I'm not sure what this turn of events adds to the story if it isn't an Onion-Knight's head ruse. We really don't need to see Rickon or Osha tortured and/or murdered. My hope is that Ramsay will try to use Rickon to somehow lure Sansa back to the fold, and thereby keep him alive and well, long enough for Jon and the…

My assumption is that Bloodraven's stake is in the greater game, the Ice and Fire fight of the prophecy more than the political game, and the ToJ is important to Bloodraven for who Jon is in that sense (Jon would be his relative, after all). I'm not entirely sure which side Bloodraven is on, however. Melisandre…

I'm guessing that you're right about them eliding Bloodraven's identity, as the show never gets that interested in the back-story. In the books, Bloodraven is more like 150 years old. Then again, when you can see backwards in time, you probably lose some sense of perspective.

It's really not a theory. The last greenseer tells Meera that his name was Brynden (Bloodraven was Brynden Rivers), implies that he was famous; Leaf says "He has a thousand eyes and one" (which is the exact phrase used to describe Bloodraven in "The Mystery Knight"; Bran's first encounter describes him as pale with…

Maester Aemon was Egg's brother. Bloodraven was more of a bastard-great-uncle.

Teamed up with Hot Pie again.

When Varys showed up tonight I told my wife I wished it were Titus instead. It must be the bald head and Varys' robe resembling Titus' kimono.

Fake Shaggydog head is the show's fake Davos head. Also, faking Shaggy's corpse would be a nice ironic reversal of Ramsay (or was it Theon in the show?) faking Bran and Rickon's corpses.

No, Bran might see his dead aunt naked, and Jon being born or having just been born.

They made the character different for the show, which appears not to care who Bloodraven is anyway, which is fine, since his identity is only significant with the books' dense back story. I'm not clear what you mean by "confirmed"—the show doesn't really have any bearing on the books, where he clearly is Brynden…

I know how this is going to sound, but I trained in Shinkendo, a school of samurai swordsmanship (founded by the guy who played Shredder's henchman in the first TMNT movie, Toshiro Obata) for five years, and I can relate some experience on this. Attacking with two Japanese long swords (katana, which are much better…

You might not find it credible, but these books are written to be re-read and read into. Martin hides a ton of material in the narrative that is difficult to pick up on the first read-through. Most of the R+L=J material functions in this way. Likewise, there are several characters whose identities are not spelled…

Yeah, that is one of my favorite Conan things and Norm things ever. After the "Box Office Poison" dig, Thorne tells Conan the actual name of the movie, and Conan says to Norm something like "There, what do you have to say to that, smart guy?" and Norm doesn't even miss a beat with his response.

You may not like the idea of it (some people are really put off by the number of secret bastards in the books), but it's pretty clear that Martin means for us to at least think about either Tyrion or the twins being fathered by King Aerys. My gut tells me it's a purposeful red herring, but the text points to the…

The ethical viewpoints of both DD and JJ are kind of muddled. Despite that both seem to start with "Killing is always bad," they both pretty much end with, "but what can you do? Gotta kill people sometimes."

Yes, there's an element of facelessness to the ninjas that kind of forces us to fill them in with cultural stereotypes. It's lazy, and a flaw, certainly (the entire Hand narrative and the threat it represents suffers from its lack of definition), but not necessarily one that rises to the level of creating a general…

I'm pretty sure Samurai hit people with things (the samurai sword springs to mind). They were certainly aristocratic soldiers, and the horse and bow were part of it (and horses more particular to the wealthier samurai who could actually afford them), but Samurai were definitely capable of fighting on foot and cutting…

Jessica Jones felt thin at points, with a lot of obvious filler plot (almost everything with the poor man's Steve Rogers), and might have benefited from a shorter season, where this season of Daredevil felt way overstuffed with undercooked plot. The Black Sky/Hand narrative is just a mess, and the Blacksmith story…

Yeah, but he's right, it's still way too late to be reading this, given the pace of Netflix releases. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's review pace, where we get 3-4 episodes per week, seems much more appropriate. Reviewing the season within the month feels more natural, given that Netflix has been releasing a new series…

The Punisher on the roof was inspired by Steve Buscemi in Billy Madison.