Since you clearly couldn’t find the time to the read the book the series you’re writing about is based on, perhaps you could at least pay attention to the show itself and/or do a tiny bit of research? These write-ups about this series have so far felt very pedestrian and disinterested. Someone who understands and…

Thank you! I had no idea what kind of accent she was going for. French, but also like, not French? It’s all over the place, it’s insanely distracting.

He is the Jimmy Carter of Westeros. A good man, maybe even underrated, but too nice for a dirty job.

Laena Velaryon is the king’s first cousin once removed not his niece.

I’ve started to mostly skip the “reviews” on the site at this point and just dive into the comments.

Could the creepy-faced pirates have a connection to the Faceless Men, the visage-stealing assassins’ guild from Game Of Thrones whose HQ is located in the Free City of Braavos?

Can we talk about how solid Rhys Ifans has been? It took me almost the full first episode to realize this was Spike from Knotting Hill.

I think the choice to just re-use the GoT theme music was a pretty lame one. All it does is remind you of how good its predecessor was at its best, and it just makes you feel like it’s cribbing off that show’s tone without creating its own which is really important for a spin-off type show to do. The lack of memorable…

From this review, I’m getting the feeling that the AV Club’s take on this show may just be some retroactive GoT-bashing, which is a shame because I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the first two episodes. As someone who enjoys most of the thoughtful deep dives AV Club reviewers take, I remember being abso…

Yeah, the wooden-ness kind of worked in the context of Devs, but here (and with the weird accent that changes from line to line) she just seems out of her league.

Calling the original subtle in comparison to this is a little reductive. I mean, this show directly deals with a woman taking the throne. The original didn’t, as the women who took power in the original stayed in their lanes the entire time (I can’t remember what happened after Tommen killed himself, I think Cersei…

I’ve noticed this trend too across all of AV Club. The “reviews” are more like recaps. Not much insight into what is going on, or about underlying themes - and as you mentioned, really no expertise about the source material.

Definitely welcome - I worried at the beginning of the premiere that we would only be getting that Targaryen logo every week. I will say, though, the somewhat cryptic imagery isn’t as captivating as the original - were they supposed to be literal bloodlines, tracing the Targaryen family tree through the model of…

This is all the AV Club is now, a pale imitation of its old self. Been the case for a decent bit of time now. It’s utterly depressing and I’d be delighted to find another site that had that sort of quality of writing these days

If anybody’s grooming anybody here, it’s Alicent grooming the King. Or, more accurately, the Hand her father using Alicent to groom the king.

It’s been a long time since these “reviews” have been anything but recaps. The “Stray Observations” section at the end allows for just a bit of opinion or analysis, but the main body of the piece is pretty much a play-by-play, only occasionally editorializing.

Oh boy, that title sequence is a bloody mess! Say what you will about original flavour GoT, but its opening credits were the definition of world building. Not only would you get a refresher on the geography of Westeros, you’d find hints about that week’s storylines. Oh look, Oldtown is going to be in this episode.…

Pirates and faceless men connected? I don't see it at all, pirates compared to skilled assassins. Just because it was wearing a creepy mask?

I gotta say having the intro air this week made me enjoy the episode just a little bit more. Something about that theme just gets you going.

“Speaking of Corlys, he, his daughter Laena, and Mysaria are the only nonwhite actors in the entire series so far. Elf-pale Targaryens aside, this show had every opportunity to make its cast more diverse, especially considering how much (justified!) flack Game Of Thrones got for its homogenous central cast.”