The B-Side

Fear The Walking Dead always had an edge over The Walking Dead. While its sister series started spinning its wheels in its third season and hasn't yet found an organic way to make an endless stream of zombies and dystopian communities interesting, Fear The Walking Dead has been savvier from the start. The series has a more intense style that was allowed to ebb and flow depending on who was directing each episode. Fear used its muscular cinematography, rich color palette and a dark, moody score by Paul Haslinger to heighten each character’s psychological isolation from each other. The writing is stronger, with less of the plot motivated by idiocy or meanness on the part of the heroes, and the way the actors play off each other would be compelling in any setting or genre. Most importantly, the zombies aren't always the threat they are in The Walking Dead; it's tough to remain afraid of something if it's constantly on screen and there's a reason the word "fear" is in the title.

There was also the simplicity, quickly forgotten in The Walking Dead, that murdering monsters that look like people has a profound effect on even the hardest person. Nick (Frank Dillane) in particular, who never had the firmest grip on reality or his own sanity to begin with, began to buckle whenever presented with too many corpses of innocent people. Chris (Lorenzo James Henrie) lost it completely, as any young man attracted to violence but ultimately afraid of it might. Daniel (Rubén Blades), the former torturer, began to have flashbacks to the mayhem he caused and suddenly every bit of violence in his life began to coalesce, like white blood cells attacking the lies he uses to live with himself. His monologue about his time on a death squad to a kidnapped marine made the most of Blades' natural gravitas as a performer, but also hinted that he'd always be a little more equipped to handle the horror around everyone, but the show quickly put the lie to his resolve. That Fear never forgets that we're all human is one of the many reasons it's been worth sticking with. When Travis (Cliff Curtis) and Madison (Kim Dickens) have conversations about their children, it isn't just about their response to zombies, it actually draws on their previous life at home. They have pasts as well as presents, and this whole zombie thing is just one stressful piece of the puzzle. 

Its sense of place was another point in its favor: While The Walking Dead's version of the American South got monotonous immediately, the LA chapter in the opening season often flirted with the kind of buzzing atmospherics that marks the Michael Mann-derived work of Nic Winding Refn, It Follows, or Hyena. Its version of LA as pre-haunted flirted with uniqueness, even if it never quite got there. That it tried was admirable. Its vision of Mexico, particularly when in the hands of a master like Gerardo Naranjo, who I'm guessing had a thing or two to say about the bleached colour palette of his episode. Mexico felt like something approaching the real thing, not a fake version of a zombie wasteland. The landscape was nuanced.

Now in its third season, Fear The Walking Dead must decide what direction to take the story and what kind of place it wants to inhabit. The Walking Dead illustrated that, without a definitive ending in sight, a series like this can too quickly become Dynasty with a body count. The series proves the richness of its craft almost immediately by separating the cast and making them fight for survival, a not uncommon occurrence on The Walking Dead. The difference is in the execution. When we rejoin Travis and Madison, her children, Nick and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), and Nick's girlfriend, Luciana (Danay Garcia), they’ve been kidnapped by a paramilitary group. Their ingenuity and brutality in one-upping their captor, Troy (Daniel Sharman), is gripping and grotesque, Madison jamming a spoon in Troy's eye and threatening to pop it out being the grim highlight. The dynamics between the characters changes by the end of the episode, which makes their struggle little more than a detour, but it hardly matters when the execution is this exciting: The gorgeous shallow-focus cinematography, frenetic editing, and endearingly exhausted performances make each of the show's tangents reason enough for Fear The Walking Dead to exist even if they hint that the series has no long-term storytelling ambitions. Things just happen, but that can be a virtue.

The best example of this purposeful aimlessness might be when the relentlessly cagey Strand (Colman Domingo), who's been conning his way out of danger since the first season, pretends to be a doctor to curry favor with desperate locals in the seaside hotel where much of season 2 transpired. This backfires almost immediately when a man asks him to deliver a baby at knifepoint. Domingo's facial expression when he realizes he's going to have learn natal care in a hurry is a hilarious moment of humanity, one of a few the series allows itself. The funniest moment the show has yet produced occurs when Madison and her children land at a survivalist’s compound and discover an infomercial created by folksy Jeremiah Otto (Dayton Callie) that's so crooked and clever it would have worked equally well as a pre-credits scene on Breaking Bad. Madison and her brood surviving in Otto's ‘ranch’ is exactly the kind of go-nowhere arc that's proved so lethally boring on The Walking Dead season after season. Fear the Walking Dead has the filmmaking chops, comic energy, and trust in its performers to make the shapelessness seem like a good idea, even if it’s what got The Walking Dead in dramatic trouble.


The cast is shaken up a little in the third season, but the mix of intelligence, exhaustion and reluctant compassion still animates the central players. Callie, always a welcome screen presence, caused by the departure of a crucial cast member in the opening seconds of the second. He’s a good foil for the steely Dickens, one of the most effortlessly human performers on TV. Dillane still supplies entertaining unpredictability as former junkie Nick, and in Sharman's Troy he has a foil worthy of his showy, chaotic theatrics.

But the greatest choice the series makes is in teasing the return of the great Rubén Blades, who so lit up the first season and a half of Fear The Walking Dead. Blades is one of the finest and most underrated screen performers, and the opportunity to watch him wend his way through another season is a tantalizing prospect. It's elements like his gracefully spooky performance that made the series such a thrilling watch. The writers and directors of this b-side show have a good thing going, and don’t look to be running out of steam anytime soon.

Hannibal, Season 3 Episode 9: And the Woman Clothed with the Sun...

"Family values have declined over the last half century but we still help our families when we can. You are family, Will."

Whether Will Graham wants it or not, Hannibal has become his twisted brother. In the early meetings between the two men, they discuss the murders committed by the Red Dragon and even though they remain civil, they relate to one another like brothers who purposefully haven't spoken in years. No one knows them better than the other and it almost feels like a waste that the two remain so reserved with one another now. Though Will is certainly the more guilty of the two. It's ironic that Will, consistently portrayed as a singular man through the entire show is now reaching out to Hannibal when he actually has a family of his own. There are plenty of narrative, expository reasons why Will visits Hannibal but ultimately it is because he needs him. Will has built a family member out of Hannibal and he seeks him even now that he has a real alternative. Hannibal takes Will's appearance with joyful malice, making it clear that he knows of Will's new life and that he certainly does not approve. On the contrary. Hannibal mocks Will's new life and even compares him to the Red Dragon. "Like you Will, he needs a family to escape what's inside him."

The family motif of the episode is compounded with the reappearance of Abigail Hobbes. She arrives after the mention that, in a way, Will has already had a child and it doesn't take much to remember how true this is. The entire first season of the show is motivated by Will's guilt over killing Abigail's father even though he was a psychopath. But here we see another angle of Abigail's upbringing. Hannibal as father. Strange flashbacks which ride a thin line between real and imaginary tell a story of the kind of twisted love that Lecter showed Abigail in private moments. He cleans and dresses her wounds. He teaches her the tricks of his trade (blood splatter, of course) and eventually he murders her and Abigail dies yet again. Hannibal reminds Will that families all have their own versions of love. To an outsider things might appear bizarre or cruel but to those inside the circle they are the purest acts of affection they may ever know. 

Enter Francis Dolarhyde. The Red Dragon grew from a boy raised by an incredibly cruel grandmother. Even though he despises her and the way he was raised, he still fears her and holds many of her values close to his heart. His method of killing has him place mirrors in his victim's eyes. He wants these families to see him and embrace him. He wants to belong somewhere. So much so in fact that he reaches out to a coworker, Reba McClane, a blind woman. He takes comfort in the fact that she cannot see his face as he is disgusted by his appearance. The irony is not lost on us that two people who are visually impaired in their own ways both work at a film processing plant where images are developed and human faces are everywhere. 

Hannibal, Season 3 Episode 8: The Great Red Dragon

Tom Noonan. 

Ralph Fiennes.

Richard Armitage. 

There are the men who have worn the name Tooth Fairy. By this point I've read the novel and seen the two film adaptations of Thomas Harris' Red Dragon and have the plot pretty much memorized. Brett Ratner's adaptation felt like a less interesting copy of Michael Mann's Manhunter rather than a new take on an old story. Yet even with this plot buried in my bones I couldn't help but be excited to see how Bryan Fuller would make the story his own. So far I haven't been disappointed. 

Having Francis Dolarhyde as the series' first new killer makes sense. He plays a foil to Hannibal in a way. He's intelligent and meticulous but unlike Hannibal, he's totally out of his own control. It's interesting too that after having so many long winded villains in the series, the final one we're faced with is nearly mute. He doesn't have a single line in his first episode. His silent nature isn't just a personality trait, it's more deeply rooted in his traumatic upbringing. It shaped him and explains his main motivation. He believes, through killing and "transforming" his victims, he may transform himself from a mentally abused man with a cleft pallet into something else. Something invincible. Something that in his mind has taken the form of the famous figure in William Blake's The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, a painting depicting a scene from the Book of Revelation. It is one of a series of four paintings that tells the story of the Red Dragon failing at his purpose to steal the newly born Redeemer, yet revealing that his is not the only threat. Which is, of course, perfect for this series. Because he's not the only threat. In fact, he's barely the real threat at all. That spot will always be held by Hannibal. 

It has been three years since Hannibal's surrender and imprisonment when Francis Dolarhyde begins murdering whole families at the full moon. It is chilling to learn that his targets are always families and even more chilling to learn that Will now has one of his own. This could be looked at simply from an academic, story structure point of view. Will sees families being murdered so of course why wouldn't he go back to a world that almost broke him in order to protect his own. The motivations make sense. But I like to see it more from a prophetic point of view since that always seems to be the stance that this series has taken. Will's life is inevitably always going to wrap itself around or inside of Hannibal's. So when Dolarhyde begins his killings, he does so as an instrument of fate. Will cannot be free. Not while Hannibal lives. Even if he's living in imprisonment. Because let's not forget he allowed himself to be put there. 

Once Will gives the okay to return to the FBI we're quickly reminded why he was so hesitant. He enters the home of the first family of victims, the Leeds and struggles to enter Dolarhyde's design. But once he does we're shown a sequence that might be the darkest the show has ever been. Blood splatters everywhere and Will is shown shooting two children in their sleep. He places mirrors in Mrs. Leeds mouth, eyes, and labia and it's important to note that at this point Bryan Fuller has made what I think is a wonderful decision to downplay the sexual violence that made Harris' novel famous. There is never any direct depiction or even mention of rape in Hannibal. Instead Fuller asks his audience to read between the lines. His restraint makes this series far more palatable but almost a lot more horrifying all at once. Nothing is scarier than our own imaginations.

