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  • Game of Thrones.

    Season's penultimate episode.

    Spoilers.

    *****

    Oh hell yes! FINALLY! This is what I was expecting to see all season long! An entire episode at the Wall! I mean, yeah, great fight scenes and all. Actually, it was done real well. Don't mean to gloss over that, but, y'know, what the fuck ever. Did you see the layout of the place?

    The way it opens with those wide shots of the land? Then the warning horn hanging from the wood frame. Standing watch. Looking out over everything with the winter wind cutting through you. Then the walkways. Wood frames built into the stone and ice, torches everywhere. Got to see the elevator go up and down repeatedly, and saw the kid powering it. A LIBRARY! Got a scene of two people having a conversation in the library. Got to see a room where they have cold storage for the food. Got to see a couple rooms where they do food prep. Got to see other watch stations. That cool-ass tunnel that runs underneath the Wall. More layout of the, I don't know what you call it, but where they would practice in prior episodes, and also where they keep livestock and stuff... got to see lots of that area. Various hallways and stations... as much of the Wall as we've ever been able to see. FINALLY! Those giants with the wooly mammoths were awesome. Found it strange that they called them wooly mammoths, actually. It was to real-world for my taste, though I couldn't tell you why. I'm probably forgetting some parts of the Wall set-up, but it was all very cool. I loved how they broke the ice wall as a way of killing the climbers. And the wolf! We got to see the white wolf in action briefly. And the only annoying character in the episode was the Downton Abbey archer check, and SHE GOT KILLED! AWESOME! I'm even starting to not find Joe Snow as irritating as I have in the past, but that may be because he didn't have too many lines this episode. ANOTHER WIN!

    Oh shit, and that cool owl! I knew (as did all of you, I'm sure) that the weird statue looking woman was going to be alive and be seeing things through the owl. Despite its predictability, it was still way awesome. I mean, you just can't go wrong with an owl familiar, yeah?

    This is what I expected the entire season to be like. Battles and the Wall followed by the interludes in between battles, and then maybe a third of each episode to focus on Tyriol and Castle Blandings and court intrigue... maybe a contrast between the throne society not really paying attention to what's happening at the wall, even dismissing it and continuing with their subtle intrigues and devious plans and then showing the brutality and sparseness of the Wall life and fighting and the northern territories. No Daria & the Dragons, no legless Stark kid and his Fob friends, no Theo and the Torture Garden, no pervy red-headed witch woman and her army of no charisma, no Aria and Dog, no giant lady knight woman and her bumbling squire, and definitely no Samsa... just scenes at the Wall and scenes at Castle Blanding.

    This season still sucks big time, and this episode doesn't nearly make up for the fact that they tanked this season, but, at long last, for far too long, a truly great GoT episode that has me all ramped up and wanting to go for a quick hike to burn off the adrenaline, and then come back for another episode.

    /monies
    /serious
    /serious
    /monies
  • "Xxxxx and her army of no charisma" just has to become a band name for someone.
  • edited June 2014
    "legless Stark kid?? That's cold, man. He's got legs, he just don't know how to use them. Besides, he's studying for his lead role as Dead Legs in the forthcoming re-make, "Westeros Of Zanzibar.".
  • Not to be a Smug Book Reader [TM] but I was just texting with a friend about the sheer volume of stuff they have to get through in the Game of Thrones finale, even just including the stuff I'm sure will be in it based on the preview and leaks on the message board (ie. someone found the Emmy submission for makeup for the finale which has a fuller description than you usually get). Battle scenes always fail to hold my interest no matter how technically well executed so last ep was a bit of a throwaway for me (and the thing I kept wanting/expecting to happen didn't, something else to cram into the finale!) - except for the ice scythe, the ice scythe was awesome - just marking time til next week.

    Here's the guy who plays the Mountain deadlifting a lazy thousand pounds. As you do.
  • Battle scenes always fail to hold my interest no matter how technically well executed so last ep was a bit of a throwaway for me

    I'm in agreement with you there. I find the battle scenes in GoT the least compelling parts. I was just go grateful to finally get a tour of the Wall that I didn't mind it was a battle scene. I would have been even happier if the entire episode simply had different vignettes of things happening around the different parts of the Wall, just as a build-up to the big battle.

