BlackberryJam

I would agree with you about the Starks up until Bran re-entered the story. I don't know if Bran will go back in time and push Jaime to kill the Mad King or what, but I think there is unfinished Stark business for Jaime. I think either Jaime saves Bran or Bran leads Jaime to save Arya. I have also been leaning towards Bran controlling Jaime's weirwood dream that lead him back to Brienne. Bran's abilities really altered my view on many things.

This drives me a little crazy. Jaime has unfinished business with Bran and Tyrion. He does not have unfinished business with Cersei, unless you believe the silly valonqar thing, which has been totally cut from the show. Jaime won't die until he saves a Stark life and reunites with Tyrion. Cersei could go at any time.

You're adorable, but let's talk about Jaime. He's so much more interesting and his actions never follow his words/thoughts, which people seem to miss entirely. Why is that? Even from his first POV chapter about wanting to kill Brienne, he instead saves by pulling her into the boat. Jaime's inner monologue is rarely a predictor of his actions. That's what makes him utterly fascinating. Over the years, I've gone back and forth on the valonqar issue, mostly confident that Jaime is not the valonqar because it would be so absolutely trite if he were. GRRM is pretty obvious in much of his writing, but Jaime as valonqar is about 4th grade level of complexity. I'm leaning towards Jaime not returning to KL until the place is ash, ruled by Dany, as much as you rule over ash. I have been absolutely convinced that Jaime will meet Bran again, especially after Bran's flashbacks. I think there is so much unfinished business there.

Jaime could save a gaggle of pregnant nuns from a flaming flaying Ramsay while carrying the Olympic torch and saving a nation and you still wouldn't give him brownie points. But that's what I love about Jaime. He doesn't want anyone's brownie points. You could offer them to him, and at minimum he would look at you with disdain. Jaime doesn't have to be your definition of good to be people's favorite character.

Without any detail, the WoIaF says that House Tarth has both Baratheon and Targaryen ties. So that would mean Selwyn Tarth. If he's even still alive. But he has no male heirs.

Those dudes behind Moro seem pretty casual if there's a big fire happening.

If HS is on one shoulder and Cersei on the other, it's like choosing between the devil and the devil. I'd kind of like Tommen to turn to the Faith rather than a despot King.

Or it's all Ned's fault for being stupid.

What? If you're saying it's LF who engineered the death of Jon Arryn, okay. Fine. Let's assume Jon Arryn does not die. He does, however, find out about Jaime and Cersei's treachery. Robert is still going to send for his good buddy Ned to come to KL. And he'd put Cersei and Jaime's heads on spikes, along with the kids. Which would have led to war with the Lannisters. Plunging the realm into REALLY BAD SHIT again. Hell, she might have ended up married to a Frey. Or Roose Bolton's legitimized son...anything to stabilize the North. So no. Sansa would not be living happily at Winterfell with her family if not for LF. You can hate on the dude all you want, but he's not the root of all evil in Westeros. It's more realistic to say if Rhaegar had just stayed faithful to his wife, Sansa would be living happily with her family at Winterfell.

So, it's just as likely that Littlefinger dies by the hand of Robin Arryn. I don't see Sansa killing anyone, directly. Nor do I see her ordering an execution. I just don't think Sansa is going to get a more satisfying payoff than any other character.

But that's not really the story being told, is it? Roose didn't die because he killed the Starks. Joff didn't die because he beheaded Ned. Tywin didn't die because he engineered the Red Wedding. I didn't think any of those deaths were unsatisying. I'm not sure why Sansa, in particular, should be expected to have story payoff with Littlefinger.

I don't get why it's important that Sansa kill LF. Who cares who does it? As long as he's dead. I don't care if Ramsay chokes on a prune as long as he dies. The manner and means don't matter. I'm kind of into the idea of a fake Rickon being given to Ramsay rather than the real Rickon, just because I think Osha knows a psycho when she sees one.

Is Balon going to try to marry off Yara? I want to demand good news. Does it work that way? We also know from the previews that Brienne tells Sansa about Arya and Jaime has his chittychat with the High Sparrow. Is this also the "I choose violence" episode from Cersei? Did I see that in the previews? It seems rational that in an episode entitled Home, we see Sam and Gilly on the ship and arriving at Horn Hill.

It seems odd that HBO would have greenlit this after show in an already saturated market. At this point, anyone who wants a recap, podcast, etc, knows where to find one. We are into the sixth season now. And they put it on the app, not airing right after the episode. So anyone who wants to watch it has to put in actual effort. People willing to put in effort, again, already have their go-to places. On top of that, this show has no "hook" to draw you in. No celebrity guests, no "minute with George," nothing. It's just two regular guys, chatting about the show. Nothing to set it apart from any other podcast out there. Just bad decisionmaking.

This is terrible. And dumb. I made it ten minutes in.

I could go my entire life without watching another series about a man in the middle of a mid-life crisis, doing drugs and treating people like shit. How can something that looked so pretty be so dull?

Love the golden shroud touch with Myrcella's corpse on the boat. Theon on a boat too...hmmm...

Just stopping in to say that I tried to watch some of the earlier seasons and recapture what I loved so much about the show, but knowing the ending ruined it for me. I can't even pretend that hot mess didn't happen. Suck balls.

So many new Dothraki have been cast for S5. I am really not looking forward to Dany and her harem of hot guys.

