The Catch haters fail to understand what Shondaland is all about

I'll admit it: I avoided Grey's Anatomy for a long time. The medical soap opera genre has never been my favorite and I didn't expect that Grey's would deviate from the norm. But I'm a sucker for quality LGBTQ representation on television, so once I heard that Callie Torres was the greatest openly bisexual character to ever grace the small screen, I knew I was in for a Netflix binge.

That binge didn't turn me into a superfan; I've only been a sporadic Grey's viewer in the years since I caught an episode for the first time. But I did develop an appreciation for the show and for Shonda Rhimes' specific brand of storytelling. What I discovered is that the illnesses of the week that plague Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital each season aren't really the point — just as the latest political maneuverings of President Fitz aren't really the point of Scandal and Annalise Keating's clients aren't really the point of How to Get Away with Murder. No. We watch HTGAWM to see Annalise's maternal affection for Wes develop. We watch Scandal to understand Olivia and Fitz's love for each other. And we watch Grey's for incredibly dynamic and complex characters like Callie Torres. (It's true, she really is the greatest openly bisexual character on television.)

More: The Catch: 7 things we already know about Shonda Rhimes' new show

So when I started reading reviews of Shondaland's latest series, The Catch, I was shocked by how many critics were bogged down by plot. "The main problem is that we’ve seen this movie many times before, down to the feds being on Ben’s tail and the suspicions harbored by his partners in crime," reads Variety's criticism. "A shred of logic means the show would be over before it starts," adds the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "[I]t fails to be anything more than a slickly filmed, appealingly casted collection of plot points telegraphed so far in advance, even Mr. Magoo could spot ’em," argues TV Line.

Um. You guys have seen a Shondaland show before, right?

Of course the plot's not original. Of course the chain of events are flawed and unwieldy. Of course the pilot was predictable. Who cares? None of that is really the point.

More: The Catch: Why I'm not excited for the highly anticipated new show

The reason to watch The Catch is to watch Alice (Mireille Enos) and Christopher/Ben (Peter Krause) as their incredibly complicated romance unfolds. On the surface, the pilot is entirely about breaking the two characters apart — Alice discovers that her fiancé, Christopher, is really a con-artist named Ben, aka the mysterious "Mr. X" she's been trying to track down for ages. Now, Alice and Ben are nemeses, trying desperately to bring each other down. These subsequent cons are likely to be the cases of the week of each new episode this season.

But those stories aren't the reason to care. The reason I'm excited to continue tuning in each week is to better understand Alice and Ben's love for each other. It feels real. It feels deep. It feels dark. There's a moment in the first half of the episode when it seems as though Ben may very well give up everything in his life to protect Alice and the sanctity of their relationship. Perhaps that's his attempt to con the audience, but I don't think it is. I think his love for her is less of an act than he'd like us to believe.

More: Shonda Rhimes' new show The Catch has its own backstage drama

Likewise, Alice's love for Ben is extremely real. She may have loved the nonexistent Christopher first, but she also loved the glimmers of Ben that existed in her fiancé. How is she going to reconcile that now that this love is her rival? If she has to destroy or kill or hurt him, will she be capable of that? Will she be manipulated into harming her friends and colleagues because of her devotion to him? How will her continued love for a man she doesn't entirely know shape her journey this season?

It's early still, but I'm loving these characters. I want to see how their relationship develops and changes over the course of the season. To me, Alice and Ben's dynamic is so clearly the heart of the show, so why would the details of the plot — which are wildly implausible, to be sure — get in the way of my pleasure? Like any Shondaland show, The Catch is about the characters and their connections with one another, and I can't wait to see how they grow as the season progresses.

Excited to watch The Catch? Tune into ABC every Thursday at 10pm/9c.

Will Pheromones Work For You?

Why do some mens have amazing luck with women whilst some of us just fail?  Is it their looks?  No  Much of the time they are as hideous as hell.  It’s not even their persona and very rarely is it their money.  Much of the time these guys are total pricks but nature endowed them with more pheromones than the rest of us.

