I think he did fine up until that monologue, and I still can't figure out if that was his fault or the writers'. I don't hate Carl as a character the way I used to, so that's something at least.

I liked this episode purely because there were so many laugh-out-loud moments. Downton's a great show when you don't take it too seriously.

aka Some Kind of Wonderful

Mopey and passive aggressive are perfect adjectives for him and why he's so fucking unlikeable. I think there's something patently joyless about his approach to cooking. It's turned me into the person who roots AGAINST somebody instead of FOR somebody else to win. Anybody but Nick.

I would argue that it was all good, except for the dialogue, which is not a trivial thing. I found most of the exchanges between the characters to be exceedingly hokey. Maybe Deadwood spoiled me, but there were too many moments where I laughed out loud at things that were clearly not meant to be funny.

Those grandpa glasses drive me wild on him. *entering shame spiral*

See, I agree with this. I hate Joel's behavior right now, mostly because it's such out-of-character behavior for him. There are plenty of reasons for their marriage to go awry, but his complete overreaction and unwillingness to even discuss any of this seems completely wrong.

Me too! Sometimes, when I haven't seen a movie in a while, I forget how much I love it. Just seeing everybody quote little pieces of the movie throughout this comments thread brings a smile to my face.

I think she's an egomaniac, but her telling somebody to "eat a dick" might actually make me like her more.

Just as a side note, I think the old adage about not loaning anything to a friend that you can't live without (or something to that effect) probably would have been a good guideline here. Instead of being all passive aggressive and loaning out something you don't want to loan to somebody you don't like/respect,…

I think Nicholas has totally taken his anger to an inappropriate level. When Carlos said he stole his oven a few weeks back, I don't think he was really intending it maliciously and it's not like the judges penalized him or even took it seriously (and in fairness, taking up a whole oven to warm your plates when ppl…

Unless I missed something, I thought it was determined that Matthew's pre-crash missive was going to give his portion of the estate to Mary legally.

The previews for next week where Grantham is playing poker prompted a good side eye in my living room.

I actually missed the first episode of this show (it wasn't originally on OnDemand for some reason) and started watching from the second episode. A day after we watched the finale, we finally got to check out the debut and I was sort of crushed when I saw that scene. Not because I think Ethan is the greatest thing…

I thought Katie also looked better on the island, no matter what Hayden said :)

I thought it was so ludicrous of Monica to be pissed about him giving Gervase the idol when they got back to camp. After her wavering and quavering, Tyson and Gervase really had no reason to fully trust her.

Her answers to the jury were allllll over the place. I've never been a big Monica fan, but I thought she did a good job with the early question that elicited an answer about breaking free of the shadow of her husband/family yadda yadda yadda. But the minute she started getting defensive and incredulously asking…

See, I was thrilled. Apart from a couple of brief giggles, it always seems like an interminable exercise to help fill the two hours.

I'm a vote for Stephanie as well - but that might be more for her personality than her cooking if I'm being honest.

That's funny - my husband, who is not the most empathetic man in the world - said the same thing about Nick. I think it has more to do with peoples' lack of sleep and overall stress level than any real world weakness. My guess is that if you sent Nick on a one month trip somewhere for training or something , he…