The Man in the High Castle Recap Season 2 Episodes 6 & 7: Land O’ Smiles and Kintsugi

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After the slow-building tension of the past two episodes, the pace starts to pick up again with episodes 6 and 7. The characters are starting to put their plans into motion.

Joe talks with his father’s housekeeper, Frau Silva, and discovers that his father had a wife and two sons that he lost in the war. She refuses to answer any further questions after that, but otherwise continues to be ridiculously worshipful and kind of a stalker. Joe escapes her the first chance he gets and goes with Nicole to a Lebensborn overnight drug orgy in the country. While he’s stoned, he sees himself dead, and says goodbye to Juliana and his old life. When he wakes up in the morning, he tells Nicole he’s ready to go back to his father. That seems to mean he’s also ready to embrace being a Nazi, since he puts on the suit Frau Silva had left out for him the morning before, complete with Swastika armband. The Lebensborn appear to have organized themselves into some kind of Aryan superbaby cult. All it took was an orgy and a few hallucinations to convert Joe. Seems like the guy who went through that whole season 1 cross country ordeal and stood up to the great Obergruppenführer Smith multiple times might be able to hold out longer than one debauched night, but I guess he discovered it’s good to be wanted.

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Crazy Ex Girlfriend Season 2 Episode 2: When Will Josh See How Cool I Am? Recap

 

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Lots of honesty mixed with disappointment amongst the characters this episode. Some of the truth-telling goes well, some makes things worse.

Greg goes to a biker AA meeting. Alcohol was Greg’s shield until 27 days ago. My Marvel Cinematic Universe-loving heart is going to take that as a Captain America reference.

What could possibly stop Greg from bringing the donuts?

Of course West Covina has a Ping Pong Cocktailaria. What small town doesn’t?

Josh repeats Rebecca’s made up ping pong title back to her just as fast as she makes it up. Impressive. Physical stuff is his comfort zone.

I love the purple shirt on Rebecca and the orange cardigan on Paula in first office scene. They look so good on each actress, and with each other. Are the characters coordinating outfits now?

Paula becomes a fairytale princess and sings Maybe This Dream after she asks Rebecca to write a reference for her law school application. We see her low self confidence, and more hints that she’s had tough times in her life that we don’t know about yet:

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The Man in the High Castle Season 2 Episodes 3, 4 & 5 Recap: Nebulous Loyalties in a Tense Game of Chess

Travelers, Escalation, & Duck and Cover

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As we move toward the midpoint of the season, it feels like almost everyone is a pawn being moved around the game board by someone. Some players are even being fought over by two or more sides. Frank and Ed (especially Ed) are being watched by the Japanese and the Western Resistance. Juliana is being torn in pieces by the Reich and the Eastern Resistance, by the Smith family, and by George Dixon. Joe’s loyalties are divided by his father and Smith, and a bit by Rita, who may or may not have connections to the resistance. Smith is caught between his loyalty to his family and the Reich. He may also now have a deal with Kido. Tagomi is caught between his desire to save his own reality and the pull to stay with his lost family in the alternate reality. Both Smith and Tagomi are being pressured by Inpector Kido and, ultimately, the General. The General’s motives seem clear, but Kido is too complex to put down to simple motives. His loyalty is to the law, the Empire, and his family, but we’ve seen him exercise his own judgement about what’s best for the Japanese people in the long run before. He appears to be operating on his own again, doing whatever he feels is necessary to accomplish his goal.

The Western Resistance still seems far from benign to me. They manipulated Frank into joining them. Connell withheld Juliana’s letter and made Frank believe she’d betrayed him instead. Lem and Sarah both know Frank’s being lied to, yet they’re going along with it. Sarah’s even sleeping with Frank. Was the seduction part of the plan? Connell is a sociopath who is willing to achieve his goals through any means necessary. A romance with Sarah would further cement Frank’s commitment to them. I hope that’s it’s not true, but Sarah seems to have lost everything and to be just as ruthless as Connell.

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The Man in the High Castle Season 2 Episodes 1&2 Recap: Three Castles

The Tiger’s Cave & The Road Less Traveled

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Time to catch up with Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle! We finally meet the man himself, Hawthorne Abendsen, and, not surprisingly, he’s a little nuts. The “castle” appears to be a giant warehouse full of alternate reality films. Metamaiden doesn’t like him. She’s confused about where these films are coming from, and how the supernatural aspect plays into the full picture of the show. I (metacrone) think he’s high strung from having seen so many potential future disasters, and he’s weighed down with the possible impact of his choices.

All three factions in the show’s world now have access to information about the alternate realities (and, consequently, have their own man in a high castle). The Resistance and the Nazis access it through films brought to Abendsen and Hitler, and the Japanese through Trade Minster Tagomi’s mystical abilities. Both Abendsen and Tagomi seem to have figured out that Juliana is an important, lynchpin character in some way. Tagomi appeared to feel that her locket was too important as a talisman to offer back to her, even as they were both staring at it in his house. I’m not clear about whether Hitler’s specifically trying to have her killed, but Smith has certainly been keeping up with her status and whereabouts.

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2 Episode 1 Recap: Where Is Josh’s Friend?

Welcome back to Crazy Town! I mean West Covina, California! Let’s take a moment to review where we left off last season. Princess Jasmine and Aladdin Rebecca and Josh finally hooked up at the wedding that they both just happened to be attending. Or at least Aladdin thought it was a hook up. The Princess thought they were probably well on their way to being engaged. The carpet flew and everything. Josh must be really good in bed.

