CeeBeeGee

I love her too! I love that she stood up to Thomas. and I LOVE that she brings dignity and an heroic quality to Molesley (who is dependably hilarious but all these characters are fully fleshed out and nuanced characters and he deserves gravitas as much as anyone else).

I adore the Bateses. I love their genuine respect for each other, as well as their manifest love. I was rewatching old episodes and the rape storyline, when she was shutting him out, was KILLING me. When he said she was breaking his heart, I was actually crying. They are great together. I like Mary but I love Edith even more so (middle sister solidarity! Though I have no sisters, only brothers) I can totally get behind this statement.

YUP. I will never forgive Sir Anthony for that. I swear, it's like Lord G and Violet WANT Edith to be alone so they can pity her. They both looked so good, Edith in her flapper fashions and Mary riding astride, hell for leather. I remember reading about the early years of Diana (Princess of Wales)'s marriage--she would come into the kitchen to snack and hang out and the kitchen staff had to tell her she couldn't do it.

Based on your post, selkie, I looked up Amy Van Dyken on Wikipedia--oh my God. I had no idea.

Classic Southern Gothic! Garden of Shadows was AWESOME after the snoozefest that was ITBT. I literally screamed when I realized--and it wasn't a huge dramatic reveal, the realization very gradually came into place--that Corrine and Christopher sr. were much more than 1/2 uncle and 1/2 niece. Brilliantly developed. Yes! Hated that Corrine was STILL a conniving evil mother at the end--in the book she was genuinely remorseful and accepted the blame for her actions. In other words, character growth--what a concept. I literally LOLed at that.

Yes, I remember her saying that and also saying (in response to the age scandal in Beiing ('08) that if Rebecca Bross had been old enough, she would've been on the '08 team.

Really a shame that NBC doesn't show more meets (Jesolo, PanAms, etc.) when the US women are so dominant now. I used to subscribe to Universal but I found the feed confusing, often with no commentary. I wish I knew how to get the BBC coverage online (besides YouTube), I love Christine and Mitch. And I really wish NBC didn't delay their Worlds coverage so much--by the time they air (usually a week or so later), I already know all the results via tumblr!

An article I read (either Rolling Stone or Variety) said they weren't allowed to use anything that was a trademark of the show--not the set design or any of the catchphrase ("Have mercy," "you got it, dude," etc.). I thought it was pretty awful. That said, I'm still going to watch the 90210 pic.

She is the Dowager Queen (not *the* Queen)--Margaery is the Queen (i.e., Queen Consort). Of course neither of these would outrank a Queen Regnant but until Dany comes along, these are the two Queens.

Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane.

One thing that bothers me about the Dorne mishandling with this--they have Keisha Castle-Hughes, a bloody Oscar nominee (the youngest Best Actress nominee ever) and they didn't even use her. She had, what 10 lines altogether? Criminal. Also, like everyone else, I hate Ellaria's need for revenge. Oberyn knew what he was getting into. No one forced him to champion Tyrion. I'd love to see Ellaria with a better storyline, as I love that actress (she was awesome in Rome).

Oh and I meant to add--and Theon is Darth-Vader-turning-back-into-Anakin-Skywalker-at-the-end-of-ROTJ. As the daughter of a Navy officer, that bugged me as well! You'd think nit-picky Stannis would not make such an error.

I was confused, didn't realize they were Dothraki because that sure didn't look like the Red Wastes or any other Dothraki stomping grounds. (In fact I said to my friend "Dany's going to Hogwarts*! (Where the Sorting Hat will put her in Gryffindor, naturally.)" *After trying to tickle a sleeping dragon :) There's also the former slave whom Dany had executed. Oh my Lord, I kept yelling at the TV "STOP MONOLOGUING! It never leads to anything good! Read Harry Potter, everytime Voldemort monologues he loses his concentration and Harry gets away!" I absolutely detest Cersei. I felt sympathy for her as a woman but as a character she bought and paid for that walk of shame. She deserves much worse.

So Stannis is Macbeth. And Jon Snow is Julius Caesar.

I guess I believe that they've all reformed--there seems to be a lot of evidence to support that--but I cringed when Atkins was asking to be released. Perhaps it would be a compassionate gesture to release an inmate who is dying of brain cancer but I also believe there are some crimes for which you can never fully atone. Even if she died in prison, that's still 40 years of life that Sharon Tate, her unborn son, Sebring and Folger and Frytowski, Stephen Parent and the La Biancas never had. I think if Atkins had fully reformed she would never have asked, knowing the pain it would bring to the Tate family to have to relive Sharon's murder all over again and advocate yet AGAIN against any kind of release for Sharon's murderer. I remember when when that news came out, about Atkins and her brain cancer. It was around the same time that Mackenzie Phillips published her book which talked about her incredibly messed-up relationship with her father, which included a long-term nominally-consensual incestuous relationship with her own father, which just boggles the mind. Talk about casualties of the '60s!

