Here's the Salon article (the above is from Vulture) [link]

AV Club: [link]

Fresh Air with Terry Gross: [link]

It's not cynical, not ironic. Shares that with Portlandia, and is a quality that I associate also with some favorite actors, like Jason Segal, Steve Carrell, John Krasinski - aren't usually nasty-mean-funny.

Last night, I watched the episode where Tyler (the character played by Mike White) is narrating what it's like to be like a ghost, to float through life never being noticed, then he connects with a character played by Molly Shannon (also being non-ironic, non-cynical, and non-satirical). It was just amazing, so sweet, heartbreaking.

yes! that is one that made me squirm big-time! I agree though.

From AV Club: here's the link again: www.avclub.com/articles/enlightened-is-tvs-best-show-right-nowand-it-needs,92934/

"In many weird ways, the previous HBO series Enlightened reminds me most of is The Wire. They’re both shows that are utterly unlike anything else on TV and seem to have arrived sui generis, fully formed. They’re both shows about the ways that people are crushed and ground up by the systems put in place to protect them or give them meaningful work."

"... in many ways, Enlightened is the necessary antidote to The Wire. This is not to say that the earlier show isn’t important or groundbreaking or fantastic, just that it looked up at the institutions we humans had built and offered a weary sigh of resignation."

"...In the second season, a character tells Amy that she hopes so much that it can scare people, and that’s almost the show’s point. It is not worth it to lose yourself to despair. It is not worth it to give up hope entirely. It is not worth it to believe the system will defeat you forever. Things change. Systems are worn down. But people endure. If the characters on The Wire might offer up those weary sighs when asked how to effect change, Amy Jellicoe might pull you aside and say (in the most irritating way possible) to relax. To breathe. To let it go."

"There is time. There is SO much time."

Finally finished watching House of Cards. Anyone else?

yes, we finished a couple of weeks ago. what did you think?

I thought the strongest part of the series was the beginning. the ending was a bit of a whimper.

Le n, I felt the same about ending with a whimper.

Me three - I still enjoyed it, and will watch the second season when it comes out, but it seemed like the stakes at the end should have been higher. I'm not sure the show earned narratively the amount of tension it was trying to generate.

And I'm still not a fan of the release format, because I wasn't able to pop in here after every ep and say "OMG, you guys, THAT THING THAT HAPPENED!" Now that I've mainlined all 13 eps I don't really remember the specific things I would have wanted to talk about in each one.

(Obviously it's working well for Netflix as a commercial investment, but as a viewer who enjoys talking about TV on the internet, it was kind of a bummer.)

Here's something I didn't understand. Were we meant to understand that Francis had a romantic? sexual? relationship with his male friend while at the Citadel? (I know that's not the real college name but it was obviously the Citadel.) it just seemed sort of randomly thrown in there.

I did have this thought that politics is like parenting in that its all about finding someone's psychological weak spot and finding leverage to get them to do what you want.