Pheromones are the invisible chemical messengers that the two sexes secrete that subconsciously transmit information about our viability as a partner.  If you have lot’s pheromones they send a message out to women that you are an ideal sexual match for her.  As a result sexual attraction is generated without the need for looks, money or personality. 



Click here to learn more about pheromone spray



The good news for guys like us is that science has been able to synthetically produce these same pheromones.  You can now buy colognes that contain pheromones.  It’s literally spray on sexual attraction.

The not so great news is that not all pheromone colognes are equal and there are so many to choose from.  There are many different types of pheromones and a good pheromone cologne needs to have the correct blend of the right pheromones at the right concentration.

If you are new to pheromone cologne then you likely won’t know what to expect from wearing them.  Firstly, don’t expect women to be literally throwing themselves at you.  What tends to happen is rather more subtle but still very noticeable.  You can expect to receive more eye contact from women and flirty behavior from them.  Women will just tend to find you more interesting and will stick around you for longer.

Men's pheromone cologne will open doors for you with females and that can boost your confidence meaning you are less likely to come across as being a wimp.  Just don’t let pheromones make an promises that you can’t keep.  If you are dull and boring, women will still suss that out, but it will take her a little while longer.



Visit http://pheromonesense.com/ for more information about buying pheromones.

Survivor's Caleb Reynolds reveals he might not be done with the show

SheKnows: Shortly after your evacuation aired, you streamed a live video on your Facebook page telling fans you will return for another season of Survivor. Is this true? Will you in fact be coming back to play again?

Caleb Reynolds: It has been talked about before. A lot of people have been asking me if I will. That's something I already said yes to. If I get that opportunity — which you never know if I will or not — but if I do, I've already said yes to it. Whether it be an all-star or a second chance, I told them that my bags would be packed. Beast mode is ready for round two.

Image: CBS

More: Caleb Reynolds vows return to Survivor

SK: Walk us through what happened in the challenge that resulted in your intense medical evacuation.

CR: It got to the point where we dug under the logs and got everyone under those to the big circle that we had to dig deep into the sand and find the bags. Once we found the bags, everything was good. I was feeling good. The tribe was still moving and constant. We're all still in a good condition and state of mind. Obviously, I get to the point where I feel myself not sweating anymore. I looked past it. I didn't think of it being anything big. I was like, OK, I'm not sweating, so I'm on the verge of dehydrating. Of course, we just keep going. We get up to the Skee-Ball thing and we just roll a few. I made the first three and I let someone else have a turn so I could take a breather. We had six altogether, but nobody could get the last one in. With me breathing hard and realizing that my body just about had enough, I told Nick to let me go one more time. Three rolls later, I finally made the last ball. I fell to my knees and gave this expression like "thank God this is over" type of thing. I fell to my back, and I just got this real dizzy feeling. My eyes started to get a blotch. When I would blink, they were blurry. I had no clue what it was. I thought maybe I needed some shade where it was a little bit cooler. I walked over to where the shade was and I just collapsed. From that point on, I was in and out. From the IV, the oxygen mask, all the ice and vest being put on me, I don't really remember. I woke up once during it all that I can remember, and Jeff was telling me I was being evacuated. I told him no. I shook my head no. He just continued to say, "I'm sorry, but it's not your choice anymore. The doctors are not allowing you to continue. You're in bad shape." I was out again and then onto the helicopter I went.

Image: CBS

SK: Were you feeling fine that morning?

CR: Oh yeah. I felt good. My body felt fine. It was more just an exhausted [feeling]. You go to bed hungry, you wake up hungry. You go to bed on bamboo, you wake up on bamboo. Sometimes you wake up on the ground. It's rough. It's not memory foam, so you just have a rough time sleeping all night. You're getting bit by bugs, by centipedes that you never knew existed. You just don't sleep good. On top of it, you have no energy, no food, and every time you take a sip of water, it's hot because you just got done boiling it. You just wake up with no energy, and you're just exhausted. Going into the challenge, I knew I had no energy. None of us had energy. We were all exhausted. I went into it normal. I felt good. I felt like it was a normal challenge. Even the first challenges I didn't have any energy. I didn't feel like I was fatigued in any way. I didn't feel like my body was under this heat attack.

