Mockingbird - Game of Thrones - 4x07

Tyrion, son of Tywin, you will have three visitors.  One in helplessness, one in pragmatism and one in revenge.  Jaime, his originally name champion from his trial at the Eyrie, is incapacitated due to his hand.  Bronn is rather straightforward with Tyrion about how it makes little sense for Bronn as a sellsword to turn down riches and title for a better than 50 percent chance of being hacked to bits.  So if not for gold or family, someone needs a different motivation to kill The Mountain*/defend Tyrion.  Hmmmm, who doesn't like The Mountain and has a rapport with Tyrion?

In 5,000 pages of Ice and Fire my favorite character is Oberyn** and my favorite scene is coming next week. 

(*) If the Targaryen words are Fire and Blood then Cersei and The Mountain are gonig by "Blood and Guts"

(**) Benefit of the doubt is rewarded based on the performance so far.

Horrible Bosses 2: The Wall
Jon's entries into the suggestion box are tossed aside at the weekly staff meeting.  Which wouldn't be so bad except their all probably going to die thanks to Captain Edward Smith leading them into the abyss.

Coppers and Silvers

• The oldest "previously" is Arya and Jaqen
• Arya and Dany have both spent four seasons powering up.  
• We get to poop on Ser Meryn again.  I wonder if the rest of his fellow Kingsguard hate him as much as everyone else.   
• Just as the Hound wipes his blade off, so does Arya.
• I've always wondered why Tywin gives Tyrion access to the credit card.  For how much he hates him, I figured he'd have cut off funds long ago.
• Melisandre does the naked power move. Other variations of this include the senator peeing in from of Frank Underwood or more recently Malvo taking a dump in from of Stavos' henchmen.
• The ghost of Ned Stark continues to linger, even across the Narrow Sea in Jorah's advisement of Dany

The Runaways - Mad Men - 7x05

Arf?
Lou's hackery is on full display and everyone gets a good laugh at dummy over there.  Because Lou is the bigger person in these situations, he makes everyone stay late for no reason.  Somehow, patriotism is brought up and Lou wraps himself in the flag in order to defend why he's not actually terrible at his job.   It's the first of two references about "kids today!". 

It's so easy to make fun of Lou that Stan is doing it accidentally and also in front of him.  Probably also because he his high all the time.

Unsurprisingly, Lou also only pretends to wash his hands after number dos.

End Around
At the end of Season Two, Don got a bit of intelligence from Pete regarding Duck's ascension to the presidency of the PPL owned Sterling Cooper...meanining Pete told Don about the existence of all that.  Which allowed Don to go into the transition meeting prepared and "swing his privates around" as Roger put it, humiliating Duck for not doing his due dilligence and then letting him humiliate himself further, finally getting himself squeezed out.  Now Harry the awful gossip is spilling beans about the cigarette account Culter the Unholy and Lou the Hack are pursuing, which would result in them getting rid of Don*.

It allows Don to combine football and martial arts.  He does an end around on Lou and Cutler, ambushing their meeting and taking it over.  Their heads are spinning from the shock that Don learned about this and the embarrassment of having the subject of their conversation walk in.  He also performs stunning jiu-jitsu turning his weakness into a strength, and turning the biggest complaint Phillip Morris would have about Don into an asset.  He not only puts them in position to land the account, but ingratiates himself to a giant client, trying to solidify his position

* Still not sure how this legally would work.  Need explanation.

Ginzo
Ginzo has always been odd.  I never understood about his "martian" soliloquy, if he was unbalanced or what.  I wonder if his breakdown has more to do with his sitcom on NBC progressing, or if it was planned for the character.  It would be the second supporting member to be lost to network primetime.  Though maybe Bob will return.


Henry 

Turns out he does the the ego that is a pre-req for holding public office.  Betty must have gotten guidance from Don about his GM meetings because she keeps trying to shoehorn the war into everything.  You have to love his rationale for ending the war (besides Nixon says he wants to end it too).  It costs too much!  Yeah, kids are dying by the truckload, shmeh, we know.   But then I got the bill and gol-ly! 

Jams
"You've Made Me So Very Happy"
Blood, Sweat and Tears

"Petite Fleur"


"Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line"


That and This

• Megan's phone is ringing off the hook
• Hitchhiking used to not be dangerous?  It happens a lot on this show, including one time it was dangerous for Don
• Lots of talking about independent thought
• I'm not clear why Megan felt the need to push Stephanie out of there. Just because she's pretty?  It's can't be that simple
• Remember Cooper holds the trump card on Don.  If they really just want him to resign, Bert can blackmail Don into it.   
• Betty is more...loud.  Her tone, her volume and her opinions are louder.  It's been nine years since they lived in Ossining throwing little kids birthday parties where she quietly played house.  Now she's perfectly able to claim her seat in the kitchen, if she wants.

