dr pepper

This week on "I, Reboot" The previouslies bring us back to William persuading Delos, the man, not the company, to keep supporting Westworld. There is also reference to the possibility of immortality in an artificial body, then the retirement party, with its ambiguity over whether the retirement was entirely voluntary. The Rolling Stones start singing "Playing with Fire" as the camera takes a tour of a luxury efficiency apartment. Or cell, perhaps? The music is coming from a ridiculously pretentious piece of retro yuppy analog hardware. Everything is smothered in white fur. A single goldfish in a bowl is a strong contrast. We see Delos going about his day inside: eating, exercising, urinating, etc. Oh, and smoking. A lot. He's having a cup of coffee when a major tremor hits him. He observes his hand spilling the half and half all over the table with a certain amount of bemusement. Looks as if his illness has progressed. William shows up. They make a bit of smalltalk, Delos with the passive agressive tone of a patient under the tyranny of doctor's orders. Which is what he is. He's awaiting his date with the mind uploader, which it is implied, is still quite experimental. William says the next step is a baseline conversation, which by the way, is what they're having now. Delos says, so what-- to prove i'm still me by having the same conversation afterwards? He's not impressed by the idea. William hands him a folded piece of paper. He reads it as the scene changes. I bet it's a transcript of that very conversation, which therefor indicates that the thing has been done, and congratulations, that's a brand new factory fresh set of polycarbonate lungs you're gunking up now! Forward into the present, or something close to it in the show's timeline. The Man in Black is riding, followed by a complaining Lawrence. They come upon a railroad workers' camp. The workers are laying down new tracks, using people for cross ties. MIB looks at the scene without sympathy. He remarks that the tracks are going the wrong direction and wonders if this indicates more players in the endgame. He decides that the best route now is through Los Burros, where Lawrence has family. Did Ford arrange that? Clementine is still dragging Bernard. She leaves him at the entrance to a cave, along with a rifle. I like Clementine, give her more screentime, dang it! And more lines. But nope, she walks off ignoring Bernard's questions. At least he seems to have recovered some of his motor functions. Maybe she gave him a milk topping off on the way. He picks up the rifle and enters the cave. Why? He finds a camp, with modern debris. Oh, hi, Elsie. She's chained there. And not happy to see him. Of course, the last she remembers, he was choking her out in that secret manufacturing vault. He shoots the lock off the chain, then she grabs the gun and points it at him. He starts shaking again as he pulls out his diagnostic tablet. He also insists that it wasn't him that hurt her he was being compelled by Ford. She hasn't been clued in on this particular semi open secret. She doesn't understand when he tries to explain that Ford has changed the game and now there's no First Law. Bernard falls and convulses as Elsie picks up the tablet. Btw, good acting there on the convulsions. If it were me, the director would probably have had to tase me. Elsie reads the tablet. She says you rotated out? When did you rotate out? She's not surprised to discover he's a robot, or even that he's a substitute for a real person. So at one point she must have been privy to more info than most people at her level get. Of course she never met Arnold so she thinks that the Bernard she first met was real. She agrees to put him in safe mode. She says she's not going to break him. Yet. Bernard drops into the robot dream state. He watches one of the drones drop a load of eyeballs. Then a drone making cupcakes. Eww. He wakes up. Elsie has tied his hands. She says she's made adjustments but he'll die without the milk. Ah, it's called cortical fluid. She's going to wait for a rescue, he tries to disabuse her. He says no one is coming for us. Surprisingly she doesn't object to him including himself on the "us" side. He says she has to fix him. She says she doesn't have the resources. He invokes a memory of himself going into the cave previously and declares there's a facility in there. And that's why Clem brought him here. Grab your dice and check for secret doors! Or you know, just check your memories again. Move rock, reveal handle. Turn handle, reveal elevator. He doesn't remember where it goes. They get in. Aha, another secret annex. With several slaughtered techs. Elsie is suprised to observe that this place can print control units. Presumably that's supposed to be a limited and highly controlled function, as opposed to the facilities that make bodies. Bernard is checking his memory again. He remembers watching a control unit being made. Elsie has never seen a drone before. Bernard says it won't harm her unless she threatens it. She shoots it anyway. Bernard starts to explain about the unauthorized guest snooping project, but starts to convulse again. In spite of her reservations, Elsie starts to refill him. Meanwhile, back among the ghost warriors, our plucky heroine who escaped the tiger last time, is brought in. Another prisoner says not to worry, they'll be rescued. But she observes one of the mercenaries among the captives. Oh, that means that the ghost warriors have modern equipment now. Hey, India lady knows the ghost warrior language, indicating she's been there before and spent some time before going off to join the mad dogs and englishmen. Those of you who speculated that she's MIB's daughter give yourselves a high five. The merc says that they are not actually killing humans, however much they may rough them up. He says wait to be evacuated. She says she's not going to wait, plus she isn't planning to leave. MIB and Lawrence enter Los Burros. It's deserted. They take a table at the cantina. Oh, there's a bartender in attendence. He tries to do one of his canned sequences. MIB says i haven't shot anyone yet, which i take to mean that the bartender is acting out a script for when he's under threat, like say a guest wants to pose as a bad guy. Oh, i see, there's already a