So I was not enamoured of this episode. Regarding Meg's character, I very much appreciate the role she's now playing in the wider story, and see the logic of her actions given her position. But I think there is a very, very large gap between the Meg we left in S1 and the one we have now, a gap I suspect the show isn't…

Billy Mitchell, primo lawsuit dude,
Exhorting in the court, he ain't gonna lose
A perfect gavel goes down…
Billy's on the move.

Chariots was the first one. He has a couple of dozen, almost all of which use the phrase "… of the Gods". I couldn't find one called Places (or Palaces, in case I misread).

I wonder how many hotels there are in that neck of the woods, and whether he might have just rung the desk and asked.

Yes, that's what I'm saying - the mere fact that Kevin is still alive is enough to make the existence of something we can term "the supernatural" part of the reality of the show. Exactly what manner of "the supernatural" is anyone's guess.

A book called "Places of the Gods" is shown among Hank's effects. I assumed it was an Eric von Däniken book, but googling it, apparently not. Von Däniken seems passing fond of the "… of the Gods" construction, though, it's in damn near every one of his books, so I think we can assume "Places of the Gods" is meant to…

Well, he clearly didn't die from the overdose. We've already seen what seemed like dead things coming back to life after being buried there, right? So I think it's tough to see strict naturalism being preserved. Though if by 'supernatural' you just meant some kind of theistic thing (or an afterlife), then yeah, it's…

Polarising, indeed. I'm conflicted myself - terrible turn for the show as a whole to take, but a very enjoyable episode.

Reading that book always left me thinking in Scottish for about a week.

And once again I've forgotten how to format italics.

Ra's Al Ghul is the only other example apart from Talia that really fits the point being made. Of course lots of villains are duplicitous towards [i]other characters[/i], the point is that [i]we[/i] always know that Joker is the villain, that he's the gangster Jack Napier (in Burtman or however we best abbreviate it).

Hey, that too, as far as I'm concerned, but HBO probably don't want to abandon (or dilute) the brand "True Detective".

Let me cast my vote for Door Number Three: NOT a writers' room, but also NOT Nicky Pizza. Find someone else - I don't mean fire Pizzolatto, but shunt him to executive producer limbo. He can give notes on mood and tone and suchlike. Dennis Lehane or George Pelecanos, maybe? They wrote for The Wire, so presumably…

I enjoyed it at the time, but the more I think about it, the ropier it feels.

"Thoughts on the episode title?"

Are people seriously expecting the show to produce excerpts from a world-class novel in order to depict the writing and publishing of a world-class novel? To our knowledge, are there any world-class novelists on the writing staff? I mean, yeah, the prose we've heard is laughable tripe. I don't get why that matters.

I think the show is sharp enough to leave the Noah/Eden connection just part of Alison's paranoia.

I'd watch the hell out of a Whitney spin-off.

“…fan” derives from “fanatic.”

I can't see John sharing that info with Michael. It seems like he wants to keep Michael more or less in the dark about that side of his life. I also don't know if John's palmprint-checking methods are professional enough for a turnaround that fast.