Everything ThrowMeToTheWolves said, plus two more:

Lomu did play sevens. He made his first big international splash at the Hong Kong sevens in 1995.

Watch both, enjoy both. The limitations of league (no breakdown/ruck so almost no contest for the ball, 6 tackles) are what make it both good and bad. Relatively good teams are going to be relatively evenly matched no matter what, but the play won’t be too varied, and almost everything occurs within 15 meters of…

You’re being generous-to-inaccurate calling that announcer a broadcast analyst. The man doesn’t even know the positions or moves. It’s an embarrassment.

"But, as the title of the review suggests, to what end?"

I know a lot of people seem to think this was all cheap, lazy and unearned, and the writing is just bad. But there are some tells here that the showrunners are giving this stuff more thought than some commenters.

I bet you say that to all the shows.

Since Bran was able to warg back to Hodor's youth and affect the present, it's conceivable he could have gone to some other time in the past when he saw the Night King. The Night King touches Bran, gets a bead on his consciousness/location, and then that guy knows where and when to be to get the drop on The Bran Gang.

More reason to have GRRM at least give the scripts a once-over.

Not saying Tormund wouldn't make a dick joke, just not in that way — like an 8th grader from 1993.

I blocked that fart out of my memory. Thanks, Fakko.

I'd accept it from lesser shows, like Arrow, where they always seem to pop up in the right place at exactly the right time ready for battle. But Person of Interest is better than that. I don't want that show to spend its final season becoming like CW comic book joint.

I like this idea of Bran being a metonym for the audience and the Three-Eyed Sydow being a metonym for the showrunners. Let's run with that and see how the rest of the Starks shake out:

"Between Tormund’s talk of Jon’s pecker and the Umber’s strident approach to negotiating with Ramsay, I felt this was another week where the dialogue felt a tad bit more modern than it has in past seasons. I’m not sure it’s necessarily a bad thing, but it seemed marked nonetheless."

Yep, you're right, but I still think it's a stretch for Reese to go from guessing the nutjob on a subway was root to finding the right secret warehouse at the perfect moment.

I think you're right, but it's still a jump from Reese guessing root was the nutjob on a subway to finding the exact hidden warehouse at the exact right moment.

Okay, I'm reasonably happy with this episode, but one thing, ONE THING, is REALLY bothering me:

Haven't seen this elsewhere (yet), and I'm getting to the episode late, but but but —

Refn's a stylistic mash-up or remix artist: Valhalla Rising was a mash-up of a sci-fi film with a medieval story (he said someplace he wondered what it'd be like if Kubrick made a viking film), and Only God Forgives is a mash-up of an American crime/detective drama with a samurai movie (set in a land where neither of…

Simone seemed to be in the Bernie Bernbaum role (almost expected her to say "I'M PRAYING TO YOU"), so that was probably her last chance.