Potanical Pardon

I think we got an Elektra shoutout here, re: the Greek woman who took Spanish with Matt in college.

I just finished bingeing it all. Having read the comics here and there, I love Stick. After seeing him on the show, wow, I love the interpretation and the actor. They're not exactly the same in personality, but it's definitely still the same character if that makes sense. The actor is just awesome.

Not before my man, Donatello (R.I.P.)! I badly wanted Spencer to say "Okay, Butchie, instead!" when his mom shooed him back to the gate.

Donald's "Interesting..." at the end with his nodding children. Of course these three would find fascination with honor, class and genuine inspiration.

Whoa, she's 42?! I had to know because I knew she looked late 50sish, but had a feeling she was some 50ish looking bad plastic surgery result on a 30 year old. And I totally thought instead of a Real Housewife, she was that one umm photobomber character with the horrible lips and tacky style that Dlisted, or whichever blog, has that's always winning Hot Slut of the Day. ITA: Phoebe Price...that's it.

When I was a kid, I assumed Leeza Gibbons was Debbie Gibson's big sister.

Probably going to laugh at me, but... She's among the other 2/3 of the contestants I've never heard of...well not exactly not heard of...the name I've heard here and there, seen in grocery store checkout aisles. But I've never become attached to what she looks like or any details, nothing. So...in my own head canon, I've told myself for years and assumed that she was Ryan Gosling's (never bothered to clarify the spelling of her name) sister who wasn't engaging at anything like in a Frank Stalone/Eric Roberts sort of way...Zsa Zsa Gabor, even, in that she's just related to someone else more known but desperately puts their self out there. And that she wrote a blog/column in one of those mom magazines about a bunch of kids she has that may or may not be her own or she runs a daycare or something and may have gotten one of the housemom channels to give her a show about it. And that she may or may not be a Mormon or fundamental Christian, but like the kind that tries to convince the world that they're just like everyone else and open-minded (Osmond-y). I dunno. So imagine my surprise (and letdown) when I finally felt compelled enough to wiki her just for this show.

Gilbert Godfried is mindfucking everyone there - fellow contestants, Trumps, and court jester/cheering squads like Piers. I have a feeling he's learned from his spiritual predecessors on how not to go too far: Penn and Tom Green, and to tow the line when it comes to having to choose between continuing to slip in digs and commentary at the farce that this all is or breaking character and getting righteous ala Adam Carolla. And for now I'm on Ian's side. I can always root for an aww shucks guy/gal. So far he comes across as having the humility we all wish Stevie B had at their comparable umm level. Like you can tell mispronouncing his name or being presumed to be among the bottom of the fundraising list even AFTER it was made known that he was not hurts his feelings, but not in a chip-on-his-shoulder sort of way. I like the two Olympians as well. They seem very "What are we doing here?!" but not like deer in headlights. They seem pretty chill and whatevs and are ready to snark on the Housewives, Kate, Vivica, Geraldo and whomever else needs their egos kept in check.

There's no way that mullet's story has any credibility. Last season, I was sure but for no reason...this episode I'm sure because his "explanation" sounded like a plot from a video game...he even references "red rings" as in a prevalent Xbox 360 flaw...he's totally some couch junkie video game geek using people to stay alive for as long as possible.

Fuck clowns. I'm out.

I have a strong feeling that it's going to end up being Mace Tyrell. I can see GRRM thinking it would be all kinds of lulz for it to be him after the last line of Hands. Cersei gets out of her betrothal to Loras while throwing a bone to the Tyrells/Olena/Margaery by maintaining their assistance with getting out of debt by putting Mace there. This also serves the Tyrells by maintaining their own position of power and buying time for Margaery to do her thing as far as getting on Tommen's good side. I'm sure Cersei doesn't want any of this but will just have to.

I'm completely sold on Lyanna. And Rhaegar. That's the best possible scenario story wise and dramatically that I can see come out of that.

