How the hell does "hold the door" get shortened to Hodu? That makes no sense.
Agree with comment about problematic decrease in wolf population. LAME!
Totally love how we've had a second episode with no Daria appearance. AWESOME!
The entire episode was underwhelming. That whole thing with Theo and the Sea People... those scenes were so damn inconsequential and there was nothing compelling about it. Mayor Carcetti and Samsa scene was dull. BORING! The thing with Tyriol and the Spider and the new creepy lady was okay, I guess.
OH MY GOD. I just finished watching this episode less than ten minutes ago, and it just came back to me (after mercifully blocking it out from my memory) that Daria was, in fact, in this fucking episode, AND IT WAS POINTLESS! Oh, I love you Sheera! Oh, Ted, I made you go away but you came back again and again! I'll do anything for you Sheera! Oh, Ted, I command you to go find a cure for your skin rash! [Cut to scene of actors staring moodily across the landscape at one another] BORING!
The Maxie scenes are getting pretty stupid and repetitive, but that thing where she has to watch her father's "history" as a stage comedy farce was kind of a powerful thing... especially in the context that a girl who is nobody shouldn't give a fuck about what some actors are doing, yeah?
Okay, the legless Stark fob kid... the scenes with the white walkers were pretty cool, especially the one where he got marked. And, I do think it's promising that it seems like the writers (or maybe the author) decided to just trash this whole druid under the tree thing in one fell swoop. Problem solved; stupid storyline taken care of.
It's interesting to watch how actors grow into their roles over the course of many seasons. That stupid scene when Samsa and, fuck, whatever all their names are sitting around a table with a map and toy soldiers and planning out how to attack Snowfell... but you can tell that the Jon Snow actor really has become his character, whereas Samsa actress still seems like she's just acting her way through it... and the pirate, well, he probably plays that same gruff role all the time, but he's got control over his character... but Mayor Carcetti, with all the lack of screen time his character has had, his hold on his character seems to be slipping.
I just finished watching this episode, but I feel like I'm forgetting something important that happened. Guh, whatever. Kind of a stupid episode in what has been a pretty good season thus far. But seriously, I'd be happy if the rest of the season had nothing but dragons & wolves fighting white walkers at the Wall, with cutaways to Tyriol governing a city.
Hey, I have a question for you GoT fans who've read the book or just are better at paying attention to the tv show than I am (aka all of you)...
How much time (from the characters' pov) has passed since Gustav Stark got his head cut off and when Maxie was watching the stage play about it? Because, to me, I'm thinking maybe two years or more, but maybe it's a lot less in story elapsed time.
For instance, someone earlier pointed out how Jon Snow would've spent all day putting together a funeral pyre for his wildling girlfriend. And in yesterday's show, apparently Samsa can sew together a whole new wardrobe for herself and Jon in, I dunno, like ten minutes? But maybe weeks passed during that stretch. It's hard to tell. Or maybe instead of having fob powers like her brothers, maybe her magic Stark power is to sew clothes with lightning speed. Maybe that's something in the book, too.
But if someone comes back to me and says like four months have passed since the Starks went to Blandings Castle, I'm calling bullshit on the show/book writers.
Actually, I think you've got it about right - roughly three years have passed in narrative time since the beginning of the series, so they can't account for the six years of aging by the younger characters, and for the most part they don't even try. The big problem was that one season - the third, I believe - took place over the course of less than a month of narrative time and the one after it couldn't have taken place over more than 4-5 months. And really, none of the seasons (except maybe the last one, and probably the one they're in now) could really have taken place in a full year of narrative time.
Anyhoo, since they've now completely diverged from and/or run out of the original source material, they'll probably just insert some sort of "Six Months Later..." title card in there to iron things out time-wise, like they did on "The Americans" a couple weeks ago for pretty much the exact same reason.
Has this whole season of GoT been running free of the original author? I mean, I assume that the author is giving them signposts on where he expects the story to travel once he actually writes it, yeah? Or do you GoT book readers think/fear that the rest of GoT/HBO will diverge from the story the books end up eventually telling?
