Vee

I think it was more to show his depravity - he seemed to get off on being choked and manhandled. And it fulfilled HBO's usual quota.

I just really don't think the show is trying to get people "hot and bothered" over Ramsay Snow. I didn't see that tonight. Yes, he's a physically attractive man, yes, he is a man of excess, like a lot of other horrible (or not so horrible) people on the show - he likes sex. His having a sex scene is not an indication that the show intends for a sadistic psychopath - which is how they've presented him as onscreen, even subverting his sexuality by pairing it with vicious violence in the same scene - to be presented as an object of adoration. And just because he may have fans who treat him as such does not mean the show specifically engineered them, or that they're responsible for them. Virtually any character on any popular show on television has those fans, whether they're 'good' or 'evil' characters. It's unavoidable and in this instance I don't think GOT is expected to be held responsible for anyone who lusts after Rheon or Ramsay Snow, anymore than any show has fans of any horrible villain. You can't let art be dictated by an audience, but you also can't let your potential expectation of an audience mold the art. I also don't think that showing torture is the same as "torture porn", but that's a whole other thesis.

Jerry Lacy! Good lord. Who were Liz and Paul and what was the story? Did any story other than Kim take off?

All I know about the character is Irna was mad at the actress for going nude in Lenny and she died falling up the stairs. That and Kim arriving - by most accounts, a character very close to Irna's ideal vision of herself - is the most I know of the era. I don't know when Jennifer was brought in or by who, or whether the move away from Bob and Kim was her idea or someone else's. I don't know what kind of sea changes she made.

I find the discussion of Phillips's rough second stint fascinating - what did she regress the show from? What strides did she make? Those second go-rounds with titans of the industry, be they showrunners in daytime or primetime, are always interesting, and often fraught with peril.

I haven't, no. That was one weird period. I think they loved Addie, but she fell through the cracks, probably for a variety of reasons.

One of the best things Ron Carlivati ever did at OLTL was something I'd had percolating in my mind for a few years: Make Addie Cramer well. He did it, and he did with style - Pamela Payton-Wright's sane Addie burst back onto the scene as a vibrant, bubbly libertine dressed to the nines. She was wonderful. They didn't use her nearly as much after the writer's strike of 2008 ended - they had planned for David Chisum's Miles Laurence to be revealed as Addie's son and Blair's brother just before the strike hit - but before the scabs took over, they penned one of the best scenes Dorian and Addie ever had, or ever will have, around 7:20 in this clip, where Addie cuts to the core about Dorian's issues with Viki. And I thought you weren't paying attention. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH--HYpR-VE

Yeah, I think it's ridiculous to say only Doug Marland cared about the Quartermaines - whether or not we liked various storylines, they were frontburner for most of the next twenty years. They were part of GH's bread and butter for multiple regimes - Alan and Monica, Susan Moore, Edward's son, Lila's lover, you name it. And Labine, while she told different stories, hardly disliked them either. It's not about whether you or I liked the storyline - the fact is they played them heavy for decades. Multiple [!@#$%^&*] regimes didn't do that out of masochism or seething resentment. If they had wanted to dump them it would not have been difficult to do just as had been done to the Bauers, etc. throughout the '80s on other shows like GL.

The problem is that he'd probably bring Melisandre and start roasting everyone alive. He's in too deep with her and on some level he knows it.

I think Melisandre cares only up to a point - if she was just a blind zealot she would not have told him to spare Davos's life, told him they would need him. But I believe her first loyalty is to her Red God, or perhaps just to herself, she's that hard to read for me. If at some point any of them are surplus to requirements, I think she'd tell Stannis (or his wife) to kill them. I think if Shireen continues to defy her thinking it might yet be the same. I don't think the king Melisandre wants Stannis to be is anywhere near the one Davos wants him to be. I'm not sure Stannis has any idea what kind of king he would want to be, other than that it is supposed to be his throne to rule. IMO Davos and Melisandre are ultimately at cross-purposes and they've tried to kill each other before, but right now they are poised at either end of a very troubled man and he needs them both for whatever Melisandre says is coming. Once that's done I think all bets are off - Davos wants her gone, Melisandre will want him gone again.