The Laws of Gods and Men - 4x06

Kangaroo Court

Did you ever have your dad umpire in Little League?  Some dads, the ones who really pushed their kids and thought they were all the next Griffey would obviously cheat for their offspring.  They'd give them the benefit of the doubt constantly.  However, most of us were terrible and our dads knew that and just wanted to get through the game.  They were also worried about being seen as biased toward their own kid, so they called balls and strikes harder on their own kids than on anyone.  You'd have to swing at pitches above your head or rolling on the ground if dad was the umpire.

With Tywin judging Tyrion, with Mace and Oberyn, take that balls and strikes factor.  Then compound it by the fact that  Tywin really really hates Tyrion due to his small strike zone, than you start to get an idea of how effed in the a Tyrion is.

As lax Oberyn appears, such as not bothering to stand when Tywin enters the Small Council chamber, he seems genuinely invested in the trial, asking sincere questions.  He makes a point about Lannisters paying debts...

Though, Tyrion is family.  And Tywin does view him partly the way you view your racist uncle, where you kind of roll your eyes and avoid killing him.  In this case, it appears it actually is Tywin's plan to not kill him but send him to the Wall, which would put him back in touch with his friend Janos Slynt and the acting LC Alistair.  Jaime proposes the idea to Tywin (using similar logic to what we discussed) and is even willing to give up his Kingsguard appointment and go back to Casterly Rock to raise little Lannisters.  He doesn't seem suspicious that he should have driven a harder bargain though, because by the speed at which Tywin accepted this arrangement, he probably planned to do it all along. Which literally means that Tyrion is facing death or exile.  Or perhaps death...by exile.*

Tough for Tyrion to top his confession at the Eyrie.  But he still rolls the dice.  Jaime is caught in the middle, and would he be able to fight for him anyways?  Will Bronn pick up the mantle again?

* The single funniest line in all three Batmans. Even if it's GRITTY and DARK you can still find humor.

Braavos
...is added to the opening credits, featuring a large Boba Fett standing at the entrance to their port.  Mycroft Holmes* has taken a profession as a banker.  Few people shown from the East are white.  Basically, Mycroft and Illyrio so far.  It brings to mind John Adams asking for money from the Dutch in the effort against the British.  I find the international relations between the West and the East to be fascinating and I hope we continue to see interactions like these.  The bank has been touched on multiple times this season and now Stannis' campaign has a shot in the arm, able to reload against the Lannisters.  It also means the Iron Bank is probably not going provide much help to the Crown.  Nor will it stop at one loan with Stannis.  If he makes any decent progress, it means he'll get more money.

* The Elementary version of Mycroft has played a large part in the end of season arc over there

Dany's One Thing
Much like Ava had one thing to do each episode, Dany follows that pattern this season.  Today she sits in a throne room dealing out patronage.  Her dragons are out and about having barbeques.  Let me save you a thousand pages of reading and sum up the Dany/Hizdahr interation.

Hizdahr: Please?
Dany: No
Hizdahr:  But, tradition.  And things.
Dany: Ugh, fine.

Ser Not Appearing in this Film
Arya/Hound, Littlefinger/Sansa, Snow and the Wall, Bran & Co.  So basically, all the living Starks.  Huh...


Silvers and Coppers

• Unfortunately, in the battle between Ironborn and Bolton men, there are survivors.
• I always pictured Hizdar looking like how Xaro looked in the show
• Mace Tyrell, Master of Gophering.  He calls out that he is master of ships, the way a little kid would claim that he gets a particular game piece, or that he gets to be Han Solo when the kids play Star Wars
• Cersei's title is Master of Discounting things
• Tywin is 67, which puts him a little under 50 during Robert's Rebellion
• I found it significant intelligence dug something up about Sansa and Dontos, as well as the necklace
• "Every excuse to dance these blues away.....I ain't comin home"

Lost, Ten Years Later

Esquire published an interview with Lost showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the brain trust* that had a hand in developing the show and took the reigns from JJ Abrams through "The End".  It coincides with the tenth anniversary of the series premiere.*

* Rare occasion I'm not using "brain trust" facetiously

** What should be the starting point whence we count such anniversaries?  Because we're seeing the stuff about the tenth anniversary of Friends, counted from the series finale.


In the last year I read two books which had significant portions focus on Lost.  Battle of the Networks*, which focused on the development of the series, and The Revolution was Televised, which touched on the development but focused more on the series as it was on, the creative influences, and how it affected the contemporary state of television.  So it was interesting seeing Darlton speak about the series candidly with that information in mind.