I mean, that probably happens already. Like Maxie and the faceless gods thing... I can easily imagine that the book had her in the blind beggar phase of her "schooling" for entire chapters... maybe even an entire book. That whole storyline is an old trope, both in fantasy novels but also the comics... the hero wants to enter a warrior/occult field, they're humbled and deprived of wealth & comfort & pride & one/more of their senses... they learn to adapt and develop skills necessary to the ultimate goal... for Maxie, the blindness would cause her to listen to the stories of the people around her, for the nuance of all sound, so that she could truly one day become no one/anyone/faceless... or something like that. But in the GoT/HBO, that whole thing took like one episode... and I understand why the show writers had to do that. There's only limited show slots available while the book can go on for as long as it wants with a particular story thread.
But I imagine that kind of thing is going to happen way more often now that the show writers are no longer burdened by the original storyline.
Some of this season is still in the books (mostly The Iron Islands, which is WAY beyond what the show has shown, and the King's Landing stuff) and some book info is still to come I think (Davos). Arya has actually had her sight back for quite awhile in the books and she didn't actually lose it as punishment. They took it from her in the normal course of training. It was also much more interesting in the books because we could know what she was thinking as she was hanging out in Bravos.
Otherwise the major events come from GRRM (Hodor) with the rest filled in by the show writers.
Arya (aka Maxie) watched a play, broke a bottle and talked!
Sam ate dinner and talked!
Jaime rode a horse and talked!
Some dudes talking in a dimly lit hall talked about what some other dudes were doing off screen, then talked some more!
Some dude stood there in chains and didn't talk... which made him about as compelling as anyone else on this episode!
It would be one thing if it was a dialog-heavy episode that had the typical GoT wit and intelligence, but it didn't have any of that... it was like the writers were suffering from burnout and even though they knew their stuff was mediocre, submitted it anyway while muttering "It'll have to do" under their breath.
Heyyyyy, I didn't know that they adapted the Preacher comic to a tv show.
So, I signed up for a free trial of Sling TV, which means I get AMC again. Preacher is coming up next. Hoping it's good.
The comic was pretty enjoyable, though it really faded at the end, and, unfortunately, the writer Garth Ennis wasn't able to deliver on the initial premise (or maybe "promise" would be a better word for it). Preacher was clearly a case where a writer had a great idea for a story, had some cool ideas on things that should happen, but was never sure exactly how it would end and just hoped he'd figure it out before too long. Unfortunately, it never happened. Still though, I do recommend the comic.
Gotta say, while I totally respect the comics titles that have been getting adapted for tv shows lately (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Lucifer, Constantine), unfortunately, the shows themselves have ranged from mediocre to awful. It'd be nice if Preacher bucked that trend, but I'm not holding my breath.
The opening to this episode was great. Most of the openings have been great, but you can really tell that the writers and director are in synch and have found their rhythm.
Will somebody explain to me who the Blackfish are and why Jaime is
attacking their castle? And is he teamed up with the army led by King
Pedophile?
I love that the queen's mother (did I hear the name Mary?), first with the queen and then eviscerating Sherrie were awesome scenes. They finally gave her some quality lines.
I don't know who that little girl queen was, but that was an awesome scene with the Starks and Davos.
I do like how the Stark kids are getting their comeuppance. I mean, Jon doesn't really deserve it, but this whole thing of other people having to serve and the fight the wars of children with "names," it really gets under my skin. Nice to have some of the kids get told to fuck off with their "birthrights."
I like Theo's sister. She's a cool character.
Hm, that whole Arya thing was okay, I guess.
Oh man, Swearengen is dead!!! What the hell?! LAME!
Huh, episode over. That seemed sudden. That whole episode only seemed like half. Or like one of those webisodes they post online to give some bonus story in between the real episodes. Lame!
Okay, will somebody explain the whole Swearengen thing? Or, more to the point, is he somebody in the book or is he just some character that was made up by the show writers to kind of kick off Dog's redemption story/killing spree?
