Archive for Television

The Wheel of Time (TV)

Jan04

Show: The Wheel of Time (season 1)

Genre: High Fantasy

Platform: Amazon Original

Watched: Season 1 – January 2022

Summary: Captures much of the flavor, but flawed

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Everyone here know that I’m a huge fantasy fan. And of course I’ve read the entire Wheel of Time book series. It’s been awhile though, as I started reading somewhere in the mid 90s and then book by book as they came out. It’s an interesting series as I LOVED it for a while, then it hit a slow point, then rebounded, then got really glacial toward the end. Problematically after a while the number of (often unimportant) characters ballooned to almost ludicrous levels. I have some discussion on the blog here of one of the later novels but this review is about the 2021 television adaption.

Said live action adaption is a bit of a mixed bag.

The Good

The casting is generally excellent and the acting very good. Moiraine, Lan, Egwene, Loial, Liandrin, and Mat in particular stand out. The core group is pretty good, although aged up to young adult (in the novel they are perhaps 16). This is a decent choice but leaves one with a slightly different feel. However, the essential traits of most of the characters do shine through.

The Aes Sedai are well handled. The White Tower and its feuding inhabitants are one of my favorite parts of the novels and I feel that the show began to capture this fairly well. It’s not exactly the same, and they certainly aren’t revealed it in the same order — as the books don’t introduce a lot of this until later — but I have no problem with this being moved forward. We also get a solid sense of the Warder Bond and some sense as to the nature of the One Power. Still, we could have had more.

The essential feel of the world is decently, if not perfectly brought to life. This includes its magic, complexity, relatively high population (compared to say Middle Earth), etc.

The look of the world, particularly the landscapes, buildings, and cities is generally excellent and feels big, different, and generally beautiful. Costumes are more of a mixed bag, but generally pretty good.

 

The Bad

The worst thing about the entire show was the studio’s choice to skimp on the number of episodes. The show-runners said they wanted 10. They got 8. This is a long book, 782 pages to be exact, and they clearly needed the extra two. They barely got through the bare minimum amount of plot needed and badly slashed character development. The core five (Rand, Egwene, Mat, Perrin, and Nynaeve) got particularly shafted. The boys most of all. The actors all did a solid job with their characters but they just didn’t have enough scenes.

Some odd changes clash with the core lore of the world. A big one here is the idea espoused for most of the season that any of the core 5 could be the Dragon Reborn. It just couldn’t be a girl. Makes no sense with the central notion that a major aspect of the Dragon is his exposure to the male half of the source and its madness inducing corruption. This isn’t some minor nuance. And there was no good reason for this change. Egwene and Nynaeve are plenty powerful, interesting, and complex without this silly wrinkle.

The first episode, particularly the first half (pre trolloc) is weak. It just doesn’t do a good job introducing the characters. The insertion (and rapid removal) of Perrin’s “wife” is particularly odd.

Barney Harris’ Mat decided to leave the production for personal reasons 6 out of 8 episodes in. This leads to the abrupt departure of his character and to Perrin taking over his role in Episode 7/8 in a way that is inconsistent with the longterm story. It probably helped screw up the last episode. Clearly covid also played a role here as the last episodes showcase most of the characters weirdly placed into their own scenes and lamely grafted together by the editors.

The final episode, particularly its second half, is flawed and confusing. The major deviations from the books are weird and pointless: Nynaeve’s “resurrection”, Loial’s maybe death, Moiraine maybe stilling, Rand’s totally lame “big fight,” the Perrin/Mat swap out. Only a devoted reader would have even the slightest clue about the who/what/why of Ishamael toward the end. And it’s not even Ishamael in the books. At best, they might assume he is the Dark One himself.

The ability of the show to teach a naive (non book reading) viewer about the very complex world is quite poor. There is a lot going on here, and while the show does elude to many aspects, it is rarely explicit enough. I’m sure that naive viewers will be utterly baffled by many aspects. Part of this was time crunch, but they just needed more scenes with Moiraine (or others) showing the core crew how things worked.

 

The Weird

I do have to stop for a second and comment as usual on the “woke” multiracial aspect of the casting. It’s very explicit. Most of the actors are non-white. Unusually, even for woke productions, there are a good number of central Asians and Indians. Pretty much a total scramble of our world’s ethnicities. In of itself, I have no problem with this, the inclusion is great, and because WOT is a fantasy there is clearly nothing “inaccurate” about it per se. However, I did find it distracting for a reason that might be peculiar to me and my sense of world building. Families and villages seem to be heterogeneous. That just feels odd to me unless genetics are different in this world. Parents often seem to be different ethnicities than their children. I just couldn’t help but notice this. I think it would have been better to cluster the casting a bit more by town/city or whatever. For example, the Two Rivers is described (both in the show and the books) as having a narrow and ancient gene pool — and you certainly wouldn’t know it from the casting. The Aes Sedai on the other hand, being recruiting from women all over the continent, could be realistically mixed without issue. For what it’s worth, there was also a bit of an Indian slant to some of the production design (architecture in Tar Valon, tinker food, etc) which is unusual. This was interesting (in a good way).

Rand, despite being the protagonist and the sole POV character of the first novel, is given very little screen time, development, or focus until the last episode.

A lot of the “flashbacks” or asides like those of Siuan Sanche, Lews Therin, or Logain feel cheesy and are probably confusing to new viewers.

The visual fx for the One Power are weird. It’s all the same smokey strands. It’s different, but I’m not sure it works.

The incredibly important sense of dread and foreboding that should have been evoked by the Fades, Trollocs, and Forsaken is essentially squandered. Forsaken are barely even mentioned. This problem is mostly a matter of poor direction, vfx, and editing. Partially it’s crappy writing. This was handled MUCH better in the books and should have been even better in televisions vision medium. Lord of the Rings does a great job with the same. The Ring Wraiths are incredibly chilling, radiating evil. Sadly, the same can not be said in WOT. A few terrifying glimpses of the fades before the Trolloc attack (like in the books) would have gone a long way, as would have proper visual and auditory fx.

This 20 year old clip from The Fellowship of the Ring shows a masterful command of horror, and a lot of it is due to subtle details (like the bugs), the camera work, and the soundtrack. The directors and editors of WOT clearly have no knack for horror. Peter Jackson on the other-hand, for all his flaws, comes out of a horror background. WOT isn’t a horror story, but supernatural horror is an important element of “dark lord” fantasy and it’s completely botched in this adaption.


Loial’s Ogier look is just plain lame and weird — and nothing like the books. Hammed Animashaun’s portrayal of the character, however, is spot on.

General alterations and condensing of the timeline even for this fairly linear first novel didn’t bother me much. Yeah they knocked out several major locations like Caemlyn, Whitebridge etc but this was probably necessary given the 782 page -> 8 episode compression.

Overall, I enjoyed the show, particularly after the first episode, and I look forward to the second season, but it could just have been so much better.

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By: agavin
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Game of Thrones 1-7 Rewatch

Mar20

I just finished my full binge rewatch of all seven existing seasons of Game of Thrones — in preparation, of course, for the April debut of the final season. I wanted to offer some thoughts on the show as a whole, instead of the detailed episode by episode analysis I usually do. Bear in mind that I’ve watched many of these episodes 6-8 times (particularly the first 2-3 seasons) and read the books 3 times. However, it’s been 3 or 4 years since I did a big watch on the show, maybe a bit more, so it wasn’t too fresh (a good thing). Seasons 6 and 7 I only watched once previously when they were released (with maybe an episode or two watched twice).

I’ll just make a series of observations based on this watch. It took me about 4 weeks to view all 67 episodes (Feb 13 – Mar 18, 2019). There were a couple big binges in there, particularly season 7 which was all one day.

  • It’s hard to say if GOT or Buffy the Vampire Slayer is now my favorite television show of all time. Let’s just call them tied. Clearly GOT is far less dated but 7 full watches later Buffy is still a work of art. The slot just below them goes to Madmen.
  • You can really feel the budget ratchet up, particularly starting with season 4. Big events in season 1 and 2, namely the large scale battles, feel skimpy by the standards we have grown accustomed to. For example, Tyrion’s season 1 battle and the Battle of the Whispering Wood and even the season 2 Battle of Blackwater Bay. Large scale (CG) troop action is avoided for cost reasons. In the first few seasons some FX shots look a bit fake whereas they are seamless from season 4 on. An example would be Dany and her dragons at the end of season 1 or her “destruction” of the House of the Undying in season 2.
  • GRRM’s general pattern of oscillating the fortunes of each character in a slightly random sinusoidal pattern is more evident (and just as brilliant) when taken in bulk. Take a major character like Tyrion. His fortunes rise, hit setbacks, rise, then fall, then rise, then fall. Each of these individual notes (given the number of characters) combines in an orchestra like effect to form the whole.
  • He also really knows how to put characters to the test with really tough choices. They are often really really difficult. From Jaime’s simple choice in episode 1 to be caught with Cersei or push Bran out the window to Theon’s torturous decision as to whether to stay at Winterfell and die vs crawl home a coward. Each major character is confronted again and again with these breaking points.
  • As with the books, Season 1 still has the most dramatic and complex narrative. Really A Game of Thrones is a near perfect novel. GRRM’s ability to introduce such a vast range of characters, detailed world, and tell such a complex story is brilliant. Dany’s narrative in S1 / AGOT mirrors the whole season and is perfect rise and fall and rebirth.
  • Season 2 and to a slightly lessor extent 3 suffer the most relative to the books. A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords are nearly as good as A Game of Thrones and yet much larger. Compressing these two chunks of the narrative into one season each, when it probably needed 2.5-3 total makes season 2 in particular feel rushed. Watching it as a binge it’s less noticeable, but there is a lot of good stuff touched on, but not fully realized.
  • If seasons 1-3 are probably slightly inferior to the books, seasons 4-6 generally handle the material from A Feast of Crows and A Dance of Dragons better than the source novels. Both these novels suffer from terrible editing of the different narrative streams and the addition of useless and boring POV characters like Damphair and the forgotten extra heirs (2 sets?) who travel to Dany and get torched. Yes, the show’s Dorne narrative is weak, but at least it’s pretty short and gives Jaime and Bronn some banter.
  • Season 7 was better on this rewatch and felt a bit less rushed.
    • Still there were some stupid decisions like the whole idiot plan to grab a live wight (losing the dragon).
    • Also the narrative attempt to “fool” us with regard to Sansa and Arya’s relationship felt forced and an unusual distortion of the usually straightforward (show) POV.
    • The season is nearly one continuous set of character reunions / dramatic first meetings (heroes and villains alike). But they nearly all work — even the “band of brothers” north of the wall.
  • The binge watching helps to smooth over the uneven episode presence of different characters. For example, Dany often disappears for an episode or two, particularly in season 2 or 3. Watched week to week this is very noticeable but all together not a big deal.
  • GOT has a tremendous number of characters and we can break them into a few tiers: A level (book POV characters like Dany, Jon, Tyrion, Arya, Sansa, Ned, Theon, Cersei, Davos, Jamie etc), B level (extremely important non POV characters like the Hound, Drogo, Littlefinger, Varys, Jorah, Ygritte, Tywin, the Red Lady), C level (memorable minor characters like Ser Roderick, Jaqen H’ghar, Gendry, the Sand Snakes, etc), and D level bit players. The books have vastly more C and D level characters. The show generally merges and minimizes many of the D level characters and promotes nearly everyone in the C and B level upward.
    • Even the A characters have their narratives smoothed out. Due to a combination of Martin’s heavy POV style and his terrible breakdown for books 4 and 5 (discussed a bit here) the “pacing” of the individual character narratives is much better in the show. A perfect example would be Theon. He’s more or less always present in the show, even if his role in the first half of season 1 is minor. In the books, after his capture by Ramsay, he just vanishes for several books, then reappears in a narrative trick much later. The reconstruction of the Reek narrative over seasons 3 and 4 bridges this and keeps him relevant.
    • B level characters of high importance like the Hound, Littlefinger, Varys, Jorah, Bronn etc get a huge promotion and much more development than in the books where the gap between POV and not POV is tremendous. A role for them is often found in parts of the story where Martin left them out.
    • The ability of actors to add depth even during short performances (for example, Syrio Forel — but there are many others) breaths life into some of the C level characters. Others are are merged or given more involved stories like Gendry.
    • Some of the irrelevant D level characters like those in the one off POV prologues lose out — but this is a wise choice.
  • Occasional weird recasting:
    • The Mountain (3 actors!) is poorly handled (in season 2). Actors 1 and 3 are more or less interchangeable, but the decision to go with a tall skinny guy for season 2 sucks and would almost certainly make novice viewers not even realize this incarnation of the character is the same person.
    • The Dario recasting is odd too, although I like the second Dario better.
  • Bran ages the most poorly of all the characters. He just looks (and once he’s the raven) acts so different. I know this later is on purpose, but you do feel like you’ve lost him.
  • It’s amazing how much emotional impact some characters that have very little overall time in the narrative have, for example Ned, Robert, Oberyn, and even Viserys.
  • Because I watch a TON of British period television, I constantly notice how GOT uses nearly every common BBC actor. Even minor little ones. And of course the batch overlap with certain shows like Rome (Mance, Ellaria Sand, Tobias Menzies), Skins (Gendry, Gilly), Iron Fist (Loras, Nym) and I’m sure more.
  • There are a couple of oddball castings/performances:
    • Mace Tyrell is so broad and comic
    • The Sand Snakes are so lame, particularly Obara. And I love Jessica Henwick in the Iron Fist — but she’s lame here. Speaking of, early (more swishy) Loras and Danny Rand are barely recognizable as the same actor.
  • The “sexposition” ratchets down after the first few seasons, although there is still some tendency to throw in gratuitous nudity even in later seasons. By gratuitous, I’m not talking about the love scenes, but for example, in the Season 6, the theatrical troupe is half naked back stage (and a bit on stage). Not that I mind, but in a mixed gender setting this would never happen in the middle ages — East or West. Perhaps among slaves in the ancient world.
  • Because Croatia (namely Dubrovnik and Split and environs) feature so prominently as filming locations, all/most of the cities have a seaside that looks a bit Adriatic. Or Irish (like in the case of Pyke). Or Spanish (Dragonstone, Dorne). This leads Kings Landing, Bravos, and Meereen to have some considerable overlap in visual style, particularly with the coastal view, general terrain, and grey stone streets. If they had shot Meereen in the middle east or something this could have been avoided, but the show has a lot of filming locations as it is.
  • GOT borrows liberally from all across history. A bit of history’s great hits. George R. R. Martin does it in the books and the show does it even more (as it continues the trend on a visual and stylistic level). The series is rife with out of time historical borrows/allusions. Below are a few ancient references repurposed into this largely medieval setting:
    • Arya’s presenting Frey with the pie containing his sons’ is reminiscent of Herodotus describing the Persian king Cambyses as serving his enemies their dead children.
    • The Titan of Bravos is borrowed from the Colossus of Rhodes.
    • The architectural style of Old Town’s Citadel is copied directly from the Lighthouse of Alexandria (a second wonder of the Ancient World).
    • As many of the scenes were filmed in the Palace of Diocletian, they have a Roman feel. As does the Dragonpit which is obviously old Roman construction because of the telltale Roman brickwork (looking it up, it’s a Roman amphitheater in Seville).
    • Slavers bay feels vaguely Babylonian — the harpies subbing in for winged bulls and the like.
    • The Dothraki are of course an amalgamation of steppe people like the Mongols and Huns. There have been steppe cavarly armies sense early antiquity and they posed a constant threat to city people until the invention of small (gunpowder) arms. At least one of the Dothraki “flavor” conversations is borrowed from Gibbon’s description of statements allegedly made by Atilla.
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My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

