Vee

Also nice to see in the preview:

Yara finally reaching the Dreadfort and crazy-ass Iwan Rheon - the Theon plotline returns! And it seems like someone is finally, properly having the Daenerys discussion back in Westeros. IMO, people like Tywin, etc. have been taking that situation way too lightly for a long time. Maybe Varys and his friend in the east (the guy played by Roger Allam, the one who made the introductions between the Targaryen siblings and Drogo in Season 1) have been filtering the info?

Also: Mark Gatiss! At the Iron Bank, I believe?

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.

Yep. I remember reading about that, one of the first times I ever picked up a soap mag. I couldn't believe they would get rid of Cassie, who I saw as part of the firmament of the show - she was like a big sister to me.

Yeah, I didn't have a problem with Jessica losing the baby. I did have a problem with her popping out a few in rapid succession years later.

And yes, the Dorian situation ended far too quickly, but that was typical of JFP at the time. She shortchanged characters she didn't care for, and she was angling to push Robin Strasser out, which she did. I'll never forgive her for that, or for killing Mel or firing Laura Bonariggo.

Andrew and Cassie were well-liked, but they became boring in time. I know I was bored with them at this point, though I liked them both. After a certain point they just hung around as the nice local couple, trimming the hedges at the rectory or whatever and fretting over other people, and that wasn't story.

Laura Bonariggo (Cassie) was apparently bored to tears at this point and very big on being paired with Kevin Stapleton - the Kevin/Cassie thing had a lot of fans, and I liked them as well. But she spoke glowingly about Bob Krimmer a couple years ago as well. The truth is the show didn't appreciate Andrew after Malone and Gottlieb left; didn't know how to use him, took him for granted. I did as a young fan - I thought he was a nice guy, but after a while he was just wandering around dispensing advice. They tried him with Téa but he was pretty much used as the goat for Todd, which is too bad since he did have chemistry with Florencia Lozano. I find him so much more fascinating now, but his best stories were his early ones, because Andrew was so much a piece of Michael Malone. And Malone himself remained ambivalent about Andrew and Cassie, I think - they went with it because of the chemistry between the two though they hadn't planned to pair them, but after they did, Malone continued to tease Andrew and Marty for several more years, including after Marty's rape.

The Kevin and Cassie pairing was sabotaged by JFP, who fired Stapleton and hired Tim Gibbs (who Bonariggo couldn't stand), then fired Laura for not being hot enough for her man Gibbs. I wasn't particularly wedded to them, especially after I saw Kevin get with Kelly. In the end, years later when Bonariggo and Krimmer would make guest appearances together in the last few years of the network show, I wanted them to just reunite Andrew and Cassie - give them a happy ending back together. Why not?

I remember tuning in when that story happened - suddenly innocent Jessica, who was about my age was slugging back some liquor and having a bad day. I was shocked, but intrigued, because I knew that happened IRL with kids I knew and I was shocked the soap was "going there" with little Jessica.

I didn't care about Will or how it played out - in fact, I grew to despise Will Rappaport - but I thought the story itself, Jessica gets drunk, wastes her first time with the wrong guy, gets pregnant, etc. was all valid, real stuff.

Lena Headey comments on The Scene. I don't care for the blog I'm linking to, I never have, but they reprinted her take and I pretty much agree with it. The scene is ambiguous, those characters are ambiguous, the show is ambiguous and people will get over it.

She also apparently indicated that she will

be around for Season 5 at least, so that's my theory shot down. I'm always glad for more Lena Headey, though -

I've been following her since she was in that silly little teen thriller Gossip with Norman Reedus over a decade ago. And if anyone still hasn't seen her as futuristic drug kingpin Ma-Ma in Dredd, it's on Netflix Instant and she is incredible. (Though it's one of the few 3-D films that deserves to be seen and truly appreciated in 3-D - it is a gorgeous spectacle designed for that format.)