Y'know, these last couple episodes... nothing about them was bad, per se, but, also, they seemed more in-between or set-up-ish. I wouldn't mind any of that if GoT had 15-20 episodes per season, but when it's only 10 eps and a year in between each, well, you gotta give me something with more substance than what they're doing. I'm not talking about huge wars or character deaths... just something with gravitas, something that doesn't border of formulaic. The Maxie faceless gods thing was very predictable. The smouldering gazes between Jamie and, god, I haven't a clue what that lady knight's name is... Glenda? Lady Glenda? Actually, that sounds right. I may have gotten one finally... anyways, again, nothing wrong with those scenes, but if it's eating up a handful of the mere 550 minutes of season duration time, well, maybe that needs to get cut out for something that we're not getting in other, less interesting shows. Jamie and that prisoner and Jamie's monologue about how much he loves his sister and will do anything to get back to her... that's shit we've heard on other episodes. Move on. You've got ten episodes... some wasting my time retreading old shit! Lame!
I still think the filming and scenery and set pieces this season are outstanding. That temple of 1000 gods, with the candles and gloom and cavernous ceilings with towers of faces is way cool.
Oh, hey, that dudes that Dog meets up with? Are those the Robin Hood ripoffs from an earlier season that Arya and those other boys hooked up briefly? Don't tell me they're bringing those tired, rehashed lame characters back. Please.
It looks like my golden age of Tyriol alone governing a city is over. Daria is back and the Spider dude is gone. Guh. OH, but another example of retread scenes... we already had a scene of Tyriol trying to have drinking fun with the kickass army leader and the hot handmaiden chick... why do we need to have that again? I mean, yes, their personalities seemed to change a bit between the two scenes, and if you're writing a book about it and have unlimited pages or you have 20 episodes in a season, sure, you can go for the nuance like this... but for the most part, it was two very similar, very tedious scenes.
I like how they're getting rid of trial by combat. I always thought that was bullshit.
I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff from the last episode, but that's as reflective of its substance as anything, I guess. Forgettable. Lame!
Did anyone else think that the way the Waif ran when she was pursuing Arya looked just like the way the metal new model Terminator ran after John Conner in Terminator 2 : Judgement Day? Facial expression too.
Totally down with that comparison. Definitely had a passionless determination for violence about her.
Are people just calling that chick The Waif or is that really her name?
I think I've finally crossed the threshold of Maxie/Arya. The moment I saw the name Arya, I knew exactly who you were talking about. It was a moment not unlike becoming fluent in a foreign language.
GOT Spoilers - Dragon-F'n-Palooza, man. That's what I'm talking about. Other thing to say, at the end I thought that might be Ghost growling, but what he got was way better.
Well, that is one way to resolve a whole lot of character storylines - did thin the herd a bit so to speak. One thing - if Sandor Clegane does not get to fight his big brother, or whatever is left in there, before this all wraps up, I will be sorely disappointed. So now that we know who Jon Snow is, he can marry his sister/cousin, right? Or how about his aunt? Those Targaryens are like Cajuns.
Walking Dead spoilers I guess, although I think mostly I won't really say anything spoily...
So I've been hooked on TWD since the beginning, but always a season behind because I was watching them on Netflix, so it was just a month or so ago that I saw the end of season six, then today I hemmed and hawed and then just read all the spoilers, and so now I think I'm done with the show.
I always loved/hated/loved the show, until the season 6 cliffhanger which I just hated. I mean the show was always scary, always stressful sometimes (often) truly horrible, but there was always good in there too. Always hope, always love, always goodguys being goodguys. But it seemed like that ended.
And I know it's naive and cliche and whatever to expect your apocalypse to have good stuff in it, but why watch when it's just truly horrible? Life is tough enough, I don't need my fun stressful tv show to lose all its bright spots.
But in other news I just can't get enough of the Netflix Marvel Superheroes. Loved Luke Cage. The slow pacing of that and all of the bad guys that you could still sympathize with as characters totally took the edge off after bingeing that Walking Dead horror...
