WearyTraveler

According to whom? As a book reader, I am still very much interested in his story

I wonder if Martin will mention Edric Storm again in the upcoming books (ahahahaha, "upcoming books" is in the same sentence as Martin!!!!). Not that I consider it essential to know his fate, but, I'm a little curious.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Tower_of_joy It's mentioned in the first book: Chapter 39, Eddard X. and in A Dance with Dragons, Map of the South. I think those of us who picked up on the significance of Ned's memories of Lyanna and the events surrounding Robert's ascent to power, probably paid more attention to the name when we read it.

Well, the Starks and Dany do have a sizable fandom, so, I think plenty of people care. Also, I'd disagree that they are un-quotable or terribly normal. For this universe, they are rarities: people who truly want to do the right thing are not the norm in Westeros, at least not in the noble families who are more interested in how to keep or advance their social and political standing by marriages, court appointments, murder and intrigue. They are very much not your normal Westerosi: Jon is a secret Targaryen, the actual heir to the throne, Bran is connected to some of the oldest magic in the world and is possibly key to winning the battle for the survival of the human race, Arya is a Faceless Man (the most effective assassins in all of Planetos), Daenerys has Dragons (which, in this Universe, equates to WMD)... When I go to my Kindle Clippings, I usually find that I've highlighted more from these characters than from Cersei, or Tywin, or even Tyrion. But, let's put all that aside, as it could be chugged to personal preferences, focusing so heavily on the Lannisters, and neglecting all those other characters/storylines is bad writing. I think at this point we would all agree that the big buildup we are running toward and the climax of this epic is going to be the Battle for the Dawn. How will Westeros avoid the Apocalypse? All the other characters and storylines might be interesting, but they are all secondary. One of the most common complaints about the series are all the detours Martin takes: introducing new characters and POVs, new locations, etc. and not advancing the main story. D&D didn't give us Qentyn or fAegon, but they sure wasted time on the Lannisters, when they could have been showing the TV viewers more important things related to the main arc of the epic. By having so much focus on their favourite Lannisters, they risk the audience not caring about the main plot. And that would be fine, if they were just loosely basing their story on the books, but they discussed the ending with the author, so this is not an homage. Their version, while different, will still hit the most relevant story beats. So, eventually, they will have to shift focus to the North, Jon and the WW. So, they need to spend time with those characters and those storylines early and keep the audience engaged with them,

Yes, they love all the Lannisters BUT Jaime, I agree.

UGH! That's not encouraging to me. Knowing what we know from the season so far, I really don't like the stuff we're hearing about Cersei, and her having this much focus. Maybe because in the books we saw her way of "ruling" and all the mistakes she made, her delusions of grandeur, thinking she was clever but acting really stupid, being drunk and starting to lose her looks. Meanwhile, D&D have white washed this a bit and give us a triumphant Cersei. And they neglect the accomplishments, and nuances, and interesting plotlines, and character development of the Northern side of the story. I don't know. Maybe the books are going to have Cersei on top again, and she'll get to seat the Iron Throne as Tommen's Hand, or something, but the way D&D talk and what they show on the screen demonstrates that they are in love with the Lannisters, to the detriment of characters and stories that are 10,000 times better in the books. And I'm not saying that they should spend more time doing North stuff, just don't regress characters like Jon, or make them act stupid in areas where they are great in the books (e.g. Jon and military strategy). I'm happy we'll get to see some sort of resolution to the story from D&D, but things like that disappoint me.

I thought it was because that was the hotel where Sam took her. He told her he lived in town, but didn't give her his address. When she stole the money, she was headed Sam's way, and that was the only place she knew there, so she picked the same motel she had already visited and let him know she'd be there waiting for him.

I think the seeds have been planted to have Bobby open her eyes. I wonder if she will now work with Chrisjen because she was the only one who told her the truth. Also, I liked the scene where Bobby sees the ocean for the first time. It was good. I didn't read the books, so, perhaps that's why I don't have a problem with Bobby's physique. We were told that Alex is a Martian and the actor portraying him looks a lot less imposing than the actress portraying Bobby. She's tall, and muscular, but lean. It works for me. Personally, I thought that while it didn't appear as if much happened in this episode, some MAJOR things did happen. The biggest one, IMO, was that Chrisjen finally found out about the protomolecule, so we can move past the plotline of both nations suspecting each other and always on the brink of war. Bobby found out her government was using her (and how!) and that they didn't care about Martian lives, as long as it advanced their objectives. I think Bobby would have been willing to sacrifice her life for Mars in a war with Earth, but she'll have a problem with the Martian government killing soldiers and taking advantage in such a way. They didn't sign up for that. It makes sense that Mars has been working with Jules Mao to develop a super weapon. We have heard many times that as good as the Martians are, Earth still has the military power to crush them and this is why the Martians have tried to avoid the war so far. It also makes sense that Mao would have someone from Earth involved, in case they could pay better to have the weapon. We also got confirmation that the attacker in Ganymede was the result of the protomolecule, and this is a version that has fused with a humanoid in a much better way than it did with Julie and all the people in Eros. I'm going to guess that the disease that both the children had is related to that in some way. As for our guys in Ganymede, they are in the perfect place for another interaction with the protomolecule, and it will probably be action-packed.

