It's hilarious/sad the way they'll have at least one character per episode ask a direct question about what's going on and the other character will just stare off into space. Alicia should be completely freaking out. Suddenly everyone is running off to the desert. She asks a couple of questions, surlily, and puts her…

I guess what I'm trying to say is that addiction itself doesn't make a person resourceful. It's possible to live on the streets, in a fog of addiction, without becoming resourceful, just degraded.

I have a closer experience with addiction and living on the streets than the example you've given. What I said wasn't bullshit. An addict is de facto someone who has to pop a pill or shoot up or whatever every time something mentally or emotionally difficult happens. I'm not knocking the personality of the addict,…

That ship has sailed.

You didn't think it was kind of funny the way the blackout was following the progress of the truck, though?

Ruben will lose his wife and go full-on psycho badass — he will also blame Travis (probably because it will somehow be Travis's fault). Travis's ex will also die, to increase the antagonism between Travis and Chris but also to ultimately tighten up the family dynamic. No one else will die this season.

These are good actors not being allowed to follow their good actor instincts because the characters they are playing aren't being allowed to act like real people would act. You can almost see Maddie and Travis pausing to get a sign from the director to tell them what plot point their reaction is supposed to advance.

But that's how all the safe neighborhoods in Baltimore City are. Turn a corner and you're in the hood. It's one of the things that makes Baltimore interesting.

Riots had exploded spontaneously on board.

I think he meant both of them. He thinks they are all weak but he has hopes for angry Chris.

Oh man, I really disagree. The pilot was great but when they moved to Vancouver things got really bland, I thought. I guess that riot last night must have been shot on location but it looked like a sound stage to me.

I'm not sure why people keep saying this guy will have survival skills because he's an addict. Yeah, addicts can end up on the street but that's because they are so busy escaping reality that they don't take in the reality of their shitty situation. An addict is someone who cannot adapt; that's why they have to do…

That means he stays. And stays, and stays.

Oh but why waste a kid when you've got a superfluous ex wife hanging around?

I see that oldest brother in Seventh Heaven.

I guess because if they took diversity on as a qualifying factor they would have had only one option at that point. It was either choose that couple or nix diversity as a consideration. Which was pretty sad but maybe Effie should have argued her point earlier in the process? (Of course she could have been arguing it…

Doreen was an example of someone who was being held back by her environment more than anything else. She had the instincts and talent to be a community leader but it was almost impossible to put those instincts to good use where she was. Housing isn't everything but it does matter.

I think the thing I like best about Simon's writing is the way he can make you empathize with a person without necessarily agreeing with their choices. I wasn't saying I was condemning Billie, just questioning whether the change of housing was all that she needed. It WAS all that Doreen needed.

I thought it was supposed to be so out of character for the guy to bring a knife that she let it slide. The guy is a nerd who tutors other kids. She wanted to know who was bullying him.

People say "at the cabin" when they mean that, though. If that's what they mean it should have been established earlier that they had a place in the desert - it would have taken one sentence.