Vee

I posted this on the last page too but it always deserves more sunlight, don't delete. Nuzzi's anger is my joy.

I agree with all of this, except I don't know if Abby truly loved him vs. being enamored, enjoying their passion and enjoying his money until somewhere in early Season 5. Then they make their love more equal in S6. I also don't think Abby stopped loving him once she knew about the twins. I think that initially made her more desperate to hold onto him than before. Granted I am still mid-S7 but I think the argument can be made that once she knew he'd have the twins back by the end of the previous season or early S7, that's when she knows their life together is slipping away and thus you see her becoming obsessively focused on the increasingly-deranged Empire Valley project intrigue. She retreats to what she is best at: Consolidating and building new power bases, because she knows now she and Gary are on borrowed time.

Season 6 where he knows it all (well, mostly) and accepts her as is ("God help me") is the peak of their relationship for me, and probably one of the key reasons it is my favorite season. I totally wasn't expecting that turn and him being secure in their match for what it is. I understand why it ended but that could've gone a bit longer in that state. I always found that so strange. He should've returned to be a thorn in her side.

A right-leaning poll has Harris up, then whines and rants about it in their headline and article:

Amazing to me how desperately they've been focusing on Walz (which hasn't penetrated voters beyond the right wing bubble, despite media attempts to float it). They've still got no real consistent material on Harris, the top of the ticket.

As I think other cast and crew and certainly Michele Lee pointed out, Murray was supposed to be kind of the big get from movies, etc. when the show began. (He's amazing in Advise and Consent and capped his career not long ago with a wonderful performance in Twin Peaks Season 3) He later noted he regretted leaving after the show ran on and on and on. I really liked him and Sid, but I agree it was for the best. Those first two eps of S3 are absolutely brilliant and it opened up everything that came after. Episodes like the biker gang from hell (Born Free), Cricket, the ridiculous S2 hostage crisis (Moments of Truth), Three Sisters, the Lilimae Vegas romp (Rose and the Briar) and Silver Shadows all show the upper limits of this approach, so yes it was time to change. And I happen to like Three Sisters and Silver Shadows, but they are off-brand lol.

It isn't really, as it turns out. What was said by several prominent analysts, and I think it's true (including the one upthread), is that Harris' bounce was largely already baked-in by the convention, with the massive momentum for her and Walz that hasn't let up since July. Instead of a typical convention bounce in a normal election run, she came in late and now she just keeps gaining and now overtaking Trump in many polls or key states instead and has a more sustained growth. That's what Michael McDonald means in my post above. But I'm not surprised they're trying to pretend that logic doesn't exist. They need a horse race and their willful blindness is starting to feel like their handling of Romney 2012 to me, where they pretended it was still real close. I'm not saying this is that - we're still close in a number of states and there is more work to do - but we haven't lost the wind or the narrative once since July. Trump is still flailing. Next I'm sure they're going to try to set expectations sky high for the debate in hopes of finally bringing Kamala down to earth.

Alexa, play "Tears of a Clown": Smith's pathetic whine about this leaves out that Nuzzi spent years cozying up to Ann Coulter and Richard Spencer, among others.

Richard was a very complex, nuanced character to me. His relationship with Karen is incredibly special, and his horrible spiral and treatment of Laura grew partly out of shared behavior that was codependent or mutually destructive. When she was up he was down, and when he tried to be up he could never sustain it, both because Laura had long since lost any respect for him (largely by his own doing) and because while trying to be an upwardly mobile man and provider of the '80s he always fell into a comedy of errors. He'd never found himself. Some of John Pleshette's dialogue and monologues were just brilliant, on par with the great tour de forces William Devane delivers upon his arrival. As for Gary and Val, I think when they did first reunite on Dallas they were both kind of still arrested adolescents frozen in their past love, and when real life interfered it quickly started to disintegrate. Gary would go through deranged highs and lows of devotion to Val or pure misery, like his bender at the end of S1 and his apeshit meltdown when she had to go into the hospital in S2, and that is not stable behavior. I don't think either of them began to mature and actualize themselves until Season 3-4 (Val) and Seasons 4-5 (Gary). After that they're totally different people from the first two or three seasons. Which is why I can see them reuniting in future.

The Laura thing has been hashed out by many people more informed than me over the years. I will say I think it would've been a fundamentally different dynamic in the show had she continued, and it's interesting to think how they might have used her (or not used her) and how she would've reacted in/with later story. I think an equally viable choice could've been to have her cancer or tumor or whatever put her in a coma for years if they had to cut the budget, then bring Constance back in the last year or two to shake things up. Laura's voice and attitude were different from many characters on the show. Same goes for Richard - I can think of ways to interweave and use him after Season 4. But unlike Laura I can't see him staying forever. It would've been nice if he'd come in and out.

The Lie is one of the must-watch eps from S1 for me as is Courageous Convictions. While they don't really revisit it with Laura it is one of the deepest windows into her that you get, particularly for who she was before she really reinvented herself as a career woman. What on Earth would Rebecca Wentworth have done there, though?

I like a lot of Will the Circle be Unbroken but hoo boy it's got just a few too many cornpone Lilimae songs for me. I do think it is an essential watch because it introduces the character. That ep in S3 where Lilimae runs off to Vegas or whatever, not so much.

A hilariously accurate description.

More:

One of several I told @Darn to skip lol

And once again, the belated edit to fix it:

I keep mistaking Finnigan for Jennifer Ferrin, who definitely ain't coming back to daytime lol. She is a Steven Soderbergh darling these days.

She also allegedly auditioned for what I suspect was Julia Stiles' role on Dexter (as a fellow psycho he falls in love with), and claimed GH or Guza screwed with her on that which led to her exit.

This media dude got ratioed on the original tweet and has been whining about it for the whole weekend, followed by some even more deeply embarrassing replies. He's just mouthing the same excuses re: covering Trump voters from way back to just after 2016, followed by a rather pathetic plea that more critical coverage could lead to 'backlash'.

This head in the sand attitude re: a 6 point lead reminds me of how they tried to pretend Romney was still keeping it tight in 2012. He was their dream GOP candidate and they refused to let go, perhaps even moreso than the old chestnut of how everything was good news for John McCain.