Vee

What an episode.

I had suspected this was coming for Joffrey this week since just before the season started - I had no rumors or anything, but I knew the Purple Wedding would be significant somehow, and I soon noticed there was no apparent footage of Joffrey following the wedding in any previews; I also couldn't see why Tyrion would be in chains. I still think it was either Ser Dontos or him in collusion with someone else - I can't imagine who. The Martells seem too obvious.

Margaery remains the best and for my money, the smartest player around. I hope she comes through this alright and continues to take an active role in things somehow. You could tell she could barely stomach being around Joffrey. The stony expressions on many faces during the dwarf play were something else - that whole sequence was incredibly tense. I don't know what pleasure Cersei could possibly get out of any of that debacle at this point, or out of being so petty as to insist on feeding the leftovers to the dogs and not the poor. She knew what her son was, she knows she's not as smart as she thought. After the last two seasons, how much longer can belittling the less fortunate to exert some last shred of power possibly sustain her? She seems to be teetering on the brink as is. I didn't follow how she could have known about Brienne and Jaime, unless I've forgotten a scene or two last week. Still, Gwendoline Christie was amazing as always.

I loved that we got back to Dragonstone and Stannis's family - they were fascinating last season and they're even moreso now. You can tell, as I have suspected since the start and as was confirmed late last season, that Stannis, dogmatic and bullheaded though he is, has never been as truly committed to the Lord of Light as his poor, desperate wife or Melisandre, the woman who seduced him. In a way, his infatuation with her and that faith is almost a metastasized midlife crisis on a monstrous scale, infecting not only his own family but every aspect of his little fiefdom. He knows it's out of control, he wants out but he's too rigid, too Stannis to ever say so, to Davos or anyone else. That miserable family dinner scene in that wet, soggy cave with the bad meat said it all. He's always gotten the short end of the stick, ever since holding Storm's End. I believe David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have always said their angle on bringing GOT to HBO was to do for fantasy what was done for the mob with The Sopranos, or the cop drama with The Wire, or the Old West with Deadwood - 'making them dirty and reinventing them,' they've said, and here it's a case of bringing fantasy down to human Earth. Stannis and his family and his holdings could, on a smaller, less fantastical scale, just as well be any family in crisis anywhere in America on a contemporary drama - a broken family, a dysfunctional home rocked by the presence of an alluring intruder who completely turns their world upside-down. They were already primed for someone like Melisandre and her red god to come in and totally turn them inside-out.

Great stuff with the Boltons, too - it's enthralling to see them portrayed as, from what I've observed, sort of the mirror-universe version of the Starks, with Ramsay as the scheming Roose Bolton's closest hand; unlike Jon and Ned, Roose's bastard is given real position, but is a demented sadist. Not unlike Stephen Dillane as Stannis, Michael McElhatton does a great job with the very extreme control Bolton exerts over how he presents himself to the world. Even when he looked Catelyn in the eye at the Red Wedding just before the carnage started, even when he stabbed Robb in the heart, his face barely shifted beyond mild neutrality. He's the same today. I think someone BTS mentioned that their take on Theon now is that he has been completely subjugated and brainwashed by Ramsay, whereas in the books Theon supposedly only obeyed out of fear.

I've been tired of Shae and her dramatics for a while - when she came onto the scene she postured as a woman of mystery, claimed to be so in tune with the ways of sociocultural and sexual politics, so in command of herself but she's been bitching about the necessities of Tyrion's public life for two seasons. Nonetheless, her rejection by a very pained Tyrion was heartbreaking all the same. Great work by both actors.

I cackled when I saw Loras and Oberyn Martell making eyes at each other. Naturally!

The brief stuff with Bran was great - Isaac Hempstead-Wright really sold the feral nature overtaking him. The look in his eyes was something else. I hope there's much more to his storyline this year; last season was mostly treading water.

Great show. I will agree Cersei is my long shot for killing Joffrey - maybe she just couldn't take it anymore and is hiding it that well, she just wanted it all to be over. She wanted herself freed, she wanted the Tyrells gone. Who knows? Other than her being the remote possibility, I have Dontos and...I dunno, Olenna? No, that wouldn't make sense; making Joffrey her grandson by marriage secures their house's future. It could also be someone working from beyond King's Landing - the Brotherhood, or Melisandre, or the Targaryen loyalists from Essos.

I loved the look on Varys's face throughout the wedding. He was just dying inside wanting to get out of there - priceless.

That was an idea they floated, but it never got onscreen.

I know, but I was under the impression you'd denied yourself other stuff on streaming. Oh, it was TP because of the Log Lady intros. Never mind.

You won't get Netflix Instant, but you are down for HBO? What am I doing with my life? (I have my friend's HBO Go; I could afford HBO but I may make a move soon and I'm trying to be conscientious for the moment.)

I don't know if there is a video showing all the locations. It wouldn't surprise me.

I personally don't get to commentaries until between seasons or after viewing the whole block.

It's been like that since Season 3, IIRC.

The civil rights and politics in the world of GOT aren't the same as ours. Daenerys can only do the best she can for those people from her subjective experience and position of power. I do think she'll continue learning some lessons, but IMO to dismiss what she does as out of touch is to judge her by a real-world perspective that is removed from the context of that fantasy world and the way it is ruled.

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

Lady Stoneheart,

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.

Carol, who is frankly beyond an alpha male

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

shooting his eye out and blowing half his face off.

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.

Your take on Renly is interesting. I've always felt that GRRM was wrong to kill off the character....he honestly was everything a King should be. Noble, fair, wise, and prudent.

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.

He's a good actor. But he's not enough to get me to watch that.

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.