The Watch - Breaking Down ‘Game of Thrones,’ S8E4 | The Watch

Episode Date: May 6, 2019

Chris and Andy give their mixed reactions to "The Last of the Starks" (1:10). They talk about some characters on the periphery of the episode (14:45), the departure of Ghost (31:50), and their favorite moments (39:19). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Bud Light. Bud Light is all about Brian and friends together, and we're wondering which unlikely pairs will team up this season. Seeing so many old friends and new come together, for example, in the past episode of Game of Thrones, well, there was quite a few unions, I have to say. It turned into quite a sexually charged Winterfell, but obviously the one that everybody is talking about is Breanne and Jamie.

So shout out to those two crazy kids. I hope they can make it work down the line. Bud Light is reminding you to enjoy responsibly 21 and up. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Just Crack an Egg. You want to talk about great production value? How about a legit, hot, fluffy breakfast scramble that's packed with all your favorite ingredients? It's called Just Crack an Egg,

and all you have to do is add a fresh egg over their hearty ingredients, then stir microwave and enjoy any day of the week. It takes less than two minutes to make Just Crack an Egg. Find all seven varieties of Just Crack an Egg. in the egg aisle. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch.

My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the rigor.com. And joining me in the studio, he just got back from the funeral pyre and man are his clothes smoky. It's Andy Greenwald. Of all the things I got from last night's episode, thrilling.

Well, kind of bifurcated episode. Game of Thrones that we were going to be talking about during the Watch podcast with Andy Greenwald. Wald and Chris Ryan. Yeah, that about covers it. Listen, I did not expect a stirring tribute to the outdoor open-flame cookery of Francis Malman. The Franklin Barbecue of Game of Thrones. I mean, those who have watched...

That guy just loves to throw meat in the dirt, right? Isn't that his whole thing? He, like, buries stuff in the dirt. He sets up... I saw a Bordano with him. Yeah, Bordano's with him. There's a chef's table with him. Basically, his whole style is kind of like what Melisandre used to have running on the beaches

of Dragonstone. You know what I mean? You remember that? Like in those early seasons, since you just have some like real open air back to nature cookery of people in that case. Primitive. What a ride.

Yeah. Okay. So last week, I think that we were firmly kind of like, that was good, you know, and that the critiques of it while understandable, in the end of the day was like, we felt like the achievements of the episode really overlapped that. They really like, they really shone through.

Last night's episode was really interesting Because I realized a couple of things One is like I'm never bored watching this show And I'm always entertained by it I always find it thought provoking I always find generally I like the acting Across the board I like the writing across the board

I like the direction across the board There was so much good stuff last night Like the candlelight flickering In Danny's eyes Every time she would sort of start to lose it a little bit And like the allusions to her being The Dragon Queen The Mad Queen

Let me put it this way I love nachos. You know, I love to eat nachos. Do you? Sure, yeah. I mean, like, I love a plate of nachos. It's like when you have, this is a bit. I've never seen you eat nachos.

But it's true. You eat one and you're like, it's pretty good. Yeah. Then there's like a bite about a third in. Yeah. Where you're like, why does anyone eat anything else but this? You get the soggy chip. No, because it's so good.

You have like that first combo chip. Oh, you get a perfect bite. Yeah. Oh, I was jumping the gun. Yeah. You get all the pieces that make it good together. And that is essentially like, when Jamie comes up to Brian's room

and you're like, God damn it. I've spent so long with these characters. Like, these two kids, man. I actually thought I was going to come in here to a room hostile to that plot development because there's only OTP for you. No, I just want the best for these people at this point. Then there is the bite where you're like,

huh, I just ate a full congealed scallion. You know? And it wasn't great. And then you get to the end and you're like, I feel like I made some mistakes. and that's kind of like the arc of last night's episode for me. Oh. I didn't make any mistakes.

It's like, I just think that we are just witnessing something that we probably never witness again, not only in its achievements, but also in the flaws that are baked into trying to end something like this. And we talked about this last week and we talked about this week. But, you know, I really, really was excited to talk with you specifically about this, not only because you're my best friend and we've talked about Gamma Thrones for like almost a decade. Do you have someone scheduled after me? No, because I think that I want to talk to you a little bit about a lot about the writing today. Great.

And how you write for characters. I'm ready to try and weigh in on that. I'm glad you started this way with a really a hunger pang-inducing-inducing nacho analogy. Because I want to begin by clarifying something from last week, which is to say, we were all in on that episode. Yeah, I remain all in on that episode. What I didn't want my positivity about that episode to imply, though, was that I was completely giving a blank, just giving a blanket pass. to all the decisions that led us to that point. Uh-huh.

So much of TV writing, especially serialized over this many seasons, is you make do, you do the best you can with what you've got. Now, what you've got is a byproduct of some planning, yes, and certainly in this case some things that were borrowed or inspired by or literally told to them by George R. Martin, right? But the rest of it is maybe you made a slight character miscalculation in season four, and you've just got to pick up the pieces in real time. There was an analogy that we used to joke around about a lot on the podcast,

we were talking about TV writing years ago about doing pit crew on a car while also driving the Indy 500 at the same time. I actually just made that same analogy about Kauai Leonard the other day. Did you? Yeah.

