Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 4: "And Now His Watch Has Ended"

An exciting and well rounded episode, with important developments for almost all of the characters.  For those that complained the first three episodes were lacking in plot and action, this episode undoubtedly kicks the show into high gear.  Not only do we get promising build ups (Tywin promises to put Joffrey in check, the Hound will fight for his life), we get some delicious ends to two vile characters (the slave trader and Craster, finally).

The episode starts off with a shot of Jaime's cut off hand.  Things have gotten worse for Jaime, we've never seen him this bad before.  Having been tied up and in chains since Season 1, he's always maintained his cleverness and sense of humor, but not anymore.  Somebody needs to give him a hand (hah, couldn't resist).  At King's Landing, Margaery convinces Joffrey to address his people, much to Cersei's behest. Theon still had daddy issues and realizes his mistake, proclaims Ned Stark to be his real father, then gets betrayed.  His helper dude is crazy.  Lord Varys is onto Littlefinger's plans.  Arya tries to get revenge for her friend back in Season 1, Episode 2 against the Hound.  We see some of Sansa and Margaery being girlfriends, with Margaery trying to hook her up with her brother.  Like, totally!

Finally, we see Craster get what's coming to him.  Good riddance.  Too bad about the leader of the Knight's Watch though, that was uncalled for.   In an episode with a lot of exciting plot developments, the best was saved for last.  I'm glad Daenerys didn't have to lose one of her dragons and am glad she gave the city revenge against its slave owners   Although many people expected something like this to happen, it was still damn epic.  "A dragon is not a slave!"  

Observations:
- Theres a lot of shit in this episode, literally (Jaime in a pile of it, the Knight's Watch shoveling it).
- Bran is involved in some Matrix/Inception stuff.
- Joffrey's idea of romance involves going to see tombs.
- I enjoyed Brienne telling Jaime he sounds like a "bloody woman".
- "Good, I wished you knew how to manipulate you him." Tywin to Cersei. Burnn.
- Also, "You are a bastard.  A daughter fucking wilding bastard".  About time.
- My preseason wish of Sam going back for his girl happens, check!
- The Brotherhood Without Borders have a batcave and a Batman-like philosophy.'  Too bad they they're in with that God of Light religion.
- The Unsullied reminds me of the soldiers from 300.

Mad Men Season 6 Episode 3: "The Collaborators"

A strong episode that centers on the complicated relationships of Don and Pete, while also highlighting their characters' similarities and key differences.  After the bland season premiere, I'm glad to see Mad Men back and raising the drama.

In the episode, Don and Pete are two men dealing with similar situations very differently.  Both are in affairs with their friends' wives, yet both respond to the challenges of their affairs with varying degrees of success.  Don is smoother and smarter about his adultery, he even makes it look more meaningful.  When Sylvia gives Don the cold shoulder at a fateful restaurant dinner, Don turns it around on her and makes her fall for him even more.  When Pete's mistress shows up at his household, he does everything wrong and shows that he does not care about her in the slightest, dooming his marriage.  Don succeeds, Pete fails. We also get more insight into Don's screwed up psyche, with some interesting flashbacks to his childhood that we haven't seen since the early Mad Men seasons.

My favorite scene of the episode was Trudy's speech to Pete, ending their marriage and telling him what was going to happen from there.  Trudy may act happy and oblivious but she knew what Pete was up to all along.  She even tried to make it easy for him by letting him have his own apartment in the city, yet Pete still managed to screw that up.  He was a trainwreck waiting to happen, sleeping with their neighbor was a new low Trudy couldn't overlook.  Good for her.

Meanwhile, Peggy is successful at her new job but not very popular.  She is the Don Draper of her new firm, but without the coolness to make everyone like her.  She vents to her buddy Stan, who tells her about the Heinz ketchup situation to cheer her up.  Her mistake is that she relayed this intel to her new boss, who wants to act on it and steal the Heinz account.  She may lose her only friend because of this.  I look forward to seeing the eventual face off her firm will have with SCDP over the account.

