Vee

Doubtful.

I doubt I could correct you about anything - I'm sure the function was a bit more complicated than just continuity. And by the end of OLTL on ABC they didn't seem to give a [!@#$%^&*].

I thought Margo Husin was in charge of that at OLTL. Maybe it meant something different over here.

In light of recent events in my own corner of my business I am reminded again just how small an industry this is. I was on the DL back then, though I don't remember the ATWT threads at all. Thank you for your story and all your invaluable reminiscences.

Cersei has had endless, countless monologues about her lot in life for four seasons, all of them excellent and all of them nuanced and not reducing her to a caricature. They've shown us as much as they're going to of her inner life. The rest she intentionally leaves opaque. That's how she is.

I didn't see a Ned thing. And I don't think she struggled to respond to the dying man, but she was very matter of fact. While she has learned to kill, and come to enjoy her revenge, she's also spent much of this year and last year fighting the Hound on pointless cruelty. So her character, to me, remains on a tightrope. I hardly see a sociopath when I look at Arya.

Daenerys knows exactly what she's doing with Daario and Jorah. And it's very smart. I also appreciate that they don't appear to be selling Daenerys and Daario as true love. NuDaario has grown on me - he's there to be the conventional pretty, somewhat glib piece of arm candy for her, but Daenerys, while taken with him, clearly knows she needs Jorah and his devotion as well as his pragmatism. He was right about Yunkai. His speech was also something that, again, like so many pieces of this show, resonates into the modern and touches on a lot of the reactionary left-wing bullshit I see online and offline today, especially social media. And I'm glad Daenerys understood it. I know some people find her plotline in Meereen boring but I couldn't care less - I find watching her learn the nuts and bolts of governance fascinating, and Emilia Clarke pitches it just right. That scene with Oberyn probably won Peter Dinklage an Emmy. That was incredible work. I hope the Viper doesn't die fighting the Mountain. Wonderful stuff. Hope this is not the end of Bronn - I doubt it, since we even got to see Hot Pie this week. I love when people in this vast world pop up again. I hope Brienne and Pod get there in time. The cold smile Sansa gave Littlefinger was the first time I thought Sansa has finally come into her own and could, someday, for better or probably worse, be his wife. All her suffering has brought her here, in a different way from Arya, and I think she could, depending on the circumstances, end up being far colder and more dangerous. I know Carl thinks Arya cold but I don't think she's really like that at all - Arya wants to be armored up but she still has so much feeling and sympathy for the smallfolk she and the Hound come across, still works to humanize the Hound - wonderful stuff with Rory McCann and Maisie Williams this week, BTW, that beautiful, melancholy scene with the dying man as well as the scene with the two of them alone. I didn't mind her killing the !@#$%^&*] who'd harassed her in the past. I think Arya is walking a tightrope in her own character, but she is learning, slowly, the difference between killing because you can or killing for the right reasons (as with the dying man). I think the Hound is deeply traumatized as a human being, always has been, has contempt for himself and his weakness that he projects onto everything else - but he's still a human being, and this episode made that clear. I thought they rushed the Lysa stuff along a bit - I got accidentally spoiled for her fate a few weeks back - but it was still very well-done, as was that brilliant scene with Sansa and Littlefinger alone beforehand. I hope crazy Robin doesn't cack it too, at least not too soon. But the stuff with Sophie Turner and Aiden Gillen is fascinating. I liked that Melisandre finally acknowledged what I've suspected all along - at least half of what she does is simple tricks and mischief for the benefit of the easily-swayed, and she is a practiced con woman as well as, surely, based on what she's said in the past, a courtesan or whore before taking up her current calling. All those street skills of manipulation contribute to the work she does; that's how so many "messiahs" start out, doing quick cons on the pavement. I think there was a hint of attraction between her and Selyse, but I also think Selyse is just plain unbalanced and has forced herself to fall for Melisandre and the Red God to keep her keel mentally; she has forced herself to desire Melisandre and fallen completely under her spell because she's just that desperate for something to cling to in her lonely life. You could see her willing herself to accept and embrace Melisandre [!@#$%^&*] her husband, and for the first time it looked like a strain on her part. It's Cults 101, as was Melisandre telling Selyse that she didn't need any tricks, she could 'make' herself see 'the truth.' Is she just brainwashing her further or can Selyse actually see it? I think it's both. But it is a fascinating interplay, and an incredible scene - I find that whole group fascinating. And I'm glad Shireen is becoming more a part of the plot. I am so over that !@#$%^&*] at the Wall. I have been over that guy since Season 1. Is this really his priority right now? Cockblocking "Lord Snow"? Where's Osha when you need her? Anyway - great episode.

Probably Arya and the Hound's best scene all season tonight with the dying man. Very well done.

Yep.

I remember hearing that Sharon Case story somewhere.

Little David Jay was godawful on Dark Shadows. And they had some bad actors. He made that kid playing Spencer on GH look like Haley Joel Osment.

Winter Is Coming has some episode descriptions for the final three episodes of Season 4, which will air in June after Memorial Day. Not spoilerific per se, but I am tagging them just in case people don't want to see them. I've always loved Neil Marshall's films, particularly The Descent, so I look forward to his return directing Episode 9. (He also did Dog Soldiers, with Liam Cunningham.)

I loved that offhand reveal on Jon Arryn. It was the last thing I expected to come out of her mouth.