We've got Downton Abbey withdrawal symptoms here, it has been part of Autumn Sunday evening viewing for a number of years. Nothing yet is replacing it, although Victoria could get better....
I just watched the first episode of what is going to be some kind of series, don't know how long, called Rock'N'Roll Inventions, that was from last Monday on Smithsonian Channel - a mash-up of music technology and history. Was interesting, nothing ground breaking but well done, and it did make me ponder, being as how I started as a music consumer in the mid '60's so I've lived through a lot of these transformations, the question of whether my relationship to music wasn't more intimate or satisfying in some ways back in the days of albums, that is to say vinyl, in the sense of it being a more special event to have something new as well as favorites played over and over again, when technology was more primitive and required more devoted personal attention. The artwork, the liner notes, holding it, using the double albums for other purposes - I feel I knew more about my individual entities back then. Of course there were fewer of them, by some order of magnitude. Not that I'm against having more music than you know what to do with, but it was interesting to think about. Series continues tonight in my area, and Smithsonian must have Roku channels and Apps too. Liked it.
Has anyone watched the new series on FX called Taboo? Stars Tom Hardy and many faces you will recognize if not be able to name, including a few GoT alumni. A ScottFree production, think that's Ridley and Tony's company - dark pre-Victorian London drama, nice production values, and have liked the first two episodes thus far.
Comments
Hold the door.
Craig
How the hell does "hold the door" get shortened to Hodu? That makes no sense.
Agree with comment about problematic decrease in wolf population. LAME!
Totally love how we've had a second episode with no Daria appearance. AWESOME!
The entire episode was underwhelming. That whole thing with Theo and the Sea People... those scenes were so damn inconsequential and there was nothing compelling about it. Mayor Carcetti and Samsa scene was dull. BORING! The thing with Tyriol and the Spider and the new creepy lady was okay, I guess.
OH MY GOD. I just finished watching this episode less than ten minutes ago, and it just came back to me (after mercifully blocking it out from my memory) that Daria was, in fact, in this fucking episode, AND IT WAS POINTLESS! Oh, I love you Sheera! Oh, Ted, I made you go away but you came back again and again! I'll do anything for you Sheera! Oh, Ted, I command you to go find a cure for your skin rash! [Cut to scene of actors staring moodily across the landscape at one another] BORING!
The Maxie scenes are getting pretty stupid and repetitive, but that thing where she has to watch her father's "history" as a stage comedy farce was kind of a powerful thing... especially in the context that a girl who is nobody shouldn't give a fuck about what some actors are doing, yeah?
Okay, the legless Stark fob kid... the scenes with the white walkers were pretty cool, especially the one where he got marked. And, I do think it's promising that it seems like the writers (or maybe the author) decided to just trash this whole druid under the tree thing in one fell swoop. Problem solved; stupid storyline taken care of.
It's interesting to watch how actors grow into their roles over the course of many seasons. That stupid scene when Samsa and, fuck, whatever all their names are sitting around a table with a map and toy soldiers and planning out how to attack Snowfell... but you can tell that the Jon Snow actor really has become his character, whereas Samsa actress still seems like she's just acting her way through it... and the pirate, well, he probably plays that same gruff role all the time, but he's got control over his character... but Mayor Carcetti, with all the lack of screen time his character has had, his hold on his character seems to be slipping.
I just finished watching this episode, but I feel like I'm forgetting something important that happened. Guh, whatever. Kind of a stupid episode in what has been a pretty good season thus far. But seriously, I'd be happy if the rest of the season had nothing but dragons & wolves fighting white walkers at the Wall, with cutaways to Tyriol governing a city.
/GoT
How much time (from the characters' pov) has passed since Gustav Stark got his head cut off and when Maxie was watching the stage play about it? Because, to me, I'm thinking maybe two years or more, but maybe it's a lot less in story elapsed time.
For instance, someone earlier pointed out how Jon Snow would've spent all day putting together a funeral pyre for his wildling girlfriend. And in yesterday's show, apparently Samsa can sew together a whole new wardrobe for herself and Jon in, I dunno, like ten minutes? But maybe weeks passed during that stretch. It's hard to tell. Or maybe instead of having fob powers like her brothers, maybe her magic Stark power is to sew clothes with lightning speed. Maybe that's something in the book, too.