Overall, this was an episode that increased the stakes with Don and Peggy's storylines, while resolving Pete's.  The end of his relationship with Trudy was in the making since the first episode.  Don is getting in deeper than he should and Peggy is about to start some trouble with her old firm.  I can't wait to see where this all leads.

Observations:
- That Jaguar guy oozes sleaze.  I'm glad Don ultimately circumvented his plan by acting cheesy and fake.
- Apparently all the guys on Mad Men spending their morning hours before work cheating on their wives.
- "If you so much as unzip your fly to urinate, I will destroy you"- Trudy to Pete.
- Don seems to love the woman he's with.  In almost back to back scenes, he embraces Sylvia and consoles Megan.
- Child Don spying on his mom through the keyhole was creepy though.  His excuse: "I dropped a penny!"
- Hopefully Stan doesn't get fired for telling Peggy about the Heinz account.

Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 3: "Walk of Punishment"

A good, busy episode with a crazy ending.  This episode was impressive in that it checked in with almost all the characters, and almost each of their story arcs had something interesting about it.  It feels like big things are going to happen, and some already have.

The episode starts off with Robb and Catelyn going to Catelyn's father's funeral.  We get to meet Catelyn's brother Edmure, who is running things and comes off as an idiot, and her uncle Brynden who knows Edmure is an idiot.  Next, Tyrion and Cersei play a funny game of chairs at their meeting with Tywin, which summarizes their positions relative to him.  Arya gets a quick scene when her and Gendry say goodbye to Hot Pie, who finds his place in the universe as a baker's apprentice.  He gets a nice moment where he gives Arya a bread wolf that was childlike and sweet, something we don't get enough of in this show.  Daenerys is thinking about trading one of her dragons for the 8,000 soldiers.  Barristan and Jorah are now both of her advisers and I'm getting the feeling that they don't like each other.

The best story arc of the episode belonged to the captured Jaime and Brienne.  Things don't look too good for either of them, especially Brienne, because she is seen as expendable and because she is a woman.  Jaime shows his compassion when he makes up a lie about Brienne being valuable, trying to save her from being raped and killed.  I liked this scene, as it shows a side of Jaime we haven't seen before.  Maybe Brienne has grown on him?  Too bad for him, he gets his hand cut off in the last scene.   What the crazy!  I did not see that coming.  I was surprised, Jaime's sword fighting was one of the attributes he was most known for, I was looking forward to see more of it.

Observations:
- I enjoyed the opening scene with the arrow shooting.  I'm a sucker for any scenes involving people doing archery (ex. the archery scene in Brave, the archery scene in The Hunger Games).
-  "Close your eyes and pretend they're Renly"- Jaime to Brienne.
- Arya is sure it is "Winterfell", not "Winterhell".
- That bread wolf thing Hot Pie gave to Arya was very "awwwww".
- Robb eats children when there is a full moon, according to children.
- Theon Unchained, look forward to seeing more of the Greyjoys.
- Stannis is horny to make more shadow demon babies.
- Danenerys is giving away a dragon, I don't like this.  It's like her giving away one of her babies.
- Being loyal to Tyrion has it's perks.

Mad Men Season 6 Episode 1 and 2: "The Doorway"

“Midway through our life’s journey I went astray from the straight road and awoke to find myself alone in a dark wood.”  

The sixth season of Mad Men begins with Don reading a line from Dante Alighieri's Dante's Inferno.  The quote sets the mood for the rest of the episode, which is mopey and obsessed with death.  I was disappointed with the season premiere, which felt overlong and underwhelming, despite some highlights from the main story line that I'll get into.

My main issue with the episode was with Don.  The episode starting out strong, I liked the scenes of him in Hawaii and his interactions with the young soldier.  It was a nice way to callback to Don's past life and gave us some insight to the way he might be feeling.  However, that stopped there.  Since Don doesn't talk about his feelings, we're left to wonder why he is so mopey and out of it for the rest of the episode.  Is he fearing death?  Having a mid life crisis?  Roger seems to be in the same place Don is in but is more vocal about it, at least in his scenes to his psychiatrist.  We get a little more insight at the end with the big reveal that Don is cheating on Megan, but the episode spent too much time for me on Don standing around being unhappy for no reason.