The sports car analogy? Yeah. Because he was busy doing donuts on our front lawn last night in Philadelphia. So, anyway, just to say that I maybe have a... Maybe more than others,

like I give people that benefit of the doubt for doing a good job playing a bad hand. Last week wasn't all bad hand, but there were some cards that maybe we had some questions about. So last night was sort of similar.

You're at this point in the final season. It's the final season. There's no more road in front of you, and there's a checklist of things you feel, and I keep saying you, is the plural, the Ustetes, if you will, of David Benioff and Dan Weiss, of that they feel that they need to do

to get the story where they want to end it. They also have to do this hard pivot from the incredible slaughter and existential threat of last week's battle to the last war as DeNaris puts it and we, you know, it's an interesting feeling

going into last night's episode because while we know Searcy is lurking and we know certain things, we know things are going to come together the characters are going to reshuffle and come together again in a different place. We actually don't, we didn't know or I didn't feel comfortable predicting

how that was going to play out. I certainly didn't think that Regal or Regal or whatever, the Regal Cinema Chain Dragon was going to get a spike through its throat. Yeah, movie pass, right to the throat. That was cool. So all of that is to say, I maybe had a reverse nacho reaction to you last night in that, I think it was more than appropriate that we have a little funeral pyre burning,

that we have some celebrations, a lot of hugs, some hooking up. Yeah. It was basically an episode of, it was dazed and confused in Winterfell. And then a hard pivot to the show that I think the show is more comfortable being, which is splitting people up in interesting ways, a lot of conflict, intramural conflict, if you will, and then big set pieces or surprises or deaths, things like that. I thought the show is more comfortable being that version of the show.

I think you're right. I also think that that is a real hallmark of late period, Game of Thrones. And that is one of the things that I think a lot of people have been very vocal about is the way in which this show no longer shows its work. and how showing its work was actually what made it different than almost any other television show. What do you mean by show work? I think I agree with you.

So there was an interesting quote, Joanna Robinson, who obviously is one of the best writers out there about Game of Thrones and writes Vanity Fair, did an interview with Nikolai Koster Waldow who plays Jamie. And she talked to them about not only the sex scene, but also the departure afterwards. And here's what she wrote.

But if Jamie's decision to have sex with Brienne and then leave her, feels like such a swift reversal, your head is still spinning. Costa Wildow is sympathetic. We are, quote, we are used to having a whole season to get to a point.

Now, suddenly, a lot of things happen very quickly. The actor says he has to fill a lot of the details in himself. Trying to connect the dots between the scenes was a little complicated because you invest so much time, so many years in these characters.

This is Nikolai. So when you suddenly find out that Jamie comes back and his son has committed suicide as he did several seasons ago, like two seasons ago, or a season ago. there's so many things that obviously you can't go through on screen all of these moments,

but you have to still walk through them in your mind. If you're an actor, at least talk about them. And there was a lot of those connecting the dots going on throughout. Right. So this is a show that once, infamously or famously, showed painstakingly Catlin Stark negotiating the crossing of a bridge over, I think, several episodes, and eventually promising Rob's hand in marriage so that the phrase of the, just so that they could cross.

a bridge. And now they're like, yeah, overnight this guy stared at a fire, decided he was going to leave the person he had just slept with to go back, and it's ambiguous as to why he's going back. All the stuff that was like, here's the work that goes into doing it. It's not just that. It's saying, here are the show's main characters. They love each other now. What? Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's shorthand. And it's interesting. I think you're totally right. All the things that we praise the show for being and all the things that I believe the book fans praise the show for being, which is implicitly not the movie version of Game of Thrones, which it was in development for being, which is to say, where they're not going to cram this stuff into two hours or two and a

half hours, it's very pinched at the end where all of a sudden they are cramming all these things. If they were going to continue the same pace of storytelling, they started with, season 15 would be in play. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I think that's certainly the case. And then you get to an argument where the things that they do show, do decide to show. I think for the most part, they're efficient, they're smart, they're economical when they need to be. But as much as it was enjoyable to see Tormond be sloppy drunk, there was a level of post-game commentary that I kind of missed, which I think would have been implicit to the show that I was excited about watching in the first few seasons, which is, holy fuck, there's a zombie army of the dead. You were serious about that? Yeah.

Like the thing that I loved and continued to love and there was a passing reference to it last night when they spoke about the millions of people who live in this world who are not characters, who are just pawns in this larger argument. Yes.

That in the beginning years of this show magic was not real. Dragons were not real. People scoffed if you talked about what was going on beyond the wall or what might come down to them. Right. But even basically, yeah. Some of that you can yodot a yada with a shot of the dragons flying over Winterfell and people freaking out.

