I have seen a criminally-low amount of appreciation for the best character in phm: Carl. he's a straight-talkin' security guy with a sense of humour. he's Grace's scientist-minder and biggest enabler. Mr 'we don't have a budget... but hey the sun is dying money'll be worthless if this fails anyway so have at it'. he's bowling with tape and tinfoil in a home depot. he's rocking the sunglasses. he's buying 40 packs of skittles and handing them out to everybody in the building. he's with the government. all of them. he's the layman to Grace's scientist who can provide the outside perspective he needs to solve the astrophage conundrum. he's "Carl, are you sitting?" / "No, I'm standing like a grown man." / "We're fathers." / "Now I'm sitting." he is one of the characters of all time

UPDATE: I happened to have all the ingredients for the spinach muffins on this list and made them today, and folks, they're GOOD. They have a very nice mild flavor and don't actually taste like spinach at all

God aunt lydia is such a Character of all Time. I don't think I've ever simultaneously despised, felt sorry for, and completely rooted for a character so much

I hate you Wilbur soot. You and Tyler catastrophe deserve each other. Have a bad day ✌️

I like to think that since Grace is a schoolteacher who never swears and Rocky is an engineer who does swear (a lot, I like to believe), and neither of them are translators/linguists and they were mostly focused on getting the science vocabulary right, that means that a few years later, a hypothetical first (technically second) contact message from Erid to Earth might sound to us something like: "Well, hello there, human friends of Earth! Golly, those astrophage sure were some pesky little buggers, right? We noticed your sun has started to regain its luminosity so that means our intergalactic group project was a success for both of our planets! Top marks! Golden star sticker! Smiley face sticker! Anyway, now that that little snafu is over, we'd love to remain in contact with you! Kind regards, the people of Erid". Meanwhile, if humans were the ones to send a first (technically second) contact message to Eridians, it might sound to them like "Hey, 'sup, fuckers. We the motherfucking humans of Earth are fucking ecstatic to know our badass Eridian neighbors also managed to deal with the $*%€$#@*& astrophage crisis. I shit you not, for a while things here were a bit [thirty seconds of unairable audio], but now that that clusterfuck is over we'd love to keep in touch with you! Ok, byeee bitches, xoxo humanity"