But if someone comes back to me and says like four months have passed since the Starks went to Blandings Castle, I'm calling bullshit on the show/book writers.
Anyhoo, since they've now completely diverged from and/or run out of the original source material, they'll probably just insert some sort of "Six Months Later..." title card in there to iron things out time-wise, like they did on "The Americans" a couple weeks ago for pretty much the exact same reason.
I mean, that probably happens already. Like Maxie and the faceless gods thing... I can easily imagine that the book had her in the blind beggar phase of her "schooling" for entire chapters... maybe even an entire book. That whole storyline is an old trope, both in fantasy novels but also the comics... the hero wants to enter a warrior/occult field, they're humbled and deprived of wealth & comfort & pride & one/more of their senses... they learn to adapt and develop skills necessary to the ultimate goal... for Maxie, the blindness would cause her to listen to the stories of the people around her, for the nuance of all sound, so that she could truly one day become no one/anyone/faceless... or something like that. But in the GoT/HBO, that whole thing took like one episode... and I understand why the show writers had to do that. There's only limited show slots available while the book can go on for as long as it wants with a particular story thread.
But I imagine that kind of thing is going to happen way more often now that the show writers are no longer burdened by the original storyline.
Otherwise the major events come from GRRM (Hodor) with the rest filled in by the show writers.
Craig
Craig
Coldhands!
Arya v. The Waif!
Sam grows a pair!
Jaime off to The Riverlands where he can meet Brienne and hopefully Lady Stoneheart!
The Blackfish retakes Riverrun!
Edmure is a hostage!
Some dude took his hood off and talked!
Arya (aka Maxie) watched a play, broke a bottle and talked!
Sam ate dinner and talked!
Jaime rode a horse and talked!
Some dudes talking in a dimly lit hall talked about what some other dudes were doing off screen, then talked some more!
Some dude stood there in chains and didn't talk... which made him about as compelling as anyone else on this episode!
It would be one thing if it was a dialog-heavy episode that had the typical GoT wit and intelligence, but it didn't have any of that... it was like the writers were suffering from burnout and even though they knew their stuff was mediocre, submitted it anyway while muttering "It'll have to do" under their breath.
Boring!
So, I signed up for a free trial of Sling TV, which means I get AMC again. Preacher is coming up next. Hoping it's good.
The comic was pretty enjoyable, though it really faded at the end, and, unfortunately, the writer Garth Ennis wasn't able to deliver on the initial premise (or maybe "promise" would be a better word for it). Preacher was clearly a case where a writer had a great idea for a story, had some cool ideas on things that should happen, but was never sure exactly how it would end and just hoped he'd figure it out before too long. Unfortunately, it never happened. Still though, I do recommend the comic.
Gotta say, while I totally respect the comics titles that have been getting adapted for tv shows lately (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Lucifer, Constantine), unfortunately, the shows themselves have ranged from mediocre to awful. It'd be nice if Preacher bucked that trend, but I'm not holding my breath.
Swearengin is gonna kick fucking white walker ass!
(and spoilers)
Swearengin!!!!!!!!!
The opening to this episode was great. Most of the openings have been great, but you can really tell that the writers and director are in synch and have found their rhythm.
Will somebody explain to me who the Blackfish are and why Jaime is attacking their castle? And is he teamed up with the army led by King Pedophile?
I love that the queen's mother (did I hear the name Mary?), first with the queen and then eviscerating Sherrie were awesome scenes. They finally gave her some quality lines.
I don't know who that little girl queen was, but that was an awesome scene with the Starks and Davos.
I do like how the Stark kids are getting their comeuppance. I mean, Jon doesn't really deserve it, but this whole thing of other people having to serve and the fight the wars of children with "names," it really gets under my skin. Nice to have some of the kids get told to fuck off with their "birthrights."
I like Theo's sister. She's a cool character.
