WearyTraveler

Most pasta is made with eggs. I understand vegans don't eat any animal products (milk and its byproducts, eggs, etc.); so, if they were going to make pasta, they would have had to use something other than eggs, which, from what I read, doesn't give good results (interesting article about pasta making here). Or they would have had to make something like zucchini "noodles" and call that a pasta dish. Vegetarians, OTOH, don't eat meat but they do eat animal byproducts (milk, cheese, eggs, etc.)

Claire didn't go back to the strip club, she was in her own dressing room at the theater, presumably because now that Kiira left, she's going to be the prima ballerina. My take on the end scene with Claire and Paul was that Paul lives vicariously through his dancers. He sucks their energy, so to speak. When Paul was talking to his Latin boyfriend while watching video of Paul in his hey day, he seemed pretty nostalgic and depressed that he didn't get to enjoy a standing ovation anymore. I think it was meant to show the balance of power shifting between Paul and Claire. Before she killed that performance, he was in control and she needed him more than he needed her, so he used the threat of exposure as a way to control her. Now that she has proved on stage how much she's worth, Paul is the first person interested in not messing up with her career, because it would be messing up with his own career. So, now she's the one that holds the power, and she understands that Paul needs to hear he experience in order to feel almost like he used to feel when he was the performer; she's paying his cruelty back with some cruelty of her own. As for Romeo knowing where Bryan was, I just assumed he had been following the guy at a distance from the moment he left Claire's building and just waiting for the right time/place to slay the dragon.

I think this is possible, but my first thought was that on top of all the pain of her father going away for years and returning with anger issues, she had discovered her mother's plan to bail, ergo "You understand", meaning "you wanted to leave too". IIRC, Erika had a bag packed and ready to go hidden in her closet. Evie used to borrow Erika's jewelry often, so, it was established she goes into her mother's bedroom when Erika is not there. I think Evie probably found her mother's bag and figured out what she was planning to do. It did for me, in season 1 Kevin admitted that before the 14th he had briefly wanted to be out of the whole family deal. This season he was trying but failing miserably, starting with keeping Patti a secret and then telling Nora at the worst possible time. Then he goes and lets Virgil kill him, just so he can be with Nora and his family and has to go through the whole International Assassin ordeal (pushing a kid into a well, for crying out loud), being buried, coming clean with Jon, and he still can't get to them. I agree with the person who said JT was perfect in that Karaoke scene. And it was precisely that he was not on pitch while he sang. He sounded exactly like a broken man who realizes exactly how much he wants his family back as he sings. He starts all business like "okay, if this is what it takes, I'll sing your stupid song" and as the lyrics sink in, you can hear how they are affecting him emotionally. Tremendous job, there. Totally sold it to me. Very astute observations. I agree on all counts. And I'd like to add that I wish to be a fly on the wall during that Thanksgiving dinner! :D I thought the dog went to get Nora, who was still in the trailer, where Tom told her she would be safe. And that's how Nora ended up back in the house. Once she saw the dog was free, she took it home (while Kevin headed for the hospital). Yes, he was still the a cop, he was still a family man. By choosing that outfit he declined all the "glamour" of what could have been if he'd made other choices. He decided he wanted to be the small town cop, instead of hooking up with strangers because it was "exciting" and "new". Basically, he signaled that he'd gotten over his pre-departure midlife crisis. And Mary wakes up!! LOL!

To play devil's advocate, though, the timeline of these decisions is not very clear in the interview. It could have been they decided the girls would fake their disappearance in hour 1 of the discussion and that the idea that they went to the GR came about in hour 2. Or both decisions could have been separated by days or weeks. With these shorter shows that shoot well before the first episode of the season airs, I think there's more time to have everything make sense. It's not like regular network where writers have a few weeks to plan the season and then have to write episodes in parallel with filming, which can cause some storytelling problems. As I understand the process here, it's all practically written before they begin filming, and maybe during filming there are a few tweaks here and there, but not that many. Also, I love that audience reaction does not have a lot of influence during the course of a season. I have seen far too many shows cave to the pressure of very vocal internet groups that don't represent the audience as a whole but are very loud, resulting in awful plots, character regression and retconning. I prefer it this way. It's more similar to a book, where you can't influence the writer as he/she writes.

Two things I really liked about this episode were the little connections to the Murder House from Season 1: The Countess goes to get an abortion there and we see the doctor who was responsible for all those jars in the basement The morally ambiguous real estate agent that sold the Murder House gets murdered at the Cortez

Quinn was injected with atropine. Earlier in the episode the two terrorists were discussing that the atropine would help someone who is exposed to sarin gas.

It wasn't as "blink and you miss it" as the original subliminal advertising from the 70s, but it was fast. It's a shot of the Jarden bridge with the outsiders looking on as an old-fashioned RV makes its way through it.

I can't decide if John believes, or is afraid of what believing will do to him, or believes but doesn't want any more people flocking to the town in search of "salvation".

