Game of Thrones 8x03: The Long Night

War has come to Winterfell... again. I swear this is the last time. There's a big fight, the living are eventually all but defeated, but Bran sits motionless for hours, which manages to bait the Night King into coming after him. When all seems lost and the last male Stark is about to get the chop, Arya leaps out of nowhere and stabs ol' frosty in the chest, and all the dead drop dead-er.

What I Liked
-The shot of the dragons flying above the clouds is fantastic.

What I Hated
-The night is dark and full of dark. Also, there's more dark with a side of dark. It was partially the fault of the compression on the stream from the HBO website, but even on cable it was pretty dark and I had to crank up the brightness on my TV to see anything.
-Even with enough brightness, the action is really hard to follow. People and zombies die, we know that much, but who, when, and how is nearly impossible to discern.
-Arya plays a quick game of The Last of Us. The whole situation in the library was ridiculous. There's a massive battle raging all over, but somehow ten wights sneak inside and Arya evades them by hiding behind bookcases and under a table in almost total silence.
-Everyone's battle tactics. We don't know much about the Night King, so he may just be some goof with magic powers who doesn't know anything, but there must have been at least one halfway competent commander on the side of the living who could've helped them plan things out a bit better.
-Beric basically dies the same way as Hodor. The major purpose of two characters' lives was to slightly delay some zombies. That's how you know the writers have run out of material.

Final Thoughts
There really isn't a lot to say about the plot of this episode, because it basically has no plot. It's essentially one long battle with very little time devoted to actual story advancement. Which is not to say that the story doesn't advance. A whole crapton of people die, including Edd, Lyanna Mormont, Beric Dondarrion, Theon, Jorah, the Night King, Melisandre, all the undead, all the Dothraki, most of the Unsullied, and most of the rest of the army of the living. When the battle's finally over, all those people's storylines are pretty much wrapped up... 'cause they're dead. It's kinda like how they wrapped up the whole Faith Militant thing at the end of season six: And then they all died. The end.

Where the hell was Lord Royce? What was Bran doing all episode? Is there anyone even left alive in the North at this point?

We'll have to wait for the next episode to find out, but it really seems like literally all the Dothraki in Westeros are now dead, and that was a fairly substantial portion of their total number. Thanks to Daenerys, an entire civilization has been nearly annihilated. A super-rapey, murdery civilization, but a civilization nonetheless.

I have no problem with Arya killing the Night King, I just wish there had been a bit more build up to it. He chucks an off-balance javelin or two, but at no point does he even draw his sword, and that's just disappointing. You want your big evil to do at least a little fighting to justify their big evilness.

So, we probably know about as much about the white walkers as we ever will (at least until that prequel series starts or Martin finishes another book), which isn't a whole heck of a lot. Their sole motivation seems to be "Kill all humans!" although that seems a bit self-defeating, since their method of reproducing involves human babies. Unfortunately, they needed to wrap up their part of the story since it was made abundantly clear that Cersei was never going to give a shit about them. 100,000 zombies could've laid siege to King's Landing and she still would've cared more about killing Tyrion. That's the problem with having so many dangling plot threads in the last season: sometimes you have to snip them off in an unsatisfying manner.

Game of Thrones 7x03: The Queen's Justice

We're already almost halfway through the season, and things are moving along at breakneck speed.

Lady Stark-Lannister-Bolton and Her Merry Band
With Jon away, Sansa's in charge, and she's pretty good at it. But Littlefinger tells her that even though she's managing things well at the moment, she needs to prepare for every foreseeable eventuality. Which should be a lot easier because Bran unexpectedly returns to Winterfell and tells her he's the all-seeing Three-Eyed Raven, even though he doesn't bother to explain what that actually means.

Mr. Sam Goes to Oldtown
Jorah's suddenly well enough to leave the Citadel and return to the Khaleesi's service, and Archmaester Ebrose wants to know what happened. The patient's lips are sealed, so Sam is summoned to the maester's office. Surprisingly, he is praised for his efforts and not immediately expelled from the Citadel. However, he is immediately returned to his scut work, since he's still just a low-level initiate.

