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The Tattered Prince wanting Pentos baffled me. Is he intending to sack the city for simple revenge, or does he want to actually rule it? A sell-sword company of 500 people doesn't seem like an adequate nor qualified group to take control of a city with a population >100k. "You want Pentos? Umm, yeah, sure, we'll help you do that after I learn to ride a dragon [snicker]". Youtube video theorist Alt-Shift-X has a bunch of vidoes explaining some of the fan theories, both plausible and implausible, that are kind of interesting. He did a parodic video laying out the clues that point to Ser Pounce being the Prince that Was Promised, saying Tommen's three black kittens are children of Rhaenys's black cat and are therefore the three heads of the dragon. It was a joke about how fans can get a bit carried away with metaphorical interpretations.

Ali pushed Ian off the belltower to save Spencer, but it didn't kill him. IMK, in an interview post 6x10, said that Ian actually committed suicide. It made no sense. Unrelated topic: BrosWatchPLLToo podcast, they nicknamed Hanna's incomprehensible fiance "didgeridoo". I blurt laughed. Marco Sparks would read his dialog and rapidly devolve into complete gibberish, which pretty well mapped Jordan's accent.

MonA saving Aria's relationship with Ezra should also count, except she wasn't trying to kill the Liars so much as the audience.

They sure resolved that "object that can trap anything" plot pretty quickly. Still wish they'd killed Aya, I can't stand her. I'm looking forward to Cami's struggle with her new found vampirism. All this time on TVD and The Originals and they've never addressed that. Surprising.

/meekly raises hand. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I don't like Penny. Her introduction in Dance was interesting, and made a lot of sense to me that she'd blame Tyrion for her brother's death. Initially at least. When they were on the Stinky Steward, and she continued to blame him, I got annoyed with her. The chapter you just read cemented my dislike of her. She's so naïve about how the world really works that she reminds me of early Sansa, which is not a laudable comparison. I also find her character implausible. Supposedly her father and brother sheltered her as much as possible, but we know how dwarves are mistreated on Planetos, and they didn't have the protection of extreme wealth like Tyrion. They weren't even part of a mummer's troop. We're supposed to believe that three (then two) independent contractor dwarves traveled the world with a pig and a turkey and weren't robbed, raped, stabbed, sold into slavery or otherwise molested? This crapsack world? Not buying it. It's about as believeable is Doctor Talisa Medicine Woman. Unless Oppo kept her in a box and only brought her out for performances, I find it very hard to buy that she hasn't had multiple encounters with just how awfully dwarves get treated. I can agree with the bolded bit, since she sort of got Tyrion out of his "wherever whores go" do-loop. This chapter shows that Tyrion is finally becoming proactive again, so her usefulness to the plot has expired.

Spencer gets a manila folder with a few pages about each of the opposition's family members. Yvonne got the same on the Hastings, but Spencer's file required two movers and a forklift.

IIRC, when we last saw our hero, she just finished "The Iron Suitor" Victarion-finds-Moqqoro chapter. Given whose name is at the top of the next chapter, I assume she decided to take a breather.

That was pretty good, but once again the dramatic tension was ruined because we already knew that Theo's group would get there first because of the damn flash-forward. At least we're past all that and can move into unknown territory. I liked Scott's Alpha Roar and subsequent curb-stomping of the guards. As soon as Lydia's mom saw the blood at Eichen House, why didn't she call the cops? I'm sure Mary Sue Theo already knows this and has a work-around, or is actually plotting something else with the talons.

Are we supposed to think that Toby didn't propose because hearing that Caleb and Spencer were banging caused him to hesitate due to unresolved feelings (either for Spencer or Caleb)? I think if could also be because he realized that proposing at a family lunch was a stupid idea. How about something a little more romantic than in the middle of eating a pasta salad while her parents are probably wittering on about the campaign? Several dogs that didn't bark: 1. I expected someone to ask Spencer an uncomfortable question at that forum. 2. I expected Yvonne to zing her. 3. I expected Spencer to try to use something from the laughably bad Oppo research to zing Yvonne and have it backfire. 4. I expected EmojA to do something embarrassing at the forum (like the fashion show in season 1). Something that would wind up on a viral video like the campaign dude cautioned Spencer about. None of that happened, which was actually a nice surprise. I'm emoji-illiterate, so I didn't understand some of the texts (e.g., I didn't notice the bomb icon). Also, frankly, the show isn't holding my attention enough and I wind up doing other things, like folding laundry or watching a banana ripen, while watching, so it'd be nice for the characters to read the texts aloud so I don't have to watch the screen that constantly. That and the Ella flashback are classic Character Shilling. The writers are trying to make us care about Charlotte. It's not going to work. Even if they reveal that during her incarceration in the mental ward she developed cold fusion and found the cure for cancer, I'll still be glad she's dead. Not necessarily. At my university, "magna" => 3.75 GPA, "summa" = >3.9 GPA. If she graduated with a 3.8 but everyone else in her class was 3.7 or lower, she'd be top of the class Magna cum Laude.

