When Renly made that smoked ham joke at the parlay with Stannis, I thought it came off a little corny, but I'll take that back if some time in book 7 we get a look at the true nature of R'hllor, and the chosen one of the prophecy is revealed to be… a smoked ham.

@avclub-1c94d7ee62364576f2f61996170fe903:disqus I believe we got a Har in this episode, although the way he pronounces it is sort of halfway to Heh.

Man, those Frey hats, they sort of hang heavy with the same resentful crappiness that emanated from everything in Lord Walder's court in season 1. Like no wonder there are so many assholes in this family, if they have to live in a place like this and wear this stupid pseudo-hat that for some reason has become their…

I'm with you. I had a bad feeling as soon as Littlefinger opened his mouth, so I thought I was prepared for the worst, but I still got sad chills from that shot.

The way Lecter talks up Chilton's bold work as a manipulator is hilarious— like Mike Tyson congratulating a 6-year-old for being such a big tough guy.

They act like they clearly know she's dead because they have reason to believe she was abducted by the Ripper, and when someone is abducted by a serial killer and hasn't been seen for two years, they are dead. They're just being realistic about it. Most serial murderers just kill people; a few will hold on to someone…

"Shouldn't that set up an alarm somewhere"— sure, if you're in an ER or an ICU. A prison infirmary, not so much. If they're short-staffed enough that there's just one nurse in there, then there isn't some master control room that the portable EKG is hooked up to.

It's too bad they didn't take advantage of Izzard guest-starring to do a special episode with everyone in drag.

Sorry, I meant he was mentioned in the review, not on the show. However, a lot of people pointed out that there were a couple of slightly Red Dragonesque things about that first scene in episode 1 (he used a gun to kill the man and disable the woman; he cased the house thoroughly ahead of time); it's the only case…

It wasn't a drawing of his victim; it was a hand-copy of some version of this pretty well-known illustration, which was presumably what gave him the idea. So, yeah, a morbid and maybe suspicious thing to leave around, but not something that only the killer could have seen; Lecter could've plausibly explained it as…

I think the fact that he does seem to be doing genuinely nice things sometimes makes it even more unsettling, because it means he understands and appreciates human behavior in a more well-rounded way than you'd imagine from the Anthony Hopkins version (who, to be fair, has been locked up for a long time by then)— so…

Maybe nobody's said it because they don't agree with you. If I thought Izzard was supposed to be playing a really imposing and menacing character, or doing a "Hopkins vibe," then yeah, that would've been a failure. But I thought the character was pretty clearly written, acted, and directed to be a sharp contrast to…

@avclub-951d3e731b6b2ac1e93cbba6e1b68e80:disqus The bit in Casino Royale, where he subtly weeps a single tear of blood from the corner of his eye? That was it.

From the review: Gideon is a tough villain because, to put it frankly, he’s not that exciting— but I actually really liked how non-exciting he is. As some commenters were saying last week, focusing entirely on tormented hyper-creative killers could strain credibility even on such a stylized show; you don't want to…

Anthony Lane always writes like that. It's a stretch to say he ever "eviscerates" anything; when he hates a movie, he establishes right away that it wasn't worthy of his attention, and then he just makes a lot of irrelevant witticisms. It's clever writing, but it rarely tells me anything, and if he hates something the…

I don't see how the show has telegraphed it any more than the book did. I think when you have a bunch of people reading reviews and talking on the Internet, as soon as one person thinks something is obvious, soon everyone does. The first time I read the books, I missed lots of stuff that, once I started reading ASOIAF…

Not a significant departure; Qyburn showed up at this point in the book too and did the same things; he worked for Bolton at Harrenhal before being sent to King's Landing to accompany Jaime. The difference is just that in the book, he came to Harrenhal with the Bloody Mummers, whereas on the show we don't know how he…

I knew him slightly in NY, pre-fame, and he was hard to figure out… often really sweet and unassuming as you say, but also sometimes manically grandiose and reckless. At the time I thought that was just some Byronic deal that naturally went along with being super talented and ridiculously handsome. A long time after…

@avclub-23dc117ef9479407fb6c6a666005af40:disqus Huh… interesting. I hadn't heard that. All I can say is that it doesn't fit with anything else I know about Jaqen, but I can't say more without discussing the books.

@avclub-7624778793b762d4744afae86485c0b8:disqus Depends on what you mean by title. He's a knight, but that doesn't give him any material benefits except employability. But he's not necessarily the heir to Highgarden or to any other Tyrell property (he isn't in the book at least, because they've got an older brother;…