tv shows – Page 2 – The Arts Are Life

Succession, Season 3, episode 5

I am currently watching the third season of the HBO show Succession, and honestly it is incredible. I am really stressed out though. In this episode, the shareholder meeting is going on, but Logan suffers from a really bad UTI and so everyone on the team has to make sure he is okay. He forgets things, and also does stuff like calling Shiv “Marcia” and he also feels pain when he goes to the bathroom, and Tom has to make sure that he makes it back to the conference room okay. They are also negotiating a deal with Sandy Furness and Stewy Hosseini, and Sandy’s daughter negotiates with the Roy family that they can have seats on the board if they give up their private jets. At first, I was like, What’s the big deal if they have to give up their private jets, but then I realized it’s because they pretty much go everywhere with the jets, especially to international places like Hungary and England.

I could feel the stress in that room when everyone was trying to rush and find a doctor for Logan, and it really stresses out Shiv because she was only focused on the deal with Sandy Furness’s daughter and not on her ailing dad. It stressed out Roman when Shiv told the doctor to hurry up with checking her dad’s pulse and his health, and finally Roman tells her angrily that she needs to calm down and right now just focus on taking care of their dad. There is a scene where Greg meets with his grandpa Ewan, and Ewan is angry that Greg didn’t go with the attorney that he got him and went with someone else, and he tells Greg that he is giving Greg’s part of the inheritance to Greenpeace. This crushes Greg’s hopes and dreams because in an earlier episode, he is telling Connor that he is really pumped to be getting his $250 million inheritance, and Connor warns him about not getting his hopes up too quickly. Greg thinks it will be easy as pie, but after Ewan tells him he is giving away Greg’s inheritance money, Greg gets upset and tells Tom he is going to sue Greenpeace.

There is another scene where Karl and Gerri are trying to hold down the fort during the shareholder meeting, but they fail miserably and they often have to stall because everyone is figuring out so many things at once: how to take care of Logan during his health crisis, whether or not they want to go through with the deal that Sandy Furness offered them, and also Kerry, Logan’s assistant, tells them that the president of the United States is on the line and wants to speak to Logan. They argue over who in the room is qualified to take the call, and they end up letting Roman take the call. They tell him to not use swear words in the conversation, though, because Roman is known for using salty language and being sarcastic in arguments with his family. But Roman does his best to maintain his composure and not swear at the president so that he doesn’t blow Waystar’s reputation, but it turns out that the president is not running again next year and that leaves the family in very hot water.

Kendall also comes back to shake more things up at the shareholders meeting. While Karl is in the middle of making his speech, Kendall interrupts him and pushes him aside, and he tells the audience that he is starting a foundation to raise money for all of the victims of sexual abuse at Waystar Royco. This does not go down well, and very few people end up clapping in the audience. The Roy family members are embarrassed and angry, and Logan ends up having Kerry summon Kendall to a meeting with him but then blowing him off at the last minute. When Kendall tries to call him, Logan tells Kerry to block Kendall’s number from his phone.

Logan is also not satisfied with the results of the shareholder meeting or the deal with Sandy Furness. When Shiv tells him to lighten up and celebrate a little, he gets angry with her and shouts at her to get away from him. Everyone in the room is really scared of Logan, and so during the celebratory toast, no one is laughing or making merry. Instead, there is silence. Also, Tom’s marriage to Shiv seems to be going farther and farther down the toilet. After the deal is sealed, Tom approaches Shiv and wants to make out with her and tells her he is tracking her ovulation cycle because he is horny and wants her to bear children with him, but after a really exhausting interaction she tells him she is not interested and that she actually finds him tracking her ovulation cycles creepy and doesn’t want him to do that. It was already stressful enough when Shiv had an affair with her ex-boyfriend, Nate, and Tom thought that after he got rid of Nate he would go back to having a normal loving marriage with Shiv. But she is so focused on work that she tells him to get over himself when he shares with her his anxieties about going to jail. He looks on prison blogs and thinks about how he is going to go to prison after testifying about the Cruises documents, but Shiv keeps telling him to get over it and that he might not go to jail.

I think seeing this episode from a Buddhist perspective kind of helped. In Buddhism we talk about the four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. No one can escape these sufferings, no matter how much money they have or how much success. Even though Logan is this wealthy man with this huge fortune, he is getting compassion. and his health is failing. I don’t know if I am reading too much into this, but there was a brief moment where I saw Tom bring out his Buddha nature when he is helping Logan in the bathroom. Logan has Tom escort him to the bathroom, but then Logan has a pain in his chest and is really struggling to breathe, and Tom makes sure that he gets back to the room okay. I understand he didn’t really have a choice in helping this man, especially because he controls their inheritance and they wouldn’t know what to do if he suddenly did, but I think for a brief moment, after seeing Tom early on bully Greg and act superior to other people, this brief moment showed me he brought out some of his compassion.

TV Show Synopsis: Succession, Season 3, Episode 3: The Disruption

I just finished up episode 3 of the third season of the HBO show Succession. Honestly, this show is giving me goosebumps. The acting is really good, and things are really starting to heat up.

Honestly, one part of the show I like is that Shiv Roy is always so well dressed. She just always has the coolest outfits. When she goes to a conference in the evening, she is dressed in a beautiful long dark blue dress and her hair is styled in this beautiful way. She just looks so elegant. Kendall is having a ball releasing all this corrupt stuff about his dad. In one scene, he is in a limousine with Naomi Pierce, Greg and some other people and they are reading tweets that people have written about what Kendall did, and they play a game of “good tweet/ bad tweet” where they judge whether the tweet was good or bad. Logan, however, doesn’t want to deal with Kendall himself. He wants everyone on his team to make sure that he doesn’t come back to Waystar Royco headquarters because of all the stuff he said about Logan and the allegations he leaked about the company’s history of sexual abuse and corrupt practices. It’s interesting how Tom used to come off as this confident person just because he was the head of the news network at Waystar Royco, but the more time he spends around Logan, the more intimidated and scared he becomes. He is in a lot of hot water, and so he gets more and more stressed in his interactions with Greg. Earlier he had a lot of fun poking at Greg and bullying him, but now he sees that Logan is intimidating and he becomes fearful. Tom approaches Greg in his office, and puts two Tic-Tacs on his desk and says in a deadpan way that since they are in deep water, they have to take these cyanide pills. Greg takes him seriously, but Tom tells him he is kidding and that they are just Tic-Tacs. Tom still treats Greg like his subordinate though even though Logan intimidates him. Tom gives Greg another office, but it is a super cluttered storage room with no space to really work. Greg is reasonably upset and thinks it’s punishment, but Tom lets him know he is under a lot of pressure right now because everyone is freaking out about Kendall leaking the cruise allegations and they are trying to figure out how to stop him. Tom tells Greg to come for drinks so they can sort this out. Earlier they had to testify in Washington, D.C. about the Cruises allegations, and this really was not a great experience for Tom or Greg. Tom told Greg in season 1 to shred the Cruises documents, which detailed all of the allegations against Waystar Royco of abuse and other corrupt practices, and Greg did so. I was so stressed for him because I knew there would be consequences if he shredded those papers. I know Greg said he saved copies of those documents, but he still shredded a lot of them and still had to testify in Congress. It really shows how Tom and Greg have a very toxic relationship with one another.

There is a brief moment where Nate, who was Shiv’s ex-boyfriend, approaches her and they exchange some salty insults towards one another. In an older episode, Shiv quit Gil’s campaign even though at the beginning she was on board with Nate and Gil for taking down her dad, and this soured her relationship with Nate. Nate and Shiv had to stop seeing each other anyway because Tom was upset that Shiv still had feelings for Nate even though she and Tom were engaged, and so Tom approaches Nate and tells him to back off of his wife. Kendall approaches Shiv and Shiv tells him that he made a huge mistake releasing those Cruise allegations, and that Logan is really worried that Kendall will mess up the shareholder vote by releasing more about the allegations in his interviews. Earlier, Kendall asked his siblings if they would support his decision to take down his dad and release all this corrupt stuff he did, but they were worried about getting their inheritance cut off so they backed out of supporting Kendall. Kendall thinks they are cowards and goes off and plans to take down Logan and Waystar by himself, with his own team to back him up. Shiv thinks that Kendall is doing all this out of ego, but Kendall thinks she is just being full of it because she is now the president of domestic operations at Waystar Royco.

Meanwhile Roman is in an interview with someone, and they are asking personal questions about his childhood. Roman, however, is not comfortable with the interview and leaves the interviewer. Shiv meets with Logan in private, and he tells her that he needs to trust her because he cannot trust Gerri. He admits that he didn’t know about what happened in the Cruises division, and that he doesn’t read his emails. He also thinks that he is above the law. Kendall, Greg, Naomi and others are at a party and Greg tries to get Kendall to buy his watch, but Kendall refuses. On the big screen TV at the party, everyone watches this comedic commentator named Sophie Iwobi (I just found out that Ziwe plays Sophie), who is sort of like a Samantha Bee-type commentator. She roasts Kendall’s privilege and his whiteness, and everyone laughs because they know it is satire.

