6.4

Game of Thrones 6.4 Review “Book of The Stranger”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Spoiler warning: A one, a two, a three: this blog contains spoilers on Game of Thrones. This blog does not contain how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsy Pop.*

Hello again readers new and old, I come to you all bearing my thoughts on the latest episode of Game of Thrones. Like any episode, they stuffed a lot of plot into one hour of television. Some moments were heart warming, others were very tragic, and many moments that were very well acted out and written overall.Rather than wasting your time with plot summaries since you’ve most likely watched the episode I’ll just state what I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy.

What I enjoyed:

First of all, I literally felt my hear melt when I saw Sansa reunited with Jon Snow in the one of the opening scenes of the episode. The fact that it showed Sansa and Jon catching up on where they left off, saying “I wish we could go back and stop us from leaving that day”. That’s a sentiment I’m sure many fans share to some extent (including myself). In a similar manner, I enjoyed seeing Theon interact with Yara and how they became closer as siblings to each other. I loved seeing Dario and Jorah interact with one another to try and rescue Danny, but how Danny ultimately saved herself and became the new ruler of the Dothraki in the process. That scene at the end where Danny burns the Khal and his men alive was just so epic, I’m still geeking out about it! I enjoyed seeing how Tyrion is trying the diplomatic approach with the Masters of Yunkai by giving them time to adjust to slavery ending. It was great seeing how The Lannisters and the Tyrells are working together to fight the faith militant, and how Margery was trying to help her brother stay strong. Lastly, I enjoyed seeing how Jon is getting ready to start pushing back against Ramsay, who is becoming progressively more evil with each episode. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ramsay became an evil cartoon of his former self by the end of the season.

What I didn’t enjoy:

I haven’t read the books for GOT, but I have read about some of the plot lines on Wikipedia (*prepares for impending fan rage in comments section*). It’s hard to say since the main storyline for the books is waiting for the next book to be released, but I get the feeling the show is starting to abandon George RR Martin’s original vision a bit. Meaning that we keep getting so many happy outcomes this season and so few negative outcomes it’s starting to not feel like the original storyline. The overall theme of GOT is to say that war just makes everything worse, but here we see Danny getting a huge army, and Jon Snow coming back from the dead to fight the monster Ramsay Bolton to reclaim the north. Speaking of Ramsay, I’m so pissed at he how killed off Osha with that flaying knife. It was by far the most rushed character death I’ve seen on this show since Ned Stark’s beheading. Oh well, GOT isn’t supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows. More like it’s the only cult crowd show on TV that isn’t supposed to give people happy endings (fan service aside). I guess we shall see where things will lead us in the next few episodes.

Today’s song will be Bruce Cockburn’s “If I had a Rocket Launcher” because the lyrics tell of the struggles of war and it’s aftermath. I love that damn guitar solo!

-KCard

Walking Dead 6.4 Review: “Here’s Not Here”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

UNKNOWN FORCE OF IMPENDING EASILY OFFENDED FANS DETECTED*

Has anyone else ever noticed that Republicans and Libertarians call trigger warnings and content warnings an “affront to free speech”, but stay completely silent or get seriously bent out of shape over someone posting show spoilers on social media? It’s just me who sees the irony? Okay then, just remember no one is above criticism or being hypocritical in some way or another as it’s human nature. But enough “Lefty Socialist” ranting from this social justice blogger, onto the show.

This episode that has something that I like to call “Naruto Shippuden Syndrome” in that last week’s episode ended on a colossal cliff hanger. The writers of The Walking Dead made us wait one to week find out Glenn’s fate, only to make us wait another week (or two) with a filler flashback episode. Anime fans are fairly used to this technique of drawing out cannon material, but mainstream American audiences prefer instant gratification and hate waiting for such a huge reveal (especially in the age of social media). I’m right up there with the American audience in that I hate that I have to wait another week, even though I’m a huge fan of anime such as Naruto. That’s not to say this episode was terrible, it was a brilliantly written episode; it’s just that the timing for it couldn’t have been worse. This entire pattern of drawing stuff out from cannon material this season’s really starting to grind my gears. I’m starting to think that season six of The Walking Dead is the new season two of TWD; and the first half of season two was terrible. Frustrated ranting of this episode aside, here’s what I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy.

What I liked: It was great to finally know Morgan’s back story, that’s where this episode truly shined to help define where Morgan stopped being psychotic from his PTSD and started coming into his mantra of not killing people anymore. I enjoyed the acting chemistry between Lennie James (Morgan) and John Carrol Lynch (Eastman) in that both were fantastic at portraying their roles. I enjoyed seeing how Morgan came back to the light, and finding out Eastman’s back story of how his family died, and how he never felt whole with the revenge he received on making the convicted felon who killed his family starve to death. “I found my peace in never killing again”, said Eastman to Morgan after he was fatally bitten by a walker (one that Morgan killed earlier in the episode by strangling it while the walker was still a person). I also like how Morgan locked away the Wolf leader in the house as that will most certainly come back to bite Alexandria in the arse. Morgan’s struggle was the focal point of this episode, and I’m happy to see he overcame it. This was truly a well written and directed episode that made me like the show version of Morgan much better than the comic book version of Morgan. But punctuality matters when you build up a mystery, and the placement of this episode would have better after the midway season finale (which is something I would have liked much more).

What I didn’t like: How do I say “timing” without sounding like a broken record? Well, I’m sad the goat didn’t make it out alive. I’ve otherwise said my peace about the writers teasing us with Glenn’s fate, now I will just say that I find Morgan’s pacifism is problematic for the rest of Rick’s group (especially with the wolf leader still alive). As a pacifist myself I’m not saying that last sentence to insult Morgan, more like it’s a pro-war jab from the writers against my beliefs. But everyone has their own opinions, and in this type of a setting there’s a clear difference between war and self-defense. On that note, hopefully next week’s episode won’t leave us high and dry again with what’s happening. Otherwise, this walker heard story could take all season.

I tend to use this blog as a soapbox for a lot of my opinions, and if I offended you then I don’t apologize for what I’ve said, but I will apologize if I’ve said it like an A-hole. So for this blog post, I will be leaving Elle King’s “Song of Sorrow” to both offer my sentiments for upsetting some people, and help commend both Eastman and Morgan’s emotional struggles from their pasts.

-KCard