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  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 3
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Game of Thrones – Episode 52

May02

20160226073939!GoT_season_6_official_posterShow: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 52 – May 1, 2016

Title: Home

Summary: Jon Snow is mostly dead

ANY CHARACTER HERE

NOTE: SERIOUS SPOILER WARNING. This review/discussion contains tons of spoilers about the episode and even ones crossing over from the books. It’s really my free-for-all musing given all the information at my disposal.

Plot threads are unraveled and discussed one by one.

Bran – sleeps under the Green Man / 3 eyed raven’s tree, both white eyed. We then flashback / raven dream to the Winterfell courtyard and the much anticipated “young Ned” sequences. Seems Bran and the raven can ghost in on these memory visions. Ned and Brandon and Benjen are sparring, and Lyanna Stark rides in. I always thought of her as a younger sister, but here she is a few years older than Ned. Hard to tell which one Ned is too, I had always assumed Benjen was the youngest, and Brandon was obviously older. Hodor is there too, as a giant boy named Willas who actually talks, and Old Nan isn’t quite so old. Wonder how he got “Hodorized”?

Bran is then yanked out of his vision by the crow, and like a drug addict is kinda pissed. A child of the forest is hanging out but Hodor carries Bran outside to find Meera taking in the icy scenery. She’s clearly bored with this whole vision quest, but Bran tells her war is coming (not winter, that’s already here in Iceland?) and the child of the forest warns her that he will need her when he leaves this place. Clearly from the dialog Bran has been spending beaucoup time holed up in the cave.

But did we mention how much older he looks? Season 4 Bran was already rocking the pubs but now he’s barely recognizable. Plus he got a haircut at the the raven tree salon. Meera looks older too, and so do a number of cast members.

Lyanna Stark!

Lyanna Stark!

Cersei Jaime – Some tavern in King’s Landing where some idiot is talking shit about Cersei. Did this guy just arrive from across the Narrow Sea yesterday? Miss out on what happens to people who mock the Lannisters? Like that tongueless bard! Sure enough, later he’s taking a leak in a deserted alley when Franken-Gregor, alerted by his anti-Cersei evil magic senses, bashes his head in. Almost comic relief in the casual way he uses his physical power.

Cersei is in her room, which seems like her full time job lately, when Franken-Gregor returns, bloody gauntlet and all (nice touch). They head out to Myrcella’s funeral only to be stopped by Tommen’s guards who insist she can’t leave the keep. She backs down but Franken-Gregor is probably upset he didn’t get to mash in their brains too.

Then Jaime and Tommen are in the sept with Myrcella’s body, funny glass eyes and all. Jaime supports Cersei in their discussion, urging Tommen to visit his mother. Tommen is feeling impotent and doesn’t even want to face her. The High Septon strolls in and Tommen in a rare fit of assertion asks to see his wife. He’s refused, but kudos for trying. After he leaves, Jaime and the Sparrow face off. Jaime contemplates just killing him, but a goon squad of sparrows show up, possibly including even his lame cousin. Jaime also looks much older, and while this segment is slightly stilted, he still has a trademark line in “the gods won’t mind, they’ve spilled more blood than all of us combined.”

Next, Cersei is taking in the gorgeous view of Dubrovnik  when Tommen finally shows up. He apologizes and of course she forgives him — he is, after all, her only remaining child and we all know the Queen-mother loves her kids.

All in the family

All in the family

Tyrion – is doing what he does best, drinking and knowing things (and making excellent quips). This is in the company of Misandei, and the 2 men, no balls team of Grey Worm and Varys. There are, of course, eunuch jokes, but for whatever reason Varys has nothing amusing to say this week. We learn offhand that the other Slaver’s Bay cities (taken in season 3) have fallen (again) to the Masters. Boy, GRRM (and D&B) have done their best to stall Dany’s plot line. Tyrion, however, going into new territory is all up on his dragon research and knows that dragons don’t do well chained up in the basement, they aren’t even eating.

So our favorite little person (with an abnormally taciturn Varys in tow), heads down into the cellar of Diocletian’s — I mean Dany’s, Palace. We already saw last year how fond this duo is of roasted human, so it is only the confidence that they didn’t intend to write Tyrion (yet) that we can stomach his tip toe out into the dark. Despite a few snarls, the dragons are remarkable receptive to his jokes. But how he is tall enough to pull off their collars is a bit of a mystery. In any case, the fact that the second dragon leans down to be freed does show that reptilian brains don’t have to be all about the base functions. He kids with Varys about the danger on the way out and I’m not even sure why, as the whole escapade went rather swimmingly considered.

In summary, a short but good segment because Tyrion delivers in classic form. We aren’t really this far with him in the books, but he is far less broody about his “role” in the deaths of Tywin and Shae in the show than in the novels. In fact, so far this season he seems to be enjoying himself.

Don't eat the help!

Don’t eat the help!

Arya – is still begging in the alley when the Waif shows up again to give her a beating. It hardly goes any better than last time but at least she gives it the good Stark try. Speaking of, the Waif keeps asking her the now slightly tiresome question of who she is. Then so does a Jaqen H’ghar when he pops into view (or not if you’re Arya). He tempts her with this same question too, three times in fact, but her answers earn her a trip back to (presumably) the House of Black and White.

This segment, like last week, was too short to gain proper Arya momentum. They are probably fine in the context of watching the episodes back to back in a marathon, or even 2-3 a night, but once a week, serve as more of a tease than anything.

Where is my seeing eye wolf?

Where is my seeing eye wolf?

Ramsay – reports to Roose about the failure of his “best men.” (Where is Locke when you need him? That guy knew how to get some wet work done the “right” way.) Ramsay proposes an all out attack on castle black. Roose is more cautious, and cognizant of the political ramifications. But then we learn that Lady Walder has given birth to a son — uh oh. Ramsay gives his dad a congratulatory hug that has a real point to it — point of his dagger (conveniently tucked across the small of his back). Didn’t see that coming! Although it’s plenty Ramsay and symbolic payback for the very similar stab in the gut that Roose delivered to Robb Stark long ago. Nicely played too as Ramsay doesn’t look him in the eye.

Next up, a messy cleanup to some loose ends. Ramsay brings Lady Walder and her baby to the kennels and lets the dogs out. First off, Lady Walder is pretty spry for having given birth 5 minutes ago, and she displays a well composed mixture of terror and bravery. Shocking as it was, I wasn’t in love with the way Ramsay was written this week. Sure he’s a monster, but the tense relationship with his father has always added a great deal of depth to his monstrosity. His genuine surprise/pride when he is naturalized was really a great scene. Pulling Roose out of the equation just leaves him a loose canon. And he has no regard for Roose’s complex wave of alliances.

Cooche cooche coo!

Cooche cooche coo!

Sansa – is (winter) camping in the woods with Brienne, Pod, and Theon. But this is mostly a talk scene where Brienne tells Sansa what she knows of Arya (from their brief visit on the way to the Eerie) and when Brienne asks her about Winterfell the silence says more than the words. Then she thanks Theon, and he is very emotional about his (many) bad choices and his lackluster character. Seems though, with the protecting duties handed over to Brienne he’s off “home” to Pyke. Speaking of…

Greyjoys – Yarra and Balon are talking in the Kraken room. Yarra is looking A LOT older too. She’s gone cold on the war but Dad is still ready to die. Which is funny given that the Red Lady cursed him to expire way back in season 3 and he’s the only leech left standing. He storms out to the suitably storm rope bridge between buildings. We know that won’t end well. Sure enough, a hooded figure, presumably his brother Euron, meets him there. He’s the younger brother, and seemingly a much younger one at that. Euron makes a bunch of grand proclamations about being the Drowned God and/or the Storm and throws Balon off the bridge. I guess the leech worked after all, we just had to wait awhile on it. Really the whole Greyjoy story is delayed. In the books it’s in parallel to the Dorne story, but they have been sequenced here. So far this one looks better as the Sand Snakes were awful.

At Balon’s funeral, clearly Yarra and others don’t know who did it, although she swears vengeance. The priest is Aeron Damphair, another of her uncles, but clearly his role here is much diminished from the books (where I hated him). We learn that there is a Kingsmoot and that the next king must be elected.

There can be only one!

There can be only one!

