stagmania

I had to watch late because I'm an HBO Now user (grrr), so I haven't had time to catch up on the thread. But I just wanted to say quickly that if that was supposed to be Sansa's big bad ass hero moment, they ruined it by having her continue to hide things from Jon for no reason. If he had known the Knights of the Vale were on the way, he could have held off on the battle and saved many lives. I'm not cheering for her tonight, and that pisses me off because I really want to be.

I had the exact same thought. Caputo's decision didn't really make sense to me; I understand that he was finally rebelling against MCC, but he did it in the worst possible way and showed complete disrespect for Poussey and all the inmates he's been tepidly claiming to care about all season. He could have defended Bayley by pointing to Piscatella instead and avoided the riot, but it seems that Piscatella will be back to cause more trouble next year. Regardless, I found it to be quite telling of Caputo's true character: he finally decides to go to bat for someone, and instead of the women under his protection that he's been allowing to be mistreated, it's the white guy who was so careless and unqualified for his job that he killed a woman without even realizing he was doing it. I think this may be intentional in order to showcase how inept the new guards are at their job: they're too busy playing power games to take care of the real security of the prison. Even the "good" guards (a word I use very loosely) were not particularly competent, and mostly just tried to keep their heads down and look the other way to avoid engaging with all the terrible shit they knew was happening. I thought this was a great season overall, and I was pretty happy with the quality of the writing. There were a lot of well-earned character beats and so many great lines, not to mention a sort of eerie prescience about the major stuff going on in America right now (extreme racial tension, explicit mentions of privilege, even an AR-15 joke that made me cringe). I was absolutely devastated by Poussey's death, but I can't say I didn't feel it (or something terrible, at least) coming. She was too happy, too content, too excited for the future. I've watched enough TV to know what happens when a character gets to a place that positive. I'm sure her presence and the fallout from her death will be felt through the rest of the series, and I thought they handled it very respectfully, and gave her a beautiful and fitting send off with those final flashbacks of her perfect NYC night.

I don't think it's final yet, but yes, that's what the showrunners have proposed. They want 7 next season, and 6 for the last season. I think Sepinwall summed it up well in his review: he thought we were doing necessary table-setting for the last few weeks, but it turns out it was just stalling before we get to the presumably big moments in the final two episodes of the season. I think in the books, it's true that Arya got necessary training before returning to Westeros. In the show, however, she hasn't learned a whole lot more than she already knew before she got to Braavos two whole seasons ago, and they never managed to make it seem plausible that she might really become a Faceless Man. And after all that time spent languishing in this plot, the ending was incoherent and all around badly written. I'm definitely marking this one down as a show fail. They can make it up to me with a Nymeria reunion. :)

It's amazing to me that there are only 15 episodes of this series left and we're still getting this kind of pointless filler. If it was cleverly written, it might be tolerable. But alas, no. The Arya resolution was completely nonsensical, and I feel vindicated in my long held belief that the Faceless Man plot was little more than narrative wheel spinning to keep her busy until the right time came for her to re-enter the larger story. What a disappointing stretch of episodes. I hope the final two are good enough to leave a strong impression of the season overall.

I don't see why the Centre would try to separate them if they went back to Russia. They have children together and have been living as a married couple for decades, and tearing the family apart would serve no purpose other than to alienate them. As for a new marriage ceremony, I think that would be their choice. I tend to agree. I would be shocked if we actually got a straightforward soapy plot about Mischa showing up on their doorstep and causing family drama. I expect it to be more complicated than that, starting with how/whether Mischa would even get to America or find Philip in the first place.

This is actually a really common character trope that a whole boatload of shows are based around, commonly referred to as a Vocational Irony Narrative. The super competent fixer can't fix their own life, the intuitive detective completely misses what's going on with their own loved ones, etc. I don't actually agree that Stan is stupid (is the guy not allowed to have a light-hearted goofy moment?), but even if you read it as him being incompetent in his own life despite his job skills, that's a perfectly valid characterization choice.

This is why I don't watch the previews. I agree it has the potential to be soapy, but I think they'll handle it well. In their interview with Sepinwall, the showrunners mentioned that they have Season 5 almost entirely plotted out, and are excited for the story they've developed (which is why they're doing two more seasons instead of one). Just like most of their plots, I doubt the Mischa story will go anywhere that we expect or predict.

