Featherhat

To me it didn't seem any more crass than any other consensual sex on the show that were still a bit skeevy. But that is because I'm picturing Tommen in my head as no younger than 16, although it is possible he's supposed to be younger than that and the show will only hint at it. Maybe I knew some dorky, naïve 16 year olds, but he didn't strike me as *obviously* pre pubescent. He was enthusiastic and a little naive, she was manipulating him through pillow talk, almost the happiest relationship on the show right now. I'd rather watch that than more "Sansa is exploited by more men she's terrified of for heirs to Winterfell". I'm not sure that that UK has a rule forbidding it, it's certainly had its fair share of adult/uderage sex" depicted on screen, although I'm sure there are strict rules about how its done. But the actor is 18 so they probably have more leeway on that. It's possible the actress was uncomfortable with it. Or they want to keep it vague so we *don't* get a big controversy about Margaery.

Historically the brutal collapse of one society doesn't do much to encourage a fairer, more democratic one. In fact often the opposite, no matter what they claim (e.g. regimes that call themselves versions of "people's democratic republic........" etc). There might be circumstances where the Lord's Paramount insist on something like a Magna Carta but it depends on how many of them are viably left, who is left in contention for the Iron Throne and who they are in relation to the ending of the zombie apocalypse, among other factors. And whether anyone who's still alive wants the IT.

Not really no. There's UST and a dollop of angst, but Hawkeye got romantic angst to. There was no suggestion that she was involved with Hawkeye or Captain in anyway. She has shown interest in one person in however many movies she's been in. In the comics I don't know.

Maybe generalised debauchery/infidelity Anne Boleyn style. Possibly also using Loras's increasing indiscretion against her, given her warning to him in Ep1. I doubt she'd be fool enough to go for incest charges under the circumstances but you never know.

This episode set a new high for me in creepy brothel scenes, what with the High Septon conducting a blasphemous "mass" while "ministering" to young prostitutes and Jorah being in the same brothel as a popular Dany cos player. Tommen/Margaery was definitely manipulative but Tommen was so obviously really enjoying himself I didn't mind the existence of their sex life in general.

I say this as someone who was a MerDer fan for many, many years. I don't want a "Derek goes to DC and dies off screen" death and I'm not keen on "Derek becomes a househusband" and is only mentioned as looking after the kids. I liked the MerDer I actually saw onscreen, not stuck in a holding pattern for however long EP lasts on the show "hey Derek is right there.....around the corner". I think the death scene was ridiculous and not the only option, but I just can't see this show of any show choosing the off screen option when they can amp the drama and give EP (another) grief storyline next season, not to mention Amelia. I wouldn't have been opposed to a Clooneyesque reunion if they split up and later reunited. I don't know what went down or who is more to blame, but I'd guess it was something more than "I'm sick of writing around PD's schedule." What I have no idea. It's pretty easy to assign diva motivations on both PD and SR's parts given this show's past crazy drama, but who knows. They obviously knew they were going to get massive backlash, and for the moment I think its wise SR doesn't say anything, she's already suspected of everything under the sun anyway.

I think you're right really. They work together, and that's all that is contractually demanded of them. It just so happens that unlike my office people get attached to fictional characters who are portrayed as close, even when the actors who don't always want to spend extra curricular time with each other than I do with people I've been working with at least 10 hours a day. And that is a job where we aren't under pressure to say how awesome each other is in public. It seems divisions opened up fairly early on, and they all had their own lives, this was never a cast who revealed they had Sunday Shakespeare BBQs together. I hope they generally make it work on set and I do think this radio silence is weird and that no one is telling any version of the whole truth. PD sounded DONE long before he claims he was shocked, but maybe that's his usual negotiation tactic. Shrug. Ellen will probably now be with the show as long as it continues, SR will be a creator for other ABC shows and PD doesn't seem short of options....

