#I mock thomas so much but he deserved a chance to develop as a character

[alexisntedgy]

thomas is such an interesting character because everything he does is so affected by his trauma. and even though there’s layers to that trauma, all of those layers stem from or ultimately come back to one event (his death). his trauma is complex, but at the same time it happened in a millisecond.

we don’t see other characters react the way he does to sudden loud noises (save for the captain at times, but that’s just him I think) or have the obviously deeply flawed thought processes he has. he’s stuck in a cycle of almost recreating the build-up to the traumatic event or searching for the same thing over and over again (women who look like Isabelle did, frankly). obsessing over things, but especially women, to the point where at times he is actively trying to convince himself he’s in love.

we see this very clearly in season 3 with his rapid switching of love interests between two women who happen to look alike, and he even twists Mary’s words so it affirms to him that what he is experiencing is infatuation and not a very, very long lived and deeply ingrained trauma response.

his lack of boundaries is not okay by any means, but ultimately I’ve met so many people with complex trauma (which I also have) who have shockingly similar thought patterns. his understanding of love is both immature/underdeveloped and tainted by the pain his mind associates with it by default.

final note for this rant: the fact thomas touches his wound when romance or death are brought up is such a clever detail regarding all of this.

#I mock thomas so much but he deserved a chance to develop as a character #I really think somebody could’ve broken those walls of flawed and intense thinking down #it does make sense that he never quite reached that point though #because he didn’t even find out how he actually died until season 2 #which probably made everything even worse lmao #like even the captain was entirely himself by the end of the show #thomas was still locked behind those Trauma Doors ya know #bbc ghosts #ghosts #six idiots #thomas thorne #thomas ghosts

[statusquoergo]

Pour one out for the total lack of Mike Ross callouts in this episode; I guess they filled up their pre-episode 5 quota with that deluge last time.

In any event, we get the ball rolling this time with a reminder that Samantha served…somewhere…at some point… Not that the specifics matter overmuch, I just think that if they want to make this such a key feature of her personality, they should invest some time in fleshing it out instead of tossing a reference in whenever it’s convenient. Anyway her old Marines buddy Lucas was fired from SW Industries for botching a DoD contract, he suspects nepotism is at play, and she takes the case pro bono even though he’s got his pride and tries to turn down her charity.

Smash cut to Donna and Harvey visiting Louis at home, before work, to formally divulge to him their new relationship status, and the revelation that Louis apparently wears Speedos instead of underwear, because I super needed to know that. Louis is again explicitly mocked for not getting that they’re dating as Harvey marvels that he ever got through law school, and I, for one, am over it. “It” being this show’s treatment of Louis’s character. He’s mature until he’s not, he’s growing until he has the same setback for the fifth time in a row, he’s coming into his own until he can’t control his emotions or make a rational decision to save his life. I’m done with being told to laugh derisively at his cluelessness and his quirky habits while simultaneously being asked to admire his devotion to saving his firm at any cost as he insists that a man’s character is his most valuable asset. Louis could have developed into a really interesting character, but they can’t seem to stop shooting themselves in the foot every time they have the chance.

Side note, am I the only one who thought Harvey’s smile at “we’re happy” looked more like a grimace? Boy’s got some inner conflicts to work out.

Back at the firm, I do my very best to ignore the fact that the Bar Association doesn’t have the authority to install a special master, and a special master doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally decide to take over a law firm, as Faye Richardson steps right into my good graces with a severely truncated list of the firm’s biggest grievances. Namely, Jessica’s and Robert’s disbarments, Mike’s prison term (this doesn’t count as a callout, she doesn’t even name him), and the firm’s higher-ups definitely having been a party to the fraud, even though they were never charged. She undercuts it a little by “wiping the slate clean of everything [they’ve] ever done,” but I mean at least she’s there, so that’s a start. Her first act as supreme overlord is to take Robert’s name off the wall, at which point Samantha flips her shit and does herself precisely zero favors by promising to dig up dirt on Faye if she goes through with it; Faye, who’s apparently used to reactions like that, gives no fucks, informing them that their “days of operating however [they] want are over,” and all I have to say about that is better late than never.

Samantha’s reaction to all this is to threaten to quit rather than seek permission she won’t get to take Lucas’s case, and Harvey, who wasn’t the managing partner even before Faye showed up, takes it upon himself to give her permission to keep the case by lying that she took it last night rather than that morning and I don’t know who’s using the shared single brain cell right now, but I think Harvey needs to borrow it for a minute. Louis and Alex bitch at each other about whose fault it is that Faye is there at all and Gretchen, who’s apparently worked at every law firm in the city, confides that as managing partner at her old firm, Faye stripped her husband’s name from the wall and fired him for crossing “some kind of line,” indicating that she is in fact a cold-hearted bitch, but also giving Louis the idea that she does care about the Bar, and this is going to end well, I’m sure.

In her first move of actually making a move, Faye asks Donna, in her role as the firm’s COO, to set up a meeting with Thomas Kessler so Faye can ask him why he left. Donna snidely informs her that she has a reputation for solving problems rather than hiding them, and I’d like to bring to the court’s attention the events of “Break Point” (s02e05), in which Donna quite consciously and to potentially devastating effect went out of her way to hide a problem. By shredding it. In a shredder.

Donna promises to set up this meeting and then rushes to warn Harvey about it, and they have a very weird exchange that I honestly don’t know how to interpret. To wit, Harvey says that he knows she’ll disagree with him, but Faye needs to go; of course Donna doesn’t disagree, but like, why did he think she would? The whole firm was pretty abrasive toward Faye in that first meeting, and they all know just how many skeletons are buried under the floorboards; why would any of them want her around?