Greg, Rebecca’s actual date for the wedding and sort of boyfriend, got passed out drunk and had to be poured home by our resident patron saint of clean living and patient friendship, WhiJo (leaving Rebecca free for her hook up). Rebecca, fearing Paula’s disapproval, had hidden that she was back with Greg again. Paula found out and absolutely snapped, since she’d heavily invested her considerable talents and energy into Rebecca and Josh’s fantasy relationship. Rebecca screwing that up by falling for Josh’s best friend was not part of Paula’s plan for her daughter’s best friend’s life. Greg and Paula are currently having a few issues with priorities and control. Daryl and WhiJo continue to be the cutest couple on the planet.

And, that’s what you missed on CEGF! 😍

We open the new episode just after the end of the season finale, with Rebecca desperately trying to convince Josh that she didn’t think they were engaged or any creepy stalkerish stuff like that. The flying carpet has knocked her off her gaslighting game, but Josh also isn’t the brightest, so they end at an uncomfortable stalemate.

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Mozart in the Jungle Season 3 Review: Why Are There So Many Dramatic People?

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My husband and I spent Friday and Saturday evenings this weekend binge watching the new season of Mozart in the Jungle. God, I love this show. I don’t think there’s any other show currently on TV that makes me hit the pause button repeatedly as often  during an episode so that I can sit there and just laugh for a few minutes. And it’s often just because of a reaction look from one character to another. Of course, that reaction has been set up over three well-written seasons now, and played beautifully by the stellar cast, but still. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the only other show that comes close. (Shameless plug. Go watch it if you don’t already.)

This season finds the symphony in the middle of an ongoing strike/lockout, with the characters scattered around the globe. Hailey is touring Europe with Andrew Walsh, the egotistical cellist she slept with last season. Rodrigo is in Venice to work with Alessandra, also known as La Fiamma, an opera diva who suffers from severe anxiety, depression and stage fright, but is trying to make a comeback. Gloria and Thomas are having an affair, while Thomas continues composing and Gloria tries to keep the symphony from bankruptcy. The rest of the characters have taken on various odd jobs, some musical, some not, while they wait out the lockout, or figure out what to do next.

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No Tomorrow Season 1 Episode 9: No Truer Words Recap

This Is What You’d Call an Ironic Episode Title

There’s an epidemic of fibs, little white lies, and straight up, bald-faced lying going around Seattle this week. Everyone is hiding something. It could be something large or small, or something ultimately meant to protect themselves or someone else, or for less selfless reasons, but everyone has at least one thing that they’re hiding. Most of the characters have multiple secrets.

Deirdre has the biggest secrets that we are made privy to, since she’s been hiding a hot ex-husband (Broadway star Will Swenson), a dancing hobby, and several dance championships. Hank and Kareema go under cover to discover what Deirdre is hiding and lying to Hank about. They attempt to compete with Deirdre and Pete, but the plan backfires when Deirdre agrees to marry Pete for a third time after they win another championship together.

Deirdre is obviously going for the safer choice with Pete. She knows exactly how he’ll break her heart again, and she’ll be ready for it. She tells Hank as much. Hank would require too much risk, and after he didn’t put himself out there for her during the strike, she’s no longer willing to go for it. Hank’s going to have to work hard to win Deirdre back. She was crushing on him for a while before she found a safe way to approach him to begin with. She’s obviously got a history of heartbreak, and has learned to protect herself. Hank can’t half-ass their relationship the way he does a lot of things in life and expect that’s going to work. On the other hand, Deirdre’s clearly in love with Hank, and Pete isn’t really going to cut it any more. I’ll be shocked if she goes through with the marriage.

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Nashville Season 5 Premiere Sneak Peak Reaction: Ladies Night

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In The Wayfaring Stranger We Check in with Our Four Leading Ladies

Nashville is back! And it remembers it’s a show about country music and the women who produce it! This episode was everything I was hoping for from the new showrunners. We spent a long time with Juliette and Rayna, giving them each time to figure where they are in their lives and where they want to go next. They had an amazing heart to heart talk together, the kind of scene I’ve always wished the show would give them more of. The scenes were allowed to breathe, with long pauses for reaction shots. Dialogue is obviously important, but body language can be just as important to character and relationship development. With less racing from scene to scene and fewer characters to service, the episode allowed us to sit back and watch people cuddle, or have awkward pauses in conversation.

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What Did You Think of Hairspray Live? Take the Poll

 

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Did you love it? Hate it? Vote, then tell us why in the comments.

We’ll have a full review up later. For now, let’s just say we loved it! It’s one of our favorite musicals, so it’s hard to go wrong with this show. This production did an exceptional job. It wasn’t perfect, but that’s part of being live. Everyone has different tastes, though, so let us know what you thought below.

Hairspray Live! You Can’t Stop the Beat (Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Performance)

This video ran during the parade. The song starts at about 1:15.

It looks fantastic!!

There’s nothing we don’t love about this performance. The cast all seem to fit, in the brief moments we get with them. Standouts are Maddie Baillio as Tracy Turnblad, Jennifer Hudson as Motormouth Mabel, Derek Hough as Corny Collins, and Ariana Grande as Penny Pingleton. But where’s Martin Short as Wilbur Turnblad? We do get a glimpse of him in the teaser trailer released earlier in the week.

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