I think the way it happened, Derek carelessly driving in and an incompetent medical staff waiting for him was deliberate, it can't not have been a commentary about the way things ended, whichever party said "enough's enough" last year. It crazily reminds me of the time Joey from Friends angered his soap opera showrunner and fell down an elevator shaft and "they said the only person who could have fixed me was ....me". I've no idea what actually happened but that end did seem pointed. In a best case scenario it might have been a mutual in-joke. As for the cast not tweeting. IDK. Even if he was unpopular the usual thing to do is say something vaguely nicely harmless and draw a line. There might be a number of other reasons they en-masse haven't said anything, including being advised to let things calm down and not draw a show into yet another fandom war. Maybe that's the same reason SR hasn't given her usual post death interview, they thought it would blow up and are being advised against engaging yet. Or there are other issues beyond "being a diva actor/showrunner" that are still being worked out.

I certainly agree that there I still unfortunately a lot of racism that goes into couples on TV. I think this show is possibly beginning to explore what a POC who has been turned into a Zombie might look like in the Chief (a possible problematic issue re degrees of pigmentation in different ethnicities of Zombie but not something they should shy a way from either). Robert Buckley was probably cast because he was a OTH veteran and yes the type they were looking for. Handsome, reasonably intelligent, "perfect" and willing to be in Liv's life after she "brutally2 dumped him. That said I can only recall Parminder Nagra as a British Asian Doctor on ER and she's now on The Blacklist, so Rahul Kholi by being on US TV as a British Indian who isn't a USTV stereotype is interesting, especially as his character wouldn't be rare IRL. Yes he's the sidekick so far but he's more interesting than Major. I never want them to hook up because I love the dynamic they've establishd so far. They have level of truth that Liv has shown its difficult to maintain even with Lowell, although I hope that relationship will last a few more episodes because I've missed BJ and he's good as an intro Zombie relationship for Liv. Blaine was paired with Liv in a few fans minds for 5 minutes in his first episode. I can't imagine anyone who has any hopes of her long term sanity and goodness thinks they would do well together now. He's a killer pure and simple and they aren't going Spuffy so early on.

I think the Black Widow stuff was mean to be a "joke" and fairly harmless, but it's still annoying because as we learn:

Indeed but having a former part of one big paring disappear to permanent OffScreenVille whilst still apparently being in the next room or travelling for work is something shows don't like to do for years at a time, especially if a death can provide a season's worth of melodrama, and we all know melodrama is this show's staple crack. Plus it frees the still current member of cast up for storylines she can't do if she has to pretend to have an off screen happy marriage. Hell, that's probably half the reason Bailey's 99% off screen husband divorced her and she's only a secondary character.

I don't necessarily feel EP/DP's "in it together" attitude was all an act. If nothing else it did help them to negotiate as a block sometimes (like the FRIENDS cast did as they were stronger together) and to ask for certain storylines as a team. But things change. Maybe Ellen isn't ready to move on and wants the steady pay check for a couple more years, maybe there's a lot more going on under the surface that means its nothing to do with how she acts anyway. And then they've got their own families and lives which means that they can't always put their *fictional* characters first, even if they might have preferred different ending. No one is staying on this show for artistic integrity anyway. It's true that Derek could exist in off screenville as the never seen babysitter, but that's never how this show has done things and Shonda wouldn't be about to loose this opportunity to give Mer a grief stricken storyline before her own exit (which I assume will involve Cris).

I've just seen it and I liked it. It didn't wow me in the way the first one did, but then I wasn't expecting it to because the "wow they actually made this work and its very entertaining!" thing was to be expected.   

Yeah I remember that as well. IT wouldn't necessarily surprise me that some of the network execs would prefer a non interracial couple, but I seriously can't see the part as written in the pilot (before the writers had PD in mind when writing) as played by IW. Obviously he's an actor and he can bring out a amused reading of a line, but he seems more suited to a Burke version of intense instead of the playful aspect Derek was pulling around Meredith early on in the pilot, not that he didn't show patches of humor or Derek didn't get serious at all. Especially as time went on, he and Oh made a completely different reading on two best friends getting into the same situation in the first couple of episodes, which could have quickly gotten as old as latterly when everyone was having that storyline.

