DoctorAtomic

Moiraine also said that Lanfear was totally in love with Lews in this episode before Rand conked out. If she thinks Rand *is* Lews (speculation not spoiler), she's thinking this time around she can have him or just totally mess with his mind as revenge. She's the cougar here. Rand is what? 23? She actually succeeded. He told her he was in love with her. If Moiraine didn't show up when she did, it's entirely possible Lanfear drags Rand in front of the Dark One. That she was able to pull it off so easy is alarming. Regardless of Dragon, Rand can channel and he's powerful; i.e., Anakin situation. That's a big coup in the Foresaken game of thrones. Also, he might be really good at teh secks, so added bonus for her.

We don't have confirmation that Min's visions are reliable either iirc. Why were Darth Vader and Palpatine separately training apprentices? Why was Palpatine pitting Anakin and Dooku off each other? Palpatine could have easily killed Anakin when he was a little boy.

I'm finally getting around to taking a crack at the Origins book!

If we're being technically correct, which is the best kind of correct, Rand thinks he is the Dragon because the Machin Shin, which may not be a reliable narrator, told him, and Moiraine thinks he is the Dragon based on some prophecy fragments. Moiraine originally thought that the any of the 5 could have been the Dragon, thought that Ny at one point could have been. I think it's more accurate to say Rand is afraid he is the Dragon. He can't control channeling and he knows he's eventually going to go nuts because Logain isn't particularly stable right now. However, there hasn't been any hypothesis testing here. Your null hypothesis is that Rand is the Dragon. If we reject that, was Logain actually the Dragon, but they ended up gentling him because he was legitimately unhinged and could have done a lot of damage? They didn't have any other actionable information. I think that's the false negative. The false positive would be that they think Rand is the Dragon, but there's someone else who actually is. I'm actually having more of an academic discussion than is needed because I enjoy the whole philosophy of this universe. If you're a guy, and you discover you can channel, wouldn't you think you might be the Dragon? Ish and Lanfear think he is the Dragon, but they haven't really talked about why they think so.

You can go to the book thread and ask us too. We don't shut up about the show. We can hit spoiler bars on major things. The Whitecloaks are an uber religious independent army kind of like in the Crusade times, and they are not fans of Aes Sedai. They use 'the Light' to justify a lot. Personally, I think they're a waste of time because I just can't buy in that an independent army is basically tromping all over Europe. The people in cages are Aiel, from far in the East. In this episode, Valda said he was concerned that they were this far West because last time, there was a big war (already shown on the show). They're a completely different culture. I didn't see any more Aiel around, and Perrin was clearly disturbed by seeing another person caged like an animal. That wasn't in the books, but it's good character development on the kind of person Perrin is. The 'Dragon' is supposed to be the 'chosen one' who fights the Dark One every so often. That's as general as I should get right now. Yes. He is, but that guy is high up in the Seanchan empire. Ishamael threw in with a lower ranked person, and it looked like he wasn't too happy about it. He has to kind of play a little politics here because he's only one person, so he's basically pulling some strings to get them to do what he wants. This was not in the books. If you look at the scene again, the 'channel' lines were black and not more ephemeral. I took it to be that there is another source that healed her. I wouldn't be surprised if she was chopped up that she'd be reassembled.

I can buy that too when he was originally supposed to be who everyone thought he was. On the other hand, powerful male channelers was rare. So if Taim is just a guy, what's he going to think? Taim saying, 'Well, I'm going to milk this' seems entirely reasonable to me. However, being a powerful channeler doesn't mean he didn't think he might actually be the Dragon. I don't place much stock in prophecies either, but they're a big deal in this universe because of the wheel. So they're both predictions and historical records even if they're nonsensical most of the time. Even Moiraine wasn't ever big on them. I always laugh when she asking Rand what the hell he's doing, and he says, 'well, the prophecy says this is what I do here', and she's all, 'no, that's not how it works.' So even she doesn't really hold hard and fast to them.

Where is Barbie streaming?

I was just joking around because warm beer is awful.

I always like Bender's "fancy word for ________." That was a weird framing device. I don't know why they just didn't do Tales of Interest with toys.

No, I think they meant that the show is still on Max to watch and not Max removing the show entirely from the site.