Shiv comes home and finds Tom petting their dog and drinking. He is worried that he might go to jail because things are really going downhill after the Cruises allegations, and Tom says he should speak to Logan about it and propose himself as the beating post. This scene really showed me how scared Tom is of losing his reputation and how scared he is of Logan Roy’s power. I thought the scene where he has to play that humiliating Boar on the Floor game was bad, but that was just the beginning. Tom finally sees Logan for the corrupt and manipulative person he is. Kendall wakes up and checks his phone for more commentary from people about him, and he is starting to soak up all the attention that people are paying to him. He probably feels good considering his dad kicked him off the team on that episode where they are on a yacht. Kendall sees Michelle-Anne Vanderhoven, the senior White House aide, on ATN news talking about the allegations against Waystar, and he calls Jess and Greg to tell them to prepare his office at the Waystar Royco building because he is going back to the office. Logan confronts Michelle about what is going on, and tells her that this whole thing has become a witch-hunt and that prosecutors are after him. Logan doesn’t want anything to do with this, but he can’t just get away from this without consequences. Shiv and Roman read some of the responses and questions fielded from employees at Waystar, and many of them have to do with the toxic environment at the company. They suddenly receive word that Kendall has arrived at Waystar and is going to enter the building, and Logan yells at everyone to keep him out of the building and prevent him from going in. Karolina and Hugo, who are PR assistants to Logan, go down to the entrance and try to block Kendall from entering. Kendall finds that his keycard is no longer working, but he determines to go through the entrance anyway. Kendall makes his way upstairs and Tom approaches him. Tom is extremely nervous that Kendall is here, and they have an awkward conversation, but I could tell Tom was really nervous because he knows Logan won’t be happy knowing Kendall got into the building. Kendall whispers to Tom that he has an opportunity to join Kendall in destroying his dad’s reputation, but Tom is too nervous to side with Kendall because then he will lose his reputation and social standing. Kendall then goes into his office and finds that he is locked out of his computer, and he starts to wonder what is going on. Then he feels the room is cold and finds that someone has hacked his A/C. A security guard appears in the room and intimidates Kendall, telling him “I know you.” Shiv then gets up in front of several people to address how Waystar is responding to the sexual abuse allegations that Kendall (she refers to him as a “senior executive” rather than his real name), but before she can finish her speech, someone blasts the song “Rape Me” by Nirvana, drowning out her speech (I wasn’t sure who did it, but I realized it was Kendall who ordered someone to blast the song.) Everyone is just really confused. Shiv decides to draft a letter attacking Kendall and wants Connor and Roman to join her in getting the letter published, but they don’t think it is a good idea because it has a lot of private stuff about his life that he wouldn’t want anyone to know about. Shiv gets angry and publishes the letter herself. Kendall goes on Sophie’s show and he is really excited to meet the writing team, and he tells them to come at him with all the insults and jokes about him because he thinks he can handle it. However, he finds out that the letter Shiv wrote about him and his personal life has gone online (I didn’t know what it was at first. I thought that they were going to release the dick pic that he took for Naomi Pierce, but then I saw he was reading a lot of text on his phone, so I realized it was probably something else that he didn’t want to be released.) He tells the producer that he doesn’t want them to bring up that letter when he appears on the show and says he may have to sit the interview out, but the producer tells him they go on in fifteen minutes so they can’t change anything. He feels embarrassed and pained, and he walks down the hall as ominous piano music plays, and he goes into the back room and curls up alone and refuses to go on the show during Sophie’s segment about him. Gerri informs Logan that the Department of Justice is coming to Waystar to issue a search warrant in light of the allegations, and Logan agrees to cooperate. Tom is having a nice dinner with everyone, but Hugo interrupts to tell him about the search warrant, so Tom has to inform everyone it is happening.

I am anticipating what is going to happen in the next episode. Honestly, I cannot stop watching this show. It is full of juicy drama. I think this episode really showed me how fed-up Kendall is with his dad at this point. He sees how his dad is treating people poorly and how he manipulates Kendall and all the other kids, and Kendall is just done. Greg was closely following Tom these past two seasons, but then when Kendall had Greg accompany him to interviews and work with Jess to be his advocates, Tom got jealous and upset with Greg. I wonder how or if Logan is going to cooperate with the FBI investigation, because earlier he was telling Shiv that he was above the law and could handle what was about to come next for him, but I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. I still think it’s interesting to see this change in Tom’s character, though. For the last two seasons I saw him pick on Greg, and then he has Greg be his assistant. But then he is intimidated by Logan, to the point where he volunteers to be the one to go to jail for wrongdoing, but Logan says that won’t be necessary. I think Tom saw especially how bad Logan was not just in Hungary but also after Kendall, Shiv, and Roman hold a panel discussion and Shiv jokes about removing their dad from power (“an old-fashioned dinosaur cull”) and Logan hits Roman for joking about his dad being an “old dinosaur.” Tom sees this and realizes how much of a bully Logan is to people. It must have been a humiliating experience for Kendall, though, to have Shiv release that personal information about his addiction and relationships. In an earlier episode, the two of them hugged and Kendall thought he could trust Shiv with stuff about his addiction and recovery, but she lost trust in him after he went against the company and released the allegations. I think having that letter put up on the Internet for everyone to read about was a painful experience for Kendall because that was really personal stuff, and even Roman and Connor thought it was a messed-up idea for Shiv to write that letter attacking Kendall. I really love Jeremy Strong’s role as Kendall. He brought a lot of energy to this role, and so much depth. I haven’t seen many of his previous works, but he really acted the hell out of his role as Kendall. It’s like he just went full throttle with his character at this point in the season, and I’m soaking up every minute of it.

TV Series Review: The English Game

written during Thanksgiving break

So last evening my family and I finished the first part of season 6 of The Crown. And I was just craving another period drama, and I remembered after finishing Ted Lasso, I looked up shows that were similar to it, and there was a list of shows and one of them was The English Game. This is one of the few TV shows or movies that I walked into without knowing anything about the plot or characters. I just remembered that Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, created this show and I was all for it, because Downton Abbey is one of my favorite shows.

The English Game takes place in the 19th century in London, and a team of football players named The Etonians are upper class and members of the Football Association. They have credentials, influence and, above all, money. However, there are a group of paper mill workers in the working class community of Darwen who also play football, and two players from Scotland, Fergus and Jimmy, arrive in England ready to play because the cotton mill owner, James, recruits them to play so the team can win the FA Cup. However, the Old Etonians are unwilling to let these people play because they are poor and the Etonians want only rich people to play. Arthur is the leader of the Etonians and he comes face to face with Fergus, who just wants a shot at accomplishing his dreams of being a footballer. One of the messages I learned about this miniseries is that perseverance is key if you want to follow your dreams, and if you really want to follow your dreams you have to push past the rejection, the humiliation, and the criticisms from others. Fergus learns how to not give up on himself even when the going gets rough, especially in one crucial scene where James and the Cotton Club members propose wage cuts for all the workers at the cotton mills. It also puts a strain on Fergus’s teammates when they find out that Fergus and Jimmy are the only footballers on the Darwen team who are being paid to play.

The show in some ways reminded me a lot of Ted Lasso. In a later season of Ted Lasso, one of the star players on the AFC Richmond team, Sam Obisanya, is almost recruited by Edwin Akufo, who is a multimillionaire who wants Sam to play on Nigeria’s team. He bribes Sam with all sorts of material wealthy things. He even has authentic Nigerian food catered to Sam. He wants to make money off of Sam, but Sam is loyal to AFC Richmond, so he turns down the offer. Edwin gets really upset and tears Sam down, but Sam is confident in himself so he isn’t swayed by Edwin’s insults. It reminded me of The English Game a little because Fergus needs to make a tough decision whether to join John Cartwright’s team, Blackburn, or stay with the Darwen team. Even though Cartwright promises him better benefits if he goes to their team, it puts a strain on his relationships with his Darwen teammates because not only are Jimmy and Fergus getting paid to play (they weren’t supposed to get paid to play football as a rule) but they go to the rival team. When Fergus and Jimmy go to the pub to hang out, their teammates get upset and tell them to leave since they betrayed them. But after Jimmy gets injured (just a warning, the scene where you see Jimmy’s injury is pretty graphic. I didn’t see it coming though because I didn’t read much about the show before watching it) his teammates began to have more sympathy for him, and gradually Fergus regains trust with his Darwen teammates when they realize that he wasn’t going to put on airs just because he went on the Blackburn team. It also reminded me of another moment in Ted Lasso, when Nathan Shelly, who was the kit-boy on AFC Richmond’s team, was recruited by Rebecca’s ex-husband, Rupert Mannion, to join the Manchester team. After a lot of self-actualization and realizing that Rupert is not a great guy to work with, he begs the AFC Richmond team to let him back on the team again. They let him back on, but they also let him know how egotistical he acted. I think Nathan realized that he really did love AFC Richmond and felt more at home there than he did on the Manchester team.

I love the romance between Fergus and Martha Almond, as well as the romance between Jimmy and Doris. When Fergus meets Martha she doesn’t warm up to him at first because she also has a young daughter she needs to protect and she doesn’t trust anyone to help her. However, as Fergus and Martha get to know each other, they develop a deep love for one another. Jimmy and Doris hit it off really well, and they get married. Fergus tells Jimmy to focus on football, but he is so overjoyed at getting married and Fergus realizes he wants Jimmy to be happy. Fergus also realizes he really loves Martha and wants to be more than friends, but we find out that Martha was in a relationship with Mr. Cartwright, the owner of the Blackburn team that Fergus is joining, and her daughter is technically Mr. Cartwright’s kid. Mr. Cartwright wants Martha to forgive him and still wants her to love him, but that also puts a strain on his marriage. Martha encourages Fergus to persevere and not give up on himself, and they develop an incredible bond together.

