CletusMusashi

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!

I can't help thinking that a few centuries from now there's going to be a documentary about "Operation get Behind the Dothrakis:" "The Targaryans knew that such a large number of swarthy uncastrated men could never be assimilated by the west, and thus began the infamous Dothraki Genocide. These peaceful, naive hunter-gatherers had already been separated from their families and brought to Westeros in bondage, only to be ordered into a cruel suicide mission in order to placate the xenophobic Thenorthians. Thankfully for the Seven Kingdoms, a kindly pyromancer wandered by in time to ignite their weaponry. The Dothraki were nonetheless destroyed in mere minutes, but at least they brought untold millions of giant ice spiders, creepy hammer-wielding dentist elves, bouncing Bumbles, giant wights, woolly mammoth zombies, vampire walruses, nihilistic narwhals, and beligerant mummy-puffins along with them."

Even as a wight, nobody's scared of Rickon.

I disagree a bit. I think the NK took forever to stand there thinking about how cool he looked, and how even cooler than that he was for not making "cool" puns like "Ice see you, Bran. There's snowbody that can save you now," (even though you know he's time to think of a zillion of those things,) before he decided to slowly, dramatically pull his sword out and do something. That's why Arya won. The NK disregarded his primary objective. Arya did not. Now all I need is someone to fanwank why the giant wight decided to pick up and slowly one-handed crush Lyanna instead of just stepping on her and moving on. It was a very satisfying payoff, and it made me take back absolutely everything I've speculated lately about the possibility of her just being a loud rich kid with delusions of mightiness, but the setup on it was a tad wonky.

The problem with people calling Arya the Princess Who Was Promised is it reflexively makes me think of a very silly song. Is this the version of her tale they'll be telling in a thousand years?

Please just attack King's Landing during the day. The lighting was so bad that at first I thought Arya killed the giant zombie. And every time I saw anyone with a big beard, live or dead, I thought they were Tormund.

As usual after a big battle episode, I have to ask: what was their plan? Before Melisandre showed up randomly, were they just going to send out all the Dothraki with regular, non-wight-killing swords? Or was the original plan to maybe shoot them from a distance with fire arrows? Thanks a bunch for changing that plan there, Red.

Hopefully it'll get a ratings boost when "Archer" comes back and reminds people that FX exists. One good thing is that new viewers can jump into any episode they want without really being out of the loop. Those little talking head moments are just as effective as if the whole show opened with a "Previously, on What We Do in the Shadows..."

Nandor can only hypnotize you to do something you're willing to do. He can make you forget angsty issues, including ones that are his own fault, or he can make an angry city councilman into such an angry city councilman that the definitions of "mad" become blurry enough to add instructions to. Laszlo will actually put on the charm when he's trying to hypnotize you. He does it with humans, he does it with raccoons, he does it with cats, and, in the grand scheme of things, he's not all that great at it either. Nadja focuses her hypnosis on those who seem to be receptive anyway. She's good at finding them, and she's good at making use of them. Think of her as the world champion of the "shooting fish in a barrel" contest. Except that there is no fish in this barrel. And... not shooting. And it is, how you say? Staten Island.

The reason Nandor has so much difficulty being friendly toward Guillermo, even when it seems like he wants to, is that he is obsessed with following the rules consistently. Vampires matter, and humans are inferior, therefore it is perfectly okay for vampires to prey on and enslave humans because that is the way things are supposed to be. Laszlo pretty much agrees, but doesn't overthink it as much as Nandor. If it's useful, he'll turn on the charm without feeling that he's a sellout, but as soon as that's inconvenient he'll murder you without a second thought. The reason Nadja is the most willing to dive into emotional interactions with humans (not just Jebstif, but LARPER girl as well,) is because she gives absolutely no fucks about philosophical consistency. She loves who she wants, kills who she wants, and really only sneaks around behind the others' backs to avoid criticism and relationship drama. In short, when Nandor is friendly to a human without some ulterior motive, he tends to be embarrassed by it. Nadja is sneaky out of convenience, not out of shame, because it makes it easier to do whatever she wants. Nandor does what he thinks he's supposed to do. Laszlo does what he thinks he's convinced others he's supposed to do. And Colin seems to be more about subtly trolling everyone, human and vampire alike, to really care much.