But at a certain point, I understand why there just simply isn't the real estate for any living bearded person in Winterfell to turn to the other person to be like, yo, that was crazy. I know. Is that going to happen again? What does that mean? Yeah. Because that's not the show. There hasn't been any, yeah.

And that's the thing is it's like, you know, at the end when they're like, Torman's going to go back north. There's no even a conversation about it. So are we going to rebuild the wall? Is there anyone up there? Is there anybody up there? Apparently there are Dothraki left? I didn't know that.

Yeah. We were actually talking about this before the episode last night. I was like, I really do think that, crazily enough, there's like a James Andrew Miller-style book to be written about this show now. In the world of the show? No, about the making of the show. Oh, yeah.

Because. Like an oral history about... Yeah, it's just... The fact that Circe isn't in two and three, and I don't even think... I can't think of a real. reason why the North would be in five. And so they're essentially, rather than having, this is what I wanted to talk to you about.

Okay. What does an actor usually ask when they're in a scene? What does my character want? Right. Right. Like, you say, when is lunch? But after that. Can you call my agent?

Yeah. They want to know what they want. They want to know what the objective is of this scene for their character. And I would argue in writing a scene, you need to know what the character wants. There's too many scenes where I can't answer that in Game of Thrones. I don't know really what certain, like, Sansa, I don't know what she's doing other than offering resistance to a plot point. I don't know what she's doing either.

Yeah. So much so that I don't think she needs to be in the next episode, yet she is a crucial character to this show. You know what I mean? But this is the thing that happens when you run out of space and you run out of a guardrail. So that's why I want the James Andrew Miller book, is because why? Well, I think that there's certain characters who are important. In a novel, and certainly in a seven, eight,

book series, characters can be crucially important and beloved and have full, rich, fictional lives, but not, quote, unquote, figure into the end game, right? They don't have to be absolutely central to the plot. You know, there's a reason why when we talk about the Great Gatsby, you and I always talk about, we never talk about Great Gatsby, but like, like, you know, old owlies or something. Like, there are these weird characters on the margins that matter to us. We've been reading Larry McMurtry novels. We know all about characters on the margins. Great call. Yeah. So Sants is important because of time invested in her because of the strength of the performance, because we know that one of the things the show taught us, for those of us who hadn't read the books, is that the Starks are important, that the North is important.

Tyrion voiced some of that, that if John's not here, you are the most important person north of wherever. But how does she figure into any of this? They can't all kill Circe. Right. They can't all win. And what does winning even mean at this point? What does she want other than maybe? maybe to have her now not at all brother become king? And then what's she going to do? There simply aren't enough strands left, I think, I'm worried, for her to have a, what would be a satisfying conclusion to her?

It's not even like I'm trying to revert to a traditional storytelling model where there's a secret Prince Charming who survived the Umber massacre or whatever to marry her. I'm not looking for that. Does she have a friend? Like, what is she going to do up there in her castle? Consulbrien. Apparently. Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with you about beloved characters that are sort of on the periphery and them, and they don't necessarily have to do with the end game of the show, but still have a role to play.

What I don't care for is a character that I love, man. Like, you and I have had some really good times with Braun. Braun's great. Why do we get a full bronze scene? And yet they cut away from the moment Brand is presumably telling. Aria, Sansa, and John about John's secret. Why not show us

how Sonsa and Aria separately reacted to that? Well, I think we... I think two reasons. One, the more charitable version is we know how they would react to it. I think they would be horrified or shocked and Sansa would be

both upset but then also see the advantage and then, by the way, snitches get... Clearly don't get stitches in this world. Oh, my God. Loose lips. Sink. I thought dandy ships

for real though I thought swearing oaths meant something in these seven kingdoms wow so it's either that or the less charitable version is

their reaction would tip what they're going to do next and it's more important to keep some mystery alive I'm not even sure what that answer would be

because we did see what their next moves were so again I think it's just a question of priorities the Braun thing is satisfying

I guess in that Jerome Flynn is like one of my favorite actors on the show. Top five, I just think. Every time he's on screen, right, he just brightens the show, brightens my mood. I love it. I love the history with those two brothers.

But I don't, I don't quite get whoeverhead. You never thought he was actually going to kill Tyrion. Well, that was a, there was a thought that he's going to kill them and Brienne would sacrifice herself. And there was like a lot of like speculation about like Chekhov's crossbow and he's going up there.

And so it has to. to mean something, but it turns out it didn't mean anything. It turns out all you had to do was say, well, we'll just give you High Garden. And he's like, okay, I'm off the show now. Well, okay, so let's, since we're talking in the more critical mode, I mean, I have some, I have questions for you as well, but I'll phrase them in, I'll phrase my question for you in the form of an opinion by me. So podcasting.

For real. I don't think we needed the Brienne and Jamie sex scenes. Sure. I didn't need that extra beer but it felt good going down. The undoing of the shirts was pretty good. Yeah.

It caused my wife who was watching some of it to comment on why they all wore difficult clothing. And I was like, well, he lost his hand. As opposed to like a...

And she's like, what do you mean he lost his hands? And I was like, well, he's a gold hand. And she says, why would it be gold? And then we went from there. Actually, the biggest thing

that we both... And then she turned to you and say, are you enjoying this? The biggest, she did ask me afterwards, the biggest thing that we both, conclusion we came to together, is that for all the loyal friends we lost at the Battle of Winterfell, at least we can all take solace in the fact that the royal hair braiders survived. Oh, yeah. Well, Missy, it was Miss Andy.

Yeah. Well, Sonsa's got some deep plates going on up there, too. She did, yeah. I mean, that is, that would take hours every day. Yeah. Do you know how much conquering you could get done if you just threw it in a, ponytail? Why do you think she's always like, wait, let's postpone? Good call. Because she has to get her French braid going. I guess I'm just not sure because there's an element of it that's

fan service. There's an element of it that is exciting and rewarding for long-time viewers, certainly. But then, to circle back to your point, when you have to then immediately rush on to the next story, was it worth doing that? As opposed to having him knight her and we understand their love for each other more in that moment? Yeah, I mean, I, I, It certainly was like in the moment. I was like, this is amazing. Is Jamie just going to live out his days, like, hanging out with Brienne and Winterfell?

And he's not going to be in the end of this show. And I guess the question you have to ask is, aside from whether or not it was true or not to the moment, and it did seem true within the context of, like, everybody's drinking. So it's fun. But we've all been to cast parties. But then they immediately shacked up and he was like, no, I'm staying in Winterfell. Yeah.

If he had just said the next day, well, like, I'm a soldier and I have to finish this. and bring some dignity back to my house or whatever, I think that that would have made some sense. But the moment of her saying, like, you should just stay here with me, you're a good man, did parallel nicely with Danny begging John, saying, like, I never beg,

but I'm begging you to keep this a secret. Like, I'm asking you, sexy aunt to willing nephew. Well, she's basically saying, like, if you tell people, we'll never be able to be together the way we want to be together. And Brian's essentially, like, we can pretend.

like the rest of the world doesn't matter. Right. Just the two of us. I like those moments of two people who are essentially being torn apart by the writing of history. I like that. It just felt like almost unnecessarily cruel. And I think you could make the argument that the Miss Andy moment felt unnecessarily cruel. I think so this also speaks to, I wanted to talk about that.

I wanted to talk about some sense of things. And I can connect this, I think, to your desire to talk more about the writing of the show. there was a lot of Twitter criticism at certain aspects of the show, particularly the way the female characters were written. I mean, that's been a constant, the way they were written last night. And I have to say that I strongly agree with a lot of it. And just to say this, I'm not saying that David Benioff and Dan Weiss cannot write female characters. They've written tremendous female characters.

What I'm saying is it's curious that eight years into it, there was only one woman ever on the writing staff. and again, even that puts too much pressure on one woman speaking for women in the room. I'm just saying, and this is my own lived experience now making a show, like, the writing is better if you have multiple perspectives and multiple points of view and voices coming at you to question what you're doing. Yeah. Just to ask the question, your argument, your story, your character will be better if you can defend it against questions. And I have to think that having our argument, our story, your character, will be better if you can defend it against questions.

aria sort of reject this clumsy proposal and having Brian weep over Jamie leaving and the biggest example from last night was Sansa being like I'm grateful for being brutalized because it made me who I am today

let me shed the little bird persona it's it felt like a clapback at like I did feel like that was like Benny Off and Weiss being like we stand by it I don't mean to like put words in their mouth

and I'm not even like hammering them for it. It just felt like it was another scene where I was like, what's the point of this scene? You can defend those choices, and maybe they will and maybe they would. I mean, they don't really do non-EW interviews anymore, but maybe they would if asked about it. It just felt to me that it hadn't been probed and poked at and questioned.

You know what I mean? I think that this idea of a character being grateful for her treatment was just odd, and it felt very reductive and simplistic and unnecessary. And I'm not sitting here arguing that we need to watch the show through contemporary eyes of morality or of... First of all, we can only watch the show through our own contemporary eyes. Actually, that's probably the better way to phrase it. I don't necessarily bump on the fact that in the beginning when John is talking about all the dead people,

he's like, they sacrificed this for the... So the world of men, I don't think that he would have been accurate for him to expand his purview of whose world he was representing in that moment. Yeah. But it just felt a little bit rushed, a little bit and a little bit ill-considered. A lot of those choices, and reductive. And maybe that's a question of time also. And similarly, with the Missende storyline, I mean, they did get to go sailing on their boat called Live Forever. So the McBain stuff was accurate.

