Some theories about the rest of "Game of Thrones" Season Six

Now that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have publicly announced a general timeline for the end of Game of Thrones - two shortened seasons after the current sixth season, totaling about 13 episodes - it's time to get speculating. Over halfway through season six, the pieces of the endgame are starting to move into place, and as a result I'm feeling pretty confident about the following prediction for the final four episodes of this season, and the series overall. (SPOILER WARNING, obviously.)

Of "space Gandalfs" and sassy redheads

To celebrate Matt Smith's tenure as the Doctor, which will be coming to an end after this year's Christmas special, here's a pretty great deleted scene from the fifth season's "Flesh and Stone" where Eleven describes himself in Tolkien-esque terms. (It's also a great pick-me-up if you're still sad about Game of Thrones.)



This deleted scene is fun and entertaining, despite the fact that it reminds me of that awful time when Amy was trying to hook up with the Doctor. However, it also reminds me of the reason I so loved the second-greatest sassy redhead to ever grace the TARDIS: she is constantly calling the Doctor on his shit. (As did the greatest sassy redhead to travel with Space Gandalf, Donna Noble. I miss you every day, Donna.) After all, someone occasionally needs to point out the Doctor's propensity for traveling with young, hot girls and only young, hot girls.

I'm not too sad about Smith's departure yet; we still have two episodes to go before we have to bid farewell to Eleven. But I know that when the time comes I'll miss his antic energy, his awkward attempts to mimic human behavior, and the sadness and rage and fear that are just barely balanced by love and optimism. Even so, I'll be excited to see what the future brings; after all, I thought no one could ever match David Tennant, and Smith's fantastic performance proved me wrong time and time again. In the meantime, we have "The Name of the Doctor" and the reappearance of Ten and Rose Tyler (at least) to look forward to. Personally, I'm hoping for a Donna Noble cameo.

Game of Thrones recap: it's tough to be a Stark

A shocking, brutal, brilliant episode makes sure everyone knows just how far Westeros' noblest family has fallen.

Robb (Richard Madden), Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) and Talisa (Oona Chaplin) prepare for a wedding.

You're almost there, and you're afraid you won't make it. The closer you get, the worse the fear gets.

-Sandor Clegane

"The Rains of Castamere" was an episode full of near misses and narrow escapes. Bran wargs into Summer's mind at the last possible moment and beats back the Wildlings. Jon reveals himself as a member of the Night's Watch and barely escapes from the people he just betrayed. Jorah, Grey Worm and Daario Naharis end one scene facing seemingly impossible odds in Yunkai, and begin the next telling Daenerys that they successfully sacked the city. Jon and Bran pass within yards of each other but never make contact. And Arya comes painfully, achingly close to being reunited with her mother and brother, only to have any hope of happiness torn from her grasp.

I had suspected for quite a while that things were going to end badly for Robb. So much of season 3 (and a lot of season 2, really) has been about pushing the King in the North into a corner. His doom was basically sealed once he married Talisa and his mother set Jaime free, and the events of this season have done nothing but back up that hunch, from the loss of the Karstarks to his final, desperate plan to take Casterley Rock from the Lannisters. Robb was hemmed in on all sides, losing supporters because of his marriage to Talisa and the execution of Lord Karstark. On top of that, he was actually happy in his marriage and expecting a child, which is never a good sign in Westeros.

Game of Thrones recap: the only thing that matters is the climb

An intense, revealing scene (and a viscerally horrifying visual) cuts to the heart of Game of Thrones' central power conflicts.

Aiden Gillen as Petyr Baelish and Conleth Hill as Lord Varys.

Honestly, I had a really hard time picking a scene to analyze this week. There were a lot of great moments in "The Climb": Lady Oleanna faced off with Tywin Lannister, Cersei and Tyrion actually showed one another some affection, and Jon and Ygritte engaged in some pulse-pounding mountaineering. In the end, though, I had to go with my gut and choose Littlefinger's tense, complex scene with Varys, purely because it contained the single image that stayed with me long after the closing credits had faded out: Ros's arrow-ridden corpse, tied to Joffrey's bed after Baelish decided that she was nothing more than a bad investment.

