Vee

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

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.