I also found a lot of similarities between the show and other stuff I have watched and read. There is a character named Alma, and she is married to Arthur, who runs the Etonian football team and is on the football association board. Alma suffers a miscarriage and it seems like she has nothing left to live for because she was really looking forward to becoming a mother, but then she goes to a women’s refuge called Brockshall, and she finds herself helping out Betsy, a young woman who works with Martha but got fired from her job. Betsy has her baby, but Mrs. Cartwright, who runs the refuge, gives the baby away to an adoption agency. Alma digs at her for this information, and after a lot of teeth pulling, Mrs. Cartwright finally gives her the book with the list of children given away for adoption. Alma does everything in her power to get Betsy’s baby back, and she goes to the adoption agency herself and takes the baby away. The woman at the agency fights her, but Alma’s husband, Arthur, stops the woman and lets Alma leave with Betsy’s baby so she can give her back to Betsy. It reminded me of this movie I watched a while ago called True Mothers, a Japanese language film about a couple who adopt a child after being unable to conceive, and their later confrontation with the young mother who wants her son back from the couple. Like in The English Game, the women whose babies are taken to the agency are mostly born out of wedlock or from unwanted pregnancies, and during the 19th century there was a lot of shame and judgment associated with a woman being pregnant if she was unmarried. It reminded me, too, of the judgment Ethel encountered in the show Downton Abbey. Ethel meets a soldier named Charles Bryant when he is staying at Downton during the war, and she becomes pregnant with his child. She faces a lot of shame and stigma for having a child out of wedlock and she has to give up the child to Charles’ parents, who do not respect her.

What this movie showed me was the spirit to persevere is so important. Fergus faced a lot of challenges when competing against Arthur and the other Etonians. He and his team didn’t have as much status or wealth as they did, and they also faced financial challenges and unemployment. However, Fergus had to overcome his own self-doubt and fears in order to help lead the team to victory. He also learned that it’s okay to accept help from others, and that even though he faced a lot of painful moments in his past (his father is an alcoholic who abuses his mom and sisters) he overcame each hurdle after another. Arthur also realized that he wanted to make football accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy. I think helping Alma get Betsy her baby back may have given him a sense of purpose outside of his work or what his father expected of him. Arthur’s dad set a lot of expectations for his son, and became disappointed when he didn’t meet those expectations, but Arthur realized through working together with Fergus that football really did bring him happiness and wasn’t just something he did just to make himself look good for others.

This was overall a really good show. And the music was absolutely amazing. I found myself listening to the Downton Abbey soundtrack quite a lot these past few weeks. It just has so much incredible music and it is absolutely beautiful. Just like Downton Abbey, The English Game has amazing music as well. The music kind of reminded me of The Crown‘s music score because it sounded intense and had a somber tone, which I think was appropriate considering it was a drama. I didn’t know most of the actors in The English Game, I only knew a couple of the actors, and one was Daniel Ings because he played Prince Philip’s secretary Mike in seasons 1 and 2 of The Crown. At first it was hard to recognize him because Mike doesn’t wear a beard in The Crown, but he does when he plays the role of Francis Marindin, who was on the football board and on the Eton team in The English Game. Another actor I recognized was Kate Phillips, the actress who played Venetia Scott, Winston Churchill’s secretary, in season 1 of The Crown. She played Laura Lyttelton, the wife of one of Arthur’s close friends, and she is also Alma’s friend.

Abbott Elementary, Season 1 episodes 5-9

I am currently watching this really great show called Abbott Elementary. It is really good, and I can see why it won so many awards at this year’s award shows. It was created by Quinta Brunson and it also stars Quinta Brunson as Janine, an elementary school teacher working with other teachers at a Philadelphia public school. It’s also really cool because Lisa Ann Walter is one of the teachers in the show, and she was in one of my favorite movies as a kid called The Parent Trap. At first I didn’t recognize it was her but then I read the credits and I was like, Oh my gosh, she was in The Parent Trap with Lindsay Lohan!

So in the last episode I watched, episode 9, Janine leads a step team but enlists Ava to join. If you haven’t seen the show, Ava is a hoot. She is always getting into shenanigans and is always hitting on one of the teachers, Gregory. She makes fun of Janine’s optimism and in the first episode she spent most of the school funding on a new billboard with her image imprinted on it. Janine thinks Ava is going to follow her routine and that she and Ava are going to perfectly get along, but one day during step class practice Ava comes in with burritos and a slushy, disrupting Janine from teaching the students. Instead of rehearsing the routine, the students sit with Ava and eat their food and gossip. When Janine was teaching the class and trying to be engaging, none of the students were engaged and none of them talked. Janine thought her routine was perfectly coordinated, but Ava thinks it’s boring and instead has the girls dance to a new routine to the song “Up” by Cardi B. Janine thinks that Ava’s routine isn’t traditional dance and gets upset. Meanwhile, the other teachers (Melissa, Jacob, and Barbara are bonding over their love of Philadelphia’s pizza over lunch) and when they ask Gregory about his favorite pizza, he doesn’t know what to say because he actually doesn’t like pizza. But to fit in with the group, he says that his hometown of Baltimore, has a distinct kind of pizza that is wet. Jacob actually goes out of his way to get Gregory the pizza he wants (seeing the soggy wet pizza grossed me out. Before I became vegan I was a Chicago deep-dish pizza kind of gal, and to this day even though I cannot eat it I still have fond memories.) but then Gregory admits that he doesn’t like pizza and everyone thinks he is out of his mind for not liking pizza. Gregory spends the rest of lunch alone in his car eating his boiled chicken sandwich, and the other teachers tell him that they were just joking and that it’s not a big deal that he doesn’t like pizza. On the day that the step team performs, Ava leaves the auditorium and Janine can’t find her, but then Ava tells her that she had a family emergency and her grandmother had an episode so she had to check in with her. Earlier, Janine was angry with Ava for leaving without telling her but then she apologizes for being angry with Ava and they agree to go with Ava’s routine. The show ends up being a success and while Ava and Janine don’t become best friends after this, it was really cool when at the end of the episode, Ava sees Janine step-dancing alone in the classroom and challenges her to a step dance-off.

Another episode I watched was one where Barbara and Jacob start a garden out in the school parking lot because they are dissatisfied with the quality of the school cafeteria food. They ask the cafeteria workers if they can improve the quality of the food, but the workers refuse and tell them they are doing the best with the resources that the school gave them. Barbara and Jacob bond over gardening and try to persuade Gregory to come garden with them, but he politely declines. He admits to the viewer (this show is in the style of a mockumentary) that he has not had a good history of gardening because his dad made him do intense yard work for most of his life and it wasn’t fun. When a little zucchini finally sprouts in the garden, Barbara and Jacob are overjoyed but then they show the cafeteria worker and the employee seems overjoyed but instead he throws the little zucchini in the trash and says he can’t feed all these children at the school with a little zucchini. Barbara soon regrets Jacob’s idealistic idea of starting this garden but then Jacob comes in the next day and shows Barbara sliced zucchini that he grilled and marinated by himself the night before, and so they excitedly show the cafeteria worker the aluminum pans of sliced zucchini that Jacob prepared, but then the cafeteria worker tells them that it’s a health code violation to use food that people made at home and not in the school cafeteria, and throws it in the trash right before Jacob and Barbara’s eyes. The cafeteria worker has Barbara try one of the chicken nuggets he made for the school cafeteria meals, and Barbara ends up not liking it but pretends like she does because she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Another great part in that episode with the gardening is when Janine’s best friend from college, Sahar, is hired as a new volunteer art teacher at the school. At first Janine is super excited because her and Sahar did a lot of fun things together in college: they went to parties, hung out, everything that best friends do. But everything goes South when Melissa buys several copies of Peter Rabbit for the kids to read because this is their tradition every school year, and also it is the tradition to make paper plate bunnies, but Sahar thinks that is boring and moreover that Peter Rabbit is a tale about capitalism and she wants to have an installation that goes against the grain and breaks with tradition. Melissa is not having it, however, and tells Janine to not let Sahar do the installation. Janine reminds Sahar that they had to ask Melissa’s permission first before doing the installation but Sahar insists that her idea is better than Melissa’s and does the installation anyway. At first it seems perfectly innocent and it seems that Sahar listened to Melissa after all; the kids all made paper plate bunnies and Sahar created a fairy tale installation that looks beautiful. But when Melissa looks closer, she finds that Sahar tore apart the books and made the installation out of the pages of the books and she is, rightfully, furious because she bought those books with her own money. Melissa confronts Sahar and Janine tries to break the two of them up, and Janine confronts Sahar and tells her that what she did wasn’t okay, but Sahar gets defensive and accuses Janine of conforming with the school’s tradition. She quits the job and leaves the school. Janine feels guilty that she didn’t stop Sahar from doing what she did and apologizes to Melissa but Melissa forgives her and Janine repays her by buying new copies of the Peter Rabbit books for the kids with her own money.