Castle Black – Thorne still wants in. The guys inside draw their swords. Thorne’s dude uses a big hammer to smash at the door — then deus ex machina style, the giant Wun Wun smashes the main gate letting in Edd, Tormund, and the whole Wildling crew. They make short work of the surprised traitors (and what about the neutral Night’s Watch guys?). Anyway the giant does a nice smash on one trigger happy fellow, and unfortunately leaves Thorne and the even more despicable Olly alive to be dragged off to the dungeons. After, Edd and Giantsbane visit the corpse of Jon Snow.

Then Davos goes to see the Red Lady, who is still moping about in self pity, but has at least put her glamour back on. Uncharacteristically, Davos pitches Mel on using her magic to bring back Jon. This is a bit out of character, as he’s 1) a magic hater 2) not a Red Lady fan 3) doesn’t have too much obvious reason to be SO extreme for Jon, despite having liked him. Still, he sells it hard and well and makes some good jokes about his change of heart.

Mel gives it a good try, washing the body, cleaning the nasty stabs, the hair. She burns some hair, but seemingly that isn’t as good as leeches. Ghost spends the time chilling below Jon’s table. He is too cute. I want a white wolf. Next Mel lays on hands, tries some Valaryan, and even a simple “please.” None of this seems to work so Tormund, then Edd, then Davos all leave and, surprise…

Ghost notices something strange and Jon Snow opens his eyes.

I have to say I saw that coming. I predicted it would be the Red Lady’s magic too from way back when because it was setup so heavily and the only thing that made sense. And despite all the “protestations” from the cast and crew they just had to bring Jon back for all the work they spent (scriptwise) last season setting up R+L=J to make any sense. They only have so many minutes and they kept shoving in hints. If he was really dead, instead of “mostly dead” it wouldn’t have been worth the time.

blue balls

blue balls

So Overall, a great episode, with some really big turns and good moments: Jon’s return, giant slapping, head bashing, Bolton stabbing, Greyjoy tossing, and dragon baiting. I still want to see what is up with the show’s only current romantic couple, Sam and Gilly.

Again, I can’t believe we have to wait another week!

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

It's alive!

It’s alive!

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  1. Game of Thrones – Episode 35
  2. Game of Thrones – Episode 32
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  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 36
By: agavin
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Fargo’s Dark Fable

Sep10

MV5BMjMzMTIzMTUwN15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjE0NTg0MTE@._V1_SX640_SY720_Title: Fargo

Genre: Dark Crime Dramedy

Cast: Martin Freeman (Actor), Billy Bob Thornton (Actor)

Watched: Late August, 2014

Summary: Evil Walks the Earth

ANY CHARACTER HERE

I’m generally a big Coen brothers fan — as I like things both dark and surreal. Certainly the movie Fargo was a great film, but this show, without redoing anything, replicates a bit of the feel of the film while taking it to the next level. Perhaps this is due to the current Golden Age of narrative television, and the subject matter’s relatively inexpensive nature. The longer form format of television (10 hours instead of 2) allows for a greater depth of character.

Now, you have to do it well, and Fargo (the show) executes in spades. From pitch perfect casting, to great writing, to dark moody music, to overall feel — this is television at its best.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKs8DzjPDMU]

Fargo is a show about a “normal” small American town and what happens when Billy Bob Thornton’s rivetingly evil trickster of an assassin arrives, strewing chaos and blood in his wake. This character isn’t so much human as a force of nature, a malevolent spirit of concentrated hitman, or perhaps the overcoat wearing incarnation of Loki, Norse trickster  god. By crafty manipulation (always a dark riot) he pulls people strings and sets in motion a year long orgy of murders.

Fargo - Episode 1.03 - A Muddy Road - Promotional Photos (2)

Weak-willed Lester braces a pair of hitmen, the right one is deaf, and they argue constantly in sign language

The characters have that Coen Brother over-the-top quality, with a touch of the comic. Yet the best ones, like Lester (the weasly guy), the talented nonsense female deputy, and Colin Hank’s doe eyed patrol officer are deftly drawn and fully realized humans. This, combined with the fine, fine acting, and the amazing dark comic tone, really make the show hard to stop watching. It’s also filled with references to itself, Coen movies, the film Fargo, and more than its share of parables, allegories, riddles and the like. A David Lynch murder mystery that actually makes sense, these elements are fully in balance. A use of a certain amount of parallelism and coincidence transcends cliche to become art.

Malvo (right) is the evil force around which the plot whirls. Really, one of cinema/television's best villains yet

Malvo (right) is the evil force around which the plot whirls. Really, one of cinema/television’s best villains yet

Like the people, the setting is just nailed. The Minnesota accents. All that cold. The snow. The heavy coats, boots, and hats. It might be okay in the summer, but why would anyone want to winter there? But in a show, the town and the surrounding woods and lake become almost actors in of themselves. And it’s worth mentioning the music, which is almost reminiscent of The Last of Us, and equally effective. The both event include this “ching” sound which punctuates the starkness to draw your attention.

So if you liked dark comedy, and appreciate a good hour of tension, with an almost everyday horror quality, tune in.

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fargo-s-allison-tolman-colin-hanks-tease-satisfying-season-finale1

The deputy (right) is fabulous, and to her left, her boss, is played by Bob Odenkirk, who is almost as good here as he is as Breaking Bad’s shyster lawyer

Related posts:

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  2. Near Dark – The Hurt Coffin
  3. Dark Shadows – The Revival
  4. The Dark Knight Rises
  5. Thoughts on TV: Lost vs The Love Boat
By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 38

May30

gameofthronesseasonreleasedate-1396104840n4k8gGame of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 38 – June 1, 2014

Title: The Mountain and the Viper

Summary: Wow, what a finish!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Joff bit it (or drank it) in episode 33, but we’ve been waiting half a season to see how this all falls out for poor Tyrion. Then we even had to wait an extra week without an episode. Now the moment is at hand.

As usual, I’ll break down the threads into their sub plots for discussion.

At the wall – The moles town brothel might be loud, but the girls have nothing on Littlefinger’s places down south. These are some seriously ugly whores. And mean too, as we learn when a drunk one harasses Gilly about her baby. But they aren’t long for the world, Gilly recognizes the wildling warcries. Soon, Giantsbane, the Thenns, and Ygrite are pretty much killing everyone — until Ygrite notices Gilly and her baby and lets her go. Still, they make a point of showing her massacre a good number of men and women alike.

Back at Castle Black, Sam thinks Gilly is dead and the others reassure him she’s tough. Jon knows Mance is close and they contemplate how grim the odds are for the defenders. I.e. setup for next week’s invasion!

themountainandtheviper07

Sure he betrayed her, but that was a long time ago.

Dany – We’re treated first to a bit of book free love story between Grey Worm and Missandei (the translator). The Unsullied are bathing near the female servants (opportunity for nudity!) and he “spies” on her (overtly). Later, she tells Dany about this and they discuss eunuchs (I guess reminding the non-dorks that Unsullied have no parts). Pillar and the stones. Anyway, Grey Worm comes to apologize and they have a little “moment.”

A boy (I wonder if it’s the same one from season 1) brings Ser Barristan a letter. It’s the pardon letter Jorah got for spying on Dany years ago. Barristan goes to Jorah straight and tells him first. Then Jorah approaches Dany on her throne to plead his case. He’s honest with her, but she gives him no chance to explain himself. If there is a theme this week, it’s all about reversals, and so Jorah is banished from the city and the woman he loves. For the second time, stripped of everything he cares for. But us viewers are treated to an awesome shot of Meereen as he rides off.

Being queen can be tough

Being queen can be tough

Ramsay and Reek – Ramsay and his army are parked outside Moat Cailin. We can see it’s a swamp, but only in the distance. He gives Reek/Theon a combined pep talk and scare. Theon rides in under the white flag, past dead and rotting soldiers. Inside, the Iron Born aren’t doing so well. Most are dead, all are sick (sieges suck). Alfie Allen does a great job as Reek playing at being Theon. He offers the chance to surrender and live. The leader mocks him, but another kills him (ironically, just like he himself was taken out back at Winterfell). His exact words were “treat you honorably like he did me” and Ramsay is a man of his word, as the poor guys end up flayed.

Later, Ramsay brings his army back to Roose and gives him the banner from Moat Cailin. Roose shows him the North all around them and officially recognizes him as a Bolton (as opposed to Snow). If he wasn’t such an evil dude it might be an emotional moment.

Arya – is finally approaching the vale with the hound (return to the Bloody Gate or whatever it’s called). They have one of their hilarious conversations. We are reminded of the Hound’s infected wound, and treated to more of Arya’s interesting view point about “proper” killing. “I’d kill Joffrey with a chicken bone if I had too.” And when they find out her aunt is dead, Arya cracks up (which actually gives a glimpse of the old more childish Arya).

I'd kill Joffrey with a chicken bone if I had too

I’d kill Joffrey with a chicken bone if I had too

Sansa – her older sister is being anything but childish. Littlefinger is being interrogated by the grey-clad lords and lady of the Vale about Lysa’s “suicide.” When they bring Sansa in, she tells a carefully constructed story riding the line between fact and fiction. In fact, she clings decidedly close to the truth, revealing her identity and spinning the crucial parts (the nature of her kiss and the murder itself) to Littlefinger’s benefit. Both sisters have grown. Littlefinger is let off. He works the lords pushing them toward war with the Lannisters and getting Robin out of the Eerie to “tour” the Value.

themountainandtheviper02

Someone has finally learned how to play the game

Later, Litlefinger visits Sansa to ask her why she helped him. She looks at him coyly. And as Littlefinger ushers Robin off on his “adventure” she appears in a striking feather shouldered dress. It’s been awhile since I read her parts in the novels, but this all feels decidedly more overt and adult than in the source material. Not that that’s a bad thing — particularly on TV.

Tyrion – And finally, the man of the hour. Jaime vists Tyrion one last time and they have one of those wry conversations, discussing duels, methods of execution, and words for different kinds of killing. Then Tyrion launches into this long story about his moron cousin Orson the Beetlesmasher. It’s a credit to Peter Dinklage that he makes it so spellbinding, and great writing that it turns out the beetle smashing is probably an allegory for human violence. In the end, Jaime wishes him luck.

Taking a moment at Pycell's expense

Taking a moment at Pycell’s expense

And he moves on to the arena. This is a glorious set. Notched somewhere on the water in Dubrovnik the half circle of spectators looks out on the sea, and they’ve matted in a love Red Keep looming above. Oberyn is taking the whole thing lightly. Light armor and getting his buzz on. But the man is fast. He really does the grace and speed of The Viper credit — and the Mountain is huge. It is so George R R Martin that his character ultimate does him in. His need to toy with the Mountain and get the truth about his sister from the man leaves an opening for a huge last minute reversal. Oh it would be great to be a GOT virgin and experience it for the first time again.

Oh, and that is one seriously bad way to check out! Ouch!

They don't call him the Viper for nothing

They don’t call him the Red Viper for nothing

All in all, this was a fabulous episode, probably my favorites of this season so far — mostly due to the Tyrion scenes and the fight, but there is lots of good stuff going on. George R R Martin has a real talent for reversals. His basic mode of operation is to make you fall for the characters, even painting the villains sympathetically, and then jerk their fortunes up and down unpredictably. It’s a damn effective dramatic strategy.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

Related posts:

  1. Game of Thrones – Episode 31
  2. Game of Thrones – Episode 32
  3. Game of Thrones – Episode 34
  4. Game of Thrones – Episode 36
  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 33
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Game of Thrones – Episode 35

May04

gameofthronesseasonreleasedate-1396104840n4k8gGame of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 35 – May 4, 2014

Title: First of His Name

Summary: Good stuff

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Martin has a talent for coining phrases, and internet joking about XX of YY aside, First of His Name is one such title. Evocative, like so many of his little turns of phrase, it’s simultaneously unique to the books/show and characteristic of medieval phraseology.

Anyway, as usual, I’ll break down the threads into their sub plots for discussion.

