Franken,

let me put it to you this way: given what I've seen of the previews, I'm pretty pretty sure that the last 15 minutes of this week's "Riches" ep will affect events in next week's ep. But the most relevant event will likely show up in the previouslies.

So last night, I finally got to catch the current episode of the Riches, just in time for tomorrow's new one.

Wow. Some dinner party, huh?

This show really does just pull no punches, doesn't it? I've known people like Chunky K (sort of), and had "reunions" like that too -- reunions with people who sort of felt like friends once, and act like long lost best friends when you reunite with them, but they're not really your friends for whatever reason.

Sam was wonderful again. I almost wish Didi hadn't covered for him, but I could see she thought she needed to because of the important dinner party. Still, I just love Sam so much. I want to pick him up in my arms, and tell him everything's okay, and that he's beautiful, and that he can dress and act any way he damned well wants to.

Huh. Sam has apparently become my woobie on this show. I suspect he may have company -- Ken has become terribly woobie-like with his recent episodes.

Anyway, the last fifteen minutes of the episode were positively electric. Hugh just blew my mind. And watching him disassemble the phone while Wayne and Dahlia talked about him ten feet away was just chilling.

Dahlia's line about "We're becoming buffers" also felt a little portentious. I am now officially dreading the day that the Malloys get scammed and by some other family of Travellers. That would be the day they officially are buffers, and it would positively break them.

You know, I'm really starting to think that the reason Hugh and Wayne get along so well is because they're both so full of shit. I think if Hugh ever found out the truth about Wayne, he'd probably like him even more. I think he already suspects that "Doug" is lying through his teeth about everything, but I also think he suspects everyone he talks to of laying through their teeth about everything.

The Riches: " The supply of Doug Riche exceeds the demand for Doug Rich " - bwahahahaha!

That was a really awesome episode. I had been on the fence about whether I really liked it, but last night's was some great TV.

Any other Footballers Wives fans around? New season starts on BBCAmerica on June 6.

Promo commercials contain a very interesting casting spoiler.

Loved the Riches the other night. My favorite "Without you...without you I can't do my buttons."

Finally caught up on the last two episodes of The Riches, which I now want to rewatch. The dinner party... damn. Little bubbles of HSQ one after the other.

And I just want to go back and rewatch every single Chunky K scene. Such a great complicated fucked-up mess of a character, with what seemed to be a great deal of genuine affection for Dahlia butting up against massive resentment of how she'd fallen on her feet, how apparently easy and glossy her life was while K was sleeping on someone's sofa and scraping by on a dead-end job, both butting up against garden-variety drug-user fucked-upness.

I keep speculating about their backstory -- how frightened and needy Dahlia must have been in prison, what a protector and anchor K must have been, how galling it must be to her now to be outside and struggling so hard and fruitlessly while Dahlia is apparently sailing along (and no matter how genuinely unhappy she is, she's got pretty clothes and a family and a goddamn house, which has to be incredibly galling for a couch-surfing night manager). How K's largeness and blackness and drug-supplierness were all strengths and sources of power and cause for respect in prison, and do nothing for her now.

And I cracked inside at the meanness and destructiveness of her leaving the baggie of meth in Dahlia's room and daring her "Try and stop me," but I could understand how she could've done it. (Fucking up Hugh, though, after he was a total asshole about her rabbit meat plan, made me happy as could be).

Wayne was so very right to not trust her, to want her out of the house and out of their lives -- she's incredibly dangerous to them in several ways -- but what a great awful character.

Desperately need to rewatch this week's, so not saying much. Except, I had kind of a Minnie Driver thing for a while long ago because she was unnecessarily rude to a friend of mine ages back, but her Dahlia is so layered and prickly and naked and luminous that I don't care anymore, not a bit. She's so amazing.

Also, the entire nursing home section -- the watch-from-the-hall of Wayne's money-panic meltdown, the old man barking indignantly, "I'm Doug Rich!" And Shereen's (sp?) poor senile mother, wanting her mochacchinos and robustly insisting "You're not Shereen" and holding everyone's hand anyway, and how happy-in-spite-of-themselves it made Dahlia and the kids.

Must watch again.

Ooh, I just saw an ad for MI-5 on BBCA! Two hour premiere on the first Tuesday in June!!!

I'm now rewatching the latest episode of The Riches, and felt the need to change my tag and then gratuitously post about it.

That was my favorite line too.