* The voice of "Previously, on Lost..." is Lloyd Braun, ousted television executive who is essentially the reason Lost got on the air.

Some of the big knocks on Lost (it doesn't know where it's going, it's making it up as it goes, it's not answering questions) stem from both the viewers desire for closure in every possible form, and the fact that the point of television is not to make the best show but to make the most money. The most significant thing Lost did was negotiate an end date...three years out.  It allowed more planning in storytelling and was a case where ABC decided to run six solid(er) seasons rather than milk ten with mediocre viewership.  ABC understood that the draw was the mystery, which has a beginning middle and end, and without providing the end to the creatives in charge, they were going to lose the viewers anyways if they didn't agree to an end date.

I've talked before about Lost's end date, and the ebb and flow of the series in relation to the end date's announcement.  Darlton discuss their worst and favorite episodes, and it's not surprsiing the worst one, which we can probably agree, is "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Jack's tattoos in Thailand) which was pre-end date announcement*, but toward the end of the show running out of ideas for flashbacks and Darlton was treading water desperately while they negotiated the end date.

* In the article Lindelof teases the last five minutes of the Season Three finale, which was when we learned it was a FlashForward.  You can tell the negotiations allowed them to make this change in Season Three and prepare for the end in a few years. 

The other big knock I mentioned is how many of its own questions Lost answered.  They raise the point in the interview of how can you really answer the the macro questions (good vs evil, science vs faith) when those answers don't actually exist.  And we saw what happens in "Stranger" when they try to answer a question that's too small.  All they can do is show how the song played out for the characters.  So they gave us as much closure as possible.

I've talked about how a series can always go farther, meaning there are always unanswered questions about the next step after a finale for a character.  The example I use is (Breaking Bad finale spoiler still recent enough and off the original topic enough that I'm tagging it....). Jesse speeding out of his meth lab prison at the end of the episode.  Does he get away?  Do the police catch up with him?  Even Gillian acknowledges the dude's prints are all over that lab.    But with Lost, they talk about how they show all the character's deaths and then they go a step further and show what happens after they are dead!  Even if you don't like the execution, one cannot argue that you can't go much furtehr than that.

With "Stranger" being the Britta of the series, I was pleased to see they agree with one of my favorites, "The Constant".  Personally, my enjoyment was augmented by the influence one of my favorite books Slaughterhouse Five, had on the episode. 

* Because gmail keeps everything, here's the gchat I got first thing in the morning after "The Constant"  - "LOST was fucking great!"

Anyways, both Cuse and Lindelof have new shows starting soon.  Cuse is working on The Strain on FX and Lindelof is at Home Box Office working on The Leftovers

Angloshock

Angloshock
(n) The feeling upon learning an American character is played by an Australian or UK actor. 

Particularly potent when the character is from the American South.  Also known as Crowe's disease.

Examples:
Rick Grimes
Jimmy McNulty
Stringer Bell
Everyone on Nashville
House
Dewey Crowe (of Crowe's disease)

Antonym  - Knowing Peter Dinklage is American.

First of his Name - Game of Thrones - 4x05

What?!
What is the word for all your worldly assumptions being completely undercut?

Lysa's admission/exposition/reveal that it was she who poisoned Jon Arryn, at the behest of Littlefinger, and causing all the events in the series to take place is a bomb.  It was never stated but widely assumed the Lannisters were responsible.  Not only that but Lysa purposely misled her sister and brother in law about the culprit.  I suppose we should have realized Lysa is not the most reliable person when we met her in Season One and saw she was bonkers.

The series' inciting incident has changed so everything else has to be looked at differently.  So Ned's assumption that Jon Arryn was murdered for being too close to the truth about Robert's heirs is false.  Jon dying left a hole for Robert to move Ned into.  Knowing Ned would fail (partly due to his own contirubtions) Littlefinger unleashed chaos in the North.  The claims to the throne are almost just a happy coincidence at that point as Stannis and Renley are prepared to rip the country apart as well.

All so Littlefinger could marry Lysa?  Well, all so Littlefinger could gain a kingdom (and an army, which we know Varys fears).  Who knows?  This was a mystery we weren't even sure was a mystery.

Jon Snow's Parentage
One of the other mysteries introduced early in the show is Jon Snow's parentage.  Undercutting the Jon Arryn assumption makes me think that the clues that lend to Jon Snow's true mother (and possibly father) are going to be completely undercut as well.

