CletusMusashi

Oh, come on. At least make them figure out what they're supposed to spell. Why the hell- Oh. Right. 'Cause we just had to spend five minutes talking about Joe's hair.

Lauren went out with a classy exit.

These people are "finding" idols with only slightly more difficulty than I find a UPS box in front of my door.

Okay, so what now? Victoria looking for idols on Seventeenth Minute of Fame Island?

I actually like Wentworth when she's on jury. As long as she knows she's not winning anyway, she has a sense of humor and fun. It's when she's actually still in the game that her competitive streak gets a bit angry.

Maybe Rodney helped them.

OK, that challenge/aftermath segment was actually interesting!

I am sad that Wardog will not be attempting this challenge.

It would be Reem, though.

How long is this episode? 'Cause, as soon as "What We Do in the Shadows," starts, I am out of here. Don't care who wins, don't care what the jury asks, sure as hell don't care what Jeff says...

After all this, they ought to have just enough time to roll dice and see who wins.

Yay! The game's not even over yet, and we're already hearing from all the losers! Consider me riveted.

I expected Cersei to have the location of her final stand rigged up with wildfire, not only to keep anyone but her from taking the throne, but also because she'd rather kill herself than give anyone else the satisfaction. And of course with Danaerys blasting through the gates with fire, it could be hard to figure out which aspects of King's Landing burning down were whose fault, so it would serve well to feed the upcoming conflicts. Far more so than Danaerys saying: "Yeah, um, it's not that I don' care about the random peasants. It's that I actually care so much about actively targeting and killing them after the surrender that for a while now I'm gonna just go do that. 'Cause that is a way bigger priority to me right now than burning the actual people who I just watched murder my best friend right in front of me..."

I just rewatched Cleganebowl, just to make sure I actually had seen what I thought I saw. Yup. I did. FrankenMountain starts the fight wearing full plate armor, and by the end of it he is completely shirtless. What is he, a Chippendale? Did Cersei have him equipped with special tear-away armor so he could dance for her? Or was that just Qyburn's thing? No wonder the big lug finally turned on him.

Fuck this season.Yet again, they tell a story without understanding how to build it. You want to have Dany burn KL? Fine. Have her go in with massive firepower, defeat the Redshirt Company, and then have the fires that have already been started go out of control. Dragons are good at making fire. Not so good at stopping it. She could sit and watch from above, looking stunned in close-up but aloof to people on the ground who can't really see her and just assume that she's gloating or whatever, and then Jon can have his "Bruce Wayne at the beginning of Batfleck v Superman" moment. You still get your conflict, but you also still get your characters. So what did we actually learn this week? Dany has suddenly gone moustache-twirlingly out-of-character evil supervillain crazy. Because she's a Targaryan. And Targaryans do that. So instead of to her... the throne should go to Jon. Because... he's a Targaryan.

it was!

I don't even inherently mind the riff that's forming between Dany and her subordinates. She's tired, she's stressed, she's lost two dragons, two close friends, and a lot of soldiers. The longer she waits, the more prep-time Cersei has. And while she'd prefer to avoid civilian deaths, she's also tired of the only "permissible" losses being those on her side! They could tell the same exact story they're telling, without making her completely over-the-top bug-eyed loony. Why not just tone down some of dialogue slightly and let her continue to show nuance in her acting. Instead of Jon being the hero and Dany being the villain, they could still tell the same story with Jon as the hero and Dany as the auntie hero.

Who played garret or Gareth or whatever? The guy who took the rap for Laszlo's baby prank? The actor seemed familiar, but I couldn't recognize him through all the prosthesis.

That opening ceremony before the trial was the silliest part of all.

Very sad well-done start. I was already over last week, but forgot how much sadder funerals are compared to the initial shock of someone's death. Then the characters had some fun for a while, which was also great. Then some intrigue, which is also fine. Sansa being a bitch, not so fine. You're home, you're safe, you're mostly in charge of Winterfell despite the fact that you have one or two living brothers... you're doing good. Shit, you haven't even run low on alcohol yet! The main secessionist voice of the Thenorthian Tea Party was Babybear, and she's not even around any more, so just chill the fuck out and work with Dany. She'll have a whole continent to argue with. It's not like she's gonna keep flying up every day to have her dragons poop on your lawn. And you know what? If Euron kills Yara and starts teleporting around the coast making pirate raids, Cersei ain't gonna protect the Starks. Dany would, if you turn the animosity down to a 3. Or at least normal Dany would. Seems like the writers are deciding to have her go over-the-top crazy, which pisses me off. When she's written well, she's a great character. Euron is... interesting. But his ability to target and kidnap whichever individual he specifically targets is pretty ridiculous. Does he have some kind of supernatural bounty-hunter training or something? Dire wolves can't live south of the now-non-existent wall, during winter? Seemed like all the others did okay, but, hey, whatever. Jon is a very neglectful wolf-daddy anyway. Tormund will probably play with Ghost a lot more than Jon did. Jon Snargaryan, as always, knows nothing. Not only was he the one who went right in with "Yes, your majesty, we'll do whatever you want immediately, here's a plan that will go terribly because my plans always suck!" but at the family meeting even Bran was like "Um, dude, are you sure you want to tell them this shit?" Not sure what's up with Arya. I get her being hesitant to trust Dany, but isn't Cersei still on her hit list? Or is that no longer a thing? I would say "New Person Who Seems Way, Way Better Than Cersei" is probably better than "Person Who Actually Is Cersei."

I think it was a solid episode. Certainly better than most of what we got last season. The only thing holding me back on it was... I've forgotten a lot from last season, because I never had much urge to re-watch it. So I even had to keep thinking about even things like who's a zombie and who isn't. I'm pretty sure Johny Frost is. I think Peyton isn't. Don't even ask me what or where Stacey Boss is... I probably should at least re-watched last season's finale to prime myself. But me not remembering stuff is kind of my fault. Everything new added this week seemed solid and accessible, even though the whole Renegade storyline continues to bug me. Dear Liv: The goal is supposed to be curing zombies. If instead you spend half your time planning ways to make more of them... I think you're doing it wrong. Best thing about the episode was Ravi. I wanted to see him get into a few brawls, but when that didn't happen I was also fine with having my expectations subverted. He was there to entertain, and he did.

It's actually quite possible that most species of animal north of the wall survived by staying as far from the White Walkers as they could. Doesn't seem like the AotN was particularly interested in nonhumans. They turned a few giants, a bunch of horses, a dragon, and a bear, but if they were turning every useful creature they could get their hands on we'd have seen a lot more zombie bears, zombie wolves, zombie woolly mammoths, and whatever else is up there.

Damn it! Just when I was starting to really enjoy The Barren!