Sunday Night TV- Gigolos & Whores

[kmo]

 
It's helpful when my two Sunday night shows are united by similar visual motifs. 

Game of Thrones 3.03

- Great way of establishing the Edmure/Blackfish dynamic and what a giant tool Edmure is. Blackfish you are my favorite ambiguously gay tertiary character in asoiaf!

- Show continues to remind me that ASoS is my least favorite Arya storyline. It's all about her running around the riverlands getting kidnapped by by various people. Though the good-bye with Hot Pie was cute. Aww, gonna miss you, bro. I also like Gendry a lot better on TV. He can keep taking his shirt off. I'm gay not blind, HBO. The only thing I really hope they include (and it is so small, they probably won't) is Arya's meeting with Lady Smallwood of Acorn Hall. I can't even say why but that vignette just tugs my heartstrings. Lady Smallwood is my favorie quaternary character. 

- Jaime & Brienne! aswhajwkljwf! Please just give them their own spinoff buddy cop show where they run around Westeros being snarky, having sexual tension and solving mysteries. Like Bones but set in the Middle Ages. I want this almost as much as I wanted the Tywin-Arya-Jaqen H'ghar spinoff last year- My Two Badass Dads. 

- I also really liked the change in the rationale for why Jaime loses a hand. One of the big themes of the books (and will come up again at the Red Wedding) is people questioning power based on tradition/wealth/class. 

-DANY. You are the BEST. You are like Harriet Tubman with dragons. I can't wait for next week. 

-Confession: I have a soft spot for the curmudgeonly Stannis. This week's Melisandre/Stannis scene was the best yet, I think. Melisandre's amused shooting down of Stannis is the best thing I think she's done so far. Oh Stannis, looks like you need some cialis or some shit. 

That dumbass scene with Pod in the whorehouse. I can't even, HBO. Is this even necessary? Do you have to pay a fine or something if you fail to show a naked lady in less than two successive episodes.

-So last week I was sad there was no "Bear and the Maiden Fair." Erm. Thanks for hitting home, show, that this song is apparently a metaphor for date rape. I mean, I knew there was a beauty & the beast vibe to the story, but I felt like the song was presented more comically in the book. But with Bolton's men singing it right before Jaime tells Brienne they're going to gang rape her....yeah. 
 
I really don't have a lot of Mad Men thoughts this week. Other than I think Peggy and Stan's late night calls are my new favorite thing, and definitely the best phone calls since "Pizza House!" Oh and *slow clap* for Trudy Campbell. Trudy Campbell for the Iron Throne! Still, not enough Joan. Moar Joan. 

Comments

[likeadeuce]

Yeah, it's obviously a really complicated issue and I don't want to read it as a moral judgment on the idea of fighting back (it may indeed be Jaime's moral judgment but he's hardly the one to look to), but it does acknowledge Brienne's physical strength and complicates the victim categories a bit.

I think the book sequence works primarily because of Jaime's inner narration, and I like that the show seems to be recognizing the moments that don't translate and finding ways to make them more dramatic; (I think the changes in Theon and to some extent Cersei's characterization reflect this too; a lot of the dramatic tension in Theon's chapters -- and then later on when see more of Cersei -- is the contrast between self-concept and what's going on in the real world. The show can't do this so we see more external motivation.)

I also wonder if they're moving some events around deliberately to preserve a sense of suspense for people who know the books -- you are waiting for this stuff to happen but aren't prepared for exactly when. The slow dawning of 'oh this is THAT scene' was a hell of a thing.