Yeah, I mentioned it a while back, I think. He was also the little boy in Love Actually lo those many years ago. Now he does magazine shoots where he's in leather jackets smoking cigarettes rocking the James Dean pose and I feel very confused.

Unbelievably enough, Thomas Sangster is actually in his twenties.

Jojen has had seizures apparently related to his warging or visions or whatever since Season 3; Meera was used to them. I don't know if this new illness is a side-effect of that or if he's become ill since they went over the Wall. He certainly never looked like that before that I can recall.

I have no idea what I'd do with Cersei or anyone; it's one thing to play fixer-upper on the soaps, but with GOT I think they've got their heads on straight with the story trajectory. I think a lot of these characters have expiration dates and I suspect Cersei may be nearing hers. She's a tragic figure, but she's also contemptible, rootable - she's a lot of things at once, like most of the characters on the show. I have no reason to believe Tyrion is going to go down for Joffrey's death and I don't think Cersei is capable of sitting still for watching the Tyrells wed themselves to their House as everyone but Cersei herself has planned, so unless the status quo holds indefinitely or unless she pulls a Hail Mary and eliminates them, or simply learns to cope, I don't know what Cersei would do going forward. I look forward to finding out if they surprise me, but if this is her Waterloo I will definitely enjoy that too.

IDK if I did, but yeah, he sure did.

I have my suspicions that this season is curtains for at least a couple of the key Lannisters - specifically, Tywin and Cersei. Tywin seems too secure with the line of succession and the frame-up on Tyrion, and Cersei, well, what has she got left? The Tyrells are edging her out (and I'm in their corner, frankly, though I find Cersei a fascinating character) and Tywin has no respect for her either; I think he's manipulated the throne and mishandled his kids for the last time.

I dunno if poor Tommen could possibly outlast his elders, but who knows. It's all so exciting! I just hope poor Jojen doesn't die a horrible death at Craster's Keep Thrill Kill Kannibal Kamp. He looked beyond sick. And Hodor!

That was one big-ass cat. I do hope we see a Ser Pounce again, though. Depends on how long Tommen's day in the sun is, I suppose.

Ser Pounce reacts to the news of his being benched via Twitter. ("I make my own fate")

I had no idea Dean-Charles Chapman (our new Tommen) was also one of the Billy Elliotts. I saw the show here on Broadway, it was a good time.

io9 discusses last week's final scene and reminds me of the legend of the Night's King, which I'd watched a piece about in the lore section on the Season 1 Blu-Ray but forgotten about. Potential spoilers in that HBO Go apparently let slip with a name in the cast list re: the White Walkers shown at the end, but it's mostly just spec.

If it's true that the Night's King's forbidden human name was

Brandon Stark,

well, that's interesting.

I think it's both.

The fact is, this show is set in a medieval fantasy era. People's ways of life, their priorities, their society is profoundly different than ours. Women are often treated like chattel. The priority of the crown is for Tommen to marry and breed, which Tywin indicated Tommen would need to do very soon; the priority of the Tyrells is for Margaery to wed and bed him. It doesn't matter how old he is or isn't, it doesn't matter that she's much older - she is aiming to charm him, wed him and have his child. That's it.

The fact is that yes, Margaery was seducing him AFAIC. That is her role. That's exactly what Olenna told her to do. She was charming him first - becoming his friend, bonding with him over his cat, getting to know him, but, I felt, very clearly intimating the promise of romance and beneath that, of sex. That was all over her body language, her dialogue; it was all over the way he reacted to her, too. The scene straddled that line very carefully, but very clearly IMO - there was sex between the lines, but it wasn't just about sex. She was seducing him in other ways and implicitly promising the rest, and he was clearly smitten with her. That is Margaery fulfilling her role for House Tyrell and to become Queen. Those are the facts of life in a medieval society - I don't think Margaery has a thing for children, but she is there to befriend and seduce and wed a King. And that King is Tommen, who is a young teenager, and as far as she's concerned that is exactly what she's going to do. And that's that. The show's not set on Earth in 2014 - people on the Internet debating whether Margaery is a threat to children is, IMO, completely ridiculous. She's there for one young boy king.