Hm, that whole Arya thing was okay, I guess.
Oh man, Swearengen is dead!!! What the hell?! LAME!
Huh, episode over. That seemed sudden. That whole episode only seemed like half. Or like one of those webisodes they post online to give some bonus story in between the real episodes. Lame!
Okay, will somebody explain the whole Swearengen thing? Or, more to the point, is he somebody in the book or is he just some character that was made up by the show writers to kind of kick off Dog's redemption story/killing spree?
I still don't understand why the TV writers got rid of the Imp being in a circus.
Y'know, these last couple episodes... nothing about them was bad, per se, but, also, they seemed more in-between or set-up-ish. I wouldn't mind any of that if GoT had 15-20 episodes per season, but when it's only 10 eps and a year in between each, well, you gotta give me something with more substance than what they're doing. I'm not talking about huge wars or character deaths... just something with gravitas, something that doesn't border of formulaic. The Maxie faceless gods thing was very predictable. The smouldering gazes between Jamie and, god, I haven't a clue what that lady knight's name is... Glenda? Lady Glenda? Actually, that sounds right. I may have gotten one finally... anyways, again, nothing wrong with those scenes, but if it's eating up a handful of the mere 550 minutes of season duration time, well, maybe that needs to get cut out for something that we're not getting in other, less interesting shows. Jamie and that prisoner and Jamie's monologue about how much he loves his sister and will do anything to get back to her... that's shit we've heard on other episodes. Move on. You've got ten episodes... some wasting my time retreading old shit! Lame!
I still think the filming and scenery and set pieces this season are outstanding. That temple of 1000 gods, with the candles and gloom and cavernous ceilings with towers of faces is way cool.
Oh, hey, that dudes that Dog meets up with? Are those the Robin Hood ripoffs from an earlier season that Arya and those other boys hooked up briefly? Don't tell me they're bringing those tired, rehashed lame characters back. Please.
It looks like my golden age of Tyriol alone governing a city is over. Daria is back and the Spider dude is gone. Guh. OH, but another example of retread scenes... we already had a scene of Tyriol trying to have drinking fun with the kickass army leader and the hot handmaiden chick... why do we need to have that again? I mean, yes, their personalities seemed to change a bit between the two scenes, and if you're writing a book about it and have unlimited pages or you have 20 episodes in a season, sure, you can go for the nuance like this... but for the most part, it was two very similar, very tedious scenes.
I like how they're getting rid of trial by combat. I always thought that was bullshit.
I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff from the last episode, but that's as reflective of its substance as anything, I guess. Forgettable. Lame!
/GoTrant
Are people just calling that chick The Waif or is that really her name?
I think I've finally crossed the threshold of Maxie/Arya. The moment I saw the name Arya, I knew exactly who you were talking about. It was a moment not unlike becoming fluent in a foreign language.
/WesterosStone
Of note, the head dude of The Faceless Men also doesn't have a name because it's not Jaqen Hagar, or if it is he's got a different face.
Craig
They were NOT saved by the bell.
Shame, shame.
...
So I've been hooked on TWD since the beginning, but always a season behind because I was watching them on Netflix, so it was just a month or so ago that I saw the end of season six, then today I hemmed and hawed and then just read all the spoilers, and so now I think I'm done with the show.
I always loved/hated/loved the show, until the season 6 cliffhanger which I just hated. I mean the show was always scary, always stressful sometimes (often) truly horrible, but there was always good in there too. Always hope, always love, always goodguys being goodguys. But it seemed like that ended.
And I know it's naive and cliche and whatever to expect your apocalypse to have good stuff in it, but why watch when it's just truly horrible? Life is tough enough, I don't need my fun stressful tv show to lose all its bright spots.
Ok, close to a real spoiler here:
I felt sad and close to quitting when the show faked a favorite character's death, but there were still good spots; I just don't see any point in going back to it now. I think I'm not the only one: https://www.google.com/amp/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/10/24/13378876/the-walking-dead-season-7-premiere-recap-review-end-of-quitters-club?client=safari
(And real spoilers there)