You know, there are people saying, you know, this is just, it's sort of gruesome and thoughtless treatment of the show's only prominent woman of color. Now, I feel like the answer to that is just twofold, which is maybe it's consistent with the way the show treats people as props and as pawns and that all makes sense. The bigger problem is that this was the show's only significant woman of color. So she represents far more than Missende of where she from, Narth, Quarth. Narth. I didn't have a problem with her dying. Like that just happens almost in every other episode of the show people die. I thought it was kind of silly that they strung this along

of like six like when we get through this we're gonna retire together and then he lives like in the one in a 10,000 chance that he lives. He gets through that thing they get on a boat inexplicably and then hold hands

they're happily on the boat and then we don't even see what happens to her like it's just the masked it's a Tyrion POV moment the mast falls on him. He somehow still lives. Swims. Gets to shore.

A lovely beach. We don't see Yuron move an entire fleet or whatever over to where they were to pick up survivors, find the one person that he needs to grab, grabs her, and brings her all the way back to Kings Landing. And then Tyrion's appeal to his sister is the, he does what I like to call the Twitter bio appeal, which is, you're a wife, you're a mother, first and foremost. coffee addict. Coffee addict, yeah.

You of M-A-Lum. Again, it's just... Yeah, it didn't work the first time. She straight up betrayed you when you were like, you have a kid, you're going to want to stop the zombie apocalypse. And she was like, sure, you're right, totally. And then she was like, nope, I'm actually going to just spend this time building dragon crossbows. I have one more...

Dr. Dumb shit. Don't ask again. And don't walk into a field of archers. Well, I mean, look, she could have just let loose the arrows right then. I don't know why we're suddenly following. I was like, do it. Yeah. I was like, do it.

Why are we doing the Marquis of Queensberry rules now? Yeah. You blew up a church with a thousand people in it. Yeah. Now we're suddenly standing on ceremony. But that ceremony we do, but the whole my brother tells me to keep a secret, we don't eat. Look, I do. Swear it.

Pinky, double pinky swear it. Like what was the consequences of the swear? Just show me. I want to... If you tell I will have to kill you, I will have to disown you, I will not support you. Like, what was... Like, that's just weird. They never used to do this.

I would like to pivot to the things that I did like, but since we're on this run, the show has a John and DeNaris problem. It is. You know, I think... Do you think it's a John and Nera's problem? Because they're, what's the problem? The problem is twofold. One, well, there's threefold.

One, protagonists and fantasy stories are often the least interesting people. And that's where we are with them. I'm far more interested in Veris or Davos or Braun at this point than I am the two nominal leads of the show. Two, they have little to no chemistry and I don't believe they love each other. It's just sort of we're told they love each other because it would be inevitable that the most important people who and also ride dragons would love each other. So I don't find their love and his fealty to her because he loves her compelling dramatically.

The third problem, and this is probably the biggest problem heading into the end game, is that this pivot that suddenly DeNaris is worrisome, is not worthy of all the attention when John is right there, feels very strange and tacked on.

I don't believe she's acted particularly rashly. I mean, last night, didn't go great. She's definitely reckless with the dragons. She is about to blow a 3-1 lead or a 3-0 lead in the finals. But the argument, and I think I would direct people to what Al and Seppin wrote in Rolling Stone about this, but the Verus Tyrion scene, which in many ways is the heart of what many people always loved about Game of Thrones, the people, the truly smart people with the largest, widest perspective who are adjacent to power, talking about how power works. And, you know, thinking of the figureheads as that,

as figureheads to be molded and shaped or betrayed as the case may be, what they were really talking about didn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't know what John has done that makes him a better ruler other than the fact that he's kind of our traditional hero in a story like this. I mean, they go through the whole, I mean, obviously Varus is like, frankly, like people will respond to him because he's a man and the Lords of Westrose are going to... He's honest about that.

I get that. I get that she's tempted now. And they're like maybe he's the right person because he doesn't want to be king. Right. And I get that she's now tempted to follow in the mistaken footsteps of her ancestors because she's been provoked now to the point of, I don't want to say madness because I don't buy it. She's isolated.

Jora's gone. Miseni's gone. All she has is this person who she hates with people who, frankly, she doesn't know. Right. And doesn't feel any allegiance to. I get that that's where we're headed. And maybe they'll surprise us. Maybe neither of those people will be king at the end.

But it's a little confusing, I would say. Do you have a horse in this race? Of who wins? Well, I know the show has historically not made sense in terms of, not in terms of logic, but I mean in terms of justice doesn't prevail always. Yeah, I don't, I personally, I do not think justice should prevail in this situation. I think it depends on what part of her spiel you want to believe in. if she's there to break the wheel

there just shouldn't be a throne right like often I'm just kind of like why does it have to be the country have to be ruled from Kings Landing seriously you know like why is that the seat of power why is this obsession with the capital I get it but it's California secession 2020 baby

that's right let's just live in our version of Dorn so we've expressed our I think our misgivings or whatever we've talked a little bit about critically about it you want to talk about what I liked about me too I just want to say that you mentioned the piece that I wanted to say most about DeNaris,

which is the most compelling aspect of her claim was wanting to break the wheel. And now it just seems she's about to get rolled by it, which is an interesting and worthwhile turn of the story. I mean, I have no idea, because on one hand, her superiority keeps getting chipped away at. She's lost two, quote-unquote, children in the process of this thing.