The King in The North Meets The Queen in the South
After what must have been a harrowing and dangerous journey south by ship, Jon and Davos have arrived at Dragonstone. They catch up with Tyrion, who blew up Davos' son, and who may or may not be legally married to Jon's sister. In any case, the Queen is waiting, and she wants Jon to bend the knee, which he's not particularly interested in doing. Instead, he'd like her to send all her forces north to fight the army of the dead. An army that she's never heard of and doesn't believe exists. As neither is willing to compromise, Daenerys seizes Jon's ship and keeps him on the island until they can sort things out.

Fortunately, Tyrion's a more reasonable person, and while he can't convince Jon to swear allegiance or Daenerys to send her army north, he can at least get the Queen to acquiesce to a less extreme request from the King to keep him busy and earn his gratitude, so she lets him start mining the dragon glass.

War for Three to Five of the Seven Kingdoms
The last of the ironborn haul Theon out of the water and make him feel even worse about not saving his sister than he already did.

Euron parades Yara, Ellaria, and whoever the last Sand Snake is through the streets of King's Landing and delivers the latter two as a gift to Cersei. With her daughter's killers now in her possession, the Queen can finally exact her highly-justified vengeance. She poisons the snake with what Qyburn assures her is exactly the same poison they used to kill Myrcella, then leaves her to die and rot while her mother is chained up and forced to watch.

In the meantime, Tycho Nestoris has returned to discuss the Crown's debts to the Iron Bank. Cersei doesn't have the cash to pay right away, but she has a plan to get it. When the Unsullied reach Casterly Rock, they find it nearly abandoned, and their ships are ambushed and sunk by the Iron Fleet. The bulk of the Lannister forces have teamed up with traitors from the Reach and marched south so they can capture Highgarden and rob it blind. With no bannermen to join them, the Tyrell forces and the castle fall quickly. All that's left is for Lady Olenna to chug some poisoned wine Jaime gives to her and to bid him tell Cersei that she was the one who had Joffrey killed.

What I Liked
-"You stand in the presence of Daenerys Stormborn, breaker of chains, Khaleesi, etc." "This is Jon Snow....... he's King in The North" Leave it to Davos to point out how stupidly-long and pointless Daenerys' title is.
-All the adulation from the crowds gives Euron a boner, a boner he intends to use on Cersei once Jaime explains how she likes to get down. The show's been in need a swaggering rogue type ever since they recast Daario.
-Tyrion built himself a secret sex room while he was master of drains at Casterly Rock. That's much more useful than all the secret passages and so forth under King's Landing.
-"Are you trying to present your own statements as ancient wisdom?" "I would never do that... to you." Heh.
-Archmaester Ebrose has a medical poking stick that he uses to prod Jorah.

What I Hated
-Incessant speechifying. I get that Jon and Daenerys have never met before, but the audience knows their backstories, so we don't need them reiterated to us.
-Sansa somehow has insight into food rationing and armour design. I get that she's supposed to be smarter than she lets on, but she's still ignorant, having spent most of her life on frivolity or as a prisoner. Also, all the learned lords, maesters, and blacksmiths are apparently morons.
-Bran's a robot. The last Three-Eyed Raven didn't seem to be totally emotionless, but for some reason the new one is.
-Highgarden falls just as fast as Casterly Rock. Even without bannermen, the Tyrell forces should've been able to withstand a siege for months or even years. It's a massive castle with extremely high walls.
-Euron ambushes another fleet. He's such a master of naval warfare that his ships can sneak up on you in broad daylight.

Final Thoughts
Daenerys can't really expect Jon to swear fealty to her just because of her last name, can she? I don't think she can possibly be that stupid, but then she acts all snotty and takes him quasi-prisoner when he doesn't do it.

The ironborn look down on Theon a bit too much. It's not like any of them fought Euron's fleet to the death. Of course, it's surprising that any of them survived, considering that the fleet is enormous, invincible, and apparently has stealth technology. With ability to build all those ships so rapidly, and with the crews to man them, the Iron Islanders should've conquered Westeros decades ago.

Jorah's on the way to the current location of his father's sword. It's not exactly nearby, but the journey should only take about as long as it took Jon to get there from Winterfell, so he should be in Dragonstone at the start of the next episode.

