Vee

The Martells made quite an impression. I have loved Indira Varma since Rome - ironically, that was HBO's precursor show to GOT which taught them how to manage large budgets and large location shooting, but not before having to end that show to save their purse (it also starred Ciaran Hinds, Kevin McKidd, Ray Stevenson, the fantastic Polly Walker and the great Lindsay Duncan, among many others). She went on to Torchwood, among other things, and now it's great to see her here. Pedro Pascal was great pawing that hot spy at Littlefinger's pleasure den. I have my suspicions about what could happen at this famous Purple Wedding, but I have to believe that any potential swerve might come not from the obviously aggressive Martells but from someone else. I half-suspect the ruined Ser Dontos (which I keep reading as Ser Doritos) to take up arms against the Lannisters. I love Jaime and Brienne together, but I don't know what Brienne expects Jaime to do here - send Sansa to crazy Lysa Tully who has been agitating against Kings Landing for at least a year? Like it or not, with Tyrion as her husband Sansa's life is relatively secure. As secure as it gets, because she's satisfied Tywin Lannister. If you can't do that, or at least stay off his radar, your life is forfeit. I loved the deeper look into Sansa and Jaime's characters last year and I love the continued emphasis on them this year. They seem like stock types early in Season 1, but there's so much more to both of them. It's so odd seeing Jaime all cleaned up and pretty again, alongside Brienne, who knows him better than most. I was glad Jon had no time for the ancient Night's Watch bullshit. I also loved that very candid scene with him and Sam. Good stuff. It's about time Jon, like Daenerys, began taking on his rightful place in the narrative; I knew he would begin rising as one of the champions. Next up, hopefully, is Bran. Speaking of Daenerys, I suspect they intend to directly challenge her colonial 'liberator of slaves' narrative this year. I think Daenerys's cause is just, but that's only right and will be very interesting. I'm over Shae. Sorry. Also, Arya was terrifying at the end, with that smile on her face as she killed the knight. Great work by Maisie Williams.

IIRC, they were planning to sign Katie Wright (Chelsea) as a regular. Then something went down, maybe the Alyssa Milano addition took off, and she and Matt were abruptly exited in Season 6.

I have loved Oona Chaplin in many things, particularly The Hour, which I think is now on Netflix Instant and which ended far too soon - it features Ben Whishaw, Romola Garai, The Wire's Dominic West, Anna Chancellor, Peter Capaldi and others as the staff of an early BBC TV news program. Oona looks so much like her mother and grandfather too, and I will always revere Geraldine Chaplin for Nashville. I think her role in GOT is pretty basic compared to The Hour - she's there to be Robb's true love/Achilles heel and a decent, goodhearted woman - but she elevates it, as does the writing. I hope you'll avoid spoilering yourself much going forward, I know I am staying off most social media as I watch S4 live with everyone else. I have a hunch about the Purple Wedding, but I don't want to know. I already was inadvertently spoilered about which would have shocked me. I remember finding Brienne's introduction a little rushed, but Gwendoline Christie is so incredible. And the real introduction of her character, beyond the incidentals, comes in her stuff with others going forward. She (and Margaery, who is much more fleshed out in Season 3) are now two of my favorites. As is Sansa, oddly enough, after last season. The stuff with Bran, Theon and Ser Rodrik is still very difficult for me to watch.

I liked Rhonda. They could've changed that character up; Vanessa Williams was an incredibly talented actress who I'd also seen in Candyman, among other things. But the early '90s, while often very daring, was not anywhere near progressive enough to go there, at least not on a Spelling show. It's still considered shockingly new to have primetime soaps like Scandal or genre shows like Sleepy Hollow starring black women on basic networks.