Cersei – If Jaime was front and center last week, it’s Cersei standing in for Kings Landing (hey, Tyrion doesn’t even show this episode, which might be a first!). Tommen is crowned and both his women (Cersei and Margery) loom large. But when they talk, instead of the biting hatred that Cersei usually shows her young rival there is a bit of revealing honesty. Knowing C, she’s probably just playing Marg.

Next, she plans his wedding with her father. Apparently it won’t even be that long off (so much for letting Tommen drop a pair). She and Tywin have one of those legacy discussions. Plus it seems the Lanisters are actually out of gold and owe a fortune to the Iron Bank of Bravos. That’s folding in with Davos’ plans, which is some new stuff from the book. As usual, Charles Dance is in fine fine form.

Lastly, Cersei returns to Olena’s suicide-watch garden for a chat with Oberyn. He mentions his 8 daughters (the Sand Snakes) and they discuss Cersei’s daughter (in Dorne). Cersei wants to send a ship as a gift. This is probably setting up some action from A Dance with Dragons. Some great lines too like O: “We will have a trial and we will learn the truth” C: “We’ll have a trail anyway.”

firstofhisname3

He may favor bathrobes, but he is cool!

Dany – gets the news of Joff’s death, and is confronted with a choice. Seems she now has ships but the slavers have reclaimed the cities she spent Season 3 taking. She’ll woman up and set things to right — because we can’t have her getting back to Westeros too soon can we?

Finally got a new dress!

Finally got a new dress!

Arya and the Hound – try to sleep, but she has to recite her names, amusing enough as they include him! In the morning he thinks she’s gone, but finds her practicing her water dance out by the river. Arya does a great job with this, looking every bit the girl really trying to practice her swordwork. The little spar between them is great as always.

Everyone's favorite water dancer!

Everyone’s favorite water dancer!

Brienne and Pod – The big she-knight is pretty ambivalent about having him along as a squire as it is, but Pod’s lousy horsemanship and ineptitude at cooking rabbits has a certain charm. What really hooks her though is his story about protecting Tyrion at the Blackwater.

Sansa – also has a substantial arc in this episode. She approaches the Bloody Gate and the entrance to the Eerie with Littlefinger. She’s in disguise as his niece. Again we skip the cool approach to the fortress, but Robyn and Lysa aren’t any more stable for an extra 2 years atop their perch. Lysa knows Sansa’s secret and seemingly greets her all smiles. Then we’re treated to some icky Littlefinger/Crazy lady make out. And Lysa admits to having poisoned her husband and dragged Cat into this. That Littlefinger, he’s had her, and had her wrapped around his littlefinger for some time.

Sansa and Lysa have some bonding time, but Aunt crazy has some serious jealousy issues with regard to her man — not that she doesn’t have reason to doubt his sincerity. Lysa has in mind some cousin on cousin marriage for Sansa. Really, that wasn’t odd at all in the Middle Ages.

firstofhisname5

Look at me, a disguise!

Jon & Bran – So close again. Locke  spies on the mutineers and finds Bran and crew. Slipping back to Jon he tries  to warn them away from the building. Meanwhile, Bran and Jojen have a shared pseudo vision and confirm their desire to seek out the “one tree” (or whatever the big face tree is).

Carl comes in and has Meera hung up on a hook so he can get down with the R word — but fate (and the Night’s Watch) intervene. While Jon and crew slaughter the scum, Locke sneaks into where Bran is tied up and tries to carry him away. Bran jumps into Hodor’s mind and sends the giant off to nearly rip Locke’s head off — bye bye. He sees Jon, and wants to crawl to him, but Jojen convinces him that he must continue heading toward the tree.

Jon and Karl have a nice duel — double dagger vs. sword. It doesn’t go great for Jon under one of Craster’s wives (setup last week) helps him out, and then Karl gets a seriously gnarly sword through the head. Ghost makes a return visit grabbing Rast (who has escaped and is making a break for it) and returns to Jon — who apparently hadn’t forgotten about him like we all thought he had.

This whole Craster’s Keep raid isn’t in the books, and in the end, it doesn’t change anything, but it does serve to give Jon and Bran’s plot lines some jeopardy and to help tie in Bran a bit. Really, when a character runs off in parallel without seeing anyone for 2-3 whole books, it doesn’t play that great — good changes!

All and all, a solid episode. Perhaps not as good as Oathkeeper, but really some good work on the Cersei, Sansa, and Jon timelines. More Arya. More Arya!

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside the episode:

Related posts:

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  2. Game of Thrones – Episode 31
  3. Game of Thrones – Episode 33
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  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 17
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Game of Thrones – Episode 34

Apr27

gameofthronesseasonreleasedate-1396104840n4k8gGame of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 34 – April 27, 2014

Title: Oathkeeper

Summary: Good stuff

ANY CHARACTER HERE

All the best swords have names, and so it is with this episode. This isn’t at first glance a flashy episode full of big events, but  it is a pivotal one in which changes set in motion by recent events take clear new turns. As usual, I’ll break down the threads into their sub plots for discussion.

Dany – The translator girl is teaching Grey Worm the common tongue, which is really an excuse for a bit of characterization. And this week’s Dany section is as much about Grey Worm, slavery, and Dany’s relationship to the institution than about her per se. Next, Grey Worm and other Unsullied break into the sewers of Meeren and creep through to ferment a slave rebellion. As usual with huge events like this, it’s told in anemic TV style. Slaves plotting. Grey Worm giving them a speech about freedom. A master being ambushed in the streets, then before we know it, the Masters are in change and Dany is in charge of the city (which looks suspiciously like Dubrovnik again – that Croatian limestone is very obvious). The CGI shots of the ziggurats and the sprawling city are pretty awesome. Dany doesn’t go easy on the Masters either. The scope of these shots elevate the whole thing and help us forget the slapdash fall of the city. As we pan back, a giant dragon banner covers the enormous harpy.

oathkeeper1

Conquering is like cake on a TV budget

Sansa – Is on the boat with Littlefinger. Apparently, they’re heading toward the Eerie and his upcoming nuptials to crazy Lysa. The show, as I predicted, is MUCH more obvious about the plotting. Littlefinger confesses to his involvement in Joff’s death, discusses the poison necklace and alludes to his allies. But what’s more interesting are the continuing reveals with regard to his cynical political philosophy. His strategy of long sighted planning, risk taking, and unpredictable grand ambition is quite interesting.

Margery – Talks more in that garden we’ve seen a hundred times before (it’s in Trestino Croatia, I’ve been there). In post-modern fashion, Olena jokes about her repetitious strolls – which make sense given that 9/10 times we’ve seen her it’s here. Again, being MUCH more straightforward, Olena all but confesses to murdering Joff. Then she gives Marg more advice about taking control of Tommen. This seems more for the audience’s benefit, as Marg has proven an exceptional handler in the past.

She visits Tommen in the night (how she got around the Kingsguard we’ll never know). Just as her tailored approach worked for Joff, she takes on a new soft style that has Tommen quickly eating out of her hand. For a 32 year-old, they manage to make her engagement to this 10 year-old boy seem only medium perverse.

Plus, Ser Pounce makes his on screen debut!

Will number three be the one?

Will number three be the one?

Jaime – Has the most complex arc this episode (particularly given the title). He is still practicing out by the sea with Bronn, and getting better too. Bronn pulls off one of his most excellent signature moves and uses Jaime’s own gold hand to beat him with. But perhaps even better is how he guilt trips Jaime about his obligations to Tyrion.

So Jaime drags himself down to the dungeon so they can exchange droll remarks. The dialog is first rate as usual. We are reminded about Sansa, so later when Cersei summons Jaime. The points of conflict are clear: Jaime swore an oath to protect Sansa. Cersei loathes the girl and is convinced she helped kill Joff. Jaime thinks Tyrion innocent. Cersei has only blind hated. In this moment, Jaime realizes his old world is dead.

oathkeeper5

At least I still have my leather coat

So he brings Brienne in and regifts her the gift worth regifting: his sword made from Ice, and charges her to find Sansa and keep her safe (plus, she gets bonus armor and Pod as her new squire). This rolls into her departure, in what is an emotional scene. They name the sword Oathkeeper (bringing a tear to my geek eye) and part. Both actors do a fabulous job. The complicated love, respect, and vast unsaidness hangs palpably between them.

oathkeeper2

Your horse is ready, sir… I mean, ma’am

Jon – Back at Castle Black, Jon is teaching some new recruits. One of them looks a lot like Locke (the dude who chopped off Jaime’s hand), which isn’t a coincidence, as it is Locke, come to ferret out the location of Bran. This is a nice complexity (winding together plots) that isn’t in the books. Jon continues to spar verbally with Thorne and his toady Slynt, but doesn’t rise to the bait. Sam frets about Gilly. But Jon is given permission to recruit for his Craster raid (even if Thorne’s motives are black). This whole adventure isn’t in the books either. He gives a speech, but his charisma is a bit lacking. Even so, his friends (and the evil Locke) join.

Uh!

Jon Snow never bothered me anyway

Bran – At Craster’s the mutineers are doing a good job proving their vileness. Their leader drinks from Mormont’s skull (poor guy) while his men gang rape Craster’s “wives.” Those poor girls went from the frying pan to the fire. When an old one brings in a baby boy, they go into a religious frenzy about offering him to the gods. The guy isn’t exactly Mother Theresa, so he’s all for it. Somehow, the thugs also captured Ghost, who Jon Snow doesn’t seem to be stressing about. This feels in contrast to the books — and Jon is a Warg after all — so it doesn’t make too much sense.

But Bran’s more up on his Wolf side, because when he hears the baby in the woods (left out as White Walker Snack), he saddles up inside Summer, finds Ghost, and gets the wolf caught. Then himself and his companions. So much for either Meera’s tracking OR fighting skills!

And Bran isn’t exactly a pillar of strength under interrogation because he soon spills his identity to the loathsome group. This whole section is new, but as it also ties together two threads and gives Bran something interesting to do, I’m all for it.

Hodor has better common sense

Hodor has better common sense

White Walkers – Now what gets really interesting here is the last scene, where a white walker, carrying the baby, brings him out to some kind of frozen citadel and a ring of icicles and an ice altar. There, another walker turns the baby’s eyes blue. What this all means, we have no idea, but it’s the first we’ve seen of the Walkers in some time, and a glimpse into their magics the book never reveals. Hell, I’ve read them three times and the difference between Wraiths, Walkers, and Cold Hands is still totally unclear.

Baby

Anyway, I thought it a great episode. The Wall and beyond part was interesting, but the Jaime section was really good. Oathkeeper!

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

Oh, and you have to watch this “Let it GOT” (Frozen GOT mashup!):

Related posts:

  1. Game of Thrones – Episode 31
  2. Game of Thrones – Episode 32
  3. Game of Thrones – Episode 33
  4. Game of Thrones – Episode 17
  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 25
By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 33

Apr20

gameofthronesseasonreleasedate-1396104840n4k8gGame of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 33 – April 20, 2014

Title: Breaker of Chains

Summary: Good stuff

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Last week left us on the edge of our seats, either saddened at the loss of our favorite villain, or cackling in glee. Unlike the previous three seasons where the show really takes a while to get going, this time around we almost opened with huge events. Now let’s see how the pieces sort out. This is episode that covers a lot of threads, and none in great depth.

Sansa – Joff leers at us in death, blood seeping from his nose. Cersei screams accusations at Tyrion and Sansa is pulled away from the wedding by Ser Dontos. Last week, it wasn’t even until the second viewing that I noticed this significant little bit. As Tywin orders the city on lockdown, Dontos rushes her away, into the streets, through Dubrovnik (achem, Kings Landing) to the port and a waiting row boat. Then, covered by a convenient and sudden fog, out to a ship and up to… Littlefinger. You kinda had to know that where Kings Landing assassination is concerned, LF is likely to be involved. Poor Dontos earns a crossbow in the heart for his troubles and Sansa a lecture on the reality of her position. Poor girl. She just can’t help but be the pawn.

