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 While I'm laying down the basic premise of this show and catching you up on what's been happening, play this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egK-oXd3-g4 Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is a crisis manager who caters to politicians, major media figures, and other such power players in the Washington, D.C. area. She handles hostage negotiations, sex tapes, inconvenient dead bodies, and so much more. Her team consists of private investigator Abby (Darby Stanchfield), computer specialist Huck (Guillermo Diaz), slick lawyer Harrison (Columbus Short), and still-searching-for-a-niche Quinn (Katie Lowes). In her work, she regularly deals with determined U.S. Attorney David Rosen (Joshua Malina), pragmatic White House Chief of Staff Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry, clear MVP of the show), and his boss, President Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn), a well-meaning man who is deeply flawed, perhaps to the point of sickness. The song you're listening to right now, "Skeletons" by Stevie Wonder, has not been featured on the show but so perfectly captures its content and tone that it could be the theme song. (There's a lot of funk music on the soundtrack too, courtesy of mixtape wunderkind Alexandra Patsavas (The O.C., Chuck, Rescue Me, Grey's Anatomy).) It's a dark, twisty political thriller with mild soap opera overtones, and the mix proves to be so relentlessly entertaining that you forget the overall plot -- which moves at a similar pace to Arrow, Nikita, and the first season of Revenge -- is held together by popsicle sticks and chewing gum. If this sounds like your poo poo but you don't want to be spoiled, here are the first seven episodes on Netflix. You'll have to get the next seven through your provider of choice (iTunes, Amazon, maybe On Demand). Go on, go. For those of you who still need convincing... Each member of Olivia Pope's team are strays in their own way, dealing with some kind of dark past that Pope has rescued them from. -Abby escaped from an abusive marriage with the son of the former governor of Virginia. Olivia personally broke the rear end in a top hat's kneecap with a tire iron, then got her the best divorce lawyer in the country to ruin him. -Harrison got caught up in a massive insider trading scandal. Thanks to Olivia, he only did six months. -The socially impaired Huck was part of a CIA black team and is responsible for scores of dead bodies. He's developed a sort-of addiction to killing, one he's currently trying to overcome (he goes to meetings, where he refers to brutal, systematic torture and murder as "whiskey"). Working for Olivia gives him a sense of purpose that helps keep him on the wagon, though he's occasionally asked (and willing) to tap back into his dark side. -Quinn's real name is Lindsay Dwyer, wrongfully accused of murdering six people with a bomb that authorities believed was intended for her ex-boyfriend (who also died in the blast). As soon as her identity came out, Olivia got all the charges dropped with a single phone call. I hope you got all that because this is the sane foundation that this show is built on. Olivia Pope herself is far from a saint. For one thing, she was involved in an extramarital affair with President Grant and is still wrestling with her feelings for the man; the love, confusion, and angst is mutual. But that's nothing compared to the mess we find her in this season. Along with Cyrus, Grant's wife Mellie (Bellamy Young), and a Supreme Court Justice, Olivia is involved in a high-level conspiracy headed up by business tycoon Hollis Doyle (Gregg Henry). Doyle is an unholy amalgamation of George W. Bush's folksy Texan charm and Dick Cheney's sociopathic lust for power and profit. Currently, Doyle's trying to get President Grant to sign off on an invasion of Sudan that could net him millions of dollars for his business interests. Grant's been resistant, but every day he's put under more and more pressure to declare war. What Grant doesn't know is that this wouldn't be the first time Doyle puppetmastered American politics. One of Doyle's interests, Cytron, set up the voting machines used for Grant's election; a coincidence, to be sure... ...until you realize that one of the Cytron offices was blown the gently caress up by a letter bomb... ...that was pinned on a woman named Lindsay Dwyer (due to a badly timed angry voicemail)... ...who got drugged shortly after a warrant for her arrest went out... ...and woke up in a hotel room on the other side of the country with a packet that contained her brand new identity as Quinn Perkins... ...and was soon offered a job at Olivia Pope's firm. The jig's starting to come up, though; Cyrus's husband (yes, he's gay) is a Pulitzer-winning journalist who is starting to sniff a little too close for Cyrus's comfort, making things tense in the already testy Beene household. David Rosen, who was assigned to prosecute Quinn / Lindsay and was blindsided by the loss of a seemingly slam-dunk case, is also starting to put the pieces together. Abby even got involved with David and started helping him out, but Pope had Harrison and Huck feed Abby a story about David allegedly abusing his wife, turning her against him. They may act out of self-interest, but both Pope and Cyrus know that if any of their friends get too close to figuring this out, Hollis will not hesitate to gently caress them up. By the way, this show was created by Shonda Rhimes. Yes, THAT Shonda Rhimes. Anyway, that pretty much brings us to tonight. Most of the plot I've just described has unfolded over a mere 14 episodes, the bulk of it over the last six that have aired. In a season that has been chock full of  moments, the buzz on tonight's episode ("Defiance") is that this is where poo poo gets real.Scandal airs THURSDAYS @ 10 PM ET. EDIT: Sorry, last image broke tables. Should be fixed now. DivisionPost fucked around with this message at Mar 21, 2013 around 23:26 |
| # ? Nov 29, 2012 21:42 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 14:03 |
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Yeah, watch this one.