I think the point of this was in Arya's own twisted kind of way she was giving the Hound what he wanted. It was a callback to the farmer family that the Hound robbed point blank because he was going to be "dead anyways." Arya taking the Hound's gold was her way of saying "Thanks for taking care of me and look I learned your life lessons well. At the same time I'm still going to go about it all MY WAY. I'm not going to put you out of your misery myself." The Hound seemed to figure this out even though he was still pleading and yelling after her to finish him off - proving to Arya that he really didn't believe that aspect of his own philosophy after all.

Man I really hope she isn't. Remember that Ned didn't even want to tell Bobby B who his mother was. Ned's supposedly all super-noble and all about the honor. So he getting some on the sly does not compute. He married Cat because his older brother was supposed to (or did, I can't remember) and he loved/loves her. He's Mr. Black and White, no room for "Well, just maybe this once." And he promised to tell Jon who his mother was once Jon returned from the Night's Watch training or Ned's return to him (I also can't recall which here) but it definitely felt like a "this is the kind of news I want to make sure you're ready for before I drop the bomb." Personally, I don't think that Ned's even his dad also. I think that whoever his true parents are is some super-secret for Jon's protection. I'm leaning towards a not-dead Targaryen kid kind of similar to how most of Westeros thinks Bran and Rickon are dead...Targaryen mainly because Ned showed up with the kid to Cat right after Robert's Rebellion. Plus, we saw how trigger-happy Bobby B is when it comes to surviving Targaryens. Ned even flipped out and quit being the Hand when Robert set out to actively assasinate Danerys. If Jon is one then that's a pretty good reason why Ned would keep that from Robert. When did Ned's older brother die? Maybe it's his kid and he didn't want to hurt Cat's feelings one way even though it would hurt her a completely other way by her thinking he's Ned's. Or do we know why Benjen wanted to join the Night's Watch? Maybe that honor thing runs in the family and for whatever reason felt shame for having a kid so he joined up. Did they ever tell us where he was during the Rebellion? We already know that Jon and he have a close relationship. As for Melisandre, I think maybe Jon is her next step to whatever for the Lord of Light in the same way Stannis was the previous step to get to this point.

So I guess at some point the guards break into Varys' chambers and find random dude in a box. Poor guy. "Hello? Is anyone out there? I'm all alone and hungry something fierce. Please feed me even though you're torturing me." I LOVE LOVE LOVE the added layer of Tywin sleeping with Shae/probably many other whores. It adds SO MUCH to why he hates Tyrion. Time after time, he's reminded of how much Tyrion is truly his father's son. I'm hoping this additional hypocrisy is also why his quarters weren't well guarded since he's pretty publicly anti-whoring, so he'd probably want to hide that. No way. Cersei is nowhere close to being that smart. She's just slightly ahead of Ned Stark when it comes to brains.

I hope so. I don't think that it would be too much. It's pretty basic time-travel stuff when it comes to her. And we already know from the trailer that they're not going to shy away from time-travel/alternate futures. Besides, you can't have The Flash without a healthy dose of time-travel/alternate universe stuff.

Wait. They gave her the last name, Snow? Aww man. From her appearance in Arrow with and her red hair, I presumed that "Caitlin" was Caitlin Fairchild. Boo. Well, seeing how they're playing fast and loose with character relationships on Arrow, I can see how they might do the same with Killer Frost and Captain Cold. Don't forget Weather Wizard is there too. As for being cold-based in relation to The Flash, The Flash's powers involve speed - excited molecules. Cold slows down that excitement.

The new Rewind for S4E6, "The Laws of Gods and Men" is up:

Chloe could have done a WAY better job arguing the merits of her freedom of information philosophy instead of looking all "I got nothing" when Jack shouted at her the dangers of those abusing such information. Eh, but it's 24 so the prop machine is running strong. I hope she gets rid of the Rob Smith look fast and I look forward to the awkward scene of junior hacker CTU somehow being recruited to fill the seats of CIA London.

