Raw Data: The Bear and the Maiden Fair

These are initial observations for Game of Thrones episode 3-06 "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" written by GRRM and directed by Michelle MacLaren,who will also direct next week's episode.  She has been a executive producer and often director on Breaking Bad.

• Like Han Solo, the hero doubles back.  At this point Jamie is really working his way from villain to hero.  He doubles back to Harrenhall when his spidey-sense tells him something is wrong with Brienne.  Actually, it is more common sense knowing they are not satisfied with the random, and they are the same Bolton men who like torture and hacked off his hand.  It all basically amounts to a heel face turn
• You have to love Margarey's pause at Sansa.  "So your mother taught you?"  "...Yes.  Sweet child."  They often use "sweet" as a word for innocent/naive.
• Theon's Torture Porn graduated to Torture Porn Porn.  Everyone is going to be mad about that scene. 
• Amazingly, Joffrey is right about something.  More on this later...
• The rain delays the Northern army from reaching the Twins.  Cat is concerned this will further insult the Freys, but Robb is all like "don't worry we'll text him. 'srry, running l8, b there soon'."
• Arya goes out of the frying pan and into the fire.  But the Hound doesn't like fire so we'll see how that turns out.
• Blackfish old man-s it again "I've seen wet shits I love more than Walder Frey.”  He could end every sentence with "Shut up, get me a beer, you numbskull"
• This season has focused a lot on slavery, giving Daneyrs a mini-boss to fight while she bides her time to the point where she can make her way west.  She's been the emancipator in cheif of the East.  This episode also  mentioned Melisandre's slave roots, providing some backstory on her.  We know she's from the East, and we know slavery is prominent there, but we did not know she was an actual slave.

Even if Joffrey wanted to rule, I'm not sure he could.  He's constantly at odds/getting slapped by his most sincere adviser, Tyrion.  His queen mother shows where he gets his pyscho tendendcies and is none to smart to start with.  Varys and Pycelle are survivors who would sell him out in a moment to keep their hides, as would Littlefinger.  That leaves Tywin.  Tywin is essentially Donald Regan.  And we get the sense he was that way when he was Hand two kings ago as well.

Joffrey, for once, shows an interest in ruling.  Nevermind that it is born out of paranoia of his own survival, related to (justified) concerns about dragons in the East.  Tywin immediately discounts the rumors and oozes contempt for his double grandson.  He clearly has no interest in allowing Joffrey any involvement, only allowing minimal appeasement.  Rather than be pleased with his newfound interest, Tywin treats Joffrey with disdain and zero patience for bothering him about his grown ups' work.  In the most telling part of the exchange, Tywin storms up the stairs without permission and looms over Joffrey, then departs without leave.  The king is left befuddled. He's not dealing with his chief advisor, he's dealing with mean old grampa.

At least he's showing an interest in something related to, well, being king, considering the only act we've seen him do while on the throne is make a singer choose between cutting off his fingers or his tongue, and then punched out his timecard.  Unfortunately, his laziness on the throne is probably just as attributable to Robert as it is any Lannister


Hodor!

Schadenfreude of the Week

Gave it an extra week to see if someone could finally top Game of Thrones, but no.  This is from  episode 3-05 "Kissed by Fire" in case you have not seen it yet.




At the end of the episode Tywin reveals his latest scheme to secure the North, marry Tyrion to Sansa Stark.  When it becomes abundantly clear this is happening with or without Tyrion's consent (or for that matter, Sansa's) he is understandably indignant...almost as much as Cersei is pleased, laughing at her brother's misfortune. 

If "what goes around comes around" was written on a piece of paper and you pulled that piece of paper out of a hat because you were playing pictionary, and then you had to draw what was on the paper and then were upset because how do you draw "what goes around comes around" then worry no further...this is it.