Over at the (soon to be equally dead) TWOP, we were talking about the dying days of OLTL's music budget on ABC, and it brought this to mind for me - from the truly insane second Michael Malone/Josh Griffith era of OLTL, 2003-2004, comes Viki's heart transplant storyline from the spring of '04. More specifically, this is the incredibly pretentious and silly "dream" episode they did in which Viki, whose beloved Ben still languished in a coma, was struggling to come to grips with her own life being in the balance. As you will see, this episode was absolutely terrible. It had a lot of heart, it meant well, but the purple dialogue and overwrought artifice, the direction and staging are all horribly stilted, and the production value is bargain-basement - it's Malone and Frank Valentini trying to do Kyle MacLachlan's abstract dream from David Lynch's Twin Peaks on about three-fifty, with the same attempt at avant-garde ambiguity. Not everyone can do Linda Gottlieb. What is good about this, though, and what brings me to my top point, is the opening montage, featuring what had to be the very last of OLTL's budget for popular commercial music - Frank V. and Josh Griffith used to be very big on using real, good contemporary music, until the well ran dry. Here they used The Cure and "To Wish Impossible Things" to wonderful effect. I'm not sure any other soap ever had the balls to go for The Cure, and I was so pleased. That's the last time I can remember real music on OLTL on ABC.

Leave me with my fanfictions

In honor of the poorly-truncated scene shown today. Then again, I could be wrong about you.

When the man's right, he's right. Carol is gonna take that place apart.

I liked all the finales, though I took issue with the latter half of the second season's finale. This finale is not the strongest IMO but this season has been mostly very solid. I don't think a lot of people have ever known what they wanted from this show. Some want badass, hard-killing zombie hunters, some want some sort of "Lost" mytharc or philosophical type bullshit, some kind of new status quo that the show doesn't necessarily lend itself to - I think it does lend itself to changing, but no change to this show ever seems enough. I think it's incredibly burdened by cashing in on a moment in pop culture when everyone was into zombies, and now everyone's kind of turned on that. I think it's a lot better than the comic. It's not the greatest show on TV but I think it's pretty solid. Compared to any number of other serialized, episodic thrillers I've seen this year, it's great.

I thought the guy was undoing his own pants, which is more than enough, really. I don't think the point of the finale was that Rick was going feral and was 'gone' like Michonne had been, but that the needs of that world were more nuanced than what he and Hershel had hoped would stay forever. Michonne reinforces that neither Rick nor Carl are too far gone.

Rick and Michonne are falling in love. Someone needs to just admit it. Fine show, but I'd have called it a midseason finale. I was surprised they included the attempted rape scene, which was considerably more graphic in the comics with the guy getting Carl's pants off - but just the guy nuzzling at his neck was incredibly unsettling. I was amazed they let even that on AMC. Poor kid. I notice Carol was not among their number in Train Car A. Bad mistake on the Terminus folks's part. Carol and Cutty Tyreese are gonna take that whole thing apart.

I like both parts of the season, but I thought the first half was much tighter, really good stuff. This show doesn't need to be more than 13 episodes per season - trying to push it close to the length of a year-round show does not work. That's why the second half, while decent, has been a lot saggier for me. I love Glenn and Maggie - I saw no reason for either of them to kowtow to anyone, certainly not Abraham and his crusade. Why does Glenn owe them anything? He was on the road by himself looking for his wife, and I personally doubt this mulleted doctor, amusing though he is, can cure [!@#$%^&*]. But I'm pretty sure poor Maggie is dead on Sunday because of that foreshadowing bomb after their reunion with the picture. I like Daryl, but I feel like I have watched the "Daryl must turn his back on his past self" storyline at least three or four times before, with Merle, with Beth a few weeks ago. These bandit dudes are just the latest, and they bore me, all of them. I also have a terrible feeling Carl might buy it next week, or close, based on the preview with Rick looking shellshocked. I hope they don't go the dumb Robert Kirkman route of

I'm curious to see DRW's reaction to the next few episodes, but also to the end of Episode 4(?) of Season 2, with Melisandre. When she and Davos went into that cave and she did her, uh, bit, my jaw dropped to the floor. I thought Melisandre was largely a con artist and exploitative zealot up to that point, but she's obviously something much more complicated. The jury is still out on her true nature for me, even after Season 3. So much of that is on the strength of the writing, and of Carice Van Houten's incredible performance. I first saw her in Robocop and Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven's fantastic WWII thriller Black Book, and before GOT I also saw her playing another mysterious witch opposite Sean Bean in the underrated medieval supernatural thriller Black Death - which I think is still on Netflix streaming.