Even her funeral wear sports clevage

Even her funeral wear sports cleavage

Marg and Olena – chat in their favorite botanical garden. Olena tries to put a good spin on it — well she ought to, as she certainly had some hand in it. I liked the humanness that Marg displays here. Sometimes she comes off as cold and manipulative, but I don’t really think that’s (entirely) her.

Cersei – Attends the body of Joffery in the sept, laid out much as Lord Arryn was with the weird eye stones. Tywin, ever the opportunist, uses the chance to give Tommen (looking a lot older) a rather truth but manipulative lecture on the nature of kingship. As grandfather and the new boy king leave, Jaime enters and comforts his sister. They kiss, she pushes him away (after a bit), and he grows angry and takes her (only partially against her will) right there. Rather unsavory business, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

The family that sleeps together stays together

The family that sleeps together stays together

Arya and the Hound – There seems to be a pissing theme this week, as the hound is watering the plants while she dines on radishes. Apparently, he’s heard of the Second Sons (led by the late Meero). A farmer and his daughter show up and Arya charms them and earns them a meal. It’s quite amusing to see the hound in a domestic situation, as he certainly isn’t big on the blessing before the meal. But the man offers him a job and he takes it — but next up he’s robbing them of their silver and dragging a furious Arya out of there. He may not be deliberately cruel, but apparently his code is “flexible.”

Code Smode

Code Smode

Sam and Gilly – After a quick survey of the sordid men in black, we’re treated to another of those charming Sam and Gilly scenes. Their “courtship” is kinda cute, as they clearly both have a thing for each other, but are unable to really get down to business. Sam decides that leaving her in the castle with a hundred former rapers is a bad idea so smuggles her out to Mole Town to live with some whores in a total sh**thole. I think she knows he means well, but sigh…

Davos and Stannis – have out the only conversation they ever seem to have, where Davos cautions against anything having to do with the Red Lady and Stannis argues he has no choice. Davos then visits Stannis’ daughter (the one with the grayscale face) and while taking in a reading lesson comes upon an idea. Somehow he plans to use the iron bank to try to help Stannis.

Certainly fun to watch this fellow

Certainly fun to watch this fellow

Oberyn – is back in the brothel (lots of them this week) getting it on with Ellaria Sand and several whores of both sexes. He amuses us with a speech on bisexuality. Really, the writing of GOT has a slightly Shakespearean quality, as characters love a good soliloquy. This amusement is interrupted by Tywin, who sure knows how to turn a bad situation to his advantage. He skillfully feels out Oberyn as he recruits him as a judge in Tyrion’s trial and as a small council member.

Tyrion – is visited in prison by his squire Pod. The poor guys is rather likeable and Tyrion, despite his captivity (again) is in fine form as usual. They exchange facts and set the stage for his coming trial. Damned by Cersei, his wife missing, three judges in Tywin’s pocket. It doesn’t look good. He does right by Pod, continuing to make him the most likable of Lannisters.

Ygrite – and the wildlings raid a village up by the wall. The poor villagers don’t have a chance. She shoots a bunch. Giantsbane slices. And the Thenns prepare to roast up a few for supper.

John – When word of the attach reaches Castle Black, John and the other senior Crows aren’t fooled into attacking. They are too few men. But when his friends return from Crasters, revealing that some of the rebel Crows are holed up there and will betray their weakness to Mance and the Wildings, they may have to move to action.

breakerofchains4

Tastes like chicken

Dany – Approaches Meeren by way of the Dalmatian coast. She parks her big CG army in from of the lovely big CG city (nice pyramids and love that harpy gate). And here comes more pissing. The city sends out a champion and we’re treated to the cock-cam view of him pissing at Dany’s army. Dario gets the honor of fighting, and pulls a Bronn by stabbing the horsing and beheading the rider. Dany then gives a surprisingly effective speech to the slaves, made all the more so by being in Valyrian. This technique of using the subtitled foreign tongue is highly effective. It almost brought a tear to my eye. If it’d been in English the speech would have been cheesy. Of and the music helped. Liked the catapults and the barrels smashing against those walls of Dubrovnik.

Pissing contest

He won the pissing contest

Overall, not a big centerpiece episode, but an enjoyable one nonetheless. Things are in motion again after last week stirred up the pot.

Note: piss count was 3 tonight.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside the episode:

Related posts:

  1. Game of Thrones – Episode 32
  2. Game of Thrones – Episode 19
  3. Game of Thrones – Episode 31
  4. Game of Thrones – Episode 20
  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 21
By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 32

Apr13

gameofthronesseasonreleasedate-1396104840n4k8gGame of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 32 – April 13, 2014

Title: The Lion and the Rose

Summary: Martin has a thing for Weddings

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Episode 2 of the season takes a moment (or two) to fill in the characters  left out of the premier before moving on to the royal wedding. We’ve been leading up to this “blessed event” for some time, so lets see how it stacks up compared to its predecessor, the infamous “Red Wedding.”

As usual, I’ll break down the episode into threads by character. Although this gets a little tricky in king’s landing.

Theon – The episode opens with Ramsay Snow (aka the Bastard of Bolton) hunting down an attractive girl through the forest. He’s joined by hounds, one of his bedwarmers with bow and arrow, and Theon, looking more than a little worse for wear (like a guy with a bad crack problem). The hunter girl shoots the other (is it the girl she was with in season 3?) and Ramsay sicks the hounds on the victim. As if we didn’t know he was a nut before…

There could be worse looking huntresses

There could be worse looking huntresses

Next, his father, Roose Bolton returns to the Dreadfort. As a nice nod to his story about the fat wife, we see her too. Turns out the guy who chopped off Jaime’s hand is a friend of the bastard — go figure. In conference Ramsay shows off Theon, now christened Reek. It’s gratifying that the show continues to unravel the books bizarre chronology into a more linear fashion. These reveals occur in book five, but are pulled forward to what is essentially the second half of book 3. George R’s expedient (at the time) choice to place character before chronology never really worked for me, so it’s good to see it back in order. But poor Reek.

Ty – dines with Jaime. If we have the dwarf and the cripple, where is the “mother of madness?” Jaime confesses he can’t fight and Ty sets him up with Bronn on a fishing platform near Dubrovnik. In any case, as both Bronn and Jaime are so much fun, they continue the sport together, which makes for a fine scene. This is a notable change from the book, which features the tongueless Paine as Jaime’s silent sparring partner. I’ve heard this has to do as much with that actor being ill 🙁 as with the writing per se. Still, Bronn is played so well, we won’t complain.

sesaon421-681x1024

One of my favorite couples

Ty wanders the gardens with Varys (good to see the spider) and the eunuch tells him Shae has been seen by Cersei’s spies. They are apparently heading toward a wedding gift ceremony and Ty gives Joff a history book, but Joff, ever the twerp, uses his father’s gift, the other Valarian steel sword, to chop up the book: so it begins.

Ty tries to send Shae away. To get her to take him serious he has to play the butthead, even though he doesn’t want to. Shae is definitely much more developed than in the books.

Melisandre – is up to her usual tricks, burning a collection of Stannis’ relatives alive for heresy while his queen gloats on. They segue into discussion about Stannis’ daughter and then lady Mel visits the girl.

Not sure where the Mel/Stannis thing is going -- AND I've read the books 2-3 times!

Not sure where the Mel/Stannis thing is going — AND I’ve read the books 2-3 times!

Bran – gets a very brief snippet, which isn’t too surprising given that he basically takes at least a 1,000 page leave of absence in the books. We are treated to some wolf cam and a bunch of trippy visions that work for me.

The Wedding – forms the bulk of this episode, at least half the screen time. The marriage itself, grand Sept wedding that it is, goes off smoothly enough. Marg somehow has imported a hairdresser from Versailles, as she’s sporting Marie Antoinette hair.

The style worked until the guillotine!

The style worked until the guillotine!

The transition from ceremony to reception includes another cute talk between Tywin and Lady Olena. Good fun as always, but not as amusing as their first.

Then on to the reception itself. As the production stated, this is a BIG scene. Virtually every character in King’s landing is there — and the sets look gorgeous. There are all sorts of nods going on. Loras and Oberyn. Cersei and several others. And no small share of threats. The royal pavilion seems rather Moorish in style, but despite the opulence, Joff is bored.

Nothing like a bored homicidal maniac at a party. Joff interrupts the eating and drinking to bring in a troop of dwarves playing the 5 (mostly) defeated kings. This little number, besides filling the air with tension thick enough to cut, is pretty medieval. Dwarf fools and performances were common enough, as was their bawdy irreverence. Tyrion does a bit to feed the fires of hatred between him and his uncle, but the lion’s share (haha) goes to Joff. The mad boy just won’t let it go. He heaps it on and on and on. Marg tries to diffuse it, at least twice, but I’ve been in this sort of situation myself (not at a royal wedding). It’s hard to stop that train once it gets going.

In the end… well we get to an end, for some. Certainly not all the doves in that pie made it…

All in all a great episode, fairly focused as it goes (at least in the second half), and centered around Tyrion (who is such a delight on screen). Unfortunately for me, I was so busy taking notes I didn’t get to enjoy it — which is why I’ll just have to watch it again.

Another excellent review of this episode here.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official Inside the Episode:

Related posts:

  1. Game of Thrones – Episode 31
  2. Game of Thrones – Episode 18
  3. Game of Thrones – Episode 26
  4. Game of Thrones – Episode 29
  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 16
By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 31

Apr06

gameofthronesseasonreleasedate-1396104840n4k8gGame of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 31 – April 6, 2014

Title: Two Swords

Summary: Excellent opening

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Here we are again at Game of Thrones season. The “previously scenes” always give one a clue what’s coming, and this time it  reached all over the place to odds and ends, sometimes from a season or two ago (like Dontos) or the Ice setup for what’s about to come with this episode. Watching with my wife, who HAS read the books (years ago) and seen every episode, but still needed a “reminder” lecture on the background, it was ever more evident to me how gigantic the scope of this world and series is.

The episode is named “Two Swords” and it opens with Ice (which we haven’t seen in more than two years) pulled from its sheath and reforged into two new swords. Definitely symbolic of the “end” of the Stark line, and depressing enough as Tywin gloats over it.

As usual, I’ll break down the episode into threads by character. This gets a little tricky in king’s landing.

Jaime – is back  in King’s Landing, but more out of his element than ever. He’s shaved and cleaned up, impressive again in King’s Guard regalia, but also gaunt and haunted. Tywin offers him a new sword (we don’t se that the other goes to Joff, or maybe that’s later) and they argue about his future. He clings to the idea of the King’s Guard and Tywin wants him back at Casterly Rock. Truth is, Tywin is fairly gracious in yielding to Jaime’s stubborn position — for him. This just begins the assault on Jaime’s naive assumption that he can resume his normal life. Twice people (his father and Joff) comment on the luck of one handed swordsmen.

sesaon427-1024x681

Nothing like a sword in the good hand and a gold hand on the stump

In his next scene he is fitted with an awkward looking gold hand by Qyburn (being setup for his future roles). Cersei is there and they too argue over his future. He moves to resume their incestuous romance, but she rebukes him hard. From her point of view he left her. From his, events were beyond his control. The dialog is top notch as usual. Loras is referred to as a Pillowbiter, an amusing British slang. Next up it’ll be Featherspitter.

And later, when he and Brienne look down on Sansa, the giant female knight (looking even more awkward in her “finery”) takes him to task. Who is he? The old Jaime who didn’t take anything seriously? Or the man that went back for Brienne?

Tyrion – is also on edge. Interestingly we don’t have a scene between the brothers, but he has been tasked with greeting the party from Dorne come for the royal wedding (Joff and Marg). But the prince of Dorne isn’t there, sending instead his younger brother Oberyn (the Red Viper). Of course, this gives opportunity to end up in a brothel, presumably one of Littlefinger’s (who, along with Varys, Stannis, Bran, and the Ironborn, is one of the few characters who does NOT make an appearance in this episode). Oberyn has a great introduction, in typical Thrones Brothel style involving a good deal of nudity and some clear bisexuality (which if it was in the books was pretty subtle). He’s certainly fun as he gives some obnoxious Lannister men a bit of a MadMax quandary. This is mostly introduction, as afterward he and Tyrion talk, mostly to inform the audience of the Dorne position on things. Oh, and Ty as usual has great lines like “I partook, but now I’m married.”