On the other hand, they've just made some huge advantages in Scorpion technology, I guess, because I was just kind of like, can you fly around the other side there? And it's the thing is, I don't like being in the position to armchair quarterback dragons. You know what I mean? I just want to watch interesting people talk some shit out.

Like, that is ultimately why I'm watching any television show. You want them to be podcasts. I get it. Hi, I'm Sarah Koenig. And that's my dragon. I'm loving this. Keep going. Where was I?

Serial. You were armchair quarterbacking. Yeah, I don't like being. This is not like how I want to. spend my time being like, how did Uran get so good at shooting crossbows? Crossbow technology really did take a radical way to do that where I'm like, man, that guy got really good at shooting crossbows.

Just shoot, instead of showing Torman drink 10 times or having Varis and Tyrion have the same conversation three times and 45 minutes, cut back to King's Landing and be like, we're preparing. This is how we know she's going to be in Dragonstone on this day. Like a bird told it. They're always doing ravens and spies on the show. Why is it all of a sudden now? It's just like, bang, we were there.

How about that? What a lucky coincidence that we had our scorpion crossbows ready when the dragons were coming. One other thing. Yeah. It feels a little imbalance to me that you could be in the north and notice a wheelchair, which is what it says, a chair with wheels and be like, wow, that's some pretty nifty tech. And he's like, yeah, it's 250 years old. I retrofitted it and now I roll around on it.

Yeah. And then meanwhile, a couple hundred miles to the south, they can shoot dragons out of the sky. with rapid artillery fire crossbows. I mean, you can't predict how things are going to develop. Or nobody was like, hey, you remember when we lit all that gold on fire? Yeah. What if they built some more of those? Should we prep for that? I'm just saying, wheelchair tech isn't as impressive as you think it is when you can do that.

Yeah. That quickly. So here's something I liked. I thought John dispatched with his pet dog appropriately. Go in, King. I am glad. I miss you guys so much on Sundays. I miss the whole crew.

I think Mal just unsubscribed to this podcast. I'm glad. I miss you guys so much, but I guess on some level I'm glad that I wasn't there. Did you see Mal's speech about this? Yeah, so I would end my friendship with Mallory, like live on Twitter. You're doing it right now. I love Mallory.

But here's my genuine, I'm not trying to troll people who love their pets. What I will say is they were not a part of the show. It wasn't a part of the show. So I do think that people's upset and anger over this has more to do with the fact that we didn't constantly have a touching, you know, a dog's journey subplot. Are you going to see a dog's journey? Yo, I saw an ad for that movie yesterday.

Dennis Quaid has a dog. Can I just tell you, when you get the 45 minutes. That you crave to watch American television. Finally. And you're watching the ABC Network and watching basketball. I'm like people in Winterfell seeing a wheelchair for the first time. And then you jump on the group text. You're like, Yakov Smearnoff.

You're like, what is this dog's journey? I will see it. There's a movie about dog reincarnation. That's what's up. Yeah. And the dog's like, hey Dennis Quaid, sorry I died. It's me again. Like, that's the movie?

Anyway, I'm just saying that it just feels to me that it's become the representative of people's sadness that the ghost John relationship wasn't a major part of the show A, and B, the fact that ultimately they don't seem that engaged with or interested in the fantasy elements of the show literally saying to the now one-eared

wolf dog, you don't belong down there. The dog's like, oh, I guess I don't. I mean, I get it. If I was ghost, I'd be like, word. Yeah. Let me be free. But don't you think ghosts spent all of last episode trying to prove he was a very good boy to John? Like, he dove into the army of the dead.

He was rolling with the Dothraki. He had a very small chance of survival, and he got through it with just one less ear. One less ear. And that was just, his reward is to go to the frozen North with Tormond. How amazing would it have been if, like, they had cut, like, John had been like goodbye ghost, and he was just like, he pulled one air pod out and was just like, what? What's up?

Just the one air pot? I'm listening to cereal. This shit is amazing. I hope Batman gets a new trial. It's... Have you guys listened to two? That's pretty good as well. It's an indictment of the justice system.

Is that true? No, it's the Bo. Bo, what's his face? Oh. Yeah. Right. I haven't listened to cereal. But this movie about dogs coming back to life.

Hello. What did you like about this episode, aside from its poor treatment of animals? I thought, strong episode for Tyrion. Allison wrote about this. I really, really, really enjoyed Tyrion in the episode. I loved Peter Dinklage's performance in the episode. In the same podcast where I'm saying that the lead performances, I'm not saying Kit Harrington and Amelia Clark aren't good,

I'm saying that those characters are weighed down by what they have to be and the burden that they carry. it was a reminder that the basically the star of the show. I mean, the top-billed actor on the show can carry, essentially carry an entire episode even a very strange, lumpy, bifurcated episode like this one. It was all the versions of Tyrion that we like,

both the sort of the drunken, witty, self-loathing, but also who he's become. The scene with Sansa was not satisfying, I think, in terms of the content, but the performance between those two actors was terrific. And it was one of those pairings that it surprised me how much I'm happy to see it again.

