s) that's looking…

Argh, I am so tired of this canard. A secondary definition of "irony," straight from Merriam-Webster, is: "incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result."
Listen to the song again. Almost every situation she describes fits this definition.

I think this show may finally be getting a little too dark for me. All I see is despair.

Yes! Yes! Yes! This is exactly what I have always said. The ending isn't treacly or a copout, it's chilling as fuck. And I think Kubrick would absolutely have approved.

She made only one mistake: her look of huge relief at the close of the interview. Although I suppose that's a plausible reaction even from someone with nothing to hide.

Question: ABC was advertising a full hour of Fresh Off the Boat, but my DVR only recorded the usual half hour. What was the second half hour?

It is definitely a thing, for Koreans as well. And I have to admit, as a superstitious Asian American it is a pain trying to avoid both 4 and 13. :)

I really think that's one of the reasons they cast him. Shaq and Jordan, by contrast, have not aged so well.

I definitely think she's lying low, trying to buy time and figure out what her best option is. I actually like this turn, in that it puts her and Philip/Clark on a more level playing field and more uncertain power dynamic than they have been up till now…even though it just adds more tension in a show that already has…

Yes, that little smirk was my favorite moment of the episode, possibly because it was the one moment of levity (and those are becoming increasingly few and far between as the show just gets darker and darker).

I actually couldn't hear Philip's response to Elizabeth's comment about his feelings for Martha - what did he say?

Also, Nina is a survivor. Have to admire that. But her complete amorality is starting to make me really dislike her, though not necessarily blame her.