Ellaria's punishment is pretty severe, but well-deserved. She murdered an innocent girl, staged a coup in her homeland, and rebelled against the Crown. Worst of all, she made all the time the show spent on Dorne a complete waste. Honestly, the only thing that came out of that was Myrcella's death, and they could've accomplished that in dozens of other ways. That entire plot line could've been excised. The Sand Snakes were pointless, Doran was pointless, the coup was pointless, allying with Daenerys was pointless. It really shows how the writers have no idea what to do without the books as a guide.

Varys' spy network must have atrophied in his absence. He should have gotten word that the Lannister forces were moving long before the Unsullied arrived. Not that it would've done them any good, since there's no quick way to get a message to a navy. But he should've at least been able to send word to Highgarden.

Siege warfare is very inconsistent on this show. Casterly Rock and Highgarden fell immediately, King's Landing almost did as well, while Riverrun withstood a siege for months, and Storm's End held up for nearly a year.

I don't understand the way they're pacing the show this season. Important, plot-altering events take mere moments, while trivial things take forever. Jon and Daenerys relay their backstories to each other for like ten minutes; Euron rides down the streets with his captives behind him for what seems like forever; the explanation of Ellaria's punishment goes on for an eternity; but the battles for Casterly Rock and Highgarden take about three minutes total. Long battles obviously cost a lot of money to shoot, but HBO's not exactly hurting for cash, and they were practically begging the showrunners to make more episodes.

It's for that reason that I can't really give this episode a high rating. Everything seems to be taking the wrong amount of time. Everyone's motivations are clear at this point, and we don't need to see the characters explain them to each other ad nauseam.

Game of Thrones 6x03: Oathbreaker

On this week's exciting episode of Game of Thrones, oaths are broken, characters you've never heard of or can't remember die, and absolutely nothing happens in Dorne!

The Widow Drogo
The khalasar arrives at Vaes Dothrak and Daenerys gets sent to the home for old Khaleesis. They strip her naked, but her contract has a no-nudity clause, so they give her a nice burlap sack to wear and tell her that if she's lucky she'll get to live out her days with them. But, she didn't follow an obscure Dothraki rule about immediately going to Vaes Dothrak after her husband died, so she's probably going to get her head chopped off.

Temporary Blindness
Montage? Montage! Arya learns to be a girl with no name, and a man gives her back her sight.

Mr. Sam Goes to Oldtown
Sam, Gilly, and Li'l Sam are on a boat headed for Oldtown, but since no women are allowed in the Citadel, Sam's going to drop Gilly and the baby off with his parents. Also, he's seasick, because it's funny to watch people barf.

The Adventures of Grumpy Dwarf and Baldy No Balls
Varys uses his skills in bribery and subtle threats to find out who's funding the Sons of the Harpy... it turns out it's everyone. Meanwhile, Tyrion learns that he, Grey Worm, and Missandei have absolutely nothing to talk about.

What'chu Talkin' 'bout, Hodor?
In this week's flashback, Ned Stark, Howland Reed and some unnamed jobbers fight Ser Arthur Dayne and another guy outside the Tower of Joy. Arthur dual-wields swords and defeats four men at once. Fortunately, before he can finish Ned, Howland stabs him through the neck from behind. Then the Three-Eyed Raven cuts off the flashback before anyone can see what happens in the tower. He tells Bran that he won't have to stay with him forever, but he can't leave until he learns everything!

The Wacky Adventures of the Lannister Family
Tommen goes to see the High Sparrow, and learns that religion's not all bad. Jaime and Cersei try to sit in on a small council meeting, but Kevan (who is back, apparently) doesn't want to include them. Ser Frankenmountain's presence prevents the council from expelling the twins, but it doesn't keep everyone else from simply getting up and leaving. Elsewhere,

Ramsay, Shitlord of Winterfell
Shitlord Bolton and Shitlord Karstark welcome Shitlord Umber to Winterfell. He refuses to kneel to Ramsay, but to prove his loyalty, he gives him a present: Osha and Rickon, whose identity he proves by displaying the severed head of Shaggydog.