Craster's
Speaking of Jon, I like the detour to Craster's.  It allows Jon to make some more bones and gain more respect and leadership skills before the coming battle.  Had it gone another episode, it would have been too much, but this was just right.

How to Fight
We're back at the Eyrie, the place Bronn beat Ser Honorable in a proxy fight between getting things done and getting things done on the high road.  The surviving Starks are learning a thing or two about getting things done.  Jon doesn't mind stabbing Dirk or whatever through the back of the head.  Arya's going to process the Hound's advice on what armor and a big sword* do when against agility, and Bran doesn't think twice before inhabiting his friend and human wheelchair to snap the neck/life out of a threat.  Get it, Starks.

* Meryn Trant?  Meryn Fucking Trant?!

The Formula
If Game of Thrones or ASOIAF have a formula it is either take a fish out of water, or to put two characters together who don't get along then have them slowly gravitate toward each other.  Pod and Brienne...this may be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Coppers and Silvers

• At least the Lannisters have the good taste to know your second wedding shouldn't be as extravagant as your first
• Mace is just bumbling about.  Perfect pick to be a judge.
• Lysa was surprisingly welcoming, but it didn't take long for crazy to win out
• Margarey called Cersei "sister" but with a question mark.  Does that qualify as stepping to Cersei's previous threat about calling her that?
• The mines are dry.  Despite Tywin chastising the New Money Tyrells at the wedding, the Old Money in fact has No Money.
• The Iron Bank continues to loom like that paper you don't want to write
•  Why even bother to tell Robyn the secret about Sansa?
• Please don't get married.  That'd be a genetic disaster
•  Locke will be viewed with honor as a Night's Watchmen who died in the line
• It occurred to me....where was Craster getting all this food and booze?
• Disappointed to see Arya's added Thoros and Beric to her list.  But she is pretty pissed about the whole Gendry thing.
• Digging the visions of the Great Deku Tree.  These are intersting parts of the book that seem they would be difficult to adapt to the series, and the road the show is taking is encouraging.
• If you want to understand GRRM, watch this video where he describes the geography that protects the Eeyrie.  You'd never know it doesn't actually exist.  Imaaaginnaaaaaaatiooooon!  Imaginaaaatioooon.   
• We continue to ignore the Ironmen (yes!) and get more mentions of Dorne (Oberyn's daughters!)
• The plays into my theory that the Ironmen story will get three scenes this season to expedite things.  It also gives us hope that we are going to see a lot of stuff from Dorne in Season Four.  Tell me this guy shouldn't be Doran Martell. He's in everything but I remember him from Heroes and the Pakistani ambassador on West Wing

The Monolith - Mad Men - 7x04

When Are We?
For the second week in a row we are not pegged down to a specific date.  Last week it appeared to be April or May 1969, and ostensibly not much time has passed based on everyone's reactions to the office dynamic that now features Copy Writer Don Draper. This was the year of the Amazin/Miracle Mets who would go from expansion team in 1962 to World Champs in 1969, having not finished among the top teams in any of the interim seasons.  They don't mention the Mets opponent, but we know it is a weekday and they are home so I am going with a game against my Pittsburgh Pirates, April 23, 1969.  This is not certain, but there are not many options.  It could also be May against the Houston Astros. The opening series was against Montreal, but that seems too early.

The Monolith
The IBM computer displaces creative in the most obvious and largest move to marginalize creative.  Don has conversations about people being replaced by robots.  As they point out,“It’s not symbolic.” “No, it’s quite literal.”   Creative gets all of the morning to get their stuff the heck out of there so they may have the privilege of continuing their work in as noisy an environment as possible.

The computers, spurring SC&P into the future, even look like the monoliths from 2001, which spurred the evolution of man.  Big rectangles that stand up.  We get a really good glimpse of the installation team wheeling the last monolith into place.

I suppose it's fitting that 2001 was released about a year prior to when the events in "The Monolith" take place.  Sterling Cooper, in whatever form it has existed the last decade, has always gone kicking and screaming into the future.  Whether on a micro level where Paul Kinsey laments that he likes the agency just the way it is, or larger concerns like how Cooper fears what a liberal Kennedy presidency may mean for the agency (at that point still a beacon of the 1950s), the agency resists change, begrudgingly accepts it, and then adapts and sees that the new stuff surprisingly isn't as bad as they expected.  It's a cycle that repeats throughout the series.*


* I rewatched the entire series leading up to this season's premiere, and this was something I only picked up on watching six seasons in quick succession. 

At two distinct points, the agency has an "adapt or die" moment, when they are about to be sold to McCann and eaten alive, and when Don comes to the realization they are not going to make it at their current scale, inciting the merger.  These are both more of a flight-or-fight response than a willingness to embrace the future.