It didn't click in until last night that Nadja saying Nandor was like a big turkey wasn't just her strange, random way of saying he's like a big dumb rooster. It was her racist way of saying he's like a big dumb rooster. It finally clicked in when she was telling Jext he should pretend the archery targets were a bunch of Turks. I'm not endorsing anything here. Just saying: yeah, they're old, and their old prejudices do come up when they're bitching about something. The characters are growing on me as I get a deeper feel for them. They seem to be a parody of the Freudian power trio trope. Nadja is totally the id. She's easily distracted by emotions such as lust and anger, and has no interest in justifying it to the others. Nandor is the superego. He's one of those people that'll spend twenty minutes debating the most logical way to do a five second task. This why despite allegedly having by far the largest body count of any of them, he is the least intimidating or confrontational. And Laszlo is a dysfunctional ego, who's almost as driven by his urges as Nadja is but, instead of admitting it, wants to convince everybody in the room including himself that he's being logical. I'm not sure where Colin fits in there, but he is growing on me. When he isn't being deliberately boring, he has a nice usually subtle sense of humor. I've noticed the last few weeks that he makes a pretty good straight man to Nandor. Since N/L are too goofy and Guillermo isn't really allowed to speak up. Even Nandor's description of them as a duo was great. "I'm too foreign and he's too boring." Nandor was also entertaining the hell out of me just neighborhood-watching with Guillermo. I hope that becomes a recurring schtick. And the way they chop up and spread out the longer arcs intermingled with self-contained stories suits these characters well. They don't really seem good at quickly bringing closure to anything bigger than "What should we have for dinner?"

I hate to be a continuity buzzkill on a show this silly, but they make such a big deal about the importance of being invited in: I have to wonder how Laszlo was able to just fly right in through Phil's window without an invitation. Do you only need one when you're in human form?

Reem seems drunk. How long does it take to ferment coconuts?

Arya can give her some tips. "I'm not your sister. Take off your own bloody pants."

Okay, so now that we've had time to guess who, back in the pilot ep, left all those, as Nandor put it, "half drunk" humans in the cellar, only to spout a fauxcited load of crap about labeling all the victims in the future... who do you think it was? My money's on Nadja. She's the only one who honestly seems to fool the others with any regularity. Probably because she understands them so well. "A big turkey trying to rule the farm" actually sums up Nandor pretty well, once you get to know him.

Who actually owns the "Littlefingers" franchise now, anyway? Nipple Boy, I guess?

If all you're walking around all day with a hammer, the way Gendry is, everything begins to look like a nail.

And if they just kissed and then faded away, the weird fan theories would overshadow the actual narrative. "That's not Gendry! Everyone knows Jaqen H'Gharr impersonated Arya so he could seduce Gendry, kill him, and steal his face!" "Arya didn't really do anything with Gendry, because Melisandre turned his penis into a frog!" "Gendry is actually a mer-man, like Varys!" We've got enough material that we're supposed to speculate about. Therefore, it was essential to the plot that Maise Williams flash her tuchis.

I figured a body double would have shown more than that.

The female werewolf endeared herself to me by calling Nadja "Downtown Abby." That's like maybe one millimeter below my own knowledge of Downton Abbey, but I always play dumb and call it exactly what she does when people try to convince me that I have to watch it.

Actually, I'm gonna tell them the giantess story and then slobber beer all over myself. Chicks dig that.

I love this episode, but I do have to take a moment out of my second viewing to say that I laugh out loud every time I see Gendry bashing pieces of obsidian with a hammer. Because... glass is the same thing as iron, apparently.

Maybe the Unsullied are going to surprise the Night King with their dragonglass prosthetics.

The trailer for a film usually tries to showcase its exciting moments. If this is as exciting as it gets, I don't think I want to sit through three hours of "sad guy who is destined to finally get interesting about five minutes before the movie ends." I do actually kind of like the idea of giving the Joker an origin story, but that doesn't change the fact that in the DCCU it's pointless, because we know they're just going to reboot the character every time he appears in a new movie anyhow. If they're not willing to commit for any amount of time, then neither am I. Not even if his mom is named Martha.