Jon is Dead, Jon is Dead, I am the Walrus
Davos notices that Jon has popped back up and gets him some pants. The wildlings think Jon's some kind of god, Melisandre doesn't know what to think, and Davos has a "Who the fuck cares? I'm just glad you're back" attitude about things. Though he has a little trouble enacting the sentence, Jon hangs the traitors, then gives Edd his cloak of office and fucks off. His watch is ended.

What I Liked
-Arya got to have a training montage. It would've been better with some 80s pop music behind it, though.
-They hanged Olly. Good. Fuck Olly.
-Pycelle farts when he notices Ser Frankenmountain standing behind him. I do enjoy a good fart gag.

What I Hated
-They spend what seems like five minutes on the non-conversation between Tyrion, Grey Worm, and Missandei. The city's in pretty dire straits and they apparently have nothing to talk about.
-Another Lord pledges his loyalty to Ramsay for no particular reason. The Umbers following the Boltons makes even less sense than Lord Karstark not immediately shanking Ramsay.

Final Thoughts
Arya's montage needed some 80s pop music behind it. Eye of the Tiger or something like that. This show has dick and fart jokes, it's clearly not a serious program.

Lots of dudes getting stabbed through the neck from behind this season. I think that's an indication that the people of Westeros need to develop neck armour.

The actor they got to play young Ned seems to be in his early 20s. While in the books, Ned was only about 20 during Robert's Rebellion, Sean Bean was 51 when they shot the first episode, meaning young Ned should've been in his early to mid 30s.

Things aren't moving along much temporally this year. The plot lines don't all move at the same pace, but only two or three days have passed at Castle Black, and it hasn't been a whole heck of a lot longer at King's Landing.

The amount they've diverged from the books grows with each episode. In the books, Smalljon Umber dies at the Red Wedding, and only about half of their people grudgingly follow the Boltons because the Greatjon is held captive at the Twins. In the show, the Greatjon has apparently perished off screen, and the Smalljon betrays Rickon, ignoring the fact that the Boltons massacred his soldiers a couple years back. Characters have repeatedly pointed out that "The North remembers" and loyalty is kind of a big deal, and yet two of the major Northern Lords have sworn fealty to a conniving, betraying murderer. Karstark should have stabbed Ramsay and Umber should've rallied the rest of the northmen and marched on Winterfell. Sure, Jon Snow let the wildlings come south of the Wall, which could turn out to be a bit inconvenient, but that's hardly a good enough reason to turn a protected guest over to a guy who's probably going to slice his dick off.

Speaking of catchphrases, whatever happened to "The Iron Bank will have its due"? Yes, there was finally a Small Council meeting, but it doesn't seem like anyone has figured out how they're going to pay back all the money they owe. Nor will there likely ever again be a mention of all the money Stannis borrowed.

If her adventure doesn't somehow lead to Daenerys gaining command of a good chunk of the Dothraki, then I'll consider it a huge waste of time. Not that I know what she'd do with them, but it's a heck of a lot better than just getting saved by Jorah and Daario, and going right back to Meereen.

This episode didn't have any dudes getting smashed against walls, so it wasn't as good as last week's. Character motivations are still really unclear, and no one's ultimate goal is particularly apparent. Hopefully things will become more clear now that Littlefinger's finally coming back next week. I don't know what the hell he's got planned, but it better be damned interesting.

Hawaii Five-0 4x03: Ka 'oia'i'o ma loko

A sexy lady in her underwear slices fruit for her husband.

Then three guys in masks break in and shoot them both.

McGarrett gets called away from a tender moment with his lady.

Danny's upset that this baby is now an orphan.

The first suspect is the dead guy's degenerate brother. He sold the code to the security system to some guy.

The only thing missing is a scrimshaw with a symbol for a defunct secret society on it.

Chin's old pal Jerry explains a conspiracy theory surrounding the society and the Rings of the Medici.

McGarrett asks Catherine for one last favour before she retires.

She cracks a code that tells them where the rings are: Hidden in a statue of Kamehameha.

Bad guys figured it out first and replaced the statue with a fake.

But they don't have the key, which was actually on loan to a museum.

After a short chase, Danno does some booking.

And Jerry becomes Lord of the Rings.

Meanwhile, Catherine's retiring and taking a job with her old boyfriend. Danny tells Steve he's an idiot for letting her do it.

Which is true, because Billy surprises her with cake, and cake is the key to a woman's pants.

