The ash has settled and new dawn rises over Westeros. The A.V. Club gives our final thoughts on this season of Game Of Thrones, how “The Iron Throne” did and did not work for us, and who the real winner of this whole game was. (It’s Sansa.) Senior Writer Katie Rife and Managing Editor Caity PenzeyMoog are joined by…
Valar Morghulis. All men must die, and as predicted, the body count on Game Of Thrones is rising as the number of episodes before the finale shrinks. This week saw thousands of innocent bystanders burnt to ash on the flaming-hot BBQ grill of Daenerys Targaryen’s ambition—and quite a few named characters died as well.…
In Tolkien, the new biopic of the early life of fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien, the author (Nicholas Hoult) is attending Exeter College in Oxford when he receives a letter from Edith, his childhood sweetheart, announcing she’s engaged to someone else. Distraught, Tolkien gets drunk and winds up stumbling through the…
How do you translate the enduring popularity of Middle-earth to a film about the author who created it? That’s the question that plagues Tolkien, the new biopic of the life of J.R.R. Tolkien, writer of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. And it’s one I mulled after seeing the film and visiting Oxford on a 20th…
Welcome to the “Experts” reviews of Game Of Thrones here at The A.V. Club, which are written from the perspective of someone who has read George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Originally, these reviews were a necessity, creating a space where those who had read the books could freely discuss upcoming story…
May is, by sheer volume, the year’s biggest month for music yet, with long-awaited new releases from Carly Rae Jepsen, Vampire Weekend, and Flying Lotus leading the pack. YG, The National, Mac DeMarco, and Charly Bliss all return as well, alongside promising debuts from Ian Noe and Pronoun. That’s not to mention…
Despite its compressed episode run—the final season of Game Of Thrones is only six episodes—the show is taking its time. Season eight’s second episode let us bask in the presence of most of the show’s remaining characters, gathered at Winterfell and passing a long existential night of the soul before taking their…
As has been noted in previous installments of this feature, the special effects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe were a fly in the ointment for much of the franchise’s early run. Effects work was a mandate to bring the Hulk to life, send Iron Man whizzing through space, and shrink Chris Evans into a pre-Captain…
There were a lot of parallels between season eight’s premiere and the very first episode of Game Of Thrones. Royalty arrives in Winterfell. Someone asks where Arya is. Jaime and Bran meet. The White Walkers arrange body parts into designs. We even get a throwback sexposition scene (sex + exposition, a hallmark of…
Bran travels back in time, teasing “R + L = J”
Cersei’s walk of shame, shame, shame