Report of 1st report http://gawker.com/206809/when-hunky-tv-doctors-clash-the-greys-anatomy-choking-incident Then comes the explicit gay slur against TR Knight http://gawker.com/208455/greys-anatomy-chokegate-now-with-more-explicit-gay-slurs So it possibly started out as an issue between PD and IW (or IWs OTT anger issues or PD being late or something) and didn't even involve TRK until IW started throwing around slurs. I think a lot of it might have been jealousy re "McDreamy" press PD was getting at the time. Which is stupid because IW had by far the meatier part. I do feel really sorry for Brooke Smith. I didn’t like Hahn one bit and I preferred Arizona with Callie at that point, but she didn’t deserve to get unceremoniously fired a few episodes into being made a regular because the execs thought her wasn’t hot enough.

I’d love to hear the real inside scoop about what happened during “chokegate”. IW gave out 7 million conflicting accounts after he was let go and I wonder if the original gawker report was accurate or something even crazier went down. I have to say that IW has only himself to blame that he got fired. ABC/SR were well underway with sweeping it all under the rug and he opened it up again in the most stupid way possible by butting in at the Globes. After that and constant reports that the cast was at war with each other, the season when it took on CSI and won for the first time, ABC wasn’t going to risk it any further. If he’d kept his mouth shut at the GG he might still be employed on the show. It was so obvious on screen that SR and TRK never recovered from that. There were two episodes where I knew he wasn’t long for the show when he had one 20 second scene when Lexie tells him to go away and another where they’re stilling down to lunch and he gets up and walks away for no reason and with no explanation.

I wouldn't put it passed them for Derek to come back for a Denny or Kyle Chandler type Mergatory "closure" scene in S12. I'm sure PD would like it was stupid, but it could have been part of his exit agreement. Right now I'm going to be way more surprised if he actually survives.

I've been hope-watching/hate-watching shows since the back half of Buffy when I didn't even have a name for why I stilled watched a show that drove me crazy but I had loved so much that I kept hoping it would get better and/or Yeah I think for a lot of people in fandom, it can be a "Five stages of grieving" thing and fandom is a social thing and stepping away from a show means loosing touch with people who you enjoyed talking with about a show/book, which is often a lot of the reason you hang in there as long as possible. I do eventually give up on shows that I can't stand watching any more or just make me sad because they used to be awesome and IMHO aren't any more. And in a long running show, some seasons are better than others and sometimes showrunners and writers find a second wind after a saggy middle, and a lot of episodes have *something* I can appreciate. And I do like to see things through, or at the very least look up how they end when they do. I say this as someone who watched the final season of HIMYM with no intention of ever watching the previous two. I have only ever outright hate watched knowing it probably wasn't going to get much better was SGU. I'm ashamed that I almost took pleasure in that failing because the showrunners pissed so thoroughly on their previous (admittedly goofy) shows, actors and fans. With OUATiW I was pleasantly surprised about how much I enjoyed it after a rocky first couple of episodes.

I don't know. I do understand the concern but first it was panic that Liv was going to go the "Spuffy-ish" route and date the creepy "badish" guy and now that's probably blown out, there's freaking out that there's no sexual tension between her and any POC and the show is *only five episodes old*. I get the concern I really do and I get that its annoying that Asian men are so rarely the love interest but to call the show racist because Ravi right now only her friend/boss and Clive is only colleague is jumping the gun. Major has been her only real Love Interest so far and until the last ep his screentime hasn't been great either. She was a middle class white girl dating a middle class white man and is still hung up on him post zombiefication which is standard, baring Latina women the only people Liv has shown any potential interest in have been Zombies. If Ravi was Robert played with the same dialogue I don't see a romantic pairing with Liv at this stage, I really don't. a) He's personally and professionally fanboying her Zombie-ism and is geeking out and trying to be there for her and b) knows she thinks dating someone means zombiefing them. Ravi's arguably the most popular character on the show with fans but that doesn't have to mean he enters the Love Triangle of Doom of CW shows immediately. He's not a stereotype at the moment. He's an educated British Asian Doctor/Geek. Admitted British Asian doctors aren't hard to find IRL (I live in London) but they aren't often portrayed on US TV. That doesn't mean he or Clive won't enter the "main character love interest apocalypse" in the future. It also doesn't preclude entirely separate good storylines further down the road. And I think Rahul Kohli is going to make his name on iZombie far more than Robert Buckley is. If he and Clive enter S2ep5 with nothing more to do than they are currently doing and hanging around as ornaments to the great Liv/Major storyline then yeah that's bullshit but so far I don't see big problem.

