Author / Nerdy Spice

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Posts by Nerdy Spice

http://advers.io Formerly "kht" I grew up playing Disney-movie-based games with my baby sister. I majored in English in college, got a graduate degree in creative writing, and then found myself earning a living as a software engineer. I'm working on my second novel and querying agents for my first. I eats home-cooked meals only when my husband Keets makes them for me, and he is still trying to teach me how to turn on the oven. Interests: Victorian novels, modern MFA novels and I'm not ashamed of it, super-long novels that aren’t by David Foster Wallace, Michael Chabon, Claire Messud, Henry James, feminism, movies with Robert Downey Jr. in them, TV shows with Connie Britton in them, Pacey Witter, 90s teenybopper movies with training montages, The Good Wife, Homeland, Tina Fey’s entire oeuvre, Mindy Kaling’s entire oeuvre, shows from the WB/CW circa 2004, and JJ Abrams.
by Nerdy Spice

Nashville Recap: 4×15 “When There’s a Fire In Your Heart”

Previously on Nashville: Star Autumn Chase almost took Layla on tour with her, then went with Scarlett and Gunnar instead; Maddie thought something might be wrong with Colt; some girl named Vita stole from Deacon and disappeared, which somehow made Rayna really passionate about helping troubled girls; Luke asked Will to come back to his label; and Juliette quit a movie to be with her daughter.

Scarlett and Gunnar are in Dallas to join Autumn Chase’s tour. Scarlett is freaking out about “remeeting” Autumn—even her hair, which has a sort of “twelve-year-old boy who just woke up” vibe to it right now, looks freaked out. Gunnar light-heartedly teasing her for her fangirlishness, so she teases him back about his love for James Taylor.

They arrive at Autumn’s tour meeting, and Autumn gives them big hugs and a glowing introduction to her crew. Scarlett gushes under her breath to Gunnar about how amazing Autumn is, only to watch Autumn wrap up the meeting by coolly firing a guy in front of everyone. She strolls away, and Scarlett and Gunnar make “oh fuck” faces.

Nashville 415 ohfuck

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by Nerdy Spice

The Good Wife – A Farewell at the Tribeca Film Festival

I went to a Tribeca Film Festival screening today of tonight’s new episode of The Good Wife, followed by a discussion with Robert King, Michelle King, Julianna Margulies, Matt Czuchry, and Cush Jumbo about the show and the upcoming finale.

First of all, the episode was fabulous. You should all watch it. The drama kicks up for both the clients and the main characters, and some of our favorite guest stars are back (notably Dillinger and the rest of the NSA crew, plus the inimitable Kurt McVeigh). Cary makes a sad-eyed appearance, and there’s also an amazing moment between Peter and Alicia that shows so many layers of how they feel about each other. I’ll be recapping it later on, but yeah. Tune in tonight.

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by Nerdy Spice

Nashville Recap: 4×14 “What I Cannot Change”

Previously on Nashville: Will was gay, and Luke dropped him; Will met a girl who released her album independently; Deacon turned the Bluebird into the Deacon and Rayna and Beverly Show, so Frankie relapsed; Avery agreed to let Juliette have supervised visits with Cadence; and Vita stole from Deacon and Frankie, and Rayna found her car all burned up in the parking lot of a motel.

We open on Juliette. Juliette’s back, guys! YAY. Juliette (sporting a new tousled bob, and a soft pink sweater that I think represents her newly warm and fuzzy spirit), is changing Cadence in a pink-wall-papered, golden-lit room. It’s all one big Hallmark card to motherhood for a moment.

Nashville 414 Juliette and baby

She kisses and sweet-talks the baby until the therapist, with Emily looking on smiling, tells her it’s time to go. Juliette gives her to Emily with a little bit of sadness but no fireworks and then tells her therapist, “I’m sad to see her go. But other than that I feel good.” They agree she’s ready to go home.

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by Nerdy Spice

The Good Wife Recap: 7×18 “Unmanned”

Max Medina Versus the Drone

Alicia is called to court one morning by Diane for another Dipple case. (For the uninitiated, Dipple is the Republican that has manipulated Diane into tying herself in knots playing “devil’s advocate” for various conservative causes.) In court, Diane’s on her own till Alicia shows up (late from a rendezvous with Jason and grinning to herself like a college kid who missed the first five minutes of a lecture because she was getting laid).

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by Nerdy Spice

Nashville Recap: 4×13 “If I Could Do It All Again”

 

Previously on Nashville: Maddie told Frankie’s daughter Cash that she and Colt went all the way, and Cash told her to write it in a song; Avery and Juliette got divorced and went public, while Layla gloated in the background; Luke invited an old friend back on tour with him; Will got harassed and attacked when he first tried to perform in Nashville; a girl named Vita showed up and Rayna thought her voice was amazing, but it turned out she slept in a car in a parking lot and Frankie thinks she made off with $500 from the bar.

