I keep wondering about the flashforward structure and if it was always meant to play out this way - the Phoenix stone mythology was there from the beginning, but I wonder if the Heretics were originally meant to be a bigger part of the second half? They set up too much for how little they ended up doing with them,…

Well, this season was kind of a "how not to" in serialized television, leading to a finale that didn't feel like a finale (half-season finale at best) and that set up next season in the least interesting way possible. If any season-long plotline ended up somewhat working, it was Damon's "redemption" and a final…

I'd like to think they will stay at Castle Black at least long enough until Jon returns, because God knows this Stark thing is tired six seasons in… on the other hand, I can't imagine Brienne will be too amused when she finds that the most important characters currently at Castle Black are Melisandre and Davos, who…

Weirdly I never really got that aspect of Sarah until this episode

you'd think they'd learn when they basically ruined Caroline/Stefan the moment they made it non-platonic

- The Family Hendrix somehow grows better with each episode, long after there shouldn't have possibly been room for improvement. I sort of worry what the police catching up with their many criminal activities might mean for the show, but given that the previews are explicitly linking that to the neolution cop we saw…

I've been a bit disappointed by this season too, but I still feel a knee-jerk need to defend the weaker stuff because so much of the negative reaction it seems to be getting is rooted in variations of misogyny and reactionary bullshit. BUT I more or less agree with everything you "didn't write", except maybe the men =…

I haven't been on AVclub as much lately as I used to be but the way the comments on Inside Amy rapidly turned into a dumpster fire still doesn't feel natural

Olly is either in for a redemption arc (dubious) or Snow is going to revenge-kill him and we'll be supposed to take that as an indication of He Came Back Wrong. I'm hoping for the second and also they'll do that plotline with exactly zero subtlety, dutch angles, odd lingering shots, suspicious emotional reactions and…

I really liked the Dark Caroline episodes last season, though

The 'Michele should want Jason in top three" thing might be true, but realistically I don't think she could have swayed the alliance to vote for nobody else this episode.

The best thing for Michele right now might be getting Aubry and Cydney out because Tai done fucked up any chance he had with the jury at this tribal. I have a feeling she either goes home the next episode or we're heading for a Michele/Tai/Joe final three.

Tai - zero chance of winning this game

I think it's partly also that Meera does look very different from when we last saw her

At this point I'm so past caring about Matt I wish they'd just kill him off even though they swore they were never going to. He worked as the human element up until season 5 and then they had the genius idea of "wait what if Matt *hated vampires*" and couldn't even make him into a convincing/interesting villain.

It's almost like they didn't know what to do with the character, kept him around trying weird stuff out and eventually ended up hitting something that sort of works, at which point Damon and Bonnie were the only characters that still worked and weren't bogged down in godawful baby/revenge plots

he was incredibly horrible in the pre-time jump part of this season too, though

I haven't got around to watching the episode but that just seems like one strange decision and one predictable one? Davina has been struggling for a place on this show for a while now, so killing her off is probably for the best, but Cami? They barely explored the vampire-Cami storyline and if they just wanted to kill…

Well honestly I'm kind of glad they did - while I wouldn't mind seeing a lot of these characters again tying everything in this season to neolution was a somewhat inspired choice because the plot these past two seasons was mostly a confusing clusterfuck. I don't think they can resist it for long, but I could do…

I think she's the least related to the plot but her death might be impactful for the biggest amount of characters next to maybe Sarah…