I think he obviously wants that from her; their sexual affair was the foundation stone of their relationship. Beautiful woman comes to a lonely second-son lord on Dragonstone with a deformed child and an ill wife, promises him wealth and power and gives him herself. She started by seducing him, then promised him glory if he converted to her god and followed her counsel to victory. I've never seen him as sexless - I think his sexual passion for Melisandre was one of his only outlets for release from the deeply rigid man he is, and that was what led to her taking such control over his kingdom. She made him feel alive, gave him hope for glory and triumph outside his depressing everyday life on that rocky shore, so that was her way in. It's an old story we see everyday. Eventually, Melisandre's influence over Stannis and the Baratheons of Dragonstone became so pervasive that they started burning half their people on pyres while his admittedly already-unstable wife completely converted to the cause and urged on the affair. In a way it's a Jim Jones/Jonestown setup - people urging their spouses to cheat so long as it's with the cult leader. You could tell Stannis was dismayed by Selyse growing even more deranged and taking to the cause last season. On the one hand he has come to believe in Melisandre and her faith, he's infatuated with her, he wants what she offers him for the future - but on the other he was clearly disappointed that Selyse's indoctrination denied him some other vantage point from her all-consuming faith. Davos basically told him he was looking for a way out and I think that's both true and not true. Now Davos is the only other vantage point Stannis has, the only true friend outside of Melisandre and her influence.

No, you're right; Davos is pretty much the only sane voice of reason on those premises. He appeals to Stannis's better nature, and Melisandre seems to not be completely power-mad as she's responsible for his still being alive and in play. And I do love Liam Cunningham, I have since Prime Suspect 6 and Dog Soldiers - but I especially love him with the kid who plays Shireen. The sad, and fascinating thing is that Melisandre's religious mania (as well as his sexual infatuation with her, as his mistress) is the major force powering Stannis's new resolve in the world - this whole thing came out of a kind of a midlife crisis which has eaten his whole life and almost surely helped drive his wife mad as she became a part of it (something which you can tell Stannis wasn't thrilled about). If he could get out from under the constant setting people on fire and the visions and all that and stick with his own head and his less hidebound instincts, which Davos is pretty much his proxy for, this whole effort might not seem so doomed to me. I root for the horribly damaged Dragonstone family (plus Davos) because they might as well be in a really trippy Sam Mendes domestic drama.

How deep did Littlefinger even look at the crown's funds? Given everything we now know he's done, it seems unlikely he could've missed the fact that the Lannisters are now just another old money Wall Street firm - broke, even though they're supposed to be the ones propping up the broke crown. Surely he's thought to do something about it, unless he's as shallow about this aspect of conquering as some of the theory he espoused to Varys, and so he missed it and all he bothered with was skimming the gold. Stannis is the one making the smart move going for the money, because even Tywin doesn't think he can take the Iron Bank. Money is what can get anyone - they got Al Capone for tax evasion, remember. And Stannis is nothing if not a deeply frustrated (professionally, sexually and otherwise) public servant. Not that I think it will put him on the throne - I think Stannis and his entire crew are far too dysfunctional and backwards for that - but it's a smart play.

I didn't find it anticlimactic - I was [!@#$%^&*] shocked, and so was just about every comment I've seen elsewhere.

I feel a kind of sympathy and understanding for Cersei, and it's clear the show is deeply fascinated with her as I am - but I don't think she was ever trying to help any one of the Starks. Sansa was easy for her to bully as her life continued to fall apart.

I don't remember Cersei ever trying to help Sansa, I just remember her tormenting her. She went with the match with the Tyrells after Blackwater because it was what everyone wanted, not to try and spare Sansa a life with Joffrey - she didn't learn to fear Margaery until later on. I don't remember her ever being kind to the girl, just taking her own deep frustrations with her life's path out on her instead because Sansa was vulnerable. After the Blackwater, she had had her fill of grinding down the weaker young girl and tossed her aside.

I only realized after the fact that Cersei was actually, potentially working each of the judges for Tyrion's trial - Mace Tyrell through Margaery ("speak to your father" about the marriage) and then the other two. But while that was clearly one motive, I choose to take her candor with each of them to also be a rare measure of honesty from her in a time of need. Because while she wants Tyrion dead for her own foolish, hateful reasons, she is also in an impossible position and has to bend the knee to each of them to go forward. If she didn't do that, Cersei would be as stupid as I've sometimes taken her for. A fascinating character, a tragic and complicated one, but often very foolish. I hope she is finally learning from some of her mistakes. Besides, Lena Headey was incredible in each of those scenes. As to your theory, it's certainly possible Cersei could do that, but I don't see what the point would be to slamming the Tyrells beyond rash, personal hatred - as Tywin said, they desperately need House Tyrell to survive. Growing Strong, bitches! On another note, Michelle Fairley should shortly be on the new 24 miniseries on Fox, which I am enjoying - she is playing a British arms dealer, in a role she took over from Judy Davis. I'm really looking forward to see her get her villainy on.