Tywin essentially tells her "glad you think it's funny because you're getting married too."  Suck on that one!  While you may have thought killing your husband (not actually confirmed) would free up your schedule to bed your brother (definitely confirmed) more often, that is not the case.  The look on Cersei's face is so satisfying that Tyrion has all but forgot his own troubles.  And wait until she finds out about his hidden talent, sword swallowing...

Hill Street Blues was a network show

Part I - A Dearth of Options

Quality drama tends to come from cable and pay-cable these days.  If I watch an old episode of The Wire or The Sopranos or Deadwood, or current episodes of Justified or Breaking Bad, I can figuratively feel the punch in the gut these shows pack.  And I think about how tame network was and is, and wonder how I enjoyed those shows, and doubt I ever will again.

Then I catch an old YouTube clip and remember why I liked it so much.  I still catch an occasional ER or NYPD Blue episode and see how great they are/were.  The fact that there's so few quality dramas on network these days is often chalked up to competition from cable and not being able to say certain swear words, but given the right story and characters, there's no reason networks can't put in the effort to bring back network drama.  ABC is at least trying.  While I haven't seen Scandal or Revenge, they have loyal followings and garnered critical success and respectable ratings.  ABC tried to continue their success and started the season with three new dramas (666 Park Avenue, Nashville, Last Resort*) , though only one made it through the gauntlet (Nashville - though it still has not been renewed for next Fall). 

The other three networks are almost trying.  NBC retread Hannibal Lecter and Dr. Jekyll in their attempts, Hannibal, whose main claim to fame is getting episodes pulled from TV (but on iTunes) and a Utah network's refusal to air the show**...and Do No Harm, which was cancelled after a second or two of being NBC's poorer man version of the poor man version of Sherlock.  Granted, they do have what appears to be a poor man's version of Revenge in Deception.  Plus their poor man version of Walking Dead/Hunger Games in Revolution.

I've become cautiously fond of Elementary, which more closely resembles CSI than Sherlock, as well as Hawaii Five O, which is watched more as an unintentional comedy.  But both tend to stockpile on the DVR for when nothing else is available or supply as background noise, and neither would cause much of a stir upon their cancellation. 

The Good Wife is the only network show *** currently airing that has been nominated for a 'Best Drama' Emmy.  Law & Order: SVU has been on for a decade and has an intense following.  But that is two hours in about 66 hours of network primetime Sunday-Friday****.  While reality shows are cheaper to produce and fill time easily (and are among the networks' highest rated shows) surely the networks besides ABC can at least try for an hour drama that's not a retread of a previously done idea from another network.

Part II - why we want the networks to do well

* Putting faith in Shawn Ryan (of The Shield), I have these final episodes sitting on my DVR.  I wouldn't bother but they apparently brought it to a legitimate conclusion following cancellation.

** Eventually folks will figure out that such action only brings more attention to a show.

*** Downtown Abbey is a BBC who and airing on PBS.  While not cable, it doesn't come from one of the four broadcast networks either.

**** Fox local news comes on at 10 p.m. so their model only allows pritmetime from 8:00-10:00

Raw Data: For Immediate Release

These are initial observations for Mad Men episode 6-06 "For Immediate Release" written by showrunner Matthew Weiner and directed by Jennifer Getzing, a longtime script supervisor and director for this show.

• Title refers to the header on a press release, voiceover-ed by Peggy at the episode's conclusion
• Deadwood fans will dig a laudanum reference
• Pete appears to have taken on some of Lane's responsibilities (probably because Don and Roger have zero interest in it), based on Bert's comments about running the business while keeping it lean and his involvement in taking the company public
• Seeing Roger hustle, which happened a bit last year, is great.  The first few seasons Roger was aloof and distant, playing with these things and losing accounts.  In Season Five he was going after accounts again after he realized Pete was trying to push him out.  He even gave Lane some advice on how to act like an account man, revealing just how much Roger knows about the game and that he's not always as drunk as he seems.
• We got a whiff of his fake drinking again when he ordered a water for himself and a double for his whale.
• Also saw that while Roger didn't have any great ideas, it so happened his whale came up with one himself, and it so happened to involve Roger.  Good job Roger!, I mean Mikey!
• Time in the Mad Men world passes at roughly one month per episode.  This episode is obviously May 1968, specifically Mother's Day.  And Peggy says the date again when she Carrie Bradshaws.  In one more month we'll be at the assasination of Bobby, who got a mention from Peggy.  
• Abe supports Gene, though he obviously didn't go "clean" for him.  Peggy supports Bobby, and we saw she still hangs JFK's picture in her apartment.
• At first I thought Herb wanted someone who could plagiaraize off Don, but then, according to Don, he wants to essentially have creative control.
• Trying to think of a more awkward  moment (in history) than between Pete and Trudy's father.  Not coming up with anything.
• If the stairs do symbolize success, then Pete's in for a rough landing this season
• HAHAHAHAHA
• Joan is the only person who can and will speak to Don like that
• Burt won't, but we know he's more about subtle power since he blackmailed Don into signing a contract
• Roger could, but won't
• Pete can't, but does anyway
• When it became clear that SCDP and CGC were going to merge, the only shocking thing was how fast that happened
• The merge is like a late game move on Survivor.   Castaway may be in a steady alliance, but knows they are on the bottom and don't wield much power.  They can hang around and play the string out.  Or they can make a big move.  They may not get far on their move, but the payoff could be huge and they sure aren't going anywhere if they remain static.
• Looking back, this was set up a bit when J. Walter Weatherman, I mean J. Walter Thompson, won the Heinz account, beating them both.
• Joan's actions appear to be the worst kept secret in the office.  Certainly now if it wasn't before. The consequences continue to reverberate throughout SCDP, with bitterness abound.
• Joan at least wanted to enjoy the spoils of probably the worst day of her life, set up well when they explained her 5 percent would be worth over a million dollars, more than she'd ever imagined and more than a single mom in 1968 could hope for.
•  Don appears to have given up on learning French.  Last season, when he was more invested in his marriage, we saw him reading a book on French.  His interest in the language and his wife (more or less) has gone by the wayside.
• If only I could express my disdain in French for those I find so contemptible, and to do so right in front of them.
• Ted observed something about Don to the effect of "this is why everyone hates you (Don)" which is a new take on Don.  Weiner may be taking Don down the Tony Soprano path from what we've seen so far, but this has to be the first time we've seen someone in-universe refer to Don that way.  Until now, he's been pulling rabbits out of hats to make pitches work as well as viewed with some reverence and legend (from how clients speak about him when meeting him).  This is different.
•  On the next episode of AMC's Mad Men....Stan reacts to things.

Do you act, or react?

"For Immediate Release" pushed plot lines like Mad Men rarely does.  It did so on within the episode and on a macro level for the whole season. Roger has his storyline of chasing down GM which fit into his larger storyline of finding his hustle again.  Anytime a pitch for a particular client is involved, it makes for a storyline within the episode, which occupied Don, Ted and Peggy.  The GM pitch then made for what will most likely be one of if not the biggest move of the year, the merger of CGC and SCDP, two companies that have been on the ropes.

There are times when Mad Men is a lot like when Joey Tribbiani teaches soap opera acting, it's about reacting, and watching the characters reactions.  "For Immediate Release" focused more on their actions, a rarity.

Raw Data: The Climb

Thoughts and observations for Game of Thrones episode 3-06 "The Climb". Written for television by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and directed by Alik Sakhararov, oft-director of photography for this show and the Sopranos, as well as director of Season Two's "What is Dead May Never Die"

