BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S2E5: Ghost Protocol

Watching the "previously on" for this episode, I realize I forgot two key-ish things from last time. Theon, now fully in the tank for his family and going to war AGAINST Robb Stark, gets a shitty assignment from his dad--basically to take a fishing boat out and fuck people up just sorta randomly. Man, with military strategy like that, it's hard to believe Papa Grejoy screwed up his first attempt at a rebellion! He's a little like Rick Santorum, where he comes miraculously back from defeat only to fucking lose again the same way and you're like "Oh, right." Guy is doomed, is what I am saying. (Rick Santorum probably also has a lousy relationship with his son, and Rick Santorum's son also probably fucks everything in sight.) (See also, the fascinating story of Narciso Lopez, twice-failed conquerer of Cuba. See also Rick Santorum's recent proclamation that "smart people will never be on [his] side." INDEED.) Secondtively, a few episodes back Arya met a dude who talked kind of funny who she later helped free from a burning cage. I don't know why that is important yet, but it was in the previously on! And you know that shit is always going to come back at you.

SO OKAY: This is some BULLSHIT. Last week, I totally called the Robb/Renly partnership that we now see in reaching the final stages of negotiation. Cat is ready to head out the door with Renly's offer, when the damned Baby Smoke Monster comes in and kills Renly! GHOST MURDER! AHHHHH! Smoke Baby evaporates, as Smoke Babies are wont to do, and suddenly Renly's Knight and head of LGBT outreach is standing over his dead body, sword in hand. Then she's killing the two guys who first pop into the tent and (understandably) accuse her.

Recovering her shit admirably fast (she just watched a damn ghost do a murder), Cat Stark urges the lady knight to flee with her rather than keep fighting, since she won't be able to get revenge if she dies in furious, misdirected outrage (like Mitt Romney, after the Libya thing). So they peace, hopefully to start an extended lesbians-on-the-run-from-the-law b-plot. The next day, in seemingly the same tent, Littlefinger gives Knight One Direction identical advice; dead men avenge no tales. The Wire used to do echoing lines a lot ("I'll take any motherfucker's money if he giving it away") to great effect, drawing parallels between drug dealers and policemen, corrupt politicians and children. What is being suggested here? That Cat and Littlefinger have similarly cunning minds? Or something more?

Renly's army flocks to Stannis, which seems to give him the upperhand over everybody. Tyrion is sweating the numbers, but Cersei argues their financial advantage will save them. Tyrion later discovers that Cersei's been developing chemical weapons, a kind of liquid fire once used by Danaerys's family. She plans to fire it at Stannis's men and ships, and Tyrion is disturbed by this prospect. Stannis has boots on the ground, and the Lannisters are concentrating on fire in the air. It's Organizing For America vs. American Crossroads, right? No?

There's more political allegory to parse at Stannis Meatsauce's HQ. His grizzled old friend, Ron Swanson's dad John Swanson, is concerned about Stannis diluting his own power and authority by over-employing religion. If Neko Case and her Smoke Baby come with them to battle, John Swanson argues, the victory will be hers. Stannis ends up agreeing, but in a way that makes me feel like John Swanson is totally doomed (I mean, he's right and he told the truth. Politically, he's screwed).

Back on Alcatraz, Arya is working for Tywin and they seem to be having fun vaguely threatening each other all day. She runs into the jazzy-talking guy she saved a few episodes ago, and he tells her that because she saved three lives that day, he and his friends owe her three lives back. He's a Murder Genie, essentially. Arya starts small--or maybe she's stilll saving the Lannisters for her own sword, but--she calls for the death of Alcatraz's resident prison torturer. And true to Murder Genie's word, motherfucker gets GOT. I love this guy already, and I want to watch a show where he travels around Westeros, committing benevolent murders.

