Speaking of Ashley, I suppose we’ll never find out who bit off that piece of her ear. . . unless it was in the story somewhere and I missed it.

I think he’s a mashup of the worst qualities of a few people. He has the sneering arrogance of a Trump (without Trump’s low cunning), the ignorance of a GWB (without GWB’s folksy swagger), and the rigid, naive fanaticism of a Steve Forbes (without Forbes’ optimism).

The problem is, Kendall only has his own word for the fact that the caterer turned the wheel to avoid the deer. . . or that a deer was even on the road when he drunkenly veered off it and into a lake. All that the authorities can know for certain is that Kendall was drunk; Kendall was high; Kendall was driving; the…

Connor is too much of a joke. I’m sure he’ll run and make an ass of himself, but If the company tried to prop him up as a serious candidate, notwithstanding his utter lack of intellect or qualifications, the result would be a broader sort of comedy than the show is going for.

I was surprised by how bad I felt for Roman in that moment. . .given that, just seconds before, I’d been rooting for his stupid rocket to blow up on a gigantic projection screen in front of the whole wedding party (illuminating the ballroom in stark orange as the crowd collectively gasps).

I can’t figure out why the AV Club isn’t covering Succession. It’s an almost perfect show on its merits, and the subject matter is as timely as it gets. Maybe that last bit is the problem, though- the AV Club doesn’t want to turn into a forum for discussing current events.

I think Serena was quoting from John 1:1, not Genesis. (An interesting choice, come to think of it, since Eden went New Testament as well). Gilead seems distinctly Old Testament in its approach to, well, everything, so the New Testament could be seen as an added element of subversiveness.

I think Serena absolutely *did* consider the standard punishment to be a possibility. The Commander who greeted Serena when she first came in was the one who lost a hand for committing adultery at the end of Season One. This is unlikely to have been lost on her when she began her speech.

The Canadian border really isn’t that far. A couple of hours at most, if they’re not stopped.

Succession is more a black comedy than a drama. . .although it can certainly feel like a drama until you get to know the characters well enough to savor their misfortunes.

I thought about that theory, but if this was just an excuse to kill off Nick (or even Nick and June), then wouldn’t the gunmen know to look for June? I can’t imagine his plan was to just leave her to probably die in childbirth in the middle of nowhere, since (even with the difference in their social status) under the…

The remnant-United States seems to have a major consular office in Toronto to service refugees, which is probably larger than the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. It’s possible that Canada wanted to give the U.S. Refugee community a place at the table.

Numbers are actually OK in Gilead. We see them on apartments, licence plates, and other places.

I also liked that the scattered remnants of America are still feisty enough to keep plotting for Gilead’s downfall, by any means that present themselves. 

I think the mother got even icier when the little girl asked Serena if she was a “Princess”. After that, there was no way she was going to let Serena influence her daughter for one second more.

The letters are all months old (if not longer), and could have been brought in by any of the hundreds of refugees who escaped from Gilead in that time. The fact that they were published during Waterford’s visit doesn’t mean Waterford or his household staff brought them in -which is why Waterford seems completely…

The Canadian government presumably knows almost everything, and is reluctantly meeting with representatives of Gilead with full awareness of how brutal and oppressive their government is.

Was there a smoke machine? Please tell me there was a smoke machine.

2018 here. It was.

Good catch, although the photocopiers of the era weren’t very good at replicating images (they had no grayscale, and pitiful resolution); and putting a photocopy of a photograph through a late-1980s fax machine would have probably resulted in a blurry mess.