Jack Shaftoe

Massive improvement compared to the previous episode. The lack of Maximus' wacky misadventures probably helped. The set design is outstanding, especially compared to some other Amazon adaptations like The Wheel of Time. The robot looked just like in the games and was super creepy in a darkly comical way. The terminals in the vault were recreated perfectly and the same goes for the atmosphere of doom when trying to find out what befell that particular vault. I just hope it's something deeper than just overpopulation, Fallout New Vegas in particular had some really creative scenarios of vaults becoming hell on earth. Lucy helping out the guy who used her as bait and cut her finger was a bit too much of a protagonist privilege for me. He was going to find the vials inside anyway and she had already displayed dangerous altruism minutes later by releasing the feral ghouls. Damn, Steph can't catch a break. I guess she doesn't seem to have a good Luck stat. I see a roaring rampage of revenge in the near future when those prisoners inevitably get free.

This show is too full of people quite literally too stupid to live. There should have been a lot more vault dwellers wanting the execution of the raiders, ideals about reforming prisoners tend to become rather unpopular when so many of your friends and family are brutally murdered. And it's not quite darkly funny enough to justify the endless "Oops, I am being an idiot" moments. A Fallout show should be funnier or alternatively have an actual plot worth that name rather than a series of wacky misadventures with lots of gore. Visually, it's pretty awesome, so I will keep watching but I sure hope the writing improves. I kind of hate Cooper in the present because I am tired psychopaths with sob stories but the flashbacks with him are very well done.

Yeah, her naivete is a little too much. Even after the raiders attack on the vault and the shootout on the street, she just had to give a whole speech on whether violence would be justified. And Maximus should have had very little difficulty defeating the ghoul. Maybe he is such an old trainee because he is really incompetent, just like the knight whose armor he took. I am a huge fan of Person of Interest but somehow didn't know Michael Emerson would be in this show. I suspected he might not be long for this world and sadly I was right. I wish it had been a deathclaw instead of a bear too. Anyone else keep thinking of Shannen Doherty every time they take a look at Ella Purnell?

Exactly. At first I thought it was silly, then I saw the stimpack use scene and laughed my ass off. Refuge in audacity, just like in the games. I liked the first episode a lot. My main criticism would be the overuse of musical montages and, as mentioned above, Maximus seems too old to be a squire in training but maybe this will be explained later. And the power armors seemed to way literally tons the way everything shook when a knight passed by but I guess rule of cool must prevail sometimes.

So let me get this straight - Toranaga is so keen on preserving secrecy that he doesn't even tell his best friend and most loyal supporter about his (not so) cunning plan. Said supporter promptly kills himself because he thinks the ruse is a reality or because he suspects what's up and wants to make it more real. Then Toranaga casually spills the beans to Mariko anyway lest viewers be confused for a week?!? If Tokugawa Ieyasu had been such a rank amateur as Toranaga Yoshi, there would never have been a Tokugawa Shogunate. Considering how clueless Ishido is, this Byzantine plan of Toranaga's seems completely unnecessary. And since this is television his dumb plan is going to work and no one is going to give a fuck that he lost his best friend for no reason. Speaking of Ishido and company, they had Toranaga at their mercy but allowed him to go back his power base because they respect his grief that much? Seriously? They could have ,you know, arrested him and sent him to Osaka rather than wait for him to make up his mind like total fools. Why is that crew member whining about Blackthorne? Bro, you signed up for a privateer ship, you don't get to complain if it, you know, goes around the world looking for rich targets to rob. And the captain decides where a ship goes, not the pilot. Of course, Blackthorne being the Rude Englishman (tm) that he is had to beat him half to death. I was hoping they were going to deconstruct the glorification of seppuku but this wasn't the case in this episode.