The fact that this is Westeros and not Earth is, IMO, the same reason Cersei and Jaime didn't bother to talk about their nasty interlude last week. That's not what these people in this world, particlarly those two people with their twisted rapport and decaying relationship, do. Instead she ordered him around, called him by his title and ordered him out of her sight. That is this world. And sure, it can be unseemly.

LOL Vee I totally get what you're coming from and I'm about to reach that stage. I try to tell myself that its not the books at all and at this stage I should just watch it without any expectations but its just really frustrating cuz I know for the most part whats coming up and I know these characters and these storylines so to see them fail so bad on screen is kinda painful...

It's been four seasons - it's taken you this long to give up on a show you've said you've always hated?

I don't see where the characters are failing. And I don't see what's supposed to be so wrong with Bran's story - I like the new twist in things, there's actually people to interact with and things going on, whereas last year was a lot of table-setting for Bran and friends.

I personally think the Jaime/Cersei situation last week wasn't supposed to be anything more than tortured, rough and only barely consensual sex in a broken relationship - a liaison she really didn't want but reluctantly ceded to. But I did think the scene this week between them deftly straddled the line regardless of our interpretation. She's drinking heavily, she shut him down, called him "Lord Commander" and told him to get out. For whatever version of events the viewer subscribes to, including all the stuff prior to last week, Cersei is clearly affected and their affair is done. I think that's more than enough, especially in a medieval world where nobody's going to sit down for a long discussion about their boundaries.

Kate Dickie is back next week, lookin' crazy as ever. I hope that crazy kid of hers is back too. I love Kate Dickie.

Season 4 will be at the midway point next week, and unless I'm very wrong both the Stark girls and two of the Stark boys are on their way to unexpected reunions, at the Eyrie and Craster's Keep. We'll see if either of them make it. I have a sinking feeling Jon may just miss Bran, again.

...but in all seriousness, here's this from Vanity Fair on the changes.

I didn't, really. I've seen her, I didn't like her or her dad, I didn't care, so I dropped it.

You are right, though, Rauch knew where his bread and butter was, he knew what Erika could do and how much audience cachet she had, and he played those characters - Viki, Clint, Tina, Cord, etc. - hard.

I thought NCW made a good villain in Season 1, but he didn't really get me until Seasons 2 and 3 when they began peeling the onionskin. I will have to go back and rewatch S1 more during the off-season to try and catch some of the subtleties.

It struck me how much Jon acted and sounded like Ned/Sean Bean during his stuff at the Wall this week. This is really his season to come into his own, I think, as a future ruler. That orphaned farmer's boy they rescued from the wildlings is darling, but I'm sure he'll die first when the wildlings come. I didn't mind the Bran mention, though it was a little kludgy - they have only so much time and real estate in ten episodes and a huge amount of ground to cover in various stories from the books. I assume Locke has been sent by the Boltons to try and snoop, to verify the location of Bran and Rickon - to try and kill the last original heirs to Winterfell. I worry about Osha and Rickon; I believe they are scheduled to appear this year. His allegiances aside, what I liked about that last scene was how many men stood with Jon this time - whatever the Night's Watch is made up of, you still have men there, however downtrodden and damned for their crimes, who are making their own form of honor, as opposed to being highborn like Jon and Bran (or Jaime). I thought that was a running bit this week, maybe it's me, but I liked.

I remember Torchwood's Burn Gorman from last year, and I was surprised and thrilled to see him this week back again. The Craster's Keep situation is probably one of the most hellish and awful I've ever seen on the show, but boy, Owen Harper sure was made to drink wine from a human skull while drunkenly rambling about his lot in life. That was something else.