Speaking of horror, The Descent's Neil Marshall directs this episode, his first time behind the camera on Hannibal. Even though James Hawkinson's eye is essential to the look and tone of the series, Marshall's influence is felt all over "The Great Red Dragon," in particular flourishes with sound design. Most importantly, he's found a way of filming Richard Armitage that depicts his often naked or barely clothed character the same way we've grown so accustomed to seeing the female form portrayed on TV. Blake's painting is immediately visceral and sexual to anyone that takes the time to look at it and it's brilliant the way that this series works to overly sexualize the male form to the point of making it terrifying. The show has always done it but never better than in this episode. It's one of the best changes that Fuller has brought to this familiar story.

On the subject of change, the series' version of Hannibal's experience is probably my favorite. Hannibal's imprisonment is far more interesting to watch because we experience it from his point of view. That is to say, we get to live in the mind of a kind of genius and so we get to watch him share a glass of wine with Alana in a beautifully decorated room for much of a scene before we get Alana's take on everything and see the truth. Hannibal has no wine. No beautiful room. But he's using his mental palace as a way of remaining in control of his situation. Almost every scene that Hannibal occupies begins this way and it's a great little addition to Fuller's legend of Lecter. But of course, the show must go on and so after an entire episode of new plot developments and catching up we get what we were waiting for all along: Will must go and speak with Hannibal. 

Hannibal, Season 3 Episode 7: Digestivo

"Digestivo" feels more like a season finale than a mid season episode. The last six episodes have been methodical in assembling pieces and moving them around the series' board in order to get all of Hannibal's characters to this point, but it's been seriously worth the wait. 

This is by far one of the best episodes of the show to date and it was apparent going into it based on "Dolce's" ending. Mason Verger plays the most typically villainous character this series has introduced and that's saying something. He lays out his plan in a typical fashion too, telling Hannibal that he'll eat him piece by piece and take Will's face to use as his own. This level of evil does less to inspire fear in Will and Hannibal as it does to bring them together. They know now more than ever they need each other to survive. Will goes so far as to bite off part of a man's face in self defense and Hannibal looks at him like a proud father. The look on Mads Mikkelsen's face actually brought a smile to my own.

Genuine insanity ensues as the episode goes on. Hannibal is tied up and treated like livestock. Will is prepared for surgery to have his entire face removed. Knowledge that there is a Verger child after all is only seen as a mild surprise after it is revealed that the child is being carried by a comatose pig. It is actually amazing that in a show that focuses so strongly on its male leads, it's the women who manage to save the day. Alana and Margot go to Hannibal's paddock and address him like the animal he appears to be. They release him on the condition that he'll use his banshee-like powers for their own purposes. Hannibal's happily agrees. So after being unleashed upon the Verger estate, Hannibal murders Mason's surgeon (though not before removing his face instead of Will's), milks Mason's semen as a gift for Margot, feeds Mason to his pet eel, and finally takes Will away from all of this madness and danger, all the while aided by Chiyo, providing covering fire with a sniper rifle. It's the most thrilling sequence in a television show I've seen in ages.

Hannibal and Alana even manage to have a reunion where they finally are able to come to an understanding between one another. Alana finally realizes what Hannibal truly is: he's an enigma she'll never even hope to solve. But she's fine with that because she sees that somewhere inside of him there is humanity hiding, only rearing its head when absolutely necessary. 

Will and Hannibal get their own bit of closure as well. Will finally releases himself from his obsession with Hannibal. He finally understands there is nothing but death and darkness on that road. Hannibal lives on a similar road but because he embraces that death and darkness it's never seemed quite as terrifying to him. Jack explains to Chiyo at one point in the episode that Will and Hannibal are "identically different;" the perfect description. Will finally breaks away from Hannibal and by doing so is finally released from Hannibal's control. It is a moment of sheer triumph for Will that the show has been working towards for two and a half seasons now, even though when the police arrive to take Hannibal away, they find him gone. They question Jack and Will and just when the man hunt seems about to begin anew, Hannibal appears and surrenders. Hannibal has always ever only let people believe they are in control of him. It's incredibly fitting that even now at the end of everything, Hannibal doesn't lose. After everything they still didn't 'catch' him. The episode ends with what I really wish were the last line of the entire series. Hannibal gets to his knees with guns drawn on him. He looks at Jack, and then past Jack at Will before saying "I want you to always know where I am. Where you can always find me." It's one of the most chilling lines of the series and there is still so much more to come. In fact, the last act of Bryan Fuller's Hannibal is actually the legend's first. The Great Red Dragon. 

Hannibal, Season 3 Episode 6: Dolce

Seeing Hannibal walk away from Jack with open wounds was a jarring experience and it took this week's episode, "Dolce", to help cement what it really meant. "Contorno's" bulletin finale was designed to make viewer's understand that we were entering completely new territory. No one was safe anymore. Not even Hannibal himself. The first four episodes of this season exist to move characters around on a story arc chess board. It just took this long for this to be clear because Bryan Fuller and his team managed to do an ingenious job of hiding exposition behind the best cinematography and editing the show has achieved thus far. Not to mnetion dialogue so vague and mysterious it could only die-hard fans could assemble the puzzle from the pieces provided. Bedelia has been warning Hannibal all along that he's been flirting with disaster and now, finally, disaster had chosen to respond.

Bedelia herself is a huge part of "Dolce" and with good reason. It seems to be the last episode Gillian Anderson will occupy and she goes out with a bang. Even after everything that Hannibal has done to her, she still doesn't want to be directly responsible for his downfall. There's a kind of love there that no one, not even Bedelia, fully understands. Knowing her own limitations when it comes to creating an alibi for herself and her supposed husband, Hannibal, Bedelia shoots heroin to keep herself from revealing the truth. The beauty of this sequence is even though she's helping Hannibal, she's ultimately just trying to free herself from him and after providing a wonderful performance and a sultry and silly alibi, she finally does it.

We also learn this episode the full meaning of Margot's motivations. She wants a child more than anything and has developed a physical (at the very least) relationship with Alana in order to help her get it. A kaleidoscopic sex sequence helps what could have been a blunt elbow to the ribs sequence become something much more and this reason isn't much of a surprise. Hannibal has always been skilled at taking expository sequences and masking them behind mind bending visual effects which make for great TV watching and force the audience to keep their minds open while they watch in order to absorb every detail.

The final storyline in the episode follows Hannibal as he nurses Will's wounds. That is, until he realizes that if he doesn't act on what has become an obsession with eating Will Graham, he'll certainly miss his chance. So follows the most jaw dropping ending sequence the medium of television has seen in a long time. Hannibal has Will drugged and strapped to a chair, forcing Jack (who's achilles tendon has been slashed) to watch as he saws open Will's skull. And as if the show realized when it's audience simply couldn't take it anymore the scene just stops. Suddenly we find ourselves pushed ahead through time, though how much time we don't know, and Hannibal and Will are the prisoners of Mason Verger. It's almost too much to take. What on earth could happen next?

Hannibal, Season 3 Episode 1: Antipasto

Tucker Johnson's look into the series Hannibal continues with the start of season 3. Join him for a new season of disgusting wonder: 

When Hannibal first began in 2013, I honestly wasn't sure what to think. What I saw was a beautifully shot but formulaic monster of the week version of the Hannibal 'legend'. Luckily there was quite a lot more going on under Hannibal's skin and it didn't take long for me to realize that creator Bryan Fuller had a plan. Rather than pull a Game of Thrones and do a full service adaptation of the Thomas Harris novels that the titular character arose from, he instead decided to pull influences sporadically and create a world of pastiche that is far more interesting and appetizing than Harris, Jonathan Demme, Ridley Scott, Brett Ratner, or Peter Webber could ever hope to achieve. Only Michael Mann's Manhunter rivals this series for pure style but in a completely different way.

Arriving in the third season of Hannibal is like arriving in what I can only perceive were the most fragmented imaginings of Thomas Harris while he was dreaming up the novel Hannibal. We find ourselves subject to the gorgeous visuals that this series has made its name on, only aided by the fact that they are now shooting on location in Florence, Italy. The city lends itself well to the sometimes dream, sometimes nightmare that is Hannibal's time on the run from the FBI. In recent memory it's hard to think of another show that plays with time in such a way that viewers have absolutely no idea where or when they are throughout the episode yet can't ever bring themselves to let it bother them. Fuller approaches the story with the audience's apparent lack of concern with small details in mind. Last season ended with a series of escalating cliffhangers and it's almost laughable how little he deals with any of them in the first forty eight some-odd minutes of this season. In fact, we learn nothing of the fates of any characters that were at risk and instead spend the entire episode with either complete strangers to the series or with Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) and his former psychiatrist, Bedelia du Maurier (Gillian Anderson), the only two characters we knew to be alive at the end of last year's finale. And it doesn't matter one bit. Almost immediately this trip through Europe becomes more engrossing than almost anything this series has attempted before it and that's saying something.

I'm not quite sure how but Hannibal actually manages to achieve something that I feel the films were rarely able to achieve save for perhaps Demme's Silence of the Lambs and that is terror. But Fuller's series manages to bring on a fear far unlike anything the name Hannibal has ever been able to inspire before. The fear doesn't reside in the killings. Quite the opposite actually. The death, the gore, the corpses, all are absolutely gorgeous. As gorgeous as James Hawkinson's cinematography which I still argue rivals even Game of Thrones on its best day. No, the terror resides in Hannibal's manipulative psychology. Like the psychopaths in Michael Haneke's Funny Games, Hannibal's power seems to stem from the fact that he's in control. Always. That horrifying notion of is strengthened almost subconsciously when the editing of the episode takes of forwards and backward through time, completely out of the audiences understanding or control. Yet each time we're served up the same situation. A character we know, good or bad, is in front of Hannibal with a strong disadvantage. It is revealed that Bedelia had a patient die in her office and Hannibal appears as her salvation. And inversely, Dr. Abel Gideon (Eddie Izzard) has himself for dinner as Hannibal, playing chef, serves him his own leg slow cooked and falling off the femur.