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| # ? Nov 29, 2012 22:45 |
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I am loving this deep dark conspiracy this season and how they give you a tiny hint of it every episode (VOTING MACHINES OHHHH poo poo  ). Also the fact that things are kind of unraveling around Olivia.Cyrus' husband is an annoying twat though, even Cyrus seems to barely stand him. I hope he ends up having an "accident." So yeah, once you get over the fact that everyone talks reallyreallyfastwithouttakingabreath in this show, it is quite good.
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| # ? Nov 29, 2012 23:56 |
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So the previews strongly hinted at Grant's shooting, but I loved the way they did it. Gunshot, jerk back, GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY.
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| # ? Nov 30, 2012 04:04 |
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Well, as someone who didn't watch any previews, I didn't see that coming at all. I thought perhaps the reporter husband might end up dead at the end of the episode, and I'm kind of thinking he's still going to get offed for investigating the voting machines eventually, but Fitz getting shot was totally out of left field for me. Did Mellie know what was going to happen, or was that just a bit of misdirection by the writers?
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| # ? Nov 30, 2012 06:14 |
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Tinzen posted:Well, as someone who didn't watch any previews, I didn't see that coming at all. I thought perhaps the reporter husband might end up dead at the end of the episode, and I'm kind of thinking he's still going to get offed for investigating the voting machines eventually, but Fitz getting shot was totally out of left field for me. I don't watch the previews either, and I was totally expecting the reporter husband to get dead, not Fitz getting shot. It seemed to me like Mellie knew something was going to happen, but it's also possible it was like Fitz thought, she just didn't want to do it because Olivia would be there now. With this show it could go either way. Who would guess that a show by Shonda Rhimes would be so good.
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| # ? Nov 30, 2012 08:14 |
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Well, I for one did not see that ending coming! (I never watch previews.) -President has been shot. -Quinn suspects that Olivia, a Supreme Court Justice & Huck were behind her kidnapping and is working on it. -Boyfriend journalist of the Chief of Staff has found a voting machine that was rigged. -David Rosen is on the trail of major contributer Doyle & the fixing of voting. Yeah, this is getting pretty good and it's going to take some fix to get all of this sorted out without multiple characters meeting with a sticky end.
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| # ? Nov 30, 2012 16:04 |
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DivisionPost posted:So the previews strongly hinted at Grant's shooting, but I loved the way they did it. Gunshot, jerk back, GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY. The worst part is this friggin show is never on consistently week after week so it could be next week, two weeks, three weeks from now, who knows when we'll get a continuation! But yeah, another wonderful week of OHHHHHHHHH poo poo!
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| # ? Dec 1, 2012 03:23 |
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Lyz posted:The worst part is this friggin show is never on consistently week after week so it could be next week, two weeks, three weeks from now, who knows when we'll get a continuation! Nah, it'll be next week; the episode is credited to Rhimes herself (her first of the season), and the previews are promising to reveal the identity of the shooter.
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| # ? Dec 1, 2012 03:44 |
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So I'm catching up on this through iTunes, and I'm like halfway through the season 2 episodes, but what the hell happened to Stephen from season 1? Did he go into self-imposed exile after cheating on Georgia or something? It's the only reason I can imagine for him leaving and I was kind of surprised by his total lack of absence so far in season 2. Maybe I missed something in the season 1 finale?
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| # ? Dec 1, 2012 12:35 |
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Wahad posted:So I'm catching up on this through iTunes, and I'm like halfway through the season 2 episodes, but what the hell happened to Stephen from season 1? Did he go into self-imposed exile after cheating on Georgia or something? It's the only reason I can imagine for him leaving and I was kind of surprised by his total lack of absence so far in season 2. Maybe I missed something in the season 1 finale? Season 2 premiere, actually: there was a passing reference to Stephen moving away from DC to settle down and a little angst from Abby because she was into him. I think they wrote him off because they needed the money to promote Joshua Malina, Bellamy Young, and Jeff Perry, and Cusik's character was the most expendable. It WAS sudden, but I honestly haven't missed him.