And in the lovely city of Twin Peaks, Dany is having a grand old time. Parties are being thrown for her, her dragons are healthy, and like, everybody and his brother is proposing marriage to her. OK, well, General Tso from last time wants her to marry him, which will allow him to open a vault, which will allow her to take over Westeros, apparently. But Last Of The Mohicans has a different plan to help Dany conquer Westeros, and she seems to be going with him instead. Which hopefully will not cause General Tso to invoke Lunch Specials on them or some other terrible thing. Seriously, what the fuck is this Qarth place? Why doesn't anybody make any sense? Including Dany, who is suddenly all power hungry! Wasn't that Malfoy's trip, Dany? Why can't you just chill with your dragons and your sexy servants and be cool?

By the way. I'm reading the Game Of Thrones books, now. They're really good! You should read them!

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S2E1: Walk Like An Egyptian

[PREVIOUSLY] Season two, motherfuckers! Winter is still coming! And if you maybe needed another ominous portent, there's a big red asteroid streak in the sky now. Bonus Jonas's friend My Fair Lady thinks it signals dragons. I think it means one of our characters is about to find a bunch of cheap California wine.

I expected a gap in time, which is more or less the standard for Premium Cable Serious Dramas Featuring Strong Antihero Leads, but the action in season 2 picks up right where we ended. King Ladyboy is settling into his throne, celebrating his "Name Day" with a bit of the old ultra-violence. It's pretty fun.

Then, just as Ladyboy is gleefully razdrazzing some poogly naz, Tyrion returns in all of his baller glory to bring the good/bad news that he'll be serving as Substitute Hand Of The King. Queen Eyebrow is livid, Zac is ecstatic. (I would be remiss if I didn't note one of Tyrion's best bon-mots to date. To his sister: "You love your children. It's your one redeeming quality...that, and your cheekbones."

Speaking of cheekbones, Dany Of The Dragons is lost in the desert, starving and feeling self-conscious about the promises she made to her new followers during the orgasmic rush of the whole dragon-fire-birth thing. She went and talked like Moses, and now she has to walk like him too. And then her Horse With No Name dies. Man, she's really putting the "drag" in dragon right now, huh?

Elsewhere, Jon Snow and his merry men stop for a while to tarry in another house built on generations of daughter-fucking. But unlike Filch, this Anthony Hopkins-looking dude is living way out beyond the ice wall. So he must be doing some especially fucked up shit to his daughters. One of whom is Cassie from Skins! Hey Cassie! Sorry about your current situation!

Then we meet a new character, Stannis Meatsauce, former brother of the King and current party to the War Of All Against All. He's got a redheaded chick on his side who is doing some Satan-worship shit on his behalf, which upsets a few of his men. But Stannis is like "I'm pretty sure the Old Gods are OK with me riding this out to see if the carpet matches the drapes." So she finishes the ceremony and only like one dude commits suicide in protest so I'm pretty sure it'll work out fine for ol' Stannis.

And Rob Start's got Jamie Lannister in an Apocalypse Now-type prison, where he finally confronts him about all that incest and attempted child murder. Jamie Lannister is like "Yes. Everybody else has known this forever." And Rob Stark is like "I just had to catch people up in case they were just tuning in for the first time." It is fun to watch them bitch at each other, though. The exposition ups and downs continue from there, with Tyrion (awesomely, typically) telling his new lady about the "good liars, bad liars, [and] one or two great liars" that make up the population of King's Landing. I love these two. But then Littlefinger and Queen Eyebrow have about as direct an exchange of thematic concepts as two people could ever have. Actual dialog: "Knowledge is power." "Power is power." So OK, that's where we are there.

Finally: I guess because Stannis has been putting the word out,* Ladyboy now knows of the rumors that he was not a product of King Meatsauce's reliably brunette sperm. He confronts his mother about it, who fails to adequately reassure him. So he, or maybe she, or maybe a backpedalling Carcetti, orders  all of the bastard children of the (prolific) former king hunted down and murdered. Did you ever think you'd see a baby get stabbed in a brothel? I sure didn't! I never even thought I'd get to write those words in a sentence! Hahaha, "get to." Also, isn't it terrible that I saw this as a pretty reasonable reaction on Joffrey's part? I mean, in context! The last bastard standing turns out to be Chris from Skins, who we see being all Huck Finn and shit with Lil' Katniss. Good luck, you two! Seriously!