The stuff that I missed about the old Don Draper seemed to be present in Peggy, which for me, was the best part of the episode.  I liked that her work in this episode shows that she learned from Don all those years she was working for him.  Her no-nonsense attitude to her coworkers reminded me of the the way Don used to treat her back in the old days of Sterling Cooper.  Her headphones pitch idea was also more exciting and fresh than Don's Hawaiian hotel pitch, which was again, about death.  I'm looking forward to more of her story lines this season, since after she left SCDP, I was worried we would stop seeing more of her.  It's good to know that won't be the case.

Some of the other scenes I enjoyed:  I liked Ken dressing down that brown nosing new guy who was hanging out in the lobby trying to suck up to people.  Betty and Henry Francis's bedroom conversation about raping Sally's friend was disturbing and weird, but also hilarious and entertaining.  I'm not sure how I feel about her story arc of trying to track down Sally's friend.  I think I liked it, it showed a nice side to Betty that we haven't seen in a while.  Roger's mother's funeral was a highlight, both funny and sad at the same time.  

Overall, an uneven episode and an unimpressive season premiere.  It didn't contain the excitement or freshness of the other Mad Men season premieres and felt more like a contemplative mid season episode. I remain optimistic the best is yet to come in the next couple of episodes.

Observations:

-  Besides the voiceover, Don didn't speak until about 7 minutes into the episode. 
-  That new guy came into the elevator with two coffees.  One was for Don and the other one went to Pete, which I thought was hilarious.
-  Betty's idea of "spicing things up" is dirty talk about tying up and raping Sally's friend.
-  Megan seems happier than ever.  Apparently she plays an evil maid in some tv show?  
-  There's a lot of weed in this episode.  Everyone except Don and Roger also seems to have a new haircut or a new mustache.  
-  Looking forward to see more from Pete, Joan and Sally.  Sally's in full teenager mode now.
-  Blonde Betty> Brunette Betty.  And I usually prefer brunettes.

Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 2: "Dark Wings, Dark Words"

Episode 2 of this season feels similar to the Season Premiere, by which I mean we're still catching up with characters from last season who weren't covered last episode.  This time, the focus of the episode is on the two youngest Stark siblings and the dynamic duo of Jaime and Brienne.

The theme of the episode definitely seems to be "travel".  We get Jon Snow travelling undercover with Mance Ryder, Bran travelling and meeting a pair of siblings, Arya travelling and meeting some swordsmen, and Jaime and Brienne travelling and meeting some foes.  The only significant non-travel plot line is Joffrey and Margaery Tyrell, who are getting to know each other better and bond through the idea of killing someone with a crossbow.

Although I did like this episode, I admit that that there were parts of it that felt like filler where not a lot happened to advance the plot.  Half of the episode seemed to be about people traveling and meeting new people while the other half was about people talking while putting on and taking off clothes.  I don't mind it too much, since it gave us time to get to know the characters a little better.  For instance, I like the idea of Gendry questioning Arya about how she used her three free kills, because I would have asked the same.  The highlights were definitely the end, with Jaime's battle with Brienne and Arya being discovered by the Hound.

Observations:

- Bran looks noticeably older, like a missing Jonas brother.
- Hodor is back. Hodor!
- "We don't get to choose who we love"- Jaime.
- Joffrey isn't a fan of floral designed shirts.
- Speaking of clothes, I like the way Margaery Tyrell dresses, in her dresses.
- Joffrey wants to make being gay punishable by death, can he be more evil?
- It wasn't a good episode for Arya or Jamie's sword skills.

Game of Thrones Season 3 Episode 1: "Valar Dohaeris"

Finally, Game of Thrones is back. After all the waiting, the first episode of Season 3 comes and goes by in a heartbeat.  Couldn't you have given us a two episode season premiere HBO?  COULDNT YOU?!  Anyways, its just great to be back in this crazy world, there's really nothing else like it on tv or film right now.

