Thoughts Before “Game of Thrones, Season 8, Episode 3”

In less than a couple of hours, Episode 3 of Season 8 of Game of Thrones will be shown. I just wanted to dash off a few quick thoughts about what I think will happen. I’m sure I’ll be wrong in more than a few places, but I’m going to write some things down anyway.

First, Why in the world are they putting the kids and everyone who won’t be fighting in the catacombs? I mean, HELLO! There are bodies down there! I can’t think of a worse place than an underground graveyard to be, when The Night King rolls up. There’s going to be a lot of carnage down there, and Varys, Gilly and the kids down there are not going to survive it. In fact, I’ll bet that after they die, at least one of them will surface among the living and scare the snot out of someone before they die. That would either be Varys going after Tyrion, or Gilly after Sam.

Second, but I think Theon is a goner too. He’ll die trying to save Bran, and Jamie will likely be the one who saves Brann.

Third, Way too much foreshadowing last episode, the happiness that Brienne and Grey Worm felt last episode will be gone. I think Brienne dies a hero’s death (maybe to save Arya), and if Grey Worm does survive, then Missandei will die.

I don’t think Sansa will survive either. Or Gendry. Arya will survive… they can’t have her go through all she has just to die now. I think Davos and Tyrion will survive too.

I think The Hound will survive, only because he REALLY needs to take out The Mountain.

Daenerys will survive, but will start going a bit more insane than she already has. Have you noticed that her temper is getting shorter and shorter over the last few episodes (even since last season?) I think it’s more than just her temper.

John better survive. He’s my odds-on favorite to who sits on the Iron Throne. He’s the only one that can lead the north. Question is, what about Daenerys and her vast Army? What’s he going to do about that?

And finally, there’s going to be one HUGE “I didn’t see that coming” moment. I just hope it that huge thing isn’t undead Hodor.

Whatever happens, it’s a big night. Time to say goodbye to a lot of characters we’re really going to miss.

Star Trek: Discovery – Initial Impressions of Episodes 1 & 2

SPOILERS AHEAD

I just got done watching Star Trek: Discovery, episodes 1 & 2. Yes, I signed up for the CBS All Access – side note here: The initial screen of the app says it gives 1 month free, and after signing up, it says 7 day free trial… At least that’s what I remember. Anyway, aside from having to sign up for a monthly subscription for 1 channel – and frankly one single show – I have to say I was pleased with the first two episodes – when I finally got to see them.

I’ll get this out of the way now, since this has nothing to do with the content of the show itself:

CBS broadcasting a premiere of a show on Sunday is: Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is football season! Shows are ALWAYS delayed during football season. This happened to The Amazing Race ALL THE TIME. Didn’t anyone think of this? I mean, you’re asking people to sign up for a subscription service; many of them probably had this set to record on their DVR, and will only find out later that part of the show was recorded. How many people will just give up, right then and there, thinking, “oh, I’ll catch the next episode” – well, you lost those people for sure, since there is no episode 2 on broadcast TV.

Ok… that’s out of the way. On to the show itself, with items in no particular order:

Didn’t much like the opening title sequence. It felt like the beginning of a history channel show on Da Vinci, with all those diagrams. The music was good though.

The film style was nice. Felt like a movie, and the opening sequence on the planet felt “right”. Kudos on getting the day of the week correct too…yes, I checked.

The Klingon subtitles got old, really fast. I hope that doesn’t continue.

Speaking of Klingons, this is, what, the third different look they’ve gotten? Worf said something like “We do not speak of it”, when referencing how different the Klingons in TOS looked compared to TNG, but now we’ve got a radically different look in ST:D. …And while we’re on the subject, I realize that since this show is before TOS, we should have technology at least a step down from what TOS portrayed, but from a TV show perspective, that would have been the kiss of death. It might be the “right” thing to do, in terms of timelines, but I like the look of the ship, and the familiar sounds on the bridge.

I see the Dr. on the ship got a nice upgrade from being a lacky on 30 Rock. (Maulik Pancholy played “Jonathan” on that show). Not sure if he survived though.