That's why he (and many others) died. I think Renly was a decent enough fellow and would've been a good administrator but he was a kid in many ways. He wanted what he wanted, he had the flash and pomp but he didn't have the iron will or the wisdom. His Hand and Small Council would've run most of the show.

It's not that Tyrion wanted the girls hurt. Tyrion believed that he could calm Joffrey down and bring him into line by getting him laid like a typical uptight virgin kid. He was wrong - Joffrey went wild on the girls because violence is what arouses him.

I enjoyed the "General Homicide" mess for a while, but what baffled me is it seemed to go on for what felt like 18 months as everyone on the show and their mom said, "it must be Greg Cooper and that crazy Julie!" Greg Cooper was supposed to be responsible for everything bad on the show, so I naturally thought, well, these two are obviously red herrings. But no! After all that, it was Greg Cooper and Julie! Ridiculous. And the DV story was awful. They were psychic spies? What? I thought the whole incorporation of Kevin's backstory - Grace, Rachel Locke, etc. - was masterful, but the Ellen angle they dropped absolutely infuriated me as a kid. I loved Debbi Morgan, and even though she wasn't playing the role anymore I cared about Ellen.

Yes, Lancel was Robert's squire, IIRC. He has a somewhat larger role in Season 2, but I've yet to spot him in Season 3. The doll who plays Loras, Finn Jones, I first glimpsed on The Sarah Jane Adventures, as Jo Grant's grandson.

Am I gonna have to trawl through Dailymotion to start watching more of this show? Because I'll do it. I've gone worse places.

That wasn't Loras with Cersei. That was Lancel Lannister, a family cousin.

Dat INXS cover, tho

I think they'd have been fooling themselves. She was a danger to everything around her. In this instance, Carol did what had to be done.

Nothing could snap her out of it - it's not a funk. She was psychotic. And as Carol said, it was clearly in her makeup long before the apocalypse. There was absolutely no way for her to function in that world except in the worst, most harmful way possible to the people around her. In everyday life she would have needed severe professional help to even begin to function safely.

I always believed she did it. We'll have to see what comes up for her, though.

Yeah, that's really a good point. Carol's arc in Season 4 - this kind of moral road and the consequences therein - is the sort of thing you generally see given to men on major primetime dramas, a Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad, a guy on Mad Men, whatever. A woman, certainly not a woman of a certain age, less so. And also not one given what are often seen as the conventionally 'masculine' traits Carol has been imbued with - her lethality, her strength, her resolve. I get that on Game of Thrones, but Game of Thrones is a very, very different show with a fantastical context.

A few errant thoughts that I have collected: The girl playing Mika was awfully good with Melissa McBride early on. She called Carol on her take on the new world and she was, up to a point, right - each of them, child and woman, represented a different extreme. I had a feeling since their introduction that Lizzie and Mika would go the way of Ben and Billy from the comics and teach Carol the weight of her sins and her new ethos, but I wouldn't have minded if they'd thrown me another loop and let Mika win out while Lizzie was offed. Still, this was an excellent episode. The last scene at the table between Chad Coleman and Melissa McBride was unbelievable - the look in his eyes, the intimacy between the two (not romantic, though who knows if that's entirely impossible in future). I loved when he said they couldn't stay there - because though he forgave her (with some sort of astounding grace), I thought he would kill her if they did, alone. I have no idea if Carol has a future with the show, as they didn't do the reveal I expected here - some sort of big, big moment where she sacrifices herself. That may or may not happen, but either way, they did a great job here. I laughed when they showed the Talking Dead check-in before the preview for next week and the room was dead silent with everyone clinging to each other. Poor Yvette Nicole Brown.