Even before the attacks, expectations had been building that the ECB would use its next policy meeting in December to unveil further support.
And yet write-director Sofia Coppola grabbed me from that first scene - so obviously a challenge to an audience, so deliberate in its attack on expectations.
The substance of To Miss With Love is an attack on low expectations and political correctness.
Adriana Reisfeld, the president of Active Memory, a group representing relatives of people killed in the attack, said her expectations were low that the diplomatic overtures with Iran would lead to closure.
Over the course of the evening, the guests talk about the baby's nursery theme, a bobcat attack, spirituality, maternal expectations, infidelity, the bidding for Salman Rushdie's memoir, a Hmong immigrant's trial.
Because certain Christians have assumed their religious worldview as normative, laws that affirm, for example, marriage equality may seem an attack on presumed expectations of Christian norms.
By early December, German forces were only a few kilometres from the Kremlin when they were subject to a sudden counter-attack; against all expectations, the Soviet side succeeded in holding the German army back from complete victory.
When an attack happens, the expectation at MI5 is that, if they are doing their job properly, the name will be in the agency's record somewhere – as was the case with Masood – given its job is to identify people with extremist views.
The organizers thought they had prepared well for this exigency, but the scale of the attack exceeded all their expectations.
The Red Army fought its way to the village of Izabelin, only 8 miles (13 km) from the city, but the Polish attack succeeded beyond wildest expectations.