Morning at the James mansion, and Rayna’s staring into the distance over coffee. She says she wants to get to the bottom of the issue, and asks if Frankie could’ve miscounted. Deacon says Frankie’s sure the money’s gone. Both Deacon and Rayna have tried to call Vita, and she hasn’t answered. Not a good sign! But being the irrepressibly optimistic judges of human nature that they are, they agree to see if Vita shows up for her scheduled meeting with Rayna, or her scheduled shift at the Dead Sister Bar. (I refuse to call it the Beverly and have rechristened it to a more fittingly rock’n’roll title.)

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by Nerdy Spice

Nashville Recap: 4×12 “How Does It Feel to Be Free”

Previously on Nashville: Erin and Gunnar were casual and announced this fact ad nauseam. Rayna signed Maddie and Daphne to Highway 65. Luke owed the government forty million dollars, which was secretly a positive development for him because it caused Gabriella to dump him and stop sucking away all of his moral and spiritual life force. Colt saw Jeff saving Juliette and told Layla that was what killed him. Layla got the Crazy Eyes and asked Glenn to be her manager and made him ask Avery to produce for her. And Avery didn’t want to lie for Juliette anymore.

Oh, and Rayna and Deacon got married after what looked like it might be a serious problem (both Maddie and Tandy’s legitimate concerns about Deacon’s demons, and Daphne’s even more legitimate concern that no one actually cares about her) but ended with the cheapest, fastest resolution ever, in which Rayna sat her kids down for about four seconds, promised them there was nothing to worry about, and convinced them, presumably with the power of her hair, to shut up. We’ll be recapping that one, but we fell behind, so just trust us if you haven’t seen it… it was absurd, and the previouslys wisely don’t bother going into it.

Avery busts into the treatment center and asks for Juliette with a look of barely controlled passion. Any relation? asks the receptionist. “I’m her husband,” he announces dramatically.

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by Nerdy Spice

The Good Wife Recap: 7×17 “Shoot”

 

Guns

The episode opens with a shamelessly sentimental montage of a father and daughter as the daughter, Yesha, grows up: playing on the rug, going to her first day of school, planning on her education, going to prom. The father is played by Blair Underwood, who is not going to get a whole lot to do in the rest of this episode. After the prom, the little girl, now almost grown, shares a glass of chocolate milk with her father in the kitchen.

A car screeches outside, and the father leaps to the ground—but Yesha is shot in the neck. He yells to his wife to call 911 as he gathers her in his arms, both crying.

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by Nerdy Spice

Hilary Mantel’s Characters

A commotion at the door. It is Christophe. He cannot enter in the ordinary way; he treats doors as his foe.

When it became de rigueur a few years back for every book club to sweat over the first two installments of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy and its dense prose about Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII, I had no interest in joining the crowd. (This was mostly due to a general lack of interest in history about which I should probably feel more guilty than I, in fact, do.) But an article in the NYRB excerpting Hilary Mantel’s directions to the actors in the stage adaptation changed my mind.

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by Nerdy Spice

Nashville Recap: 4×10 “We’ve Got Nothing But Love to Prove”

 

Previously on Nashville: Scarlett and Caleb fought because of their long-distance woes; Colt ran away from Luke because he was done pretending; Wade Cole told Will his fans didn’t like Will’s lifestyle; Rayna told Markus that Deacon was her guy (because Deacon was being a huge fucking baby) and signed Maddie and Daphne; Avery got full custody of Cadence; and Juliette went to rehab, but Emily didn’t tell Avery.

At a big field, setup is underway for a concert while Rayna and Bucky pedeconference. Bucky’s a bit worried about Markus ending up with a half-empty lawn. A young woman with a headset comes up to tell them that even though Rayna sent Markus off to get wired for sound, he never showed. “What?” Rayna says, utterly shocked that Markus would not show up somewhere he was expected to show up, because she has learned nothing in the past three months.

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by Nerdy Spice

Retro Recap: Keeping up with the Kardashians

So, it is probably fairly obvious if you follow this blog that Keeping up with the Kardashians is not the kind of show that any of us at Adversion would normally be watching. But my friend S. is turning twenty-nine tomorrow, so I am—at her request—writing a recap of an episode of her favorite show. Funnily enough, in this episode, being twenty-nine is a huge plot point—and I honestly had no idea until I’d started watching it.

Well, here goes. Happy birthday, S.!

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