DigitalCount

Yeah, they try to gloss over Aaron's actions in LitB by saying that the homeowner in that house nearby was unavailable. I've been listening to a podcast recently that sort of brought it home for me, because in a sense I don't think we're supposed to get stuck in the details of the trial itself (since they're all so poorly researched). I think emotionally we're supposed to be sad but unsurprised that a rich movie star accused of murder and statutory rape beats the charge, and the specific vehicle getting us there is less important. Aaron was never going to pay for his crime in the legal manner.

Erica as well, which is funny because she also plays Allura, Supergirl's mother (and theoretically her aunt Astra, additionally). So that's going to be quite the reunion.

Wow, I made a huge mistake waiting so long to watch this. I fell behind this season and figured I'd catch it on Netflix, but then found out that it would only be up in like November, so I knew I couldn't wait that long. So I planned to use...other means of seeing the last three episodes. But then I saw elsewhere that someone was feeling as if they had been queerbaited "just like in The Magicians" and I realized: someone died. The sadness expressed in the post I saw convinced me it had to be death, and so I tried to prepare myself for them to kill Elliot. I wasn't happy about it and it seemed like a waste, but it seemed like it was basically confirmed. Then I caught the episode where QnA get back together and had to laugh at myself. Lol, I was jumping to conclusions. I was overreacting, overthinking. I was hearing hoofbeats and thinking zebras. TBH, I was a little surprised that the person's post I'd seen was so bitter about the ending just because they weren't together for the time being, but they'd still be in each other's lives once Quentin saved Elliot. Then I watched the finale. I don't think I've ever felt so gutted by a character death. Live-action TV, anime, book reading, video games. All of them contained shocking deaths, and yet the one that hit the hardest was this poor, self-conscious, anxious and depressed young man who started the series institutionalized for an attempt and ended it dying to stop someone who wasn't even the final boss. And the moment he showed up in Penny's office I knew he was going to ask if the culprit was his mental health, and I knew they were going to butcher the answer. Quentin Coldwater died by suicide. I'm sorry to anyone who wanted Quelliot; I did too. But apparently the story they wanted to write was one where this guy who always tried to do what was right, even if he didn't always understand how or why, even if he was supremely outclassed by all his enemies and the people who wanted to see him fail, decided his life wasn't inherently worth enough, and then had it reinforced by the narrative. So I probably won't be back TBH, and it'll be hard for me to watch another Sera Gamble show. Heck, it makes me want to stop writing, even, because after a glance at Twitter, I would never want to inadvertently hurt people the way that she has. From what I've read, Jason is doing great work fighting homelessness now, and I wish him the best. I hope that the show is still enjoyable for the people who will continue into S5. I don't want it to be poisoned like it is for me. But it is poisoned for me, and I just don't know. Maybe I'll give it an episode--I know people have theories regarding the Dark Lord in Fillory--but I don't think I have it in me to really engage with it anymore.

Yeah, I don't see why Sansa has to have Bran-level foresight to be justified in disliking Daenerys, as if the default should just be that they be besties. Dany had goals that were in opposition to Sansa's goals. They weren't friends, they had two enemies in common, but they certainly didn't want the other to get what they wanted. Why should Sansa's desire for an independent North be less legitimate than Dany's desire to bring all 7 kingdoms under her rule?

Regarding the speech: Jon reacted in very much the way I'd expect someone who doesn't understand the language but hears the tone and a recognizable word or two to react.

Inverse ninja law, but for dragons? I like it.

Positivity post: for all the talk of Kit's limited acting, I could see him physically thinking "ugh, Sansa, why" when Varys approached him. And to Jon's credit, he did not vocalize this. It was a moment that he could have said something dumb and didn't; I could even see him working out the chain of actors (if Varys is talking about this to me, then the person who talked had to have been Sansa). But identifying her in the moment would have been foolish, so I'm glad he didn't do it.

Didn't he? He got it all jumbled and out of order, but I thought there was a sequence where he sees Drogon over KL intercut with Aerys yelling "burn them all!"

I think the quotes by EB are pretty dispositive. What is Varys talking about "trying again" if it's thwarted by Dany refusing to eat? Edit: looks like you already saw lol, I'll go back to shutting up

She also flew higher in the sky and came down from basically on top of them, so as to obscure her descent with the brightness of the sun.

So I pretty much expected basically this, though it didn't go exactly as I predicted and I was mildly worried that Jaime was going to choke Cersei. Glad to see that answer (whatever it may be) will have to wait for the book series. The only character I didn't want to die that I thought might die was Arya, and I spent the last half hour not breathing. There were maybe 15 times in that sequence that I thought she had died, but the only thing stronger than plot armor is Parris armor, lol. I do think I was expecting Dany to be the final boss a bit more readily than most others here, though, so I don't think I was as disappointed by that turn of events as others seem to have been. What was the final count for this ep? I've got Jaime/Cersei/Sandor/Gregor/Qyburn/Euron/Iron Fleet/Golden Company/a good portion of King's Landing, did I miss anyone? More later, I guess.

Incidentally, he at least acknowledges this argument when he leaves.

She probably considers Cersei easier to beat than Dany.

I meant from the recent episode, not the Loot Train. Dany was in a rage and diving straight at the ships on Drogon's back, but thought better of it and flew out of the ballista's range. It looked like Rhaegal was incapable of doing that. If Sansa was simply lying and/or bluffing, it feels odd to have her say something that actually ends up relatively accurate. Dany blew her off, and now she's losing kids like her name is Cersei.

