Also, would it have killed him to shout "dodge left NOW" to poor little Rickon? Never mind Rickon being too stupid to even attempt to weave when running away from a guy with quiver full of arrows…

I'm perfectly happy with bad and misfortunate characters. But inexplicably stupid, that's unforgivable.

The only thing stupider than Jon's idiotic strategy was Sansa not telling him about the reinforcements. I would assume that, because no one could possibly be so stupid as to not tell him, she actually wanted him and all his men to die. But then I realize that the show genuinely wants us to believe there is someone…

"Cut me some slack — it was cold, and I was dead." — Snow.

If you guys could have little pop-overs with thumbnail images when I hover over the million names in these reviews that I've forgotten, that would help immeasurably. How do non-book-readers remember all this stuff??

Yet another great meta episode. Every character is learning to be a better liar, a better spy, a better writer. Paige is about where Martha was in her first interrogation — the basic cover story, the basic mis-direction, just get through it and learn that no one is to be trusted and you must always be ready. …

-Shosh: story totally short-changed after all that setup; at best, it's a narrative of the revenge of Romney-esque normalcy crushing her Japanese wildness; at worst, it's just a new job.
-Elijah: still a funny actor with good lines, but like Shosh his story remained spinning in the wilderness, with no real interaction…

I agree — and that's why he's the only real male character on the show. Ray sometimes is, but recently he's been almost pure saint (in his curmudgeonly way). I fear Adam going the same way.

While I've complained in the past about recent AT episodes that were a bit on-the-nose, and while this one was pretty predictable in its basic set-up and resolution, it was still a great episode, illustrating what AT does best: fast, funny, and creative in its minor asides, imagery, and plot decorations. Very…

Yeah — and I think he did the same in the episode where Ray and Adam return the dog. As I said in some previous rant here, Girls increasingly depends on this background of well-meaning men — Ray, Adam, Laird even — to be assholes to. It's not that I'm sorry for the men, but it's a crutch for the show that allows its…

Larry David (the character) is an asshole too. I actually can't stand his show (even though it's funny), whereas I do watch Girls, even though Hannah is a bigger asshole. Similarly, the shows "like" Girls that feature similar guys are truly insufferable.

Basically, this was one of those episodes where the more central you are, the more of an asshole you are. Hannah, of course, takes the cake. Fran's relationship with her has remained as inexplicable as all those manic pixie dream girls who inexplicably love the hero through thick and thin in a million TV shows;…

I read this as a reference to Sleep No More (the interactive Macbeth that started the fad), where in a couple rooms similar-era women were for some reason dancing up similarly-wallpapered walls. But probably that's reading too much into it…

I believe "Pride and Prejudice and Ninjas" was called "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," Lee's follow-up to Sense and Sensibility that basically just replaced wordplay with swordplay.

Agreed. The first half was fine, and the visuals were nice, but the end was pretty lame. Once again, it pretty much just announced its message, with no real discovery or growth. It felt more like a Sesame Street episode at the end. I guess given all the episodes recently that wear their messages on their sleeve,…

As someone whose been in the grumpy minority about this season so far, it's a delight to say this episode was great. Best one since Football, IMHO. Fast, surprising, oblique, moving. Why I keep watching.

Another episode that substitutes symbolism and explicit exposition for character development. BMO learns to grow up because he says so. What did we see him learning along the way? What fears or internal demons did he overcome? He was just told his imagination allows him to do stuff, and then did it. And the final…

That was my whole point with the "nominally the theme" bit. Hammering us over the head with the moral of the story in the form of a song does not make a narrative. "Showing not telling" is a cliche, but you do really need to see the characters facing problems, making hard decisions and learning from them, and…

I definitely expect things will go back to the usual pattern of episodic plus underlying change. If nothing else, the revolving stable of writers ensures that things are unlikely to stagnate. I have faith in the show, I just was disappointed by this particular sequence of episodes, where (a) if you deleted the…

No one changed, except to revert back to their older selves. Finn and Jake had no discernible personalities, or at least none that were different than they were years ago. There was no development of Marceline and Simon's relationship despite a number of interactions. We learned nothing significant about her past…