Game of Thrones: Season 5 Episode 4 - Sons of the Harpy

Hello fellow Game of Thrones fans.  What a crazy episode.  Some pretty significant changes from George R.R. Martin's Bible, but they also mixed in some REALLY IMPORTANT nuggets that book fans have been waiting for since season 1!  So, all in all, this was a fantastic episode of the show.  I'm really loving this season, as I do every year.  But, I think the consolidation of these 2 books is really liberating the writers to take some interesting chances.  They're paying off for the most part.  Maybe not everything but we'll get to that.  

Weekly Spoiler Warning - Yes, I've read the books but I'm very careful on what I reveal.  If the show covers plot covered in the books, I'll discuss it and the differences.  If it's pretty clear the show will NOT cover something from the books, I may discuss that as well.  In the comments section everyone is very careful to label SPOILERS/BOOK DISCUSSION before posting about future book topics.  This disclaimer probably won't be needed next season, but we'll see if GRRM gets that 6th book out!

In the meantime, let's dive in!

TV Discussion: Week of 4/26/2015 - 5/2/2015

Hello fellow TV addicts!  This is our weekly place to discuss all non-recapped TV.  See you in the comments!

Game of Thrones: Season 5 Episode 3 - High Sparrow

Hello friends and welcome back to our Game of Thrones coverage!  We are 3 episodes into season 5. Many book readers have coined a few phrases to explain what is happening to the story.  My favorites are "Efficiency is Coming!"  and "Convergence is coming!"  They certainly are flying through the material of A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons (which mostly happen in parallel timelines) but with good reason.  There are a lot of new characters introduced and stories that seemingly go nowhere (or nowhere that couldn't have gone somewhere else more quickly).  The show is doing everyone a favor by taking the best parts of the books and moving the story forward. If you read EW.com after the episode last night, you would think the unthinkable has happened to the story of Ice and Fire.  Maybe, I'm a little less surprised, because we kind of figured out a certain storyline in our "spoiler labeled" comments last week!  We'll get to it in the recap, but basically, there are 3 major character stories that have altered storylines in the show compared to the books.  But all 3 of those characters are moving towards a story that IS in the books (that may have involved other "NEW" characters).   Hence...CONVERGENCE, EFFICIENCY!  

Translation: I'm still loving the show and I think the showrunners have the best interests of the plot in mind while still being faithful to GRRM's story.  And this episode was easily my favorite of the 3 so far.  Every scene had me on the edge of my seat and I loved the transitions from setting to setting.  Cersei was talking about Littlefinger?  We cut to Littlefinger.  Brienne was talking about vengeance on Stannis, we cut to the Wall on Stannis.   It was a very seamless way to tie the whole episode and story together.

Book Knowledge Disclaimer: As mentioned above, we do dive into the books here but not past what we've already covered from a TV show perspective.  So, I'll discuss differences (where I remember) in the recap.  In the comments, if we dive into book theories, we will note them as such at the beginning of the comment and request anyone else do the same!   With all of that said, let's dive in!

TV Discussion: Week of 4/19/2015 - 4/25/2015

Hello fellow TV addicts!  This is our weekly place to discuss all non-recapped TV.  See you in the comments!

Game of Thrones: Season 5 Episode 2 - The House of Black and White

Welcome back everyone!  It's time for another helping of Game of Thrones discussion.  We continued most storylines from episode 1 while adding in a couple more with Arya and the Dorne plots.  A lot of the episode seemed to center around leadership and the consequences of decisions made as leaders.     And just for the record, we continue distance ourselves even more so from the books with certain plots.  But nothing I've seen so far has been a bad decision or change.  And the theme of the books remains intact.  It makes sense that they'd want to stick with the characters already established.  I remember reading A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons and getting to these chapters with NEW centric characters and just looking forward to getting back to the characters I wanted to read about.  That's basically what the show is doing.  Continuing those character stories and weaving in plots from the other storylines to the characters we know where necessary.

Speaking of the books, I'll continue to discuss differences to the book as they occur on the show but not before.  If it's questionable I'll be as vague as possible (That applies this week).  And of course, we will maintain our "SPOILER WARNINGS" in the comments.  If you want to talk about the book make sure it's clear at the start of your comment!

With that, let's dive in!

TV Discussion: 4/12/2015 to 4/18/2015

Hello everyone! As always this is our weekly spot to discuss all non-recapped TV shows. See you in the comments!

Game of Thrones: Season 5 Episode 1 - The Wars to Come

Hello friends from the Earthly realm and welcome back (finally) to the drama in Westeros and Essos! Game of Thrones season 5 is here and it's awesome!  So, we are now into books 4 and 5 of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.  The producers have made it no secret that they intend to keep plowing forward with plot regardless of George's progress on the books.  So, the popular guess is that this season will include most or ALL of both of George's latest books.  The stories, for the most part, run in parallel in both books chronologically with book 5 A Dance With Dragons stretching the timeline further in the 2nd half of the book.  It also has been implied that this season will differ THE MOST from the books, which has book fans all in an uproar.   Usually, I've been one to champion the differences between Book and Show.   They seem to always make the right choice and keep the spirit of the books alive.   Some of the things I assumed would be cut OUT of the show are pretty much what they're cutting out.  (with the exception of one large twist that could've been at the end of last season and is probably cut out entirely)   All of that said, the majority of the season premiere played out almost exactly like it did in the books with the exception of a few different scenes.  And, based on some interviews, the final scene seems like it may have a different final outcome than the written word! 

Okay, I know.  Half of the readers of that first paragraph probably just rolled their eyes and thought to themselves (maybe even exclaimed outloud), "Oh great.  Here we go again.  Another book reader endlessly comparing to the books!"   For anyone that has read my recaps before, I do pretty well at only comparing to the books when it's clear that the show already covered it or has no plans in covering it.  Even so, I'm pretty good with spoiler warnings and splitting out any strictly book discussions for the bottom of the recap.  The same goes for the comments.  If you're going to post about stuff to come from the books, PLEASE INDICATE SPOILER in your comment!  

All of that said, I think we're ready to dive on into the season 5 premiere!  Let's do it!