Another episode is when Melissa has a student in her class transfer to Janine’s class. The student is named Courtney, and Janine thinks she can handle Courtney since on the surface Courtney seems sweet and innocent but then she finds out that Courtney loves giving the teachers a hard time. Ava lets Janine see Courtney’s records and finds that even Melissa, who is a tough-as-nails, no-nonsense teacher, wrote that Courtney was out of control and even wrote in the evaluation of Courtney that Courtney could have been a cult leader. In the class, Courtney pretends to be polite and nice, but then when the kids recite the Pledge of Allegiance they end up reciting a different version where “God” and the “America” in the United States of America are replaced with Courtney’s name. Courtney gets into other shenanigans like putting a mean note on the back of one of the students and, in what is the final straw for Janine, writes a swear word on the board in permanent marker for the students to read. Janine tells Melissa that she is really stressed out over trying to get Courtney to behave, and even though Melissa makes fun of Janine at first for not being able to handle Courtney, she gives Janine grace and lets her know that Courtney was difficult to handle even for her. At the beginning, Janine gets a C in a performance review she read online about her teaching and reads that the person writing the review thought Janine was inexperienced, and Melissa makes fun of her for it, so Janine tries to prove to Melissa that she didn’t deserve to get that C grade and that she is a better teacher than people think. But later she realizes that she is never going to be a perfect teacher, and Melissa reminds her that everyone is just doing their best at the school and that Janine can’t let one bad review affect her self-esteem.

I can kind of relate to this because even though I am no longer a teacher, I remember when I worked with preschoolers and when I first got there I lacked prior teaching experience (other than being a reading tutor for a month during high school to two boys from Korea) and it was really challenging. At first I got along well with the students but then I stopped going to work as much because every time I encountered a challenge I started to think I wasn’t a capable teacher. That same year I was also adjusting to the demands of college, burnout, and depression. I started calling out sick from work under the excuse that I had to study for my classes. What was really going on though, looking back, was that I didn’t feel like a capable teacher. When students fought with each other I felt I had no control over the situation. When students would act out, I felt I couldn’t do anything about it, so the more experienced teachers had to step in and handle the situation. While that was in the past of course, looking back this situation taught me that every workplace has its challenges and I cannot expect every day to be sunshine and rainbows. I also realized that confidence is something you build with experience. It’s not something you gain overnight. I am sure that I could have learned from the mistakes I made on the job and treated them as valuable lessons, but I think because I was so focused on wanting to be the perfect teacher I got really hard on myself whenever I made mistakes at work or didn’t meet my expectations.

Another episode I watched was about the gifted program that the teachers start at the school. This one really resonated with me because when I went to a new elementary school there was a gifted and talented program and I felt really bad that I didn’t get into the program and felt like I wasn’t smart compared to the gifted and talented students. This really had an impact on my self-esteem and of course, I am at a better place where I am working on not defining my worth by my achievements but looking back I still can’t believe I let not being in the gifted and talented program bring down my confidence. In this episode, a really smart kid transfers from another school to Abbott Elementary and Ava is praising his giftedness and constantly talking about how smart the kid is. Janine decides to start a gifted program and Jacob, who was in the gifted program when he was younger, decides to lead it, too. At first things are going well; Jacob brings a chicken to school to show the kids who got admitted to the gifted program how chickens hatch eggs. However, the students who aren’t in the gifted program feel left out, and Janine tries to remedy the situation by bringing the ones not in the gifted and talented program a display where they think there is a chicken hatching eggs inside the container. However, Janine and the students find out that what hatched from the eggs were snakes and everyone panics. Melissa admits to the camera that when she was picking up the chickens she called the person who supplied snakes instead of chickens. Janine thinks that it was a disaster and tries to clean up the situation, but Gregory suggests that they get rid of the gifted program because it made some the students feel left out. He explains from his own personal experience that when he was in school they had a gifted program but he didn’t get admitted into the program and it made him feel left out and made him feel that he wasn’t as smart as the gifted kids. He reminds Janine that everyone if gifted in some way, not just a few kids. Meanwhile, Barbara and Melissa are in the teacher’s lounge and the guy who restocks the vending machine asks Melissa out on a date. Melissa is still not over her divorce, though, and she politely declines and says she is busy. Even when she tells Barbara that she’s not ready, Melissa still thinks about the vending machine owner and how cute he is, and after talking with Barbara, she regains the confidence to take up the guy’s offer on taking her out on a date.

Episode Synopsis: Bridgerton, season 2, episode 3 (“A Bee in Your Bonnet”)

The episode opens with Anthony and his father hunting a deer in the woods. This is a flashback to Anthony when he was younger, and they aim to kill the deer. At first they fail to shoot it, but then they come out from hiding behind the rock and out in the open they see the deer. They finally kill it. They come back home and are talking, and Anthony’s dad sees a bee, and he swats the bee away but it stings him and he ends up getting an allergic reaction to the sting. Anthony tries to save him but his dad ends up dying. It is also really sad, too, because Violet, his mom, is pregnant and she has to see her husband die unexpectedly right before her eyes. Anthony immediately has to take his dad’s position as the new viscount and he is totally unprepared for this. She falls into a deep depression and his death takes a psychological toll on her. She goes into labor and the doctors tell Anthony that he has to decide for her whether the unborn baby gets to live or whether Violet gets to live. It is a scary decision, but Anthony tells the doctor to go with whatever Violet decided. Violet is deeply in pain during this time, and Anthony doesn’t know what to do so he leaves the room. Then in another flashback, he finds his mom sitting depressed on the couch and Anthony asks her if she could come to dinner with him and everyone else. Violet tells him she doesn’t have the energy to sit with everyone and is still grieving her husband’s death, and tells Anthony to give her some grace because she is truly trying her best to keep going in spite of everything going on.

When Anthony visits his father’s grave, he recalls these flashbacks and it affects how he moves on in life. But his mom sees him visiting his dad’s grave and she talks with him, that yes it is painful that he passed away but he still needs to become happy and find someone he is in love with. Anthony is torn because he is matched up with Edwina Sharma, but secretly he has mad passion for her sister, Kate. Edwina is unsuspecting of Anthony and Kate’s sexual tension, but she thinks that Anthony is a trusting guy who has Edwina’s good intentions in mind. But Kate is an excellent bullshit detector and she warns Edwina that Anthony doesn’t really have her good intentions in mind, and to steer clear of him. Earlier in one of the episodes, Anthony has high expectations for the woman he wants to marry, and he goes on dates and evaluates the women based on his own standards, and ends up crossing a lot of ladies off on the list because they don’t suit him. However, when he is riding his horse outside, he finds someone wearing a blue cloak riding too, and he runs to catch up. Kate takes her hood off and when Anthony sees her, he is absolutely smitten. But Kate disses him one night at a ball after hearing him talk to other men about how undesirable he finds most of the women he meets.

However, in this episode, Anthony is playing a competitive game of pall mall (a version of croquet) with his siblings and the Sharma sisters, and Edwina thinks it’s a fun game, but Kate and Anthony compete with one another to win, and Kate challenges Anthony by hitting the balls each time. Their balls end up being hit really far away, and so they both have to go into the woods to fetch them. Kate isn’t worried about getting her dress messed up, so she goes into the mud to retrieve the balls, but Anthony goes in, too, and they end up getting muddy together. Anthony realizes then that he isn’t in love with Edwina much at all, but instead is in love with Kate. He realizes this again when they are in the garden and they are talking about Anthony being committed to proposing to Edwina, but then he sees a bee land on Kate’s neck and that triggers a panic attack in him because his father died of a bee sting and he doesn’t want Kate to die of the bee sting, either, so he hyperventilates and Kate is trying to calm him down. The bee goes away, but Anthony and Kate realize they are in love with each other and try to kiss, but are interrupted by footsteps.

Eloise, in the meanwhile, is sick of everyone telling her to find someone. She is trying to find who Lady Whistledown is, and she approaches Madame Delacroix, but Madame Delacroix tells her to mind her own business. Penelope, Eloise’s friend, still will not tell Eloise that she is actually Lady Whistledown. Penelope is helping Madame Delacroix find clients for her dressmaking business, and she approaches Madame because she herself is a businesswoman as Lady Whistledown, and needs help. Penelope’s family, in the meanwhile, is dealing with the killing of their father and the financial hardships that have come with it. The new Lord Featherington isn’t helpful to them either, but Portia (Lady Featherington) hatches a plan for one of her daughters, Prudence, to win the approval of Lord Featherington and marry him. At first Prudence and Penelope are uncomfortable because Lord Featherington is their cousin, but Portia needs to get them out of this financial predicament, so she has Madame Delacroix make a dress that shows off Prudence’s bosom and has Prudence fan her face so that she can appear attractive to Lord Featherington, but he isn’t interested and instead continues to read his newspaper. It turns out that Lord Featherington is interested in Cressida Cowper, who, with her mom, is basically the Regina George of the show (if you haven’t seen the movie Mean Girls, Regina George is a mean girl who gossips about everyone at the school and gets a new girl named Cady to join her clique, the Plastics.) Prudence tries to win the Lord’s approval but Portia feels embarrassed and disappointed that Prudence can’t win his approval and tells her to let it go.

Benedict Bridgerton is an artist and is trying to go to art school, but is nervous about winning acceptance to a school he really wants to go to. His brother, Colin, gives him a substance to put in his tea to alleviate nerves around the school decision. It is kind of like their version of weed brownies in a way, because I just remember that scene in The Perks of Being a Wallflower where Charlie, who is socially awkward, is given weed brownies and is so high during the rest of the party. Benedict puts a bunch of the substance in his tea and ends up totally strung out at dinner, but he finds out he got accepted into the school and he, Eloise and Colin celebrate, but Eloise and Colin are also worried because he is so high.

Scenes from Bridgerton

I’m probably getting a lot of details wrong, but I didn’t take notes while watching the show so my thoughts here are pretty jumbled up:

-the scenes where the Duke (Simon) and Daphne are having fierce sex. Honestly this is the most intense sex I have seen in a while.