I was hardly upset or anything that Bran and the kids got captured - I don't see why anyone would be. I thought it was an exciting plot development in a story thread that desperately needed some after last year (and no, I don't care if Bran wouldn't give his name in the books; he's a twelve-year-old boy lost in the wilderness whose friends are being threatened by a drunken maniac). I truly fear for all of them, especially Hodor and poor, beautiful Thomas Sangster. Jojen looked absolutely horrible this week. Edge of my seat with that stuff.

It was a little mindblowing to see that whole Fortress of Solitude setup out there with the White Walkers. That was a trip. We can so easily forget about the real threat beyond the Wall, like all the characters do - out there, that weird [!@#$%^&*] seems to come from outer space. Great moment.

I really liked Grey Worm and Missandei in Meereen, well played by Jacob Anderson and Nathalie Emmanuel. They do have chemistry, whether or not the actress is downplaying that in her new interview; I wonder if she was trying not to tip her hand. I do think Daenerys's absolutist approach in Meereen may well have consequences. She has a castle, she has her flag over it - now what?

I was a little disappointed to realize Littlefinger believes he has the measure of the Tyrells ("my new friends are predictable"), and that he indeed might - I think working with him is beneath them, and to what end? Someone as smart as Olenna must know that Littlefinger is, according to Varys's approximation anyway (and Varys is rarely wrong), a terrorist - to him the climb is all there is. That's not a steady pair of hands for the realm; even if he claims he will be hands-off with them or a King Tommen, who's to believe him? Not me. I just don't want to see people like Olenna and Margaery go down to an operator like him. I think Olenna in particular is too smart for that. I did laugh at her quip about the garden strolls getting old. And I liked Littlefinger testing Sansa's mettle for court intrigue. He clearly intends her to be his mistress on the side from Lysa Arryn - I hope Brienne guts him like a fish, but I'm not holding my breath. We'll see what happens, I just would hate to see Littlefinger get the best of my favorite House.

Oh, and I forgot to add, yes, I understand they made changes to the books tonight - they've made them before, this is not new. Doesn't bother me, I just watch the show! Welcome to my world, bitches! We're all on a crazy train!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MLp7YNTznE

Teddy Sears (who's gone on to a fair bit of other stuff) is the one who played the bartender, Chad Bennett.

He was a winning guy, but the character had no personality. So of course Gary Tomlin signed him to a contract and tried to play a horrible summer romance storyline with him and Troy and Colin's little sister Emily (who explained, in a horribly labored and totally unnecessary bit of dialogue, how she'd changed her name from the "Carol" who'd been previously mentioned by the McIver brothers because children used to call her "Christmas Carol". Really?).

I did a serious series of embarrassing air punches and garbled cheers when they cut to Podrick as Brienne's new wingman. That is fantastic. And not just because I lust after Daniel Portman in a terrible way.

That Brienne/Jaime scene in the Kingsguard chamber (or wherever) is as close as they've come to a date. That got me. It's sort of a Remains of the Day thing, really - because of who they are and how they are, their stations in life, the way they're expected to conduct themselves, that was as close as they've come to expressing themselves to each other.

Before I started watching GOT I'd only seen Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in the truly so-so Guillermo del Toro production Mama, where he was sort of just the hapless husband to bounce off heroine Jessica Chastain and the monsters. I thought he was kind of a vague prettyboy there, but on this show he's shown so many facets, layers; he's just incredible. It makes you want to see him in some sort of film noir throwback thing, wearing a fedora and talking fast yet still dashing and damaged.

That Margaery and Tommen rendezvous was pitched just right, right on the line between sex and kid's stuff. Tommen was totally enrapt - Michelle MacLaren shot the silent gazes between them perfectly. Margaery is just the best. I'll comment on the rest in a bit, except I have to try and recall what happened to Locke last year - was he packed off to the Wall for chopping off Jaime's hand? He's played, of course, by the great Noah Taylor, who I remember best for the underseen and very good Max, where he played the young Adolf Hitler after World War I.