I suspect this just comes down to acting ability. Dylan Baker is so good. Really hoping he gets recognition for this along with the rest of the cast and writers this year. This was really striking for me. William gave up his whole life for the cause, lived an isolated and lonely existence, did things he wasn't comfortable with-and for what? To die a horrible death with no one but the enemy around him, the people he did it all for unaware of his sacrifice and doubting his loyalty. This, along with Arkady's ouster, really drove home for me how far the Centre had pushed things and how much danger they put their agents in. Never satisfied, always trying to squeeze a little bit more out of them when they've already given so much. And now the whole operation is potentially blown. I think he was just viscerally reacting to what he perceived as her continuing to "work" Matthew. He doesn't want this for her, especially at this point in his life when he's feeling so weary and drained and damaged, and he's frustrated that she keeps pushing down this path despite being told not to. He wasn't thinking strategically about how to handle her or whether it was worth pissing her off, he just felt the need to make his feelings known. I enjoyed this episode and the season overall, but one thing that I've been consistently waiting for is for Philip and Elizabeth to have a real conversation about their waning commitment to the cause and possibly quitting and what it would mean to move the family back to Russia versus other options. They keep teasing at it, but never really going there, and Philip really isn't very responsive whenever Elizabeth tries to talk to him, despite all that est training. I'm sure this is intentional, but I really hope we're heading for a proper exploration of these things between them, because I've been waiting for them to air this out for what feels like forever.

Tonight's episode also runs long, til 11:14 pm. That is way past my bedtime, but it's tempting to stay up and watch it live.

Wow, a lot of Grace hate on this board. They pretty much rewrote her character after the first series, and I definitely preferred the original secret spy version to the pure highborn wife schtick, but I don't really get the vitriol. In any event, I thought killing her off so quickly and randomly after a two year tease campaign about who Tommy would marry was pretty lame. What was the point of all that if their marriage never even made a real dent in the story? Tommy was pretty much the same guy before and after what should have played as a cataclysmic event in his life, and the death itself, and the immediate emotional fallout, happened offscreen. It ended up just another in a long line of senseless female character deaths to create manpain, and I thought this show was better than that. As for the rest of the season, I enjoyed it, though I must admit I wasn't always sure I was following the increasingly convoluted plot. Alfie's return was pretty delightful, and I'm glad he survived and could potentially come back again. I'll definitely be back next year (or whenever series 4 gets made) to see how Tommy gets his family out of this latest clusterfuck.

I sincerely hope that entire resurrection plot was not only to get him out of his vows. I keep waiting every week to see some significant change in him-his attitude, his physical being, his plans. But he seems like the same old exhausted and world weary Jon Snow. Especially this week, when he couldn't seem to muster up any energy to describe the great threat bearing down on the North or articulate any kind of argument against the Boltons. He doesn't seem particularly fired up about retaking Winterfell or marshalling forces to fight the white walkers. It just seems like the next thing on his list of duties to fulfill. Are they really going to have something that major happen to him with little or no effect on his characterization? Why does everyone around him act like it's no big deal that he came back from the dead? We've hardly seen any significant reaction or fallout from the people who know; instead, they casually allude to it as if he recovered from a rough bout of the flu.

That episode felt like it was over in an instant. Big improvement from last week, and they packed a fair amount in even with the heavy focus on The Hound.

I suspect that the people who find Paige's reactions and personality unrealistic just don't know that many teenagers. Yes, some are mature, self-possessed and able to handle a lot. Some are very much the opposite and have a hard time wrapping their heads around the more complex parts of life, and there's a whole wide spectrum of personality and experience in between. I know plenty of kids like Paige, and find her characterization to be consistent and well drawn, even when she behaves in ways I don't believe I would have. I'm right there with you, and I really love this observation about the way Elizabeth feels about her hometown. It's part of the reason I don't have any trouble empathizing with her-she has very good reasons to believe in what she does. Her experiences have shaped her in ways that make a lot of sense to me, and even though she is ostensibly my "enemy", I've never viewed her that way. As @Umbelina said above, part of the whole idea of this show is that the "others" on the opposite side of a conflict like this are still people, with loved ones and beliefs they hold dear, the same as all of us. Their stories are just as important as those of the people on the winning side of history.

I was okay with Paige all through the episode-until that final scene. I thought her initial reactions were perfectly in character and made total sense. As others have pointed out, I don't think she fully processed the level of danger they were in, and she wasn't thinking about what might have happened to them, because she was too caught up in this revelation that her mother is capable of killing someone that easily. I actually thought she was being pretty chill for most of the episode (for Paige). And then we got to that final scene, and she started demanding information again, and I wanted to tear my hair out. She clearly can't handle it and doesn't really want to know. As soon as they told her, she looked upset and like she wished they hadn't. So why does she keep insisting on knowing more? Because she's a temperamental teenager who can't get a handle on her feelings. Perfectly good characterization, but infuriating to watch.