    In addition to the ice-scythe, I also enjoyed see the flaming arrows cut an arc through the winter sky and then hit snow with a thump. And the ice giants. They were cool, too, with those wooly mammoths.
  • I found this last ep simultaneously well-executed but underwhelming, in that almost no plot element budged. I will say that letting Ghost out just to show him maul a single dude instead of wreaking havoc across the courtyard was a head-scratcher. Why bother?
  • Also, that giant cannibal dude launched Joe Snow's face into many walls and heavy objects, yet after the battle was over, his mug looked none the worse for wear. I'm starting to think that maybe his brooding mopey looks are actually magic faces that protect him from harm. Is that something that's in the books?
  • Game of Thrones theme, Dixieland version
  • Does anyone watch Orange is the New Black? Last night we watched one where the Electrician Guy asked Caputo, "why do you assume that I smoke?" And Caputo answered "because you're from Oswego." Well proudly I was born and raised in Oswego, a tiny upstate New York town. And it does have a lot of smokers. I knew a lot of smokers just in high school. So thought I'd share, since it would have flown over anyone's head who's not from Oswego.
  • Yes, I watch. Thanks for the reference. I think there have been other times where it really felt like New York.
  • Poussay was such an incredible character this season.
  • edited June 2014
    In terms of television, my current viewing is almost totally dominated by the World Cup. So far there is a game at 5.00pm UK time followed by another at 8.00pm. The third game kicks off at 11.00pm, so those I have watched the next morning, other than the England v Italy game last Saturday that I had to watch live until its 1.00am finish. I saw a couple of amazing (for different reasons) games last night. Australia had the lead twice against Holland, who eventually got a third to win. Then Chile beat Spain to knock out the Champions in the first stage. England again tonight but with a 8.00pm start - I'm hopeful rather than expectant against Uruguay!
  • edited June 2014
    Meh. World Cup. Google's logo has also been dominated by that. Yawn. To each, their own.

    Smug Book Reader. OMG, that made me laugh. Wonderful!
    Perhaps I will become a Smug Book Reader of "Orange is the New Black", because my library has along wait list on that DVD, not so much the book. Thanks to amclark2 for the rec, sounds hilarious. My brother recently got arrested and I was telling him about it. I wonder if it explores the high price family members have to pay to keep in touch with the incarcerated.

    jonahpwll, where is your craxy dismissive recap of the GOT season finale?

    Also - my son told me about a malware named Evil Maid* this afternoon, which reminded me of a time when I was onsite at a tech place and I figured out this gal on the cleaning crew vacuuming after midnight was causing the customer's setup to go haywire. The customer's shop was crap wiring to begin with, and the vacuum sent it over the edge. So tonight, I turned on "Halt and Catch Fire" and there was a maid vacuuming in the opening scenes. Made me chuckle.

    I have had fun looking up the tracks they play in "Halt and Catch Fire". Got an XTC album from my Guvera credits as a result.

    *where a hacker who looks like cleaning crew goes into a server room and sticks a USB into a server and corrupts it for evil hacking purposes
  • edited June 2014
    Okay, you asked for it, here it comes...

    Game of Thrones season finale

    Spoilers, yeah, probably.

    .....

    -I really liked the opening, with Joe Snow going out to meet with the Snow King. No, that's not right. It's not Joe. James. james Snow. I really liked the opening with James Snow going out to meet with the Snow King. Some of those camera shots were fantastic, the way they shifted seamlessly between the blurry shots, the medium shots of Snow approaching the camera, and the variety of wide shots from different angles. And, of course, the snowy landscape.

    -I also liked the dialog between Snow and the Snow King. It was almost like the old good GoT. The volley where the snow king and Snow talked about the giant going into the tunnel, and how the Snow King talked about the giant's lineage, and Snow said, "[name] came from a farm." There was good stuff there. James Snow is starting to grow on me a bit.

    -Great, so Captain No Charisma is still around, and by beating the Wildlings, apparently he's going to become more prominent in the storyline. Whatever. Boring!

    -Speaking of Captain No Charisma and those cool camera shots, that one at the funeral pyre and the blurriness from the heat, and the way the creepy redheaded witch chick is peering through it... that's another great shot. Well, aside from the fact that she was in it.