Bedelia has an incredible line somewhere around the midpoint of the episode. She utters "You no longer have ethical concerns, Hannibal. Only aesthetical ones." No truer words were ever spoken about this series. It seems to have taken this episode to make it clear that Hannibal has been a dream since the beginning, disguised as a police drama with a little flair. But in a world where a frail old man can build a twenty foot tall totem pole out of human corpses without any help why on earth should we expect the writers to care one bit about the audience's suspension of disbelief. You either buy into the aesthetic or you change the channel. And after the first 48 minutes of this season, I'm certainly pleased I didn't change the channel.

"Two Swords" and "The Lion and The Rose"

Fox on the first two episodes of Season 4 of Game of Thrones. 

"Two Swords"

I really liked this premiere. It actually might be my favorite of the series because unlike every other Game of Thrones premiere, "Two Swords" took its time. The writers didn't rush us around trying to catch us up with everyone. In fact they actually seem to have done the opposite. The episode's closing scene with Arya and The Hound sat at around ten minutes which makes it one of the longest scenes in the show's run. And it was completely awesome.

The only other comment I can think to make for this premiere was the awesome bookending they did with the opening and closing scenes in relation to the episode's title. The cold open tied us to a chair and made us watch as Tywin Lannister melted down Ned Stark's great sword "Ice" into two smaller blades. One he delivered to Jaime, the other we still don't know who the desired recipient is.

But while we watch that happen we're reminded that The Lannisters have pretty much taken over Westeros whether we like it or not. The Starks have been all but sidelined and the ones are still alive and kicking are up to their eyeballs in other people's terror and have to do everything they can to stay alive.

But with the final scene comes the other side of the story. Arya reclaims Needle. And in that moment the title has a whole new meaning. Yes the Lannisters have all the power. But the Starks aren't going to be forgotten. Ice was melted down but Needle is still very much a weapon to fear and now that it has found its way back into its master's hands the evildoers of Westeros may yet have something to fear. Valar Morghulis. All men must die.

"The Lion and The Rose"

I can only reinforce what I said about the writers taking their time with the pacing of the fourth season. The wedding sequence which of course is the main point of this episode took up over half its running time which is unheard of in television, let alone GoT. But George RR Martin actually penned the "Lion and the Rose" and I think it's his best screenplay for the series to date (and that's saying a lot considering he wrote "Blackwater" which features some of the show's best dialogue despite focusing so heavily on the titular battle.)

I actually went back and skimmed over that sequence in the book A Storm of Swords and though all the major beats are there, Martin does an awesome job of either adding in or adapting what's already there really well for the medium. I'm sure that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss get final say before anything goes to press but the dude may be a better television writer than he is a novelist.

It's also incredibly thrilling to be watching a GoT season based on the back half of one of the source novels. A Storm of Swords reads more like a standalone epic than a classic fantasy novel and clocking in at over 1000 pages it provides a roller coaster ride of climactic moments sprinkled throughout the story.

So far we've been able to accurately rely on episode 9 of each season of GoT being the "oh shit" episode of the season but with "The Lion and the Rose" the first of what I think will be many wrenches was thrown into our plans. It's hard to not run to wikipedia and look into who's writing and directing specific episodes as that usually decides just what kind of treatment we're all in for. It's the best.

True Detective “Form and Void”

The finale of True Detective, reviewed by Tucker 'Fox' Johnson

Rust: “You’re lookin’ at it wrong. The sky and everything.”
Marty: “How’s that?”
Rust: “Once there was only dark. If you ask me the light’s winnin’.”

And so concludes the first season of True Detective. To a passerby this dialogue exchange wouldn’t seem like anything special but when those words come both at the end of one of the most nihilistic series on record and out of the mouth of a man who spent the series’ eight episodes despising every collective breath that humanity took, well, it’s a big deal. 

There are plenty of weighty themes to talk about in “Form and Void” but I want to start with Nic Pizzolatto’s approach to the season’s final moments. Unlike most of the cop shows I’ve seen (and it’s pretty hard to even consider this in the same league as most of them) a huge twist wasn’t thrust into the finale. In fact Pizzolatto threw the killer right in our face at the end of last week’s episode “After You’ve Gone” and in so doing quelled the riot that was internet theorization. Everyone and their mother had their ideas about every aspect of True Detective, the Yellow King most of all. I imagine this always happens with good mystery television (I guess it really doesn’t even have to be good) but what I really appreciate here is even though he had no real control over the audience’s self appointed Easter egg hunt between episodes he did have control over what we did and didn’t know for sure. Most of the season he chose to sprinkle the facts on us but it was almost as if he foresaw what we’d all be doing and reigned us all back in and his actions speak louder than the narrative. He tells us flat out who to be afraid of before we even get to the finale because the identity of the killer isn’t the point that Pizzolatto is trying to make. Errol William Childress could really be anyone. That said, he’s an absolutely terrifying screen presence and Glenn Fleshler deserves all the credit in the universe for showing up this late in the game and still casting such a heavy shadow with his performance. But this man who’s been yearning to be the King in Yellow for so long, who’s taken calculated steps to not being discovered, who’s mastered the art of hiding in plain sight is finally brought down because he painted a house once in 1994. And just when you thought you couldn’t throw your hands up any higher at the situation we learn he painted the house green, not yellow.

That’s where True Detective sets itself apart from other cop drama. The final clues aren’t found and put together because the dutiful detective finally looks at them from the right angle. Not at all. Instead the discovery is made because of a completely random connection brought on by a just as circumstantial frame of mind. And it’s perfect. This is the kind of idea that this series has been building toward since its beginning. Human beings are imperfect creatures that have found themselves in a universe where they constantly face a near perfect enemy: Darkness. So when we finally make the right connection, when we finally discover the killer’s identity, when we finally take them down we see it as a victory against the very cosmos. We spurn the skies because that is where our creator lives and we have to remind him that no matter what his intentions he’s allowed true evil to seep through onto our plane and humanity, not God, fought it off. True Detective strikes me as a series that wants to show how people are constantly trying to prove to their makers that they’re worth the gift of existence. It’s really the most human emotion there is. We want to be worth something. Like Marty we want to be desired by those we care about and though we make mistakes we’ll still fight tooth and nail to retain that desire. Like Errol Childress we want to fight for our place in the shuffle. We push our father’s aside (or lock them up) to make sure that we’re given our time to prove ourselves worthy of power and existence. Every character on the show can be applied to this template except for one: Rust Cohle. Rust doesn’t care what he’s worth. His sole mission in life is to prove the creator wrong. He wants to rub God’s face in the fact that nature and humanity have allowed for atrocities to occur and who in their right mind would allow such horror to exist? He’s not even out to stop the madness. He just wants to make sure that everyone knows it’s there, lurking in the shadows, a horrific inevitability. But then that is why “Form and Void’s” final lines are so beautiful. Rust finally stopped the evil he’d been fighting against for two decades. He finally won his battle with the cosmos and only after doing so does he realize that maybe it isn’t a losing battle after all. In the climactic moments of Rust’s chase through Childress’ Carcosa he looks up into the sky and has a vision of a cluster of stars in the shape of a spiral. “This will all happen again” it says. But in that same defeatist statement hides another, “Now is the chance to do something about it”.

True Detective has spent plenty of its air time focusing on dualities so of course it ends with them too. Time is a flat circle, easily repeated. So of course we’re taken back through all of the outdoor set pieces of this season though now from the vantage point of a helicopter shot gliding cleanly over all. Carcosa is an enormous spider web in the darkness yet when defeat for its king finally comes it does so in a wide-open room with a view of the sun and sky. The cosmos takes on the shape of a spiral yet in the season’s final shot we look upon a starry night sky that seems so much clearer. The stars are positioned randomly in the sky with no real pattern to buy into or obsess over. And as if to strengthen Rust’s closing words the shot is given a long exposure and the full brightness of the stars becomes more and more apparent. Yet Rust’s final line isn’t that we’ve won, it’s that we’re winning. The battle of light and dark is never ending and so of course the winner will change hands. It’s just up to those on the side of light to keep battling the dark no matter the odds or frankly, the outcome.

It’s been lovely watching this season and writing about it. Only because I listened to it while writing this final article do I want to close with the refrain from the song “Black River Killer” by Blitzen Trapper. It just seemed too fitting to pass up:

So you make no mistake
I know just what it takes
To pull a mans soul back from heavens gates
I’ve been wandering in the dark about as long as sin
But they say it’s never too late to start again
Oh when, oh when
Will the spirit come a-callin' for my soul to send
Oh when, oh when
Will the keys to the kingdom be mine again?

True Detective: “The Secret Fate of All Life”

Fox Johnson on Episode 5 of True Detective

I had incorrectly assumed that after last week’s action packed ending sequence we’d tone things down for a while. Instead this week’s episode picks up only a few hours after the last episode. This is sort of reassuring in a series that jumps around so much and plays with time so loosely. And much like the quick pick up from last week we return to a series that has decided it’s time to utilize violence to tell its story. “Who Goes There” was absolutely a turning point for True Detective and “The Secret Fate of All Life” plays more like a sequel to that episode rather than just the next one in sequence. 

True Detective is rapidly becoming a show that has made its business blowing minds. But rather than ending episodes with cliffhangers it instead throws wrenches into every possible gear to throw off its viewers. It has self-appointed itself a series that attempts to emulate the experience of following a twisting turning murder case. Sixteen minutes into this episode we find ourselves in familiar territory. We’ve found Reggie LeDoux and have reached the point where a promised gun battle will commence. And then, just like that, it doesn’t. Hart and Cohle’s present day narration describes an intense and disorienting gunfight. Meanwhile, we watch as the ’95 Hart and Cohle sneak swiftly into LeDoux’s compound and capture him without so much as a punch thrown. But why would these men lie? And not just lying off the cuff. They’ve got a practiced corroborating story of the events that unfolded. So while you watch two men capture the man they’ve been chasing since the series began, we can’t imagine what could cause them to lie about it. Then Hart blows off half of LeDoux’s face. Two children, a dead boy and a live girl, are recovered from LeDoux’s compound and very suddenly the central case of True Detective is over.

Well, not really. The series jumps into the early 2000’s. Hart and Cohle are promoted and decorated and have moved on to other things. Though just as soon as we’re caught up on current events an interrogation of Cohle’s goes south and he begins to think they never caught the real killer. So without really being given a chance to breathe, we’re thrust once again into a now even more terrifying murder case. The Killing tried this same method in all three of its seasons. They’ve answered questions with more questions. Luckily Nic Pizzolatto does a much better job of holding it all together by having almost every event that unfolds call back to lines and twists earlier episodes. And I’m always game anytime anyone wants to nod toward Twin Peaks.

