"Oh wait, are you a POV character? What you need is right here at the Convenient Plot Devices shelf. You can discover it right away or after a montage of exhausting research, your choice."

Cersei's play was as short-sighted as it gets. She eliminated the High Septon, but in the process alienated her most important allies (including her brother, most likely), killed several family members, drove her son to suicide, and sent a message to the Seven Kingdoms that a dangerous sociopath now sits on the Iron…

I think blowing up a church is a pretty big step in that direction

Eh, I imagine they're not too keen on trusting wights at this point. Not worth the risk of a flaming arrow to the face.

I'm a bit hazy as to which auxiliary characters exist in the show vs. just the books. In the books Loras is one of the younger sons of House Tyrell, not the heir, so joining the (er, a) Kingsguard makes sense.

Contrast with Daenerys, who rewards him for doing the best he could in bad circumstances. She could have easily crucified him for striking a deal with the Masters, but it seems she recognizes that it was a decent strategic move with her and her dragons MIA.

I think that's accurate as to their show versions, but in the books Varys certainly sows his own chaos when it suits him. He just claims it's for the good of the realm rather than personal glory.

Not sure about that. She definitely didn't intend for Tommen to die. But it is telling that she was dressed as a monarch anyway.

I'm guessing she just snuck her, uh, special ingredients into some existing dishes. Though the image of her staying up all night working the ovens is kind of funny.

BREXIT PLAN

Breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, you know stuff like that

Yeah, someone at HBO needed to tell Winter/Scorcese that the "rich middle-aged white antihero" concept has been done to death (including by Winter himself on two different shows). Bobby Cannavale is great, but the mypoic focus on him and his stupid problems was unforgivable when you have all of the 1970s NYC music…

I'm very interested in a show about 70s music, but this one was just bad. I hope Netflix's The Get Down is better. (How could the combo of Baz Luhrmann and hip-hop fail?)

Seriously, I was really looking forward to it. New York! Punk! Disco! Cocaine! Hip-hop! More cocaine! All these great ingredients wasted.

Vinyl-ly*

Really? I thought the pilot was awful, so I can't imagine how it got worse.

Wait, what? I'm now dumbstruck as well.

Totally. It strikes me as the height of hubris to produce a show about the music scene in 70s NYC and make the lead a rich, middle-aged white guy. From glimpses of later episodes they seemed to expand the scope a bit more, but dear lord was that (two-hour!) pilot awful.

The Night Of looks pretty good, but it's a mini-series apparently.

It's ambiguous at best. James would be Vice President and Acting President in this scenario. So there would be no vice presidential "vacancy" under the 25th Amendment, which is when both houses vote on a new VP.