So the man who took off the hand that pushed out Bran was killed by a hand that was controlled by Bran.

Great minds. As soon as I heard about Craig leaving, I immediately thought "Amy Sedaris! They (CBS) are going to want someone that meshes seamlessly with Colbert." Aisha Tyler would be okay. Joel McHale too (but I want Community to keep going still).

I have a feeling she's not. We know the judges are going to be Tywin, Mace (her son), and Oberyn. Knowing that the Tyrell women run everything, it's a pretty safe bet that he'll vote against what everyone thinks is Tywin's wishes and do what she wants. Oberyn, I think just wants to keep hassling the Lannisters, so he's probably thinking along the same lines of saying 'yes' to Tywin when he really intends to not. I think the wildcard as far as that judgment is actually Tywin, whom I believe wants everyone to think he's siding with Cersei/Joffrey's interest. I don't think the obviousness of Tyrion's innocence in the matter has been lost on him, though that wouldn't matter to him except for the sole fact that Tyrion is his only hope of continuing on the Lannister name which seems incredibly important to him. It can't be Jamie, because of the Kingsguard and he not wanting Casterly Rock, so the only thing Tywin has left to hope for is a possible heir from Tyrion's future children. The poison necklace + Dontos's body on the little boat will somehow come back into play during the trial. I think Lady O somehow got word from Littlefinger about Dontos' body being ready to take the blame. Tyrion's situation was unforseen but wouldn't alter their plan which we now know always involved saving and escaping with Sansa. If Littlefinger is telling the truth (hah) about Sansa being safe at the Eyrie, and in a way he has to be if he intends to keep her around/nearby for whatever his plans with her are, then he must also know and have planned for a way to stop or minimize any realm-wide pursuit for her. House Arryn/Lyssa still considers themselves not part of the realm so their armies and forces would add comfort to Littlefinger's expectation of Sansa's security even though he's supposed to be going over there to bring them back into the fold. Ahh, Breaking Bad! I knew I recognized that name. Maybe they'll let her redo some poorly executed scenes in the past. Or the Thor guy.

I thought WW-on-horse was the Lich King, but now I guess Darth Maul is. At the Fortress of Solitude, I was half-expecting him to absorb the baby's youth like the Imhotep did in Mummy 2. I find it extremely interesting that for some reason, Littlefinger can be his completely unlying true self to Sansa. Easily my favorite scene because that girl is FINALLY in the company of a role-model suitable to guide her in the true ways of the world and not coddle her...even if he's a creepy uncle type. Gods know her parents nor anyone else never did her any favors in that regard. For a brief moment I thought the show was fixing their mishap from the end of last season showing adorned-in-blue Daenerys crowd surfing the sea of brown-washing. Then they showed her parading little brown children on a path of shackles like Princess Di used to, photographer completely conscious of keeping the brown out of focus enough to dehumanize. That Targaryen banner is awesome. I know Dany's got the money and labor but who made that thing? And with such accuracy true to her house sigil. Was Joffrey's Valyrian steel sword buried with him? I hope Tommen or someone gets it if not. I can't see Tywin allowing something that valuable to go wasted. As for Jamie, after reading interviews the past week with GRR, writers and directors, I'm gonna chalk up his portrayal then to poor directorial decisions so I can appreciate his redemption arc. His scenes this episode that he's even sort-of named after make much more sense ignoring that scene. I can't wait to see if the tease pays off with Summer/Bran/Ghost meet up and if even Jon Snow and the Crows cross their paths. Line of the episode: "Joffrey didn't like him. He threatened to skin him alive. Mix his inners up in my food so I wouldn't know I was eating him."