And once more we’re forced to think about True Detective’s characters, though forced isn't the right word. It’s a genuine pleasure to have a break in the action to think about these two men even further. Especially now that we know each one’s own version of justice and that they’re willing to flat out lie to preserve it. The beauty here is that this series has been playing this game all along. True Detective’s tension doesn’t come from nail biting, white knuckled scenes but instead from the knowledge that no matter what we know about someone there is always a distinct and very real possibility that lurking behind the felled monster is an even darker threat.

And that is exactly what this series has been trying to say this entire time. The killer is dispatched yet he never goes away. We hear a couple of characters liken existence to a flat circle. The idea that no matter what happens, no matter how many children’s lives are spared from rape and murder, it will absolutely happen again. This idea is the secret fate of the title and it fills Rust and Marty, not to mention the audience, with a cringe-inducing sense of doubt. Even as this comes on as some kind of stunning revelation it's disturbingly familiar. Of course LeDoux wasn’t the guy. Why should he be? The show isn’t over so of course no one is out of the woods yet. Instead it sounds like we’ve traded up. Now we’ve got a killer with the handle “The Yellow King” to contend with. And even though the episode doesn’t end with another killer long take action sequence it still moves toward its credits with a lot of momentum because now they’ve got us hooked. LeDoux was our focus for four episodes (and sixteen minutes) and now that he’s out of the way, the real chase can begin.

In Twin Peaks David Lynch and Mark Frost revealed their killer in the middle of their series (though not quite the middle of an episode like True). But where these two series differ, apart from the obvious, is that Rust Cohle is not Kyle MacLachlan’s Dale Cooper. He’s an easy target because of his nature and this is exactly where police take this outstanding case after over a decade of investigations. Rust becomes the prime suspect. And after what we’ve seen tonight, why not? He restaged a crime scene with thought and precision. And he did it quickly.  With all of True Detective’s references to the circular nature of everything it isn’t out of the question to think that perhaps we’re being given details about these men at different points in their lives because ultimately time isn’t a factor. If they do it once, they’ll do it again. And who knows? Maybe the “first” time we see them do something isn’t truly the first.

Rather than try to jam it into my article I’ll let Michael M. Hughes do more talking about The Yellow King. He wrote a fantastic article on this and it's driven me absolutely mad with questions. Sometimes obsession is a good thing.

True Detective: Who Goes There

The latest on HBO's True Detective from Tucker 'Fox' Johnson

Typically when I write these articles I’m actually writing while watching. This week however, I went into “Who Goes There” with my laptop firmly closed on my coffee table. I have my coworkers to blame or maybe thank for the focus I put into watching episode four of True Detective. Watching any show these days results in having to run the spoiler gauntlet the day after. Luckily for me only two people who I actually see on a daily basis pay attention to this series and both of them had nothing but dropped jaws as takeaways from the episode they’d seen the night before. This is always a good sign. Especially when entering an episode that has to pick up with the freeze frame ending that concluded “The Locked Room” and has thoroughly haunted my nightmares for the last two weeks.

“Who Goes There” is uncompromising. Not one thing happens in this hour of television that could be considered positive. But what occurs between the lines in this outing is a completely different story. Rust and Marty begin to find common ground with one another but at the same time the lines between them and the men they’re chasing begin to blur. The episode opens with the two interrogating a prisoner in a holding cell. The scene unfolds in the expected ways though by the end Marty is sitting next to the prisoner staring across the room at Rust while they discuss how having someone around constantly spouting crazy gibberish is enough to drive any man to bad behavior. It's a joke but the blocking pushes it into the realm of the serious and with some simple positioning we begin an episode that really starts to peel back the layers on Rust and Marty’s relationship, in a way that is rarely seen on TV. When Marty’s wife leaves him he’s distraught. So much so that he confronts her at the hospital where she works and has no problem making a scene in an attempt to win her back. Rust intervenes and takes Marty to a bar to cool off. And this is where the curve ball comes. Instead of learning something new about Rust as he opens up to Marty about a similar experience he once had we get Rust shutting Marty down. Marty wants nothing more than the wallow in his lost love and Rust will hear none of it. Instead he pushes focus to the task at hand: catching the star of last week's freeze frame Reggie Ledoux. 

Film and television are great arenas for obsession. Both mediums allow for it to mount within a character’s mind and consume their lives in a matter of a few hours or even minutes. True Detective doesn’t slouch when it faces obsession. Its depiction is the clearest I think I’ve ever seen. Rust is obsessed. But not with catching Ledoux or even being a cop. He’s obsessed with confirming all the pessimism about humanity he’s been rattling off since the outset. He goes off the reservation about as quickly as anyone could with the idea of resuming his undercover behavior that’s really only been hinted at so far. He’s excited when he sits there injecting cayenne pepper and ink into his arm to simulate tract marks. Playing a part and escaping himself, even if into the role of a violent junkie persona, is enticing to Rust. It becomes a fix for him. And it became a fix for me too. Throughout film school I was constantly told by professors to show, not tell. Film is a visual medium so take advantage of it. Well we get that here. Rust’s little box of toys is a goosebump-inspiring way of learning about his past. Automatic weapons and liquor aren’t anything out of the ordinary on television but here they echo loudly and proudly from this character’s past and I want to know every tiny detail. But writer/creator Nic Pizzolatto doesn’t falter. He stays true to his plan for telling the story of these two men and never gives you any more about them than he deems necessary.

Aside from the Rust’s obsession we see another kind of mania and that comes in the form of these two men’s passions for their jobs. By the forty-minute mark Rust and Marty are completely over each other. But they put their personal problems aside for the good of their partnership. This kind of relationship rings so true to me and it's unique to the medium. Like so much else in this series, it's refreshing.

And speaking of, “Who Goes There” provides something completely new to the series: Action. But it's not at all what we’ve been conditioned to expect. After both Marty and Rust chastise their interviewers for never having been in a real gun fight I went into this episode thinking I was about to see a protracted fire fight between two cops and their suspect. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Instead of a quickly cut, shaky cam shootout we got something much more interesting. A six-minute unbroken tracking shot following Rust as he enters a stash house, winds up on the wrong side of an already bad situation and has to make his way out of a neighborhood, the entire population of which is closing in around him. The sequence sustains a tension rarely seen on procedural television and it does so even while surrounding Rust with the chaos he keeps talking about. Series cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, who also shot the fabulous Top of the Lake, works magic augmenting Cary Fukunaga’s direction. Together they managed to block an incredibly complex sequence that keeps Rust as close to the lens as possible. Because of this, we’re actually a step behind the detective. He’s seeing threats even before we are and when the camera finally allows us to see what he’s already dealing with our brains furiously try to catch up. It’s a great way to make a sequence that much more tense for an audience who had no idea what they were getting themselves into. 

The majority of water cooler chit chat about “Who Goes There” will revolve around the tracking shot in the concluding minutes of the episode. And with good reason. But it should do nothing to lessen how powerful the new information we learn about Rust is. He’s rapidly become the most interesting man on television. I just pray the ends justifies the means.

True Detective: The Locked Room

Fox on Episode 3 of True Detective.

“If the common good’s gotta make up fairy tales then it’s not good for anybody”. This line from Rust opens this newest episode of True Detective and it makes too much sense coming out of his mouth. It sums up not only his character but this series’ worldview. Very early on this show set itself as a series that would portray a world where mankind is the ruination of ….well…..mankind. And hearing Rust’s take on a congregation of hysterical worshippers seems inevitable. He refers to religion as a “language virus” that attacks pathways in the brain and dulls critical thinking. Again it’s not a new viewpoint on television and it's not a surprising to find it here. What is a surprise is on a series that seems to have set Rust up as the smarter of the two titular detectives, we watch his partner Marty shut him up with a great retort. “For a guy who sees no point in existence you sure fret about it a lot.” This line is gold. It's a critique and neat summary of every cop show ever made. And it’s the perfect way to start an episode. 

The third episode of True Detective settles into a more familiar HBO format. The story continues to unfold but as the first couple of episodes have pointed out, this series is a slow burner. The network has made a career out of this type of series but where True Detective has the advantage is in the mystery stringing this season along. That mystery keeps viewers going. Or at least it’s supposed to. AMC’s The Killing had three separate seasons to try and convince cable viewers that a good mystery was enough to keep people watching. And after achieving the near impossible feat of being canceled twice it became clear that a good mystery alone may not be enough for a cop drama. True Detective knows this and whether or not they used The Killing’s failure as a set of anti-guidelines, they have made sure to strengthen their defenses in the area where The Killing faltered in almost every episode: characterization. 

Point of fact, True Detective spends the majority of its running time on building its characters rather than on the central mystery. The writers do give us clues but rather than all of them focusing on the mystery at hand, they instead grant us sporadic glimpses into Hart and Cohle’s doomed partnership and they are all great. They make the show even more fun to watch. We already know their partnership is circling the drain and so you’d think the small details wouldn’t matter. But writer Nic Pizzolatto manages to make these tiny moments great both in quality and scope. He’s walking a really fine line that even a brilliant series like Breaking Bad bobbled in its weaker moments. But so far he’s only impressed me with his vignettes about two people who’ve been forced to work together and simply don’t gel. 

“The Locked Room” is an episode that really turns up the tension on Rust and Marty. Or rather from Marty toward Rust. Marty still carries himself like Walter White in the sense that everything he does (even the bad stuff) is 'for his family'. When he and Rust have disagreements, and almost all the serious ones happen when they aren’t working, the result is a growing resentment Marty feels toward Rust. It’s a touch comical to watch Marty grow increasingly furious at Rust’s personal life choices while Rust is so out of the social loop that he doesn’t even seem to notice. And the resentment is quietly compounded when Rust starts helping out Marty’s wife around the house. His wife (played by the always wonderful Michelle Monaghan) is only appreciative and immediately turns on Marty for never being around. You can’t help but relate Marty to the castrated suspect the two detective interview and clear early on in the episode. The nice thing is that Marty isn’t clearly the bad guy of the relationship. It's incredibly easy as a viewer to see his predicament. He’s built a so-called perfect life for himself and while his frustrations compile over it, he’s forced to watch Rust walk boldly through a life in shambles (by Marty’s standards) firmly believing none of it is even worth it. And all the while we get to watch beer cans pile up around present day Rust as his words get darker and darker. The road these two characters take to get them to present is still even more interesting than the murder that’s brought them together in the first place. 