We were supposed to be so distracted by the super loving love of Nathan and Whomever-Nathan-Decided-Was-Audrey-ish-Enough-At-The-Moment-And-Looked-Like-Mara that we weren't supposed to ask those sorts of sense-y making questions. I was just thinking of all the truly wasted female characters on this show. I mean sure, Duke got the worst of it in the end, but so many women exited: Jess Minnion, Hannah Driscoll, Julia Carr, the Real Audrey Parker or killed: Vanessa Stanley, Evidence Ryan, Claire Callahan, Jordan McKee, Jennifer Mason, all to keep Audrey as the undisputed Queen Bee of Haven Love. Pretty disgusting. Whenever they said "aether" in these last few episodes, all I heard was "magic fairy dust of MacGuffinry." ETA: I am still smarting from a truly awful ending. And yeah, I think SyFy was aware of the level of bad they had to air, so they did a new episode on Thanksgiving and aired the final two at 10pm-midnight when Star Wars was premiering at that very same midnight. I bet the ratings were terrible for those final two episodes. AS THEY SHOULD BE. 2nd Edit: Excellent point on Nathan always wanting to and in fact planning to murder Duke. And they were in a police station with a ton of phone cords and rafters. Duke could have hung himself easy. Building Laverne could have helped. Not only did Duke not need to die because the Shat is about as decisive as a 14 year old, but there was no reason for Nathan to have to do it.

As to the Barn, since it needed love to power it, I am convinced that Shatner and Vince, after a month together, had fallen madly and deeply in love and wanted Audrey gone so they could make the beast with two backs. I cannot be the only one who thought the controller crystal looked like a glow-in-the-dark vibrator. Yeah...I said it. Balfour was terrible in his possessed scene in the police station. He was great again once he was trouble whispered down, but the possessed acting was terrible. Worst I've seen him do and he has been the hands down best actor in the whole series. XeroxFakeAudrey (because let's not forget there is a real, actual Audrey Parker out there and she is hopefully happy with some guy named Brad, so OurAudrey is really FakeAudrey) was so obviously not Audrey because of her lack of curiosity. Shat was a terrible choice. Just terrible. His change of mind from "I love you and will destroy the world to save my daughter" to "Yeah, I won't die for you, but I will go hang out in the Barn for you" was silly and unbelievable. Of course Duke was going to make the ultimate sacrifice. OF COURSE HE WAS. He was always going to be the sacrifice, the real sacrifice, not the fake sacrifice that Nathan made (I will give up Audrey, only I get her back again) or Audrey made for Nathan (I will go into the Barn to save Haven, only I get to go back to be with Nathan). I hate that sort of meaningless sacrifice in a show. It's annoying and trite. Nathan's two and a half minute long speech of love would have been moving if I hadn't been rolling my eyes so hard at the TV going, "She's coming back, you useless idiot, there's ten minutes left in the show." On TWoP didn't people used to bang on about the Box 'o Chief Rocks being super significant and swear it was going to come into play? I always thought that was codswallop, but having those rocks come to life singing Bridge Over Troubled Waters would have been preferable to this ending. Because...okay...ready for it...Nathan is about to start banging a THIRD version of the same woman. And that is gross. Just fucking gross. He banged Sarah who he had known for about ten minutes. Then he banged Audrey, who wasn't an original personality either. Now he is going to bang Paige, yet another version with her own set of memories. So fucking disgusting. As long as a woman looks close enough to Audrey, has some inherent kindness or some desire to help people, Nathan is down to fuck. And you know, that body belongs to Mara. It's like in BSG when Helo banged Boomer thinking she was Sharon. It wasn't okay. It wasn't right. She wasn't Sharon. He felt as if he had betrayed Sharon, and Sharon felt betrayed. That's how it works when you bang a copy of the woman you "love." They aren't interchangeable. People aren't interchangeable. The idea that they are disgusts me. I'd prepped myself for it. I had, but still, I threw up a bit in my mouth when Nathan looked under the hood of the car with his, "OMG, Imma gonna get me some Audreybot again" look. I really wanted Dwight to look a Ghost!Duke and say, "Will it work if I believe you are real too?" Or Gloria to have mentioned that Duke left everything to his daughter, Jean, everything to be sold and the money put in trust so she would never have to return to Haven. Or even a Ghost!Jennifer or Ghost!Evie to fade off with him. Oh no. He gets to flip Dwight off and go off alone. Great. Fantastic. Because I was so invested in Dwight's daughter that it was important that she get a happy ending and Duke not. What the fuck ever. As far as I'm concerned, the show ended when Audrey went in the Barn at the end of S3.

*sigh*

Gloria has been fun, but I think Eleanor would have been a deeper and more interesting character. I imagine that in the finale everyone is going to have to give up someone they love, Dwight will give up his daughter, Nathan will give up Audrey, blah blah blah. Audrey already lost her mother. Vince has already lost Dave...and Duke? Well, he's lost his wife and his girlfriend already. I really think they missed the boat but shorting the older generation by not bringing back Simon, Duke's mother, the Chief, Nathan's mother, Max Hansen, Eleanor, Julia's father, all along with Lucy. I am interested in all of that. Not Shatner, William, RoboMara.... Dammit. I wanted so much more.

Absolutely. The characters are near unrecognizable at this point. You can have the planned out plot be the same, but the characterizations have totally gone off the rail. Combine that with some truly terrible acting, and it's all a disaster.

On re-watch, I fastforward through Nathan's manpain. And repeat anything with Simon Crocker.