Ugh, Charlotte is going to have another Night of a Thousand Encounters. Ezra saw her, then saw Byron talking to her, who will then have seen Eddie Lamb talking to her, who will have seen Mona talking to her, who will have seen the ghost of Wilden talking to her ad infinitum. I thought A stole the backup video and would use that at a later date to fuck with the girls. I guess Ashley will stick it in a lasagna box and Latest-A will steal it. Toby is dating a girl, which blows my Taleb theory out of the water. Oh well. Otherwise boring episode.

The only person in Stannis's retinue who speaks against Patchface is Mel -- if you're creeping out the Red Priestess, something is seriously wrong. Even Maester Cressen doesn't think anything of him, other than basically pitying him. Hmm, some sort of magic at work, charming the Dragonstone crew, that only Mel can see through? Maybe. Vic provides the fleet, Moqorro provides Dany with information, specifically that she has the support of the followers of the Red God. Back when Tyrion and Jorah were in Volantis, that lady at the docks (I forget her name) indicated that some of the Volantine slaves see Dany as a liberator. Tyrion also noticed that most of the people at the Red Temple were slaves. The Volantine fleet that's behind Victarion is carrying a slave army, with probably a large fraction of them being R'hlor worshippers -- I wonder if one of the twists will be that they will turn on their masters once they reach her.

Alayne:

You add in Aunt Gemma and cousin Devan and it seems like the Lannisters who weren't directly under Tywin's thumb actually came out pretty decent. I wonder if Lancel would have been normal if he hadn't attracted Cercei's ... attentions. Book 5 spoiler: It doesn't pay to be a singer in Westeros it seems. Mark Smeaton, err I mean Blue Bard got railroaded, Marrilion lost his eyes then jumped to his death, Tyrion had someone chopped up into a stew, Daeron got fed to the eels by Arya. At least the last three were somewhat unsympathetic, poor BB was just a good singer. Makes me fear for Tom-o-Sevens, the BwoB spy currently wintering in Riverrun with the Freys.

I really don't want Val to be right, because it plays in to the irritating trope of "science [the maesters] is wrong and superstition is right.“ The Weeper isn’t in Tormund’s group. Jon was answering the hypothetical question “would you let even the Weeper through too?” His answer of “yes, if he agrees to defend the wall; we can’t pick and choose” was morally correct but practically unworkable. He might let the Weeper through, and the Weeper might even agree to defend the wall, but it wouldn’t be long before someone shanked him, making the tensions between the NW and the Wildlings all that much worse.

It's like poetry. It rhymes, each stanza rhymes with the last one. I can see what they're going for. Shower's hand injury parallels the Jenna Thing's blinding. Subconsciously, the PLLs could be connecting the two, and the guilt they felt over Jenna's blinding is expressing as guilt over Shower's maiming. But good grief, talk to a therapist -- your subconscious is making a connection that just isn't there. Sara's injury was: 1. Not due to any of their actions 2. Not something any of them could prevent 3. Entirely her own fault. It's nothing like the Jenna Thing. The only thing the PLLs could have done differently was beat her unconscious before she had the opportunity to grab the wires. It was fortuitous that she did get injured, otherwise she could have rearmed the bomb and blown them all to smithereens when the Liars ran off to stop Charlotte. While I'm ranting, another thing that bugged me: Shower apparently told the judge that Charlotte brainwashed her so she wasn't responsible for her own part in tormenting the PLLs, including the bomb. Really? When? Sara disappeared the same time as Ali, right before their sophomore year. Charlotte didn't become A until after Mona went to Radley the summer before their senior year. Sara was already working for Charlotte by the time of the Thornhill Lodge fire (she was one of the red coats there), which happened sometime between Halloween and Christmas. She became brainwashed rather quickly, didn't she? Granted, November of that year was 38 weeks long but still. Maybe she spent the previous 2 years at a wholesale brainwashing facility, and Charlotte got her off a Craigslist ad for "Minions-R-Us'. No judge in the world should have bought her story. "Yeah, you injured yourself when you were trying to blow up a building. Sorry about your hands, but you're still guilty of multiple counts of attempted murder, arson, and terrorism. See you in 75 years or so". Nevermind, I forgot that the Rosewood judicial system is just as inept as the PD, medical, dental, and educational systems. "I was attempting to derail this train carrying tons of toxic waste in the middle of town so people would be killed or possibly turned into mutants, but I failed and got a hangnail in the process!" "You're free to go, and the state will pay for your manicurical therapy."