Oh, I definitely didn't want Meera raped. And I was glad it didn't go there. But introducing the jeopardy at all, I think, is real - it was done with Sansa too a few years ago, and both of them escaped.

Carver didn't do it like Herc!

Seth Gilliam was one of my favorite performers with one of my most favorite characters on The Wire - and I said that about both Chad Coleman and Larry Gilliard too, but it's especially true of SG. They were all fantastic on the show. And I am so glad to see my Carver again.

Isaac Hempstead-Wright would like to talk to you about warging. Also, TPTB about why they ignore the Internet (and rightly [!@#$%^&*] so, IMO).

I love that crazy Robin kid. Same one, too, he's gotten a lot bigger. I don't know that Margaery is underestimating Cersei, frankly. But Cersei did what she had to do, which was make the inroads I did not think her ego and paranoia left her capable of making. Margaery did get an dig in at the end, but I thought she was pretty straight with Cersei otherwise when she realized the Queen Regent was doing the same - or as straight as Margaery can be about her motives in her position.

Also nice to see in the preview:

I don't know what you expected those horrible dudes to have done with Meera. I was terrified for her - absolutely terrified - but that's what happens. (That's also the lovely agony of what happens whenever you catch up to a show you've been binge-watching, like this or TWD - eventually the now is just the now, and exhilaratingly no one is safe anymore.) And anyway, they didn't get around to doing anything to her, thanks to Jon and the Night's Watch. Every time I think I am just about beyond over Cersei and her nonsense they give her more wonderful, layered scenes with surprising people. Case in point, that amazing, candid conversation with Cersei and Margaery - I didn't know Cersei was capable of that kind of open reflection with someone she had classed an enemy, even if part of it may have been a feint on her end. At least some of what she said - about Joffrey, about Tommen - was absolutely true. Maybe it's bullshit, but she may be coming to terms with the realities of their situation. And I was thrilled to see Tywin level with her about the Iron Bank. There's so many parallels to the present in that situation with the crown's debt (as well as the entire Middle Eastern allegory that they've been playing with with Daenerys for years). Perhaps it was in the spirit of all that new enlightenment that Cersei chose to go to Oberyn and finally have a non-bitchy conversation - yes, she was trying to secure his cooperation re: Tyrion, but it wasn't just about that. Really amazing stuff for her character, and for everyone else and their characters who were sharing time with Lena Headey this week. Loved Podrick and Brienne. Just loved it. I had a feeling Bran would just miss Jon. I was so terrified for the kids, but Bran did what he felt he had to do. I loved their showing Jojen's visions, and I'm glad it wasn't curtains for them yet - I was terrified Burn Gorman (who is one of the most versatile actors working today; just look at this vs. his polar opposite scientist role in the otherwise very mediocre Pacific Rim) was going to off both the Reed kids, leaving Bran and Hodor alone to brave the wilderness. Interesting parallel this week, I think, with both Daenerys and Jon beginning to come to terms with ruling - as many characters have said, it's not just about winning the throne, like Robert did; you have to learn to maintain it. Daenerys is doing that in Essos, and I think it will be a fascinating examination of what she's done thus far; Jon, meanwhile, is coming off more and more like Ned/Sean Bean by the day, and he suits that shadow very well. I adored the stuff at the Eyrie. Kate Dickie - who, if you haven't seen her opposite Tony Curran in Andrea Arnold's Scottish thriller Red Road, you must - is always a delight, and fantastically, tragically insane as Lysa. So is that kid, he's still a trip. I was floored, though, by the reveal about Jon Arryn. I got accidentally spoiled about a few potential upcoming moments at the Eyrie, but I had no idea that was coming. Littlefinger just leveled up in terms of villainy, and Sansa is right in the thick of it. I hope Brienne and Pod get there before things go really south. Fantastic episode. Did I miss anything?

Peter Dinklage has only gotten hotter in the years since I saw him walking out of a Starbucks across the street from my MTV gig and foolishly did not accost him then and there like a raving maniac.