In Vulture's recap of "The Climb," Nina Shen Rastogi expresses her disgust with the tossed-off nature of Ros's death. Her reaction is something I completely understand: the fact that Littlefinger, who I'm beginning to suspect is as heartless as Joffrey (if not quite as twisted) ends Ros's life without so much as a second thought is bad enough. That he hands her over to Joffrey for what he knows will be the worst possible death is horrifying. And that he drops the fact casually into conversation, as an attempt to throw Varys off his game, is absolutely sickening.

Game of Thrones recap: it's hard to be the Kingslayer

Characters (literally and figuratively) expose their secrets in the low-key, but still plenty compelling, "Kissed By Fire."

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister (don't call him Kingslayer).

For a show so heavy on battles, beheadings and dragon fire, Game of Thrones has always featured a substantial amount of talking. There's a lot of backstory to be gotten to on this show, to the point where there have been entire episodes - most notably the first season installment "Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things" - that are almost entirely composed of people giving speeches. It's something, then, to say that Jaime's speech to Brienne in "Kissed By Fire" is one of the finest, most compelling, most revealing and most emotional speeches anyone on the show has ever given.

Jaime has spent the season becoming a more sympathetic character, to the point where it's (almost) possible to forget about that time he pushed Bran out the window because the boy saw him having incestuous sex with Cersei. One of the reasons Jaime is now so much more identifiable is that he personifies the difficulties of staying the honorable course, or even figuring out just what the honorable course is. After all, the man was despised by Westeros' resident honorable man, Ned Stark, for killing the man who executed Ned's father and brothers, because Jaime was, at the time, a sworn member of Aerys Targaryen's King's Guard.

Game of Thrones recap: how do you say "badass" in Valyrian?

Daenerys Targaryen upends the balance of power in one of the most thrilling scenes the show has ever done.

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen.

Daenerys Targaryen was one of the most compelling characters in Game of Thrones first season. She started out as a frightened girl, sold in marriage by her odious brother in exchange for an army, and ended the season as a Khaleesi (of a very small, somewhat ragged group, but still a Khaleesi) and a Mother of Dragons. Her journey was compelling, her story had tons of potential, and Emilia Clarke gave one of the best performances on a series full of them.

Then season two happened. Dany spent ten episodes in Qarth, in a holding pattern where she tried to find the money to invade Westeros and yelled about her dragons. The surreal finale sequence in the House of the Undying helped bring some actions back to her story, but it was clear that, when it came to Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, the show was spinning its wheels.

But no more! The final scene of this week's episode, "And Now His Watch Has Ended," was a masterfully constructed thrill, and Dany finally took her place as the badass powerhouse we all knew she could be. The sack of Astapor solidified the Khaleesi's place as an unquestioned ruler - I don't think Ser Jorah or Barristan Selmy had a single line of dialogue this week - and upended the balance of power in Westeros. If I were a Lannister, a Stark, a Baratheon or a Tyrell, and I heard that the last Targaryen was marching at the head of an 8000-strong army, not to mention in possession of three dragons, I would be very, very afraid.

Game of Thrones recap: the trials of Sansa Stark

Sansa opens up to Margaery and Lady Oleanna about the true nature of Joffrey Baratheon in a funny, tense and heartbreaking scene.

Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark.

Honestly, I'm tired of the Game of Thrones photo recaps. They were fun for a while, but eventually just turned into me making lists of things I liked about each episode, and that's fairly boring for everyone involved. So, starting today with "Dark Wings, Dark Words," I'm going to try a different approach: each week, I'll choose a scene that was particularly interesting, illuminating or memorable, and break it down for you all, both on its own and as it ties into the episode as a whole.

The stand-out scene from last night's episode featured both the whip-smart Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer) and the introduction of the amazing Lady Oleanna (played by the equally wonderful Diana Rigg), yet the moment was really about poor, trapped, terrified Sansa Stark. From the moment Lady Oleanna asks Sansa to tell her the truth about Joffrey, it's clear from the girl's stuttering, timid response that she is about to crumble. The mere fact of Oleanna and Margaery's kindness makes Sansa drop her guard completely, pouring out her heart to these two women and telling them that Joffrey is "a monster."

