Game of Thrones photo recap: "A Man Without Honor"

This week on Game of Thrones Dany looked for her dragons, Cersei acted like an actual human being, and everyone talked. A lot. "A Man Without Honor" was the talkiest episode since the first season's "Lord Snow," but a hefty helping of intrigue and gore, not to mention a couple shocking reversals, kept the tension high. As always, check out the photo gallery for a rundown of the best moments, and keep reading for a sampling of the night's best quotes.

The best moments from "A Man Without Honor": Theon loses control, Xaro Xhoan Daxos shows his hand, and Sansa has a really terrible morning.



The night's best quotes: Ygritte spends a day making fun of Jon, Arya talks back to Tywin, and Brienne shows the men who's boss.

"Do you have sheep at the wall?" Both a hilarious line by Ygritte, and a nice call-back to Sam's conversation with Gren at Craster's Keep.

"If you're my prisoner, you're not a free woman, that's what prisoner means!" Jon was not acquitting himself particularly well in this episode, intelligence-wise. Probably due to the lack of blood going to his brain.

"Most girls are idiots." Maisie Williams just killed it in this scene.

"You're too smart for your own good. Has anyone told you that?" "Yes." So did Charles Dance. I would watch the hell out of an Arya/Tywin spinoff.

"We don't go serving some shit king who's only king because his father was." That right there was the moment when Ygritte became the envy of everyone in King's Landing.

"And I thought that we were done, but he said, 'Turn back around!'" Ygritte's entire speech about being taken advantage of by Jon was hilarious, but the final line put all the rest to shame.

"I thought it would be less... messy." Right then, every single woman watching the show said, "Oh, sweetie, I know."

"Shouldn't I love Joffrey, your grace?" "You can try." One of the best things to come out of this episode was Cersei's realization that Joffrey is, in fact, a terrible human being.

"Take your hands off me, woman!" "Don't enter without an invitation, man!" Brienne doesn't do a whole lot this week, but this line was fantastic.

"You've become a real she-wolf in your later years!" Jamie Lannister is the king of inappropriate flirting.

"It's just you, me and Joffrey. The lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and protector of the Realm." The sarcasm with which Peter Dinklage articulates this line was delicious.

"What if your father despises the king? What if the king massacres the innocent? It's too much. No matter what you do you're forsaking one vow or another." A brilliant speech from Jamie, not to mention an accurate summation of one of Game of Thrones' most potent themes.

Community recap: Five full-length episodes we want to see after watching "Curriculum Unavailable"

Hot on the heels of the news that Community will be back for at least thirteen more episodes (hopefully more since, contrary to a lot of speculation, the fourth-season deal did not specify an end date), the internet's favorite comedy delivered a phenomenal episode that both built on last year's "clip" show, "Paradigms of Human Memory," and moved the ongoing plot forward.

Just like its predecessor, "Curriculum Unavailable" provided some tantalizing glimpses of the episodes that might have been, from a life-sized chess match to Troy buying an ATV. So here, in no particular order, are the five clips that I would most like to see made into full-length episodes (plus a bonus idea for a spinoff!). Enjoy, and keep repeating the mantra: Six Seasons and a Movie!

"Native American Tribal Rituals"

Plot: After deciding that some serious soul-searching is in order, Britta attempts to convince a local Navajo elder of the seriousness of her vision quest and, after being rebuffed, scores some peyote from the (now dearly departed) campus drug source, Starburns. She is not prepared for the intensity of the experience, and neither is Greendale's local ecosystem.

Why should we see the whole thing? Because of the wonderfully deadpan way that Gillian Jacobs asks how long peyote lasts.

NBC is picking up new shows left and right (including what looks like The Hunger Games: The TV Series)

Perpetually last-place network NBC went on a shopping spree yesterday, picking up six new series for the 2012 season. One of those series, the J.J. Abrams-produced post-apocalyptic thriller Revolution, look like a reasonably promising sci-fi adventure (although that could just be because I'm a sucker for a good apocalypse). It also looks suspiciously like a certain smash hit young-adult book (and film) series, at least as evidenced by the promotional picture below (via Vulture):

I mean, the girl in the middle is wearing Katniss Everdeen's exact hunting jacket, and the guy on the left  in the white shirt is a dead ringer for Peeta Mellark. Not to mention that all of them are holding bows (which, between The Hunger Games, The Avengers and Pixar's upcoming Brave, are really having a moment.)

In other NBC pickup news: Vulture reported that the poor, bedraggled peacock has decided to pull itself out its ratings slump with the Ryan Murphy sitcom The New Normal (it worked for FOX!); the Matthew Perry-starring series Go On; and Save Me, starring Anne Heche, which is just sort of baffling. Then, as if fans of 30 Rock, Community, Up All Night and Parks & Recreation weren't sweating enough, the network also greenlit 1600 Penn, a White House-set family comedy starring Bill Pullman and Jenna Elfman, and Animal Practice, which TVLine described as a workplace comedy about "a House-like veterinarian who loves animals but usually hates their owners."