(*I'm kind of sad we didn't get a Wire-style scene in which Ladyboy freaks out that anyone's been allowing gossip about him on the streets. YOUR NAME IS YOUR NAME! Get a little more Marlo and I'll start to respect you, Joffrey.)

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, ep. 10: Bona Dragon

I'll admit to being a little disappointed that this episode doesn't wrap every story of the season up. I mean, Rome wasn't built in a day, so I guess I shouldn't have expected The War Of The Houses to begin and end in an hour. But still, we have VERY LITTLE to hang our crowns on at the end of this. Except for DANY, NAKED QUEEN OF THE DRAGONS. But we'll get to that.

Ned Stark is dead, and we watch members of his family react. And it is ROUGH. Rob Stark hacking up that tree? OH MAN. I felt EMOTIONS. Cat Stark works out her grief in a similar way, only sub a sword for a rock and a tree for Jamie Lannister's face. So that one is a little less distressing and a little more SUPER SATISFYING. If Ned Stark had to die for Jamie Lannister to get rock-punched in the face, maybe it wasn't in vain. In Winterfell, Bonus Jonas and his new friend My Fair Lady walk around the Stark Family Crypt (my new speed-metal band) imagining how it would feel to have Ned's remains down there. Then that pregoth ghostkid Rickon shows up again. Ugh. Get the fuck out of here, Rickon! Nobody likes you! Then there's something about both weird sons dreaming about Ned's death a priori, like they both have the Shining or some shit, but we see a few minutes later that they're wrong to imagine Ned's remains in the crypt anyway. Ladyboy Lannister is keeping them in his decapitated head garden!

But we're on the upswing after that. The Northern Army declares Rob Stark their King, in a god damn stirring O CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN of a scene. Aaron Sorkin fucking WISHES he could still muster this shit. ROB STARK FOR AMERICA. Or Westeros, or whatever.

Meanwhile, Tyrion's daddy issues take one step back and one step forward—Tywin tells him to head to King's Landing, where he will serve as Interim Hand Of The King during the war. That's rad for both Tyrion and Ladyboy. I'd rather have my Doubleuncle serve as my Hand than my Doublegramps. (Is it wrong that I'm a little jealous of how easy the Lannisters have it around the holidays? Your in-laws ARE your parents! One stop shop!) But Daddy's order comes with the caveat that Tyrion can't bring his new ladyfriend Lisbeth Salander. Not that Tyrion follows that rule. PETER PARKER BALLER SHIT!

Meanwhile, as predicted, the Witch Doctor's patented horseblood serum doesn't do much for Khal Drago. Most of the Dothraki regroup and bail, and Dany ends up smothering her lover/vegetable with a pillow. YIKES! Back in King's Landing, that old dude fucks the redhead chick, who's clearly the most in-demand pussy in all of Westeros. When does she get time to sleep? I mean other than during rambling history lessons from her johns?

Lil Katniss gets a haircut and a lesson in the fluidity of gender from that Elliott Smith-looking motherfucker who shielded her from her father's execution last time, and then she finds herself joining a Boys' Camp with all the misfit toys in town. Shit looks grim at first, but then Chris from Skins befriends her. AWESOME! I am psyched about this development.

Dany erects a funeral pyre for Drago, and at what WE THINK is the height of her badassery, cruelly straps the Witch Doctor to it, thwarting her plans to bring the patented horseblood serum to another town of unsuspecting rubes. Auto-da-fé? More like Auto-da-FUCKING BALLER am I right? And then Dany herself walks right into the flames, dragon eggs in tow. Last Of The Mohicans thinks she's dead, but guess what? SHE'S NOT.

AWWWWWWWWWWW YEAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. OK, time for season 2!

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, ep. 7: Will He Ever Walk The Line?