Game of Thrones photo recap: "Valar Dohaeris"

Game of Thrones is back, baby! "Valar Dohaeris" was a little scattered - there were a lot of characters to catch up with, after all - but it hit all of our favorite GoT notes: complex power machinations, gratuitous nudity, disturbing violence, direwolves and dragons. So without further ado, here are the best moments and most memorable lines from "Valar Dohaeris."



"I want to fight for the side that fights for the living." Question for Jon: who wants to fight for the dead?

"They said you'd lost your nose, but it's not as gruesome as all that." A cute nod to the books, where Tyrion does, in fact, lose his nose in the Battle of Blackwater. Luckily for those of us who love Peter Dinklage's face, CGI-ing his nose away in every frame was probably not in the budget.

"Grand Maester Pycelle made the same joke. You must be proud to be as funny as a man whose balls brush his knees." Tyrion Lannister: scarred, but still hilarious.

"I don't even know how much I'm paying you now." "Which means you can afford it." Bronn and Tyrion, together again. All is right with the world.

"You are an ill-made, spiteful little creature full of envy, lust and low cunning. Men's laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors since I cannot prove that you are not mine. To teach me humility, the gods have condemned me to watch you waddle about wearing that proud lion that was my father's sigil and his father's before him. But neither gods nor men will ever compel me to let you turn Casterley Rock into your whorehouse. Go, now. Speak no more of your rights to Casterley Rock." Tywin's cruelty and rage in this scene are something to behold. It's painful to watch, particularly when the camera cuts to Tyrion, but Charles Dance is magnificent as always.

"Watch out for her." "I always do." "Watch out for her with him." My bet for the season is that Sansa ends up married to Littlefinger. Which would probably be marginally more pleasant than being married to Joffrey, but is still gross, particularly when you factor in Littlefinger's obsession with her mother.

"Don't despair, Ser Davos. What I told your son is true. Death by fire is the purest death." Melisandre is one cold-hearted bitch.

"My mother's always had a penchant for drama. Facts become less and less important to her as she grows older." The cut to Cersei when Joffrey says the word "older" is a thing of beauty. Lena Headey's glare could cut stone.

"Tell this ignorant whore of a Westerner to open her eyes and watch." "He begs you attend this carefully, your grace." Again, the interplay between the slave seller and his interpreter is both funny and, once you figure out that the girl is herself a slave, rather frightening.

But is it "real" enough? Girls, The Wire and the authenticity obsession

Thinking about pop culture in terms of perceived authenticity can help explain reactions to everything from Girls to The Wire to Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway.

Lena Dunham, creator and star of Girls; David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Steven Poole's recent, excellent piece on the authenticity fetish currently dominating the culture (published in The New Statesman) has some fascinating things to say about the way critics and the public at large value authenticity in their entertainment. Touching on reactions to Zero Dark Thirty, artisanal coffee shops and Beyonce's performance of the national anthem, Poole ultimately concludes that the search for authenticity in entertainment and consumer goods is a way for tastemakers to distinguish themselves from the huddled masses who enjoy such "inauthentic" entertainments as lip-synched performances and Argo:

The authenticity of such an aspirational brand’s product boils down to the promise that numberless faceless artisans have laboured personally on your behalf. A similar fantasy underlies the ferocious insistence that a coffee shop be “artisanal” and “independent”, the indolent demand for a pre-aged Stratocaster, or the hysterical suspicion that a singer might not have been working hard enough to entertain us. The self-appointed guardians of authenticity, it seems, want desperately to believe that they are at the top of the labour pyramid. In cultural markets that are all too disappointingly accessible to the masses, the authenticity fetish disguises and renders socially acceptable a raw hunger for hierarchy and power.

 Of course, if you have a friend who prides himself on his consumption of only locally-grown, hand-picked food and micro-financed films shot on a vintage Super-8 camera (or if, god forbid, you are that friend), you were probably already aware of this phenomenon. Still, Poole's essay (which I highly encourage everyone to read - it meanders into existentialism a bit in the middle, talking about Sartre and "bad faith" and still manages to be worth your time) offers a useful starting point for a pop-culture discussion I've been wanting to have for a while, about perceived "realism" on film and television and the (often insane) reactions to that realism.

The six most awesome moments from Game of Thrones' third-season trailer

The trailer for Game of Thrones' third season is finally here, and boy is it amazing!