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| # ? Dec 1, 2012 13:06 |
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DivisionPost posted:Nah, it'll be next week; the episode is credited to Rhimes herself (her first of the season), and the previews are promising to reveal the identity of the shooter. Good, I hate firing up Hulu Plus on Fridays and seeing "Replay Latest Episode." So thinking about it, this could be Doyle's way of a distraction now that the big scheme is coming to light? "Yeah maybe some machines were rigged butHOLY poo poo THE PRESIDENT GOT SHOT LOOK OVER THERE!" Hell I could believe Millie was in on it which is why she was getting cold feet, that woman is pretty ruthless. If they got a shooter to give him a non-lethal wound it would be a perfect distraction to everyone sniffing around. Although I guess according to the preview he was shot four times which kind of blows my non-lethal idea out of the water. I'm still betting Doyle has something to do with it. Lyz fucked around with this message at Dec 1, 2012 around 18:48 |
| # ? Dec 1, 2012 13:16 |
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Just marathoned through all of season 2!  ............. Shonda!!  At least with Fitz down, there won't be any more angst scenes for a while.
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| # ? Dec 2, 2012 03:11 |
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theguy2687 posted:At least with Fitz down, there won't be any more angst scenes for a while. I dunno, the angst is kind of justified. His wife's a self-serving harpy, he's in love with another woman but he can't do anything about it because he's the POTUS, he's supposed to be the figurehead of an ideal. Too bad it would be rather out of place but I would love an episode focused on these Secret Security guys. Kind of funny that even if the President wants to hare off and go see his mistress they have have no say in it, just defend the Pres.
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| # ? Dec 2, 2012 15:34 |
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Lyz posted:I dunno, the angst is kind of justified. His wife's a self-serving harpy, he's in love with another woman but he can't do anything about it because he's the POTUS, he's supposed to be the figurehead of an ideal. "...Just like 43..." (Was that the line?)
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| # ? Dec 2, 2012 15:38 |
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Lyz posted:I dunno, the angst is kind of justified. His wife's a self-serving harpy, he's in love with another woman but he can't do anything about it because he's the POTUS, he's supposed to be the figurehead of an ideal. It's totally justified, I'm just tired of seeing it.
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| # ? Dec 2, 2012 16:11 |
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I really liked this show as a rule (Season 1 was great) but by the end of this weeks I was wondering if they have simply gone too far off the deep end. To have that cabal they put together onscreen a few weeks earlier all working together to pull off an election with it culminating in the president getting shot just seemed so out of place with what had gone before in season one etc. Doyle is such a blatantly cartoon villain as well when surrounded by up to now well written good and bad guys for the most part. I do like the cases of the week they weave into the main plot as a rule, this weeks was decent with the old baseball pitcher from the Cleveland Indians spending his saved up career earnings on wine, women and song and Olivia getting completely outplayed by the murderous husband a few weeks earlier was a refreshing change of pace. As someone else pointed out, they are going to have to come up with some real machinations to get out of the corner they have painted themselves into, pretty much 75% of the main characters on the show should be in jail by the end of this season based on what we now know they've been up to. I can see I'm in the minority though in this thread but wanted to post what I thought anyway in case I've missed something that might change my mind somewhat!
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| # ? Dec 2, 2012 16:26 |
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DivisionPost posted:"...Just like 43..." (Was that the line?) Something like that. That scene was the best.
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| # ? Dec 2, 2012 19:11 |
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Just caught up and holy crap. Fitz.  Fazana posted:I really liked this show as a rule (Season 1 was great) but by the end of this weeks I was wondering if they have simply gone too far off the deep end. To have that cabal they put together onscreen a few weeks earlier all working together to pull off an election with it culminating in the president getting shot just seemed so out of place with what had gone before in season one etc. Doyle is such a blatantly cartoon villain as well when surrounded by up to now well written good and bad guys for the most part. I actually don't think it's the cabal that put together the shooting - it might have been Millie acting alone, for all we know. Or just Millie and Doyle acting together. Or something entirely out of left field, which is pretty on par for Scandal. I'm surprised at how entertaining and just plain juicy this show has been, and now it's got me interested in Grey's Anatomy, a show that I never watched. Would it be a mistake to dip my toe into that pool?
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| # ? Dec 3, 2012 20:09 |
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futurememory posted:Just caught up and holy crap. Fitz. The first full episode(s) of Grey's that I watched were from season 2: "It's the End of the World" / "As We Know It", otherwise known as the "CODE BLACK" two-parter that started after the Super Bowl. I think I'm in the minority but I LOVED those episodes. It's not representative of Grey's as a whole, which is a firm medical soap, but it's where Rhimes first started to show serious suspense chops. In a way it was a brilliant move to run it after the Super Bowl because it showed that Grey's could be a hell of a lot more than "hot doctors in love" to an audience that was most likely to write it off as such. That's probably where I'd start.
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| # ? Dec 3, 2012 21:30 |
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futurememory posted:Just caught up and holy crap. Fitz. The first three seasons of Grey's is great television. After that there's a lot more variability.