Well said. Great acting can only do so much. Hiroyuki Sanada is a brilliant actor but no amount of stellar acting can make up for the huge discrepancy between we are told of Toranaga and what we actually see. And Blackthorne acts as if he knows he is the main character in a story and thus cannot be killed. Also, why was Saeki so willing to poke the bear by telling Toranaga and company "I play for the other side now, suckers" while being vulnerable to becoming a hostage himself or being killed by one of the many hotheads in Toranaga's camp? Does everything happen in that village in the book or is it a cost cutting measure for the show? I am impressed by Fuji's restraint when Toranaga's idiot made the death all about him and his small dick issues, so to speak. Plus, Fuji training with a naginata - smoking hot. The show seems to be trying to deconstruct the glorification of ritual suicide, so I have my fingers crossed she decides to live and makes it to the end of the show.

Yet he did precisely that by openly forcing three other regents to act under duress and then even murdering one of them in this very episode.

No, she isn't. She is a woman who wasn't even married to him. She doesn't have an army or lands of her own, as far as I can tell. She may exert considerable informal influence but that's not how the scenes with her and Ishido play out at all. It's basically him repeatedly saying "yes, milady" and that's in stark contrast with the way the likes of Mariko and Fuji have to act in order to exert influence in this deeply misogynist society. Mariko thought the match was a terrible idea even before her father went and killed Not!Nobunaga. Indeed but considering how openly both Ishido and Toranaga have flouted the rules, one wonder why Ishido is obsessed with impeaching Toranaga by following the letter of the law rather than go "See that big army over there? It's mine. Now bring me Toranaga's head, chop-chop".

But she isn't, that's the whole point. He is the head of a powerful clan and a Regent. She, on the other hand, can only make stuff happen by convincing powerful men to do her bidding. Ochiba needs Ishido (or someone else like him) to achieve anything at all. Ishido doesn't need her. In fact, his life would probably a lot easier if he got rid of her. Yet, he acts like she is some European style Queen Mother with formal powers of a regent - and even those queens were usually shoved aside by men like him.

Come to think of it, Ishido killing Sugiyama was a deeply stupid move. His clan now will probably join Toranaga or at least do nothing to support Ishido. Then again, it seems like escaping from Osaka is surprisingly easy, so maybe he had no choice after all. :) I thought they were a fairly influential family but in this episode Mariko and Toranaga strongly suggested otherwise, hence my confusion. Do they? You would think someone would have made political capital from the Heir's uncertain ancestry by now. It's exactly because there were no DNA tests that rumors like that could be pretty effective when trying to discredit political opponents. If Ishido thinks Ochiba is cheating why on earth is he her biggest supporter?

The politics are getting sillier and sillier. So holding regents and their loved ones hostage and then killing one of them along with his entourage is fine but you need to follow letter of the law to "impeach" Toranaga and declare him an outlaw? Really? Ishido's claim that Toranaga would be finished if Ochiba said she knew he was behind her father's death was beyond laughable. Why not, I don't know, declare him an outlaw for allowing your emissary to be used as literal cannon fodder? Or just do it for no legal reason, since you are totally comfortable following the might makes right principle in all your other moves? And Toranaga's answer is to... rush to attack the biggest fortress. Truly a man of genius, that guy. I see what they are trying to do with Ochiba and women pulling the strings behind the scenes in patriarchal societies is one of my favorite tropes but it's just not working for me in this case. Maybe it's the affected way in which she talks, reminds of me cliched anime villains and I keep expecting her to start cackling evilly. But it's also because she acts like being mother of the heir is some ultimate trump card even though the Taiko wasn't a king, emperor or any other sort of formally hereditary ruler and she wasn't even married to him, IIRC. The Taiko had hundreds of concubines but only she bore him a child? You would think people would be rather suspicious of that. Mariko's father married her to nobody, so she wouldn't be killed? Explain like I am five how this would help. Blackthorne again thinks Toranaga is going to give him his ship back. And that he can make him attack the Portuguese just like that and when Toranaga (of course) refuses, he has yet another hissy fit. The brothel scene was way too melodramatic for my taste. And if Kiku is such an expensive, high class courtesan, how does a nobody like Omi afford her? Why is she constantly in that village in the middle of nowhere? Why not invite her to Blackthorne's house the way she visits Omi rather than turning everything into a public circus? Best part were Fuji's reactions during the haggling with the brothel owner. Top class side eye! More of that and less of Mariko and Blackthorne's boring as hell romance, please.