In no particular order, here are the six most awesome things contained in this clip:

• Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) standing in front of (commanding?) a giant army. Time for the Mother of Dragons to do some serious ass-kicking.
• Catelyn's (Michelle Fairley) line, "Show them how it feels to lose what they love." Season 3 is looking to be the season the ladies of GoT really get their bad-ass on.
• Joffrey's (Jack Gleeson) line, "Everyone is mine to torment." It's nice to know that the show's most villainous villain has only gotten more evil over the hiatus. Everyone needs someone to hate, and that someone is Joffrey Baratheon.
• "I'm going to light the biggest fire the North has ever seen!" Who else is excited for the introduction of Ciaran Hind's Mance Rayder?
• The dragons are growing! And flying! And possibly lighting a whole bunch of shit on fire!
• MS MR's awesome "Bones," which scores the trailer and which is my new favorite song. Between this and last year's epic "War is Coming" clip, which featured Florence + The Machine's "Seven Devils," I almost wish GoT used anachronistic pop music to score actual episodes (the key word being "almost").

UPDATE: There is now an extended version of the Season 3 trailer, and it is somehow even more badass than the first. Probably because of the dramatically increased presence of Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), whose fall from grace at the end of the second season has done nothing to diminish his quips.

EW.com re-imagines Game of Thrones as a CW-style soap opera

As part of the magazine's year-end round-up of the best and worst everything in pop culture, Entertainment Weekly created a clever promo for Game of Thrones, if the epic aired not on HBO but on the CW.



While highlighting the pairings of Ygritte and Jon Snow and Daenerys and Ser Jorah was the obvious way to go, I quite enjoyed the way EW took advantage of the excellent chemistry between Peter Dinklage and Conleth Hill to imply a somewhat plausible romance between Tyrion and Varys. Plus, the Tyrion/Varys (Varion? Tyrys?) pairing would leave the door open for an excellent love triangle between the Imp, the Spider and poor, loyal, left-out Bronn. Spin-off series, anyone?

2012 was apparently the year of kick-ass women on TV

Flavorwire just came out with a supercut called "TV's Year of Kick-Ass Women," which celebrates the girls and women who rocked the small screen this year.



While I don't disagree with Flavorwire's Michelle Rafferty when she calls this year's crop of female characters "intelligent, empowered and awesomely flawed," the supercut leaves out a number of TV's best ass-kicking women. It was nice to see 30 Rock's Liz Lemon, Up All Night's Reagan and the women of Community alongside the (more traditionally) badass Nikita and Olivia Dunham, but where were The Vampire Diaries' Caroline and Rebekah? Why not include Archer's Lana Kane next to Selina Meyer of Veep? Why is Lady Sybil the only Crawley who gets a place on the list, rather than Lady Mary or the Dowager Countess? And while I wholeheartedly support the presence of Daenerys Targaryen and Brienne of Tarth, where exactly were Arya Stark and Cersei Lannister?

How To Get Your TV Fix This Summer (Without Watching True Blood

A thoughtfully funny priest, a bumbling spy and a downright Biblical clash of Kings provide a great antidote to vampires and werewolves.

Clockwise from top left: Jay Harrington and Portia de Rossi in Better Off Ted; Chris Egan in Kings; Jude Wright and Darren Boyd in Spy; and Tom Hollander in Rev.

With May sweeps a distant memory and early-summer series like Game of Thrones already finished, summer TV epitomizes Minow's famous "vast wasteland." Although many cable networks are starting to challenge traditional scheduling, the current television landscape consists mostly of reruns, reality series and True Blood. Even Doctor Who, normally a godsend for those of us who prefer quality programming to baking on the beach (not everyone tans, and not all of us enjoy slathering on SPF 1500 and donning a hat just so we can watch other people brown) has taken an extended hiatus, and won't be returning until an unspecified date in the fall.

Luckily, we live in an age of streaming video and HD laptop displays, which means that a world of TV is sitting at our fingertips, waiting for us to dispel the summer doldrums and dive right in. If you find yourself with some extra time between barbecues and beach parties, these five series are well worth your time and energy (and, in some cases, the cost of an Amazon Prime subscription).

Spy

Who should watch: Anyone who misses the covert ops shenanigans of Archer and adores Community's genre parodies.

