Pete Martell

It's funny because I liked Gordon but I hated almost his entire storyline and I thought it was a huge waste of potential in order to have yet another parallel and morality tale that we didn't need.

Funny and weird little Misha video.

Even in an interview she did a few weeks before the season ended, she said she couldn't really talk about it. She was directly asked and said she couldn't talk about it. I don't necessarily even want to see LS, as I'm not sure how the show would handle it and it's such a depressing story, but I have to wonder if she's playing along so that we will be surprised in season 5. Even in that interview she says "the character's dead" (which is technically true) and you have to respect what the writers do. There's quite a bit of stuff in the show that won't make as much sense without LS, especially Brienne's story, and everything they set up with Beric in season 3. I'm not sure whether to take her at her word or think they are doing this because it's pretty much an open secret about the character and they want to fool people.

Do you think Quentyn might have been some type of parody (building up a character only for him to quickly die - meta commentary on his writing style or what have you)? I guess they needed a reason to have Dorne turn against Dany, although he could have still been a minor character with that purpose.

Maisie Williams interview (possible season 5 spoilers) http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/23/game-of-thrones-star-maisie-williams-on-arya-stark-s-s4-journey-and-her-crush-on-andrew-garfield.html

I can't find any of the Hollyoaks clips where Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei) and Roxanne McKee (Doreah) fought, but I did find this old clip of Nathalie giving career advice to what will likely be Daario Naharis #3.

It was also a subplot in season 2 (Tyrion using Lancel as a spy), although it was dropped with no mention after Blackwater. Here's the passage. (and then he asks her if she made Jon Arryn the same offer, she slaps him, he repeats the same, "I shall wear it as a badge of honor," line she used with Robert, which...she doesn't seem to realize was a mockery, as she starts railing that he has no honor with a bastard son).

Thanks. The part where a camera person waves her hand to get the two of them to move back cracks me up.

I have to laugh at how she just sort of looks at it like, "Why would I sit on that death pile. There's a reason I've survived so long, you silly people." That's so cool that Rose Leslie is there even though she's off the show now. I see Lena, Kit, Conleith Hill (?), Sophie, Maisie, Rose...who is the other guy whose head is blocked?

There are certain things male characters can get away with in the eyes of the viewers. Offloading some of the nastiest stuff onto Joffrey meant that the slaughter of infants just went into "don't you love to hate him?" territory. I guess they also may have wanted to make Cersei more sympathetic since they knew she would be a long-term character; Joffrey wasn't. I feel like one of the biggest changes is Cersei's sexuality. I was just reading the book version of the "you win or you die" scene with Cersei and Ned, and she makes a pass at him. Did she do that on the show? I can't remember. As gorgeous as Cersei was (and even Ned says to himself in that scene he now finally realizes how beautiful she is), and even knowing that Ned had sired a bastard, her thinking Ned would have sex with his best friend's wife after her family had crippled his son, maimed him and killed his men, and he'd found out she was fucking her brother...it rang huge alarm bells about her delusions. Their scene on the show wasn't handled that way. Cersei seemed more rational. I wonder if they have toned this down because when the Walk does happen they don't want people to say, "Cersei slept around, she deserved this." Of course some fans will probably think that anyway...

I guess my problem with the aftermath material was, yet again with this show, the way scenes were set up. For instance, the focus in the scene with Cas was in part some attempt at comedy (?) because he wouldn't hug Cas. So people instead talked about why didn't he hug Cas, what did Cas do wrong. Sam got to "kill" Soulless Sam, but the other things that would have likely haunted him, like ugly treatment of the people he would want to save (down to killing a woman in cold blood because she got in his way), had no mention. The show instead made choices like a joke about Dean, Bobby, and Soulless Sam all sleeping with the same woman. They've never let Sam really deal with any of the fallout of his storylines. Even the whole "starting the apocalypse" story became muddied by brother love and brother angst in season 5. I can see where Soulless Sam would have seen sex as a way to cope with not feeling, but when Gamble/Singer included scenes like a sex worker not taking Sam's money, I think they moved it away from being about his struggles and into being a straight guy's porno fantasy. To be honest I didn't think the show did a great job telling this story with Dean either, in season 3, but at least it wasn't presented as being about Dean being a stud. I can see what you're saying. My view tends to mostly be that someone wanted to see Jared have a lot of sex/shirtless material and be the action man and not have to play Sam's usual vulnerabilities and hesitant moments, so I couldn't find the other interpretations. But if the story worked for you, I can understand that. We can agree to disagree.

