trif

I thought this too. I have been uncertain of Rita's loyalties but I'm hoping this scene is a setup for her turning on the Waterfords at some crucial moment in the next episode. I have no problem with getting Nick's perspective. I'm fine with being asked to sympathize with his shitty place in the old world and shittier place in the new world. I just didn't appreciate that I felt like I was also being asked to sympathize with his hurt reaction to Offred's latest rapes...the way I interpreted the looks he gave her (especially last week's episode), they belonged on some other show in some other universe where all three corners of the love triangle have equal agency.

I really like the idea of Nick's back story being the struggling male whose blue collar job stopped existing. But I found it kind of thinly executed. While the ingredients were there on paper, when I think of people who are vulnerable to joining radical movements, I imagine feeling overlooked, forgotten, and isolated, leading to despair, rage, desperation. I didn't get that from the scene in the job agency or at the diner. When he threw the punch it just felt forced to me. Obviously, people do keep things bottled up and Nick certainly fits that (male stereo)type, but I guess my point is that I didn't really gain any new insights into Nick's motives that didn't come from my preconceptions/stereotypes about Nick's demographic. I was left wanting more. One of the interesting questions with both Nick and Luke is to what extent we hold them responsible for being limited by a male perspective when they are after all male. However, to me they represent two different versions of this. Luke is a blandsome college-educated type who basically had nothing to complain about prior to Gilead (since we're supposed to ignore race as a factor), so he more represents the privilege of getting to be ignorant, which leads to being frustratingly slow to wake up to his new reality. Nick provides a counterpoint in that while he doesn't know what it's like to be a Handmaid, he apparently knew pre-Gilead what it was like to have society tell you you weren't worth much. Does this make him more or less culpable when he turns around and (seemingly) contributes to a new society that does a worse version of the same thing, just to different people/groups than before? It's these kind of questions that make me interested in Nick and Luke's perspectives in theory. In practice I haven't been that satisfied but maybe two episodes is judging prematurely.

I was smiling by the end, but at the same time the whole dynamic between the three of them (Missandei, Tyron, and Gray Worm) grates on me. Gray Worm and Missandei as righteous innocents being their sole personality traits (other than their affection for each other and Dany) is kind of old now. IMO this characterization worked initially, but now they are overly infantilized relative to the positions of influence they're supposed to have at this point. Dany left, and 80% of their action in the power vacuum and crisis situation is sitting around being befuddled saints. The most interesting they've been to me is when they fought with Tyrion with actual opinions about why his deal with the slavers was a bad one (you can't trust men who sell people to keep their word), rather than just stating what everyone agrees with, that slavery should end tomorrow. Other than that, I feel like the writers a) have given up on trying to develop Gray Worm and Missandei further and b) don't want to portray any of the three in a bad light (for different reasons) which is how you end up with repetitive scenes where the main joke is, "Tyrion's playing to the wrong crowd."

Jaqen's comment about Arya finally being No One also caught me off guard. But I think maybe the logic was supposed to be that if the Many Faced God "allowed" Arya to best his true devotee The Waif, then there is a reason and Jaqen should not interfere with the MFG's will or at least the death 'balance'. Sort of a lesser version of the reasoning we heard this same episode about why Dondarrion thinks The Hound can be redeemed (and why the BWB itself is meant to fight for light instead of getting caught up in the lords' wars). I'm not sure, though. One of my hesitations is that I never got the sense before that the Many Faced God was a particularly interventionist god, even in the eyes of his true believers. For having spent two seasons with them, we know pretty little about the actual deity.

Oh man. I wanted to hit him, but at the same time I loved the comment because it seemed very Frey like. Whiny, delusionally self-absorbed, and always, so damn put upon.