In Game Of Thrones town, everybody is challenging everybody else's perspective. In the very first scene, Papa Lannister tells Brother Fucker to take the long view: petty honor feuds with Ned Stark are risky and pointless, and what matters is the survival and health of the Lannister name at large and over time (and if his entreaty to look beyond matters of the moment isn't clear enough, we're supposed to listen to him while he guts and skins a huge animal for several minutes). Later, Last of the Mohicans shakes up Dany's view of what it means to have a "right" to the crown like her brother used to say; that their father was king doesn't mean shit--he took it from someone else and then it was taken from him. In turn, Dany shakes up Drogo's view of the world: How could it end at the Narrow Sea when she came from beyond it? And then Jon Snow gets a lousy assignment for the Night's Watch, but Fat Buddy persuades him to see the potential in serving as servant to an influential man. Hell, we even see Carcetti teaching his prostitutes to consider the male gaze while fingering each other, to better play to their audience (in a particularly bizarre, meta moment). Everybody is adjusting their lenses, like that weird part in the opening credits. The only person who refuses to adjust is Ned Stark. 

His first opportunity to do some realpolitik bargaining comes from The Queen herself. She knows what Ned knows and offers him an out. Skip town and we'll let you live. Instead he (somewhat redundantly, probably) accuses her. She's been fucking her brother and fathering his incest babies. She had Jon Arryn killed and pushed Bonas Jonas out the window. The Queen is bracingly honest in her reply. Yes, duh, she's keeping her bloodline pure, as lots of ancient families did. It was easy: she only fucked the King when he was drunk so he wouldn't remember jizzing on her tits or in her mouth or in her butt instead of in her King-Z-Bake oven (I'm paraphrasing, but only a little). Ned: do you see that this is a lady who doesn't bluff? Do you see that caution should be fucking exercised? 

And then King Meatsauce dies while trying to get some bacon, basically. Don't hunt Wild Boar while drunk, kids! Just go to the 24 hour deli! So yeah, whoa! On his death bed, the King signs a paper putting Ned in charge until Joffrey is of age. Ned changes the document to read "my rightful heir," (KING CHRIS!) but in what is becoming a trademark Game Of Thrones move, his subtle trickery at the King's bedside is invalidated minutes later when the Queen just rips it up. I can't decide if I like that storytelling technique or not.

But before that happens the King's brother Renly, freshly shaved I am sure, propositions Ned (no homo): Strike the Lannisters now and install him as new King. Renly tells Ned that Queen Eyebrow is marshalling her forces and soon there will be nothing to be done, but Ned refuses to see it his way. This one is particularly frustrating, because putting Renly in charge at least approximates the honorable thing to do. (Plus, it'd be really progressive.) Instead it sounds like Ned is trying to contact the King's other brother because, I guess technically, the line of succession should pass the crown to him? But it is unclear how serious he even is about that; when he confronts the Queen moments later, he brings out Meatsauce's dying letter that puts him in charge (if temporarily). Ned seems to be pursuing an ideal so abstract that he's still working out what it even is.

Which is a drag. Ned seemed willing to get into the game and play a little dirty last time, issuing an order that the King himself would never have given. But faced with the prospect of going deeper inside, he blinks. A lot of times, being honorable is really just a way to take yourself out of the game.

Nobody has been lying to him about anything. Nobody HINTED that if he didn't compromise the Lannisters would have him killed--they just outright TOLD HIM so, And Carcetti, who has been the most honest of all, turns on Ned in the least shocking, least upsetting betrayal of all time. Holding a knife to his throat and taking him into custody, Carcetti reminds Ned that he told him to never trust him. And he shouldn't have trusted him--instead, he should have listened. To survive, you have to adapt. Everybody who agrees to shift their perspective (so far) is rewarded. Dany gets her trip home (it's a war party, sure, but still, for her it's basically a vacation). Jon Snow gets peace of mind about his career choices. The prostitutes get orgasms. Playing the Game Of Thrones isn't even very complicated, but Ned Stark can't hack it. So, I'm pretty sure the next episode isn't going to be much fun.

    

I haven't said specifically how much I like this show. I do. I love it. This episode was outstanding. I'm sure for some of you it has been a while since you saw it, but what did you think?