I think there's a way to feel conflicted while still having a consistent story. In the case of Soulless Sam, I didn't feel conflicted about the character - I thought he was a cipher. I felt conflicted and confused by why I was supposed to care that he liked to have a lot of sex, or, later on, why there was no exploration of the fact that Sam had to deal with someone using his body like he was a porn star and going around beating up and killing innocent people. If you're going to do this to a character, then you should at least show the aftermath.

The tone disconnect for me isn't so much about Soulless Sam's reactions and more about how we were supposed to feel about them. I would like to think I should have been horrified that Sam was gone, that Dean was so full of rage and disgust that he beat the shell of his brother unconscious, and that this may be who he is forever. When I'm in that mindset, I can't really laugh because Soulless Sam jokes about whether or not Dean has been raped. (which is why I wasn't sure if the show was implying Dean had been sexually assaulted - I think they mentioned this 2 or 3 times throughout the episode in some "funny" manner). It was the same with the comedy of Becky drugging Sam and possibly raping him if more time had passed, all in the middle of the depression we were supposed to feel about Dean's breakdown, Sam's hallucinations, etc. I'm not trying to say you're juvenile for enjoying "Clap Your Hands." I'm sorry if I implied that. I'm just saying for me (only for me), it was just a jarring way to plot out a story. I've always wondered if Sera wanted Soulless Sam to become a fan favorite and to have him become more prominent on the show, because I found the material written for him to be extremely disrespectful to Sam as a character (as there was no followup), and essentially turned Sam into some type of fanfic-type gimmick. This is typical of SPN in general, this confusing tone, but it bothered me more with this storyline because am I supposed to both want Sam to get his soul back and cheer that he's getting laid? Oh that Soulless Sam is so sexy, prostitutes don't take his money? The show has had jarring tonal changes in the last few seasons, I agree, but that's the main arc for me that was treated the most inconsistently. The problem I had with the story was I had absolutely no idea why it existed. It was better handled, overall, than their conflict this season, but it felt to me like someone just said, "If they get along there's no show." So you had Amy, Amy's death, and then some brooding before a resolution. And this meant there was still some sort of taint afterward, because they continued the tit-for-tat of which brother made what mistake. For instance in "The Slice Girls," some fans felt that the show had Sam kill Emma to somehow say "gotcha" for Dean killing Amy. And that interpretation would not have been possible if not for the pointless Amy story. What the show likely envisioned as some type of example of brother love instead just became more fodder for the brother wars.

I don't put too much on Lyanna, as she was just a young girl and we don't really know whether she even had any choice in the matter, but the whole thing means that if R + L = J is true, poor Jon will feel even more crushed. He was/is so worried about staying away from women (aside from Ygritte), because a bastard siring children meant he could not be a father to them. He would learn that the only reason he was conceived is because his father abandoned his other children, who were then murdered. Is all of that even true? Didn't Asha later try to pay for Theon's safety and when that failed, ask Stannis to at least give him a death that would let him go out with peace? I didn't think book Asha had zero affection for Theon. I get the whole "he isn't a master swordsman in the book" complaints, but I think that would make poor TV (although Yara/Asha's rescue was not great TV anyway). I didn't really have a problem believing Ramsay would be good with a sword, just for reasons of survival. The author really thinks Tywin would have killed Tommen and Myrcella? OK...

Good points. I feel like the show has dialed back Ramsay's bile (which may not be a bad thing, as I don't get the impression from a lot of book fans I see online that they find him that terrifying or compelling , and D&D trying to do what GRRM did would be a trainwreck given their issues with presenting violence against women), and zeroed in more on his relationship with Theon, who some fans feel deserves torture. So if they do have him torturing and raping Jeyne, then I hope they will manage to make her character stand out for viewers, so she won't just be seen as a cipher, like Craster's wives.

I think the only chance Brienne had was to ditch that sword before she saw Arya (which could have gotten her killed, I realize). Once she and The Hound saw the sword nothing was going to change their mind.

You'd think they might have mentioned that if they wanted us to think he was manipulating her all along. Perhaps they were afraid viewers would be confused. Or they just didn't want to go there (I know some fans claim that she raped him). They streamlined so much of Lysa's struggles and of House Tully. I can see why, but I think it would have shed a light on the family instead of people just going, "Wow Cat and Lysa are such <insert slur here>."