The episode starts off with action North of the Wall with Jon Snow getting all The Departed.  His spy storyline is intriguing and a good way for us to find out whats going on with these Northerners.  At King's Landing, Tywin's presence seems to be bringing new dynamics to Tyrion, Cersei and Joffrey.  Tywin's speech to Tyrion was pretty harsh.  Davos is still alive? (I almost forgot who his character was for a moment).  Robb and Catelyn find Winterfell in ruins.  Danerys' storyline is almost already better than last season, with her interactions with the slave trader a highlight.  This was very much a season premiere episode in the sense that it catches us up to most of the characters and develops new story arcs.

My only complaint about the episode is that it seemed to be about setting up for things to happen, instead of things actually happening.  I have to remind myself that the best episodes of Season 1 and Season 2 usually came a few episodes in after things started getting rolling.  Ultimately, I'm excited Game of Thrones is back and it looks like there's a lot to look forward to, bring on the next episode!

Observations:

- No Arya, Bran or Jamie =[ It was probably a good idea to not to try to cram them in this episode though.

- I got giddy when the intro music started playing.  #nerdalert

- Giants are shy.  Who wouldve thunk it?

- First naked chick, exactly 12 minutes and 40 seconds into the season.  

- The slaver guy was not in a good mood to sell 8,000 slave soldiers.

Bonus:  Here's a picture of the actresses that play Arya, Catelyn and Sansa blowing bubbles at you.  

My Game of Thrones Season 3 Hype Post

March 31, 2013. Winter is almost here!

(Warning: Season 1 and 2 spoilers below)

As a non-reader of the book series, its hard to read all of the web talk without running into any eventual spoilers.  When I do review it, it’ll be as a fan of the show and not a reader of the books.  I don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t want to know what’s supposed to happen in the book.  This will be purely for the HBO TV show. 

Anyways, heres what I thought about the first two seasons:

Season 1: 8.5/10

The first season of the show was a pretty amazing accomplishment.  I usually don’t really enjoy the first seasons of tv shows for a couple of reasons that the first season of GOT could have suffered from.  First seasons of tv shows are usually burdened with the task of introducing and establishing characters and the world they live in.  The world of Westeros is complex.  Theres a ton of characters to introduce, all with their own families, lineages, histories, roles and geographies and presenting all of this could have been a big, confusing headache.  GOT Season 1 probably did this the best that it could while remaining entertaining and keeping you hooked.  Ned Stark was established as our main character and our guide to the world and politics of Westeros.  The story arcs centered around character development and they were pretty damn good. 

Favorite episode: Baelor

Season 1 Highlights:  Daenerys’ transgression from an abused and clueless little sister to a badass warrior woman.  Ned’s eventual downfall for being an honest man.  Arya’s sword training and her childhood shattering. 

Season 2: 7.5/10

More messy.  With no central character to rely on (I guess maybe Tyrion?), there were a couple of boring episodes in the sense that it felt like not much was happening except politics (cough Episode 2, The Night Lands cough).  This season was focused on war, which meant there were a lot of episodes leading up to the eventual confrontation and then the confrontation itself, which was badass and probably my favorite episode of the whole series.  The Daenerys storyline was really weak compared to Season 1, it seemed like all she did was whine.  Her story looks more promising in Season 3 though.  Rob Stark, Jamie Lannister and Tyrion (of course) all had their moments to shine.

Favorite episode: Blackwater (duh)

Season 2 Highlights:  Tyrion as the King’s Hand.  Arya as Tywin’s assistant and her interactions with Jaqen the assassin.  Jon Snow and Ygritte.  Theon Greyjoy and his betrayal.  Rob Stark letting love conquer all. 

Season 3 Hype

What I want to see happen in Season 3:

1. Joffrey needs to die.  Violently.

2. A scene where Daenerys does battle while flying on top of one of her dragons.

3. Hopefully Jon Snow loses his virginity to Ygritte.

4. The adventures of Jamie Lannister and Brienne continued.

5. Sam keeps his promise and comes back for Craster’s daughter/wife.

Newest trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69nUFqT7XFQ

HBO also released some stills for Season 3:  http://winteriscoming.net/2013/01/first-season-three-photos-released/#more-2254

Heres my favorite from them: