Vee

Pedro Pascal allegedly lives nearby. What do I do with my life now?

Oddly enough, it's not unlike what a friend of mine in Australia had been describing to me about a recent election down there - I thought what he described sounded just like the Tea Party taking seats. And now we have this, I'll have to fill him in.

They are bigoted, xenophobic extremists who despise Obama, some of whom espouse a bizarre separatist ideology and occasionally let loose with sentiments that border on domestic terrorism. The GOP believed they could channel all this hate, fear and low-info neuroses into their existing coffers and power base, believed they could control these people. They can't. The Tea Party has been taking seats from establishment GOP, disrupting working government and eating the Republican Party alive ever since. And now the establishment GOP is practically beholden to them, in fear of losing their seats like Cantor or others. The lunatics have hijacked the asylum. The Tea Party was also never an organic grassroots movement - it was built, bought and paid for by major right wing donors and then activated amongst the base.

I had no idea Jill Mitwell (who lasted at OLTL well into last summer, IIRC) went back that far. Wow. Your insight is consistently invaluable. I have heard that about Marsha Clark and John Wesley Shipp and Marland before. Probably from you.

I think their torching the giants, etc. at the tunnel, knocking the men off the Wall and and going ape on the guys inside (including with Ghost) helped. But as Jon said, Mance was only testing their defenses. If he'd wanted to pour it on he could've, and probably taken them.

That was pretty fantastic. Neil Marshall has done some great films, and his action work on the show is always first-rate. I had been inadvertently spoiled about Ygritte dying over the last week due to some careless browsing online, but I always had a feeling that kid was going to figure in somehow this season, either as the first to die or - as I ultimately surmised - the one to kill her. I actually really liked the Sam and Gilly stuff. I've always been fine with their little bits, but the stuff with Sam, Gilly and Aemon was particularly excellent, IMO. As was Jon and Thorne's little moment on the Wall. That stuff in the tunnel, with the giant and the oath, was a real fist-pumping tearjerker. And there were some great jawdroppers, like the moment with the scythe. And Ghost!

That's still one of the funniest things I've ever seen on daytime. AMC was of such a specific piece in its heyday, and they could get away with that stuff because they were both socially conscious and still loving to their most eccentric and incorrect or dysfunctional characters. I was so glad to see that spirit return to the show last year.

The Red Viper has claimed his next victim. I read up a lot on the Escobar case back in the day, and it sounds like a plum role for Pedro Pascal. He'll be head to head with Wagner Moura, who's an incredible Brazilian actor famous for the Elite Squad films who also popped up on American screens as the best thing in Neill Blomkamp's blah sci-fi movie Elysium.

George R.R. Martin promises to kill you when the moment is right - for charity.

I don't need to exaggerate. I just wish you wouldn't spend every week implicitly suggesting we're all stupid for liking the hit show you hate.

From what I keep hearing from most other people, at least 90% of the stuff you're decrying as quoted appears to have been in these books originally. It's a medieval fantasy world full of sex, violence and quite a bit of rape. But it always had many points of view, including many strong female points of view, and I think the show continues to have that today. But according to you, everyone who read the books or not, who likes the show and finds it to be of high quality, just doesn't get it, because you think it's lowest common denominator trash. So you've told us, over and over and over. If you dislike the show this strongly, I have to join Antoyne in failing to see why you spend week after week telling us how terrible it is and how much it's missing the point, how much we are, and how George R.R. Martin is a lazy jerk who you're convinced is abandoning you. You're not just torturing yourself, you're hectoring a number of us. And guess what, I don't come to the thread about the TV show to be lectured by you since you can't scream at Martin in person about what an !@#$%^&*] you think he is.

Perhaps you're right. I have no idea why I would think you have a problem with HBO's Game of Thrones, here, in the "HBO: Game of Thrones" thread.

Yes. The show which, according to your previous post, you apparently hate and resent. In other news sure to make you upset, here is a casting notice from Winter Is Coming. The site speculates that the young girl being cast is in fact - I'm spoilering that, but these new notices really tell me, a person who goes without GOT spoilers as much as possible, nothing much except that these new characters will appear. I'm excited about the angle.

At least you're not bitter, in the PrimetimeOxides section of the television message board in a thread labeled "HBO: Game of Thrones".

V.important fan feedback on how last week's episode could have been improved

I look forward to the next three pages of anguished beating of breasts all because something was Different In The Books.

I think she had hope for something - and she obviously wants revenge for what was done to her family. I think she reacts to things, most of them the Hound's cruelty to people and his cynicism. She has been positioned as his counterpoint all along, even as she learns from him how to defend herself and be a warrior.

No, he never said that. He said offhandedly that one of the maesters they mentioned "tried to touch me once," but the clear implication was the man did not succeed.

I dug Tyrion's speech. I grew up with a relatively minor but notable disability, and it doesn't exactly make you more sympathetic or more keenly attuned to that many handicapped or mentally challenged folks. Especially the ones who are lumbering assholes. Everything he and Jaime described in relation to their interaction with their idiot cousin, I've been there - from their vantage point, that is, not the cousin's.

Pedro Pascal on Oberyn's fate. I will miss him terribly, but I suspect he will be avenged (somebody's gotta be, anyway).

I like watching Daenerys govern - I think it's essential to her development as a character. I know for some people it's totally "when are they going to get to the fireworks factory?" but to me, I find the nuts and bolts of that stuff fascinating. She has to learn how to do that if she wants to stay on that throne. And I like the Theon story because I have literally no clue where it's going. I don't think every storyline has to be the most earth-shattering on the show.

I figure Sansa knows her ticket to any kind of freedom is to work her best angle, and her best angle is Littlefinger. Littlefinger has a supreme weakness for two things, power (in its most superficial form) and her mother. Sansa's mother is dead, and Littlefinger has shown himself to be into her. She can work him. I had read that I have a feeling about who's next, but I have no idea how or why.

I thought Arya's laugh was hilarious. I don't know what reaction anyone could have to the absurd tragedy of her situation at this point - after, for all she knows, her whole family was killed within moments of her reaching them, now her only other known refuge, a relative she barely knows (if at all) is also gone. I don't think it marks her as a sociopath or anything - I think it's just a helpless, exhausted reaction to the insanity of what she's been put through. I know that after a year or two of this bullshit I'd laugh too, and I know that wouldn't make me a sociopath either. Sansa has coped her way, but Sansa has money, shelter, safe passage and a wealthy patron. Arya has the road, the Hound, and her sword.

Yeah, that duel both did and didn't go the way I expected. I had a feeling Martin would insist on subverting the classical fantasy avenging-brother storyline and that Oberyn would buy it, but I didn't think Oberyn would get that far. Poor Oberyn. Well, now what? I think the Sansa/Littlefinger stuff was absolute genius. I thought that was incredible work by Sophie Turner. And the ending shot of her coming out of the curtains was something else. That really says it all about where she's going. I hope she does get to meet Arya - and I hope we get more of Robin, who seems slightly less crazy than before but I'm not putting much stock in that. Great monologue by Dinklage. Also, incredible work by Emilia Clarke and Iain Glen. And the Missandei/Grey Worm stuff is wonderful and just setting me up for future heartbreak. Forgot to mention: Arya's reaction to the news of yet another recently-dead relative was priceless. That would be mine at that point, too.

The feeling begins