She looks so handsome at her retirement ceremony.

Billy thinks so, too, which makes Steve jealous.

What I Liked
-Max and McGarrett are BFFs.

I smell M&M slash fiction.

-The black sheep brother celebrates his new wealth by doing two chicks at the same time. That's the right way to do it.
-McGarrett just winds up and whacks the statue with a crowbar. Good thing it wasn't the real one.

What I Hated
-Baby crying as its parents are silently murdered outside. It's been done way too often.

No one's listening. It's so sad.

-Some extremely low-res and dark video is enough for facial recognition. Their magic computers are pretty good.
-A motorcycle from the History of Motorcycles exhibit at the museum had gas in it for some reason. Also, Danny managed to magically teleport outside while McGarrett was chasing the guy who took the bike. That whole scene was just ludicrous.


Final Thoughts
No Kono and Adam shenanigans in this episode. I can't say that I missed them.

Danno got to book someone for the first time this season, but it doesn't count because he stole McGarrett's line and said it to himself.

It was good to see Jorge Garcia getting some more work. I always liked him on Lost, and I was planning to watch Alcatraz, but then it got cancelled. That's two former Lost cast members so far this season. It's probably not terribly difficult to convince them to head back to Hawaii for a couple weeks. My guess is they'll bring in Dominic Monaghan as a murderous psycopath next.

Doing the whole Hawaiian National Treasure thing was a bit strange, and it didn't seem like that had enough time to do what they wanted to do. The boring subplot about Catherine's retirement ate up valuable treasure-seeking time.

That subplot kinda wrecked the episode for me, actually. I don't really give a crap about Catherine and Steve's relationship, so I really don't care if an ex-boyfriend steals her away from him. Which is bound to happen to at least some extent. It always does. Danny even mentioned it while they were driving. It can't not happen, now. And when it does happen, I won't care. Unless Michelle Borth is in a bikini, relationship stuff is not part of the three Bs and is therefore redundant. That goes for everyone else's relationship nonsense, too.

The Crazy Ones 1x03: Bad Dad

The latest campaign is for Allstate and it revolves around showing people the milestone's in a family's lives.

The first Milestone is learning to drive and it's a commercial about how Simon taught Sydney by switching seats with her in the middle of the freeway.

The focus group thinks the commercials were about how Simon was a bad dad, so he goes in to bully them.

But he realizes they were right and tries to teach Sydney to drive again. It doesn't go well.

Meanwhile, the others have to brainstorm some new ideas.

Sydney gets in a minor accident.

Father and daughter reconcile because his insanity made her strong.

Then they go camping.

Elsewhere, Zach dumps a girl.

And Andrew moves right in to pick her up.

Lauren realizes that Andrew is Zach's remora and feeds off his leftovers.

Andrew can't handle that, so he retires as shoulder to cry on guy.

Until Lauren sees that Zach is Simon's remora, and Andrew realizes that gettin' some is better than not gettin' some.

What I Liked
-Sydney compares Andrew talking to a girl Zach just dumped to a pimp swooping in on a runaway. That's highly accurate, but a little bit sad.
-Andrew took his Spanish teacher to prom and they slow-danced to the theme from Friends. That's the kind of thing you just can't get away with anymore. Not that any of my teachers were really the kind you'd want to slow-dance with. I know some pretty teachers now, though.
-The focus group leader is forced to admit that his word is no longer his bond. I've been in several focus groups and you can never trust the leader. He'll sell you out the moment your back is turned.
-Since Simon's not actually the world's best dad, he wonders if all his mugs are lies and if he really likes Mondays. Maybe he's just like Garfield and has no reason to hate them.
-Simon trashes Sydney's perfect sandwich.

No one likes a braggart.

-A pigeon refuses to move out of the way and Sydney runs over it. I may take some flack for this, but I think if a bird won't fly away from your oncoming tire, it deserves to die. It's probably committing suicide, in fact. You're doing it a favour.
-While they're trying to come up with new ideas for the campaign, Zach keeps drawing boobs. Men love boobs.
-Andrew is the boob. The sad, sad boob. Hee-hee.
-Claire unzips her top a bit when she goes over to talk to Andrew.