What “The Locked Room” does this week is assures us that we really can’t rely on either of our leads. We already know full well that Rust is rapidly heading down the rabbit hole, but what we learn in this chapter is that Marty is truly and utterly full of shit. He preaches love and affection for his family and spends almost this entire episode working to destroy it. What’s even better is our present day version of him promises the interviewing detectives that while all that was going on he was totally stable and his love never wavered. Rarely do we get such a great presentation of an unreliable narrator. There’s quite a bit of focus on religion in this episode starting from the title and burning faintly through the backgrounds and set pieces of most scenes. And why not? Humanity’s take on religion lines up perfectly with Marty and Rust as people. Their own religious views mirror their personalities as well and the whole thing has a nice wrapped with a bow quality about it. Marty does his job to fight for order and against chaos while Rust revels in the idea that without that chaos they lose humanity’s one and final tie to the natural world. The episode closes with an incredible monologue by Rust where he brings the title fully into play. I won't bore you with the details. Rest assured I had goose bumps for the duration. And just when I thought it was over, the episode ends with one of the greatest freeze frames I’ve ever seen. Get me the next episode. Now.

Still Walking

This is going to seem very left field, but I asked Alexandra Maiorino what she thought of the sixth episode of the 4th season of The Walking Dead and she gave me this wonderful, concise paragraph, which spells out the show's major gender issues rather eloquently. Sorry we've never touched on the show before, but I thought it was worth your time. I don't 100% agree, I even kind of liked the episode, but this is a wonderful counterpoint to my surface enjoyment:

I honestly felt like that one was a waste of my time.  While I think David Morrissey is wonderful, I really don't care about the Governor or his dead-daughter issues. He's definitely the bad guy and I don't appreciate being asked to sympathize with him again. Wasn't half of last season spent on the Governor's man-pain and how similar it is to Rick's very important man-pain? I can't see why the writers are trying to get the audience to buy the idea of redemption for the governor directly after telling us, through Rick's decision, that what Carol did is unforgivable. It undermines my faith in the writers this season and makes me worry that the rule is still "If you are male, then your internal struggle is compelling and important and nuanced no matter what terrible things you do, but if you are female and you step out of line, you need to die/get lost." I'm so hoping I'm wrong about that, but 2 Governor-centric episodes placed so they put off daryl's reaction to rick's decision (killing that wonderful dramatic tension, by the way) don't inspire much confidence. I didn't mind the women so much except for the fact that one of them sleeps with the governor, making him the man on the show who has had the most on-screen sex, which I didn't need to see - and he's only been here for one and a half seasons. I do, however, mind that there is yet another precious little blond girl the audience must now care about; by my count, that makes 6 little blond girls who have been featured in some way on the show, not counting beth. I just think it was one of the worst times to show a full episode away from the prison, focusing on only one character.  I suppose I wouldn't have minded if they did that with carol, but the only female character who has ever gotten that kind of narrative attention - the kind where the story follows them even when there isn't a more important male character to focus on - is Andrea, and I don't want any of that bullshit for the show's most well developed and last original female character.  The idea that we are supposed to divert our attention to just the governor for two full episodes right at an important turning point (hopefully) in the prison dynamic is ridiculous, even without the absurd notion that the governor's personal turmoil is deserving of audience sympathy.

Game of Thrones Season 3 - Episodes 1 and 2

We're going to make an effort to have these Game of Thrones chats with something resembling regularity this season, as I completely dropped the ball last time. It may have to wait until I have enough material for a whole post, or if a group of episodes are obviously linked by incident, we may wait. The show has finally caught up with all its major characters and to quote Professor Roger House, we're off and running. Without further ado, here's Fox and myself on the first two episodes of the third season of Game of Thrones.

Fox It's that time of year again. It's time to talk about Game of Thrones. Let the great discussion begin! Have you watched "Valar Dohaeris" yet?

Scout Tafoya I have indeed and in doing so discovered that this is the first time that I've truly "gotten" what great TV feels like to those who most often talk about it. I knew these people and places like old friends or my own distant memories. This is a story that I will follow until it's over. I don't know that I've ever felt this much loyalty to a series.  I've loved TV series before of course. Deadwood, Twin Peaks, Pushing Daisies, what have you, but they've often felt like something I was eavesdropping on - as I'm sure Breaking Bad will when I get around to watching it. Shows made for other people to fall in love with that I can appreciate but ultimately I understand that they were made with people who couldn't resist it in mind. The Sopranos is such a show. Alternately, as was the case with Deadwood, I'll discover it after it's been cancelled. So while I love it deeply all I can do is praise it while mourning. The storyline will never pick up after George Hearst leaves town. But with Game of Thrones I'm caught up, I'm on its wavelength and there are still many years left of story to tell that I will happily sit on my couch and digest. 

Fox That's exactly how I felt when the episode was over. Nothing particularly miraculous took place in the premiere but it left me with a warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing that I was allowed to live in Westeros for the next ten weeks. But the warm feeling aside it's disgusting how much better GoT is on almost every level when compared to other television. It's as close to art as the medium can get and I'm just happy we're around for it. 

Scout The episode features what I believe must be my favourite shot of the whole series, which is when the pirates drop Davos off at Dragonstone to find and kill Melissandre. He knows it won't work, he knows exactly how it's going to play out when he goes up there, but he's lost everything and like so many of the best characters on the show, he can't help himself. They frame him as a tiny, dirty, broken little man on a rock standing beneath the enormous castle, literally dug into stone, and all he can do is acknowledge that he's never going to make a difference. He's been forgotten. The shot is beautifully composed, the matte painting (digital matte painting?) is flawless and even at that great a distance Liam Cunningham's doing some of his best work. This gets at why the show works as well as it does, even as you say, nothing quite happens in this episode. It writes some of the best moments for characters who may end up being little more than cogs. The writers, directors, and crucially their art directors, never miss a moment to render Martin's text with the most rich detail imaginable. 

Fox Davos' storyline is one of the most contested of the series. In the novels many fans actually feel that his plot is boring and to a certain extent they're right. But thats where the show comes in. Davos' storyline in the show is one of my favorites. He's the only reason we ever get a glimpse of Stannis. That's only part true in the novels. So not only is he used as a function of storytelling but he's a great character himself and one of the few "good" characters in the show. The writers of the show have done a great job of involving him in scenes that he wasn't really a part of in the novels and in the case of him directly confronting Melisandre, that doesn't even happen in the book. Instead he simply gets to Dragonstone and is immediately arrested. Plus Liam Cunningham is just so easy to watch. As is basically every single person on the show. It's the most well cast anything I've ever seen. I just watched the episode last night with Emily as she missed the original broadcast and came to the realization that any one character could be the basis for an entire fantasy series. Watching Sir Barristan save Daenerys from the warlock child reaffirmed that idea. That said it's amazing that the premiere didn't even touch Arya, Theon, Jaime, or Bran's story lines. This universe is astoundingly conceived and enormous.

Scout I know! And you're absolutely right. I think what makes Game stand HIGH above the heads of various dimwitted fantasy series (I'm looking at Legend of The Seeker, for want of more examples) is that it isn't a show about some charisma free Logan Lerman-esque twit learning about a spell he's got to master and going on a hero's journey. It's about an entire functioning set of opposing governmental systems filled with people, all of whom have well defined personalities and conflicting belief and moral system (though the orphans of King's Landing could admittedly use a little shading. But I kid the writer). That's a pretty herculean feet of storytelling, to not only have these largely very distinct characters exist alongside each other while also propelling a very clear narrative. That the show can afford to spend a week without three or four of its most compelling denizens and not suffer says an awful lot about how much they've achieved so far. We in the audience can see that they will appear and it will be satisfying and not panic. Deadwood had...what? 60 speaking characters? 80? And when one of them showed up for their 3rd or 4th appearance, you knew exactly what you were in for without a word of dialogue. Calamity Jane, Mose, Samuel Fields or Eddie Sawyer were splendidly themselves and could only handle themselves in the way that Milch and the writers set them up, because they were people, not characters. I don't think Game's quite there yet because there's a little more plot than ever drove Deadwood, but it's real close. Sir Barristan's showing up didn't have the kick for me that perhaps it could have, even though the gesture was amazing. But it's proof that these guys have the utmost command of the form, as well as a pretty amazing grip on their characters. 

Fox And I think that really says it all. Series like The West Wing, Mad Men, Deadwood and GoT all take the time to make their characters so real that you could easily pass one of them on your way to somewhere and not bat an eye. That said I cannot wait to see Arya again.

Fox "Dark Wings, Dark Words" was awesome. They managed to find time for almost every character in the show and still tell a whole lot of story in an hour. They did a really wonderful job with the warg concept. I spent yesterday talking about the show with people and one of the story elements I'm worried about when it comes to the series is the supernatural. So far I find that show has done a much better job than the novels of introducing the magical in a way that doesn't bring everything else to a halt. Often while reading the books I'd actually double take alone in my living room when something magic happened seemingly out of nowhere. Watching a man beyond the wall sit with his eyes rolled back in his head while his consciousness is projected elsewhere was a nice easy way to tell you something without jarring the senses.  I also entered the episode a little wary of Arya and Bran aging. I noticed how much older Sansa looked in the premiere and she's already passed the age where a week can change your face completely. The two pubescent Starks are noticeably older but I'm totally in favor of it. Bran's dream in the woods with his brothers and father advising his shot was incredible. Apart from it being incredibly touching and reminding us that he hasn't seen his family almost two full seasons, his face now resembles a young man rather than a boy and for the first time Bran's presence became a little frightening. Though Bran can't walk he'll still be a man soon and when that day comes he'll be exceptionally dangerous to his family's many enemies.

Scout Two episodes in something became clear to me. The show had, up until this point, made distinct and fascinating entities out of the many warring camps. But they've finally started taking sides. Robb is unwilling and clearly unsuited to leadership - he's basically his dad, which isn't the worst thing in the world, but he'd fuckin blow it in Tyrion or Joffrey's place. He's better suited to ruling the north, I think. Stannis is very clearly not the guy for the job (despite what David Sims thinks) as evinced by locking his moral center in the dungeon - Though his humanity is still buried in there somewhere as he didn't just burn Davos on the spot. The Ironborn are clearly too grim and gross to be the favourites. We don't know enough about the king beyond the wall or Jon's play yet, so they're a big question mark, but it doesn't look like the showrunners want us to think of them as the best imaginable option. So that leaves us with Dany, who we're supposed to be watching her wrestle with moral issues so she can come out on top of them and earn her place on the throne, which is where I think we're headed - morally anyway. This is what they want us to think. It's the first time they've really shown their hand other than in the broadest terms - Joffrey bad, Ned good, Jamie handsome...ok, so that's beside the point, but still... - so it feels like the lines are being drawn more clearly, the action will be more efficient, and the stakes will always be as high as the wall. They know who to kill now to get our attention. Which brings me to your comment about the aging faces. We're now watching the Stark kids grow up, which means now there's the added element of knowing the characters personally, because we remember what they looked like two seasons ago. We've lived with them and if the show puts them in danger, it's going to be more than fiction for many people.