Image: CBS

SK: A lot of people have been questioning the safety of holding a challenge like that when the heat was clearly so intense. Do you think it may have been too much?

CR: I'm gonna partially agree. I would say that when it reaches temperatures around 120 degrees, I think at that point, me personally, with heat being a big issue when you're pushing your body through this type of challenge, knowing it takes over an hour and a half to finish it, you automatically assume that maybe they could postpone it. Either do it early in the morning or do it later in the evening when the sun isn't the hottest. We were out there in the hottest time of the day. The people that do these challenges before we go do them, it's just different for them than it is for us. I feel like they kind of know where everything is. They run through these challenges before we go do them to make sure that it all works. One of the interviewers said, "Well, you know, we had our people do this challenge, and it was fine. Nobody was exhausted. It went through smooth." When we got there, everyone was passing out. You got to remember everyone you have doing these challenges, they ate food all night. They ate all morning. On top of it, they've had unlimited drinks of water. They're energized. They're full of fuel. It's not going to be easy to just let them hit heat exhaustion within an hour because they're full of fuel. I think I agree saying that it was a little overboard doing it when it was that hot. Maybe we could've just postponed it to where it wasn't literally the hottest time of day. It could be very dangerous. People die from heat strokes and heat exhaustion. Heat is something to not play with, and possibly they could've changed the time of the challenge.

More: Survivor's most brutal season ever lands Elisabeth Markham in hospital

Image: CBS

SK: So are you mad about the way the challenge was handled?

CR: No. Not at all. I have no regrets. I'm not upset. I believe that I went out the best way that I could. I would have rather not got voted out. I'm not a quitter. At that point in the game, I went out the only way I was able to go out. I'm not mad. I don't have any remorse. I'm not upset at anyone. I gave it my all. It's not their fault that happened to me, because I could've sat down and took some breathers just like everyone else. I could've backed away from my energy level, set back and let my body chill. But I didn't. I did it all myself. I pushed myself over my limit. I drew a line in the sand with my toes, and I crossed it. I drew another one and I crossed that one, too. I ended up pushing myself a lot further than my body would allow it to go.

Image: CBS

SK: The episode was filmed nearly a full year ago. What was it like reliving that moment, watching it on TV all these months later?

CR: When it all started happening, I was like, "Here we go. This is what I went through last year." It wasn't really much. Then I started to see Tai, and I started to see Julia and everyone on my tribe get really emotional. Then I see my mom sitting next to me, she starts to get emotional and crying. I look over at my fiancée, and her eyes are tearing up. I had my family messaging me saying, "Gosh, this is so hard to watch." They were upset they couldn't even help me. It was emotional. For me, it was more watching everyone else, and their emotion is what got me emotional. If I was awake during all of it and hating life, it would have been much different to know this sucks and I'm hurting right now. I wasn't, though. I was passed out. I don't remember any of it. It was an emotional time because that's me. That's like me to go out that way. I have no limits to myself. Sometimes it's good to have a limit. In a way, if I would have put myself on a limit, maybe we would've lost and one of us would have went home. That's what I think about when I go to put myself on a limit. Like, hey, your body is starting to overheat and you need to slow down. I don't think that way. I think, give it all you've got until you're finished. Then you can take a break. The emotional side was watching everyone else [get] emotional, and watching everyone else hurting because of what I went through. I didn't know my tribe felt some of those things about me. Nick said he thought I was invincible. It seems they thought I was like some superhero that was untouchable. That was a very humbling moment for me, because it proved that I'm not that guy they thought I was. The whole experience, just watching everyone else's emotion, is what was emotional for me. They put the game aside and really cared about my well-being. They cared about me as a person enough to sob and cry over me being hurt and injured in that kind of way.

More: Survivor has its best bromance ever

Image: CBS

Do you think Caleb deserves another shot at playing the game again? Do you think the challenge was too dangerous, or is that the name of the game? What surprised you most about Caleb's answers here? Join the conversation and leave a comment now.