Main characters in order of appearance after the phrase "the ink is dry" (in parenthesis the scenes that are shown): Jon (stabbing) Ned (beheading) Cat (neck slashing) Arya (going blind) Meera? (fighting wight skeleton) Joffrey (dying in Cersei's arms) Robb (dying @ Red Wedding) Jaime (hand chopping) Dany (sitting with Drogon wearing her blue dress, before she chained the dragons) Night's King (turning the baby into a WW) Jogen (burned by CotF magic after death) Cersei (naked, short hair before the Walk of Shame) LF kissing Sansa (eeeeeeeewwwwwww!!!!!) Night's King (raising the dead after the battle of Hardhome) Jon (after the stabbing, blood pooling around him) Bran (warging) It's a Stark fest!!! I guess they are pretty heavily hinting what the focus will be in S6. Woo hooo!!!

A few episodes back, I don't remember which one, there was a conversation at the compound where Dodd said something about wanting a son and God only giving him daughters, in plural (IIRC, he was talking about him having girls and Bear having a boy with a maimed hand). So, maybe it's not four, but he's got more than one, apparently. Perhaps they are with their mother (mothers?). The other Gerhardt women are as elusive as the aliens :D

I think Meg's plans involve something more than a physical attack. She wants to destroy people emotionally, take away all hope, turn them into extreme nihilists, and for that she needs an emotionally charged mega punch. Blowing infrastructure up and maybe killing a few people nearby might not do it. Consider some of the other things the GR has done to accomplish this emotional destruction goal like placing living dolls of the departed in the place they were when they disappeared and scaring terrorizing the school children on that bus. In the first case, the action affected people deeply, much more if they had blown up the town hall, or something like that. It was extremely personal. In the second case they were saying "your children can die at any moment and you would be absolutely powerless to avoid it". Again a very personal, emotionally wrenching act. I think she will use explosives for something, but I also think that's not all she's gong to do. She's going to use those girls to do something horrifying that would cause the most extreme emotional pain she can inflict on Miracle's residents. I have no idea what that will be, but it will surely be something heinous. Not that blowing something up isn't horrible in and off itself, but you know what I mean.

AND the mystery date who brought her Italian food. :D

The more you know... When I first heard it I thought they were trying to make fun of the way Indians used to name their children (Sitting Bull, Soaring Eagle, and so on), but I guess not.

Yeah, sometimes a psychopath is just a psychopath

10/13 = October thirteen, the day before the Departure, when Meg's mom died. (Since I didn't watch the preview, though, what came to my head after reading the title was the police radio call 10-13, which means "officer needs assistance", at least in NYC. I wonder if that was intentional)

Well, I didn't say they wouldn't show it, only that they might not show it this season. In terms of dramatic punch, how do you choose to end S6? With the WW breaching the Wall or with Dany sailing to Westeros? I think both events are so big you can't have them in the same episode. This is why I was suggesting that perhaps they give us a conversation that establishes Dany is actually getting ready to sail, and then close with the Walkers breaching The Wall. Season 7 can open with the majestic image of Dany, her dragons and her army heading to / arriving at Westeros,

That is an awesome guess! I bet you're right!

Well you have to consider the cost of rebuilding after two wars (Robert's rebellion and Balon's rebellion), look at how much it cost Europe to rebuild after WWII. Then there are the additional expenses that Robert and Cersei made. Also, Aerys didn't have any knights to reward because they fought wars for him or to build a new fleet to face a rebellion from the Iron Islands, and as far as we know, Aerys' only extravagance was paying for wild fire, and that was only toward the end of his reign. For all we know Aerys was already running a deficit but he still had some capital left, and Robert's reign just made it worse.

Exactly! And it doesn't have to be a huge deficit. If they are taking 100 dragons in taxes yearly and paying 110 in interest and other expenses (such as the ones I described above), they have to take the extra 10 out of their capital every year. Robert has been in power for 15 years, that's a long time to be operating at a deficit, even a small one. But I get the feeling that the deficit started small and by the time Ned started looking it was pretty big.

Maybe she's gathered her council, or what remains of it, and orders them to get all her forces together. And then when someone asks "where are we going?" (Tyrion, most likely), she replies "Westeros" and then proceeds to climb on Drogon. End S6.

