Rambling TV: Game of Thrones recap + other TV thoughts

All hail Tommen of the House Baratheon, First of his Name. Long may he reign. We opened with Tommen being sworn in as kind, and give Margaery sweet smiles, until Cersei put an end to that business.

*as always, click the gifs to be redirected to their makers*

I have a bit of a complaint about Cersei in this episode, I thought she was coming off as almost too nice and too sympathetic. (For Cersei anyways) She talks to Margaery about Joffrey's death, and admits aloud that things he did shocked her. She then admits that Tommen can't be king alone and needs advice, and asks Margaery if she still wants to be queen. If my memory serves me right, Cersei never admitted such things aloud in the books, and if she did, it certainly wasn't to Margaery of all people. She hates her, and book Margaery spends a good amount of time snarking her in A Feast For Crows. Despite the death glare Cersei gives at the end, this segment just didn't work for me.

Then Cersei had a scene with Tywin, which he mentions that they are broke. What? I know they want to talk about the Iron Bank of Braavos, but WHAT?! (Although Tywin did get the awesome line about Robert: "he was always patting me on the back. I didn't like that.)

Then there's Cersei with Oberyn, which wasn't the snarkfest I was hoping it to be. She just wanted Oberyn to pass along a gift to Myrcella, the forgotten Lannister bastard. Oberyn mentions she was playing with a few of his 8 daughters. (Sand Snakes mention!)

But here's the kicker, Cersei's ulterior motive was to suck up to the judges at Tyrion's trial. Offering Margaery to be queen is sucking up to Mace, as was her chat with Tywin and being all nice to Oberyn all of a sudden. So is my complaint even valid? Maybe. I still think that was almost too revealing of a conversation to have with Margaery.

We head over to Meereen to check in on Dany, and she's been informed of Joffrey's death. Daario is there for some reason, and mentions he took over 93 ships without her knowledge. At first she's annoyed, then she has to step away to fan her vagina at Daario's latest deed.

My husband, book snob extraordinaire was like "I guess they're skipping that entire plot line about her not being able to get enough ships?" Jorah also informs her that Astapor and Yunkai have gone back to their slaving ways. She dismisses everyone except Jorah, and he gets a happy look on his face. Poor Jorah, he's still in the friend zone. She says she will not sail to Westeros if she cannot control Slaver's Bay first. She will stay and rule.

Then we checked in with our characters on the road. Arya is saying her kill list at night, and she's still pretty pissed about Gendry because Thoros AND Beric are on there with Melisandre. Later, she practices water dancing. When The Hound makes fun of her, she tells him Syyrio was one of the greatest swordsmen of Braavos, but got killed by Meryn Trant. This leads to the line of the night - "Meryn fucking Trant?" The Hound puts Arya in her place.

Brienne and Podrick are heading to the wall. Pod can't ride a horse, or properly skin a rabbit, but damn it, he killed a man for Tyrion at the Blackwater, so Brienne will allow herself to warm up to him and have him help her.

Then there's the Eyrie in the Vale of Arryn. (Left off the opening credits..whhhhy?!) We didn't get to see the lift getting up to the castle, but we saw the Blood gate. Littlefinger calls Sansa "his niece, Alayne." In the books, she was his bastard daughter, and he dyes her hair brown." Crazy aunt Lysa is nice to Sansa right away. They kept the same actor that plays Robin, which I think is awesome because he was perfect. He's overly huggy to Littlefinger, matter-of-factly asks Sansa about the deaths of her family members, then throws the toy LF brought for him out the Moon Door. Charming.

Lysa tells Petyr she wants to marry him NOW! She also drops the bomb that SHE is the one the poisoned Jon Arryn at Littlefinger's request. Everything she has done was at his request. She then announces that she is going to scream during her wedding night, and we cut to poor Sansa listening to her aunt have what sounds like the best sex ever.

Sansa is still 100% done with everyone's shit. Later, Lysa freaks out on her and accuses her of being pregnant with Littlefinger's baby because she can't figure out what LF wants with her. Sansa starts crying and swearing she's a virgin, then Lysa suddenly consoles her and tells her she's to marry Robin. Suddenly Tyrion doesn't sound so bad.

Back at Craster's rape-keep, Karl and company are still being assholes. Locke is scouting the place, and sees Bran tied up in a shack. When he goes back to the watch, he tells them to avoid said shack because there are hounds chained up in it.

Karl and his goons attempt to rape Meera, and I was on the edge of my seat during this scene because I did NOT want to see that. The whole thing was disturbing. Jojen talks shit to Karl about how he has the sight, and how he saw his death tonight. Perfectly timed, The Nights Watch attacks and they all run away to fight.

Locke enters the shack pretending to save them. He cuts Bran's leg to make sure he's got the right one, then carries him off (why not just kill him there?) Bran wargs into Hodor, who breaks free of his chains and to put it lightly, fucking snaps Locke's neck like a boss. Once Hodor is back to normal, he's stunned by the brutal thing Bran has made him to, but he doesn't have time to Hodor over it, he's got to save Meera and Jojen.

Bran sees Jon fighting and calls out to him, but Jojen points out that if they see each other, Jon will never let Bran continue north. He reluctantly agrees, and they go off to free Summer. No Stark reunion for us. We can't have nice things.

Jon gets an awesome one and one combat scene with Karl, that ends with him putting his sword through the back of Karl's head, and out of his mouth. Awesome visual, by the way. The Watchmen note that they only killed 10 mutineers, when there were supposed to be 11. Cut to Rast running away like a little bitch, he comes across Ghost's open cage, then surprise! Ghost attacks that motherfucker.  

Then Jon is reunited with Ghost!! (in the background, the Craster women look at Jon like he's a fucking lunatic. They were obviously scared of the wolf.)

Jon offers to take the Craster women back to Castle Black to keep them safe, but they're all "I've had enough beating and raping, thank you. I'm going to go join the Others." Okay, that's not what they said, but they were thinking it. They watch Craster's hut burn to the ground with the remaining Nights Watch.

Overall, I thought this was one of the weaker episodes of GoT, but Jon, Hodor, and Ghost's kills, The Eyrie, and "Meryn Fucking Trant." made up for those slow moments.

Elsewhere in TV land:

Great Quotes from Veep:

"I'd rather be shot in the fucking face than be Vice President again."

"Let's throw Mike's useless cum at Jonah's door."

"How did you kill it?"

"Bartender. I need one of these, one of these, and after that, one of these."

"I've eaten hummus with a pen cap, don't tell me how to eat!"

Teach me how to Duggar:

Is anyone else sick of hearing about "Miracle baby Josie?" on 19 Kids and Counting? I am. It was Jordyn's birthday, and all J'Chelle talked about was Josie. Jordyn doesn't even get to celebrate being 5, she celebrates being 4 for the same time as Mackynzie and Josie for a week. Poor kid.

How is Josh Duggar 1 year younger than me, but looks 10 years older?

Why is it so important that Ben be constantly referred to by his full name, Ben Seewald? Do they want people to Google him and find that atrocious picture of him in a "I survived Roe vs Wade" t-shirt?

At least the four older girls (J'Slaves) got to go somewhere on their own without an escort/the rest of their family. That was nice to see, the fact that they dragged the entire family around for their book tour was lame. I'd rather hear just what those girls have to say, rather than their parroting from their parents.