Game of Thrones (Season 5)

[Morris Schæffer]

At 2:46, that's not Kevin McKidd? Ahhh you gotta be fucking kidding me!! I've been saying to my brother "short controlled bursts" everytime Tormund's on screen in reference to McKidd's character in Dog Soldiers. What a dumbass I am.

Anyway, great season again, just a little relentless and cheap in the way [

Show Spoiler

some characters are dispensed with.

] It's always been a bleak show, but perhaps those final moments were a little uncalled for.

[Morris Schæffer]

The last scene, however it turns out, strikes me as another example of the shooting for Twitter outrage as a marker for success. It's like, we get it, Red Wedding was a cool thing for us all to experience as a culture. But they are straining so hard to replicate that moment through child-burnings, sexual assaults, and big-hero-kills that I'm becoming numb to it all. Red Wedding was masterful because it felt like they knew exactly what they were doing. Do we still have that same confidence in this creative unit?

Not numbed by it yet, but I'm feeling some of this too this season especially when they [

Show Spoiler

burned Stannis's daughter at the stake

].

I thought "huh where the fuck did that come from?"

[Morris Schæffer]

The Cersei scene is one of those scenes that, the longer it went on, the more compelling it became for me. When it began, I started laughing because I was thinking of the shaming scene in What We Do in the Shadows, and then I rolled my eyes because of the prolonged attention on her humiliation, but the scene just would not stop, long enough for me to reconsider its purpose and realize that the point of the scene isn't Cersei's shame and her suffering a low point, but an opportunity to show her intense endurance. In hindsight, I think it's necessary to allow that to come across, because what was previously presented in the episode was her yielding (partly) to her torture. It allows a villainous character to end the season on a completely in-character survivalist note, rather than one that's read as a sadistic "Cersei finally gets hers" fanservice.

And I thought Headey was so good that she didn't let the computer-generated nudity pull the focus away from her performance.

Yes! Yes!! Yes!! Except I wasn't aware of CGI shenanigans and thought Heady has fine knockers.

[Ezee E]

Didn't know it was CGI'd. I didn't know Lena was pregnant either.

[Morris Schæffer]

It's just plain devious that the "previously on game of thrones" for the last episode oh so briefly mentions [

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Jon Snow's Uncle Benjen as if it's gonna be a huge plot point in it.

].

[Morris Schæffer]

Richard E. Grant joins s6.

[Grouchy]

That's so awesome. Cast-wise this show is unbeatable.

[Spinal]

Watching these on DVD. Just got to the Sansa scene where everyone lost their shit last year. While I think there was a massive overreaction to that development, I'm more bothered by the earlier scene in which Daenerys gives a random Meereen leader to her dragons to be burned alive and eaten. That seemed to me inconsistent with her character and her sense of justice. I get that she is tough and violent when she needs to be, but why that guy? It just seemed too arbitrary.

[Spinal]

Thoughts on finishing the 5th season:

* Stephen Dillane is the unsung hero of this cast. Stannis could easily be an utter bore of a character, as he is often defined by his stoicism. Dillane fills him with a fascinating inner struggle that can be read in the eyes and perceived only in the subtlest of inflections. If anyone should receive an acting award from this season, it's him. The Stannis storyline alone is classic tragedy on a Shakespearean scale. Here is a man who has always assumed that he is the protagonist of this story. How fascinating it is to watch it dawn on him that fate will treat him differently. Just a masterful performance with support from two of the best in Liam Cunningham and Carice von Houten.

* Those who were slamming the modified direction of Sansa's character arc had it dead wrong. The development has allowed Sansa to demonstrate more strength and agency, not less. Sansa has been bloodied and is an active participant now, not a passive one. Sophie Turner is rising to the challenge and showing depths that have been previously untapped.

* For a show with frequent graphic violence, Arya's assassination of Ser Meryn Trant remains a shocker. It would have been hard to imagine even 20 years ago that such brutality would be a part of the most popular show on television. But here we are. Where is Arya heading? I have a guess. We'll see in time.

* Cersei is such an unrelentingly despicable character in the books. It's interesting to see the show tilt it slightly and make it harder for us to enjoy her degradation.

* Dorne seems to have suffered most from the transition from page to screen. Although it is amusing that the show dared to deliver a heartfelt scene in which a girl's father confesses that she is the product of incest.

* The last three episodes were are crazy good, but Hardhome was the one that finally convinced me to get HBO Now, so that I won't be waiting a year to participate in conversation about Season 6.

[Spinal]

Not numbed by it yet, but I'm feeling some of this too this season especially when they [

Show Spoiler

burned Stannis's daughter at the stake

].

I thought "huh where the fuck did that come from?"

They've been setting it up for multiple seasons now. If you think back, you realize it's the character's sole reason for existing.

[Ezee E]

Funny, any actor that is asked who they want to do scenes with in Game of Thrones, and they almost all answer Dilate or Cunningham.