Not just this, but we then saw Rhaegal get killed by the same bolts that the relatively hale and hearty Drogon pulled out of a falcon dive to dodge. Maybe it's because Dany was riding Drogon and Jon wasn't, but even that is because of Rhaegal being wounded. Either he couldn't get out of the way because his wing was injured, or he couldn't get out of the way because he had no rider, which was because his wing was injured.

I'm glad you mentioned this, because it actually surprised me. I'm not even sure Sophie Turner was speaking English. Why would Jon think, okay, sure, close enough? In fairness to Sansa, she had already expressed at this point that she objected to the premise of the agreement, and I don't think it was fair for him to really expect her to adhere to it even once she knew what it was.

I talked about Dany's expression when she burns Randyll and Dickon in another thread, and last night I was watching this scene. Dany's expression when fire is erupting behind her is pretty much identical to her expression when she is telling Tyrion why she's going to kill the Tarlys. It's similar, but not the same, as when she watches her brother's head hit the floor with a clank. Full disclosure: I'll never forgive her for how she treated Hizdahr. That was probably the turning point for me, especially when he died for her. Imagine Sansa dying for Joffrey.

I mean, those three options might not be options for a large section of the population. Lots of them might not even know why the Sept blew up, even if they have suspicions. Even if they do, it's almost winter and people might have medical conditions that make it harder to hop up and move when you want to.

I'm also a bit puzzled about this "out of nowhere" accusation being levied. I remember having this discussion on TWoP during Season 2 when people weren't sure that Dany had done enough to make sure Doreah was guilty before locking her in a vault to die alongside Daxos. I remember people (myself included) pointing out that Hizdad spoke out against crucifying the children. That the man who was eaten by Rhaegal and Viserion may have had nothing to do with the decision to crucify children, as the head of his house may have been another of Dany's victims. Beyond the in-story indications, we've also gotten Doylist support for this theory. There's no reason to use Dutch angles when Dany is "meting out justice" if it's justified, yet they did exactly that when she killed the Tarlys. They deliberately had her filmed from an upward, off-kilter angle that made her look like a giant with empty, half-lidded eyes, merciless eyes. And while I disagreed with the decision, they still had Sam show real emotion for a father who promised to murder him if he didn't essentially murder himself. And yet it still rang true when he did. Like Stannis in 509 I think this is one of the situations where the books provide even more support than the show for this idea, and the show has it in spades. I'm not surprised at all, though I think I was a little shocked when I realized that all those things were actually hints and actually intentional. I would have been fine chalking it up to them thinking she's just that cool and not realizing how it came off to have her feed a man to her dragons just to flex. I guess I should have known better.

As an anime fan, I'd say it's definitely this.

Lol, I was gonna say. She might not be the daughter of a king, but she might very well be the mother of one.

This is the thing that gets me. How many episodes since the Loot Train have not included a scene where someone pulls Tyrion aside and says "but really, wtf are you doing with this nutjob"? I don't think Dany is being overly hostile, and over the last two episodes she's handled herself well, but it seems like a two steps forward, x steps back process and I'm not sure if x < 2 every time. And this is a TV thing, but I can't help but remember the ominous music and Dutch angles they use when Dany burns someone/something, like when she was sentencing the Tarlys. I just don't know if we're gearing up for the biggest bait-and-switch in TV history, but if that ends up being the case, it won't be coming out of nowhere.

I don't know if anyone here is big on podcasts like me, but one to consider is Always Hold On to Smallville. This guy does a week-by-week retrospective (sometimes he jokingly calls it Always Hold On to Spoilers because he's constantly mentioning stuff that comes later for the sake of tracking continuity) and it's pretty comprehensive for the most part. Also (like me) he's a big fan of the work of people like Neal Bailey and Craig Byrne, and frequently uses both to get a read on how people viewed the episodes at the time. Worth a look if you like that sort of thing.

I just want to briefly say, the low growl of "Todd..." before the commercial break when Fogg realizes that he spilled the beans to Julia/Kimber is fantastic and possibly one of the funniest short moments this show has had, made all the more funny for me by my saying it basically at the same time as Fogg.

I agree that Nia not knowing who Lois was was a bit of a misstep. Given how James was pretty well-known going into CatCo, shouldn't Lois be basically an order of magnitude more famous? I understand that when Manchester referred to himself as "the intolerant left" he was using a bit of sarcastic flourish, but I felt like the episode was encouraging us to see him in basically that light--his actions supposedly made him no better than Agent Liberty. I'm not sure if I can get on board with that interpretation, and o don't know how much of that I'm allowed to respond to here due to the rules, so I'll leave it at that. Speaking of Agent Liberty, how ridiculous was it that Lockwood was trying to claim that he was operating with transparency when he was outright forced into revealing his identity by circumstance? I'm not saying it was bad for the show; the assertion is perfectly in character. But it seems threadbare to claim it, though no one called him out on it and indeed the narrative ended up somewhat supporting it with Supergirl's ouster at the hands of the new President. I'm hoping these people have the sense to use Sam Witwer more than, say, anything else I've seen him in other than Being Human, but he's playing such a repulsive character with not a whole lot of longevity. I'm guessing he'll be on the back burner while in jail and dead by the end of the season, which is a pity and a relief at the same time.