That was an acting masterclass from Moeka Hoshi (Fuji) and to a lesser extent Anna Sawai (Mariko). The plot was less impressive but c'est la vie. Gotta feel bad for Fuji and Mariko being stuck between Mr. Brutal Idiot (Buntaro) and Mr. Loud Idiot (Blackthorne). Wasn't the heir's mother (Ochiba) released by Toranaga even before he and Mr. Loud Idiot escape Osaka? Why is she only now showing up is Osaka? Why is she acting like she can command Ishido in this extremely misogynistic society? I am well aware that women could and did wield a lot of power in societies where formal leadership roles were reserved for men but usually this required more tact and cunning than yelling. So Mariko's father killed the equivalent of Oda Nobunaga? "We can order Toranaga's execution but not anything else because he resigned" still makes no sense whatsoever. Buntaro is totally working for Ishido now, or at least I hope so, because a bunch of ronin showing up on the waterfront at night, fighting their way through a small army just to save him is the kind of twist a cartoon would be ashamed of.

There weren't any guns with such pin-point accuracy in that era. All the money in the world couldn't buy cannon like the ones depicted in the show. No, he was told to call Mariko that with the very clear implication that it's not something you use for everyone. And he needs to be ridiculous unobservant to not have noticed that nobody else is calling servants -sama. Same with not realizing that he runs the risk of being killed on the spot every time he mouths off a samurai, no matter how minor of a lord the guy happens to be. He also once again kept yelling at people in English (or maybe Portuguese) and expecting them to miraculously understand him. For a guy who has traveled far and wide and knows at least one foreign language, he behaves like the stereotypical Ugly American Brit way too often. He was even surprised he didn't get "his" ship and "his" men back as if there was any realistic possibility of this happening (since there would be nothing stopping him from immediately sailing for home).

I really wish they would dial down Blackthorne's episodes of being the obnoxious loud foreigner who just cannot fathom that you don't mouth off people of higher rank. Not in Japan, not in England, not anywhere in the early 17th century if you want to keep your head. He is supposed to have served on ships for most of his life and on a ship the captain's authority is basically absolute. Why is he acting like some spoiled 21st century kid who thinks only suckers follow social conventions? And surely he must have realized that only higher-ups are called -sama but, no he had to go and call a gardener that. Very convenient that he is a master gunner too. Though, Yabushige and company are in for a big surprise if the show follows history and Osaka castle proves too strong for this kind of guns. And I don't think guns at that era were anywhere near accurate enough to allow for most things we saw in the episode but Hollywood gonna Hollywood. Fuji was kind of awesome and it's nice that the show mentioned how noble women handle financial affairs and other stuff and do not just stand around looking pretty all day long, as often thought.

This Portuguese captain sure isn't the sharpest tool in the drawer. Why not ask directly for Blackthorne's head? He had Tokugawa Toranaga by the balls. Blackthorne claiming to be a rude idiot as a distraction isn't very different than his normal behavior and they got stupidly lucky that someone came to countermand that guard right on time. Mariko with a naginata was cool, though it was very convenient that the weapon just happened to be there when she needed it. And flaming arrows? They are stupidly ineffective, those fools must have watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves too many times. I am enjoying the show for the spectacle and the actor performances but I do think the political intrigue that so many people rave about it nothing special. And having a pilot train an infantry battalion sounds really silly. With the kind of money Toranaga has at his disposal he should be easily able to hire some European with experience in land based warfare.

