It is a generally angsty youth thing, but Morrissey also has had a disproportionately large Mexican and Mexican-American fanbase for years. If you’re interested in taking a deep dive into the reasons why (e.g. the similarities between the themes in his music and those of traditional Mexican folk songs, his active…

That all makes perfect sense. I’m not talking about a ninth or tenth season, though, just the regular 10 epidode seasons for 7 and 8 so that they would have more time and more room to connect the major plot points. They’ve said more than once that they’ve always foreseen doing eight seasons and that seasons 7 and 8…

Who’s saying that D&D are anyone’s bitch? And if they felt that way it sure hasn’t come through in interviews, write-ups, etc. Again, D&D’s official line since before season 7 began filming is that they have always planned on doing truncated penultimate and ultimate seasons—that it was all part of an original master…

I’m not hand-waving away anything. Trying and failing to write the connective tissue isn’t the same as not trying at all. I used this example in another post, but one scene that really stood out for me as a missed opportunity is the one in the God’s Wood where Jon tells Bran to tell Arya and Sansa Jon’s true…

As a kid I was at a friend’s birthday party where the parents had two-liters of both the original formula and New Coke. Most people there couldn’t tell the difference. Same with Coke and Pepsi, for that matter. I mean, I could tell the difference between all three, but I think that the whole thing was overblown. It…

“They had six hours for this final season. I expect these last two books of mine will fill 3000 manuscript pages between them before I’m done…and if more pages and chapters and scenes are needed, I’ll add them.”

Oh sure. I mean, I have no idea. I just know a lot of the write-ups that I’ve been reading go one way or the other in terms of assessing why the last two seasons had such glaring pacing issues. Some writers offer up a defense of D&D, saying that the series had grown too expensive and that they were dealing with a…

The Red God is fickle! Remember Davos observing how the Red God didn’t care much what happened to his champions once the Battle of Winterfell was over and the Long Night passed?

On the Drogon-is-smart-side, someone elsewhere posted a bit of head canon that Drogon picked up Dany and took her to Quaithe, who sure seems like she was looking out for Dany (in the books even more so than the show) and who might be a red priestess who could resurrect Dany.

Thanks for sharing this. I’m sorry that you received such a shitty response at the time.

At first he struck me as a cross between Jason Patric’s and Kiefer Sutherland’s characters from The Lost Boys—he has Michael’s looks (including the hair) and David’s personality, turned up to 11. So I thought that it was just an homage (maybe it was?) and they would make him an interesting antagonist. Then he went…

Bob’s Burgers has occasionally run into a similar problem with Tina obsessively ogling and iinappropriately touching boys—probably most saliently when she wanted to become a lifeguard (speaking of that) just so she could ogle and inappropriately touch the male lifeguards during training. There are several moments like…

I’m still confused about whatever budgetary restraints D&D were facing in the first place. To hear some industry writers (and bloggers, commenters, etc.) tell it, HBO wanted 10 episodes each for season 7 and season 8 and were willing (begging, even) to throw in a ton more money to make it happen. That tracks with what…

I think that episode 2 had pretty solid pacing. Your mileage may vary, of course. I know some people thought it was too slow and had too much table setting, but I thought it was full of great moments between characters that we have come to care about.

There were a lot of great moments in season 8, enough to comprise a whole list of highlights like this one. What was missing, of course, was the connective tissue that could have made those moments make more sense or feel earned or just feel like there were part of the same complex, rewarding story that we got the…

Along with the aforementioned choices, he was perfectly cast as Hank in The Neon Demon and as Shane Falco in The Replacements.

You didn’t have to hammer home what’s going on here. 

So no odds on Gendry ending up on the throne? I’m still holding out that he might be Robert’s true-born heir. Early on in season 1 Cersei confided in Kat that she and Robert had a first son—a “black-haired beauty”—who she said died shortly after he was born. When Ned asked Gendry about his mother a few episodes later,…

I haven’t seen it yet. I’ve heard it’s good, though. Late Cage usually isn’t my cup of tea, but I’ll see it eventually—probably this summer.

Vallelonga is a busy man these days, starring in Alice In Chains videos and gearing up for his passion project, That’s Amore!, a musical romantic comedy about a woman named Patti Amore. Can Cage star in that one, too?