On an individual note, now that they've set every plate spinning, it's time to see which one falls first. You have to hand it to the writers, they left every story on a cliffhanger. Who's got Theon? What will the brotherhood do with Arya? Should Bran be worried about Thomas Brodie-Sangster and his sister and their calling his powers out? Will Dany accept slaves and what does the arrival or Barristan mean? Will Brienne and Jamie get out of bondage? Will Tyrion be able to keep Shae safe? Will Margaery Tyrell punish Sansa or will Little Finger do it for her?

Finally, how lovely is it to see Dame Diana Rigg at work. The scene where she and Natalie Dormer are trying to grill Sansa is the best moment of the episode because we're just as conflicted as she is. We don't know these women, except that if Margaery learned her social cunning from her grandmother, then they're both to be feared because they goddamn get it. Margaery is among the more cunning characters in the show, even if we've only seen it in doses. And her grandmother is clearly the same, if now older and thus less calculated. She no longer gives a shit about concealing her intelligence. So, they could just be feeling Sansa out about Joffrey to plot strategy, or they could be planning to turn her in to make themselves look favourable in the fucking king's eyes. Margaery essentially seducing Joffrey (ick) says this is a possibility. And then what happens to her if Shae is discovered and killed by Tywin? Whatever way you look at it, Sansa's in the most trouble of anyone in the series right now, and I'm rather worried about her safety. In short, Game of Thrones is back, baby!

Fox I had a very clear memory of Books 1 and 2 but 3 is where things really start to go all over the place so I'm approaching this season very much in the dark until the moment things happen. It's making for some truly thrilling television. I yelled "Oh goddammit!" at the television when The Hound calls out Arya near the end of the episode. Do they make it at all clear in the episode who actually has Theon? I know from the novels but I'm not sure if it remained a mystery in the show.

Scout No mention made. Just some dudes in hoods and his sister knows about it.

Fox Okay thats what I thought. Natalie Dormer continues to rock my world. Now that her and her grandmother The Queen of Thorns (Rigg) are in the game (of thrones) I think shit's going to hit the goddamn fan

A Clean Sword - Game of Thrones Season Two

Last year around this time, Fox and I started a very tangent-filled, casual, spoilery, swear-laden dialogue about Game of Thrones, which was airing its second season. I had intended to edit each one down every week and run them as a series, but we would inevitably still be talking by the time the next episode aired and I lost track of time. So here, in honor of the third season beginning (and our chats along with them) is our talk about Season Two, with most of the smut and personal anecdotes excised for clarity. This happened over ten weeks so bear with it...

"Power resides where men believe it resides. It's a trick. A shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow." -Lord Varys

Fox Alright, I'll start by saying that much like the first season its incredibly hard to watch the show one episode at a time. It's a slow burner for sure but I think its more based on the fact that since they're really adhering to the bookish nature of the storyline there aren't really "breaking points" for an episode to end. Every episode just leaves me wanting more which is definitely the mark of a solid show but it's different. I'm not quite sure how to convey that idea.


 In short I'm loving the new season. More importantly I'm loving the new characters. So far I think they've spent just as much time if not more time on the new people, which is ballsy for a young show like this but I think its really working.








Scout 

Aside, this is from an international dvd brief from Cinema Scope magazine: On another recent trip, thanks to Bloomington resident James Naremore, I managed to land an English-subtitled version of one of my all-time favourite French noirs (and, arguably, the very first), Jean Renoir’s 1932 La nuit du Carrefour (1932), on a homemade label calling itself Video Dimensions, with Douglas Fairbanks’ The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916) included as an extra.









Fox 

Well thats possibly the best news I've ever gotten in a Game of Thrones facebook thread.










Scout To damn that piece of news with faint praise. Balon Greyjoy blew my mind. I loved him in yesterdays episode. What a shitbag he is.
 I liked how much of a shitbag he was because with Theon standing next to him to intimidate, he's basically powerless.

Fox boooooi! Love Davos the pirate, too. And Melisandre is downright terrifying

Scout 

Oh yeah. Carice Van Houten, a titan! Perfect for that role! I love that Melisandre's whole story line is spelled out in just that moment alone with Stannis. Like you can see every possible bad way that shit's gonna end.









Fox Although it's killer watching it one at a time - it's the most all-at-once show I've ever seen

Scout 

You wanna be like "Ain't you seen a goddamn movie before!?" 

It's so fatalistic. Even more so than Deadwood.









Fox For sure. I just love how hard they're going to make it a book-tv show
. They don't give a shit about spending time with fan's favorite characters. 


They're telling a story and refuse to compromise

 




Scout 

Exactly. But in doing so they actually get more mileage out of their cast. The thing about the structure is that, yes, you'll only spend a minute with Daenerys and Jorah, but those two sell the plight in that time with no problem because they're great at what they do. And it also makes you appreciate those few minutes with these people because you know there's a lot going on in the world.


Fox I've never had more faith in a show runner (or show runners in this case). They love Game of Thrones to death so they're doing it right. It's funny because having read the story I still come at this season like its something completely new. I guess I did with the first season as well



 but it's got me in unfamiliar territory and I like it

.

Scout Last season seemed so much more about establishment. They had room in a given episode to follow winding and often cryptic conversations to strange ends because they were helping you get to know these people and understand exactly what sort of world this was. Which worked not only to give you a sense of what the show was, but also what it wasn't. It's not whimsical, it's not about fulfilling prophecy, it's about everyone trying to keep their head above water. So the first season played like a cross between something by Aaron Sorkin and The Sopranos. They took their time within a given scene and filled them to the brim with crackling verbiage. This season, whole nother fuckin' ballgame. Because we know everyone every scene feels like a cliff-hanger, even if nothing happens. Far more than last season I feel like I absolutely have to know what happens next when the credits roll, which is a major improvement over the great first season. The show isn't as densely written these days because it can only spend a minute in every kingdom, which is slightly to its detriment, but the pacing is now closer to first season Walking Dead territory. I need to see what happens, something that the first season only managed in the last few episodes for me.









Fox 

Thats a great way of putting it. Yeah I'm interested to see if they slow down. I'm really trying not to compare it to the book. We recently discussed the problems with that. What I will say is that the novel is SUPER slow and it's almost entirely Tyrion's ballgame. I think that the writers know that it's a stagnant story at times (though never bad or boring) so they're trying to make it as manic as possible, especially since there's a war on now even though there's no combat yet










Scout

 Indeed. It's a little more West Wing this time around and less Sopranos. Which I like because I know these people and because the writing is still amazing. If we get one good Tyrion scene, I'm happy because I know he's got a lot to do this season and if it's stuck between the other people that the Lannisters will have to deal with when the actual combat starts, I'm ok with it. What they've done is made this season The Two Towers. It's a gradual build-up to something we know is being promised. The difference is that Towers felt like a lot of wheel spinning when it wasn't directly about Aragorn building up the Hornburg's defenses. GOT is better because everyone's headed to the same fracus, and you want to know what the combatants will be up against and whether the fighting will actually come to mean a damn. If the backroom dealings and stealth firings/assassinations continue, there may be no allies left. It's an exciting feeling whenever someone leaves by a different door than they came in.











Fox 

I'm rewatching "The Night Lands" and I'm realizing how I'm a total sucker for horribly sun burned lips. Dany and Jorah wandering the desert is actually the most compelling part of this season so far. And you're totally right. Even though the sequences are so brief they pack the most wallop.







 The one thing I will say is that they had better really nail us with a battle near the end of the season. Even though the show is brilliant with just dialogue-driven sequences they really need to build up to something this season. I think they will but I'm saying that they must to give a lot of what they're doing real meaning.










Scout 

It's funny, there are a few things I can think of where a sort of action setpiece is filled exclusively with people we know. To go back to a previous example, Helm's Deep may as well have been a Hanna Barbara cartoon because the only people we knew or cared about on either side of the fighting was Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, who we'd been with the whole time and who were never in any real danger to begin with. What I'm excited to see is a battle where all sides are filled to bursting with people we know, and not simply faceless soldiers. The beauty of HBO is that the cast of characters on a given show is massive and so when even a minor character is stabbed to death, you feel it. The best example of this is, for my money, on Deadwood when out of nowhere you discover that someone, who is narratively a minor character, turns into someone you realize is a huge part of the reason you love the show. I'll always cite W. Earl Brown as Dan Dorrity perfecting the art of the Milch side character. Brown meant nothing to me until midway through the second season when Al Swearengen's laid up in bed, suffering and pissing blood, and Dorrity excuses himself to cry on the balcony. Until then you hadn't really figured he was much more than a child in a hulking and terrifying man's body. You'd seen him capable of jealousy, but that's not much on the emotional richter scale. Here he was openly sad, experiencing emotions so overwhelming he could barely explain them to Trixie later in the day. And just like that someone who will never actively figure into the plot as you could write it on paper, became an indispensable character. To the point that when his life is in danger, I found myself saying that he was the one character I was certain I could not live without. And then they pull the rug out from under you by killing someone equally if not more important. Now, that's a very long tangent, but my point is that the best shows on HBO or Showtime or wherever will fill their worlds with enough people to sell the place as believable. 