    -Another great shot was the tree that the legless Stark kid and his Fob friends were looking for. It seems like this whole season has had great camerawork and set pieces and shots. Apparently that's where they blew their budget, forgetting, obviously, to hire writers. Terrible season. What a waste of time.

    -From the department of no good news without bad news too... Just when I get excited that one of those Fob kids is killed off, it looks like there's gonna be a whole bunch of other annoying kids running around the show, with fire powers and even more annoying bad acting and hackneyed lines. That old man in the tree. What a fucking cliche. He alone, with his stupid fire kids, is enough to make me not even want to pick this declining show back up next season.

    -By the way, what's up with those awful skeletons coming out of the ice. Am I the only one that thought they were just splicing in some of the special effects from an Evil Dead movie? I was expecting Bruce Campbell to suddenly spring up and save the day.

    -That scene with the dragons was heartbreaking, I'll admit. But it was a cheap shot at the heartstrings. They can't actually get anything going with Daria's storyline, so they go for the easy emotional cheapshots. Even worse, the only reason to watch that storyline was the dragons. But if now they're getting rid of them...? Oh, WTF, I so hope they just make her storyline go away next season. It is such a drag on the show.

    -So, that's great that Tyriol killed his father (who, I think, doesn't even have a name. Did they just call him father or Father Lancaster?). I think it's funny that the episode aired on Father's Day. Tyriol did the best he could with those scenes, but seriously, they gave him nothing to work with. He's the best actor on the show, and they are way underusing him. Dumb Dumb Dumb!!!

    -Well, it's good to see that Sherrie has finally gotten over that whole getting raped by her brother on the corpse of their dead son thing. Glad to know that they can move on and finally have a fulfilling incestuous relationship.

    -So, Dog is dead. That's good. Some nice shots of Dog and the Blonde Gawky Knight fighting. I appreciate that the swords went away pretty quick and it was all about bashing in each others heads with rocks. I somewhat recall that being mentioned in a high school humanities class or maybe it was grade school history... something about those battles between knights not being nearly as glamorous as the movies made them out to be, that the swords and the armor were so heavy, that it usually got down to cracking open skulls with fists or rocks.

    -If Dog isn't, in fact, dead, and he's back at some future season, well fuck you, GoT writers/producers/creators. So tired of that character.

    -James Snow started a funeral pyre in a forested area. I mean, I know it's winter and all, but damn, couldn't you have built the damn thing away from the trees, maybe in any one of those huge fucking fields we saw from above when they did the birds-eye-view of Captain No Charisma's army attacking?

    -So, what's the deal with the big guy who killed the sex addict? Is he gonna come back next season as half man-half manticore? Guh, whatever. Boring!

    -I guess everyone is off to have a big adventure. Tyriol and the Spider Dude are off to somewhere. Aria is off to Bravos. Samsa is at that breast feeding queen's castle. Theo is off to kill his father. Lots of wide shots of characters on ships, looking off to the horizon and their big futures. WhatEVER! Yawn. What an awful season.

    -Speaking of awful, I didn't think the theme song could get any worse, but then they go and Enya-ize the theme for the roll credits. Something so damn appropriate about that for this shitty little season.

    /monies
  • Oh good grief. Quit picking on the theme song. It's wonderful.
    Bwahahaha. Thanks for you recap. It had me laughing.
    Yes, everyone is off to have a big adventure! Without bending a knee. Or paying monies.
  • James Snow started a funeral pyre in a forested area. I mean, I know it's winter and all, but damn, couldn't you have built the damn thing away from the trees, maybe in any one of those huge fucking fields we saw from above...
    This was really one of the most ludicrous things I've seen during the whole sorry series, and that's saying a LOT. I mean, the guy's less than 24 hours from fighting a huge pitched battle, and he has the energy to go out there and cut four full cords of firewood that could otherwise be used for cooking and heating, and with what? A sword? I assume he had an axe, but most people couldn't cut (and neatly stack!) that much firewood in an afternoon with a chainsaw, much less an axe. And he's still technically in enemy territory, making a lot of noise with that axe - nobody's going to come around and ask what he's up to? Maybe try to take some of the firewood away, so they can maybe prevent themselves from freezing to death? And then, after all that work cutting and stacking the firewood, he just lights it up with nobody watching whatsoever! I mean, if you're not even going to have witnesses, why not just bundle up some sticks lying around, pour on some pitch (and we know they have pitch, they dumped it from the top of the wall) and just get it done? Heck, he doesn't even wait to see if the body is actually consumed by the flames, he just strolls off. I was almost expecting a shark to appear in front of him, just so he could jump over it.
  • We finished the last episode of Hinterland last night. if you liked Luther you will like this. It is set in mid Wales. A small amount (perhaps 5%) of the speech is in Welsh with sub titles. Quite a deep, dark detective series.
  • @Greg