Men like boobs.

What I Hated
-Lauren does a weird thing where she just blurts out what she really thinks of people and then has to cover it up. It's good that they gave her something to do, but it seemed really odd and out of place.
-"The good ad about a bad dad made Simon sad?" Booooo.
-They reverse the angle when Sydney gets in the accident. First they're on the left, then they're on the right. That's one of the first things they teach you not to do in film school... at least, I assume it is.

Final Thoughts
Lauren was slightly less like window dressing this week, but they're going to have to find a lot more for her character to do if they don't want her to wind up like almost all the female characters on Boston Legal. The only people who made it through every episode of that show were Shatner and Spader, and I don't think Amanda Setton's going to be winning any Emmys for her work.

They managed to rein in Robin Williams a little bit more this week, but he was still funny. He doesn't always need to riff; sometimes he can just act.

This was the funniest episode so far of this series, but I didn't enjoy the plot quite as much.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD 1x03: The Asset

Some dudes hijack a SHIELD truck carrying this guy: Franklin Hall, aka Graviton

Skye gets some training, but no montage... booooooo!

Coulson finds a thingy at the scene of the crime.

Billionaire Ian Quinn kidnapped Hall and took him to Malta.

Fitzsimmons explain gravitonium.

It's time to send in the diversionary boobs.

Extraction team.

Hall leaked his location so he could be kidnapped and destroy Quinn's gravitonium generator.

The world goes all fiddle-faddle-foo!

Coulson dumps Hall into the generator and creates a supervillain.

What I Liked
-Fitz recognizes the fact that Skye has boobs and knows how to use 'em. Men like boobs, so the make for a good distraction. It's not rocket science. Later in the episode, they get Chloe Bennet soaking wet and have her run around with her boobs bouncing all over.

Men like boobs.

-After Hall sets the generator to overload, he just hangs out, resigned to his fate, and starts getting drunk. If you're gonna go out, it's not a bad way to go.

What I Hated
-May hands Skye a list of communications she has to read, and it's a giant stack of paper. I know it's a great visual gag, but it's 2013, not 1987: She'd be reading through all that crap on a computer or a tablet. Plus, they work for a super-secret shadowy organization that has future tech. Some fancy algorithm could probably dig out the pertinent details without anyone having to actually read anything. Not that she wound up reading it, anyway.
-Really bad ADR. Like atrociously bad.
-SHIELD agents can't go to Malta for some reason. This may have come from the comics -I don't know- but it's stupid either way. They're shadowy agents with future tech: They can go anywhere they want.
-The laser mesh protecting Quinn's compound is not only wavy for some reason, it has vertical lines that come from nowhere.

Also, throwing a small rock at it makes it visible in a ten-metre radius of the impact for some reason.

-May decides she really does want to do field work. Why bother having her reject it in the first place if they were just going to ignore that aspect of her personality three episodes in? My guess is that they probably found it to be too restrictive, and having her accidentally get into combat situations every week would've seemed ridiculous after a while.

Final Thoughts
They finally got around to mining some of the decades of backstory they have to work with... sort of. From what I understand, Graviton's sort of a mid-level supervillain, who could be a good foe for a season-long arc. Unfortunately, they didn't actually fight Graviton. Franklin Hall is basically an amorphous blob of black goo at this point, and there's no indication that he'll actually show up any time in the near future. Beyond that, I'm not sure the team could even put up a realistic fight against him. Fitzsimmons may have fancy future technology, but it's not combat-related. There are only three combat-ready team members and aside from Ward's stupid repulser wave thing, the only weapons they have are guns. I don't see how they could possibly fight anyone, really.

Quinn will probably be back as an antagonist. He's a crazy billionaire, and the team seems to be a less-capable squad of Pierce Brosnan-era James Bonds, so he'd make a good recurring enemy.

All the hints about how Coulson is a robot or something need to end. It's not all that interesting a mystery.

This was a better episode than last week's. They were actually doing something that seemed like it might require SHIELD to get involved, rather than just fighting South American rebels. It was more fun and interesting and felt more like a comic book show than a bad ripoff of NCIS. They got a full-season pickup a day or two ago, so if they can maintain this level of quality, I'll keep watching it at least until the end of the season.