There is a case to be made that, as enlightened as Ted Lasso is about masculinity, it is still in many ways quite limited in its feminism. I’ve harped on this on other articles, so I won’t go into my full dissertation here (at the very least it’s a journal article!). But if you look at the women in the world of Ted…

I think the reason why responses to this season are so divided and contentious is this: While individual episodes (or parts of the episodes) can be enjoyable, there are over-arching issues of plotting and characterization that keep the show from being cohesive over the course of an entire season. I don’t think I’ve…

Maybe, and that’s a more charitable reading of the scene than I gave it. I think if i had to pick, I would have had him sign his own name, since Wonder Kid or Wunderkind still have the baggage of his arrogance from season 2. I think signing his name Nate could have done more to signal a return to himself.

Louder for the people in back (ie: the people who are on here saying there hasn’t been a drop off in the quality of plotting or character development in Ted Lasso). How do you expand episodes up to an hour but leave a crucial piece of both plot and characterization unsaid? Maybe they’ll give us his quitting in…

I can’t believe the Wonder Kid shit has endured. And that (and this isn’t a major spoiler) Nate signs a note using it in this week’s episode. It’s a note that’s supposed to have indicated that he’s grown/changed, but if he’s still using that stupid nickname that he used to aggrandize himself, has he really changed?

Abbott Elementary is a great network sitcom, which means in the broader universe of content, it’s actually just an OK sitcom. It’s leagues above your Young Sheldons and Last Man Standings, but not really pushing any boundaries. It’s...fine.

I also wondered what prolific direction meant. It didn’t seem over-directed to me, if that’s what the author was going for. But I can’t think of what word was intended to be there to complete the thought. Prodigious, maybe?

It’s a real shame that she’s likely going to be up against Sarah Snook from Succession for so many awards this year. Both women have been fantastic in their roles. I’m not sure there are two actresses working right now who are better at changing their performance without seeming to move a muscle. They’re both…

Not to mention the ways Barry has manipulated and exploited her. He may not have set out to destroy her life, but regardless that’s been the outcome. He’s destroyed her. 

To me, if you’re going to switch parties, you should have to immediately resign and then run again in a special election (or the next election) to make sure the people of your state/district want you to represent them as a member of that party. But you shouldn’t just get to keep your seat after you betray everyone who…

I would be interested to see this study done on graduate student populations, since I suspect the study mentioned above only worked with undergrads. I agree that many/most undergraduates probably don’t need to be taking notes on the computer. Handwritten notes do encourage more retention just by the physical process…

I think about my graduate level literary theory class. We talked so much about the connections between art and literature, that it was really helpful to take notes on my computer because I could grab an image of whatever painting we were talking about and drop it into my notes document. That was a class that…

Rejecting rational choice theory does not mean that everyone has to spend money on things they don’t need or want. The basic criticism that I’m levying against rational choice theories like the OP was espousing is that it makes a set of assumptions about how all people make decisions. And like you’ve noted, we cannot…

Yeah, I also see those time bombs. And part of me really wants to believe there will be a reckoning. But the other part of me remembers that Armstrong has said on numerous occasions that the show shows you where it’s going. For three seasons now, it has played variations on the theme of “how wealthy insulates you from…

This is my favorite pet scenario for how the show ultimately ends for the Roy children. For all of the kids’ talk about their call swinging the election, they’ve fundamentally misunderstood their role. Their calling Wisconsin doesn’t swing it to Menken; that’s going to be decided in the courts. All the kids have done…

Agreed. I wanted to be excited, but that was not a nice looking or well edited sequence. 

We’ve got decades of research that says that the rational choice theory of economics doesn’t work in real-world conditions—that people don’t make their economic decisions based solely on what would be best for their long-term financial health or investment portfolio. Instead, people’s economic decisions are motivated…

I mean, it’s all terrible, but the shielding of pretty much all of his records from open records laws is so blatantly undemocratic it makes me apoplectic with rage. 

I don’t know. Does the reader actually get any more vital information by listing the district? Heck, I don’t even know what my own home district’s number is. Listing a congressperson’s district by number doesn’t add much unless you’ve got pre-existing knowledge of where the district is. And most people don’t have…

My main impression from season 3 so far has been the individual episodes and scenes can be great. But that it hasn’t hung together as a coherent narrative arc. That’s what is missing for me.