I wonder if it's an oversight to have Mariko insist that Blackthorn call her Mariko-sama, yet that Jesuit interpreter called her Lady Maria. Then again, that Jesuit guy also referred to Toranaga as simply Toranaga when Mariko talked to him, so maybe the show is more careful with the precise naming when Japanese is used. I am enjoying it a lot so far, been a while since I watched anything with spoken Japanese and the Japanese actors are really good. That psycho who ordered the man boiled alive really shouldn't be making me chuckle so often but he does. Main complaint would be Blackthorn often behaving like a rude tourist despite clearly being smart enough to realise the kind of predicament he is. The way things are going he is going to call Toranaga "bro" any day now. Also, I find it hard to believe that the Japanese would be quite so ignorant about the rest of the world. Even later when they closed themselves to the world, they kept track of many technological and some political developments. And at the time of the show is set in they could produce plenty firearms of their own, so they had little to fear from any invasion from Portugal or Spain anyway. As to why Blackthorn would know Portuguese - at the time, if you want to go around exploring the world, knowing Spanish or Portuguese would be a huge advantage. Last but not least, Toranaga's wife stole the show. :)

If the cordyceps think Ellie is also cordyceps why do zombies attack her?

This show takes itself way too seriously for me to consider it a handwavy sci-fi series and give it a pass for the many worldbuilding inconsistencies and plot contrivances. If I were watching Legends of Tomorrow or Wynonna Earp, sure, I wouldn't mind stuff like gut wounds miraculously healing with penicillin injection and doctors immediately jumping to killing their precious immunity carrier. I love watching shows about tough choices but I hate it when the set up is so contrived. "We aren't going to try anything else, our first step going to be to open Ellie's skull and thus kill her". Way to kill all the moral ambiguity, writers. I have never played the game, so I have no idea how true the adaptation is but the final twist struck me as a rather video game-y excuse for having the protagonist go on a murderous rampage of rightfulness. I mean, I enjoy video games in general, but even in critically acclaimed ones, the discrepancy between the plot and what the protagonists gets to do when they are controlled by the player can be massive. Some scholars call it ludonarrative dissonance. This adaptation tried to be more subdued but in the end it's all "bad guys do bad stuff for very stupid reasons, go kill those losers ASAP!". Come to think it, the show should have explored the Fireflies point of view a lot more. Why did they send Ellie to be raised by their enemies anyway, did I miss something?

I really liked the first two seasons of Dark, the third not so much and the big reveal in the end was all kinds of underwhelming, as such reveals usually are. 1899 has the high quality acting and cinematography of Dark and lots of plot twists but I found the characters mediocre at best. They seemed to be on track to become interesting early on when life on the ship was relatively normal but once shit hit the fan it was one surreal crisis after another and their past was explored mostly in brief flashbacks. I can't help but think it might have been better if the main cast were smaller and the characters' pasts and respective traumas were explored more instead of the gazillion repetitive scenes along the lines of one character saying "What the hell is going on?" and another replying "Beats me but we are screwed". Or people asking Maura if she remembers.

Rhaenyra and Daemon should have been pressing relentlessly for Otto's dismissal for years rather than accept his return as fait accompli. Or pressed Viserys to give them more lands to make Rhaenyra's position as heir apparent stronger. Or at least placed some spies in the king's palace. Instead they did absolutely nothing to prevent the coup or to make sure they are informed immediately when the king died and the only supporters in the capital Daemon could think of were some gold cloaks whom he commanded almost two decades ago. Way to be caught with your pants down, guys. Since the show clearly wanted to portray Viserys as not that terrible of a king, we never saw him refuse such demands, instead it was Rhaenyra and Daemon who ended up looking as complete amateurs who shouldn't run a lemonade stand, let alone a kingdom. Which, again, would be an interesting story to tell if it were a deliberate choice but I suspect it was a writing crutch to allow the Green coup to happen easily and Rhaenyra is supposed to be at least somewhat competent of a ruler after all.