The show for me is at its best when it's about the people around power. Yeah. And he's always been the best avatar of that storyline. I thought that if you wanted to draw a theme out of it, I thought that many of the characters, you know, they talked about destiny, especially in relationship to Danny and about this idea

that, you know, if you walked into a fire with three stones and came out with three dragons, you would also believe in destiny. Mm-hmm. but I thought each of the characters actually, and not quite destiny, but basically were like, I am who I am at the end of the day, you know?

And so John was like, I know if I keep this secret, or at least just say, I am going to keep this a secret for a while. Let's just see what happens with this Searcy fight, and then maybe later on down the line, I'll worry about it. He was never pragmatic.

He was just always, he's always going to be the guy who is like, I have to live honestly, I have to, the ends, the means have to justify the ends or the ends are only justified by the means because we have to live this truthful life because otherwise we're no better

than the people we're fighting. And he does that and he pretty much destroys his relationship with Danny in the process. Tyrion essentially is always going to be an arm's length from true power but is seduced by the flame of it. And it's happened with his father. It's happened with his sister.

It's happened with Danny. And now there's a flicker of it with John. But he is ultimately, like, I think he is like, got a little bit of self-destruction in him. I think a lot of these characters do. Well, I also think one of the interesting things about Tyrion, who does have, you know, you could diagnose him with a slightly addictive personality,

has gotten a taste of hope and what it's done to him and the errors it has allowed him to put on the responsibilities that's allowed him to shoulder. I mean, the things that make him a great character, it's a classic trope in characters, is that when you meet him, he hates himself, he hates the world, he's the most cynical person, but of course he's not cynical.

of course it's an act. Of course he wanted to be, if not the prince who was promised, then at least Prince Adjase and make the world better. If he didn't think the world could be better, he wouldn't be a compelling character. And so his arc from season one

to where he is now, he's in many ways the most compelling and potentially the most heartbreaking. Yeah, so you liked it as a Tyrion episode? I like Aria. I mean, I like Aria, who doesn't? But Ari and the Hound, one of my favorite pairings on the show. The Hound in general, one of the best characters on the show,

not just with the one-liners and the casual use of the T-word at just about any opportunity. But that's a version of the show that I also truly enjoy. And seeing them, both of them have had very dramatic arcs of change. But seeing where they end up in a place that is both satisfying from a character level and emotionally satisfying for the audience is terrific. So I'm excited to be on that horse ride that will take either 10 minutes or three weeks, depending on what the plot requires. I imagine he shows up rather early in episode 5. I don't think it's going to take him too long to get there.

To deal with his brother? Yeah. What else did you like? I enjoyed the performances a lot. I mean, I think that that's now an underrated part of the show because so much of the focus is on plot mechanics. I've really come to appreciate Maisie Williams' performances, Aria. I think it's a much subtler change than what happened with Brand, obviously. I mean, it's a slightly psychedelic.

But her kind of resignation to a life outside of who she used to be, you know, and a purpose that she sees as far greater than any kind of like pleasure or like knowing love, really, you know, like. Well, part of the show has always been the people who do the best are the ones who understand who they are and are honest about it. And her journey is one of the most compelling for that reason because she knew what she wasn't early on and became who she is.

Right? And I think that the Sonsa storyline, for example, she seems to have a very good sense of herself now. But the mechanics of how she got there and what she is now, I think is still a little bit, it's still a little bit foggy. I wanted to know your thoughts on the opening banquet in which DeNaris attempted to host a very special episode of Oprah

and if you look under your seat, you get a lordship. I thought she was going to start tossing those around. I mean, that was a flex against John, I think, a little bit about, you know, the sort of pliability of legitimacy that's going on there. I thought that that scene was really cool.

Like, I really like the sort of the dais that they were all sitting at and Sophie Turner. Just kind of like... Like in real life, just drinking some wine? Yeah, vaping. Is there, are there any bassist? left on the show who haven't been legitimized. I mean, that is really, that's really happened a lot.

I don't know. John got legitimized. Ramsey? Yeah. Ramsey became Ramsey Bolton. Did you realize that that the longstanding many child siring quarterback of the San Diego, Philp Rivers. Is himself a bastard from the Stormlands? Did you realize that? That never occurred to me. So in that commercial where they're like, Philip Rivers, like, he's really, owning his destiny. Yeah, he is. He doesn't need to be legitimized as a Barathean, right? What would you like to see from next week's episode that would make you feel a little bit?

Or would you say that you're genuinely, like, at peace with how this is going? What I appreciate is I still don't really know where it's going. You can't really ask for more in a story like this, the ability to be surprised. I really locked into the episode at the midway point last night. We have been more critical than we have another week. There was never a point where I was taken out of it.