Oberyn’s “friend”, BTW is a veteran of that other great HBO historical epic: Rome.

Oh dear, I’m sorry my family slaughtered yours

We continue to be updated on Tyrion’s precarious position. He tries to sooth Sansa (still reeling from the death of her mother and brother) and at the same time keep Shae happy. It isn’t working, and when Shae comes on to him hard he rebukes her (playing off the later interchange between Jaime and Cersei). This is new material from the books and is helping set up where Shae is going as a character. To good effect, as I never really bought that part of the otherwise amazing 3rd  novel.

His tryst (even if avoided) is  clearly taken in by one of Cersei’s annoying spies.

Dany – gets in a little R&R with her (now) giant CG dragons. Seems they’re getting a little unruly. I guess they weren’t properly cage trained. Jorah marches in and we are reintroduced to her host: Jorah, Dario, Barristan, the translator girl, Grey Worm, etc. This new Eric Bana Lookalike Dario sure is different from last year’s sensual interpretation. The scope on these shots seems big, although Dany’s countryside looks… well Croatian.

Later, marching toward Maureen, Dany and crew (an enormous CG snake of an army) discover a crucified girl pointing at Maureen. Just one of thousands. Really, we don’t get what Dany is exactly up to, as she seems to be heading anywhere but back to Westerous.

Pass the draco-biscuits please

Pass the draco-biscuits please

Sansa – Is probably in one of the toughest positions, most notably because she doesn’t have a lot of options. Oh, and it is worth mentioning that her table table is made of Pietra dura and has a great view of the Adriatic. When Tryion tries to sooth her, he’s as witty as every: “She wanted to have me executed, but I admired her.” and “Prayer can be helpful, I hear.” Later, after being spied on by Jaime and Brienne she flees and runs into Ser Dontos, who she rescued forever again from Joff’s sadism. He volunteers his loyalty.

Ygritte – is back in the no mans land near the Wall and jousting verbally with  Tormund Giantsbane. He gives her a hard time about now killing Jon, then a group of Thenns show up. They’re huge and scarred, with lots of manly attitude and a taste for human flesh. All in all icky.

Sam and Jon are back at Castle Black – but no one seems to take the Wildling threat seriously when Jon tries to warn them. In fact, he ends up being tried for the death of the Halfhand. We are reminded that Jonas Slynt is now up at the wall and that Measter Aeogon rules. Plus great lines like “none of us are free, we are all men of the Night’s Watch.”

I've done plenty wrong

I’ve done plenty wrong

The Tyrells – are plotting talking, and generally being good fun. Plus, behind them is a hilarious statue of Joff “slaying” a boar.

Ayra – the show likes to end with Arya, and that is no accident. She’s a fan favorite for a reason. Now, following the murder of her brother and mother, she’s in a grim place. The Hound intends to sell her to her Aunt for cash. And at least he isn’t interested in selling her back with his former masters. There’s is a bleak spot of the middle of the country (Riverlands?) and there are more than a fair share of corpses. On finding an Inn filled with Lannister soldiers, an amusing combo of their mutual stubborn sides leads them inside. What follows is quite fun. Sandor doesn’t give a shit (pardon my French) and he’s willing to drive straight on through even if it means a dozen bodies. But, amusing enough, it’s not him that we focus on, instead everything comes to life as Arya does. Boy, I have to go watch that scene again (and I knew what was coming).

Oh, and how weird was Poliver’s monologue about torture?

You going to die for some chickens? Someone is!

You going to die for some chickens? Someone is!

Overall, a great start to the season. This is a typical early GOT episode in that it focuses on the big peices and establishing the position of each of the MANY characters. Usually, it’s a few weeks before they really move. Not so much this time if I have my crystal ball ready.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official Inside the Episode:

Related posts:

  1. Game of Thrones – Episode 28
  2. Game of Thrones – Episode 19
  3. Game of Thrones – Episode 27
  4. Game of Thrones – Episode 18
  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 11
By: agavin
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Falling Skies – Don’t Run Away

Nov20

falling_skies_ver19_xlgTitle: Falling Skies

Genre: Family SciFi

Cast: Noah Wyle (Actor), Moon Bloodgood (Actor)

Watched: Late October, 2013

Summary: V meets The Road

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Steven Speilberg produced TV has a checkered history,  most being cheesy and family oriented. But he keeps on trying, and I have to admire him for pushing Science Fiction more into the mainstream (Earth 2, Seaquest, Terra Nova, Falling Skies, Under the Dome, Extant and more).

Falling Skies is without a doubt the best of the above (excepting Extant which isn’t out yet). It has the family feel of Terra Nova, but is far less monster of the week. This is post apocalyptic fiction, and begins six months AFTER an alien invasion pretty much wiped out everyone. The survivors are scraping by, fighting aliens when they can, scavenging, and mostly just surviving. The story concentrates on the Mason family: a dad and three sons who have managed to keep together (barely) in this new world. In overall feel, the show borrows heavily from the zombie survival and alien invasion genres. It even reminds me at times of The Last of Us — only far, far less bleak.

For TV, and given the big scope of a ruined America and several different types of nasty aliens (some flesh, some mechanical), the show looks pretty impressive. The feel is a little cheesier than Continuum and its slick future Canada, but far more ambitious given that every shot features a destroyed and trash-covered Eastern-seaboard. There is that slight unintentional camp and softness that is the hallmark of the family drama. Falling Skies dishes out some punishment to its characters — people die (or worse) — but the atmosphere isn’t one of perpetual fear and dread like The Last of Us or the Road.

The show doesn't skimp on the latex

The show doesn’t skimp on the latex

Ultimately, this show works, and is held together by a solid set of believable characters and likable performances. Noah Wyle works as former history professor turned military man. I’m less of a fan of his superior officer, Captain Weaver, but the teens do a good job: his two sons Hal and Ben, and a complex triangle of blondes Margaret and Karen. Biker badass turned monster-hunter John Pope is quite amusing — even if not entirely consistent — and manages to imbue a role that could be cheesy with considerable charisma.

Blondes abound

Blondes abound

The aliens themselves, their goals and types, are a bit opaque. We have mechs, skitters (at least 2 factions), harnessed humans, fishheads, and in season 3, the Volm. I actually like that things weren’t clear, but as secrets are revealed, I didn’t always buy the writer’s choices. They borrow more heavily from pop-culture aliens than from any deep reading of the literary genre (which features considerably more sophisticated modeling of possible invasion reasons — like Gregory Benford’s incredible Galactic Center series). The show uses the mechanic of alien bio-device infiltration to create what is essentially a zombie mechanic, and at times a “turned” mechanic. This is familiar territory, particularly for Buffy fans like myself. Somehow, it all feels a bit light in Falling Skies. Maybe it’s a tonal thing. Despite the dark happenings, and blue-gray color palette, the show usually maintains a fairly upbeat mood.

Season 1-2 run together seamlessly, but with season 3 there is one of those disconcerting season breaks and then a fairly different balance of power. A new alien race is introduced and the whole feel is slightly different, perhaps more serious. I felt a little less engaged during this third outing even though intellectually I appreciated the effort to mix it up.

Overall, I have to give Falling Skies a B+. It tries hard. It’s more ambitious and even more successful than most Science Fiction television. The writing, acting, and production are all solid. Somehow it falls short of greatness — or even of breathing new life into the genre — still, it’s well worth a watch.

Check out more TV reviews or

my own Time Travel novel, Untimed.

falling_skies_ver18_xlg

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  2. Breaking Bad – Season 3
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By: agavin
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Continuum – Corporate Future

Oct14

continuum-season-one-blu-ray-400pxTitle: Continuum

Genre: SciFi Thriller

Cast: Rachel Nichols (Actor), Erik Knudsen (Actor)

Watched: October 5-11, 2013

Summary: Solid sci-fi

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Continuum is the second excellent Canadian SciFi television show I’ve found this year (the other being Orphan Black). The regular American networks just wouldn’t make something like this. In fact, they all passed on it. Their loss, because while it has a couple of flaws,  as television goes, Continuum is first rate science fiction and imminently watchable.

Plot wise, we have a 2077 cop who while supervising the execution of the world’s worst terrorists, is propelled back in time to 2012 as part of their cunning escape plan — maybe.

The pilot does a first rate job of setting up the future and getting us quickly back in time . The details are hinted at rather than beaten over your head, which is good because the events leading to the time travel will be revisited numerous times in future episodes  as we learn more and more about the  players. The first few episodes seem almost procedural, with our heroine rapidly shifting herself into a cop role in 2012 — but this begins to shift right from the beginning to a more extended style of plotting. True, the always amusing fish out of water dynamic is underutilized (Kiera picks up 2012 like a pro), but the show really keeps the high level plot moving forward.

The show’s two biggest strengths are its big but tightly integrated cast and its complex mythology. The characters are interesting, and for the most part, not entirely formulaic. Alliances are always forming and shifting, without feeling forced. The terrorists are a varied bunch, with differing agendas, and the writers have deftly complemented their reprehensible methods with highly sympathetic political goals. In fact, this is a show with a substantial dose of moral ambiguity. The apparent behavior of the character is often at odds with their political agenda. The terrorists might be evil killers, but we agree with their points. Kiera might be our heroine, but at some level, her defense of the status quo can be called into question. Overall, the characters are interesting and not totally predictable.

The future city looks great (for TV)

The future city looks great (for TV)

At a political level, the take on 2077 is intriguing. This is a world where government has gone by the wayside and the corporations have risen to dominate the political and social landscape. Profit über alles. And given how things are now, this isn’t such an unreasonable trajectory. The future tech is for the most part pretty well done. We have a lot of slick touch screens, on nearly every kind of surface. For low budget television it looks pretty darn good, if a bit like modern buildings in Vancouver playing high tech dress up. I have a few specific tech nit picks, but they don’t detract from the watchability of the show.

  1. Alec is way too good about coming to grips with technology he is supposed to invent decades from now and has way too easy a time interfacing his 2012 prototypes with models from 2077. I know why the writers did it, but it’s unrealistic.
  2. Why the hell does Kiera have to use touch screens on her suit sleeve when she can control her CMR (internal cyber hud) just by thinking?
  3. The batteries on her stuff sure last a long time.

The mythology is quite excellent. Each episode is studded with flash forwards (usually from Kiera’s perspective) into 2077 and each time we get a bit more of the picture as to who all the players are and how they intertwine across both timelines. It’s, for the most part, sharply written and quite intriguing. Many of the 2012 folks are a bit at odds with who they become, not in the sense of character believability (which is pretty good) but with where we might expect them to go. This all makes it pretty fun.

Not the execution they were looking for

Not the execution they were looking for

The time travel is well handled. Two seasons in (and a third has been ordered) we’re not totally sure which end of the time travel  spectrum we’re operating on, but the characters are asking the right questions, which makes it interesting. In one episode they try to  eliminate each other by killing their grandparents — only to find it doesn’t work that way. So we know causality doesn’t loop (a.k.a. Back to the Future), but is this a fated timeline? Did original older Alec remember younger Kiera and engineer her return? I don’t think so, meaning we are dealing with two possibly disconnected timelines. As a time travel fan and author thinking about these questions made my day.

All in all, I watched it in a 3-4 episode a night binge and I was depressed when it was over. Good thing another season is on the way!

Check out more TV reviews or

my own Time Travel novel, Untimed.

continuum01

Related posts:

  1. Back to the Future Part II
  2. Back to the Future
  3. Back to the Future Part III
  4. Orange is the New Black
  5. More Game of Thrones CGI
By: agavin
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Clone Wars – Orphan Black

Aug16

orphanblackposterTitle: Orphan Black

Genre: SciFi Thriller

Watched: August 5-6, 2013

Summary: great first season

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Lately, there have been a lot of shows  using the device of twins borrowing identities. Perhaps it’s a trend, perhaps it’s just a fan fave, as Shakespeare himself went for it in Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night. In any case, Orphan Black up the ante. Not twins or triplets, but human clones. And there are at least seven of them. Plus, it’s better than last years duplicate thrillers: Ringer (as much as i’m a SMG fan) and The Lying Game (which is pretty good in a lightweight way).