Todd Van Der Werff constantly talks about Deadwood as a microcosm of community which means that someone like Dorrity or in his case Charlie Utter can be people you love and believe in, even if they're often sidelined by the ostensible leads. So what I'm saying is that when Game of Thrones gets to the combat portion of the story, it's going to be one of the most brutal and honest moments in currently running TV series. Let me explain: until this point the GOT writers have made it abundantly clear that no one's life is guaranteed, unless they're so much a shitheel that killing them before the end of the show would rob the series of a lot of drama and of a greater catharsis, as in the case of Cersei and Joffrey, who still have so many more situations to ruin. And as we've seen not even being the show's lead character and poster adornment will save you from the executioner. So, why this is so exciting is because as the show fills out its world with more and more characters, each of whom we know better with every episode, when they finally clash, the stakes will be astronomical because everyone in danger of being killed in their scenes of combat could be someone's favourite character. If Stannis' forces make it to King's Landing first, you have Bronn, The Hound, Ilyn Payne and potentially Tyrion on one side, and Davos, Stannis, Mathos and Salladhor fighting with the fate of Melisandre, Joffrey, Cersei, Baelish and countless others in the balance. If the North gets their first, Theon, Robb, etc. will be on the battlefield. Then anyone could and probably will get an axe buried in their face and that'd the end of it. Film typically doesn't have the potential for wringing this much pathos out of a set piece, unless it's something like the excellent Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World, but even there you only really knew about 10% of the crew. What I'm saying is even if it only lasts for ten minutes, it's going to be amazing.










Fox
 
It certainly doesn't help that I'm approaching this show from a reader's stand point as well so I know more or less exactly what's going to happen narratively. Though some of my excitement is extinguised in that regard I have even more fun watching exactly how the writers decide to carry out a lot of the action in the show. I'm in full agreement with your saying that the stakes are high no matter what. That is unquestionably true. The way the book goes about telling the eventual chaos (as with a lot of what goes on in the book) is they sort of sideline the action and only tell you hearsay and at most what one or two characters experienced there. 

I really have no problem with this method and much prefer it to being treated to a God's Eye camera so that I always know what's going on. This method fails more often than not because it doesn't allow the audience to truly delve into the world they medium is trying to sell you. GOT does a tremendous job of putting its viewers into its locales by first putting you into it's character's shoes. I guess my plea for violence comes from a yearning to really see GOT go ballistic on itself. I think their advertising for this season (constantly promising that "War Is Coming") had better pay off with some serious blood if only to satiate the viewers who don't really get what GOT is going for yet, but I have to say I'd love to see a really well executed battle sequence mainly because I've seen the series succeed flawlessly at just about everything else. I want one more great battle for my "best of" pantheon.









"You gave me away!" -Theon Greyjoy

Fox 
Stray observations from this week: First, best episode this season. Second, Lena Headey rocks the fucking shit as Cersei. Even more so than people give her credit for. Theres so much going on in her head. You can see these wonderful little nuances in her eyes, particularly when she's dealing with Sansa. It's like Cersei really just wants Sansa to bust out and rebel like crazy but can't ever let her at the same time. In direct opposition to that, the guy that plays Little Finger drives me fucking crazy. He looks the part for sure and I'd never call him a bad actor but he is incredibly inconsistent as LF. I hate to judge him harshly but LF is one of the most secretive and interesting characters and I really think he's dropping the ball more than he's carrying it.











Scout 
Let me first say this: Natalie Dormer's here, and I couldn't be happier. She's got that very english cuteness that I can't resist and has a splendid curiousity about the violent craziness around her. Those eyes are alive with it. The way she treats her husband is so goddamn perfect (Oh, and I'm glad as anything that the gay knights are back) her manner is so agreeable that you don't know if she's taunting him or appeasing him when she says that she'll turn over and pretend to be her brother. Either way, she's running the show at Renly Baratheon's place. Anyway, I'll see your Cersei compliment and raise you a Theon Greyjoy finally coming into his own. I liked him more and more as his dad smacked him around but it wasn't until Theon bites back with "You Gave Me Away," that a whole season worth of his being minor and ineffectual made sense and he became a real character. He's been in the shadow his whole life - unloved by one family, another kind of bastard in the other. 


But to your criticism about Aiden Gillen - I don't mind him being tossed aside like this because he's paying for handing over Ned Stark by losing his control over everything except the girls in his harem - and even they need to be terrorized in order to do what he wants. He was who you describe him as in the first season, but the way I see it, and the way I want it, everyone who had a hand in Ned's murder (namely LF, the eunuch and Walter Donavan), Tyrion's going to make them pay. Not because he cares about Ned Stark (though I think he respects him and was sorry to see him die) but because everyone who killed him happens to be in opposition to his taking power, pleasing his father and staying alive. So perhaps LF's fallen in your estimation and in his stature as secret keeper, but I don't think it's by accident. Watching Tyrion move pawns is so hugely entertaining that I don't mind anyone seeming small in his presence. I loved his conflicting wedding proposals, I loved him putting Shae in Sansa's bed chamber (maybe one of the best scenes in the episode), I loved him intimidating Donavan with Bronn. I love him in charge. And because of this, I have to predict that it won't last because this show is just as crafty and backhanded as he is.


A final note. The series is paced much more briskly this time around, so even if we spend time with a given character, it's in a series of locations, as with Renly and Tyrion. And then comes that beautiful sequence with Arya and Yoren. Yoren is my favourite kind of character on Game of Thrones - dependable, colorful and bearded. Yoren, along with Bronn (who, it must be said, is to GOT what Dan Dorrity was to Deadwood) and Jorah Mormont, lives to serve, each in his own way. They are supporting players but they imbue their characters with experience, of lives hard lived and piece of mind hard earned. They have nothing to prove and act because they believe in who they act for. 

The story Yoren tells is about the one purpose he had in life, revenge, is beautiful not only because he delivers it quite nicely, but also because it shows that the things that Arya and the other lead characters are building to now, the things that this series are ultimately about, are still ahead of them. His purpose has been met; he killed the man who killed his brother, so every step he takes is for someone other than himself. So it was fitting to see him go for Arya because she still has her destiny, for lack of a better word, ahead of her. And I think he was happy to die for her. And better still, he left with a cry that will ring in my ears long after his presence has ceased to be felt on the show: "There's men out there want to fuck your corpses!"

Fox 

Good gravy Natalie Dormer. Yes she runs the show in Renly's camp for sure. And I agree 100% about not being fully sure how she actually feels about Renly's orientation which was brilliant. I think for the first time in the show's 13 episode run I actually came away liking Theon. Which I'm glad about. As far as the book is concerned, you're occasionally in Theon's head but you never really like him and more importantly you don't sympathize with him. The writers here have done a fantastic job putting us in Theon's camp, even if it is only for a little while.












Now Aiden Gillen. My complaints have very little to do with his situation. One of my favorite sequences ever in this show is Tyrion laying down the law 3 different ways on Varys, Little Finger, and Grand Meister Pycelle. My troubles with Alden come entirely from watching his body language. Because though Little Finger is a sniveler to some degree he's almost always in control whether the audience knows it or not. I found him particularly inconsistent in last night's episode. Alright I'll stop complaining about him. It's not worth it since last night was (for me) the best episode this season. They're really picking up speed but managed to spend more time with almost as many people as the previous two episodes. 

Arya and Yoren stole the show for me last night as well, even after I just harped about Tyrion's wonderful work. It was so tender yet very funny in the way that I only thought Deadwood could ever truly deliver on. I'm just happy that Arya got even a little bit of sympathy for her plight from Yoren. Because at the end of the day, Arya is 12 years old and that girl is going through some serious shit for anyone let alone a girl her age. And as far as last lines go, I'm putting Yoren's on my tombstone.









"Bronn, the next time Sir Meryn speaks kill him" - Tyrion Lannister









Scout

 TCM's running an old ad for Mack Sennett. With Featured player Harry Langdon. On a keystone cop pie fight, the narrator helpfully informs us: "This one killed in its day!"









Fox 

You have to remember that all the guys that put those ads together were first seeing those things their freshman year in quallege. Ladies and Gentleman, this is "Garden of Bones"

They start by doing a lovely little job of showing the ferocity with which Robb Stark is fighting his war. The soldiers that die at Grey Wind's jaws are not obviously evil men. They're sitting their post (in a heavy downpour no less) and are trying to make the best of their situation. Robb's conversation with the field nurse Talisa, following the slaughter was great as well. Eye opening for both sides of the war. We finally get a little insight as to Robb's intentions and its almost comforting that he wants nothing to do with the Iron Throne.









Fox When Joffrey's bedroom scene got going I really felt it was over the top. I wasn't exactly sure if they needed to drive the point home as much as they did as far as him being a madman. I came to be fine with the scene only because they're really trying to ramp the stakes up. Absolutely no one is safe from Joffrey's sadistic nature. Not whores. Not Sansa. Not even his own mother. Though these are all female examples, we got a few others at the end of Season 1 including the minstrel who was singing ill-willed songs about Joffrey's lineage and of course Ned Stark himself.
 Little Finger got some nice air time in this episode. He heads to the Storm Lands to speak with Margaery Tyrell (and any time at all with Natalie Dormer is a blessing) as well as Cat Stark and Renly. Though he's here on Tyrion's orders, he does a wonderful job taking control of his situation and getting everything he would want and every word he wants said, out before taking his leave. Little Finger also has no qualms about toying with Cat. Even though he loves her (and its probably the only genuine feeling that he feels for anyone) he isn't even remotely afraid to play with her motherly affection to try and strike and deal with her instead of Robb.









Arya's storyline is frightening as always. The first shot of Harrenhall is fucking horrifying and then we watch with Arya as strangers and friends are tortured. It was smart of the writers to not really explain yet what it was the interrogator was asking for. It added to the general confusion of the situation. Tywin knowing she was a girl was a great little touch. Plus its a nice surprise to see a Lannister appear as a guardian angel.








"Born amidst salt and smoke? Is he a ham" -Renly Baratheon









Fox 

Daenerys finally learns that being a Targaryen and a Khalisee will not get her everything. She's spent her life surrounded by men who get everything they want through threats, violence, and fear. At Qarth, Dany now has to try a new method: Submission. And she doesn't take to it well since she spent the first 16 odd years of her life being forced into this very way of life. Arya is really beginning her transformation this episode. When she watches her friends (and even strangers) die, she doesn't cry or show fear. She's tempering steel. She's hardening herself for the most true and total revenge. And I really can't wait until she gets it. Tyrion is so absolutely thrilling to watch. Not only because Dinklage is a revelation but because Tyrion is literally the most powerful man in the realm and he's utilizing his power in the smartest way. He's moving the most pieces out of anyone but he's doing it with such skill that it's impossible to look away.









Lastly, we don't see magic a lot in Game of Thrones. So when we do it needs to be a big deal. Melisandre's shadow child is absolutely terrifying and is important for a number of reasons. 1. Renly seems to be in real trouble now that we see exactly what Stannis was threatening him with. 2. Melisandre isn't just all morbid talk. The woman is very very dangerous especially now that we know the kind of power she can harness. Great episode.