• Title refers both to the obvious climb over The Wall by the Wildlings, and is namechecked in Littlefinger's end-of-episode monologue, perhaps even referencing his own climb from humble beginnings to becoming Lord of Harrenhal, and through his upcoming marriage, gaining control of the Vale.
• "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention."  I thought they only broke the fourth wall on the fake documentary sitcoms an House of Cards... 
• Joffrey has graduated to a whole new level of sadism
• If you thought Jon Snow getting a girlfriend would make him less angsty...sucker!  He manages to make climbing up 700 feet of solid ice into a WB show.  Actually, can we just spin off Jon Snow to a whole separate show on WB, and do crossover episodes as needed?
•  For the amount of time they focus on Jon Snow, it's hard to imagine an end game scenario where he doesn't wind up on the Iron Throne that would justify it all.
• This episode was very much concentrated on the North or activities relating to the North.  Even the King's Landing scenes were entirely focused on procuring the North, specifically Winterfell.  
• Multiple scenes of the Wildings/Snow scaling The Wall
• The Starks and Reeds heading toward The Wall
• Sam and Gilly returning to the Wall
• Robb making his way back north to make peace with Lord Frey
• Roose Bolton is hedging bets.  And speaking of Bolton...
• Is Theon not held prisoner by Bolton's men?  Is it supposed to be ambiguous or we being misled?  They were the ones marching to Winterfell at the end of season two.  Roose specifically talked Robb into it.  And their favored method of torture seem to mirror Bolton's sigil which has been prominently displayed throughout the season.
• The Dowager Countess of Highgarden steals the show again.  Not only does she coin the medieval euphemism for gay person (sword swallower), but says tells Tywin "BFD" and says you shouldn't throw stones if your House is full of incest.  While Tywin won the battle at scene's end, perchance the war between these heavyweights is not done.  And though Tywin won, he was sincerely rattled and may well be living in denial about his children.  Also, "buggery." 
• Meera and Osha debate the finer points of the number of methods to remove skin from small mammals.  How many methods are there?  Bran motions for cloture before debate can escalate too far by telling both girls they are pretty.
• Twice this episode characters chose to forgo wine as it was poured to the table (Bolton, Dowager Countess).  Unsure what this means.
• Robb is obviously not in a good position to order Edmure to marry the Frey daughter so they can make peace with the Freys, without sounding like a hypocrite and Edmure is, incredibly, balking.  Good thing Blackfish is there to tell Edmure "You'll do it, and you'll like it.  In fact, you'll marry all one thousand of the ugly Frey girls if Robb wants you to" in an old man strength sort of way.
• Orell cutting people loose on the Wall, only to have them survive and face him at the top was less awkward than the awkwardness that would follow on Mad Men this evening.
• Someone should tell the red priestess it's rude to have a private conversation in a language no one understands. 

Varys' and Littlefinger's conversation about the tales people tell themselves and each other to comfort or rationalize brought to mind Deadwood for the first of two times for Sunday night shows that evening*.  One, two or perhaps all three seasons of Deadwood focus on the idea of "a lie agreed upon" meaning bits we tell ourselves to be true in order for society to function.  For example, gold is as arbitrary a substance as the next mineral but because we all agree it has value and therefore can be exchanged for goods and services, and is also protected and sought after.  If everyone in the camp of Deadwood simultaneously agreed gold had no value (possible, considering they were outside the United States) the society would collapse. 

Season Three started with two episodes reintroducing all the different threads, followed by three episodes loaded with payoffs.  Episode six, with only four more after this week, is moving pieces into place and getting characters on track for (if previous seasons are any indication) what we would expect is the season's big payoff in episode nine followed by rapidly falling action and some set up for next season in episode ten. 

Hodor!

* The other was in Mad Men

Matthew Weiner's End Game Part 1

Don Draper's taken a turn toward the unlikeable in the (likely) penultimate season of Mad Men.  It brings to mind another leading character who went down a similar path  in the show's final episodes, Tony Soprano.  The link is the Mad Men showrunner Matthew Weiner (also given writing credit on nearly every episode) who was a writer on The Sopranos 

Toward the end of the series, following the events of "Members Only" which begins to set up the finale, Tony had a come to Jesus moment which altered his behavior for a time.  However, he slowly forgets his new lease on life and devolved into more and more unsympathetic behavior as the series finale drew near.  Considering Matthew Weiner's own hand in Tony's journey those episodes, is it likely Don will follow the same path? 
 