Available on: Hulu

Hulu has become a great source of less-known British television, and Spy is one of the streaming service's best offerings. The show's protagonist, Tim (Darren Boyd), is a middle-aged loser working in an electronics store and fighting for the love (and custody rights) of his precocious, witheringly critical son Marcus (Jude Wright) when he stumbles into the wrong civil service exam and ends up as an MI6 agent. Spy combines the best elements of several shows - the set-up is pure Chuck, the portrayal of MI6 is right out of the Archer playbook, and later episodes have Marcus starring in parodies of gangster movies and Westerns that could have teleported in from Community - but the show makes them its own. Spy features a great cast of supporting characters (I'm a particular fan of Mathew Baynton's Chris), but the whole enterprise is anchored by the prickly, hilarious, often cruel and occasionally sweet relationship between Tim and Marcus, whose odd couple banter is like nothing else on TV.

The Huffington Post's Eve Simon defends Aaron Sorkin in the most awful way possible

By insulting the intelligence of anyone who criticizes The Newsroom, Simon shows just how shallow her understanding of the show is.

Jeff Daniels stars in Aaron Sorkin's new HBO series.

If you don't like The Newsroom, Eve Simon thinks you're a moron.

In a fairly awful opinion piece that ran yesterday on The Huffington Post, Simon takes any and all critics of Aaron Sorkin's new drama to task for contributing to the dumbing down of American society. Apparently anyone who didn't enjoy the show, who thinks it's flawed or overly preachy or just plain bad, only formed that opinion as a result of the anti-intellectual forces that have insidiously taken over the country and made intelligence into a vice. A NASCAR New World Order, if you will.

After watching the pilot of Aaron Sorkin's new HBO drama The Newsroom, I'm not at all surprised that people have been beating on it like some alien weed they're hell bent on destroying. 

The show is just too smart. Smart as a pejorative*. And that scares the shit out of everyone. 

[...] 

Stupid people hate that he calls them out on their lack of engagement, and smart people are scared to death to admit publically that he's absolutely right. Why? Because that would validate the picture painted of them in the press: Elitist, smug, self-important, superior, condescending, and not Real Americans (FuckYeah!). 

In these days of advanced citizenship*, I'm truly horrified to say that being smart has become the ultimate liability. And instead of doing something about it, we sit back and wonder why the media is taking our national culture to hell on a speedboat*.

Even ignoring the fact that Simon is proving her own straw man counter-argument by coming off as one of those "smug, self-important, condescending" smart people (because why try to subvert the stereotype when you can play into it?), and even eliding her apparent belief that Sorkin is the lone holdout in a television landscape filled with reality shows and procedural crime dramas (this in a year that brought us a subtle exploration of gender roles and power struggles on Game of Thrones, bold creative choices on Community and a brilliantly funny, bitterly pointed political satire in Veep, to name only a few), Simon's rant displays the limitations of her own understanding of Sorkin's drama.

Mother Jones' Game of Thrones attack ads: Tywin Lannister (and Gob Bluth) would approve

Mother Jones came out with some Game of Thrones attack ads that are as funny as they are sharply satirical. The videos, which focus on Daenerys, Joffrey and Robb (not Robb!) lampoon some of the characters' dumber decisions (Dany, why did you think your dragons would be safe in an unlocked wooden box?) while simultaneously sending up collective political freak-outs like the birther movement and John McCain's anti-Obama "Celebrity" ad.

The ads also underline Game of Thrones' similarities to Arrested Development (because why not?). Check out the birther-esque ad that accuses Joffrey Baratheon of being a bastard:



Hilarious - I particularly like the moment when the narrator asks "What is King Joffrey Hiding?" and the onscreen text responds with "Incest? Murder? Adultery? Deception? Dwarves?" - and quite similar to the attack ad that Gob Bluth creates for George Michael's quixotic campaign against Steve Holt for the position of student body president:

Five reasons The Vampire Diaries is better than True Blood

Left: Nina Dobrev on The Vampire Diaries. Right: Rutina Wesley on True Blood.