Yeah one of the reasons I was drawn to this show in the first place (almost 10 years ago fuck me) was that it was told from a largely female POV and that female-female relationships weren't always abandoned in favour of fighting over guys. That said, Derek is a cipher and always has been. The first time he really had a storyline by himself was S5. And even then his family drama (Dad murdered in front of him) was truncated to a bare minimum whilst with Amelia it was mentioned as a massive part of her fucked up-ness almost every episode. Mer has the Gold Medal as far as every single type of family tragedy goes but Derek is in the running at least and it gets brushed under the carpet with "bad day all around". I think PD does mostly good work with what he's got but Derek is used to be reduced to nothing but a smug cipher and when he's featured its very obvious that he (and all the other male characters) are being written mainly by women. If Derek is getting killed off, Ellen will probably get some great material but I just can't watch another Mer dark and twisty stage, even if it totally within character and general grieving death of a spouse.

It's probably nothing to do with Derek but what with the speculation swirling around a "super secret" role being cast for next year made me thing it would fuel the rumours. Maggie might be a good bet I think.

Let the rumors that he's Derek's replacement begin.

Hmm, I've never really kept track of Loras enough to really tell if he's always been like that or not. I will say that he was incredibly stupid for going back to Olyvar, he's the clear winner of "source of the Sansa leak" competition and thus an incredibly indiscreet gossip at best and at worst a spy. I do think they're hitting a lot of tired sterotypes without also showing that he is actually a respected and powerful knight. On that note it was nice to see Lancel back. So getting bedded by Cersei is enough to drive a man to religious fanaticism to repress the memories. Hee. But I did enjoy that whole conversation between the two of them, even when he's got the Seven behind him, she still dominates him. I think there are characters in the books that either don't appear or die on screen that might be important to the way the books unfold but who's role can be junked or amalgamated for the show (sort of like a dew characters in Harry Potter and LOTR). But I guess its a good bet that they aren't going to get anywhere near the IT or have a pivotal role that can't be changed in the Winter/Dawn storyline. I didn't mind the nudity this episode, but it did feel a bit self conscious when they went to so much trouble to cover up male genitalia but not female. I thought the scene in the brothel worked fine. Not it was "necessary" as such but the show does like to go nude and it reminded us that the unsullied were eunuchs, and I liked the 10 second bit where the prostitute takes off her clothes by force of habit and is then briefly surprised. That whole scene was actually quite effective for me, including the sudden knife.

That first documentary is really cheesy I think. And it was like a car commercial or a random corporate "feel good about us" add which are always so vague. The shots of the e meter are really weird, and don't make me in the slightest bit interested in going to find out. Legitimate religions can't WAIT to give you their spiritual texts/messages, they'll hand out Bibles or which holy book and explain their interpretation of everything for as long as you allow them to, and you won't have to pay for the privilege of this knowledge. I was on the website of a random "spiritual pathway" (not sure how I stumbled onto it) and all I could find were vague promises of esoteric help and what you had to do to become a member and take a course AND HOW MUCH IT COST and I couldn't find a simple description of what they believed. That's when I realised it was a cult.

That's where Cersei's comment about horse riding comes in, bribing the Septas doing the ick investigation seems a surer route, and one that Sansa might grow into although it probably won't be an issue this book since she isn't Sansa marrying Harry.