Weiner is credited on eight episodes in the The Sopranos: Season Six (final season), including four each in Parts I and II.  These episodes feature some of Tony's most despicable acts:
Being on staff, Weiner no doubt had some hand in all or most of the scripts from that season, but this will focus on a few key acts which also happen within scripts credited to Weiner.  It's also possible the credits are provided on a rotating or semi-rotating basis.  The season can be viewed as two seasons, airing one year apart.

Part I
Members Only
Join the Club
Mayham (Weiner)
The Fleshy Part of the Thigh
Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request
Live Free or Die
Luxury Lounge (Weiner)
Johnny Cakes
The Ride
Moe n Joe (Weiner)
Cold Stones
Kaisha (Weiner)

Part II
Soprano Home Movies (Weiner)
Stage 5
Remember When
Chasing It (Weiner)
Walk Like a Man
Kennedy and Heidi (Weiner)
The Second Coming
The Blue Comet Weiner)
Made in America

Following the shooting by Junior in "Members Only" Tony has a new lease on life.  Starting from his hospital exit in "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh", he appears to be more forgiving.  When a medic he accused of robbing him attempts to pay back the supposed money he stole, Tony waves him off.  During a garbage dispute, Tony looks for compromise citing "There's enough garbage for everyone."

Shortly after, however, in "Mr. & Mrs. Sacrimoni Request" Tony appears weak when he collapses entering through security at the wedding.  He also sees his colleagues' disgusted reactions to John's moment of weakness as the marshals return him to prison.  What follows is an example of a situation cited at the end of the series that leads Melfi to end their doctor patient relationship. (Elliot's assertion that sociopaths are not helped by therapy to get better, but helped to get better at committing crimes).  Melfi suggests that Tony do something to appear a decisive strong leader.  In response, Tony picks a fight with his muscle bound driver (who knows not to fight back) attacks him when defenseless and beats him into submission knowing he can't fight back.  Tony's taken on a lot of tough people but this is the first I recall a complete "innocent" * being on the other end of things.

* Meaning the character did not behave in a way to proximately cause the beating





"Soprano Home Movies" - Forcing/coercing Bobby, the most "innocent" of all the mobsters to execute a young father in order to grease an illegal pharmaceuticals deal the Sopranos negotiate with some Canadians.  Not only that, but he does from a position of bitter pettiness, being a sore loser after a Monopoly-caused rumble with Bobby earlier that trip

Chasing It - Tony completely alienates Hesh, one of his oldest and dearest friends.  THeir relationship deteriorates quickly once Hesh gives Tony a $200k loan to feed his recent gambling habit/losing streak.  Tony harps on perceived slights from Hesh, including insulting his heritage.  It never comes to a boil but upon Hesh's girlfriend's passing, Tony repays the debt with only a perfunctory condolence.  Clearly their long friendship is ended.  This was, for me, the most difficult and upsetting to watch.  Additionally, Tony wants to get his cut off Carmela's spec house, even though he doesn't need the money (aside from gambling with it) and knows the joy of t


Kennedy and Heidi - murders Christopher, admits to Dr. Melfi he feels relief at Christopher's death.  Then goes to Vegas, bangs a stripper and takes peyote.  He's even happier when his gambling cold streak appears to have ended.  So, Tony is having a good time as he gets worse. 

Tony did some terrible things in seasons 1-5.  He personally murdered people and he ordered other people to murder people.  He did it on a whim and he did it premeditated.  He extorts and manipulates people on a constant basis, but his actions in the final season resonate on a different level.  He continually "kicks the dog". As any NFL fan knows, animal cruelty is the worst act imaginable.

