SeanC

My thinking on that has gone round and round. Putting her back with Littlefinger early would in some respects put her more in line with what her book story would most likely be (if that's even relevant to this plotline). But I've struggled to make it fit with what we know about the season, both in terms of incident and what people involved with the show have said about this season (Sophie, of course, is always game to try to make whatever the show is giving her sound epic; but Liam Cunningham, unprompted, also brought it up). What would Sansa and Littlefinger do between then and episode 9 (and more specifically, what exactly would Sansa being doing that would pay off her supposed arc to date)? How would the Valemen being in the North that early still allow for Snowbowl to happen between Jon's army and Ramsay's?

For the sake of argument, he could have guessed Sansa was at the battle, seeing as she was last seen in the Northern storyline and, from Littlefinger's plans in Season 5, it's not unreasonable to assume that the Valemen would show up there, which means that whether Sansa ends up with Jon or Baelish initially the probable plot trajectory would be similar. I think that Jon taking Ramsay alive is the most likely read on that. Probably he'll then be executed in some formal fashion. Still no idea what's going on with the giant though. I do wonder how they're going to handle Littlefinger's role this season. If the spoilers about the Valemen being the cavalry at Snowbowl are correct (and that's been asserted by a few different potential sources; that part I think is eminently probable, regardless), based on the show's past practice (with Tywin and the Tyrells in Season 2 and Stannis in Season 4 -- actually, now that I think about it, every major battle in this show ends with a surprise cavalry charge by a heretofore-uninvolved third party; that may also be how Dany and the Dothraki resolve whatever crisis is engulfing Meereen this season), they'd presumably want to obscure as much as possible that the were coming.

Heroes fighting each other was not exactly a novelty created by Civil War.

I appreciate that his nemesis is Martin Sheen for some reason. The Lonely Island gang are ace music parodists. I don't know how that will translate to a narrative feature, but I guess we'll see.

I don't see any desire to kill them here. But conflict among friends is hardly unprecedented.

Here's a contest video with Emily VanCamp and Elizabeth Olsen which features some BTS footage (the most we've seen of VanCamp so far).

Legal history is an interest of mine, so I was disappointed they only got two of the five. That's the easiest Final Jeopardy I can recall in a long time.

She has the power of vague red energy-casting. I wonder if the VFX people were irritated at the Deadpool movie beating them to using CGI to make the white eyes in a superhero mask work onscreen like they do in the comic.

I meant that they're both rap battles, but that seems more like having a common source than anything else.

On the question where that guy lost $8000, I narrowed it to Sri Lanka and Singapore and then picked the former as the location named ended with -pur.

Yeah, her cleavage was one of the most consistently entertaining aspects of the film.

WOTW said they had reports that they filmed at the Runestone set, so it sounds like he starts off the season in the Vale. My view of what happens with Baelish in season 6 has gone back and forth over the last few month, but I'm back to thinking he only shows up in the North at the very end.

Nothing about that shot indicates when it's set.

1:15.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuH3tJPiP-U I’m still kind of thrown by that song choice, which I mostly associate with its somewhat cheesecake music video. The High Tower looks cool. Sansa gets a nice fur coat at some point. Yet more evidence for the “Bran leaves the cave” theory, as in the shot with the Night’s King he is dressed in the same clothes as in the stills in Winterfell with the Three-Eyed Raven, versus the still of him mounted, where he’s got furs on. And Yara is into the ladies, evidently.

The funny thing is, looking back, Heather's reprise of "Don't Settle For Me" is just like Greg's original version: the person who is imagining it completely misread the sentiment behind whatever the speaker was actually saying.

Rebecca's villain song was terrific. Another great musical number. I liked the character work this week -- and speaking as somebody who has occasionally had a hard time keeping track of budgeting, the stuff around accounts was relatable, even if I've never, y'know, actually just spent myself into debt like she does. As I said last week during the previews, I don't know how much the debt stuff is going to carry forward, but it was a good 'reality check' this week. I've said in the past that Paula often straddles the line between helpful support system and toxic enabler; this week she was entirely the latter, actively trying to talk Rebecca out of her attack of conscience. Two of the show's female characters got a bit more depth this week, to different effects. I think the scene with Heather really worked, and Vella Lovell impressed me by adding a bit more emotional upset to a character most known for detachment. Gabrielle Ruiz played the more human Valencia really well, but I have a hard time squaring that version of the character with the character from previous episodes (and, indeed, in her last scene of this episode).

As Eric Levitz put it, "have you ever wondered what the world looks like to a Fox News addict on five tabs of acid?"

I hope they make a Zootopia 2 about Judy getting busted by Internal Affairs for her close ties to organized crime.

Maisie has been cast in a supporting part in A Storm in the Stars, a biopic of Mary Shelley. Funnily enough, Sophie is playing Mary Shelley in a different, still-in development film.

Yeah, that I did think was contrived, even if it's not something that I think detracts much from the film. No way would the TV interviewer be given the third degree like that -- maybe the first question about whether she ever contemplated it, but the second one, which is basically her passive-aggressively asserting that Joy is a bad mother, would never happen. And yeah, had that aired (and particularly, if Joy's suicide attempt came shortly after), that interviewer would have been immediately fired.

I see probably 98% of the movies I go to by myself.

I don't think adults going to see animated movies is that unusual anymore. Or I hope not, anyway, since I do that.

This film's Wikipedia entry classifies its genre as "computer-animated action buddy comedy neo-noir adventure", a mouthful if ever there was one (also, I expect this is the first Disney animated film that could plausibly be described as "neo-noir"). It has two directors and a "co-director", as well as seven credited writers involved in the story (including Jennifer Lee, who is perhaps responsible for the references to Frozen littered throughout), two of whom handle the screenplay. If that sounds like a recipe for a hodgepodge, it's not, as it turns out -- this is terrific stuff. When differentiating between Disney and Pixar's approaches, I tend to generalize the former as specializing in stories about archetypal clashes of good and evil (The Lion King being probably the modern apex of this), while Pixar's stories are driven more by character development. Those lines blur in places, and Zootopia definitely feels like Disney dipped into Pixar-type territory. Based on the evidence so far (this, Wreck-It Ralph), I think Disney is better at doing Pixar than Pixar is at doing Disney (see: Brave). If society needs a kiddie primer on racial tension, I guess this is as good of one as you'd want. Also a kids' movie that references both The Godfather and Breaking Bad. I didn't know a huge amount about the film going in, but I saw a random line indicating that there was a surprise villain; if you go in knowing that, the identity of said villain is really easy to guess. Not that it particularly matters, as there are some things I didn't expect along the way. Great voice cast, even including some pretty decent line deliveries by Shakira (I'm sure the Academy is hoping to pencil her in for a performance at next year's ceremony; the Original Song category for this last one had to go without a Disney song). Also, in a meta-reference with two layers, Kristen Bell makes a brief cameo, voicing a sloth. My appreciation for this film was heightened further by having to sit through the trailer for Angry Birds, which concluded with an excruciatingly long joke about an eagle urinating in water the protagonists had just been frolicking in.

I guessed right for Final Jeopardy; I looked that up afterward for an explanation. Apparently the town is just resistant to letting franchises in. They don't have a Burger King either.