Cue flirty banter and my first major Darvey red flag of the evening: Harvey says it’s unlike Donna to not try to talk him out of it. Ignoring the fact that “it” is a vague concept rather than a concrete plan, this overt admission that their dynamic is him doing stuff and her trying to convince him not to do that stuff doesn’t do much to convince me that this relationship is particularly functional, or healthy, or makes either of them especially happy. They go back and forth on which of them became less uptight since they fucked (“Since we, uh.” “Since we what?” “Nothing. Since we nothing.” “That’s right.”) and Harvey declares that between the two of them, he’s the one acting consistently, and if by that he means “shoving his emotional turmoil way down deep until he’s almost walking on it and pretending everything’s fine until it explodes,” then yes, I have to agree.

Next up we have Samantha barging into Lucas’s former place of business to accuse the CEO of wrongful termination, her main argument seeming to be that Lucas deserves his job because he’s a veteran. The CEO informs her that “Lucas was far from perfect,” including missing work at crunch time and apparently assaulting an employee to the point of needing medical care; after beating us over the head with these hints that Lucas has post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he sends Samantha on her way, and here’s hoping they don’t botch this too badly.

Louis continues to erode my faith in his character by storming into Benjamin’s office—yes, Benjamin, the IT guy, who “just set up [Faye’s] firewall this morning,” because that’s a thing—to demand that he find a loophole in the Bar’s 3000-page long, non-digitized bylaws that’ll allow him to get rid of Faye. Couple things here: One, Benjamin is in IT, he doesn’t know how to find a loophole in the bylaws. Two, the New York State Bar Association’s bylaws are 41 pages long, including amendments and indices, and they’re available online, for free, in PDF format.

Part II

#suits usa #season 9 #s09e02 #analysis

[sportticketexchange]

Euro 2020 – Remembering EURO 96 classics of Germany vs England

Home nation England were riding the crest of a wave at EURO '96 – at least until they met Germany in the semis. Euro 2020 fans can book England Vs Croatia Tickets on our website on exclusively discounted prices.

Context

'Football's Coming Home' – so went the song reverberating around England with ever increasing belief as EURO '96 unfolded. The hosts opened with a nervy 1-1 draw with Switzerland but a 2-0 win against Scotland followed by a barnstorming 4-1 success over the Netherlands sent them through to the quarter-finals in style. Victory over Spain on penalties only served to reinforce the view that this was their time.

Germany's path to the last four had been serene enough, group stage wins against Czech Republic (2-0) and Russia (3-0) preceding a goalless draw with Italy. They edged Croatia 2-1 in the quarter-finals to set up another meeting with England, against whom they had needed a penalty shoot-out to prevail at the same stage of the 1990 FIFA World Cup.

Key players

Andreas Möller: The man who struck the winning spot kick, Möller was one of the most talented playmakers of his generation. He made his name mostly with Borussia Dortmund and Juventus, winning European honours with both. A World Cup and EURO winner with Germany to boot, he's now involved in youth development.

Stefan Kuntz: Coach of his country's Under-21s since 2016, Kuntz was a prolific scorer in his playing days although his goal in this game was one of only six he registered for Germany. He holds the record for most German caps (25) without ever suffering defeat.

Gareth Southgate: The centre-back was reunited with Kuntz while coaching England U21s but has since been promoted to the senior job and widely praised for bringing through perhaps his country's most exciting crop of talent for years. His volunteering to take a spot kick underlined his character; subsequently he featured in a TV advert mocking that miss.

What happened

When Alan Shearer headed Terry Venables' side in front after three minutes, it seemed their momentum was such that nothing would stop them. It was not long, though, before Kuntz poked Germany level from close range. Teddy Sheringham, Shearer and Thomas Helmer all went close but extra time was required. Cue agony for England.

Darren Anderton hit a post and Paul Gascoigne was just centimetres from connecting on the goal line with Shearer's cross. Both teams had a 100% record in the ensuing shoot-out by the time Southgate stepped up for England's sixth penalty; it was saved, allowing Möller to win it for Germany.

Reaction

Andreas Köpke, Germany goalkeeper: "None of us could walk straight. The fight over 120 minutes was insane. England deserved it just as much as we did. Luck was on my side to save one of the penalties. All the previous ones had been taken really well."

Fredi Bobic, Germany striker: "I had goosebumps when the English fans were singing the anthem before the penalty shoot-out. It was an unbelievably tense atmosphere. We had so many injured players and we witnessed that not the best team wins, but the best squad."

Stefan Kuntz, Germany goalscorer: "England usually don't reach the fifth set of penalties. When they did, my heart was in my pants. I wanted to shoot it low but it went in high."

Terry Venables, England manager: "The players can be very proud of themselves, as can everyone who has been involved in the past five weeks. It's a shame not to get to the final, we've done our very best. I thought our performance in the second half was excellent and really we had the chances to finish it off in extra time. But it wasn't to be."

Aftermath

Oliver Bierhoff came off the bench to draw Germany level with Czech Republic in the final before winning them the trophy with a 95th-minute golden goal. The tournament marked the end of an era for England, with Glenn Hoddle already lined up to replace Venables regardless of how the team fared.

We are offering Euro Cup Tickets so Football fans can get Euro 2020 Tickets through our trusted online ticketing market place. SportTicketExchange.com is the most reliable source to book Euro Cup 2020 tickets.

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