Is Everyone Gone

Yeah Aemond seemed like a decent enough kid. Another thing that damaged all of Alicent's kids is that she only sees them as chess pieces. She never seems to care about them as people. It really reminds me of Logan Roy whining that his kids weren't "serious people." Why do you think they're like that Logan? Because he always pitted them against each other and showed them no empathy.

I think the main difference between HotD and GoT is that on GoT, there were a number of people who were pretty good leaders, but circumstances got in the way. You could have made a case for Tywin, Cersei, Tyrion, Jaime, Sansa, Jon, and Dany to be leaders. This doesn't mean they were good people or compassionate leaders. Just that they had the qualities of leadership. They were smart and wily and resilient. On HotD, each choice is worse than the last. Everyone is weak, undecisive, impulsive, and in many cases flat out dumb. It's way more realistic but the stakes seem lower, because really, who would actually be a good king/queen of Westeros?

Also hats off to Olivia Cooke and Fabian for they so perfectly convey the characters' fundamental dislike of each other, despite being in a situationship.

I think it's because I first got familiar with Smith when he played Prince Philip on The Crown, and he had this sneering swagger that later versions of Philip totally lacked. So I kind of see that in his Daemon too. But speaking of royal mothers not being very involved, in Westeros at least we've seen that Rhaenyra is decent, and Helaena appears to be a loving, involved mom. Ali's shittiness as a mom has always stood out even by Westeros royal standards. Hell, Cersei was more affectionate with her kids.

I feel like Tom Glynn-Carney gives an extremely empathetic, emotional performance of a character that is supposed to be 100% loathsome. I feel like on the other hand, Matt Smith gives an extremely detached, cold performance that makes viewers dislike Daemon more than it's intended?

Alicent reminds me a lot of Sir Caroline Collingswood of Succession. Awful distant mother who is never there for her kids when they need her. Her turning her back on Aegon when Aegon was genuinely grieving the loss of his son and going to bang Cole was a move I think would have embarrassed even Sir Caroline.

This episode just highlighted how great of an actor Tom Glynn Carney is. With Aegon comatose, the episode felt deader. Tom brings such energy to every scene he's in. He actually reminds me a bit of Nicholas Hoult's performance in The Great. Like you knew that whatever scene it was, Hoult would bring insane energy to it.

Anyone think Aemond is actually the best choice to lead at the moment? He's not a good person (nobody on Team Green is, and neither is Team Black tbh), but he appears to be calm and calculating.

Alicent to Cole: well bye bitch. You're useless and I never liked you anyway. I liked the council meeting where Ali realized just how little authority she really had as everyone just talked over her. I am really, really tired of the pervy Daemon dreams. It's overplayed by now. This time he bangs his mum?

So apparently Princess Kate will be at the mens' finals tomorrow. I'm glad she's feeling better.

I feel like for whatever reason women's gymnastics tends to attract harsh perfectionists. I think Simone, Gabby, Nastia, Shawn, Shannon Miller, Aly, etc were/are all like that. They're in their feelings after a minor bobble. It can be hard to watch as well bc they just seem so intense and so harsh on themselves.

I don't think USA is losing. They didn't lose in Tokyo and that team had Javale McGee, Keldon Johnson and Jerami Grant. As for Canada they don't have Andrew Wiggins, who has been going through a shit ton of personal problems the last 2 years. A lot of Twitter rumors about what they are.

I think it's sad that Ali's kids weren't raised with love and care, so they don't have love and care for each other. Rhaenyra's kids love each other because Rhaenyra was a loving mom.

So I know it was just an exhibition game, but Team USA vs Canada was an interesting matchup. A few thoughts: - Embiid struggled. He got into foul trouble, and was a bit too slow for the small guards that dominated Canada. - Lebron, AD, Steph, Tatum, Ant Edwards, Devin Booker, Jrue all looked really good. - Tyrese Haliburton also looked very good. Team needs a pure passer/floor general and that's what he was. Also did not have him playing lockdown defense on Jamal Murray on my bingo card. - Once we get Kevin Durant back I think the starting lineup will be: AD, KD, Lebron, Ant/Book and Steph. - Canada is an excellent team too. Jamal Murray struggled again. So (shockingly) did SGA. But once they get in the groove it could be a real medal contender.

Brown has said some ... uh, questionable things. Like he seemed to agree with Kyrie about the anti-Semitic stuff and also the flat earth and anti-vaccine stuff. Also, he called out Nike for unsponsoring Kyrie. Nike is a big sponsor of the Olympics. Grant Hill is the US National Team coordinator and he seems to want fairly wholesome players. Like whatever you think about Lebron or Steph as people, they're fairly inoffensive off the court.

Yes that's it. I also think there's a boredom factor for the Colicent grossmance. Now that Ali is more a Queen mum than actual Queen she doesn't have that much to do. Her kids are grown and she hates them.

I'm kind of confused about the Alicent/Cole relationship. Other than banging, they don't seem to like each other at all. They don't trust each other. Alicent doesn't respect him. Although I'm not a big Alicent fan, I wish she had SOMEONE on her team she liked and respected.

One of the ones that keeps popping up is that Paul McCartney bought letters from John Lennon that Cynthia Lennon had put on auction. This one has already been partially debunked by snopes for years. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/john-lennon-love-letters/ Now it is true that Paul McCartney was very supportive to Cynthia following her divorce from John.

I mean, this was one of the few good decisions Alicent made in the series. The world does not need Colicent spawn.

I really loved that convo between Tina and Mikey because I'm glad we got to see why people were loyal to Mikey. It reminded me of what people said about Robin Williams. That yes he was bipolar, yes he was addicted to all sorts of substances, but he was also genuinely kind and good. That was Mikey. He listens to Tina, he empathizes with her, he shares his own experiences (without ever talking down to her), and then he offers her a job, but gives her a way out. Beautifully done.

I think Djokovic just doesn't have the humor or charisma to be a real fun tennis villain. He comes across as so self-serious and sort of a gamebot. People like Tom Brady, they have a real "I don't give a f__k what y'all think, I'm just going to win" energy. You might not like it, but you respected it. Djokovic comes across as so whiny and needy. And this is petty, but the way he and his wife relentlessly try to brand themselves as this SuperCouple on social media is also annoying: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9O8uaeoMZF/

Well I am back here after a long strange trip. I was here under a previous regime, somehow missed all the drama with the new ownership. Anyway, Kawhi Leonard dropped out of the US Olympic team. Derrick White will replace him.