I think Catelyn would be frightened of real repercussions for Arya. I think she was for Robb too, but she just never realized how far Walder would go, because she lacked focus. But if Arya refused I think Catelyn would have ultimately supported her. One of the reasons I sympathize with Catelyn is because I feel like she was scared all the time, even in periods when her world was wonderful. I don't think she ever felt completely secure in her marriage (I don't think she believed Ned would ever cheat on her again, but I do think she worried that Ned had loved this other woman far more than he'd ever love her), I don't think she felt secure at Winterfell, I don't think she felt secure as a mother. I think she put on a good front, because that's what she had been raised to do, be the perfect wife and mother, but underneath she was broken glass. House Tully is/was just a mess, which is another reason I sympathize with Catelyn. Hoster must have done a real job on his children - Lysa was just horribly tragic (and I don't think that's all on Littlefinger), Edmure is a silly, insecure twit, and Catelyn was also extremely insecure. I just see Catelyn as a very sad, beautifully broken creation, who made a lot of mistakes, but who was also kept in a glass cage of sorts. Unfortunately every time she tried to free herself, she'd just enter another, smaller cage, and on and on. I'm always kind of glad that I haven't seen any of the, "Let's talk about what a wonderful man Robert was!" that I see all the time for, say, Rhaegar or what have you. I think Robert was a pretty pathetic man - a terrible, distant father, a terrible husband, a terrible king (of course even he said he shouldn't have been king). I admire that GRRM made it very clear in the books that his happily ever after fantasies about Lyanna were just that, and that she had no real desire to marry him, she had no love for him. I wish the show had gotten that across. I actually think the show did a better job of pointing out Robert's flaws than they did Tywin's, somehow. Tywin's main flaw in the show was, "He's so mean to Tyrion." He was a terrible father to all of his children, he stayed away from court far too long (meaning that Joffrey became a complete monster, one who soon would have been out of Tywin's control - Olenna Tyrell did him a huge favor...), and the Red Wedding was in the long-term a disastrous choice to make. Hopefully with the North rotting away even further next season we'll hear more characters talk about this.

Tall Tales -- The Usual Suspects ++ Nightshifter -- 47 - What Is and What Should Never Be 45 - Tall Tales 45 - Hollywood Babylon 45 - In My Time of Dying 45 - Born Under a Bad Sign 33 - Crossroad Blues 27 - Nightshifter 27 - All Hell Breaks Loose Pt 2 21 - Folsom Prison Blues 19 - The Usual Suspects 17 - Houses of the Holy 11 - Bloodlust 11 - All Hell Breaks Loose Pt 1 01 - Hunted Moved on: Roadkill No Exit Heart Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things Croatoan Everybody Loves a Clown Playthings Simon Said

I would say that period of time was better than Sam than season 4, 8, or 9, because the character was not being trashed, but he also barely seemed to be there. Things happened to him, and Dean had to help save him. We saw a lot of focus on his trying to help Dean, yet this was laden with forced conflict (Amy Pond) and angst that further sapped the believable bond Sam and Dean had once had. The show was and is so terrified of just writing them as being cool with each other. I don't think Carver intended to damage Sam so much...I can understand the idea of what he was doing with Amelia and with not looking for Kevin and Dean. I suppose the conflict with Benny was to show the unhealthiness of the brotherly bond. Unfortunately it was all horribly, horribly executed. That Jared also has a lot of concerns about this material (understandably) just muddies the water even more, as he seemed to feel that Sam was lying about not wanting to save Dean (the comments Sam made in The Purge). So it's all just a mess. It's mostly about characterization. Kripke, Gamble, and Carver all project(ed) things onto Sam, instead of writing for him. Some did it better than others, but I think it's had about the same result. It has destroyed the character. I'm not sure I've ever seen another show where you have two leads, and one has rock-solid characterization that survives pretty much anything, and the other is dragged along like various Weekend at Bernie's sequels, rather than put in the work to make him what he could be.. I don't think it would have been all that difficult to find a role for Cas after the apocalypse. They could have done a dozen things. I think they just didn't want to deal with a third character, as they've never really wanted to do this. They had this idea of going back to basics, because of the eternal nostalgia for the era where it was just two boys in a cool car. They also got pretty heavy pushback against Cas from certain fans, as they always have. I'm not sure how much TPTB planned in advance, but the whole Cas story always felt very flimsy to me in seasons 5 and 6, mostly coming up with reasons he wouldn't be around very often, unless his powers were needed. His season 6 "angel war" story was able to work into what happened at the end of the season, but all the things like, "ooh, Cas is so bad because he's torturing and that's not cool" really felt out of left field for me. I think there are some people at the show who love Cas and Misha. I think others...do not. And we get this push and pull every season as a result.