From Glenn's comments that their favourite make-up was the deciding factor in choosing the winning team, I understood that the teams were tied and they decided to give the team victory to the team that had the best make up of the night (Tyler's). That made sense to me. I guess one can be tempted to think that they were trying to find an excuse to declare the team with the most people the losing team, so they could even out the playing field, but, according to the preview for the next episode, the competition is now going to be by individuals, so, no more teams. In which case, it wouldn't have mattered how many members each team ended up having. I liked Tyler's witch, but agree with a previous poster who said that unless you're told these are witches and warlocks, you wouldn't know just by looking at them. The make-ups this challenge were not as interesting/original as we have seen in the past. Still love this show, though.

Not about the show per se, but about the farming jobs in North Carolina (where S3 is set) and how no American workers want the jobs that are offered to immigrants. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/15/north-carolina-needed-6500-farm-workers-only-7-americans-stuck-it-out/?utm_term=.3d0670c8f49f

I think baby Kelly is going to be the one to take Skeletor down.

Or Meisner

The publishers would never allow that. Many, many people will not read the books once they see the ending on the show (even though some things will be different, all of us readers know that Martin revealed the ending to D&D and that at least the major questions will be answered by the show), and that means less money from book sales, which are already declining because of online piracy.

For me, things moved kind of fast. This is only the second episode and we found out: The real reason Luis entered the country illegally and went to work in the abusive conditions of the farms in NC That Luis speaks English and not a broken kind of English. Isaac is apparently showing some favoritism toward Coy prompting the questions: is it because this is his first time acting as captain and he is inexperienced? is it because he's actually trying to change the system from within and wants to treat workers better than he himself was treated when he was a picker? is it because he feels attracted to Coy and is wrestling with his sexuality coming from a culture where being gay is extremely difficult? Shae is pregnant and did decide to go ahead and testify against her pimp Kimara is so jaded by her social work she doesn't have the strength to fight anymore (the boat with 100 people simile). Had Shae decided to go back to her pimp, I get the feeling she would have felt disappointed but wouldn't push the issue any further; she wouldn't pull a L&O:SVU stunt and follow Shae around trying to convince her at every opportunity or thrown her in juvie, so she couldn't go back to her pimp. At the same time, Kimara is so desperate to find meaning in her life, that she's willing to ask her ex for a sperm donation and put herself through another round of IVF. Jeanette is not going to slowly uncover the dirty family secret over the course of four or five episodes. She's going to be hit by it as if it were a runaway freight train and her foot was caught in the tracks. This seems to indicate that her storyline might be more focused on how she decides to deal with this moral contradiction. I can already hear her husband telling her that she didn't mind the workers' conditions when she was buying that expensive dining room table. Maybe the nature of the crimes this season is not as suspenseful as murder, rape and a school shooting, but I find them just as engrossing. I'm personally of the opinion that the world is fucked up because too many of us are sorely lacking in values and ethics, we all contribute our own little (or big) load to the pile. I mean, how many times have you gone to the supermarket and picked the cheaper fruit? Off course, there are other issues that affect that decision; for many people the more expensive option is simply out of the question because their income would not allow it, but buying the cheaper product does mean one is contributing to this horrible situation. In any case, I think values and ethics and a good look at what it means to be ethical, the small choices we make, and all of the issues surrounding those discussions are quite fascinating and very relevant.