We know much of the progressive views on the show stem from Pete, starting early in the series with his embracing of the tobacco study and his relatively micro targeting of Admiral televisions toward blacks.  A lot of worthwhile thoughts come from Harry too, which is tough to admit.  Todd Vanderwerff pointed out that these forward thinking characters are often the most distasteful people on the screen, and are so irritating to the other characters that the message gets lost.

Harry finally gets his way, which is objectively the smart thing to do.  It's done via what I believe will become an unholy alliance between Cutler and Harry.   It was they who made the change, it was they who made the announcement and it was they who unnecessarily wore hard hats while doing it.  And it was Ginsberg, the young, Jewish and anti-war progressive, who railed against it.

So for the first time, SC is willingly moving into the future, albeit at the expense of creative and at the behest of Dickbag and Machiavelli.  And at the moment Don is a relic, and needs to evolve.

Scale Wins Out
Booze Allen is the one of the largest government contractor because Booze Allen is one of the largest government contractor.

When competing for a contract (or in Mad Men, a campaign) the ability to throw a large amount of resources at the problem allows the contractor to bring down the price, as they benefit from economies of scale, as opposed to smaller contractors which may not be able to provide the same price points.

SC and CGC realized this in a bar when they figured the big agencies would simply take the ideas of the small agencies and provide them at a lower cost.  It was also pointed out that it was no surprise the "'largest agency in the world" won out Heinz Ketchup over two great campaigns from Don and Peggy. 

SC&P both passively and actively follows this approach.  Passively by eminent domain-ing the creative lounge and then actively by using their biggest wrinkliest brain for 25 tag lines on burgers.  With the need to buy Don out weighing heavily, and the fear of competing against him when they are at the weakest creatively, SC&P is a dog in a manger.

But with Chevy and Sunkist, these burgers, Dow and possibly Vicks coming back (with P&G on the way?), adequacy is fine and a bass-ackwards strategy of doing the creative strategy bass-ackwards is allowable. 


Nickels and Dimes

• Cutler wanted to call Ted back as reinforcement with Don returning, not because of Ted's creative prowess
• Much like how everything Lou says on the call is neutral/useless or in the interest of self preservation 
• Could there be some sort of Cutler engineered Lou/Harry buy-out of Don?  Cooper told Harry they had to get bigger before they got bigger.  Well, their bigger.  And more, smaller share holders who owe Cutler would sure help Cutler.  
• I am really reading into some thing but I think Cutler is going to try to take over the world.
• Ginsberg ordering Don around until he gets tired and gives up.  Don abdicates responsibility on the couch much like he abdicated his responsibilities last season, allowing the partners to push him out
• It's an opportunity for Don to get some support but he literally walks away
• Don made himself unessential, and Cooper pointed out that they managed without him fine
•  The actor who plays Lou, Allan Harvey, was on Olbermann talking Mad Men and the 1972 Dolphins
• You have to love the old clip used in the intro
•  Don never had such a cause > effect drinking reaction before
• Though Margaret was at Woodstock, but that's not til August.  Post moon-landing
• Don and Peggy are both sweating like whoa
• Interesting seeing the flipped dynamic continue between them, again with Don sitting lower than her
• So much activity in the background again!  And so many boots! 
• A note on the boots...the color and cut of the clothes on the secretaries makes Peggy look even more dowdy and angry.  Obviously there's a difference in status there.  But it's almost like they are going out of their way to make Peggy constantly mad at the world.  Except for Stan.
• Mathis covers for Don like he's just another underling
• Don is reading Portnoy's Complaint which I won't pretend I've read
• Don inhabits a dead man's office, but he's in advertising purgatory
• Could Mr. and the former Mrs. Sterling have looked any more like the stereotypical rich parents?
• Lou gets the laugh of the day as he puts his jacket on and stares out his window upon the great City of New York.  Then bribes Peggy to like him/sticks her with Don.   Okay, Lou, you can stay.
• Don calls Freddy, like he's his sponsor 
• Lots of talk about the stars, and even a moon shot
• Poor Ellery. First he's named Ellery.  Now this.
• But is Margaret being much less selfish than Roger has been?  Not that it makes it okay.  
• How much shit shall Don eat?

Music
"On a Carousel"
The Hollies

Soon you'll leave and then I'll lose you
Still we're going round
On a carousel, on a carousel

* I'm writing this much later than usual.  My notes say "Carousel" and it took me forever to remember what that was.


Next Week on Incongruous Mad Men Clips
"What?" - Betty Francis

This was actually helpful because it reminded use there are only three episodes left in the abbreviated season