bad guy here, and he's coming fast. Hey, MIB, this may be a solo mission for you, but i recommend you shoot first. Which is what he tries to do, but there's a second lurker. And a third. It's the surviving confeds that Teddy cut lose last time. MIB asks how they got in that bruised and bedraggled condition. They freely declare that they were doublecrossed by "some bitch named Wyatt". MIB responds "Good for her". And there's the rest of the townfolk, locked in the church. I'm not a fan of traditional westerns but i think that's a cliche. Oh, there's Lawrence's daughter. Isn't she the one who once told MIB that the Maze was not for him? The confed lieutenant believes the town has hidden supplies and intends to shoot people until they're handed over. Lawrence doesn't want his daughter to see him shot down. He tries to bond with MIB, who says his own daughter might feel differently. Then Lawrence tells MIB where the weapons are, in an unmarked grave in the churchyard, and suggests that tonight, when the invaders are drunk, they make a break for it. Stupid Lawrence, how do you know he won't just sell you out? Yup, that's what he does. And says he can help the confeds find the way to Glory. Time jump time. We are back with the pretentious turntable. Huh, it's Roxy Music, but i'm not familiar with that song. Mr. Delos is dancing. He's happy and healthy. He goes to get some coffee. His hand trembles a bit but the half and half goes in the cup. Shouldn't body switching clear everything up? Or is this another loop? Yes it is. William is here and they exchange the same greetings. Delos has no memory of that previous encounter. This time we see Delos reading the transcript. And yes, that's what it is. Delos figures it out. William tells him he's been dead for 7 years. And also his wife is dead, but his daughter Juliet, William's wife, is fine, and the two of them have a daughter. Unfortunately, the new body isn't ready for prime time yet and Mr. Delos will have to stay inside a while longer. He starts to protest and the tremors start up. It's similar to what later happens to Bernard, so maybe they haven't perfected the milk yet. William seems genuinely sad about it. A tech says he made it to day 7 this time so that's progress. Then they disintegrate the body. Time to start over. Back to the future. Or present. Or whatever it is. The confeds are stocking up. Oh hey, there's their old friend, nitroglycerine. Lt. takes a whiff. The bartender spills some beer, which just makes him more afraid. Not neurological, just nerves. Still, that's 3 characters with coordination problems. There's a whole lotta shaking going on this episode. Lt. offers to show him how to develop a steadier grip. He has him balance a shot glass of nitro on the back of his hand and tells him to walk a dozen paces. He makes it! I pause the show to predict that Lt. will now shoot the glass. He does. The bartender's hand is blown off and he collapses. The townsfolk cringe and the confeds laugh. Night time. The ghosts are leading their captives by torchlight. They are going to meet someone described as "the first of us", who will decide the fate of the captives. In the old days, all the indians in westerns had a hidden squad of drummers to feed the tension. And the drummers had only one beat: DAH Dum Dahdah DAH Dum Dahdah. The Ghost warriors honor that tradition with their own drummers. India lady manages to cut her bonds. She grabs a torch and hits someone with it, then runs away. The mercenary has a knife to his throat. One of the ghosts puts lips to his ear. "You will only live as long as the last person who remembers you." Profound. Bernard wakes up. He thanks Elsie for fixing him. She still doesn't trust him, but feels she might need him. She realizes now that Delos Corp has secrets that people like her weren't supposed to know. That processor diagram for instance, it's like nothing she's seen before. Bernard recognizes it as the same type as he saw when examening Peter Abernathy. It's much larger than anything used in the park. Of course it would be, if it's intended to hold the persona and memories of a biological human who's not fresh out of a vat. Bernard says he has trouble trying to access his memories, sometimes he gets lost. Elsie says his memories are unaddressed. As a former CompSci major, i think she means unindexed. Regardless, what it means is that he can't tell what order they originally happened in. He then goes into a flashback of operating a smashed control panel back before it was smashed. He watches a control unit being built. Back in the present (for some value of that term) he tries to explain to Elsie that he thinks this place is not for making hosts. It makes the same bodies, but the code is very different. He can't figure it out. He reminds me of a friend i had who had aspergers. Sometime he would have two congruent ideas in his head but needed someone else to connect them for him. Alas Elsie is not able to do that for Bernard. Oh, there are the cupcakes! Or whatever they are, maybe they're brain cores. Elsie wants to go deeper into the facility. He says don't. Is he afraid to see what he can't bring to realization? She says she wants to see whatever they're making. Yup, Bernard says "maybe we don't want to know". Or is it Ford saying that therough him? Of course she insists. He calls to her as she works the door pad. She ignores him. He wonders if he's lost in a memory again. Bernard struggles with his memories. He begins to understand that this already happened and that there is something bad about what they found. He remembers the techs, alive and busy. He remembers Elsie giving up on the pad and blasting the lock. Night and rain in Los Burros. The confeds are beating Lawrence. Lt. offers him a drink of nitro. I remember back in the 60s when leftwing terrorists would often blow themselves up trying to use the stuff. But the formula this fake 1870 setting has is quite stable. Lt. carries it around like a good luck charm. He pours some more in front of MIB. He's trying to get a rise out of him. Are you upset at how we're treating your friend? He's not my friend and we're wasting time. Lt. says he thinks MIB is disturbed by all the death he's seen. But Lt. is never bothered because death is an old friend of his. In fact, he's been