Mine too, although there are other possibilities. The writing on the cloth was not to explain what the stick is (beyond its healing powers, we still don't know exactly what it is). When Rosalee and Eve were researching the symbols, Rosalee said it was a calendar, based on the position of certain stars. But she got confused because when she plotted the information in her computer, the date it gave her was in the past, way in the past. Note that when Nick and Juliette realized the symbols were imprinted in the rock through which they came, they looked up at the sky and saw the same position of the stars in the sky. I don't think it's 1204 AD yet, I think it's earlier than that. But I do think the stick is already there and you may be right that this is the reason why it can't cross over. -------------------- Maybe Nick and Juliette could cross over because they were healed by the stick, and thus could go through the mirror portal. They both died once, too, so this could play a role in their ability to travel across the space-time continuum (they had already done it once, even if they have no memory of it). It's possible they traveled back in time to a point when wessen and humans were living together, but not interbreeding. Perhaps just as the dogs and wolves they come from a common ancestor. Eventually, the Crusaders will show up and hide the stick there. Another possibility is that Nick and Juliette traveled to another dimension where wessen are wessen and humans are humans. Juliette is an anomaly, and that's why her wessen forms are popping out. Whatever the case, I think the portal only opens when the constellations in our time-space position align with those in the other dimension (or time-space), and that's what the prophecy is all about: something is coming through the portals when the stars align, but that particular configuration only happens every few hundred years. The Crusaders knew about it, perhaps they even got the stick from that place and discovered its abilities. If it is another dimension, it would explain the origin of the wessen in our world. They came through the portal when it opened and eventually mixed with humans and that's how we got the current wessen population. Skeletor is just a very, very bad wessen, one that hasn't come over before. The number of children might not be literal, it might just mean his descendants. He just wants his kind of wessen to reproduce in our side, like others have. I didn't see it that way, as Rosalee was also telling her not to go. The reason they gave her was her children, and the fact that she had to look after them, not that she couldn't handle herself.

I'm sorry to read that, as 99% of dogs are awesome, and the 1% who are not is most likely due to humans. This one I got now just adores people, but he likes them so much he gets very excited and jumps around, he'd probably scare you to death with all his happiness at meeting you. The one I had before, was mellower, and an expert at turning people who feared dogs into dog lovers. His name was Pumba and he was so awesome I wrote a short story about him and published it in Amazon. I once rescued a cat and fostered him for a few months, until he found a permanent home. He was great. His name was Galileo, but current dog on the left there doesn't get along with cats. Also, the crazy cat once decided to fling himself off a three story window, and ran me some pretty hefty vet bills, but he was adorable, nonetheless. Speaking of cats and dogs, there's an idea for an odd couple. Catwoman and Werewolf, mid and full transformation. With Emily's talent for hair, I would love to see what she and Tyler would come up with. I seem to remember there was once a challenge with werewolves, maybe first season? I have an image in my head of Tate being very excited about that challenge and winning it, but I'm not 100% sure that was the case.

TY!!! I'd go on a kicking spree right along with you Back on topic, that really was an amazing dwarf make up Cig and George did. And I'll add my voice to the chorus praising Emily and Tyler.

<---------------------- HEEEEYYYYYYY!!!!! :D

Well, this is going around in circles now, so, I'll agree to disagree and bow out

She's not one of the siblings who own the farm. She's married to one of the siblings who own the farm. Based on how outraged she was at her sister's $7.5 an hour for the job she was doing, I would say she has no idea. And based on the episode's description in the press release (which is quoted in the first post of this thread), I'd say she will find out (I've quoted it again).

And not so delicate that she allowed the annoyance of Shirley's volume to interfere with her cooking the winning meal in the finale.

Given the post finale interviews already linked in this thread, where Shirley and Brooke both speak about the finale and the pork belly, I don't think this is the big intrusion you think it is. Shirley is a grown adult, who works in a male dominated, very though business; if her focus were so shattered by something as simple as someone asking her if she could share an ingredient, then she wouldn't have lasted this long in said business or been as successful as she has been. She went against her parent's wishes to pursue the career she wanted, something that in her culture is a very difficult thing to do. And even though she's still affected by this, she survived and is thriving in the cooking world. I don't think she's some delicate flower that can't handle a polite request during a competition, and I think you discredit her strength of character and her accomplishments by suggesting that she is.

I think Shirley is a great chef, but I agree with you that her voice was unnecessarily loud. No other chef in the same situation was screaming as loud as she was. This became a problem for me in the latter episodes, when there were less people. Shirley was so loud, I wanted to tell her to shut up a couple of times.

Two possibilities as to who Salazar could be: an undercover cop or an investigative journalist. ETA: Also found it interesting that none of the owners / managers ever said to get undocumented workers in so many words. It's never specific, but they all know what everyone means.

I think it's telling that the show started with a 911 call where someone reported finding a dead body. Who is it? Is it the guy that Luis Salazar sees from the bus? Is it one of the sex workers? When does this call happen: before the events we are seeing or after?