If Margaery is being strategic, why would she stop sleeping with Tommen? Other than religious fervor, it's basically the only other way she has to relate to him. I feel like that was just a contrivance to give the High Sparrow and Margaery a pretense for conversation, with bonus points for allowing the High Sparrow to make it clear that the faith considers a wife's desire unimportant. I would like to know more of exactly what's going on in Margaery's head - 100% faking or finding some wheat in the chaff there? - though if she is just going to die with everyone else in King's Landing soon the show might not think it's worth the time to explore her thoughts further.

Me too. Obviously she's given very similar speeches and done actual ruthless things before, so I was trying to put my finger on what was different for me this time. I think the biggest reason is just the context of the speech - no immediate threat to Dany, or other injustice she's responding to. However, I do also wonder, if Dany is going to be more of an antagonist in the end game, at what point D&D tell her this or she otherwise gets more explicit direction to inject more of this into her performance.

Regarding whether Jaime knows about Cersei and Lancel or whether he's about to finally find out, I personally hope that's not played as a big reveal and the sole thing that suddenly makes Jaime turn on Cersei. It was understandably important for Jaime to discover this in the books, because it's part of a larger pattern. Cersei in the books seems to enjoy seducing men as an exercise of power, and to have a pretty low bar for when it's worthwhile to do so. Jaime's one of many men she manipulates (although the one she finds most narcissistically gratifying). Cersei in the show strikes me pretty differently. IMO sexpot Cersei casually betraying Jaime didn't really mesh with the writers' vision of Cersei as played by Lena either, but as the affair was too integral to the plot to excise, they shoehorned it in anyway without bothering to sell it as a long-running arrangement or typical behavior on Cersei's part. So possibly I've forgotten some crucial details, but where I'm left now is that Cersei slept with Lancel pretty much out of desperation, because she needed Robert killed. Five seasons later, if feels even more like a plot device and less like Cersei betraying Jaime on any deep level.

I want to believe you guys that Umber is setting Ramsay up, primarily because it would mean it wasn't Shaggydog's head, and secondarily because it would be nice for book fans (and TV only fans who remember that far back) of the Umbers. And I can totally see how that would work with how they just portrayed his personality. But I don't know, it still seems too risky to me to be a real plan when there are simpler alternatives like, oh, kneeling and pledging fealty. This is Ramsay, he could easily torture and permanently disfigure Rickon immediately even if he thinks he's too valuable to kill. (Although, it didn't make sense for Littlefinger to dump Sansa with Ramsay for the same reason, and that happened.) Is it still possible we get the real Manderly and Karstark and Umber are setup for that? Not sure if there's time for that though.

I don't know, it makes sense to me. Do all the wildlings really come in peace and does Lord Umber have any way of knowing if so? Basically we see that he is fiercely independent and from his perspective Jon Snow forced his hand, and so he made his choice to sacrifice two people for his land and his people. Not that I think it's right, but I think it's nice to get non-crazy, non-sadistic allies for Ramsay and to see their reasoning. Though he will probably turn out to be a gratuitous a-hole soon enough, given the flippancy about patricide.

So what's going on with Tommen? Is he about to drink the kool aid?