Found ourselves in Canton, Ohio the other day...WOW what a weird city that is. I'm so confused about everything about it. Most of it is meth-head nomads sitting around or crossing the street or mega-churches. (And what's up with a post office not having a drive-through drop-off lane? I've never seen that in stand-alones.) It's like a weird time warp there - gentrification without any budget or signs of restoration and it's as if everything is from the 50s-early 70s, aged and weathered since then...with a cowboy twist. Very mid-20th century automobile town (which it is, so naturally) with an abandoned vibe to it like Anthony Bourdain's recent visit to Detroit yet with tons of people in muted colors. EVERYTHING is greys and browns, whether it's due to dirt or choice of clothing, and the numerous rusty cars from 30 years ago. Anyways, my girlfriend insisted that we HAD to visit Candy Apples since we were there-ish. Yelp told us it was 11 minutes away, so off we went. We totally stalkerazzi-ed the place which both looked like what I expected and not at the same time. It's as small as it seems on-screen. I figured that it was part of some lonesome building off a sort-of main road. It is, I suppose. It's behind some used car dealership and a bunch of 1970's ranch residential housing. I had completely forgotten about Cathy's husband's general store/random stuff business sharing the building and being next door, so I LOLed at the first sight of "JERKY" in bold red right next to the Candy Apples sign. (They have free jerky, fyi.) We didn't linger too long because that's the ultimate creep factor as we also saw parked cars with dance-related bumper stickers and decals parked there as well. I tried to get my girlfriend to go inside and pretend we were looking around for a dance studio for our non-existent child because we irrationally had a compelling need to know whether Cathy's group-of-the-moment was going to be yet another all-boy competition fix or another supergroup recruitment from across the nation. She wussed out, so sorry, no scoops.

I have a feeling that is the point of her arc. It's not just to simply gain an army and go storm Westeros for her birthright. As Tywin even said this episode, what would be the point of that? She'd just be the same as Robert - a winner doesn't make a good ruler. Her arc, I believe is to show her growing and learning how to rule a people. She's going to quickly have to confront the other side of freeing slaves - it's nice and great, noble, yadda-yadda, but you can't just go freeing people and expect world peace. She's destabilizing economies in Esos and as you said will quickly realize that she's going to have to find a way to make all these followers of hers maintain not just loyalty, but its own new economy along with keeping them well fed, healthy, skilled/trained, and frankly just happy. These lessons will/would probably serve her well if she ever did return to Westeros and ended up ruling again. Davos was hanging out with Stannis back when Stannis was part of Robert's Small Council (even though we never saw it...but he was mentioned as being part of it for years, like Renly), so he would be well aware of Robert's reign involving many loans being taken out under the realm's name via Littlefinger's oversight as Master of Coin. He knows Westeros was in debt then, and still is now as we see of utmost concern to Tywin, hence Tywin needing the Tyrell's money to help pay things off. Ned brought up the loans during the tournament nonsense. Tyrion even has a line in the episode where he's studying about finance with Bronn, in particular with loans. Bronn asks, "What if you don't pay it back?" and Tyrion shares that the Iron Bank will always find a way to get paid, including financing the enemies. This is what Davos gleamed on. He suddenly realized, whoa, he can get the support of the Iron Bank to finance ships and armies to take back Westeros in return for them getting paid back. Ygritte, the Thenns and other Wildlings attacked the villagers specifically to draw out the Night's Watch towards them so that The Wall would be weakened for Mance's attack. This is part of Mance's plan. That said, Mance still thinks there are 1000+ Night's Watchmen, from Jon's lie to him. This is why Jon also prompts the Night's Watch that they have to go back to Craster's and kill the mutineers, because once Mance gets to Craster's he's going to realize quickly that Jon lied to him (by torturing the mutineers for info) and that there are only 100 max (if we include Maester Aemon) Night's Watchmen and will know that he and the Wildlings don't have to be cautious at all and can easily destroy the Night's Watch and get passed The Wall. I'm an instant fan of Oberyn and so I'm hoping that he's smart enough to realize that he can still dick over Tywin and not go through with any part of the offered deal because Tywin needs him more than the Martells need him. Council seat, The Mountain for his vote? Nah not enough.