T w e n t y S i d e d

This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.

Once upon a time, the British – who have demonstrated that they know their way around a TV show, or indeed anything involving acting – created a show called Upstairs, Downstairs. It covered the lives of a bunch of Edwardian-era posh noble types (the titular Upstairs) and their rough-and-tumble servants (the titular Downstairs). The constrast of these two worlds within the same manor house made for such interesting storylines that it was widely copied, and the phrase “Upstairs/Downstairs” became shorthand for an entire mini-genre. Downton Abbey is probably the best-known modern example.

The reason I mention this is that Game of Thrones has a certain Upstairs/DownstairsnessA perfectly cromulent word. to it, with one key difference: the downstairs is way better. Take, for example, the genuine and cheeful comraderie between the Night’s Watch/Wildling bunch (Jon/Sam/Edd/Tormund): backslapping hugs, comic timing, people experiencing actual human emotions – now this is a show I could actually like, with characters I could root for. Even the more reserved handshake between Jon and Beric rung true. There are more nice moments, like Tyrion topping off Pod’s wine, and the characters unironically applauding Ser Brienne’s impromptu knighting.

By contrast, everything upstairs rings off-key. The show tacked uncomfortably close to the truth last episode, when Sansa pointed out that for the past couple seasons, the quality of Tyrion’s decision making has split the difference between “drunken debutante” and “Custer at Little Big Horn.” So now, a succession of characters have to sing his praises, and talk the audience out of thinking that Sansa was right. Jon and Dany continue to have all the chemistry of olive oil and vinegar, and Sansa and Dany – well, I can’t figure out what exactly that was supposed to be. I guess they were supposed to be bonding, but it was overblocked and stiff as an I-beam.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game of Thrones Season Eight: “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms””

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.

This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.

It’s Game of Thrones season again!

Some of you may be more excited about this than others. Over the past two seasons, critical opinions of the show have dropped, but that hasn’t made much of a dent in its overall popularity. There’s a threshold at which popularity becomes self-reinforcing: people start watching the show just to see what all the fuss is about. People (like me) who don’t think it’s very good anymore watch because we’ve already invested so much time in it and we want to see how it ends. Just as people who don’t follow football will still watch the Super Bowl, people who ordinarily aren’t interested in fantasy fiction will still watch Game of Thrones.

Because of this dynamic, by now I pay as much attention to people’s reactions to the show as I do to the show itself. In fact, when I first started writing about it back in the olden days of 2017, I operated off the premise that a mass souring of opinion on the series was imminent. That prediction hasn’t been borne out to the extent I thought it would, but there’s still time. In fact, in the days leading up to the premiere, the internet seemed to be bracing itself for disappointment. Instead of linking many examples, I’ll just link one representative one, titled “There’s No Way For Game Of Thrones To Get The Ending It Deserves.”

This may have been inevitable. This is the last season – the ending – and the endings of big-ticket “television events” don’t have the greatest track record. The only one I can think of that ended on a real high note was Breaking Bad, and even then there were differences of opinion. And Game of Thrones is going to have an even tougher job of it than usual, because there’s been a set of thorny problems baked into the story they’re adapting from day one. To massively oversimplify, the Song of Ice and Fire books had three main storylines. The “A” story was the Stark/Lannister conflict and its attendant political intrigue. The “B” story was Daenerys’ adventures on the other side of the narrow sea. And the lurking “C” story was the supernatural threat north of the Wall.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game of Thrones Season Eight: “Winterfell””

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.