Spring has officially ended, and the good TV shows have gone the way of non-sweltering weather and the snowdrops outside my old apartment. (On a side note, I have a new apartment now, and my move from the one to the other is what has kept me from blogging. It takes a long time to assemble an entire apartment's worth of Ikea furniture.) Game of Thrones finished off its phenomenal second season with a threat from the perpetually icy North, and was replaced on HBO's Sunday night schedule with the considerably muggier atmosphere of Bon Temps, Louisiana, and the baffling fifth season of True Blood

At this point in its lifespan, True Blood mostly exists as a reminder of how much I miss the CW's infinitely superior supernatural thriller The Vampire Diaries. (Also as a way to see Alexander Skarsgard nude.) So, to honor the return of Bill, Eric, Jessica and Sookie's magic fairy vagina, let's take a look at a few of the many, many things that The Vampire Diaries does better than True Blood. (Note: SPOILERS for the third season of The Vampire Diaries and every season of True Blood abound.)

No irrelevant side plots that distract from the action

True Blood's first season (which seems so long ago) was almost entirely focused on a single storyline: the serial killer targeting women who had sex with vampires. Yes, there were digressions here and there where Sookie lost her virginity to Bill and Jason got addicted to V, but the action was all driven by the main plot and the problems it posed to the residents of Bon Temps. Not coincidentally, the first season was the high point of the show, which has since degenerated into a shapeless mass of unrelated stories stitched together into a tonally incoherent mess.

The Vampire Diaries, on the other hand, has a talent for pulling every side story, no matter how irrelevant it may seem, into the main thrust of the action. You might think that Tyler becoming a werewolf has nothing to do with the threat of the Originals, but then Klaus turns him into a hybrid and a whole new, emotionally compelling storyline is born. Elena's concussion might have seemed like a cheap way to build tension, but it paid off in spades when she drowned after being cured with vampire blood and turned into a blood-sucker. Speaking of which...

Game of Thrones Photo Recap: "Valar Morghulis"

"Valar Morghulis" took the propulsive momentum from "Blackwater" and ran with it, powering through a multitude of story lines with flair while keeping up the pace. The big scenes worked just as well as the intimate characters moments, and a plethora of supernatural elements were front and center without seeming out of place. As always, check out the best moments from the episode below, then keep reading for the best quotes. And if you need to find me in the off-season, just give a copy of this recap to another TV blogger and repeat these exact words: "Valar Morghulis."

The night's best moments: an eerie journey through the House of the Undying, Joffrey Baratheon finds a new wife, and the episode ends with a doozy of a cliffhanger.



The best quotes from "Valar Morghulis": Jamie and Brienne make a great team, Theon Greyjoy is not the absolute worst person in Westeros, and I know what question I would ask Jaquen H'Ghar.

"How do you know about that?" "I thought you said you knew who I was." Really, Varys is one of my favorite characters. I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up the most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms.

"Apparently eating is now a crime." "No, stealing is." The way that Jamie and Brienne immediately put aside their bickering and coordinate in the face of a threat makes me think they would be a pretty formidable force were they to team up.

"Send more ravens." "You killed all the ravens." You took the words right out of my mouth, Maester Luwin.

"Do you know what it's like to be told how lucky you are to be someone's prisoner?" This was a beautifully written and acted speech that sheds a lot of light on Theon. He's a lot more understandable when his actions are viewed through the lens of a prisoner who was raised to be honorable by the man who killed his brothers and took him away from his home.

"Why would I lie about it?" "To create strife between my sister and me." "Where before there was nothing but love." Varys is a tricky man, but I get the impression that he really has Tyrion's back.

"There are many who know that without you this city faced certain defeat. The king won't give you any honors, the histories won't mention you, but we will not forget." This was a really nice moment between Varys and Tyrion, but I suspect that being an unsung hero is not what Tyrion wants out of life.

"How did you know we would come this way?" "Of all the things you have seen, this is your question?" I have to agree with Jaquen; there are about thirty questions I would ask before this one, and after watching this episode I definitely know what the first would be.

"I need to find my brother and mother. And my sister. I need to find her too." I suspect that, whenever Arya meets back up with Sansa, she's going to have to seriously reconsider her opinion of her sister.

"Maybe I told the Great Stallion to go fuck himself, and came back here to wait for you." Romance, profanity and challenges to the gods in one package; that's Khal Drogo for you.

"Take all the gold and jewels!" This one wasn't so much about the line but the delivery, the way that Jorah roared it with the gusto of a pirate.

