Game of Thrones “Red Woman” Review: To be young

 Sansa in the cold on Game of thrones

Photo credit: HBO

Some quick thoughts on Game of Throne’s sixth season premiere right after I age a few hundred years…

“We are the only ones, the only ones in this world and everything they’ve take from us we’re going to take back and more… We’re going to take everything there is.”
-Jamie

Welcome to uncharted territory folks. Benioff and Weiss are entering the wild without the guidance of George RR Martin’s (mostly) great novels. To me this is the most exciting Game of Thrones has ever seemed. For once I have no clue where we are going and I don’t have to view the show under the lens of adaptation. It’s time to enter the realm of the unknown and the exciting and I can’t wait to follow along week by week.

That brings us to our first step into the unknown in “Red Woman.” Every season of Game of Thrones needs to start with some table setting and “Red Woman” did a nice job in laying the ground work for where are characters may end up throughout the season. For the most part though it still did not qualm my biggest complaint about the end of last season. The characters are still relatively far apart and while we are getting closer in certain regards to getting them together, its still a show that, even just in its table setting episode, is sprawling in a few too many unconnected directions. For example, I still have no clue as to the point of where we are going with Dany. The Meereen plot line from last year, which is one of the plotlines from the books that just seemed to go on forever, was at the very least made more interesting by the infusion of Tyrion, but now we again are moving away from that. Dany is off being captured by a group of Dothraki and doesn’t seem to be moving out of there with any sort of expediency while Tyrion is back wasting time with Varys. I can kind of see where they want to go with this plot arc, but I hope to see it sped up significantly.

That being said there were a lot of new plot lines and character directions to get behind. It’s a small victory but seeing Sansa and Brienne finally meet up, especially under the circumstances they did was very satisfying. I may or may not have cheered out loud when Brienne came to save Sansa, and the audience for that matter, from another plot arc of being tortured by Ramsey Bolton.

The wall also continues to be one of the more interesting arcs on the show. It looks as if Jon Snow is a character who will remain dead. It seemed to me to be a puzzling decision to kill him off as it seemed like it was kind of destroying a whole, majorly important, portion of the show. But the now full on conflict within the Night’s Watch seems like it has legs especially with the questions revolving around Milisandre. It is going to be fun to see whether or not the show can sustain this conflict while the white walkers still loom in the background.

The final reveal of “Red Woman” aka the age of Milisandre was a fun little cliff-hanger to leave on. One of the show’s many big questions over the past few season has been what the extent of Milisandre’s power is and what her real motivations are. The reveal was stunning and well done, it’s really going to be interesting to see where this leads and what her age impli. Even if both Stannis and Jon Snow are gone the wall storyline continues to develop interesting ripples.

“Red Woman” was a good table setting premiere for the show. I’m still not sure about where some of the arcs are headed but at the very least it is going to be interesting. I am very curious to see where the show will go from here and how Benioff and Weiss handle not having the books as a detailed guide.

Some other musings:

• Jamie and Cersei want all of the revenge!

• The Arya plot line is still a little baffling in terms of how it connects and where it is going, but learning how to fight blind is important I guess!

That’s it for me this week! Apologies for the delay, a mix of exams, a late Sunday work night, and Shaw on demand not having the episode up until late Monday (thanks again shaw) made this one as late as it was. I should be back to a late Sunday/early Monday schedule next week.

That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?

Horace and Pete “Episode 10” Review: The Tragedy of Horace

 Horace and Sylvia trying to decide how to continue on Horace and Pete

A lot of thoughts on the amazing Horace and Pete and its spectacular finale just as soon as I venture to Chicago…

“This? This my friend is Horace and Pete’s, true heart of Brooklyn. Owned for one hundred years by two brothers, Horace and Pete. Till one day, Pete killed Horace and had to go away. And that’s what happened to Horace and Pete.”

-Harold

Wow. Just wow.

Ten weeks ago when Louis CK released the first episode of a new show entitled Horace and Pete I would have never imagined it would turn into something this special. Sure I am a huge fan of Louis CK, his stand up, and his great FX show Louie, but I was not prepared to be blown out of my seat in this fashion. Horace and Pete is special, a spectacular amalgamation of diverse and strange ideas coming together into one brilliant mishmash of serialized Drama and great American play. For 10 Saturdays I have sat at my computer in anticipation of whatever would come into my inbox, whether it was an episode that revolved around a single long conversation, or the tragedy of mental illness. Horace and Pete is like nothing that has been attempted on TV, at the very least a very long time, and is something that, week after week, kept finding new ways of being special.

