I’m so proud of everyone involved in this show for having the guts to do EVERYTHING we just saw. Most other shows wouldn’t dare.
Give everyone all the Emmys! Especially Maisie, Emilia, and Lena!
I continue to love this season. I continue to believe that everything has been beautifully, wonderfully in character. No we may not like some of the things that are happening, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t in character.
In this episode:
Jaime – I always expected it to end here because honestly, from a narrative point of view, it’s the only thing that would have made sense. Jaime has been helplessly, hopelessly, insanely, madly, senselessly in love with Cersei his literal entire life. Literally. He only turned his back on her (in show time) a week, maybe two past. And that was only because by turning on her word, she was putting their unborn child at risk.
Yes, he loved Brienne, but that love couldn’t compare to what he felt for Cersei and when he found out that her life was in danger, of course, he had to go back to her. It was narratively, and in character, the only thing that made sense. To do otherwise, would have been out of character. Jaime said it himself to Brienne, he has done terrible, hateful awful things. He doesn’t really deserve a happy ending. It’s because of Brienne that he found any honor at all. So good on her.
Daenerys – I love Dany, and I think that everything that happened in this episode, again, narratively made perfect sense.
Everything made sense. I was so happy when those bells rang, and I do think that Dany tried to do the right thing, I believe that she really, really tried, but she was so fucking enraged and, more than that, hurt.
She lost Viserion, twice over.
Then she found out that Jon was her nephew (OK, admittedly not that big a deal to her), but she also found out that she wasn’t first in line to the throne.
Then she realized that no one loved her here like they did across the Narrow Sea even after her help was a huge reason they beat the Undead, Sansa was a still not very nice to her.
Then Jon refused to NOT tell his sisters, thus proving that he didn’t put HER needs, HER desires, HER first.
Then she lost Rhaegal.
Then she lost Missandei
Then she found out that Varys was plotting against her.
Then sometime in the midst of that she found out that Tyrion fucked up again TWICE. He trusted Sansa, who used his trust of her to turn her people against her. He also was wrong about trusting his brother.
And THEN Jon made it clear he loves her as his queen but just is not down to fuck his aunt so basically she lost Jon as her love too.
And this basically ALL happened in like less than a week.
Oh yeah, and Missandei, her best friend, her last words before she was decapitated before her eyes were: BURN THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLACE TO THE GROUND!
So that’s what Dany wanted to do. That’s what everything in her SCREAMED TO DO. When she told Tyrion that she wouldn’t Dracarys the hell out of King’s Landing, she did not believe for one second that the bells would ring. But then the soldiers surrendered… and the bells rang. And, well, see all those “Then…” above,“ and Dany was like, "Nope, I need my motherfucking revenge.”
It all made perfect sense. It wasn’t character assassination. It was character narrative that had been lain all along. These relationship built so that when they were taking from her, she was devastated and would react as such. Character beats that had been established throughout the seasons. This had all been lain throughout the series’ run.
Arya Stark – Every moment with Arya was just awesome. From her “I’m Arya Stark. I’m going to kill Queen Cersei.” And the guard just kinda paused and was like, uhm, yeah, I’m gonna go check with my superior but basically let you through cuz yeah, you’re you. To the scene with the Hound where he told her LIVE YOUR YOUR LIFE FOR LIVING! DON’T BE LIKE ME! And she called him “Sandor,” and she thanked him! Aaaah! And she was all caught up in the horror, and trying to help people and she kept escaping death so closely as if the God of Death himself were telling her: Live, girl, damnit, LIVE!
Oh, and that final scene was so beautiful. It was not only my favorite scene of the episode, but one of my favorites of the series. No dialogue, just Maisie Williams’ brilliant acting. It was beautifully shot and directed, but damn, her expressiveness slayed me dead. I thought it was exquisite.
You could read EVERYTHING that she was feeling, everything that was going through her mind. Taking in all of the horror, all of the death, realizing that THIS has been her life for so long and then seeing the white horse (coincidentally, Gendry rode in on a white horse, I’m just saying) and the sun shining on it and them like a ray of light amidst that horror. She saw it, and it was like a way out of that death and despair. And she was gentle and she took her time, and the horse, the light accepted her. And off into the sun they rode together. While the music played softly and you could hear the strains of the Game of Thrones theme in their.
Some favourite staging moments in productions of Shakespeare plays:
Clarence actually getting drowned in a barrel of wine on stage in Richard III; it was a small barrel, they stuck his head into it as he struggled, pulled him out for an instant as he gasped for air and screamed, his head was wet and sopping, his face all red
Macbeth clutching his empty hands to hold an imaginary child, casting a clawed shadow on the wall
Ophelia ripping out hanks of her hair to give to people during her ‘flowers’ scene (obviously fake hair in real life)
Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing hiding from Claudio, Leonato and Don Pedro, taking a swig from a can of beer that happened to be full of cigarette butts and spit-taking it all over Don Pedro and Leonato
who then awkwardly pretend to check if it’s raining
Angelo in Measure for Measure taking off a bloody cilice belt from around his thigh while saying ‘Blood, thou art blood’
Also a really good bit where Angelo shows up in a two way mirror later on when the Duke’s speaking to himself and cursing him; the Duke turns to point at the mirror and there’s Angelo, in the chain of office, pointing back, accusing the Duke as much as the Duke does to him
The moment in Julius Caesar where Brutus asks his servant Strato - who’s been sitting with his back to the audience and wearing a hat with a wide brim - to help him commit suicide; Strato stands while taking off his hat to reveal that he’s played by Caesar’s actor
(a collective gasp went around the theatre; really lent a whole new meaning to ‘Caesar, now be still. I killed not thee with half so good a will’)
After a frantic chase scene in The Comedy of Errors which ends with all the cast collapsed across the stage in exhaustion and the scenery itself falling to bits…a pair of underpants falls from the ceiling, and Dromio of Ephesus (who’d tried in vain to retrieve them at the start of the play) crawls over several other characters, seizes them and screams in triumph
rereading act 5 of measure for measure to see how i could hypothetically make it a tragedy and i completely forgot isabella cries "And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!" I can literally not recall any other time in a shakespeare work where a single word has been successively repeated four times like that god wow. The escalation the desperation.. to me there is no way to do that line without turning out to the audience and screaming/begging THEM for justice, a call to action from a heartbroken woman grieving a brother who betrayed her
Ben Whishaw and “Mrs Tish” on the set of “A Very English Scandal”…
Via Laura Ingall on IG
She was always on this downward path. She’ll probably burn cities to the ground in the books too, should GRRM ever finish them.
“Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only Dany has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world. […] You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.”
This is gorgeous!
the surviving children troublemakers of Catherine de Medici
The start of every Pixar/Disney film after the trailers and Pixar short before the film...