I wondered this myself, but so far the show has given no indication that he knows about it. Not only did we not get a scene where he explicitly found out what she was atoning for, there's also nothing in his actions to demonstrate a change, and he and Cersei seem closer than ever. Given the delay in his journey to Riverrun and the fact that they've already discussed Cersei's trial by combat and her plan to use The Mountain as her champion, they appear to be going another way with them that doesn't include any fallout from the affair.

There's been a lot of talk about how the show has ruined Jamie, and how much they've changed him from his book characterization. I read the books so long ago (and must admit my attention wandered frequently through 4 and 5), so I only have a vague recollection of his Riverlands story. Reading the plot summary to refresh my memory, it seems that the biggest change is that the show has decided to keep he and Cersei close with no schism between them, either because he somehow still doesn't know about her betrayals or he doesn't care, and in doing so they've essentially erased his redemption arc. Is that the bulk of the issue? I do wonder why they would choose to remove layers of complexity from his character, as well as a good source of drama in he and his sister being at odds. It just makes the story less compelling.

I agree that the overall arc has been building to this, but I think the moment of her decision came off as sudden and not all that compelling. After all the time they put into this plot, I expected the resolution to be...more. Arya was one of my favorite characters initially, but along the way her story lost its spark. Hopefully her confrontation with the waif will be more satisfying, and she'll soon be on her way to rejoin a corner of the story that feels more essential.

Yes, this bugged me too. The whole episode felt this way. There were what should have felt like major turning points in several long term plots, but it all just kind of came off like we were shrugging and moving on. None of the big moments really landed for me.

What a disjointed episode, with some moments that felt either rather abrupt (Arya changing her mind) or unearned (Dany giving yet another motivational speech). The Tarly story seems to exist mostly to introduce another Valyrian steel sword into the eventual fight against the white walkers. The returns of Benjen and Edmure were interesting, though. Not one of the better outings of the season, but at least we're progressing forward.

I think there's a difference between bad writing and a character making stupid choices. People mess up. Security breaches happen because humans make mistakes, use poor judgment, miss things because of their own biases and self-absorption. If people in positions like Don's never broke protocol, operations like this would never work. But we know that they did and they do.

Because they're not "hitting on" her, they're threatening her. Sexual predators generally go for the more vulnerable target. I understand this viewpoint to a certain extent, but I don't think it really works with this show. There's a ton of stuff happening off-screen all the time that gets only occasionally alluded to (i.e. Phillip visiting Kimmie every week, Elizabeth maintaining the arrangement with Lisa, etc). It's baked into the structure of the show, because there are so many balls in the air at all times and they can't possibly touch on the minute details of everything without bogging down the more important elements of the story. In the case of Don and Young Hee, we know that Elizabeth was working them for a while before the time jump and all the way through it, and we saw her thoroughly search their house (after at least eight months where she must have already been digging) to look for any tiny thing she could use against Don. I think the implication that they'd combed over every piece of information about that family was clear.

I have a lot of sympathy for Paige and mostly think that her finding out and all that came with it has been great for the show, but I admit this was one of my first reactions after the mugging scene sunk in. She was just finally chilling out! I guess now that the end date is set, though, there's not really time to let things settle.

I think this is kind of the point. Elizabeth worked that family for, what? Nine or ten months? This convoluted shame plan was a last resort because they couldn't find a solid or straightforward way in, and ultimately, it may not have even worked. I don't think we're supposed to be all that impressed with it as an operation. On top of that, Elizabeth lost a friend and potentially ruined a marriage, all for nothing. That's going to weigh on her; it already has been. I'm very amused that the general sentiment here is that Paige should be grateful and impressed by her mother's skills, but...it's Paige. I had much the same thought process. The death of the mugger is going to cause her all sorts of anguish, and definitely getting her thinking more about the true nature of her parents' work.

The Americans has been picked up for two more seasons, set to end in 2018 with a six season run. Great news, IMO. They get two more years and they get plenty of time to build toward the ending they envision.

I don't think those are really comparable situations-one is meant to be a shocking plot reveal, one is merely clarifying a character's context and knowledge. They've said this consistently since last year, and if they were going to reveal something different, the scene with Sansa would have been the place to do it. I'm sure that in the books, his motives will be coherent and go much deeper. My point is that on the show, they often take shortcuts to get the plot to work, and coherent characterization is lost as a result.