It was only in retrospect, looking back through it. There was a couple of moments of, especially when Regal got shot out of the sky, it was just kind of like, why are we doing it this way? And I was especially upset or not pleased with the fact that they cut away from the Stark's exchanging that

incredibly important family defining piece of information. I mean, the best you could say about that is it, I would think that it was like a scandal or something. But that it guarantees there's another Stark scene to come. You know, one would think. We don't know. I assume so. I assume we are going to see them again, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure that we'll ever see Sam and Gilly again.

I'm not sure that we'll see, you know, like that, those felt like goodbyes. Yeah, it's hard to imagine how they figure into it unless, you know, we end the show, like the wire would end each season with like a stirring. with like a stirring Steve Earle song and we do an around the world montage. Just ghost listening to Marin north of the wall. Yeah. I think, I mean, I'm concerned.

Like, there are a lot of like, you know, red pill podcasts out there. Do you think ghost is going to get like... Radicalize, yeah. I worry about him up there. But at the end, like once, like, my first reaction of the episode, which is maybe we should have started with

instead of ending with, was I am so much more hype for the show when the villains are not CGI. When CERC is the villain of the show, it makes more sense, and it's more compelling, and it's more exciting. And once things started to fracture, again, we've just spent, you know,

45 minutes plus arguing over the nature of the fractures. Yeah. But this is also pulled back all the way the type of storytelling that they've committed to. And so they're going to have to do these micro-fractures, or even larger, I guess, to get us to the game board that they're interested in for this final,

whatever it's going to be. And I was surprised by the dragon death. I was excited by the ocean conflict or whatever and everything at the end because these are villains with faces and with personalities and people with history. And they're trying desperately to speed it up so that there are more villains than we realize

that DeNeras might become a villain or whatever. But it feels unpredictable. It feels scary and chancy and compelling again. And for all the criticism the show allows, that's part of the experience. And as you said, there's two more of these left.

And despite an hour of picking nits with you, I'm incredibly excited. Of course I am. We judge this show by a different standard. And I think that we are all experiencing this really unique cultural moment where I think a lot of people are probably processing both

the fact that something that feels very as part of like a collective piece of property. Like I think people feel like ownership over the show and also like a deep affection for the show and probably just don't straight up don't want it out of their lives and feel like

maybe it's being ended too abruptly and that that's not their choice. You know what I mean? I don't know what season 12 of Game of Thrones when maybe people had lost a little bit of interest or actors had been like I demand to leave the show, so you have to write, you know, John off again. I don't know how that would have played out, but I do think that this is sort of the flip

side of that, which is that we're kind of rushing it a little bit, weirdly enough. They didn't, you know, in many ways this show bridges the gap from, we've talked many ways about how it bridges the gap from the way we were watching TV, to the way we will be watching TV. And one of the biggest ways is they didn't know when they were going to end it. So the pacing and the construction is always going to be inexact. You know, they were building the show that they wanted to make. They would be rewarding to the fans of the book and rewarding to people who watch HBO dramas and rewarding to a whole new generation that they were able to connect with.

But when they were making season three, I'm sure it came up. Sure. But there was no conversation about... They maybe thought the book was going to get done. It will be eight seasons. They didn't know. They simply didn't know. And one thing that I'm aware of behind the scenes is this idea of we're going to sign your seven-year contract as an actor.

And it could get canceled after three episodes or it could get canceled after three years or it could run all seven years or even eight years and you negotiate a huge pay raise. Those days seem to be over. The way television storytelling has changed, even if shows are not announced as finite, they are all shows are finite. Sure. And they're being designed as such. Right. There's a beloved show that is coming back for a new season, that this new season is the last season and always was going to be the last season.

And I'm sorry I'm being vague because I'm not supposed to talk about it. But here I am. But I'm just saying that that decision making has affected every aspect of it. Actors only want to sign up for X amount of time and they want to control it. And everything that makes Game of Thrones specifically special about the fact that they do shoot in Belfast and Croatia is also why this is probably an enormously difficult commitment to make. Also, eight years. Yeah. It's not like we haven't had much of it.

It's, I'm just saying that it might, if they had just done 10 episodes each in seven and eight, it might have made the difference. But we were saying this at the end of the last season, too. It got very narrow. There really were only two more things to do. You know, they couldn't introduce. It's two more things, but it's like 17 people that they've got to. And yet, at Winterfell at the beginning of last night's episode,

where we're sort of cutting around a party. scene with our beloved friends who were finally all in the same room. And I wasn't looking at my watch, but I was tapping my foot. Really? I enjoyed it, but I just didn't think that this was what the show does best. You know? Fair enough. The most important takeaway is the one that we struggle with in the nature of what we do here

as podcasters. Do dire wolves listen to podcasts? This is the show. This is the show. Yeah. This is it. Yeah, yeah. There is no alt version that we could pitch or alt-right version that Ghost is listening to right now.

Oh, my God. Red Pill. Greenwald, thanks so much for coming by. Know you next week. Maybe I can call in. I will be away. But come on, it's the penultimate episode. Yes.

Come on. Okay. So hopefully you'll call in. I'll have a co-host, and we'll talk to you soon. Great job.