Cersei isn’t a “close relative” in any meaningful sense, though; the line of succession doesn’t travel down the line from father to child and then back up to the child’s mother! Which is not to say that Cersei couldn’t make an argument of her own legitimacy, either by claiming some royal blood somewhere in her own fami…

I’d argue that this idea is stupid given that Tyrion has precisely zero claim to the throne—but, then, Queen Cersei has zero claim to the throne either now that her children are dead and the show hasn’t even deigned to bring that up, so I can’t say as I’m confident that the show won’t be just as “Sure, why not?” with…

Uh, I think we can cut them some slack for having to adapt an unfinished series of books, and they can’t just ask the author what to keep and cut because even he doesn’t seem to know how he’s ending the damn thing. If he ever does.

My only complaint about the episode is that at a certain point it went so stylistically off-pattern that I decided none of it was actually happening, that Barry must’ve gotten a concussion during his fight with Ronny and the rest of the episode was his hallucination. I think it all hangs together as actual events, but…

If it doesn’t add up, I’d say the problem lies with all the times when they didn’t make it seem like a whole lot of time was passing, not times like this when they did. The visible aging of the child actors is the most obvious on-screen evidence of the passage of time, so it would be stupid for the show to pretend…

I dunno, I think a simpler explanation is that a show that only offers warmed-over reminders of the things we already know about the characters isn’t something I enjoy.

Yeah, I feel like a killjoy for agreeing with you, and I’m glad that so many people liked it as they did, but to me this was basically an entire episode filled with what I call “character porn.” That is, it featured scene after scene that was ostensibly about exploring the characters, but not in a way that challenges…

It’s interesting to me how many of my favorite shows I can’t find do this with. Old-fashioned shows with 20-some-episode seasons almost invariably hit a lull at some point in any three-episode sequence. I went down the entire episode list of both Buffy and Angel and couldn’t find any three episodes in a row that don’t…

Yeah, I’m constantly thinking about how much more interesting Euron would be if only he were the spooky wannabe warlock he was in the book. It would explain why the Ironborn think he’s got the mojo to be a transformative leader. It would provide an explanation for why he’s able to hunt down and capture Cersei’s…

Oh crap, you’re right. I had forgotten about Cersei’s pregnancy (and I missed the previously-on segment, if they reminded us of it there). Though honestly, that doesn’t make me feel better about the scene, because it just means that it was never intended to say something interesting about Cersei’s psyche beyond “Yep, s…

All in all, I thought it was a decent if workmanlike episode, but I’m again frustrated that the writers insist on doubling down on their dumbest creative decisions. The main example this week: Euron Greyjoy. He is the absolute worst, most tedious villain the series has ever attempted, with a characterization that’s…

Yeah, to me the two big issues there were that a) it was extremely silly to reveal that a bunch of characters are Cylons but then decree that they’re special Cylons who are nothing like the other flesh-and-blood Cylons we’ve already met, and b) it was super dumb to double down on the “Cylons can’t reproduce” angle…

To paraphrase Lisa Simpson, “You really can see into the . . . past.”

There’s a huge difference, though, between “Religion is a key throughline” and “A divine being is actively directing the major events of the series in a way that is essentially magic.” After all, religious belief of one kind or another is a key throughline for a lot of people in the real world as well, but we don’t…

Bran goes back to the Tower Of Joy, a smash cut throws more weight behind “R + L = J”

When I saw Us, the coming attractions included an amusingly apologetic trailer for this movie, complete with interview footage of the stars explaining how so, so important it is for a film to confront racism in such a serious way. Among the black moviegoers in the audience, the response was very vocally “What the fuck…

I would guess that the only intention with the recast of the Mountain was to get someone who was terrifyingly big and strong, since the placeholder guy they got for season 2 once Stevens left was not at all impressive. They could hardly have found a better physical specimen than Björnsson, but he’s not much of an…

It doesn’t help that Björnsson’s portrayal of the character pales in comparison to Conan Stevens’s take in season 1. Björnsson plays the Mountain as a big, dumb brute who’s only dangerous by association—because someone he works for might order him to crush your skull. Stevens, on the other hand, played him as a…

Yeah, no, this theory is completely incoherent. The reason why Adelaide couldn’t speak after her house of mirrors encounter is because she was one of the Tethered, and none of the Tethered can speak. So why on earth would anyone argue that Pluto’s inability to speak means that he’s not one of the Tethered?

In retrospect, what they should’ve done was have Sansa be the one who turns Ramsay against his father in revenge for the Red Wedding, so that her storyline would be about potentially becoming party to her husband’s cruelty instead of just becoming his victim herself. And then, if Sansa accidentally convinced Ramsay to…