Some other actions of note:
"Johnny Cakes" Sells out a building in the old neighborhood to Jamba Juice, seemingly in conflict with Tony in the early seasons as he takes both Meadow and A.J. around to show them the neighborhood, specifically the old church.

"Kennedy and Heidi" In a separate storyline, Tony is dumping asbestos into the water supply.  Also has a crew of illegals working with asbestos without protective gear.

"Chasing It" Tony doesn't want to pay the relatively (to him) low cost to Vito's wife to relocate and start anew due to her son's troubles.  Instead he enrolls Vito Jr. in an obviously violent and ineffective "camp". 

It is pretty clear David Chase set out a path to completely alienate Tony from the audience and Weiner played a large part in doing so.


Part II - Coming soon

The Americans: Season Finale

If you like Homeland, you will enjoy The Americans, which airs its season finale Wednesday at 10 p.m. on FX.  The show comes from Joseph Weisberg, with help from Graham Yost (of Justifed, and HBO miniseries like Band of Brothers , John Adams, The Pacific and From the Earth to the Moon)

Far from being the poor man's version of a successful show that we see so often on the networks, The Americans takes positive aspects from shows like Mad Men (period drama) and Homeland (spy/terror thriller) and makes them their own rather than provide a diluted imitation. Set in 1981 Cold War America, the basic premise is Soviet intelligence officers are planted in the United States to play married couple, have American kids and blend into society all while performing their duties as Russian spies.  

Similar to Homeland, viewers are often not sure who is gaming who or where the characters motivations lie.  This is especially in the last few episodes where the series quickly gained a lot of momentum.

I took a class on the U.S. Intelligence community in college * , taught by a former CIA counsel and member of the directorate of operations .  At the time he served advised a senator on the Intelligence committee.  The class focused on a lot of things including spycraft and what he called the 'labyrinth of mirrors.'

* Which makes me an expert

Here is an attempt to explain the labyrinth of mirrors by an example:
A spy recruits an agent as a source by blackmailing him.  The spy is gaining intelligence from that source.  But then the source reports that he is being blackmailed into being an agent.  So the agent's original side feeds bad intelligence to the agent to feed to the spy.  But the spy has another source inside who knows the first agent reported that he was compromised.  So the spy has to treat the information gained from the first agent as false, or blackmail the source again with some darker secret.  And now the source has to game his own side again as they feed him bad information.  In another scenario, the agent could be discovered by a third party rather than by turning himself in, and could be fed bad information without his knowledge of it being bad information.  And so on, and so on.  It's like facing two mirrors to each other and the reflections descending into infinity. 

The Americans touches on examples of this and it creates an organic tension (like Homeland) where the full extent of the characters knowledge is not explained, or is slightly ahead of the audience's knowledge by half an episode.  If there is a word to describe the opposite of dramatic irony, it would be that.**

** Suspense?  Drama?  Tomato Surprise? (If you read the Lost examples on Tomato Surprise, you'll remember why that show was so awesome.)

There are three main conflicts driving the show:
1) Conflict within the spies, mainly the husband Phillip who has taken a shine to the American way of life, never more evidenced than by an early scene where he enjoys a pair of quintessentially American cowboy boots at a shopping mall.  He laments his feelings to his more patriotic, hard liner of a wife "Air conditioning isn't so bad." 
2) Conflict between the husband and wife in their sham marriage ***
3) Conflict between the Soviets and the Americans, overall.  Subset by the conflict between their FBI counter intelligence officer neighbor and the spies themselves. 

*** One of the weaker points of the show, to be fair.  They are so hot/cold toward each other it is practically bipolar.

While I wonder if they blew their music budget in the pilot there's still a few cool period-related aspects of the show.  Mainly that the show is set against the Cold War, and the technology exists mainly to aid the spies on the ground, rather than do all the work for them. 

The series is renewed for a second season, so, Homeland fans, buy it on Amazon or iTunes or perhaps Netflix later on to tide you over until Brody returns on September 29, a date already marked for Breaking Bad fans.