-Daphne and Simon are in town and there are three large pigs that people are betting on. Daphne decides to declare a tie so that no single pig wins. Later on a very pregnant woman in the village tells Daphne that no one wants to acknowledge her because she declared the tie for the pigs and that meant the farmers in the village lost money.

-Marina marries Colin and Penelope is jealous. She goes through Marina’s stuff to show that George (the guy who Marina fell in love with and the father of Marina’s child, who is abroad in Spain) misses Marina and doesn’t actually want to dump her, but Marina by this point is hellbent on marrying Colin. She soon finds out Penelope also loves Colin and she basically tells Penelope to deal with it. Unfortunately, Marina’s illegitimate pregnancy makes Lady Whistledown’s headlines and the Featherington family must carry their heads in shame. Eloise at first tries to help Penelope by distracting her one night. The night Eloise comes over is the night Marina admits her feelings for Colin and Penelope is secretly jealous. Eloise wants to tell Penelope she is figuring out who Lady Whistledown is but because Penelope is heartbroken she snaps at Eloise that she (Penelope) needs to go to sleep and now is not a good time to talk. Eloise is clearly heartbroken that Penelope yelled at her and won’t tell her what is going on.

-Eloise goes to Madame Delacroix because Mrs. Bridgerton (Violet) is getting her to try on dresses for when she gets married but Eloise doesn’t see marriage as a priority. Earlier, Madame Delacroix tries to ban Marina and Portia (Lady Featherington) from trying on a dress for Marina, but Marina starts talking to Madame Delacroix in rapid fluent French because Madame Delacroix’s French accent is fake. I found this out in one of the earlier episodes because her friend, Siena, comes over and Madame Delacroix drops her French accent and talks in her regular British accent.

-Queen Charlotte is married to a white man who probably has dementia. When she joins him for dinner, the King asks what happened to Amelia, their daughter, and Queen Charlotte reminds him that Amelia died of illness years ago and the King looks up at her and accuses her of killing Amelia and calls her a bitch and knocks his plate of dinner down on the floor, prompting her to leave the room in sheer fear.

-Daphne is excited to have kids but she is sad because she knows the Duke can’t give her kids. When they are having sex, Daphne suddenly positions herself on top of Simon to see if she can get pregnant and then she finds out that Simon isn’t impotent, he just doesn’t want kids. Anthony goes to Madame Delacroix’s looking for Siena, the opera singer soprano he often sleeps with, but she (Madame Delacroix) informs Anthony that Siena left town and doesn’t need to depend on Anthony’s money. Earlier, Anthony comes to Siena because he is still attracted to her, and they try to have passionate sex again but they end up breaking it off and Siena realizes she will never achieve the same status as Anthony and they can’t keep playing this game with each other when they are not meant for each other.

-After Marina’s pregnancy makes it to Lady Whistledown’s column, Portia and her daughters are banned from the party and kicked out. Earlier Marina meets with Colin and he is upset she didn’t tell him about her pregnancy. He thinks if she just told him earlier he would still love her. I wonder if Penelope is going to use this to seize her chance to tell Colin she loves him. The Duke and Anthony are about to have a duel before Simon leaves London, and they are about to position themselves for the duel, but Daphne finds out from Colin where they are and she intervenes, telling them to stop. Daphne insists on marrying the Duke but he tries to tell her he wouldn’t be good for her because he won’t be able to give her any children. When they move in together after getting married, Daphne often roams around the palace, which she and Simon try to make huge decorations and adjustments to. Simon, however, is managing the finances of the people in the village and always working in his office. Simon and Daphne have sex pretty much everywhere when they move into their new residence- they have it on the lawn, outside near the pond, pretty much anywhere because they know it’s their house. Even if there might be servants watching, they still talk about a lot of their personal lives and have sex outside.

TV show synopsis: Bridgerton, Season 1, episode 1

Last week I started watching the hit series Bridgerton. I had heard so many great things about the show, and so I wanted to watch it. Honestly it reminded me a lot of Hamilton because many of the characters are people of color. I really loved seeing how a lot of the people in the show were people of color because so far in a lot of the British period dramas I have seen most of the main characters are white. In this episode we meet the main and supporting characters and the different families and the women in the families are introduced. The young women are taken to meet Queen Charlotte (played by Golda Rosheuvel) and must win her approval. Daphne Bridgerton wins the Queen’s approval when she curtsies without fainting, unlike the previous girl who fell when she curtsied to the Queen. We meet the Duke of Hastings (Rege-Jean Page) and his father recently died, and Lady Danbury encourages him to go to the party that evening even though he is indifferent and doesn’t really care. Everyone is at this party in the evening and Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) escorts his sister, Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), around the party and she finds herself meeting many men who are interested in her, especially after winning the Queen’s approval. One of the guys who expresses interest in marrying her is a man named Nigel, who kind of reminded me of Chester in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. For those who haven’t seen the show, in season 2 there is a guy who keeps following Susie Myerson around the Catskills resort, saying they have a lot in common even though Susie isn’t interested in him. He keeps saying to her “criss cross” to express interest in her, and she tries to avoid him repeatedly throughout the episodes in the Catskills. Daphne isn’t interested in Nigel; instead she is interested in the Duke of Hastings. The Duke has an indifferent air toward the festivities and he knows Anthony really well. Anthony is concerned because Daphne is getting so much attention from all these men. Marina Crane is another beautiful young woman who gets attention from many suitors; there are three young women in the drawing room who are sitting around and their mom is talking about their marriage prospects and they finally meet Marina and they realize they have competition. Nigel meets with Daphne and continues to express interest in marrying her but she is not interested. Anthony is dating a young opera singer named Siena and they spend evenings having passionate sex, but after dinner his mom tells him he needs to stop messing around and settle down with someone, so Anthony, while he and the girl are having sex, tells her he can’t see her again.

When in the garden, Daphne walks away from the festivities and Nigel catches up with her and continues to pursue her. She says no but he doesn’t listen and when he tries to force himself on her, she punches him out. The Duke of Hastings sees this and continues to feign indifference. Daphne is about to leave but the Duke says they should pretend they are in love (I think they are actually in love) so people can think she has accepted a suitor and is no longer available. Marina wakes up to find her bedsheet is gone. One of the lady’s maids takes it to the woman in charge of the household and she finds out Marina had sex and ended up pregnant since she hasn’t bled in a month. She kicks her out of the house and when Marina shouts at her that she doesn’t know what it’s like to go through this kind of suffering, the lady slaps her.

One thing I really love about this show is the colorful dresses and outfits. I watched Downton Abbey and the outfits they wear are more drab and dull because it is the 1900s and there were more neutral colors. I also really like it because Claudia Jessie, who plays Eloise Bridgerton in Bridgerton, is an SGI member in the UK. As an SGI member myself I found this encouraging. Another thing I loved about the show was the string quartet pieces they play. The show takes place in the 19th century but it’s cool how the pieces they play are pop pieces like Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next,” Maroon 5’s “Girls Like You,” and “bad guy” by Billie Eilish. It gives the show its uniqueness because when I see period dramas they all feature classical music.

In episode 2 we see a woman giving birth and when the baby is born, everyone is relieved that it’s a boy, but then the mother dies shortly after giving birth and Lady Danbury mourns her death. Later on we see the Duke of Hastings flash back to memories of his childhood. During his childhood his dad wanted nothing to do with him because his mom died after giving birth to him and also because he has a speech impediment and the father thinks that his son’s speech impediment makes him unworthy and useless to society. Lady Danbury tells the Duke that she is going to educate him and bring him up so he can develop more confidence in his speaking ability and become successful in society later on. The Duke goes into his dad’s office later on to show him how he has overcome his speech impediment, especially because the dad continues to neglect him and he speaks but then he starts stuttering, and then the dad once again thinks his son is a lost cause. Which is painful because he was young and facing that trauma of losing his mom and not gaining his father’s approval continued to affect his self-worth even as an adult. When Anthony, Nigel and the Duke are at another ball, Anthony is talking with Nigel about Daphne marrying him, and Nigel continues to insist that he is the perfect suitor to marry Daphne, but the Duke overhears this and says that Nigel attempted to assault Daphne and deserved to be punched by her. At first Anthony tells the Duke to mind his own business, and Daphne, while dancing with another potential suitor (the Duke and her are in love, but he doesn’t want to get married. That is what he promises his father when his father is on his deathbed), sees this exchange, but then Anthony realizes that the Duke is telling the truth and tells Nigel to stay the hell away from Daphne. When the Duke is in an alleyway, Nigel follows him and tells him off for sharing about him attacking Daphne, and the Duke tells him that Daphne doesn’t need him. Nigel brings up the Duke’s childhood in a negative way, and that provokes the Duke to punch him several times in the face (in a couple of episodes we see the Duke sparring with another guy in the boxing ring, and I thought, Damn I would not mess with this guy, even for a million dollars.) Even after getting his revenge on Nigel, the Duke is still remembering his painful childhood.