Nice to see the plots converging instead of 4 parallel lines. It was also nice to see that Lydia's flash-forward escape wasn't totally futile -- her scream somehow blew out the lights in the warehouse and distracted The Desert Wolf long enough for Malia to escape. Theo got the blue-talons-of-power-stealing, and wants to steal the power from the Beast of [garbled French]. Yeah, those talons didn't even work on Scott, who's just a regular Alpha, how are they going to work on this ginormous cartoon? The CGI when the Beast was looking into the warehouse where Deaton was looked really bad. Like MS-Paint bad.

Unless we go with my Brokeback Mountain theory and (which I'm never letting go) and Toby is jealous of Spencer for stealing his man. #TeamTaleb

I'm looking at the unfortunate love triangle from Caleb's POV. He and Hanna broke up, likely several years ago. Hanna has a fiancé. He is absolutely a free agent and can date whoever he wants. Even if she still has feelings for him, too bad so sad. I'm pretty sure Devil-A will at some point kidnap the eggs. Or swap out Emily's syringes so she's actually injecting heroin instead of hormones.

Hanna getting together with Lucas would have all sorts of unfortunate implications. "I thought of you as a friend, almost like a pet during highschool. Now that you're a success and have lots of money I'm there baby." Ugh. Nerdy kid in highschool makes it big is such a cliche already, they really don't need to add making Hanna a golddigger on top of it. Speaking (errr, typing) of Lucas, Hanna said, "Aren't you in Chicago?" He replied "Seattle, but I sold that company and now I make apps". Are we supposed to believe that he started his own company, sold it, and started a new venture in 5 years? If dweeby Lucas can become filthy rich in 5 years, Mona should have conquered a small country in the same amount of time.

I thought Hanna was wearing a judo outfit and was late for a lesson with Karate Jake.

When Emily was confronting Shower Harvey at the bar, I really wanted her to just rab the back of Sara's head and slam it into the bar. Repeatedly. Otherwise blah episode. Em selling her eggs, Aria ghost writing Ezra's next book, blah. Shirtless Liam was... shirtless. But not that great.

I think part of that is their unnecessary pattern of "must have big stuff happen in episode 9". It was really evident in season 4 with the endless meandering of the wildlings south of the wall, but season 5 had a lot of it too. It just seems really weird to me that they'd stick with something so formulaic, considering they were willing to violate it with the Purple Wedding being episode 2. Even in the DVD commentary for that episode, someone mentions that it was a nice change-up, because people wouldn't be expecting something so momentous that early in the season. Well, yes, it was a nice change up, so do it again. I'm torn on the differences between book!Meereen and show!Meereen. On the one hand, the show cut all the political intrigue and danger from outside forces (Yunkai, Tolos, New Ghis) and made Dany into a simple conqueror of Slaver's Bay. No fall-out from that besides the Sons of the Harpy insurrection. Nothing about how the peace after conquest was a lot harder than the conquest itself. Also, Dany never had any self-doubts. She'd conquered Slaver's Bay but "this is not my home." On the other hand, I thought most of Meereen was boring as hell in the books, so I'm glad they didn't try to translate it to screen. It would have made the pacing problems that much worse.

I'd suggest changing it to rabbits instead, but that'd lead into a huge riff on Monty Python and I'm already displaying an inordinate amount of nerdiness. Book 5:

They definitely fell in love with the character they created. And to be honest, I liked Ramsey in previous seasons (except for the torture porn that was way overdone). His methods for breaking Theon and creating Reek were psychological and cunning. I particularly liked the scene where he bathes Theon before sending him against Moat Cailin. Then they ramped up his evilness and his Sue-ness because he was supposed to be a replacement for Joffrey as "the character you love to hate". Yeah, no, I just hated him. You seemed to have misspelled "turkeys".

Great, now I'm going to start doing that in other contexts. "Smithers, release the turkeys" "Cry havoc and loose the turkeys of war!"