    I will definitely be checking out Hinterland now. Thanks! I just finished up the last of the Luther episodes on Netflix, and I'm going to have some very nice things to say about it, soon. I also finished up the last of the Sherlock episodes on Netflix, and I am not going to have anything nice to say about it.
  • We're finally getting around to Orphan Black. About 5 episodes in on season 1. Quite enjoyable.

    Also finally getting to season 2 of House of Cards. I really can't understand why the President of the United States needs Chinese approval to build a bridge on Long Island.

    Craig
  • edited July 2014
    "he just lights it up with nobody watching whatsoever! ......he just strolls off."

    Actually, I found that scene easier to take than the pile of barbequed men in the castle courtyard. No way can I see standing around to watch/smell that ceremony.

    And what was with the direwolf only knocking over one skeleton? Lame. He could have taken out another half dozen, easily.
  • edited July 2014
    I couldn't fathom why any chick would profess having a crush on Sherlock/Benedict Cumberbatch, but now that I've come to realize that I've got a little thing for Alice Morgan, well, it doesn't seem quite so illogical anymore.

    But let's be real about this... Alice Morgan is totes bad-ass, whereas Sherlock is way lame, so the whole comparison thing only goes so far.

    Also, Alice has a great sense of humor and she has a nice smile.

    /furniture
  • edited July 2014
    The public debut of Cones of Dunshire is is five weeks away. (Mayfair Games made the props for the series and have, apparently, filled out the actual game.)
  • edited July 2014
    That Cones of Dunshire bit was great - also when they used it later to get Ben an "in" at the company where they loved playing it.

    Really enjoying "The Leftovers" on HBO. The Guilty Remnants standing around in white clothes, smoking, really crack me up for some reason.
    For those who haven't watched it, the rapture happens and 2% of the world's population is taken. They just disappear. The show is about the leftovers and how they deal with being left behind.
  • Trailer is out for The Fall Season 2. They aren't lessening the creepiness!

    Craig
  • Hello, all. Have been scarce lately as I had some pretty serious surgery last month, outlook is good however, but recovery has been a bear, and even sitting up at the computer desk a task.
    Much time in my armchair armed with multiple remotes however. Rectify has to be the single most interesting thing we've watched - heavy duty, but I think it's really well written and acted. Enjoyed what episodes of Fargo we have seen but it is a bit dark to say the least. When the fog clears a little I might remember what else I've watched, but best wishes to all in the mean time.
  • Wow! Get better, BigD!
  • Yikes! What BT said.

    I loooved Fargo. Even though the shots of "Duluth" were ridiculous.

    Craig
  • Best wishes for speedy recovery Big-D!

    My wife and I have been watching House. I maybe don't recommend that in your circumstances. Although I tend toward hypochondria and Dr's office induced panic attacks, and it strangely doesn't bother me. It's like it so overloads my paranoias with the possibilities for unknown horrors that I can't even be bothered to worry.

    Anyway get well!
  • Get well soon, Big-D!
  • edited July 2014
    Actually House is very entertaining for explaining medical stuff, kinda like how James Michener can make a history book non-boring.
    Although I'm not sure how accurate the medical stuff is. When House started doing Cuddy I had to stop watching it. A big series plot structure that I enjoyed got broken.

    Big D thanks for the Rectify rec, and get well soon.

    Hmm, I think someone here recommended Top of the Lake and I cannot thank them enough. It's slow, but WOW! unfolds like a flower blooming in slo-mo.
    Sorry I'm feeling too lazy to go back and gives kudos properly. Come forward and announce your awesomeness at finding good TV!
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