Quote: (Molly can't be dead because she) "is the only major female character."

Oh FFS - you know, the fact that I'm a white guy never stopped me from appreciating the Barksdale/Stanfield organisation plotlines in the Wire. It never stopped me from appreciating Bollywood or Hong Kong cinema.

True. Oberyn didn't even much register with me when I read the books. But I just love this character in the show.

Not to be "annoying points out difference from book guy," but the overall vibe of Sonny the Busker junkie from Treme is about 900 leagues away from the Daario Naharis of the book.

Everything about this show is awesome. But even were that not true, I think I would watch it just for the automobiles. Ford Maverick! My dad had one of those!

This is a decent point about the over-use of exposition. But yet at the same time I've always thought it almost brings you back and grounds you a bit from the extremely intense subject matter.

They need to have Meloni in this cast more or less permanently. Just looking at him in that stocking cap cracks me the fuck up.

If "jumped the shark" hadn't in fact jumped the shark circa 2005 or so, I'd think Ginsberg cutting off his nipple might end up being that moment for this series.

I'd give this Ep an A just for featuring the greatest "Sex Pirate" of all time - Salladhor Sahn.

Agreed - the Yara scene is pretty pointless, really. They make a big deal of closing last year with her launching a rescue mission. Then, boom, a 3 minute scene here where they're in the Dreadfort before being chased back out.

Very good point - not a lot of these folks left, sadly, but you see the "Depression" mentality still amongst those who are.

The Gaad is back! I legitimately worried that they were going to actually cashier what is one of the greatest "secondary" characters anywhere on TV at the moment.

I believe some of the current SEALs are in their mid-40s. I think you have to be something like 27 or under to get in, but there is so much invested in guys like that as far as training, etc that they tend to stay in for a pretty long time.

Grand Theft Auto V hit this note pretty well also as far as a parody of Twatbook and its headquarters. Satirising these idiotic tech companies is a bit of a "grasp the low-hanging fruit" exercise, but it is always fun to see it done.

So the producers failed to anticipate that a "large proportion of the audience" would view a middle ages-y show via the hyper-moralistic internet mores of 2014, huh?

Though the Womyn's Studies Department at Oberlin College would define this in 2014 as rape - and rightly so - it is important to be cognizant of time and place and context.

I don't think this was the weakest of the series - I think it is in fact strong for utilising the Blithe character to show another side of warfare. The old rubric always was that a small percentage of soldiers in a unit did the actual fighting. The remainder would be inclined to cower in fear, not fire their weapons,…

This reviewer mentioned the Bechdel test within the first paragraph.

Mad Men has frustrated me for years. It is an excellent show, but I often think it is rated as highly as it is by critics as a result of the "Emperor has no clothes" dynamic. They don't really want to seem as if they fail to appreciate its abstract brilliance and thus heap on the plaudits.

Probably answered a hundred times already, but Lugers were iconic and distinctive looking and heavily associated with the German army (though in truth Walthers were far, far, far more common as far as pistols went.)