The Colts and Packers play football, not basketball. So it was football game and not a basketball game where Taylor heard the homophobic language. This is important to me because I'm a Colts fan. It's important to the story, maybe, because of the air of heightened masculinity found around football. It's not that that…

The point about the places as characters simile not working makes me sad. It doesn't work here in my opinion because the reality is that they never put in the work to actually make it land. The house is never more than a place. But if you can read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and tell me that the titular…

I 100% agree with you that this idea is attached more often to African American women than Hispanic women, but I don't think that that means Hispanic women are immune to it. I think it's something attached to people of color in general. It also doesn't stop at women. Black and Hispanic men are also portrayed as more…

They are public school kids, I wouldn't put it past them to have a poor grasp of how STDs are transmitted due to their generally poor sex ed classes. But I didn't assume anything one way or the other.

I really didn't intend my comment to be an indictment of Taylor on any level. I don't automatically think that the sheer possibility (no matter how low) that he chose a hispanic girlfriend because he's maybe buying into stereotypes of hispanic (or generally brown) sexuality has be to a remark on his character. To be…

While I can understand the complaints of fridging Gina, I don't think that's the actual problem here, or not the main problem anyway. I don't care about Gina nor her death because I didn't know her. Also, I'm 99.9% certain that Bellamy didn't actually love her to begin with so much as use her as something to keep his…

I hate being late to this conversation but there was something fascinating and I think important about this episode that bears investigating. During their argument, Evy said something to the effect of "Was I a boy to you?" I think the obvious meaning of this has everything to do with Taylor's sexuality and such, but…

I don't mind the back and forth and the ambiguity. I'm less interested in what happened and more interested in the aftermath, how it affects these two boys and the others involved, and what the response to it has to say about us and our culture as a whole. Also, Eric's aggressiveness doesn't make me feel less…

I noticed the profanity thing this week, has it always done that? I noticed the cut on the audio before, but not the cut to black. That is annoying as shit, but I think probably still less annoying that the beeping that happens on Faking It over on MTV.

YES!!!!! 100% this! I thought that about his brother in particular. That seems to have ben a strong relationship up til this point, and I think that would have been the best place for him to find the kind of support he clearly needs. Most of his scenes in this episode broke my heart.

Oh man, I disagree totally. I found Eric's story to be so much more believable than Taylor's, and it's strange. I think that the most honest think Taylor said was when he was talking to Evie and told her to say he needed to get wasted to hook up with a guy.

I'm more excited for the aftermath of this final development than I was watching it play out in real time. Sadly, I didn't find this episode compelling at all because it was too bogged down in all of the stories I didn't care about (read, all of them except Fiona I guess), and too light on the one thing I do kind of…

No, I don't think he has any obligation to Eric at all really; certainly not like the obligation he has towards his daughter. But I do think a lot of people are engaging with him and using terms like "Father Figure" to describe his interactions with these kids. And I do think that he's done a lot to position himself…

I haven't gotten the impression that they're in Chicago. So even if they're five miles out, my guess is that (esp in a city as dense as Chicago), you can be five miles away and still be in a mostly rural, or at least significantly smaller, area.

I certainly believe that these two things (the assault and the possibility that the two of them had a thing going on) are in no way mutually exclusive. And I fully expect the show to explore that more as well. This season's grasp on the issues surrounding rape and rape culture has been amazing. So I fully expect them…

While I didn't feel that way while watching the episode (I found the depth of it all to be interesting instead of distracting), I certainly see your point here. And I also think you're 100% right that yet another emotionally or mentally damaged woman is a TV trope we don't need to see again.

Here's the thing, I don't think of Eric as "the bad guy." But I certainly do think his actions crossed a line he probably didn't really know existed. What that has to mean going forward, I'm not sure. As more comes out, I think we'll start thinking along the lines of who gets punished and to what extent. But for now,…

While I certainly see where you're coming from, I do think this is giving the coach more credit than I think he deserves.

I was right there with you on this one. I actually slammed my remote down, The back flew off and batteries went everywhere. Not my most shining moment. But yeah, after all that "talk to me" crap, he finally gets this kid to open up and his response in the face of this important and shattering news is to walk away…

Here's where I think we'll disagree. I think this is also a small(ish) town. For all intents and purposes, it seems like there's only the two high schools to choose from. So my guess is that if a news story circulated talking about something as sensational as a boy being raped in their small town, and at the same time…