With the exception of Revolution - which could take Fringe's place as the critically-adored-yet-ratings-challenged science fiction series when the former ends its run after a thirteen-episode fifth season - none of these look terribly promising. The New Normal has the double advantage of Ellen Barkin and The Book of Mormon's Andrew Rannells, but it also has the black hole of awful that is Ryan Murphy. Mr. Sunshine and Studio 60 proved that Matthew Perry can't really carry a show on his own. 1600 Penn contains another Book of Mormon alum, Josh Gad, but Pullman and Elfman are pretty far past their primes by this point. As for Save Me and Animal Practice; I have no words. None whatsoever.

Game of Thrones photo recap: "The Old Gods and the New"

"The Old Gods and the New" was a magnificent episode of Game of Thrones, featuring some lovely, moving moments, serious character development, and scenes that were viscerally painful and edge-of-your-seat tense. As usual, check out the gallery below for a rundown of the episode's best moments, and then keep scrolling for a sampling of great lines. And remember to stay out of Dany's way when she goes looking for her dragons, because you do not want to be the person between Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen and her fire-breathing children.

The best moments from "The Old Gods and the New": Jon Snow meets a lovely wildling, Tywin and Arya are almost like friends, and Joffrey comes so close to getting what he deserves.



The night's best quotes: the last moments of Ser Rodrik Cassel, Cersei deals with her emotions using threats, and Roos Bolton has Theon Greyjoy's number.

"Ser Rodrik, it grieves me that we meet as foes." "It grieves me that you've less honor than a back-alley whore." At least Ser Rodrik got in a good one-liner before he died. And we got one last glimpse at his awesome beard.

"You're even dumber than you look." Jon Snow does keep making incredibly stupid decisions. He deserved that.

"Maybe you should devise our next battle plan while you're about it." Did I mention how much I love the Tywin/Arya pairing? Because I love it so much.

"Strike hard and true, Jon Snow, or I'll come back and haunt you." I have a feeling that Jon wouldn't mind being haunted by Ygritte.

"One day I pray you love someone. I pray you love her so much, that when you close your eyes you see her face. I want that for you. I want you to know what it is to love someone, to truly love someone, before I take her from you." Now would be the time to hide Shae somewhere a bit more remote than Sansa's chambers.

"Princes don't cry." "I saw you cry." Hilarious, Sansa. Stupid, but hilarious.

"I want these people executed!" "They want the same for you." We all want that, Ser Sandor. We all want that.

"We've had vicious kings, we've had idiot kings, but I don't know if we've ever been cursed with a vicious idiot for a king!" If there are words in the English language that describe Joffrey Baratheon more effectively than "vicious idiot," I haven't heard them.

"The people will rise to fight for their rightful queen when I return!" Dany may be a bit naive, but after a few more months of Joffrey the people of the Seven Kingdoms would probably welcome just about anyone.

"I'm writing a letter to the Lannisters: the Young Wolf is on the move!" Wouldn't it be kind of awesome if Valisa was actually a spy, and she just lied to Robb's face about it?

"Why would Theon..." "Because the Greyjoys are treasonous whores." You are not wrong, Mr. Bolton.

"You are everything he hates. Your horse eats better than his children." Just as Tyrion perfectly summed up Joffrey, so Shae perfectly summed up the rebellion in King's Landing. Those two really are meant for one another.

Criticizing The Hobbit for looking "like TV" misses the point

Martin Freeman in The Hobbit. Photo courtesy of TheHobbitBlog.com.

If you've been keeping up with the latest news about Peter Jackson's film of The Hobbit, you might have heard that the audience who saw a ten-minute preview of the film at CinemaCon (or at least a part of that audience) did not like the look that a 48 frames-per-second projection rate gave the movie, comparing it unfavorably to the "cinematic" quality produced by the usual 24 frames-per-second.

Devin Faraci of Badass Digest wrote that the movie was "drenched in a TV-like - specifically '70s-era BBC - video look," adding, "It looked completely non-cinematic." Entertainment Weekly's Anthony Breznican said, "The clips Jackson went on to show looked more like visiting the set of a film than seeing the textured cinematography of a finished movie," and Charlie Brooker took the opportunity to opine, in the Guardian, that movies and TV news are just looking too similar these days. Apparently, Brooker misses the time when TV stations "had the decency to commit to appalling production values."

Do you have thoughts on Girls? Then share them!

It seems like everyone and their mother (or at least, everyone and their Facebook friends) is talking about HBO's Girls these days: critics, pundits, even Louis C.K. are weighing in on the show. But I want to hear what you, dear readers, think! Does the lack of diversity on Girls bother you? Do you think it's a realistic representation of a particular generation, or a part of the generation? What do you love and hate about Girls?

You can share your (sure to be) brilliant and insightful thoughts in the comments, or you can click over to Pencils Down, Pass the Remote's Facebook page and talk there. Some of your comments might even make an appearance (anonymously, of course) in an upcoming post that will explore the effect of the endless Girls discourse on the show's reception. And, of course, there will be prizes for the best comments*!

And, of course, if you haven't like Pencils Down, Pass the Remote on Facebook yet, you should probably do that.

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*Prizes may or may not be imaginary.

So this is what Game of Thrones would look like as a buddy comedy

The good folks over at Vulture know that you were dying to see what Game of Thrones would look like if it were reinterpreted as a buddy comedy about Tyrion Lannister and Bronn. So they have kindly provided you with an awesome trailer for "One And a Half Man," the story of Westeros' most abiding bromance.

The best part of the entire trailer might be the announcement of the fake movie's release date: "Coming soon. Just like winter."