Because oaths are a serious business in Westeros and Viserys was (somehow) а well respected king who made his wishes in regards to his heir very clear. Because Rhaenyra has more dragons than the opposition and Daemon has a reputation of a good military leader. For ten years Rhaenyra had the support of the Velaryons too, there was ample time for gazillion opportunists to want to join her faction when it seemed ascendant, yet we didn't see a single one. And lords who join her faction can demand rewards in return for support, of course. Misogynists or not, who rules in King's Landing makes little practical difference in the daily life of most of the Westeros nobles but land grants or cash from a grateful Queen can change their life big time. The nobles don't practice incest either but nevertheless support Targaryens who do. Misogyny is the reason the civil war is happening, obviously, but hardly an insurmountable obstacles for nobles who prefer being on the winning side and/or are greedy for rewards. Also, a significant portion of this undoubtedly misogynistic ruling class supported Cersei as a Queen just fine despite her not having any claim for the throne whatsoever and facing three dragons while having none of her own. Mind you, this made no sense, if you ask me but still it's sort of a precedent since Westeros didn't seem any less misogynist in Cersei's time.

Мany lords should have been falling over themselves to join Rhaenyra's faction without her needing to do anything but say "Sure, if that's what you want". Are we supposed to think she refused them for some mysterious reason rather than merely never bothering to look for support? Or that Otto was the only one who put two and two together and realized Rhaenyra wouldn't succeed to the throne without upheavals? And I never got the impression that we were supposed to see Rhaenyra and Viserys as that clueless or entitled. When Rhaenyra said "my father helped to prepare me for my duties", this sure looked like something we were supposed to accept as truth rather than irony. Especially with the way the writers have praised Rhaenyra's restraint in the finale in their latest interviews. It would certainly make for a better story if Rhaenyra is a person with many flaws who makes costly mistakes due to entitlement or lack of experience rather than a slightly flawed long suffering victim of circumstances but I don't think this is the story the show is trying to portray.

I don't mind characters doing stupid things because that's only human but so much of the stupidity in the show seems to be very convenient for the plots. Like Rhaenyra not bothering to gather any allies before Viseris died, so she would need to send her sons to basically beg for support. It's all dramatic and grand but it hinges on Rhaenyra being implausibly clueless for a really long time. Same with Otto being back as the Hand and the other faction meekly accepting that. Or Corlys and Rhaenys thinking Daemon and Rhaenyra murdered their son but still supporting Rhaenyra's bid for the throne. I am not among the biggest fans of GoT by any means but it did have a certain "characters actually pay for their mistakes" aura about it. Here, most characters bumble their way through life, make really stupid mistakes that could easily cost them their lives or at least reputation but escape unscathed. Again and again. Alicent stabs Rhaenyra and nothing happens. Not even a slap on the wrist. Nobody even seems to remember this particular incident and Rhaenyra still seems to have some residual fondness for her.

And he was still far better king than Viserys, if you ask me. Because Viserys was that bad. The civil war is mostly his fault. I mean, Otto predicted exactly what would happen almost two decades ago. Viserys did nothing to prevent it. He could have done a gazillion things to strengthen Rhaenyra's position but didn't. The phrase "after me, the deluge" comes to mind. Robert (well, more like Jon Arryn but still) managed to hold together the realm without the help of dragons. Being deep in dept was quite normal for medieval kings and since Westeros has no external enemies, what does a king need so much money anyway? 🙂

It was the father of the current head of the Baratheron House that swore the oath to support Rhaenyra's bid for the throne. Viserys, being the clueless fool that he was, doesn't seem to have bothered to have even the lords of the biggest houses take the oath upon their succession. Or maybe he was too ill to care when the previous Baratheon lord died and Otto, of course, had no reason to press the issue. That said, many lords would have broken the oath regardless if it served their goals but leaving them the convenient loophole of "My father took an oath, not me" was really unwise. Medieval politics weren't so much between kingdoms, duchies and counties as they were highly personal affairs between people who could combine many roles and titles in one person. The king of England was also famously the duke of Normandy and then Aquitaine, which led to centuries of trouble with the French kings who usually wanted the English kings to do homage for these domains every time a new king took the throne. Oaths of fealty were renewed every time someone was granted a given title. Oaths to support a chosen king's successor weren't as common but apparently Henry I of England did demand from his barons to swear to support his daughter Matilda not once but several times.