What is crazy impressive about Orphan is that Canadian actress Titiana Maslany (Shakespeare reference right there in her name!) manages to pull off wildly distinct personalities was incredible aplomb. I mean, seriously, you can just feel the different presence of these girls. You can even see quite effectively when one of them is pretending to be another. Watching uptight suburban mom Allison pretending to be punk Sarah is hilarious — and effective.

OB-Trailer2-1024x578

Tough Sarah

This show is Science Fiction, but the SF is confined to the clone thing and it’s low budget too. There aren’t a ton of effects. What there is, however, is very good writing, casting, acting, and pacing. It’s a great show really. We can’t know that the quality will survive into later seasons, but this one is break neck. The characters are sympathetic and interesting, and boy is she(s) put through the ringer (sorry SMG). The tone is simultaneously dark and comic, but always tense and unpredictable. There is one bit in the pilot where Sarah (playing Beth) is caught in an impossible situation. She goes to the bathroom to buy herself some time, then does something completely unexpected that actually works as a clever solution. This is very effective thriller plotting. It doesn’t feel forced or overwrought but merely tense.

16764841001_2372205947001_vs-518d65b8e4b0d749ff6ef2b7-1206954758001

Psycho Helena

Importantly, the complex central mystery is drooled out episode by episode, but it is drooled out. We find out quite a lot — although hardly everything. The amount of reveal is very effective in this season, but could be problematic next year as they will not be able to depend on the same  dynamic. The show might not be able to depend on the clones even playing their normal lives (or each others).

While Maslany steals the show. Many of the secondary actors are very solid as well. Jordan Gavaris as her (very) gay foster brother is a standout. He about says it all when he sits down at a piano and says, “let me show you a bit of Queen.” Kevin Hanchard is solid as cop twin Beth’s partner.

16764841001_2396979261001_vs-519a6b65e4b0878ee9f6ccee-782203288001

Geeky lesbian Cosima

The show feels slightly schizophrenic with regard to its sexuality. At times, in some episodes (like the pilot), it’s pleasantly steamy. Maslany does a good bit of walking around in underwear (always a plus). But this remains uneven, unpredictable. When two characters close we never know if the camera will linger or cut to morning. In a way, this keeps the viewer off balance. Deliberate thriller style or mere inconsistency? Who knows.

Either way, the show is very much worth watching.

Check out more TV reviews.

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  2. Black Swan
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  5. Men in Black 3
By: agavin
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The Americans

Aug09

americansTitle: The Americans

Genre: Spy Thriller

Watched: Late July, 2013

Summary: Homeland 1981

ANY CHARACTER HERE

At one level, The Americans is Homeland 1981. And given how fantastic Homeland is, this isn’t all bad. The Americans isn’t quite so good, but it is very good television. And the setting resonates deeply with me. I grew up in Washington D.C., in this exact era. I’m exactly the age of their kids. The Reagan era costumes, cars, and politics are all highly nostalgic. Although I do have to say that this period feel is about 90% dead on, and about 10% off. The show is set in 1981, but they use songs that at least associate later. In the Air Tonight, for example, which is a favorite of mine. Technically, it is an 1980-81 song, and was a hit then, but I remember it better from the 1984 Miami Vice inspired return.

Where Homeland focuses on solo character, The Americans focuses on relationship. At the core of the show is this unusual marriage. They didn’t choose each other. They aren’t even technically married. The central couple were a pair of young KGB agents shoved in a room together and told to spend their lives pretending to be married. But so real is this act, so long have they slept in the same bed, shared the same work, cared for the same children, that the cover becomes the reality. Is this life any less real than any other? That dilemma, and the sympathy and interest forged from that central weirdity, is highly engaging.

Spy family breakfast

Spy family breakfast

Additionally, we have some great thrills. The twists and intrigues are solid and involve a bunch of interesting secondary characters, notably: the FBI agent across the street and the junior KGB officer with problems of her own. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are compelling as the leads, but Annet Mahendru as that double or triple agent girl is darn impressive (and sexy). Her arc shows this deadly game at its best and worst. One mistake (and who doesn’t have a few) opens her to that most difficult of choices: a tour in Siberia of heavy labor and gang rape or life as a traitor and double agent. There is no happy ending here. It’s how long can she play the game before the music stops and there are no more chairs.

the-americans-the-oath_article_story_main

Rhys is uncanny and effective in disguise

 

The show gets deep and involved in the spycraft, and this is great. I spent some time digging as to the realism. Certainly the sheer volume and intensity of activity would be unprecedented. Mr. and Mrs. Jennings use disguises, surveillance, sex, and violence on a near daily basis. In real life, spycraft was much slower with a much greater differentiation between “agent” and “spy.” The spy is a traitor who has been bribed, coerced, or fooled into stealing information from their own side. The agent runs the spy. Here, the Jennings operate both as agents and as direct gatherers of information, which apparently didn’t happen much. But this is television. There is also a high body count, which was unusual. But the whole system is fascinating.

The show is edgy with regard to sexual content, but there is little or no nudity. It’s rarely if ever erotic. The Jennings both use sexuality as a primary weapon in the recruitment and coercion of their spies. In real life this was probably a blunter tool than the surgical scalpel we see here, but it does add an interesting complexity to their already byzantine marital life.

Love spat

Love spat

The Americans isn’t afraid to touch on complex areas, and this is part of what makes it a great show. It shows the basic level of misunderstanding between the two sides in the cold war. When Reagan is shot, the Russians view the progression of events in their own terms, failing to adequately understand the differences between Moscow and Washington. Can we blame them? All viewpoints are relative. Likewise, we bond with the central characters, their lives, and their dilemmas. Who are they? Are they traitors and killers? Are they husband and wife? Are they mother and father? Or are they all of the above?

Check out more TV reviews.

By: agavin
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Orange is the New Black

Jul29

oitnb_key_003_hTitle: Orange is the New Black

Genre: Prison Drama

Watched: July, 2013

Summary: first rate characterization

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Netflix has been very aggressive this year creating new content and I’ve taken the time to watch House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, and now Orange. The first was good. The second interesting (if flawed). And the third just plain excellent.

Orange is the New Black is the brainchild of Jenji Kohan, creator of the awesome (for 3-4 seasons at least) Weeds. While it retains the older show’s blended drama/comedy quality, Orange forsakes Weed’s satirical surrealism and shifts far closer to realist drama while maintaining a light touch.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nryWkAaWjKg]

Like much good modern long form television, Orange rejects the need to pigeonhole each episode into a classic dramatic arc. What it does is simple in concept, but hard in practice: build solid characters and put them through the ringer. The excellent mostly female cast is highly varied, and we, like Piper herself find them fairly opaque on first meet. The show deftly borrows the “Lost technique” to flesh out the personalities. Each episode (more or less) flashes back to reveal the character of an individual woman, showing who they are and how they got here. Structurally, this serves to take agents whose present time actions may be less than endearing, and build audience sympathy for them.

That 70s show star returns as the mysterious and sexy "Alex"

That 70s show star returns as the mysterious and sexy “Alex”

This is a powerful combination. Each backstory is vaguely tragic. Unfortunate circumstances and poor (if understandable) choices lead each character to their present miserable states. Nothing builds likeability like a checkered past. This depth of caring elevates the present-time drama above the norm. And it’s pretty good to start with. With the exception of the last two episodes, the twisting and turning is moderate, dramatic, and flowing from character. Orange mostly avoids the heavy-handed whiplash of  over-plotted dramas (Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, and the like).

Fundamentally, good story telling is about giving characters you care for difficult emotional choices — and Orange delivers on that front.

Plus, a woman’s prison is an inherently titillating setting (couldn’t resist). The writers use a light touch here while deftly exploring the ins and out of this weird world. This is a minimum security prison and things are unpleasant, but not overly so — and sometimes surprisingly casual and informal. The women themselves are a weird mix and it all serves to be quite interesting. And for the most part, they’re also all pretty good people. Realistic? I have no idea, but fun to watch.

Check out more TV reviews.

orange-is-the-new-black

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By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Season 3 Goodies

Jan23

We’re entering that most exciting time of year: the ramp up and entry into a new Game of Thrones season. HBO has begun doling out the material.

First up, the brand new (as of 3/2/13) Season 3 Trailer, extended edition!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C1pbtBX9Kok]

and the original 2/21/13 Season 3 Trailer:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RzI9v_B4sxw]

Then the 2/10/13 season 3 teaser!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1iTg20x7w2s]

Then, we have a piece on the Art Direction. This includes some cool glimpses of upcoming locations and characters.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3y5aCWFuKo]

Then even more interesting is one on adaption. They don’t say a lot, but as someone who works at storytelling in various mediums (games, novels, and screenplays) I find this fascinating. A Song of Ice and Fire isn’t your typical work, with a single narrative spine to adapt and compress. The same basic mantras of compression apply as they do in most novel -> film/TV adaptions, but the details are much more complex.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VB0JA78wJ4]

And one with the two main producers and a lot of the cast on the season 3 highlights.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaedhISdshA#!]

And January 31 brings us a fourth video about Iceland:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3-hlG6Nn1s]

wallpaper-s3teaser-1600-1024x768

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By: agavin
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Buffy vs. Edward

Jan16

I found this very interesting (and very creative) Buffy vs. Edward mashup online. It’s worth highlighting not only because of its skill, but because it contrasts two of the most popular teen vampire franchises. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my all time favorite television show, and Twilight is well… kinda gross. Buffy vs. Edward quite seriously shows one of the reasons why.

Besides, that mashup must have taken a LONG time to make. There are over 5400 minutes of Buffy footage in the series! I can name the episode where nearly every shot comes from too. I’m not sure I should be proud of this.

 

Check out the Buffy vs Edward video here.

 

Or my detailed Buffy critique.

Or my Twilight critique.

 

Buffy-Kicks-Twilight-Butt-twilight-vs-buffy-22158143-492-421

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  4. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 3
  5. TV Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer – part 1
By: agavin
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Sons of Anarchy

Oct19

Title: Sons of Anarchy

Genre: Crime Drama

Watched: October, 2012

Summary: A dramatic juggernaut 10/10

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Sons of Anarchy could be loosely described as The Sopranos with bikers. Fundamentally  it’s a focused kind of gangland ensemble piece set in a fictional hick town not too far from San Francisco. But like anything, it’s execution dependent, and in this case the execution is pretty f***cking awesome.

Against all odds, the larger character structure is based on Hamlet. We have a prince, haunted by the ghost of his father (here, his dead dad’s writings). His mother married the new king. The prince is torn by doubts. There’s nothing wrong with classic structure. Hell, The Lion King did this too. It works and adds a helluva a lot of gravitas.

Hellboy and Peg Bundy make one fantastically naughty couple!

This show is impossible to put down. I watched all four and a half seasons in about ten days, staying up late into the night (enough that I was continually exhausted the next morning). The writing and acting are all fantastic. We have a lot of great characters here, and despite the fact that many of them are killers, you really care what happens. And what happens is a lot of bad shit! Most episodes end with a twisty cliffhanger that makes it really difficult to resist letting Netflix (which has the first three seasons) role into the next episode. NOTE: This feature, added perhaps two months ago, is a break-thru for TV watching.

Just as interesting as the characters is the whole biker milieu. In the same way that The Sopranos took you inside the modern Mafia, SOA opens up the inner working of the MC (Motorcycle Club). And unlike the Jersey Italian thing, I knew little to nothing about bikers. In the show they operate in a similar thugy fashion, but instead of being so strictly hierarchical, the biker gang functions as a kind of heroic democracy. And by heroic I don’t mean super hero, I harken back to the way in which men behave in warrior societies. This is a man’s world, where personal honor and toughness count for everything. A man’s ability to “protect his own” (be it women, property, or whatever) is paramount to his status.