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| # ? Dec 3, 2012 22:00 |
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Wow, this is the first I've heard of the show, sounds pretty interesting. No idea ABC was doing it. Maybe I can catch up over the holidays. I think it's bad (for me anyway) that the only cast member I recognized from name was Kerry Washington.
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| # ? Dec 6, 2012 17:16 |
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movax posted:Wow, this is the first I've heard of the show, sounds pretty interesting. No idea ABC was doing it. Maybe I can catch up over the holidays. Definitely catchup-able, and worth it. The first season was only 6 episodes, and it all ended up piecing together nicely. Everyone on board for tonight?
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 03:01 |
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HOLTY gently caress MELLIE GOT HIT TOO? EDIT: No, someone else. Holy poo poo.
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 03:03 |
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DivisionPost posted:HOLTY gently caress MELLIE GOT HIT TOO? I LITERALLY screamed the same thing out loud! Which would have been an amazing twist. This makeout music is pretty terrible right now though, I have to say.
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 03:10 |
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For the record, I'm pretty sure she'd be president, temporarily, since Fitz is unable to serve. Coming out of Jeff Perry's mouth, though, it might as well be true. drat, dude!
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 03:23 |
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DivisionPost posted:Coming out of Jeff Perry's mouth, though, it might as well be true. drat, dude! Cy is seriously one of the best characters on this show. And oh god THAT WIG.
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 03:29 |
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I'm thinking Fitz was a distraction, Kagan was the real target because she knew about the voting irregularities. The question is, why now?
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 03:40 |
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OH poo poo HUCK WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 04:00 |
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DivisionPost posted:I'm thinking Fitz was a distraction, Kagan was the real target because she knew about the voting irregularities. The question is, why now? You might be right (they did linger on her there at the end) but oh MAN, Huck?! I was seriously not expecting that, and I have no idea what to make of it. And Fitz is no longer president. Oh my. Holy crap.
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 04:01 |
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DivisionPost posted:I'm thinking Fitz was a distraction, Kagan was the real target because she knew about the voting irregularities. The question is, why now? Maybe it has something to do with Cy's husband (can never remember his name for the life of me) traveling to Ohio and finding that rigged voting machine. While that is an interesting theory, and probably the one they'll ultimately go with, it seems a little heavy-handed. I don't pretend to know Secret Service protocol and who has what protections, but I would think the White House Press Secretary would maybe be a bit easier assassination target than the President himself. More of a chance to do it privately, maybe at a residence or on the street instead of out in public and bringing the President into it. But maybe I'm overthinking. And if Fitz recovers does he get the Presidency back? You'd have thought I'd have learned more about the subtleties of the 25th Amendment for all the times I saw it used on 24, but I don't know if they ever went there. Retail Slave fucked around with this message at Dec 7, 2012 around 05:29 |
| # ? Dec 7, 2012 04:53 |
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Also, we did see Huck listening to his shortwave radio at the end of the last episode, correct? I'm wondering if this assassination attempt ties in with trying to protect Olivia in some wild, twisted way. I'm definitely thinking it ties in with James. Good television overall, though.
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 14:15 |
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I wondered if it was Huck when he still hadn't shown up later on but dismissed it as way too far off the beaten track to make a lick of sense. Whoops. Thinking about it, the only main cast members that aren't completely terrible people are Abby and Quinnsey, hmm well David also I suppose. Really not sure where they go from here but I am of course interested to find out, for everything Olivia did for Huck he's going to have a hell of a reason to be chugging all that whiskey. Yes I thought Mellie had been hit as well, one of the earlier camera angles and reactions to the shot made it seem she had been at least tagged by one.
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 14:15 |
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Skimmed her, maybe. Poor Fitz, headshotted. Good thing we have Gabby Giffords as a living example that people can survive that just fine. Hopefully Liv is going to kick some asses for this. This whole season has basically been poo poo getting out of her control, would be nice to see a turnaround.
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| # ? Dec 7, 2012 14:44 |
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This show might as well be called "Watch Kerry Washington React to Things" because that's my favorite part. She's just so pretty and expressive. But in episode news, wtf Huck? Wow, crazy episode.
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| # ? Dec 9, 2012 17:31 |
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I finally got to watch this week's episode, holy hell that was a great hour of TV.
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| # ? Dec 9, 2012 18:35 |
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I just started watching this the other day, and I'm not yet sure what my opinion on it is yet. But I just wanted to say that Cyrus's monologue in the Oval Office in episode four was the best thing so far. I think he's my favorite character.
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| # ? Dec 9, 2012 23:30 |
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This show has a thread yay 
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| # ? Dec 10, 2012 01:11 |
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Just watched the entire first season this evening, yeah. It's pretty drat good. Time to catch season 2!
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| # ? Dec 10, 2012 01:44 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 14:03 |
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Alright I just finished episode 6 and the show just got great all of a sudden.
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| # ? Dec 10, 2012 01:50 |
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