"If you step back and think about, the thing about Gilly that's so interesting is..." Please don't be dead, Sam. Please do not be dead.

Game of Thrones, Girls and the "reality" of sex on television

Jemima Kirke as Jessa and Lena Dunham as Hannah in Girls; Esme Bianco as Ros in Game of Thrones.

Once, when I was in college, a friend and I had a conversation about sex in literature. This discussion was occasioned by a short story that had been published in one of our school's literary magazines; specifically, by the traumatic sex scene that was the piece's central incident. The friend asked me if I liked the story; I said that I did, but that I didn't understand why sex in literature was always so unpleasant, why characters in literary fiction never seemed to enjoy it. In response, she provided me with the best explanation of literary sex that I've ever heard.

"It's hard to write good sex," she said. "It always just sounds like porn."

I remembered this conversation when I read a piece about the sex on (what else?) Girls in the New York Review of Books. The author, Elaine Blair, rhapsodizes about the "unexpected frankness and naturalism" of sex scenes between Hannah and her not-boyfriend Adam, while taking to task those who find those scenes uncomfortable and clearly one-sided. "We can find something sexy and even liberating in that sex scene in spite of our strong identification with Hannah," she says, referring to a scene from Girls's second episode in which Adam masturbates on Hannah's chest while spouting some very uncomfortable dirty talk. "Sexy" and "liberating" are somewhat odd descriptors for a sex scene in which one partner doesn't reach orgasm and is clearly not fully comfortable with Adam's particular brand of turn-ons.

Don't get me wrong; I don't object to the sexual acts happening onscreen in and of themselves. I agree with Blair that Hollywood movies and TV shows have an unfortunate tendency to equate sex with, as she says, "mutually rapturous face-to-face vaginal intercourse," and that it would be nice to see other kinds of sex portrayed as normal rather than deviant. The problem is that Girls doesn't really do much to take these atypical portrayals of sex out of the realm of deviance and into the mainstream. Yes, the characters do have many different kinds of sex - oral, autoerotic and doggy-style are but a few of the varieties on display - but, as of right now, only one female character has actually been seen enjoying any of this sex. Not coincidentally, she's the one who shows up accidentally pregnant, a moment that doesn't exactly read as judgment-free.

Game of Thrones photo recap: "Blackwater"

"Blackwater" was Game of Thrones' most focused, streamlined and compelling hour since last season's "Baelor." As Stannis launched his ill-fated attack on King's Landing, Tyrion and Sansa kicked unbelievable amounts of ass, Joffrey revealed the depths of his cowardice, and Cersei's slow descent into madness started to accelerate. As always, check out the gallery below for the episode's best moments, and keep reading for a rundown of the night's more memorable quotes.

The best moments from "Blackwater": Sansa shows off her newfound cleverness, Tyrion shows off his skills with an axe, and David Benioff and D.B. Weiss show HBO why the extra money for special effects was necessary.



The night's best quotes: Stannis' ruthless nature comes to the fore, Tywin Lannister has some pretty compelling religious beliefs, and the Hound quits his job in a fashion that is only successful when you're a 300-pound killing machine.

"I've always hated the bells. They only ring for horror; a dead king, a city under siege..." "A wedding?" "Exactly." Just wait until Sansa marries Joffrey. The sheer unpleasantness of that event will put any other instance of death and destruction to shame.

"I've seen you kill a man with a shield. You'll be unstoppable with an axe." As I mentioned, this scene was wonderfully played by both Peter Dinklage and Jerome Flynn; Tyrion and Bronn's relationship might be the most romantic on the show.

"They say my brother Robb always goes where the fighting's thickest. And he's only a pretender." Sansa has managed to combine Stark bravery and nobility with the ability to keep her head firmly attached to her shoulders. That girl is going to go far.

"The worst ones always live." After the absolute badassery of Sansa's conversation with Joffrey, we get an unfortunate (and heartbreaking) reminder that, no matter how craven and cowardly he is, Joffrey has powerful people behind him, and those people will fight to keep him alive at any cost.

"We're too far from the gates. The fire. They have archers. Hundreds will die!" "Thousands." Stannis is still a better choice than Joffrey - who, with the possible exception of Ser Gregore Clegane, wouldn't be? - but the casual way he dooms thousands of men in a quest for the Iron Throne demonstrates that he has his shortcomings as well.