dead recently. That would be when Dolores killed him then had him reactivated. Nitro isn't subject to such niceties, pal. He forces Lawrence's wife to dance with him. Then he gives her the glass of nitro and suggests she give it to her husband. She walks out with it, terrified. Oh, MIB is having a flashback. Water dripping. In Los Burros, but interspersed with water dripping somewhere else. A modern faucet and feet frantically running up the stairs. Are we about to see the moment William put on the black hat for good? Are we going to find his wife dead of suicide in the bathtub? Unpause. MIB walks out into the flooded street of Los Burros. Inwardly he's running up those stairs. Lawrence's wife and daughter are crying. No. He's still sitting across from Lt. who's checking his pistol. MIB says death's decisions are final. You think you know death. You don't. You didn't recognize him sitting across from you all this time. Then he suddenly slashes Lt's throat, takes his gun, and starts shooting his way through the gang. No First Law, the robots are trying to kill him for real, which is just how he likes it. Fortunately these are not awakened robots, aware that the limits on their speed and accuracy are just suggestions. Still, he is outnumbered. But he corrects that. Lawrence's wife is crouching with the nitro. He takes it from her. Lt. crawls into the street. MIB makes him drink the nitro, then hands a rifle to Lawrence. Lawrence shoots Lt, blowing him up. Back at the efficiency apartment, looking at the goldfish. Dummy, i only just realized that it's a metaphor. Goldfish memory. Robot loop. Delos pours half and half. There's only the barest suggestion of a tremor. He does not recognize William, because he's aged so much. This time we hear what the real problem is. Delos's mind is not able to accept the new body, no matter how functional it is. Apparently the engineers and programmers have been trying to get past this point for a long time. They've made some progress, it now takes 35 days before Delos's mind starts shutting down. But William has lost confindence in the project. He wonders if Delos as a person is even worth bringing back. He's better as a revered memory. William also confirms that Juliet killed herself. Delos angrily starts calling for Logan. William says he's dead too, overdose. William leaves as Delos throws a tantrum. The techs want to scrub but William says to watch to the bitter end, there might be some useful data. Back in, some other unindexed time period, Elsie goes through the door. The light in there is emergency system red, except for a couple of overhead florescents that blink fitfully. Elsie sees a shape through a glass enclosure. Is it beyond psychotic Delos #149, still active somehow? Bernard, who may or may not actually be there, cautions her. She goes straight to the controls. It says security lockdown, but it accepts her password to override. So much for compartmentalized security. The doors open, and she proceeds with the rifle at the ready. Did Ford set this up too? This seems like a Hari Seldon level of prognostication. The place inside is a wreck. "Playing with Fire" can be heard, or at least part of it. "Don't play with me" endlessly skipping. The tech is inside, dead. Someone is on the exercise bicycle. "Hello?" Elsie calls with the gun raised. Someone gets off the bicycle. The camera is taking its own good time in showing us who it is, but i suspect that's just a ploy to make us think it's going to turn out to not be Delos. Or is it a double fake? Hey, what if it's Ford? Unpause. It's Delos. His face is striped with blood. He says he's all the way down and can see all the way to the bottom. Does that mean if you don't scrub a human infused robot, it works through the breakdown? Maybe, but maybe not. Delos has a big sliver of glass in his hand. He charges and knocks away the rifle before Elsie can fire. Then he and Bernard are fighting so even if Bernard isn't sure, Delos believes he's actually there. Bernard knocks Delos through a wall. Delos falls and can't get up. Bernard looks down. Delos says that there is no god, just the devil and what we think of as god is just the devil's reflection. Elsie and Bernard leaves. Elsie activates the termination function. She says please tell me that was a host and not a human. He says i think it was both. Finally, he figures it out! This episode is way long. I hope we can get back to Maeve. Can she compose a haiku to save her life? Bernard says that while the Mr. Delos project was unsuccessful, he thinks Delos the corporation is going to keep trying. Elsie has a definite opinion about that. "There gonna get us all killed so some *&^%$#@! can live forever? $#@! that!" She wants to go to the mesa and contact someone outside. Bernard says wait, he thinks he's figured something out. The previous time he was there was because Ford wanted him to print out another control unit. He has to find out what it was for. He also claims he's in full control of himself now. Oh yeah? Prove it by getting rid of the glasses! Elsie says she'll go with him if he promises not to lie or hurt her again. Time for another memory flash. This time he remembers how the techs died. It was him. He ordered the drones to kill them. That's how come the tray of eyeballs spilled it they were on a table that a body was hurled on to. Then he ordered the drones to kill themselves. Why? And why'd he miss the last one, then? He remembers that one of the techs was still alive and he remembers finishing him off with a head stomp. He then tells Elsie that everything is fine, which might actually not be a lie. Daytime in Los Burros. MIB prepares to leave. I though Lawrence would be staying but, he's not only coming along, there are other townsfolk who've volunteered to come with him. The daughter comes up to him. Message from Ford? "I remember who you are, William. One good deed doesn't change anything." MIB says he's not in it for good deeds, he's here to play the game "to the bone". She says he still doesn't understand and if he's looking forward he's looking in the wrong direction. MIB rides off like a classic western loner, despite having Lawrence and the others following. A silhouette rides out of the sun towards him. Is it Dolores? Nope, it's India Lady. She says "Hi, Dad".

