He hasn’t, but many things about that plot are different in the books. Melisandre, Shireen and Selyse stay at Castle Black.

Yep. It feels like forced drama; Selyse is always presented as the true fanatic, wholly in Melisandre’s grasp. Stannis, by contrast, is into it, but only insofar as she tells him what he wants to hear. I think the suggestion that he burn his own daughter alive would shake him out of it, even while backed into a…

That scene is part of what makes me hesitant to list Dr. Melfi as an “actually good therapist”. She’s good at illuminating Tony, the character, to the audience, but I think the show is much more neutral as to whether she’s doing a good job in the professional sense. Or maybe she is good, and just gets trapped in Tony’s…

I’ve made my peace with Show-Stannis for the most part, but I still REALLY struggle with the whole Shireen burning thing. Even the show version basically demonstrated that Shireen is the only person he actually has affection for, and wants to protect from harm. It feels like one of the main examples of the sort of…

Hardhome is on my shortlist of the best Game of Thrones episodes. We remember the battle at the end, for good reason, but the Tyrion/Dany meeting was a huge moment at the time - one of the first places the show truly dipped into post-books territory. Even though I’m a bit lower on the show overall since its third and…

This is why I really hope we get some depth and clarity on the White Walkers’ motivations and true nature in the final season. The later revelation that the COTF created them was a great wrinkle, but they are still desperately in need of added detail. The threat they present feels quite genuine, but it’s hard to be as…

Yeah it was just all over the place. The fundamentals of show-Dorne actually seem promising at first brush: some Jaime-Bronn buddy comedy, internal conflict over how to address Oberyn’s demise, fewer characters than in the book so it’s all a bit easier to follow on screen. Ellaria was a solid character back in season…

Why didn’t anyone ask Lydia “hey, what do your people do when it’s COLD AS FUCK?” It would seem pretty ridiculous for the Whisperers to be walking around on guard duty in the polar vortex - it’s not like zombie skins are significantly better insulation than normal winter clothes, right? For that matter, it seems…

Playstation has the best exclusives (well, really that’s the Switch, but it’s kind of its own thing), but for me the Xbox controller is much better, and the only games I really care about are on both.

Playstation has the best exclusives (well, really that’s the Switch, but it’s kind of its own thing), but for me the…

This show can hit so brutally hard when it wants to. I’ve seen people complain that the characters are just *too* awful and unrealistic, but from time to time there’s a sort of bone-chilling specificity to their struggles. Gretchen’s ruse struck very close to home for me; I once engaged in a similar sort of deception…

I’m on the same page as you. The show has turned into a well-produced theme park ride - viscerally thrilling in the moment, and there’s truly nothing else like it on TV, but you can kind of feel all the parts moving to reach a particular destination. It’s fallen into the trap of always trying to one-up itself in terms…

Agreed. He’s a fantastic performer, but something about the character feels wrong with him. I halfway think it’s just that he’s too pretty.

Probably film - IIRC the series technically begins, like, early 2000's? So before digital became commonplace.

Definitely agree about this show being something else when it’s at the top of its game. While it definitely has had some low lows over its run, it has the elusive ability to go to another level when it wants to. That kind of extra gear is one of the rarest things in TV, and is my favorite thing about the medium as a…

Following off of that - I’d love to see them direct Timothy Olyphant.

Yeah, this is pretty much where I’m at. Neither are exactly essential, but they scratch a similar itch that the originals did and are well done enough, particularly Covenant. And despite a fairly nonsensical story, Prometheus is still the best execution of 3D that I’ve seen in a movie.

The difference is, The Sopranos knew AJ was an idiot (not to mention fucked up by his upbringing) and mined it for laughs constantly. Here they take everything the teen/child characters say absolutely seriously no matter how dumb it is.

Oh man, what a delicious mess. I was laughing my ass off.

Completely agree on Howard Shore. The score for the LOTR trilogy is a huge part of what made it work so well. It’s instantly iconic in that same way Star Wars is/was.

One of my most specific yet firmly held beliefs is that video games are the best medium for horror. Something about having to make your own decision to walk into the creepy basement, having to choose where to look yourself, dumb mistakes being your own damn fault rather than a plot contrivance, is so much more…