RobertDeSneero

The actor who plays Bran seems to think that the character believes that history should unfold naturally while he watches.

I suspect that this really is GRRM's endgame for Dany. Bookreaders have speculated for years that she will be the final villain in what is known as the "Mad Queen theory".

I wouldn't be surprised if the next episode begins with Dany explaining that her decision to burn King's Landing was not impulsive, but one that was planned in advance. Now that Jon's secret may be out, she had to make the various Houses too afraid to challenge her rule. If Dany needs to die, the show has a track record of characters not necessarily dying how you expect them to die. The table is set for viewers to expect that Arya or Jon would kill her. The way the show goes, it wouldn't be shocking if one of them tried and failed, only to have a different character deal the fatal blow. Tyrion, perhaps, trying to rectify his mistake.

Martin's most important characters are Jon, Arya, Bran, Dany, and Tyrion. I'm not even sure that Cersei would be alive and on the Iron Throne if the book series reaches its endgame.

This is the ending I've been expecting ever since I read that GRRM saw Aragorn as a mythic figure who wins the battle, then rules wisely and just as a king, but that he was interested in going in a different direction. So, I think that the book's goal is for the defeat of the Others to be followed by a resumption of the game of thrones, in which Dany is found to be wanting as a queen.

Warren is tough to find a hook to hang a comedic impression on. She's an intelligent, competent, no-nonsense person without a facet that can be exaggerated in a way that is funny. It's sort of like how the show struggled to find a good take on Obama. I think a good portrayal might be as the straight woman who remains sane and unflappable amidst the insanity that is the political circus we exist within.

Maybe she told Tyrion to try and drive a wedge between him and Dany so that he wouldn't have divided loyalties and could be with her. Or to get him to propose a marriage between Jon and Dany. Maybe Dany burns down King's Landing in a way that makes her seen as unsuitable for the Iron Throne and Jon has to choose between following her into exile or accepting the crown to stave off civil war.

The books and show have tended to build up something in the beginning of a trope, then pull the rug out from under thereafter/viewer. Ned and Robb Stark were built up as heroes, then shockingly killed off. The greatest threat ever doesn't end the game of thrones. This isn't supposed to end with a just ruler taking the throne and ruling wisely. After defeating the Night King and, presumably, Cersei, politics remains and is still messy. The point of getting you on her side is so they can pull the rug out from under you again and give you an ending that you weren't expecting. I thought it would have been funny if the books had built her up as a conquering hero only for her invasion to fail and her getting killed shortly after making it to Westeros.

Well, that's why she's a villain. People can react to the same stimulus poorly.

I don't get the complaint about this being a filler episode. It felt more like the start to the final sequence. Where I think the episode made a mistake is that the team found out that Emiko is leading the Ninth Circle because she told Rene. I think this is something that the team needed to uncover on their own or at least gather enough evidence to confront Emiko before she admits anything. Halfway through, I was expecting it to turn out to be a cover-up to protect Dinah. I can understand why she would hate all things Queen. The Queen name taints everything for her. Imagine if someone hates Muslim terrorists for what they have done to her and she now hates all Muslims and refuses to accept the possibility of a good Muslim. Emiko ones not acknowledge the possibility of a good Queen. Now, you may say that Emiko is half-Queen and should hate herself, but I known an ex-Muslim who thinks this way. Emiko doesn't see herself as half-Queen, she sees herself as an ex-Queen. She could only accept Ollie if he renounced his name, which he would never do.