“Episode 10” was the perfect finale for this beautiful show. Way back at the end of “Act 1” of the show (which I believe was episode five or six) I waxed on about whether Horace and Pete would ultimately turn into a comedy or a tragedy. Turns out Louis CK ended up following the archetype of the stage play version of the latter in truly stunning fashion. There is no perfect scene or sequence, but the final tragic climax to Horace and Pete is as close as you are going to get. From the introduction Amy Sederis’ Mara (Who PS apparently improved everything in that scene which is unbelievable on its own), through the whirlwind of an interview, through Horace, after spending the majority of the episode mourning the loss of Pete, finally getting his moment of hope before having it all stripped away by the return of a mentally destroyed Pete who returns to the bar only to kill him (all fit with a classic stage blackout). It’s one of those traditional stage play style endings that, despite its age, has never lost its power. Horace is about to find away to escape the sad tradition and become his own man only to have it all stolen from him by the comeuppance of the family’s past sins. The tragedy of Horace is that no matter how hard he tried he could never escape simply just being a guy who was tied to a painful family tradition. There was no way out, and there was never going to be.

It’s not just the climactic scene that makes Horace and Pete’s finale special but the entire build up towards it was fantastically executed. The pre “intermission” half of “Episode 10” was a flashback to the horrid childhood of Horace, Pete, and Sylvia. Louis CK played Father Horace (because as of now I can’t remember the generation number of the Horaces this will be the name I go with), a scary, abusive husband and father who ruled his family with a quiet disdain. Louis CK has gotten a great amount of chances to show the breadth of his dramatic acting abilities and this was yet another fantastic example what he can bring to the table. He plays a completely different character in the brief flashback then he has throughout the rest of the series. The quiet malice he displays is chilling and really gets across the fear that the man could inspire. Edie Falco plays Father Horace’s then wife Marian brilliantly as well getting across in the why she ran at that moment perfectly. The flashback culminates in a true moment of tragedy as Marian has to use one of Pete’s mental episodes and subsequent beating at the hand of Father Horace in order to escape. The flashback gives background to just why this family is so messed up in the present day. It gives credence to Pete’s mental problems which surely were not helped by the tortured he endured at the hands of Father Horace, present Horace’s inability to break from the tradition no matter how he tries, and Sylvia’s desperation to sell a bar that brings forth so much pain from the past. It’s a great set up to the tragic events that would follow and a brief yet telling look at how the pains of the past can always haunt the actions of the present.

But despite all the greatness that preceded it, the tears began to flow the most in the episode’s denouement. The final sequence in which we get the first look at Son Horace (which again due to my inability to remember generation numbers will remain his name for the time being) is devastating for many reasons. First is the Sylvia’s realization, while she tries to explain Horace to his estranged son, just how trapped Horace really was. “Ahhh you know he was nothing really… he was no kind of man he was not particularly funny or smart or kind or… you know… he was just some guy, but he was your father,” Sylvia rattles off before breaking down in tears. It’s her final realization of just how trapped Horace really was and how he became a man who was and how his ultimate character trait was the family tradition that ended up being his undoing. It’s a powerful yet understated moment and one of, if not the best, moment of the show for Edie Falco who sells the sudden realization beautifully. It’s a quiet moment to end the show on, but one that allowed for everything to sink in beautifully. All the pain and suffering that the bar has caused was personified in the death of Horace and the final sequence drove that home perfectly.

Horace and Pete’s 10 episode run has truly been something to behold. Wildly creative and ambitious the show provided something new and fascinating every single week. It is as great a piece of entertainment as Louis CK has ever produced, combining all of the best storytelling elements he learned in Louie and mixing it with some wild ideas that he had never had the means to try. Horace and Pete was a huge shot the arm to an already diverse TV landscape, a show that proved that high drama can be depicted with beautiful restraint and emphasis on the quiet and the understated. It is going to be difficult to find something better than this in 2016.

Some other musings:

• In a recent interview it was reported that Louis CK went into millions of dollars in debt because of this show. He should be fine all things considered but I’m sad that not as many people watched this show as he had expected. So as a message to everyone who has not done so… Please watch this show!!!!

• As mentioned earlier one of the most amazing things to come out of Alan Sepinwall’s interview with Louis CK is that Amy Sederis completely improved her scene in the finale. It’s such a beautifully hectic tour de force a performance that it’s hard to believe that she did this from scratch not just once, but three times (each different) for three straight takes. She really adds to the climactic sequence with her liveliness, playing a perfect bright ray of hope in a sea of darkness.

• This week in bar talk: we get bar talk from the past with Uncle Pete being outraged by the tabloid story of President Ford supposedly saying Drop dead to New York City (which apparently is not true) and people voting for Donald Trump because it’s the nice thing to do.

• How much more disturbing is the Horace baseball story when, instead of it being told in front of a grown Horace who can handle a little bit of embarrassment, it’s told in front of a young Horace who is clearly scared by the events of that particular game?

That’s it for me. I am already sad that I didn’t get an email notifying me of a new episode this week…

That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?