If you haven’t already, check him out in Clay Pigeons. That’s the role that convinced me he’d be great in True Detective. Unfortunately, the show’s not giving him shit to work with.

I’ve got three main issues with this season, and like everyone else on the internet, I’m going to tell you all about them:

Lighten up, Francis.

Yeah, this is ridiculous. I’ve been loudly and frequently arguing in favor of bringing down the flag to anyone who will listen for years, and I think the recent events with regard to it in South Carolina and Alabama are huge progress, but this is patently absurd. Most people aren’t arguing in favor of banning the damn…

And Sansa. Unless you’re saying those are the three potential Stark wargs.

No, remember, she is “no one”. (Just kidding, I dunno how I forgot her)

I have to quibble, because I’m a nerd. This:

Or there is no good guy, and both faiths are evil. That is possible too.

Huh? There are four Starks alive (Jon, Sansa, Bran and Rickon), and only Jon and Bran have been shown to warg. I mean, I think Jon’s one of the heads of the dragon, and I could see Bran warging into the other, but there’s no way Danaerys isn’t going to to swoop in on Drogon and barbecue some wights.

So far, we’ve seen humans kill several children, usually horribly. Our only view of the Walkers and children is that they save one from the elements, and give him fancy White Walker magic so that he’s one of them and doesn’t freeze to death. #TeamWhiteWalker

I may have phrased that inelegantly; Empire Strikes Back is definitively the best in the series. The last two books are absolutely not. I was just comparing the darkness in tone in the middle.

I think the Children definitely come back and I’d love to see some Jon/Khaleesi babies.

Here’s one more bit. If we ask, “what is Arya being trained for?” and we assume the faceless men work for the Night King, then doesn’t it make sense that she will be tasked with killing some or all of the three headed dragon, aka Jon Snow, Khaleesi, and possible Tyrion?

I think it’s totally possible that these two books are the Empire Strikes Back of the series, at least, in terms of tone (because lord knows they’re not the best of the series). I think Winds of Winter’s going to be pretty action-packed in build-up for the final all-out brawl between humans and the Others. So, I get…

I don’t know that I’d agree with Fistful on the books becoming disasters, but there’s no question that AFFC and ADWD are the weakest in the entire series. I’m a book reader who thinks they actually did okay with the season, even if it’s the weakest one so far.

I’d say not yet; it depends on what they’ve got them for, and whether they can get them to flip on Blatter. That said, I’d find it hard to believe they can’t find a single person to flip. I’m really hoping this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Well, it is Freddie DeBoer. “Juvenile” is kind of his MO.

Is it fucking hot take day on The Concourse or something? Between this and the terrible Game of Thrones roundup, y’all are doing a knockout job of it today.

“Brutality of the Middle Ages.” The middle ages were no less brutal than our contemporary world. And they certainly weren’t filled with senseless violence.

Funny enough, Slate’s take on this week’s episode was much better, more nuanced, and more clearly underlines the entire point of Sansa’s rape - it’s a continuation of the war against the Starks, and it’s thoroughly in-line with Ramsey’s character. People forget that the Boltons have been under the Starks’ thumb for…