I was thinking of material like "Clap Your Hands If You Believe," where we had gone from, presumably, being concerned that Soulless Sam had allowed Dean to become a vampire, was broken inside, had been beaten black and blue by Dean, to laughing it up that he scored some tail and once again left Dean to die while Dean was being sexually assaulted by faeries (because it's so hilarious and subversive if we have macho men say the word "fairy" a lot). I had no idea why I was supposed to take Sam's future seriously if the show didn't. (not to mention that I still don't understand why Sera Gamble was so concerned about Sam having nonconsensual sex with Ruby's vessel when she was more than happy to glorify Soulless Sam doing things that Souled Sam would never have done, like sleep with prostitutes) I'm pretty sure the plan came out of left field. Misha and Ben had to go hat in hand and ask TPTB to do an episode that would explain Cas' POV ("The Man Who Would Be King"), as it had come out of nowhere. Misha also played Cas as genuinely shocked that Sam had been brought back without a soul, which I believe he said he wouldn't have done (I'm not sure) if he'd known. They wanted Misha out and wanted to salvage the story after their main ideas had been unpopular with viewers and/or the cast, so this was the best way to do it.

At that point Arya was either lost or trapped in King's Landing with Ned and Sansa (I can't remember). I think helping to get her back safely and help the whole family survive would mean using her name to try to get Walder Frey onside. Catelyn knew how important these promises were. If Arya had been there and had argued with her she probably would have been more distraught about it. She may have given him too much but I think she was just desperate. In the first book I think he did mention or imply that she was more distant toward him than others were, but I felt like her reactions were never serious dislike, just the feelings of a child. Sansa was so young, emotionally, and so sheltered (by both her parents), that a "bastard" brother was a struggle for her to fit into her perfect world and perfect future.

I think the show in the early seasons, probably season 2 or 3, got the wrong idea about what they thought the audience wanted to see and what the show should be, and they, especially Singer, have stuck to that ever since, often to the show's detriment. Misery for misery's sake and then going into WACKY AND FUNNY!!! just doesn't work well for me. The show has done that for far too long, but Gamble in particular seemed to do this as showrunner.

Got it in right under the nose. Hunted -- Hollywood Babylon ++ Houses of the Holy ++ 47 - What Is and What Should Never Be 45 - Tall Tales 45 - Hollywood Babylon 43 - Born Under a Bad Sign 43 - In My Time of Dying 33 - Crossroad Blues 29 - All Hell Breaks Loose Pt 2 29 - Nightshifter 21 - Folsom Prison Blues 17 - The Usual Suspects 17 - Houses of the Holy 13 - All Hell Breaks Loose Pt 1 13 - Bloodlust 01 - Hunted Moved on: Roadkill No Exit Heart Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things Croatoan Everybody Loves a Clown Playthings Simon Said

It's tough for me to say, because we saw relatively little of Jon's life at Winterfell, but I think Catelyn went beyond just not killing him. She could have worked to poison her children against him, and I don't think she did that (I'm sure Sansa picked up on Catelyn's disdain for Jon, but I think a great deal of Sansa's disdain for him also came from her princess fantasies; she had the same disdain for Arya, who was closer to Catelyn than Jon would ever be). She let her children love Jon if they wanted to do so, she let him spend time with them and with his father. Obviously this was still terrible for Jon, he still felt isolated and hurt, but you can see the love he felt at Winterfell and the love he has for his family and how much he misses them. He's held onto this even as most of the other children have let it go. That was in spite of Catelyn, yes, but it also shows me that she was able to let him have these moments. I tend to put more blame on Ned because I feel like he had the raw information she didn't and he ignored it based on his idea of fairness and honor. She set the ball in motion because of her trust in Littlefinger and kidnapping Tyrion, but even if she'd done nothing, he would have found out about the incest and would have felt he had to do the right thing, and likely been thrashed for it.