Meanwhile, Eloise is in the drawing room with Daphne, and Daphne is playing music on the pianoforte. Eloise is reading a book and trying to concentrate, so she tells Daphne to play somewhere else. Daphne says she can go outside, and Eloise tries to argue with her. After getting irritated, Eloise finally lets Daphne play her music, as long as she gives the composition a title. Penelope repeatedly goes to the mail-person to see if Marina’s lover is writing to her from Spain. Marina is confined to her room because Penelope’s mom, Portia, is ashamed of Marina’s pregnancy, especially because she is having the baby out of wedlock. She takes Marina to the low-income part of London, the neighborhood out of a Charles Dickens novel, and shows her this community because she thinks Marina will end up in poverty like them. Marina tells her that is nonsense, but Portia tries to knock common sense into Marina and tells her that the guy she loves will leave her for someone else. Marina insists that he loves her, but Portia asks her if he has written back since he had left for Spain, and this fucks up Marina badly. Portia finally one auspicious day gets a letter from Marina’s boo from Spain, and they read it but Marina is crushed because the letter reads that the boo doesn’t want anything to do with her after finding out she is having their baby. We then see that Portia and her lady’s maid forged the original letter from the guy and passed it off as a real letter.

Episode Synopsis: Downton Abbey, Season 1 episode 4

The episode opens up with Mr. Bates, Anna and Gwen walking through the fairgrounds at Downton, and talking about the upcoming fair. Anna sees Mary and asks her how she is doing, and Mary tells her she is still grappling with the death of Mr. Pamuk. Anna tries to tell her it is going to be okay, but Mary is still grieving over his death and doesn’t think she will ever move on. Cora, Mary’s mother, is having tea with Violet Crawley, her mother-in-law, and they are talking about Mary inheriting the estate. They talk about how Mary is grieving over Mr. Pamuk’s death, and Violet tells Cora that the real issue is Mary getting married to Matthew because she is the firstborn so there is more pressure on her to get married. However, Mary doesn’t want to marry Matthew because he comes to Downton thinking he doesn’t need to live the family’s aristocratic lifestyle and takes pride in being middle-class. Meanwhile, Lord Grantham meets Tom Branson, the new chauffer, who is from Ireland. He compliments Lord Grantham’s library and Lord Grantham tells Tom he is welcome to borrow any of the books, and asks Tom what books he likes. Tom says he loves history and politics, and Lord Grantham is quietly suspicious of this because he hasn’t met anyone on the staff who has explicitly expressed their interest in politics. Mr. Molesley is serving Isobel and Matthew tea, when Isobel finds that Mr. Molesley’s hands have a really bad rash all over them. She examines them and determines it is a skin condition called erysipelas, and insists that she take him to the doctor to get his hands checked out. Matthew is embarrassed and insists Molesley’s case isn’t that extreme, but Isobel is happy because she gets to put all of her extensive training as a doctor to use, so she insists that she treat Molesley’s condition.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Anna is coughing and sneezing and Mrs. Patmore, who is running a tight ship, tells her she needs to get out of the kitchen. Anna asks if they can go to the fair tonight and suggests Daisy needs to especially go because she has been thinking a lot about the death of Mr. Pamuk. Daisy can’t tell anyone that she saw Anna, Mary, and Cora carry Mr. Pamuk’s body down the corridor, though. The Dowager Countess visits Matthew to ask about him inheriting the estate, and it’s funny because she is not used to swivel chairs and she is startled when she finds out she is sitting down in a swivel chair. Mrs. Hughes tells O’Brien she needs to stay behind and watch the other girls because Anna, the head lady’s maid, has a cold, but Mrs. O’Brien complains and tells Mrs. Hughes she is not a slave and refuses to do so. Mr. Bates, Thomas Barrow, and William are all in the dining quarters downstairs talking about the fair, and William talks about how he is going to ask Daisy out to the fair, and Thomas snidely puts him down and tells him he doesn’t have a chance. Mr. Bates tells him to leave William alone, but when Daisy comes by and William is about to ask her if she wants to come to the fair that evening, Thomas interrupts him and asks Daisy to the fair, sabotaging William’s chance at asking Daisy out. William is crushed, and Mr. Bates calls Thomas out on what he did. Thomas acts like he is indifferent and continues to smoke his cigarette. Tom drives Cora, Sybil and Edith around, and overhears them talking about dresses. Sybil says she really likes the new fashions for women (this is around the time of the suffragette movement.) Because Tom is interested in women’s rights he takes an interest in Sybil for being interested in politics. He tells her that he overheard their conversation and hands her some pamphlets about women’s rights, telling her that he is a socialist and is going to quit his job as chauffer one day because he is interested in politics.

In the evening everyone goes to the fair (except for Carson) and Mrs. Hughes reunites with Joe Burns, who she fell in love with a long time ago. They catch up on life, and he tells her that he married someone but she died three years earlier and his kids are grown up. They play a game at the fair and when he wins, he gives her a toy he won so she can have something to remember him by. He asks her about her life and she tells him she is planning on staying at Downton Abbey even when she retires. He asks her what will happen if the estate is sold, and she tells him that there are a number of other catastrophes that could happen to the estate (a plague, a war, etc. After watching the entire series and seeing how Downton went through World War II and the 1918 flu epidemic, I just thought, Wow yeah everything she said happened and Downton was still intact.) Joe proposes to her and tells her to think carefully about her decision so that she doesn’t make the wrong decision in a hurry. When Mrs. Hughes comes back everyone sees her smiling and they speculate about her finding a new man, and Thomas makes some snide comment about it and Daisy, who is in love with Thomas, follows along with his joking. Mr. Bates tells Daisy that she shouldn’t make that kind of joke just because Thomas is making the joke because she’s usually a nice person and doesn’t gossip or backstab people like Thomas and Mrs. O’Brien do. Earlier, Mrs. O’Brien is complaining because she has to stay behind and work while everyone else gets to go to the fair, and because she is so bitter, she tells Tom Branson that the chauffers have their own place to eat on the estate and that he shouldn’t eat with them, and Mr. Bates tells her to lay off Tom since he’s a new employee and is still getting used to everything. Tom asks Mr. Bates what he is doing, and Mr. Bates tells him he is sorting Lord Grantham’s collars. Tom jokes that he should be doing something less time-wasting than sorting collars, and Mr. Bates, who has a good sense of humor, laughs it off and Mrs. O’Brien, who is always up to something, frowns suspiciously at him, like, “You shouldn’t trust this guy too much. He’s a troublemaker.” Mr. Bates asks where Anna is, and Mrs. O’Brien tells him she has a cold and is upstairs in her room. He goes upstairs and brings Anna dinner (earlier, when he got fired from his job and was alone crying in his room, Anna brought him dinner) and they are deeply in love with each other at that moment.

William is playing the piano alone in the staff dining room, and Mrs. Hughes finds him playing by himself because he is still sad about Daisy rejecting him for Thomas. She tells him she wants to hear him play, but he says it’s fine, and that he is going back to work. Mrs. Hughes saw earlier that Thomas was picking on William for having his buttons undone on his vest and Daisy didn’t stick up for William, so she tells William to not let Thomas get to him because Thomas is jealous that everyone likes William more than they like him, but William tells Mrs. Hughes that not everyone likes him, implying Daisy. Mrs. Hughes knows who he is talking about and tells him that in that case, Daisy is a foolish girl who doesn’t deserve William. Later on, in the kitchen, Daisy is telling Mrs. Patmore how cute Thomas is. Earlier, she told him she had a crush on Thomas and Mrs. Patmore is surprised that Daisy is interested in him. She tells Daisy that Thomas is not the guy for her, and when Daisy asks her why she tries to tell her that Thomas isn’t actually interested in women and was just pretending to be interested in Daisy so he could make William feel like a loser. Earlier, Mr. Bates went over to William’s room to check in on him, and William, without turning to see who it was, tells Mr. Bates to leave him alone. Mr. Bates closes his door and finds Thomas coming out into the hall having overheard what happened, and tells Mr. Bates that William never stood a chance. Mr. Bates grabs him by the collar and tells him to keep away from Daisy and to stop bullying William, but Thomas just smirks and says Mr. Bates’s threat doesn’t scare him.

When Mrs. O’Brien is doing Sybil’s hair, Gwen comes in to ask her about something, and Sybil sends Mrs. O’Brien away (Mrs. O’Brien loves to eavesdrop on people’s conversations so she can gossip with Thomas, so she is not pleased with this request but leaves.) Gwen shows her that she got an offer for an interview; the previous episode Gwen told everyone she was taking typewriting classes to become a secretary and leave the service industry, and Sybil and Anna were the only ones who supported her decision to leave. Sybil helped her apply for the job and sent in a letter of reference for Gwen, and Gwen is super overjoyed about this, but later on, when she is alone in the kitchen Gwen gets another letter and is downcast when she finds out they cancelled her interview and went with someone else. Sybil is so excited for Gwen’s interview and has her look at interview outfits, but Gwen cries and tells her about the cancellation and insists she is never going to become a secretary. Sybil, however, never gives up on Gwen and tells her that she just needs to keep going after her dream and to not get discouraged just because she didn’t make it the first time.

Mary is talking with her father, Lord Grantham, about inheriting the estate. He tells her that he is a custodian so he cannot actually buy the estate himself; he is just taking care of it for the sake of the people before him who lived at Downton. And he can’t take Cora’s money out of the state or else Lord Grantham would have to sell Downton Abbey, and that wouldn’t be fair for Matthew because he even though he would be the heir in title, he wouldn’t have any money to pay for Downton. Mary tells her father she isn’t going to marry Matthew because she is stubborn and won’t marry a man just because her family picked him for her. Meanwhile, Isobel picks up some tinctures for Mr. Molesley’s erysipelas and gets him to take them. At first the nurse is insistent that Isobel shouldn’t just pick out these remedies herself and that Molesley should see Dr. Clarkson about it, she refuses.When they go to Dr. Clarkson and the Dowager Countess, Isobel insists that Mr. Molesley’s erysipelas cleared up thanks to the tinctures she picked out for him. However, the Dowager Countess looks at Mr. Molesley’s hands and asks him how his dad is doing, and Mr. Molesley tells her he has been helping his dad out in the garden and has been trimming his rue hedge. The Dowager Countess explains that Mr. Molesley’s rash was a rue allergy, not erysipelas, and tells Isobel that while they appreciate her services, that she should leave it to the professionals (aka Dr. Clarkson and the Dowager Countess) to figure out stuff like this, and she smugly smiles to herself as she gets up to leave before Isobel can say anything.

