I'm guessing they really wanted to keep Alice around rather than sending her on Niffen-batical.

I disagree: The wildcard was Quentin finally getting over his hero complex and setting up Alice to be the knife-wielder. Had Alice had the knife ready to hand, everything would have gone according to plan.

I feel you. Still, one of the themes of the books, and the show so far, is to contradict standard tropes and conventional wisdoms. There are no "chosen ones," there are no couples who were destined to be together, and supplicating the gods is always a terrible idea. Each of us needs to take full ownership of shaping…

I was super disappointed. One of my favorite things from the books is the savage lampooning of Aslan's pomposity.

At the least, Julia is definitely not the hero of the show, as was suggested in last week's review. This is a major u-turn from the book character, who has noble intentions even at the worst of times. The scene played very much to me as half-crazy, wild-eyed Julia out for revenge. And, as you said, leaving two of her…

In the books, the knife is a god-killer, but I think in the show it's described as being able to kill a master magician, not a god… So maybe that's the logic.

I think it might be a matter of taste. Or maybe I have more sympathy for them from reading the books. One of Grossman's strengths as a writer is presenting characters who seem unappealing and then gradually getting you to like (or at least empathize) with them.

Thanks. That made me laugh out loud.

It really should have been Joan O'Vark.

(Reggie) Lee-canthrope?

Without the mountain guys to dope them up, I think they de-reapered.

Is it possible that they have a couple or more cast members on the fence about joining other shows, and are putting off telling us who dies based on that?

The comic has finally worked its way up to a rebuilding theme (which could of course come crashing down, but felt solid the last time I checked in). I'm hoping that the show will choose to go in more or less the same direction, and will continue to introduce new communities and characters as well.

"You'll be alright" really saved it for me. First time I chuckled at a TV protagonist getting shot.

The source material is pretty great, depending on your tastes. TV audiences like bad-boy characters and Robert Kirkman (the comics writer) doesn't. I kind of like that the comic and the show have different vibes while working the same premise and similar but not duplicate characters/plot lines.

Years ago, I watched "Do the Right Thing" on TV, and all of the dozens of "motherfuckers" were voice-overed to "mickey-fickey." A little fade-out doesn't even faze me.

Good rant. I want my casts to be diverse, but I think if you want that, you should accept that the diversity will extend to the redshirts. It would be a problem if only the redshirts were diverse, but that's not the case here.

This I think is more the point than gay/straight. Some people enjoy rebel/bad boy/smart-ass characters, some don't. I usually don't, but the actor and the writers are getting me to like Penny a bit.

That one incident, though, is pivotal and indispensable to book-Julia's arc. Not just psychologically, but physically for who she is and what she becomes. The show has been willing to diverge, so maybe things will play out differently. At this point, it already seems as if the show version of Richard is steering Julia…

Odds that Monty will kill his mom? That would be very The 100.