As did Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys.

Cut to the dragons looking disgusted and covering their ears. "Maaaa! Gross!" Speaking of which--are the dragons all boys? How will we perpetuate the species without a sister? Unless we fill in the gaps with frog DNA... Where is my Nymeria?!?!

Since Jorah is a future Stone man, would that be considered...rock-blocking? I'll show myself out now.

Yeah..."sulking"? Huh? I didn't get that at all. Anyone would've been subdued after escaping from what went down at Hardhome. I tend to doubt that Hizdahr and Dany had actually ties the knot--surely the show would've shown us that?

Doreah betrayed Dany, why would she not punish her? Stannis, Renly and Joffrey also made imperious speeches about being the rightful rulers. That goes with the territory. She's not campaigning for President, she's claiming the Iron Throne--part of getting the throne when you're not on it is convincing others to support you.

Also Dany hasn't been trained in how to kill anyone. If she'd been the one to wield the sword on the guy who killed the Harpy son a few episodes back, she would've had to hack away at him which would've been torture for the condemned. Read about how Henry VIII's execution of his cousin, the Countess of Salisbury went for a real life example. (No, Henry didn't wield the sword but he used an inexperienced axeman and an old lady was literally hacked to death on the block. The same thing happened to Thomas Cromwell.) It's great that Jon can take the personal responsibility to carry out his own orders but that's not always possible or feasible.

Preach. It. I think Emilia is fantastic as Dany--she's the only cast member besides Dinklage who's been nominated for an Emmy, IIRC (of course they are all fantastic, I have NO idea why Michelle Fairley didn't get a nom for The Rains of Castamere)--and yes, she's making mistakes in good faith, not just blundering around or acting almost criminally stupidly a la Cersei. And oh my Lord is Missandei gorgeous! I'll have to rewatch to see Tyrion check her out.

Okay, I get that Stannis is the new Agamemnon, who sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to get fair winds to send his ships to Troy. But really, would a whole battalion of men also have drunk the Kool-Aid and just stand around while a child is being incinerated and is screaming like that? That is impossible for me to believe. Someone upthread mentioned Nazi-era Germans but most of those Germans didn't actually SEE it. Actually watching a child burn to death--I just don't buy that those men, many of whom presumably have families of their own, would do nothing. Similarly impossible is that these pampered slave owners, the wealthy elite of this city who had slaves to attend to their every need, are also badass street fighters and arena fighters who can take on the UNSULLIED, for God's sake. Maybe in close quarters but come the fuck on! The whole Sons of the Harpies storyline is beggaring belief. I like the Dorne storyline. If nothing else everyone is pretty and relatively unscathed. I could never, ever root for the Boltons. They are just as awful--Ramsay skins men alive for the fun of it. He skinned an old lady, for God's sake. Both sides are awful--rooting for Brienne to take out Stannis and Drogon/Dany to give Melisandre a taste of her own medicine.

Cersei has been the Dowager Queen ever since Robert died. I can't remember if the show is using the style "Queen Mother" but that's a new invention--the late Queen Mum (the current Queen Elizabeth's mother) came up with it after her husband George VI died so young.

Charlie targeted the lonely, the sad, the abused. Susan Atkins lost her other at a young age and her father really couldn't take care of his family. And Squeaky Fromme came from a really ****ed up environment--very middle class (if not upper middle class) but I remember reading that her father punished her in HS by not talking to her for AN ENTIRE YEAR. How awful is that?! I am in no way trying to excuse Susan and Squeaky's eventual actions but it's no wonder they responded to someone who appeared to give them unconditional love. Very fast indeed. The great migration to San Francisco started that winter/early spring and truly exploded when Scott McKenzie's hit "San Francisco (Be Sure toWear Flowers in Your Hair)" dropped in May of '67. Within weeks the Haight was overwhelmed by the influx and things started going wrong. That fall Haight denizens staged a "funeral" to send the message "stay away, the scene is played out" and in New York City the "Groovie Murders" (really awful and sad) were a similar button to the scene. The female victim in the Groovy murders was a wealthy kid from Greenwich who ran away and was trying to live the counterculture. The movement was so lovely in theory but so many losers and freaks tagged along and ruined it. (Like, well, Charlie, who was in SF during the Summer of Love, recruiting.) As it happens several of the Manson girls were named just that. (Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel--nicknamed Katie--Cathy Gillies...also a Linda (very common name), a leslie, a Sandra....yes, the name Emma seemed a bit out of place to me as well!)