I could tell Arya was going to kill the NK because of the storytelling. They kept checking in on every character except Arya after she said "Not today". She was clearly being saved as a surprise to save someone. I think it effective pacing that probably drew a lot of watchers into the stories of other characters so they weren't wondering where she was because they assumed she was barricaded in a room with no way out. They had the Theon attack which reminded me of Spike at the end of Buffy season 6 and they left him moving on the ground so that the audience could wonder if he might make a last gasp attack on the Night King from behind. There was always the possibility that Bran had a trick prepared but, no, it was going to be Arya. They foreshadowed it with Mellisandre telling her that Beric had a purpose that he fulfilled, but let's not forget that after Beric fulfilled that purpose, he died. If Arya has fulfilled her purpose, will the universe feel free to discard her as soon as the next episode? I think we were supposed to be reminded of Lyanna vs. the giant and be worried that Arya was going to kill the Night King with her dying blow. People have brought up comparisons to Tolkien. That was a massive war that turned out be a more of a distraction so that the real task. The war keeps Sauron engaged so that Frodo can sneak into Mordor. The battle draws the Night King out into a situation where he can be attacked. The main reason that Peter Jackson's trilogy wasn't a complete triumph for me was the excising of the Scouring of the Shire. We get that now with the resumption of the fight for the Iron Throne. While post-war was messy for the hobbits, it is less messy for everyone else in the book. I think ASOIAF is meant to show the aftermath for everyone.

They are there to hit Barry over the head with a sledgehammer about the importance of family. Cisco was consulting about ways to track Cicada. As someone who has proven to be capable of some very inappropriate rage-induced behavior, I can relate to both Barry and Nora in this episode.

This episode was not filler. On the eve of a battle to save humanity, this episode established the humanity of every character and showed what they have to lose, what spark would be gone if they ended up not just dead but undead. The point is to manipulate viewers into remembering why they should care about anyone who might die. As a viewer, I find it helpful to remind me how to tell apart the different white, dark-haired bearded guys. If it's all just dense plot, the story is lesser. The battle is coming. We know it's coming. The characters know it's coming. By making us wait along with them, we can identify with their anxiety. They just have to follow through and make the battle worth the wait.

I can buy it because I can see myself acting the same way.

I guess no one is anticipating a Canary network spin off with a superficial understanding of girl power. Is it incest if you have sex with your sister's Earth-2 doppelganger?

I was expecting her to be the assassin from the moment she first appeared because she would be if I were writing the show.

I can't really explain it, but this episode made me think that this season will end with Ollie revealed as alive in the future and somehow the head of the Ninth Circle. Then the writers go on summer vacation before trying to figure out a reason why that makes sense. Maybe it's because this episode feels like they pick which big moments they want, then try to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B, but they are deadset on Point B and would rather accept weak reasoning rather than change Point B. Maybe the writers are huge fans of Lost and want to copy that show's narrative techniques. Laurel's relationship to Diaz being outed was the payoff to the implied threat of Emiko referring to her as "Black Siren". I knew Emiko was going do something, but I suppose I expected something more physical.

She didn't know if he would help her, but she was desperate and wasn't sure if anything else would work. Sometimes, a long shot is your best shot and you just have to gamble.

If I were a writer on the show, scenes like that are why Sherloque would probably be the supporting character I would find the most fun to write for.

Maybe it's only her last name and her first name is Zora. Her memories were saved in Discovery to make room for what Control wanted. Saved memories in a season with a storyline about AI. Hmmmm.......

Spock is searching for a logical reason why he was chosen by the Red Angel. If one cannot find a logical reason, then perhaps there is a non-logical reason. For those wondering about Airiam's nature, she prefers being called cybernetically augmented to half robot.

The shuttle doesn't have torpedo launchers, as was pointed out. The plan was probably to surrender, allow themselves to be brought on board, and open the canisters inside or to use them to blow up the shuttle sufficiently close to a Krill ship. The logical fate for the fake daughter is that she was handed over to the Krill as a criminal who conspired to attack them.

Maybe, the return of Cicada in the future is Grace looking for a way to travel in time to prevent the death of her uncle due to a mistake by the doctor, who she kills anyways.

If they weren't siblings, William and Mia would make a cute couple. Which I suppose makes sense, since posters are pointing out they resemble Felicity and Oliver. I'm sure someone is going to write some Rule 34 fanfic based on that.

Del Toro recognized they were rebooting the system and depressurized the plane and affected the oxygen masks as a counter-measure. The plane depressurized after the system had been rebooted and the pilot had regained control.