I'm still hesitant to believe this since I bumped into it on IMDB, but looking around it seems legit. Sean Bean, Indira Varma, Mackenzie Crook and Isaac Hempstead-Wright are starring in Caesar. Wright is the young Octavian, future Emperor Augustus, and Bean is, of course, Caesar who dies horribly. Also featuring Geoffrey from Fresh Prince, apparently. It's an old, old tale but it's amusing that I last saw this story told on HBO's Rome, their thematic (and financial) precursor to GOT. There, Ciaran Hinds (Mance Rayder) played Caesar, while Lindsay Duncan was Servilia and Indira Varma (Ellaria on GOT) was the long-suffering wife of Kevin McKidd's Roman soldier. But hey, I'll see anything Bean and Wright - and Varma! - make. Oh, and if you're not watching Michelle Fairley as a terrorist widow on 24, do.

Maybe we just see something you don't.

Incidentally, the latest episode of the wonderful Telltale Games video game is out today! I'll be playing it tonight.

I can understand that, but that's something I think Tyrion simply would never have said of his own volition. He adored her.

But he did say those things to her to get her to leave just a couple episodes ago - that is what she was repeating back to him on the stand. It clearly hurt him to say it and crushed her to hear it.

I wouldn't mind differences being pointed out if most of them didn't either a) tread on spoiler territory or simply serve as more fodder for bitching. That's 90% of these posts. And I don't have a problem with Shae being on the stand. Whoever put her there put her there to bury Tyrion - and if it was Cersei, then that certainly included Sansa. If they were going to get her up there on the stand, they were going to get her to say what they wanted. It's not "sure, say whatever you want since you're mad at Tyrion." She chose to betray Tyrion - which I totally bought for her character, given her petulant, ridiculous attitude about their relationship for the last two [!@#$%^&*] years - but she didn't have a choice when it came to the scope of the thing. That's the way those kind of schemes work. She was clearly emotional and torn, and that was enough for me to illustrate her having mixed feelings about doing what she was doing (to both Tyrion and Sansa). I mean, in some ways the showrunners can't win for losing - if Shae was as cold, mercenary and throwaway a character as some are claiming she was in the books, you'd hear people saying, 'oh, it's misogyny, she's just a heartless whore used for sex scenes.' They try to flesh the character out while still fulfilling her same story function, they give her a heart and show that she's torn by what she's doing and then it becomes, 'Shae would never do that.' That's not fair, IMO. And yeah, fair is still a question even if it's the audience critiquing a show. The audience isn't by default right because they read the books or have a lot of passionate feelings about it. That doesn't trump anything.

Sunspear, they said three years ago when they cast Sibel Kekilli that they deliberately expanded her role because they were taken with the actress and her performance. This is not news or some new development. Everyone was praising them for it, I'm pretty sure the author praised them for it, and while I've often been tired of Shae and I have little sympathy for her bullshit on Sunday's episode I have always found Kekilli's performance exceptional. If you're really going to make an issue of Shae having a larger role now you might want to invest in a time machine. Most book fans I know have no problem separating the distinct narrative and choices of the show vs. the book - you're the only one I know who's this upset. And frankly, even if you are, you've had four seasons to be shocked and adjust or stop watching. The show is not going to suddenly snap back into doing things your way or following the letter of the text.

Yeah - in our world it would be messed up, in theirs it is a necessary responsibility. Like so many tough things on this show.

Because they know it on the TV show. Not the book. Also, it's not Book Shae. TV Shae was clearly in love with Tyrion and heartbroken and vengeful. I am tired of her period, but it's not like she was dropping the mask.

I loved tonight - I was glad they took it back to some of the quieter stories. The Theon/Ramsay stuff was disturbingly homoerotic; they walked the line but didn't go over it, because they didn't have to - the implication was enough. As I said, I thought Yara was going to get torn apart then and there. I can't say I'm surprised she gave up on him so fast. She may be the best of the Ironborn (that is, aside from the Theon that once was) but they're all kind of crazy white trash to me. I can't imagine where that story will go next but I find it fascinating. Loved everything with Mark Gatiss at the Iron Bank. Loved Davos's great pitch, loved the return of Salladhor Saan. He's the best. I can't imagine where Stannis thinks he'll get the manpower for this gambit, though. Daenerys is learning the same lesson little Bran had to learn when he took his turn having to rule Winterfell in Robb's stead - I was glad she did the right thing for the noble, as opposed to the most myopically self-righteous thing, which would've given her a little thrill but would have had no point. I actually find it fascinating watching her learn to rule, in a chair - something we have been told again and again many others did not know how to do, and something a little boy took to quicker than her. But she's getting there. Interesting to see the Small Council finally taking more notice of her, though not enough IMO. And the Varys/Oberyn scene was so wonderful - IMO Varys is really the quieter soul of the show, along with a number of others. GOT has many elements of soap in it, but there ain't nothin' soapier than a big crazy trial. And that was big and crazy and very satisfying. I almost knew Tyrion was going to invoke trial by combat - almost, but not quite, there was a hint of something in the back of my mind, nagging at me, a hunch, but I couldn't figure out what - and then, boom! Well, it beats Tywin's otherwise shrewd plan. And I loved Tyrion's Jennifer Holliday speech. Great show. Did I miss anything?

Yara's really a supporting player at best on the show. I did like seeing her, though. I don't think she gave up because she was scared, and I don't think most people think that either. It was an impossible situation; it's not that Theon is dead so much as she could not have gotten out of there alive with him. That was a gripping moment - I thought it might have been curtains for her then and there.

Thanks for that. Organic foods! Tom and Irna were ahead of their time for hipster Brooklyn.