Mary finds out that they are going to let Matthew inherit the title to the estate because he is the heir and she leaves the drawing room, and goes to her bedroom because she is angry. Cora comes to her room and finds Mary crying alone in her room, and asks what is wrong. Mary tells her that all everyone ever talks about it Matthew inheriting the estate, and she doesn’t get a say in it. Cora tells her that she wouldn’t have been able to stand up for Mary because of the estate rules, and Mary tells her that Cora doesn’t care about her feelings, and that everything is ruined and that after her affair with Pamuk her reputation is ruined. Mary is still trying to deal with the death of Mr. Pamuk, who she loved very much, and is overwhelmed because her family doesn’t seem to care about her decisions or think she can make her own decisions about the estate. Earlier, when they are walking on the fairgrounds, Matthew and Mary are talking, and Mary apologizes to Matthew for criticizing him being middle-class, and he asks her more about what she does. She tells him that she envies him having a regular 9-5 job because mostly her and her sisters help out with charities and other events but mostly spend their time at home until they find a husband, and she finds this life quite dull.

Mr. Hughes is in her office, thinking about Mr. Burns’ marriage proposal. Carson comes in and she has him sit down so she can tell him what happened. She tells Carson that before coming to Downton, she had fallen in love with Mr. Burns because he was a farmer and she was a farmer’s daughter from Argyll, so they had a deep connection. But after that they never saw each other, and he married someone but she died three years earlier, and they found each other at the fair and he proposed, but she turned down the proposal. Carson listens and then Anna comes in telling Mrs. Hughes to come because there is chaos in the kitchen and Mrs. Patmore needs Mrs. Hughes’s help. Before leaving, Carson asks Mrs. Hughes if she is considering leaving Downton, and she jokes “where would I find the time?”

The episode ends with Edith, Mary, the Dowager Countess, Lord Grantham and Cora in the drawing room. Sybil is trying on her new outfit and Anna is helping her try it on. When she finally goes into the drawing room, she is wearing a fashionable headband and these beautiful blue bloomers. Her family is aghast, particularly Lord Grantham because they normally wear dresses, but Tom Branson is looking through the window at her and is smitten. Earlier in one of the sisters’ rooms, Edith and Sybil are talking and Sybil says how confining corsets are and that she wishes women wouldn’t need to wear them all the time. I remember the first time I heard about bloomers was when I read a book as a kid called You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer!, which illustrates how Amelia Bloomer reformed dresses with the invention of bloomers. The closest thing I had to bloomers growing up was skorts, which was a combination of shorts and a skirt. I guess if you were worried about the guys seeing your panties during gym class, you could wear skorts and not worry because there were shorts underneath the skirt.

Episodes Synopsis: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

This week I re-watched a series I really enjoy called The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. If you haven’t seen the show yet it takes place in New York City in the 1950s and it’s about a young Jewish woman named Miriam “Midge” Maisel who seems to have the perfect typical American middle-class life. She has two kids, Ethan and Esther, and a loving husband named Joel. She goes to his comedy club night because he is doing stand-up but his jokes end up falling flat. She initially just came to support and bring her prized brisket in its Pyrex container, and tries to initiate conversation with Susie Myerson, the manager of the Gaslight coffee house where Joel does standup, but Susie isn’t interested. Unfortunately, Midge finds out on the night of Yom Kippur that Joel cheated on her with his secretary, Penny Pann, and she gets drunk and goes to the coffee house and does a standup bit about Joel’s affair. Susie is impressed with Midge and it changes her impression of her because she at first thinks Midge is just this annoying chatty housewife who brought a brisket. She becomes Midge’s manager and helps her navigate a career in comedy. Midge gets a day job at a department store called B. Altman to support her comedy career and at the same time is trying to please her family and move on from Joel after his affair, and she is also keeping her comedy career a secret from her family because she knows they wouldn’t approve of her doing a career in stand-up.

In Season 2, Miriam and her family go on vacation to Steiner Mountain Resort in the Catskills. Susie goes with Miriam and fits in with the camp volunteers, carrying a plunger she has named Pamela and touring the Catskills grounds. Meanwhile, Joel is still thinking of Midge but his dad, Moishe, encourages him to look for other girls during their time in the Catskills but he doesn’t seem to find any girl that could really top Midge. He meets a girl at the bowling alley who has a smart wit like him, and they connect. Miriam gets a call from B. Altman asking if she can come in to work a shift because someone called in sick and another quit, so while at the beauty salon in the Catskills she tells Rose, her mother, she needs to go back to work but doesn’t have a ride. One of the women getting her hair done tells Miriam that her son, Benjamin Ettenberg, can give her a ride back since he is planning on returning back to New York City for work (he is a doctor) and also doesn’t enjoy his trip to the Catskills much. Miriam gets a ride from Benjamin, and at first there is no evident chemistry, and compared to Miriam, Benjamin seems introverted. Earlier on in the episode, Miriam and her friends are participating in a game of Simon Says and then linger near the table of refreshments and gossip. Benjamin walks past them and the girls check him out, wondering why he just walked past them instead of flirting with them. When Miriam and Benjamin are driving in the car on the way back to the city Benjamin turns on the news and Miriam is bored, but when he turns it off she starts improvising a comedic take on the news and he can’t help but crack a smile. When they make it back he asks her out and they go on a date and afterwards they go to the diner where Susie and Midge regularly meet to discuss standup gigs and other career-related matters. Benjamin doesn’t know anyone at the diner but Midge knows everyone since her and Susie go there frequently, and it’s where they network with a lot of professionals who work in show business. Midge is extremely nervous at first to tell him she is a comic, but then she tells him and he doesn’t mind.

Midge gets a call from Susie telling her that she got a gig at the Concord, which is a venue at the Steiner Resort. When Susie introduces Midge to the venue manager, he is angry because Midge doesn’t look like the girl that Susie had sent him a picture of and told about, and he refuses to let Midge take the stage. Midge goes on anyway, and ends up talking about a lot of sexual stuff in her standup, but she ends up finding her dad, Abe, sitting in the audience, looking appalled. Midge gets nervous, and when she gets nervous she doesn’t end her set, she keeps going and talks about her parents’ sex life. Everyone else laughs, but Abe is clearly embarrassed. When she goes backstage, Midge is shaken and feels horrible about what she did, even when she gets all this applause and Susie and the venue manager praise Midge for her standup. Abe finds her backstage and tells her she is coming with him and they are going home.

Abe also has another problem to deal with as well. He gets a call from Bell Labs at Columbia University, where he teaches as a professor, that he is going to embark on a research project that he really wanted to work on. He brings his son Noah with him, and all of the faculty meet Noah and talk about how they have heard a lot about him, but then he meets one of the faculty members and the faculty member tells him Abe can no longer be part of the project. Abe asks him why and the member takes him and Noah into a secret surveillance room, and the faculty tell Abe he is suspended from the team because Noah is involved in a top-secret project with the U.S. government. When he asks Noah about the project, Noah says he cannot share information about the project. Abe is of course quite frustrated: he finds out his son works for the CIA and he finds out his daughter does standup as a career. After the night at the Concord, Abe tells Miriam that she cannot tell Rose, her mother, about her standup career until he says she can. He also feels like he no longer recognizes the little girl Midge used to be when they went to the Catskills as a family together. But Midge assures him that everything she shared that night at the Concord was all hers, all authentically hers.

In the episode “Look She Made a Hat” Miriam and her family are back in New York City and are observing Yom Kippur. Susie calls Midge and tells her she booked a gig for her on the same evening as her family’s Yom Kippur dinner. Susie tells Midge she needs to come for the gig, no excuses, and so Midge has to figure out how to break it to her family that evening that she is a comic and has a gig that evening. Earlier, when they were in the Catskills, she told Joel about Abe coming to her standup at the Concord and he listened empathetically to her and was supportive, but after seeing her with Benjamin while everyone was out on the lawn stargazing, he becomes jealous. During the Yom Kippur service at their synagogue, Miriam’s parents (Abe and Rose) struggle to keep the peace with Joel’s parents (Moishe and Shirley) because neither of them get along well with each other, and during the service they argue back and forth with each other. While this is going on Astrid, Noah’s wife, is getting absorbed in the service and passionately singing along with the rabbi. Astrid converted to Judaism when she married Noah and makes earnest efforts to learn about Judaism. In season 1, her and Noah come back from Israel and she brings back gefilte fish and a mezuzah and Rose, while pretending to love the fish, has Zelda secretly throw it in the trash, and when Midge sees the mezuzah and is impressed by its size, Astrid thinks she got the wrong size. Astrid is worried that Noah will leave her but Midge assures her Noah loves her just as she is. When they are at Steiner Resort, Astrid is fasting because she observes Tisha B’Av, an annual Jewish day of mourning, and doesn’t eat anything at breakfast. Moishe, Shirley, Abe, Rose, Midge, Noah and Joel all come to the table where Astrid is with big plates of food in hand and they ask Astrid why she wasn’t at Polynesian night the night before. Astrid becomes more and more agitated with the family because she is the only one out of all of them observing Tisha B’Av and no one else seems to care about this day. After Rose finds out about Noah’s secret activity with the government, she tries to get some details about it from Astrid. She finds Astrid reading from scripture with the rabbi in a little quiet room, and Astrid is super excited that Rose is joining her to study scripture with her, but Rose pretends to read the scripture while asking Astrid about Noah’s work with the government.