"Your father doesn't believe in the gods?" "He believes in them, he just doesn't like them very much." When you compare this comment to Tyrion's lament last week that all he wanted was a god of "tits and win," it becomes clear that the Imp has more in common with his father than Tywin (and Cersei) might like to believe.

"Fuck the King's Guard. Fuck the city. Fuck the King." The Hound says what everyone is thinking, and gets away with it because, really, who's going to stop him?

"Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!" Maybe not the most noble way to end a rousing battlefield speech, but Tyrion gets points for both flair and for pointing out the fundamental lack of clear moral divisions that distinguishes Game of Thrones from, say, Lord of the Rings.

"The battle is over. We have won!" As conflicted as I am about the Lannister victory, I'm glad that Tywin got the opportunity to say this line. If you need someone to announce that you won a battle, Charles Dance is your man.

Game of Thrones photo recap: "The Prince of Winterfell"

"The Prince of Winterfell" was an episode of Game of Thrones that picked up on Cersei's line to Sansa from last week: "The more people you love, the weaker you are." Themes of love and its consequences were everywhere, from Robb and Talisa's newly consummated relationship to Peter Dinklage's revelatory work in his scenes with Cersei and Shae. As always, check out the photo gallery for a rundown of the hour's best moments, and then keep reading for the night's most memorable quotes.

The best moments from "The Prince of Winterfell": Brienne and Jaime are oddly perfect together, Arya calls in her final favor, and the episode ends with a reveal that surprises no one.



The hour's best quotes: Yara Greyjoy, Westeros' top comedian, is back, Ned Stark was the best lord anyone could hope for, and Shae can be adorable even when issuing seriously gruesome threats.

"Which one gave you the tougher fight? The cripple or the six-year-old?" Obviously the cripple, because he had Hodor on his side. Hodor!

"Theon, you're my blood. We both loved our mother, we both... endured our father." Yara's summation of Balon Greyjoy acts as a nice counterpoint to Robb's description of having Ned as a father.

"He once told me that being a lord is like being a father, except you have thousands of children, and you worry about all of them." See what I mean?

"See that he doesn't get drunk in the evenings. He's poor company when he's sober, but he's better at his work." I'm not entirely sure how Tywin thinks Arya - who weighs about eighty pounds soaking wet - is going to keep The Mountain from doing whatever he wants, but the vote of confidence is nice nonetheless.

"And how did you accomplish this marked drop in thievery?" "Me and the lads rounded up all the known thieves." "For questioning?" "...No." Bronn and Tyrion are the Abbott and Costello of Westeros.

"Digging latrine pits at the end of the world... I can't imagine anything much worse." "Then you lack imagination." Dolorous Edd lives up to his nickname (although you can't really blame him).

"A man has patrol duty." Jaquen's unique syntax works well when he's making cryptic statements about murder, but it's not as effective when he's just talking about his day. "A man has to stop by the post office" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

"A man can go kill himself." And Arya out-badasses a ninja genie.

"His place is not on the battlefield." "It's not on the throne either. Sadly for all of us..." Joffrey insults will never get old.

"I will hurt you for this. A day will come when you think you're safe and happy, and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you will know the debt is paid." Tyrion Lannister may not be the most physically imposing specimen, but he can be pretty frightening when he wants to be.

"There are people who want to hurt me." "I know. I won't let them. I'll cut off their faces. I will." Only Shae can turn a bloodthirsty threat into a term of endearment.

"I don't want to marry the Frey girl." "I don't want you to marry her." Who would have thought that Game of Thrones could pull of unabashed romance (or, to be more specific, unabashed romance that didn't start with forced marriage and rape).

"He didn't say anything about the guards." "What, he left that bit out? It's a pretty important part, don't you think?" I missed you, Gendry. I really did.

"Imagine Stannis' terror." "I am trying." Peter Dinklage and Conleth Hill are masters of deadpan sarcasm.

"Why are all the gods such vicious cunts? Where is the god of tits and wine?" A pretty hilarious line that highlighted another theme of "The Prince of Winterfell": overuse of the word "cunt." Seriously, I counted at least seven instances, and I probably missed a few.