They're not changing the show around or adjusting the characters based on fan reaction - it's not like the bullshit we put up with on the soaps or some network show. On cable, especially from a preexisting template like GOT where the books have an existing story, these guys in particular are running the biggest show on television and they do whatever they want year after year. There is nothing and no one that could change that. If stupid TWD fanboys couldn't get half the women on that show killed off before the show damn well felt like doing it - and that's a show on basic cable, with mixed critical reception that is not the monster force that GOT is - then GOT is never going to do anything it doesn't want to do or [!@#$%^&*] with the characters just because the Internet said so. It is not worth worrying about.

I can't even imagine Susan Haskell as Lily. Tell the truth, I can't see her as anyone but Marty!!

Didn't JFP take over EP from Maxine Levinson? Both Linda Gottleib and Susan Bedsow Horgan would have been long gone by then.

I believe she did, yes. My point was, the show was sort of in a holding pattern for almost two years, maybe longer, once both Horgan and Malone were gone - sort of coasting on a handful of popular couples, the leftover material from the Malone/Gottlieb+Horgan renaissance. Not much seemed to move, really, that I can recall. It got boring, definitely. I liked Téa under the Labines though I couldn't understand why the show hadn't reunited Todd and Blair, I liked Patrick and Marty, I liked Max and Maggie, one of the last of the Malone couples, but stories just sort of meandered along. You had subplots like Carlotta with Hank and Clint, which I liked, you had the Hayes family - I loved Mel and Dorian - but until JFP there wasn't much galvanizing, exciting story again. Ultimately JFP proved ruinous to the show, of course, but by the time she showed up in '98 it was just exciting to see things happening and people taking risks again. I remember it was the Georgie Phillips story with Bo and Nora that pulled me back in as a teen, and looking back it was pretty tacky but it was still something happening again. RSW and HBS were initially thrilled about it, too, about their story getting a shot in the arm - they did a gushing interview about it for TV Guide. That didn't last.

JFP told a lot of lousy stories, but she knew who to lean on to keep me watching - she played Erika Slezak, HBS and RSW all week every week, and when they came up on that big February sweeps period in 2000 where Nora learned that Lindsay had falsified Bo's fertility test results two years prior, which led to their divorce, and ran off to confront Lindsay at her wedding to Bo, I was absolutely glued to my seat. And the scenes were great. I could not stop watching. It was, ultimately, in the service of bad stories - JFP had no real intention of re-pairing Bo and Nora while her beloved Kale Browne still needed a frontburner couple - but she knew that she needed to keep them together and tease it in story perpetually, she knew how to lean on people and viewer loyalty to that history together and that made a lot of it work, superficially.

IIRC, Brynden the Blackfish is Cat's uncle. I was amused to spot another Rome alumni as Cat's brother Edmure - Tobias Menzies, who played the tortured Brutus on that show, son to Lindsay Duncan's Servilia. Rome wasn't quite as good as GOT, but it was definitely the prototype for HBO.

I don't think the Hound is self-righteous - I think he is the opposite, almost nihilistic. He knows what he is, he condemns himself and everything around him. But he holds onto some small shred of decency, in his own savage, backwards way. I like Gendry - he's just there to be a nice, sweet boy at this stage, really, whatever his future may be. And I always found Joe Dempsie to be a good actor.

I never saw Sansa as isolated from her family, not in any real way, anyway. They clearly loved her and considered her one of them in every way. When we met her she was just the typical tweenage girl who wanted to be out of the North and turned up her nose to everything - it was just typical growing pains, including her sibling rivalry with Arya.

I loved that scene with Cersei and the Tyrells, Joffrey, etc. in the sept because it was clear Olenna could and would sympathize with Cersei (up to a point, anyway), could turn her - and Cersei clearly yearned for that identification and understanding, but in the end she defaulted to what she always defaults to, which is either callous bitchery and tyranny over the vulnerable, in the case of that conversation with Olenna, simply ceding to the conventional wisdom of her father and that power system. And seeing someone who could do something she can't, that she has no capacity for doing - Margaery doing her continuing Princess Diana bit with the people - reminds her of what she could be and won't.