From what I read, it sounds like it was going to be the last season because they filmed the additional '5 days later' afterwards. I don't know why they did just argue for an extra episode to wrap up or just extend this final episode to 90 minutes or so, if only to squeeze in 1985.

He called Carr an old jalopy because he wasn't getting any minutes.

I'd say special circumstance because he was taking Sheridan with him.

Trailer and mildly spoilery article.

Maybe not. She's taking an active role going to the Tower and wanted to talk to the other three. By definition, Brown is essentially research, so it's good cover by TPTBs to deliver exposition in an entertaining way.

She only wore that costume in Carhein, where her family are high nobility. I think she was only wearing it for appearances. The nobility in this nation are very game of thrones. Common people are going to react to her being the eldest Damodred than if she's flashing the Aes ring around.

Taim could legitimately channel, and he was really strong. At the time, there's no reason to think he wouldn't be the dragon.

The Celtics destroyed the Rockets in 86. The conferences go back and forth. I'd say Jordan benefitted from a weaker east in the 90s. The Celtics just got older. The Pistons couldn't beat them until they did.

I think she unshielded all of them, but actually freed Ny. I need a spin off series that's just Brown Ajah. All they do is have drinks and talk about history.

I just saw. It's not like HBO is massively ratings driven. I hope they shop it around. I hope they win a few awards to up the show value.

What a great opener with Musburger. I barely, barely remember 1984. I didn't know Magic choked it in Game 2. I do remember the 21 assists. I can't imagine being in the Garden for a game 7. No offense, Red, but there really wasn't another Bird. Great discussion with West and Magic about making the other players better. That goes a long way even outside of sports. Again, don't know if it was real life, but I could see Magic being about beating Bird than LA versus Boston. Not showing game 7 and only West was brilliant. I'm not buying the Buss and Honey plot. I don't get all the hostility. I get why she's mad, but I'm not seeing the years of abuse she's intimated. The fact that he just forgot about filing the papers doesn't seem overly egregious for Buss. I liked when Bird just looked at the camera and said "We got him." I don't know if that's how it happened, but totally makes sense. And Bird just drains it over Magic. Wow. I don't recall Magic d'ing up Bird. I doubt irl Riley would put Magic on him. Although on the show here, they may be making a point that Magic isn't playing the team. They're scoring tons of points in these games. It's like now, and the rules are way tighter today in terms of pushing people around. They had hannndchecking back then too. And they shoot 3s so much more now. That's a lot of baskets to get in the 130s with not many threes. Now, you're talking 30% of shots are 3s. Also, no way Kareem fouls out today either. I had no idea Rambis had groupies. I like how they just show Jack Nicholson whooping it up all the time. He had one line hazing Carr. So great. Bird and his mother was a great scene too. You don't want too much of him. That was just enough. Obviously, this is one of my top shows, so I would have liked 8 or 10 episodes. They glossed over the 76ers series, both of them, and here, we got 2 seconds of Kareem in game 6. I would have liked some more time on that because their backs were against the wall. I know you can't have actors playing too much basketball, but they could have more in-game scenes. Hughes is killing it as Kareem. I cannot believe he decked that guy! I do think ending on the 1984 Finals makes sense narratively because the Lakers dominate the rest of the decade. Really, they went to the finals 8 times from 1980-89. That's ridiculous. It hasn't happened since. This is it for the show? That's criminal. Maybe Starz will take a shot like they did with Minx.

I think Mon Mothma said to Hera over the hologram.

I can't say I'm a fan of Taim, but he's got a legitimate argument against the women. They never really got into the false Dragons much. In the sense that they legitimately thought they were the Dragon, but were proven not to be.

There are "functioning alcoholics." Taim could just be really tough. He always struck me as a guy who could deal out some punches.

I only watched the episodes once, but I think the baby sith infiltrated Sabine's domicile and saw the recording with Ezra. So she would have reported that back to Baylan. There's more of a dramatic impact if Baylan, with that intelligence, doesn't use the force on Sabine and just says, "this is the only way you'll be able to find Ezra". Sure, he's got some advanced knowledge, but he gives his word to her, and it came across to me as legitimate. I think he thought that she could destroy the map. He doesn't need her to come along, so why waste time? He could have just force pulled the map out of her hand; clearly, having her give it over willingly was a key plot point.