Was it just me, or did that Admiral really give off a “bro” vibe – like someone you’d see as a lawyer in a board room someplace?

There was one person on the bridge that I couldn’t tell if it was an alien in an enclosed suit of some kind, or a robot. While they were getting people off the bridge, a couple other people helped this person away… maybe it was an alien.

So, we spent two episodes getting to see a few members of the crew, and try and slide into what’s going on, and now many of them are dead (although, I have to say, blowing away the brig was a nice touch). No sign of the Discovery yet… looks like from the previews that’s going to take until episode 3. I really get the feeling they did the story in the wrong order. Maybe the right thing to do would have been to show Michael being transferred to the Discovery first, then showing what got her there in a flash back sequence. I don’t know, maybe not. I guess I sort of expected that the namesake of the show would show up in the first two episodes.

I’m not really sure where the show goes from here. The first two episodes were just a giant intro to the main character, Michael Burnham, and a setup for why the Klingons are really, really mad at the Federation. And a few character we were just starting to get interested in, and *boom* they’re dead. Writers are usually taught this is a very bad thing to do. Don’t get people invested in characters, and then have them die while you’re in the process of getting to know them. It’s not as impactful as it could be, and readers don’t really know who to invest their interest in.

So now the writers have to go in a different direction. Right now it looks like it’s going in the old “outcast trying to prove themselves because of their reputation” route. We’ll see how that goes.

This all sounds negative, like I’m nitpicking. Well, yeah, I AM nitpicking. That’s not to say I didn’t like the show. I did like it. This was MUCH better than how ST:TNG started off. I mean, in ST:TNG when Riker said “Hello, Pinocchico” to Data, I about barfed. I didn’t see anything like that at least. Perhaps a couple moments of navel gazing that weren’t required, but nothing too bad. ….Well, except for the Sarek long distance call… that was kinda dumb.

Keeping my fingers crossed on this one!

edit: One last thing – Lens flares? Really?

Winterfell

SPOILERS AHEAD – Don’t read if you’re not all the way caught up on Game of Thrones…. And if you’re not, why not??

This morning it occurred to me that I hadn’t really thought through what’s about to hit Winterfell. The Night King is on the march towards the wall, or at least towards Eastgate, and possibly around The Wall. He’s got a shiny new dead dragon to probably blow a hole through that Wall. That’s the immediate future. What’s after that? Winterfell.

One of several things is going to happen there:

Littlefinger will stage a coup to take over Winterfell. He has the troops on his side, and thinks that Arya is going to do his dirty work for him and get rid of Sansa. If that was going to happen, she probably would have done it last week while she had that knife in her hand. (That knife is the one the assassin tried to kill Bran with, and was stolen by Littlefinger after Ned Stark’s death. It was on Ned’s desk in King’s landing). So, I don’t think Arya’s going to do Littlefinger’s dirty work for him, because chances are pretty good she’s on to him. Arya could outright kill Littlefinger.

I think there’s an additional possibility that would be a lot more interesting. In the midst of plotting how to take care of Littlefinger, Bran intervenes and tells Arya and Sansa they have to get the heck out of Winterfell. Sansa will probably resist, thinking that she’s got to stay at Winterfell to hold the family home. Arya would tell her that Littlefinger has been plotting, and they need to run for their lives. On the face of things, it’ll seem that is what Bran is warning about.

Cut to Sansa, Arya and Bran getting the heck out of Winterfell. Littlefinger enjoys his victory at taking over Winterfell – and then the thing that Bran was really worried about happens – The Night King and the Dead arrive, and swarm the castle. Bet Littlefinger hasn’t thought through all the possibilities and has come up with that scenario.

A much worse scenario would be for Sansa to be stuck there only to die when the dead take over. Since Bran presumably has to survive through all this, it could just be that Arya and Bran end up leaving. Or they could all end up hiding in the family catacombs. Wouldn’t be very good to be hiding out down there, with the Night King wandering through bringing back their dead relatives though.