Scout 

This episode is all about sleight of hand. The show could be said to be about the hands moving pawns, the action behind the action. This episode has Tyrion responding to harshness with uncanny deftness. He'll walk into any given room, change the tone and direction of whatever conversation or action he witnesses, and then leaves in charge of everyone and everything. He's going around snipping wings in King's Landing, meanwhile I couldn't help feeling like the whole scene in Qarth was a put-on, a bait-and-switch to lull Dany into a false sense of empowerment. Stannis talks a big game, but he's in Melisandre's pocket. Tyrion and Baelish are hoping to use Cat to get around Robb. Stanis came to Renly to get him to surrender, already prepared for his refusal. Tywin Lannister, in thirty seconds of screentime, puts a few people abusing their tiny amount of power in their place and changes the fortune of many. In other words, earnestness is a put-on, and everyone's hoping that someone gives them a reason. Everyone wants to be pushed so they can flex their muscle, whatever it may be. So even though no one is stabbed to death, this is the most exciting episode we've seen all season.

Fox
 
So 6 seasons in, The Sopranos is just starting to be on the same level as Deadwood.


Scout Yeah, it took some time getting there, but the time it wrapped up, it was absolutely unmissable. I love the last episode so much.









Fox 

I didn't even know you've watched The Sopranos, but yeah this season is so far above the last seasons and i'm only 4 episodes in.

Scout

 Oh, yeah. I saw the whole thing. Barring a few in Six part 2. 



You hit johnny Sack's Wedding yet? That's some Godfather type genius shit. 



Or, well I guess it's not his wedding. It's his daughter's wedding.








 
Fox

 It's in the next episode but I'm watching this show entirely for the last episode so that i can understand everyone's problem with it. I'm fully prepared to love it.


Scout I had no problem at all with the last episode. To me it's as fitting as Al on his knees scrubbing blood off the floor. How else are you going to end a show that's one portion of a hundred people's lives? Nothing's going to wrap it all up for them. You know? Van Der Werff said of Deadwood that he liked the feeling that you could still happen upon these people if you somehow walked into the black hills. I think they were after the same sort of thing.











Fox 

A great point. I think the people that were upset were the non-critical viewers who watched it for the mob part, which is still the least interesting aspect of the series for me









Scout

 Yeah. I like that critics are still talking about the ending to The Sopranos.









Fox 

I know pretty much everything about how it ends except how they get there







.

Scout You'll like it. There's a thing at a gas station that is blackly hysterical that I still think about from time to time.








Fox 

But having seen most of this, most of The Wire, and all of Deadwood I think the latter tops the holy trinity of television.

Scout Game of Thrones has the uncanny ability to turn my hands into Devil Horns. My official word is simple: This episode manages to burn even brighter than last week's despite it being simply the release of tension expelled in the first scene. It's all agreements, bonds and promises, and is it ever thrilling! Brien and Cat, Arya and the prisoner, Little Finger and the widowed queen, Tyrion and the alchemists, Theon and his first mate, Jon and the rangers, and on and on and on. Every union broadens my smile because not only is it this kind of bond that Game does so well (somehow people swearing allegiance to each other has the excitement of a swordfight and the catharsis of a love scene in this show) but also because they all grow stronger to fight each other. Each gains a powerful ally, each goes from crawling to walking in proving themselves worthy of the throne and toward their destiny.
 

On an individual note how goddamned great is Iain Glen? We've talked about him before, how much we adored his understated performance in the first season and here he finally gets a moment of confession that you believe in. Most confessions in the show come either with the stench of guile or the earnestness of the naive. Jorah Mormont is neither a liar nor an innocent. At times he seems the last noble character. When backed into a corner he does not grovel and beg for Dany's love or even confess what I assume is the extent of his; he keeps his head above water, remains uninvolved and yet somehow strikes at her sympathy deeper than if he had started in with schoolboy language. "Sometimes I stare at you and can't believe you're real." These are the words of someone besotted, and it's clear that Mormont has feelings that run deeper than protector or companion, but he sells his devotion so simply and so perfectly. He is there to keep Dany honest, to remind her that she can unseat the firmly grounded simply by being herself. She seems uncertain of it because she sees a veritable buffet waiting for her just within reach but Mormont has two excellent reasons to warn her away from what she thinks she wants. One, she won't be queen as he sees her, free of debts to anyone but himself (which I feel he'd shrug off in a minute - he seemed content to die of thirst for her). And second she'd be another man's wife, which would kill him a little. And mind you, Glen says all this in about twenty seconds with nothing more than that beautifully grizzled face and the most heartfelt delivery a man with his inner scars can muster. It's a command performance among command performances. To return once more to Deadwood, he's Whitney Ellsworth with a touch of the bleeding, violent interior of Seth Bullock. As if it needed to be said, I can't goddamn wait to see what happens next.











Fox Everyone made a partnership this episode and if the pieces weren't clearly moving before, they certainly are now. I'm so glad you mentioned the fealty bit because I was on the edge of my seat when Brienne drew her sword for Catelyn. I'm trying to keep the book and the series seperate but Margaery Tyrell gets a lot less time in the novel. Its clear the show runners know what they've got and are giving Natalie Dormer every single chance they can for her to slowly turn her head and flash those sexy ass fox eyes. Arya's new friendship with Jaqen H'ghar is wonderful. He makes me smile everytime he's on screen but what's more important is Arya has power (though a thimbleful) for the first time ever and it'll be very interesting to see who she picks for the remaining two lives owed. Literally every scene with Bronn has me psyched. The dude doesn't have to even do anything anymore and I'll still be laughing madly at every one liner he's got.







 



Ladies and Gentlemen, Iain Glen. I didn't even know what to do with myself when he dropped his 20 second monologue. I really wish it was the last scene in the episode only so that it'd force viewers to think about it even more. In a show where literally every single word uttered is a lie, we finally got some genuine truth and its about what seems to be the rarest thing in Westeros, Qarth and all the rest: Real genuine love.








Scout Charles 'Charlie' Dance and Maisie Williams rocking out. Fuck a goddamn I love the way this show does verbal sparring matches. Jon and Ygritte, Jaime and his cousin, Tyrion and Cersei, Theon and everybody who'll listen to him bitch. It's like chess and sex in one. This was the first episode where tension was sustained from scene to scene. Skipping between Qarth, Winterfell and beyond the wall was an excellent choice. Stakes are always high in Westeros but we've never been more certain that death is over the next hill.











Fox 

The last couple of episodes they've actually strayed from the books a great deal. I don't want to compare them but its nice to see that the writers of the show are treating the series like a second chance to tell a great story. Dany's dragons never get stolen in the book but it's making for a much more interesting plot line for her. And Tywin and Arya literally never say word one to each other in all their time together at Harrenhall. Thank god they've added those sequences because they're arguably the best the show has ever done. And yes, even with only a brief glimpse at Tyrion he's a frontrunner for stealing the show with that little quip off with Cersei. This show needs to stop casting such wonderful women because ever since Ygritte showed up I've just been pawing my way over furniture to be as close to the TV as possible when she says anything. She's one of the best casting choices yet.








"Any man dies with a clean sword I'll rape his fucking corpse!" -The Hound

Fox

 How did "Blackwater" treat you?









Scout 

Haha!!!!! "Blackwater" proves my desperation in the face of a narrative and spectacle. So a storm knocked out my internet and I got it back around 10. I started two downloads, one for a 1.56 gb, one for a 386 mb, which oddly took longer. So I start watching and the file's too big for my processor and every few seconds the screen freezes, then tries to trudge through the frozen image - I'm sure you know what I mean. So this won't do. I go online to find it streaming and it works, but the picture and sound are shit. So I kept switching between them until Stannis hits the beach. Finally the other download is at 97% and I decide to just sit in silence and wait it out to watch it in slightly diminished quality but better sound. Which means I watched that guy get his shit wrecked by a thrown rock three or four times. Upside I got to hear the Hound say "Any man dies with a clean sword I'll RAPE HIS FUCKING CORPSE!!!!" three times
. A fantastic episode that makes you forget about everyone else in Westeros. The Hound makes the strongest showing of himself yet. Rory McCann takes a one-note character and gives him life. I loved this episode. I loved Tyrion cutting off a warrior's leg and proving Varys right about his ability to save the city. I loved this fucking episode!










Fox 

Couldn't have said it any better myself. The wildfire explosion actually forced me to stand up out of my chair and yell at the tv. George R.R. Martin actually wrote that one too. It's always interesting to see changes that an author makes on their own material for film and television.








Scout

 Agreed. It's like Lindqvist doing the script for Let The Right One In - you have to know the strengths of the medium, because that novel is a real grotesque slog and that movie is the most beautiful thing ever made. 


Fox 
But I think the best parts of the episode were all the dismemberings. They were fucking incredible and all completely unexpected.









Scout Rewatching this, I agree with your dismemberment theory two-fold. For this we have Director Neil Marshall to thank. Someone else might not have thought like he did. Neil knows work on a budget - he's never had bloat (except maybe Doomsday, when he blew it) so he knows that if you get a little money, you've got to make it last. So the dismemberments are not only tonally appropriate to the grisly proceedings in Westeros, but also Neil uses them as shorthand for the violence of combat. You only see one or two men getting killed in battle, but those few men are cut in half or have the tops of their heads cut right the fuck off so their brains are like a blood mary in Dudley Moore's shaky hands. You're going to remember those images, and you're going to get how fucking dirty the men of King's Landing fight.









Fox 

I think you're totally right. The imagery from the episode that really stays with me are all the dismemberment and the Wildfire explosion. I remember the entire time I was watching it on tv I kept looking at the clock hoping for more time for fighting. What I didn't notice while doing that is the entire episode goes by in a flash. Its nothing but gold even when there isn't any fighting. Cersei's drunken breakdown is fantastic. (Though I will say that the most touching thing on the planet also happens in "Blackwater". Sansa bitched Ned out for getting her that doll and she was so attached to it in this episode) Really tugs at the haat strings....





Scout Tugs right on 'em.








Scout

 Well that was a hell of a way to end a season.

Fox

 Haha. Yeah they're really setting everyone up for disaster in book three. It was an extremely busy finale unlike the first season. I'm just about to the point where I want a spin off buddy cop movie with Jaime and Brienne.









Scout 

Best scene. I loved Jamie's cockney put-on

. 

And then we start talking about lord knows what. A bit of a copout considering how well the season ended, but then, we were too heartbroken to admit it was over. So we didn't say goodbye...we said bon voyage.