Television exaggeration aside, these characters ring of truth. And isn’t that what great drama is all about?

Check out more TV reviews.

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  5. Breaking Bad – Season 2
By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 20

Jun03

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 20 – June 3, 2012

Title: Valar Morghulis

Summary: Fantastic Wrapup

ANY CHARACTER HERE

The season finale has a lot of threads to cover, the extra long “previously on” clip covers no less than eleven major plot lines! Amazingly, the episode manages to do a pretty damn good job with them — even when many only get one scene.

We open with Tyrion — well his eye — suffering at the tender ministrations of the less-senile-than-he-seems Maester Pycelle. Ty learns he’s no longer hand, and we see what he does not, his father receiving the honors that Tyrion had a hand (haha) in earning. Then in a magnificent bit of public theater, Joffery casts down Sansa and takes up with Margaery Tyrell. Could the third marriage be the charm? With Joff? This begins a running thread about oaths that flows through the entire episode. For Joff, despite his lip service, oaths mean nothing. I do also have to give credit to the actor who manages to make every line, every gesture thoroughly loathsome.

I can't wait for his wedding

Sansa, freed of her engagement, is confronted by Littlefinger. He claims to be an ally, being the second man to offer her a way north. But does she dare? Personally, I would have gone with the Hound.

And speaking of Littlefinger, Varys visits Ros in the interest of plotting against his rival. It’s not entirely clear what the point of this scene is other than an update on everyone’s least favorite hooker and a restatement of the Varys/Littlefinger hostility. I prefered their “manhood” discussion in episode 10.

Jaime and Brienne only get one scene, but it’s a doozy. After the usual banter they run into a bunch of Stark men who recognize the Kingslayer. She totally kicks ass in her lumbering way. But her choices flow from her own oath: to Cat Stark. Her interpretation is literal in the extreme.

Robb and Cat discuss this very topic. He is in love with the nurse, she warns him of his oath, even invoking Ned and his own literal interpretation of said matters. Robb walks a different road.

Stannis broods with the Red Lady, nursing his pride. He tries to strangle her, but cannot. She shows him the secrets of the flames. We, of course, see only some flicking in his eyeballs. Is this hypnotism, or more? Certainly one of the weaker threads, but it has been all along. I guess Davos’ fate will be left to season 3.

Theon is surrounded and in his room with Luwin. The old man honors his own oath and gives Theon solid advice: run for the Night’s Watch. “You are not the man you are pretending to be, at least not yet.” This is a great exchange. “It’s too late to pretend to be anything else,” Theon answers. Then he gives a really nice speech to his troops — only to have them betray him. Poor Luwin is stabbed.

What is dead will never die!

Varys visits Tyrion and delivers news of further humiliations. I swear GRRM looks at every character every chapter and says: “on the way up, take ’em down. On the way down, take ’em up.” The Ty/Varys interaction this season has been great as both actors are spectacular. Shae is next. She removes his bandage. The scar is bad, but nothing like in the book where he has no nose! They couldn’t bring themselves to put Peter Dinklage through that much ugly (and he’s a good looking man anyway, unlike the pre-face-cut novel Tyrion). Shae at least is loyal (so far). Dare I say, honoring her oath? She tries to get him to leave the city with her, but stays when he won’t.

Robb gets married. A nice tiny little ceremony. Oaths oaths oaths. But it is still the second worst thread.

Dany walks through a cool garden to an even cooler tower-like “house of the undying.” She finds a magic entrance. I like these lightly handed mystical moments.

Jorah, don't let her out of your sight!

Arya, having escaped, is found by Jaquen. He tries to draw her to Bravos to train as a Faceless Man. She isn’t ready yet, and still seeks her family. He gives her the coin then as I hoped he might, changes his face. “That man is dead.” Awesome scene.

Osha and the boys emerge to a burnt and destroyed Winterfell. If those wolves are CG, they look pretty darn good. They find a dying Luwin and the old man gets a few final words in. Perhaps not realistic, but he’s been very fine in the role and so they’re well deserved. He sends them to Jon. Bran rolls north in a wheelbarrow!

Dany is back in the House of the Undying. She finds a room of doors and wanders through into a sequence of visions that gave me goosebumps. First the Iron Throne, its hall burnt by dragon fire. Then lured by the sound of dragons, through the door in the wall and into the north. There she finds Drogo’s hut and inside the man himself in a surprise reprise of his role. The Dothraki dialog between them brought tears to my eyes. I always liked the way his rumbly voice read the guttural language. But she is not to succumb to the “last temptation of Danerys Stormborn,” instead returning to the house to find her dragons. All three in fact — for the first time in the entire season. The warlock emerges. He uses the plural, but we only see one — before or now. “With the dragons returned our magic.” It’s nice to hear this reiterated. Makes one wonder. Is this true of the Red Lady as well? Not the White Walkers for sure, they showed up in the pilot before the dragons did. Or do they foreshadow coming of the beasts? Anyway, Dany is not one to take captivity lightly, she lights up the warlock like a bonfire. This scene was cool, but felt light on the effects. I would’ve liked to see the three dragons flying around laying waste to the house and it burning down. Sigh. Budgets.

Finally, we return to Jon Snow in the frozen north. Ygritte is marching behind him whacking him on the head with his own sword. That’s got to hurt both the pride and the noggin. The Halfhand grabs a sword and they fight. He forces Jon’s anger and this time, Jon doesn’t hold back and kills him. I’m not sure I bought this important moment 100%. I did, however, like the look Ygritte gives him as she backs him up and then leads him off to see the valley with the Wildling (CGI) camp. This vista looks fantastic as they just painted in the camp in a real Icelandic valley. It felt massive in scale, in contrast with the lightweight troop of a dozen Wildlings in furs marching around in the snow. The Lord of Bones has no presence.

Somehow the captive is the trustworthy one

Xaro is sleeping with Doreah. I guess that explains her absence. Dany and her dragons march in and steal his medallion/vault key. But the vault contains nothing. She locks him and the slave girl away. These are both changes from the novels, but while I will miss the girl on girl on girl action that is supposed to occur later (unless they bring it back with different girls) the relationship with Xaro makes more sense. In the books I never really understood what Xaro was up to or why Dany did what she did with him. Here she loads up with enough gold to buy a ship and move on.

I expected that to be the end, but we have an even better setup. Sam and the brother’s black are gathering frozen turds by the Fist of the First Men when the horn sounds three times. An army of zombies pass, lead by zombie horse riding White Walkers. That was pretty cool. It also helps to explain, at least to me, the difference between the wraiths (zombies) and the White Walkers (something more, and often mounted). This peculiar distinction has eluded me for five books.

Sigh again. The ten month wait begins. But in the meantime I’m heading myself to King’s Landing this summer. Well, Dubrovnik at least. It looked so good in the show that I booked a vacation there!

Overall, a brilliant episode. I was worried that with so many threads each be starved of attention, But the producers saved a good percentage of the budget for these last two episodes. And more importantly the writers managed to draw most of the threads, although not all, to a satisfying conclusion. Still, the biggest flaw this season suffered, and it is a big flaw, is the compression of the large scale novel into only ten hours of programming. While a problem last season, A Game of Thrones is shorter than A Clash of Kings and the compression felt less pronounced. Season 2 did mostly address the problems of visual scope and mystical elements that bothered me in season one, but the new problem is even worse. With twelve episodes they could have mitigated it somewhat, but really the scope of the story needed perhaps sixteen. We can hope that by splitting A Storm of Swords into more than one season this can be overcome.

See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

Boys like a challenge

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By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 19

May28

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 18 – May 27, 2012

Title: Blackwater

Summary: Tight and intense

ANY CHARACTER HERE

With Episode 19, Blackwater, the normally highly fractured narrative of the show lasers in and focuses on a single place and night: The attack on King’s Landing by Stannis and its defense. Hallelujah, they finally show us a real battle! And not just a little one, but a multi-staged “Helm’s Deep” style battle. Sure, it’s not like Helm’s deep level visuals, but it’s pretty damn great.

This is certainly the most climatic scene from A Clash of Kings, although with so many threads it is but one of many. By choosing to focus, we are allowed to see the play out of emotions in King’s Landing with considerable more depth than the usual 2-3 scenes per thread allows.

We open at sea with Davos and his navy. I like the puke barrel the soldiers heave into. Then we cut to Tyrion in bed with Shae in a nice intimate pre-battle moment of intimacy. Cersei, in contrast, receives cold comfort in the form of poison from her silly and ancient Maester. Bronn parties with his men and a bevy of the usual whores (we keep seeing the same ones). The Hound enters and the two killers lock antlers only to be interrupted by the bells signaling the invasion.

Varys and Ty banter as usual, much to our pleasure. The master of spiders passes crucial information to Ty, and in a subtle nod to later, Ty admits that he trusts his squire Pod. In the books Pod is an actual character, here in the show, he’s just a role. Still, at least he has one.

The bells on the wall are met by drums from the ships. Ty and Bronn find Joff and the Hound in the throne room. Joff continues his obnoxious streak in saying goodbye to Sansa, and she cleverly appeals to his ego to try and egg him into the most dangerous part of the battle.

Everyone sallies forth to watch from the walls. In a very effective sequence we cut from the battlements to the ships and show the sailor’s surprise at finding only one Lannister ship, unmanned and leaking green fluid at that. Bronn sets the whole thing alight with a single flaming arrow and Stannis’ fleet is obliterated in a cloud of green fire. I do have to say, the green fire looked badass (for TV).

One shot is the charm

But undaunted, Stannis leads his surviving men aboard his medieval PT boats and rows for shore.

Meanwhile, we have been cutting back to inside the keep where Cersei has sequestered herself with all her ladies. This is all the more painful for Sansa when the queen singles her out for more attention. The queen’s dress is very interesting: Mostly medieval ladies gown, it does have a bit of Amazonian breast plate action going.

When Stannis mounts his landing Ty sends the Hound to command a defensive party outside the walls. Men storm toward the walls under fire and do their best with ladders. Lancel takes a flesh wound and heads inside where Cersei orders him to drag the king to safety. Cersei continues to talk Sansa and takes notice of Shae, something doesn’t add up for her.

The Hound goes to town butchering the invaders until the fire grows too close and he starts to freak out. This is certainly understandable considering his fiery encounters with his older brother. Stannis is a leader of the old school, and you can’t say he’s a coward because he storms the walls himself and lays waste to the King’s men.

Does anyone have the armor polish?

When the hold returns inside getting too close to the heat he is ordered back out again. He swears off the King entirely and leaves. The invaders batter at the games with a huge battering ram. Joff runs off with his cousin and Ty finds the courage to lead the men in a rousing speech and drag them out himself.

Lancel returns to Cersei again empty handed, and she runs off. Sansa finds her own strength to rally the women and Shae urges Sansa back to her rooms. But guess who’s there? The Hound, fed up with fighting for Joff the Toff and ready to take her back to Winterfell. But Sansa has been conditioned and she is too nervous to jump ship.

Can you toss me that rope on the dock over there?

Ty leads men through the sewers (setup with Varys and the map), comes out behind the invaders, and lays waste to them. He goes to town with his axe. This time around, the producers don’t shy from battle. Finally. Ty is fighting away only to be betrayed and attacked by one of the King’s Guard. He falls badly injured, although not seemingly as badly injured as in the book. More  troops invade and just as soon as all looks lost, a Lannister army arrives to save the day.

Cersei sits with her younger son Tommen on the throne and is about to take poison but Tywin rides in to save the day. So this is where he rode off too last episode!

Overall, this episode burned a lot of money. While it still feels like TV, it’s epic TV and the mix of wide shots and extra pounding action served well to convey the sense of a fairly large battle. I like the scope and intensity allowed by ignoring all the other threads, but I suspect that the final episode will be one rapid-fire whiplash!

See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

Things that say boom!

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  5. Game of Thrones – Episode 9
By: agavin
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Posted in: Television
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