The first Varys-is-a-eunuch joke last week was so clunky I thought it must be a form of (reminder) exposition for an upcoming plot point. Now that it happened again I'm inclined to suspect they were just out of ideas for Tyrion's weely joke quota. Karstark's complete non-reaction to Ramsay gutting Roose I also took as evidence that Ramsay premeditated this, and Karstark was in on it. But Karstark just discovered that Sansa is still escaped and might actually make it to John on the way there-- he is the one delivering the news. So then we are supposed to assume that Karstark feels so strongly that they should attack Castle Black to kill Jon that Ramsay felt comfortable making a "just in case my dad won't do this, are you cool if I grab power?" bargain on the way in to report the news? Obviously it's in character for Ramsay, but count me among those who are pretty sick of how he, as a major character with a lot of screen time, is not subject to the normal rules of politics (and military strategy) that drive this show. Roose did make the "if you act like a mad dog, you'll be treated like a mad dog and taken out back and fed to the pigs comment" which is maybe supposed to be prophetic. I hope it's not just a punch line for Ghost or his own dogs to end up eating him after Jon (and Sansa?) retake Winterfell. It can be that too, but I'd like it if the run up to his demise also involves the actual spirit of Roose's comment, which is that people have to be able to think you follow some of the rules some of the time to even try to work with you. At least name-checking some other houses makes me hope they are going to develop some of those more political and interpersonal motivations down the line this season. Glad Tommen is getting some character development! He's too central to the plot now to keep off stage with contrivances like "he's busy sulking". There was an interesting moment during his apology to Cersei where I felt like she was thinking of the prophecy and still believing he was going to die. Yet she was obviously touched by his speech. Looking forward to seeing where that goes and if/how Cersei blows this newfound trust. Will she actually make a sincere attempt to get Margaery back and restore the Tyrell alliance?.

I've seen a few comments along the lines of 'What was Ellaria thinking killing Myrcella when Trystane is on board?' as well as 'Jaime better turn that ship around and demand her head!' My reading is that Elliaria may not care if Trystane is killed by the Lannisters, and in fact it may be what she is hoping since she wants outright war with King's Landing, and it seems no lesser loss will change Doran's mind. I'm not sure how she's hoping to escape with her own life if Doran blames her for putting Trystane in danger, which of course he should, though maybe that's a price she's willing to pay. I would assume Trystane would be in command of the ship, but if for some reason Jaime is, I'm not sure it's 100% in his interest to turn around (assuming Myrcella is even dead, because Tyene made it sounds like the poison works more slowly). If he turns around, he runs the risk that Doran decides that war is inevitable between their two countries and takes Jaime hostage. He also runs the risk of Elliaria making another move. Whereas if he continues to King's Landing, the Lannisters at least have Trystane as a hostage and Jaime at least has his personal safety (which granted wasn't a huge motivation to him previously, but still) and the chance to plot revenge, if he now finds he cares enough about Myrcella to want that. Of course the whole arc is so truncated pretty much any next move is possible, and I'm not holding my breath for a cogent explanation of whatever move is chosen, but I'm curious as to what other people think.

I think the fact that there as so much debate about whether, and who, would burn Shireen ahead of time that it lessened the impact of it for me. Mance burning was more visceral for some reason, probably the way they shot the fire and his face. I'm really glad we were spared that for Shireen. Instead, the part that stuck with me most about that scene was how it seemed Stannis and Selyse were hiding from Shireen behind the crowd. I was afraid that Stannis would step forward and claim responsibility to Shireen's face. We never got a reaction shot of Shireen seeing her father, so it seemed to me like he stayed hidden. I also noticed how Melisandre didn't tell Shireen that her father was behind it even when Shireen demanded to see her father. It seemed like a very small mercy on Melisandre's part. My favorite part of Draznak's pit, aside from seeing Dany's interaction with Drogon, was the dialogue on the dais. I felt like it did a great job of showing how each character has an overall philosophy and how they all see injustice in the world and have a different take on it. At the same time, Dany's enjoyment of Dario's jabs at Hizdar came across as pretty juvenile to me. It came across as, not just that Dany disagreed with Hizdar's world view and thought Dario was exposing his hypocrisy, but rather that Dany had zero respect for Hizdar as a person and was enjoying the pissing contest a bit too much. I had a strong reaction to the shot of his body lying on the dais and bleeding, because it seems that no one will mourn him or have any sympathy for what he was trying to do.

First there's some talk about religious fanatacism and what happens if you're wrong with a choice like that? Then Benioff says it's the hardest choice Stannis has had to make, ambition vs. family love, and Stannis chooses ambition. Then he says that when George first told them about this, he was like, "That's so horrible, but also so good from a story perspective" and he talks about how the Stannis character has been building to this from the beginning.