I'm trying to think about the costs of running a kingdom such as Westeros and how Robert could have spent the Royal treasure after he took the throne. This situation in the books reminds me of those stories about lottery winners who go bankrupt and how many people ask themselves "how in the heck did that person manage to lose XXXX million dollars?" I'm thinking four categories: big ticket items, bad loans, running expenses, indulgence. A) Big ticket items: I'm going to assume that Robert's rebellion ravaged the country badly, maybe not as badly as the War of the 5 Kings, but seeing how battles, sieges and war play out in this world and how many characters speak about the suffering of the common people while the lords play their "games", it is likely that the countryside was fairly devastated after the rebellion. It's said in the books that the common folk loved Robert, so, I'm going to assume that the crown helped rebuild the country by providing funds for reconstruction and even improvements on infrastructure like roads, bridges, etc. Much like a lottery winner goes out and starts buying houses and cars, and other luxury items. Balon's rebellion probably didn't cause as much damage, but the crown likely had to reinforce its fleet, and we know that Robert and Cersei each had their Royal boats. So, I'm thinking some more money given to the towns affected by Balon's rebellion and the building/reinforcement of a fairly large fleet for the Royal Navy, which brings me to.... B) Bad loans: I'm not sure how financially sophisticated the Westerosi are, but since we know there are banks and a system to collect taxes and such, I'm going to assume that they understood that it's better to finance the big ticket items, rather than spending all the capital at once, even if you have it. The problem probably was that the crown accepted unfavorable terms. Or perhaps the lending system has high interest rates in a place like Westeros, where the risks are high -think of the Castameres that were completely wiped out, if they had any outstanding loans with anybody, who would pay them? There's also the possibility that since Arryn trusted LF, he didn't look into the details of the finances. Another factor is that Tywin could have been charging a very high interest rate to the crown, but they trusted him because why would he want to hurt his own family (Cersei and his grandchildren)? and so, they didn't inspect these loans. In the Small Council no one asks these questions. LF says he'll find or has found the money through a loan and not a single person asks about the terms. I also think that LF made very complicated deals and tried his best to make the books as inscrutable as possible, in order to plant the seeds for chaos. It seems that these lords don't concern themselves too much with the particulars if the money is coming in. C) Running Expenses: I'm thinking running KL and Westeros does not come cheap. They have to pay salaries for all the people working in the castle and it sounds like they are a whole army. They probably also have to pay salaries to the members of the Small Council large enough for them to keep their own servants in the Red Keep, not to mention all the food, drink and cleaning supplies. They have to pay the soldiers of the City Watch, including their equipment: armor, weapons, meals, etc. And this equipment probably needs maintenance and replacements every few months. Likewise, they have to pay their Naval officers and soldiers, and keep their ships in good condition. It's probably not as much as any of the other Royal Military Forces, but the crown also has to pay for the Kingsguard, their armor, their equipment, their squires, and so on. Castle services also include the armory, which has its own forge, the stables and its horses, trainers for new recruits, etc. Any trip or mission taken on behalf of the crown would be their financial responsibility too, so, anytime LF went to Braavos to ask for a loan or a group of men were dispatched by the King to attend some matter in Westeros, the crown would have to pay for their carts, horses, equipment, lodging on the road and food. These would include squires, scribes, cupbearers, ravens and any other servant that they thought they might need. So, a trip to settle a dispute between two lords could run a few thousand dragons. I don't know how the Faith and the Maesters in Oldtown are financed, but since these two institutions were created by the Targs and they serve all of Westeros, I'm betting that a large chunk of their budget comes from the crown. And they have hundreds of septons, septas, maesters, teachers, students, servants and infrastructure of their own. D) Indulgence: Finally, there are all the things that Robert and Cersei buy because they can. Robert's parties are probably not cheap, and as we know from the Hand Tourney, the crown spends quite a lot of money on these things, giving away grand prizes of thousands of dragons, and paying for all the set up. Incidentally, if a Kingsguard is participating in one of these, it's likely the crown is financing it. Aside from the tourneys there are all the whores, and the wine, and the hunting. Then there are Cersei's gowns and her jewelry. The way these things are described in the books, they sound pretty expensive, and I'm sure Cersei is not paying for these with Lannister money. She has necklaces of emeralds and rubies, and diamond diadems and crowns, golden rings and so on. And so do her children. One piece from her collection is probably worth hundreds of thousands of dragons. If this is so, I can see how the Robert's government had been operating at a deficit (like many of our governments do) for a long time, which eventually bankrupted the crown.

LOL! I know how you feel!

It is difficult to gauge how efficient Arryn was because all we know about him comes from other, unreliable narrators. We do know that Robert was a stubborn ass who would listen to his advisers but do whatever the heck he wanted, anyway, if he wanted it bad enough. He begged Ned to take the job of Hand and then proceeded to ignore his advice time and time again. Off the top of my head, there's the Hand Tourney, which Ned absolutely didn't want and knew they had no money to pay for it, and then there was the decision to send assassins after the Dany. The system being a monarchy, it doesn't really have any of the checks and balances that other systems have. When push comes to shove, you either do what the king commands or mount a rebellion because disobeying your king makes you a traitor, and an oathbreaker and can land you in jail or make you literally lose your head.

Yes, he did say some of the info was already out and he had even reported it in previous videos. Also, the title of the video is "who lives and who dies in GoT S6?" so, maybe the sender only focused on that. I don't think FrikiDoctor is making up any information about how he received the spoilers or the content of the email. But the content itself could be false.

Why does the fact that Smalljon is only in two episodes preclude Sansa going to the Umbers? Two episodes is enough to show her there, IMO. She doesn't have to spend the entire season up there.