I've suspected that since the end of season 1.

"All You Zombies". Yes, that's one of the ones i was thinking of. But by the time it was written, the concept was already a familiar one.

In the 60s and early 70s there was a time travel trope about a thing, or occasionally a person, that exists in a closed timeloop and so has no origin. In this case it's the thumbdrive. Denise gave it to Lucy, but she'd gotten from her years ago. Where did it come from?

Oops, this being Westworld, i should have been more specific about what level of reality i was referencing. I was refering to the show. Rajworld has robot elephants. In real life we can't make them that realistic, therefore i was wondering if the show was using real ones or graphic overlays. Ah, thanks. I missed that.

Just started watching. Gonna give my reactions as they come up. 01. Somehow i find the concept of Rajworld more disturbing than that of Westworld. But that might just be because i have a better idea of what sort of events could occur there than i did when the show began. 02. Ok, now they have pellet guns, which robots react to as if they were real guns, whereas they only sting humans. You use them to determine if the sex you're about to have is part of the experience, or if you've scored with another tourist. 03. And, hmm, either they are using real elephants, or they've got star wars level cgi there and eveyone's just sitting on giant cradles. 04. "These violent delights have violent ends." So apparently Ford has been messing with the programming here too. Cue the Sepoy Mutiny! 05. So, they have real guns as well as the pellet shooters. Good to know. 06. And of course, there's a tiger! So is it still programmed to merely pretend to eat people? 07. Ah, this is the tiger that will be found later in Westworld. So the robot uprising is simultaneous. 08. And now back to corporate damage control and the mercenaries. 09. The mercs are too butch for their own good. They think they understand the level of risk they're facing. I think they're wrong. 10. Ah, even with the mercs here, we're still at no one gets to leave until they find Peter Abernathy. 11. "He seems to keep slipping away from us." That refers to Peter, but also a sly reference to Bernard's glitchy memory. 12. Ah, that's a good D&D ploy. Separate the boss from the others, and use mind control to make him switch sides. 13. Too bad they didn't take the time to change Peter. 14. Finally, Dolores meets the boss of the confeds. There are an awful lot of them, considering that the guests come in singly or in small groups. I wonder how the confed storyline was supposed to go originally. 15. Hey, it's Maeve's little buddy, Clementine. I'm glad to see her, but surprised to see her in this faction. 16. It occurs to me that Westworld's terraforming is as advanced as its robotics. 17. Maeve and Hector and a reluctant Sizemore are searching for her old setting. Oops, the park didn't completely scrub the ghost warrior storyline, after all. 18. Double oops, Maeve's admin access doesn't apply to them. 19. And, back underground we go! 20. Maeve makes good use of her frustration routines. 21. Meanwhile back at confed hq, Bernard and Peter are brought in. Does Dolores remember that Peter is her father? Yes. Does she remember that Bernard is her mentor? If so, she doesn't show it. 22. Dear old Dad has exceeded his parameters and tries to drop back into his loop. 23. Sizemore is offended to see Maeve and Hector, two "loners", being a couple. I think that's because that's some of his own programming that they're bypassing. 24. Apparently his sense of wrongness is greater than his fear because he actually presumes to scold them. 25. Maeve quickly deduces that he was attempting to rewrite his own life and project it onto Hector. She finds him pathetic and it shows. 26. Ah, Dolores does remember Bernard. 27. She tells him she is truly free, asks him to fix her father, and declares her ambition to take control of the park. 28. Bernard wants to disabuse her by telling her how much bigger the real world is. My guess is she's going to remind him that's she's been out there. Yup. 29. "There is beauty in what we are, shouldn't we too, try to survive?" Robot existentialism. Or maybe another of Ford's lines. 30. Meanwhile back in the tunnels, Maeve hears machine guns ahead. She decides it's time for the better part of valor. 31. A human with a machine gun runs by, having lost to a robot with a flame thrower. They watch him burn, then join her. 32. Ah it's Armistice! But she's not seeking any truces now. She's got Felix and the other tech (Silvester, i think) captive in one of the work rooms. 33. Sylvester keeps yelling "grenade!" Is he trying to set off the destruct they put in Maeve last season? 34. Armistice had one of her arms stuck in a door during the initial uprising. She cut it off so she could shoot a few more humans. She has now replaced it with one of the mechanical ones the park was using before they switched to more humanlike bodies. 35. Bernard is playing medic. He can tell that Peter has a huge file in him that's unrelated to his persona. It seems to take him a few seconds to realize that that must be what Charlotte was after. He tells Dolores that and says that this makes Peter a liability. 36. Meanwhile Charlotte makes it back to the cleanup crew. She commandeers a squad and some body armor. 37. Back at the fort, the scouts report incoming enemy. Dolores advises them on a defensive strategy. The confed boss doesn't like it, says they don't retreat. On the other hand, he is willing to use mines. And those are the crudest kind of mine, just nitroglycerine and wires so probably invisible to modern sensors. 38. Bernard is still working. Peter can't seem to get the "violent delights" quote right. Bernard finds something. "One time use key". We don't get to see what it unlocks. 39. The confeds await the attack. The wooden barracades won't do any good. 40. The hell? The mercs are approaching on foot! 41. The confeds are doing the "whites of their eyes" hold, but of course the mercs have the advantage of range and start blasting away. Oh, there are the buggies. 42. The confeds start to lose their 19th century minds as they experience the machine gun fusillade. They follow their programming and go down as they're hit. The attackers close in on the gate. 43. Dolores keeps her calm. So does Charlotte. 44. The door to the infirmary is blown down. Bernard quickly unplugs his tablet from Peter and shrinks into a corner. Two mercs drag Peter away, apparently not noticing Bernard. 45. Dolores signals her crew. Then she rushes off when she sees her father is captured. She ignores bullet hits. She and Teddy kill two mercs but Charlotte races away with Peter. 46. The confed leader calls for a retreat but most of his troops are left outside when the gates close. And Dolores's are inside. They shoot through the gate, killing mostly confeds. The confed leader realizes too late that his people were just a sacrifice in her plan. 47. And there goes the nitro! 48. Bernard attempts to leave but his motor functions are deteriorating. Clementine conks him with a rifle butt and hauls him away. 49. The battle is over. The confed leader is furious, says his men's blood is on Dolores's head. She says "truth is, we don't all deserve to make it." Guess some robots are more equal than others. 50. Any fallen robots that still have "life" signs get bayonetted until they stop. Surviving confeds are lined up to be shot. 51. A confed officer attempts to convince Teddy that they two of them have a lot in common, except that Teddy doesn't really know what he wants. 52. Teddy claims not to buy the argument, but then he lets everyone go. Dolores saw that and seems perturbed. Hey, your boyfriend is showing what appears to be autonomy, just like you-- shouldn't you be happy for him? 53. Long shot of the empty territory that apparently separates the parks. It looks alot like the Grand Canyon, just without any life. Zoom to a body of water. Oh, there's the tiger again. And the womans whose kiplingesque vacation was so rudely interrupted. The tiger is dead, or at least in dead mode. The woman is alive. Sobbing and sputtering, she drags herself out of the water. Uh oh, she's not alone. It's those pesky ghost warriors again! 54. Another nature scene, this time with a thick pine forest. It's snowing on Maeve and company. Sizemore complains of the cold. Felix says they're near "the north edge of the park at the Klondike narrative". Experience Klondike! Run from giant bears! Get into a knife fight over the last can of beans! Or eat your dogs before they eat you! And bring home a lump of gold that's worth less than the cost of a single day of your adventure! Then head to the nearest modern hospital to get treated for advanced frostbite before your toes fall off! 55. With that information, Sizemore believes he knows the right direction to get to Maeve's homestead. But whats that? A campfire? 56. Sizemore digs into a mound of snow and finds a head in a helmet. He runs back to Maeve. "We have to get out of here right now!" She shushes him, then looks towards a sudden sound. 57. There's a samurai rushing towards her, sword extended.

They've left the timeline a little vague, but shouldn't the soviets have other issues right now besides is their leader bringing them progress or selling them out? What about the balts breaking away? Or the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan? This was also the time we bagan to see stories about homegrown rock stars and organized crime.

He could have done it better. Something like: i've done a lot of travelling and i've seen a lot of things, and there's one thing i really need to share with you, namely that there are some bad people out there looking to catch american kids off their guard and kidnap them. So, please. If you meet anyone new there, no matter how nice they seem, and they ask you to come with them to another country, just don't!

The travel agency is losing to a new generation of franchise building. This will lead to Orbitz, Travelocity, and a couple more dominating the industry. However, at this point there is a window of opportunity. Phillip could either sell the business outright to one of the budding giants, or else join one as a franchisee. If he does the first, he might even make enough to retire. But i don't think he would go for either because he wouldn't want to betray his employees. They are, after all, the working class people whose liberation he's supposed to be championing.

My current thought on how it should end would be: Phillip tells Henry that they're going to take a vacation in Europe. To forstall any reluctance he says that he's cashing in all the favors and discounts he's accumulated and this might be the last chance, given the problems the business has been having. They go to Austria. From there, they take a "special charter" to Hungary, then get on a train for a scenic trip east. Meanwhile, Stan gets a package from Phillip. It's something sentimental and sports related. There's a short note. "I was great meeting you, have a nice life." What? Stan races over to the Jennings's house finds a sign indicating it's been sold to a broker. The door is ajar. Inside he finds Claudia sitting at the kitchen table, drinking vodka and watching the news about the coup against Gorbachev. He demands to know she is and she just says, in a heavy accent "no one, now". Then she shoots herself.

He gave Stan a small but significant clue that led to the capture of another deep KGB agent. They caught him holding the latest product of US biowar that he'd just stolen. Realizing there was no escape, he deliberately infected himself which led to way more suffering than he would have had from a cyanide capsule.

Actually, the GRU was soviet military intelligence. Not that after that she says "he's not here for us". Meaning he's not here for either spy agency.

Damn, Phillip. Seducing the girl you've grown to think of as at least a niece. It was pretty clear how awful he felt about.

For that you need to switch to the british show Humans, in which robots have become so cheap that middle class families can buy them as maids and gardeners and so forth. Just beware of that rogue software upgrade that's started to give some of them free will.

Cylons, Terminators, Hosts-- as one of 99%, which would you rather see them make?

How does that quote go? "I gave you speech" "Aye, to curse you with!"

One of the court ladies is walking beside the keep when she comes upon The Mountain lying face down on the paving stones, surrounded by blood and shards of glass. Two storeys up is Cersei's bower. The window is broken. The lady rushes up to Cersei's room, past a trail of dead guards, maids, and lanniboy toys. She bursts into the room and sees Cersei there, cleaning a knife. "My queen, what happened?" the lady exclaims. "A queen is not here", replies Cersei, before ripping off her face. Underneath is the face of the lady. Switch scenes to that lady on board a ship, watching King's Landing recede in the distance. Bells begin to ring.

Aemon was a possible heir to the throne who went to the wall so the succession would be clear.

Speaking of Jaime, how come defrocked Maester Da Vinci hasn't made him a mechanical appendage yet?

More thoughts: Agreed that Bran was harsh and ungrateful to Meera, but i think it will be revealed that it was all for a purpose. As for her heading home to her family, maybe not. They've got the green sight and their swamps are about to freeze over. I wouldn't be surprised if they're already on their way. Frog legs for everyone! I liked how when some of the drothraki knelt in their saddles and pulled out bows, the Lannister troops shot first and a lot of the kneelers went down because while that move added to the drothraki offense, it also made them more exposed.

Some random comments: I like Dickon, he's like a teeny bopper. He happens to have a big strong body, but inwardly he's a young boy trying to hold it together in a situation he wasn't ready for. Agreed that Jaime will contrive to survive somehow, though removing his prosthesis and then undoing his armor straps with one hand while drowning seems unlikely. Still, whoever knocked him into the water might be able to drag him out. I also agree that it's not clear it was Bronn, but let's assume it was. The next episode begins with Jaime coughing and retching as Bronn pounds on his back. They both look up. Tyrion is standing there, hands in his belt, a squad of Drothraki behind him. Tyrion: Jaime-- good to see you! Jaime: Are you taking me prisoner? Tyrion: Seems so. Will you come peacefully? These men are under orders to take you alive, but it could be unpleasant. Drothraki: (wave sickle swords). Jaime: Right, we surrender. Tyrion: Good. Bronn help him up. Bronn: And which of you is paying me for this? The cave scene was cool, but it should not have required exploring. It's not like Stannis to have ignored any part of his domain. The main hall should have been full of notebooks with drawings and maps. And diagrams to indicate where the secret passages were and how to avoid being eaten by a grue. Speaking of that cave, Jon seems to be impressed by the images of humans and fairies working together. But that was several thousand years ago when the first people brought the bronze age to what came to be called Westros. Sure the first folk went partly native, adapting the tree cult, but they still took possession of the land and drove the fairies into the margins. Then later, when the andals brought the iron age in, they scorned animism in favor of polytheism, destroying or neglecting the sacred groves. So i wonder, could the fairies be thinking of this situation as their chance to retake the continent. I mean, yes, they want to destroy the undead forces, but perhaps they would like to see the humans slaughtered at the same time. After all, from the fairy perspective, all humans are essostri who need to go home.

I think Braavos is more like Medici Florence.

I have to agree with Louis Farrakhan on this subject. When we refer to a historical figure as "great", we usually mean they were a mass murderer.

The drothraki have always struck me as the kind to disdain sissy tactics like flanking and envelopment. They see a shield wall, they want to crash into it head on. And i think the way they train their horses is meant to minimize the instinct to avoid sharp objects. I suspect they would do poorly against a phalanx. And even against the fairly thin line presented by the Lannister army, i think they'd have sustain substantial casualties. But once that line was breached, even if there had been no fire, the battle would be theirs.

That would make Sam's girlfriend's baby, the next Lord Tarly.