During the Yom Kippur dinner, which also marks one year since Joel and Midge separated, chaos ensues as Midge tries to tell her family she is a comic. Earlier in the day, Rose is at the meat market picking up meat cuts for the Yom Kippur dinner and Midge meets her there and Rose tells her they got Rabbi Krinsky to come to the dinner, and they are so excited. Zelda, the Weissman’s housekeeper, goes through all the trouble to prepare a huge dinner for them and giving strict orders to the other housekeepers in the kitchen. Ethan complains he had too much chocolate during the Yom Kippur service and isn’t hungry, and Zelda tells her how growing up in Poland, kids worked, they didn’t get to eat all this food she is preparing for them. Midge tells Zelda and the other housekeepers to hold off on bringing the food in, and so they repeatedly have to bring out the food and they bring it back to the kitchen. Everyone at the table complains that they are hungry and want to eat, but Midge keeps talking and beating around the bush and the family is distracted with other things before they finally tell her to just say what she needs to say, and she tells them she is a comic. Rabbi Krinsky comes to the Weissmans’ house but after hearing the family argue about Midge’s comedy career for the next five minutes, he says he has another commitment and then leaves. I was thinking, Dang, and they were so excited about getting the rabbi to come. But by this time, the family is so focused on grilling Midge about her comedy career (and her relationship with Benjamin) that they aren’t even thinking of the rabbi. After the chaos dies down, Astrid announces she is pregnant.

Benjamin and Midge go to an art show because Benjamin loves collecting art. Midge goes into a little room where there are a few paintings on the wall that haven’t been sold yet because no one cared enough about them, and there is a woman at the desk in the room knitting. Midge asks her about the paintings and the woman tells her no one has sold them yet, so she is free to take one. Midge takes the painting and her and Benjamin go to a bar to hang out. They meet Declan Howell, a reclusive artist who refuses to sell any of his paintings. Benjamin fangirls because he is a huge fan of Declan Howell. He is super intoxicated on the night they meet him and when the bartender cuts him off at six drinks because he is intoxicated, Declan stands up and recites a Shakespearean sonnet, fumbling through the lines (when I first saw this episode, I thought he was going to vomit so that’s why I closed my eyes. But he doesn’t.) Everyone applauds and Midge and Benjamin go up to Declan. Midge introduces Benjamin to Declan, but Declan doesn’t really care and is only focused on how hot Midge is and the painting she found at the art gallery. They talk and Declan opens up and lets Benjamin come to his studio only if he brings Midge. Benjamin is very reluctant to have Midge go because he is worried Declan might sexually harass her, but Midge tells him she has dealt with a lot of sexual harassment working as a comic. She lets him go with her anyway and they share a sweet kiss before he lets her up to his apartment. They go to Declan Howell’s studio, and they find his studio is a mess and there are bottles of alcohol everywhere. Declan comes out to see them and he has bloody cuts and bruises on his body, and when Benjamin tells him he can treat the cuts because he is a doctor, Declan refuses to let him. When Benjamin asks if he can buy any of his paintings, Declan refuses to sell any of them to him. Midge suggests that she can get Declan to let Benjamin buy his paintings and that she will take care of it, but he refuses to let her be alone with Declan, especially because Declan is intoxicated and has been also checking out Midge. Midge silently reminds him that she has dealt with men harassing her before and that she can handle this. Benjamin gives in and lets Midge talk with Declan. After talking with him, Declan lets Midge into the back of his studio to see his best painting. I was sad to not see the actual work, but realized it would have defeated the purpose of the plot because Declan didn’t want anyone to look at his work. Midge is in awe of this painting and can’t move because she is mesmerized by its beauty. Declan tells her he used to have a family but gave all that up to dedicate himself to his artwork, and his pain and suffering went into this work.

I am not sure when season 5 is coming out so I have been watching the reruns. After finishing The Crown, I was emotionally exhausted, so I needed some comic relief (Mrs. Maisel is a show about a comedian. Pun totally intended.)

Blackish: Season 8, Episode 9, “And the Winner Is…”

Tonight I watched episode 9 of blackish’s farewell season. I’m rather behind in watching blackish so I need to catch up at some point on the episodes I missed this season. In this episode, Dre enters his ad into an advertisement award ceremony and finds out that it got nominated, but his coworkers warn him that another ad has gotten more popularity and thus he doesn’t stand a chance against it. Meanwhile, Dre’s coworker, played by Reid Scott, has already won several ad awards for his past work and makes sure to let Dre know that he won those awards before so it’s nothing worth getting excited about. Dre, however, refuses to give into defeat and tells everyone his ad will win at the award ceremony.

Meanwhile, Olivia, Junior’s girlfriend, is returning from Yale to Los Angeles and Junior plans an entire week packed with fun for her and him. They have been making long-distance love work even though it’s been hard, but Junior imagines that he is going to give Olivia a bouquet of roses and she is going to be in a beautiful dress and they are just going to dance to The Weeknd’s “Earned It” and falling in love with each other. Jack and Diane, his siblings, aren’t convinced that this is how it will turn out but Junior is convinced that it will and hangs onto that idea of him and Olivia continuing their relationship together.

Dre and Bow are at the awards ceremony and so far the popular ad, which was something along the lines of “girl on a horse,” gets all the awards. Dre is discouraged, but then the host announces Dre won an award for his ad. At first, Dre is in disbelief and thinks that he lost, telling Bow he was just happy to be at least nominated for the award, but then Bow snaps him back to reality and tells him that he did in fact win the award. Dre gets up to the stage and thanks his family and the late Nipsey Hussle, but then the orchestra cuts him off and he calls them out on it. Dre’s coworker then approaches him and tells him a story about how Tom Brady won many awards but then getting those awards motivated him to be more competitive, and tells Dre that he is in competition with him for the awards and that Dre should watch out. Dre doesn’t back down and accepts the challenge.

Olivia finally comes home to Junior late at night after a long trip, and he begins to tell her all the fun stuff he has planned for them both, but she dozes off before he can continue because she is exhausted from her trip. Junior feels crushed. While Olivia is sleeping, he plans a food tray with all these fancy food items for her but then Pops asks him more about how things are going with him and Olivia, and Junior says he wants to make the long-distance relationship work between them, but Pops tells him that relationships are challenging, and that him and Ruby’s relationship took work. Later on, Dre and Bow come home from the ceremony to find Pops staying up at the dinner table with Devante playing a song on the keyboard. In that moment Dre realizes that while he was happy to win the award, he missed Devante’s piano recital and actually wants nothing more than to be home with his son hearing him play piano and seeing absolute joy on Devante’s face. Later on, Dre decides to take a day off from work to spend time with Devante and hear him play on the keyboard.

Junior and Olivia meet and Junior is excited to hear about her journey at Yale, but then Olivia says they need to break up because the long-distance relationship just may not be working between them. Junior, absolutely crushed, ends up depressed. At the end of the episode he tells his phone to play “Unbreak My Heart” but it tells him that the person he shared the music account with (aka Olivia) has denied Junior access to it, so he sings aloud to himself the song.

I really loved the part about where Dre realizes that even though he won an award, it doesn’t define the trajectory of his life. Dre spent his entire career dealing with racism and microaggressions at work and people telling him his ideas weren’t good enough, and he had to work twice as hard as his (mostly white) coworkers to get to where he is today and move up the corporate ladder. But after seeing Devante’s joy when he plays music, he realizes that he has been missing out a lot on the little things in life, and realizes that even those seemingly small moments of joy are part of success. It was a lesson for me because there were definitely times where I thought, if I win a Grammy or an Academy my life will be perfect because I have been working so hard towards those dreams. But this episode taught me that at the end of the day, I’m not competing with anyone else for the award. Maybe on the surface, but in reality I can only compete with myself. Dre realized after seeing Devante experience that pure joy that his life was so much more than just a single award. I’m proud Dre won the award and for all the hard work he’s done, but I’m glad he realized that he can be successful while also living as a human being. It reminded me to enjoy life itself, that while I can appreciate success, I have to understand that sometimes living life itself is a success because it has its challenges and I do my best to get through them. Also, I realized that even if I do win a Grammy or an Oscar that’s not the end of my career, and that the award ceremony isn’t going to happen everyday. Every day it will feel like work, but that’s part of the process of growing and maturing is showing up to do the work even if I may not feel like it. Also, Devante is adorable and I loved seeing him joyful when playing piano. I was pretty heartbroken alongside Junior, though. He and Olivia were such a beautiful couple, but definitely I feel that from my own life: long distance, while people make it work, has its challenges. I remember when I had a long-distance relationship with someone from millions of miles in another continent, and we made it work when we were together in India but then as time went on we stayed in touch but then naturally we lost touch and I guess that was our closure. It was a challenge not being there with him, but I guess that’s why I’m glad I had a religion or philosophy to keep me going even when it got tough.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: