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Bran and Dany have always been the two most prophesied characters in this story, but this chapter draws the connections more explicitly than ever before. Their journeys could not be more different, but time and time again these two idealistic survivors keep ending up in the same place. The other major presence in this chapter is Ned Stark, as Bran inherits his father’s ghostly spirituality and existential freefall, while George R. R. Martin zooms out just enough to show us all the tragic cycles and patterns that they’re both trapped in.
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Jack White's No Name is officially out in the world, and we're back with another deep dive analysis of this fascinating album. This time, we're exploring symbolism and color theory, dissecting the lineage and tension between the covers of all six Jack White solo albums to ultimately reach a fuller understanding of the provocative, enigmatic No Name.
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Our fourth ‘Targaryen Checkpoint’ is an endless barrage of beautiful and tragic omens. We discuss these eulogies of decay as heralds of what’s to come – for Ned, for King’s Landing, for Winterfell, and for Dany herself. Then we take a closer look at all these Targaryen naming conventions: we’ve got “the dragon”, “the true dragon”, “the blood of the dragon”. What does it all mean? (Spoiler: this whole plotline is a cautionary tale about the entitled evils of monarchy). We close with a discussion of Dany’s defiant and doomed idealism.
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House of the Dragon’s second season has come to an end, and we’re back to investigate the finale for all its strange fascinations and inconsistencies. The elephant in the room here is Game of Thrones Season Eight, but we also dive into this episode’s steadfast resistance to character agency, and all those loose threads that have transformed into mysteries. We close by reacting to the news that HOTD will end with Season Four.
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TIME CODES:
00:00 What worked for you?
10:24 Returning Issues
11:33 Worse than Season Eight?
23:04 The Uncanny Valley
25:34 Storytelling Craft
28:28 Setup or Letdown?
31:04 Character Agency in Peril
40:08 Daemon's Vision Disaster
50:11 Struggling with Halaena
53:21 All About the Writing
56:44 12 Abandoned Plot Threads
01:05:51 Two More Seasons
01:14:54 Successor Shows
01:20:12 Pitch: Aegon's Conquest
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Here's our thesis for this episode: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is about vampires, Grandpa is Dracula, and the rest of the Sawyer family are different shades of Renfield. Oh and the hippies are all Quincey Morris. After we finish mapping Bram Stoker's cast onto Tobe Hooper's masterpiece, we track the unusual role of blood throughout the film to uncover all sorts of vampiric undertones and barbecue bombshells!
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This chapter feels like the mirror image of last week’s Catelyn adventure. Cam starts us off with eight provocative similarities and differences from our new perspective on the Stark/Lannister rivalry. We then work together to evolve last week’s shadowy nature analysis to include a torrential downpouring of rain and bad omens. Gotta cherish our time with Ned before it’s gone!
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This one is fascinating -- Jack White surprise released a new album with no title, only on vinyl, and gave it away for free, for one day. Since then, it has blossomed underground, spreading like wildfire through the music community with the energy of a undiscovered bootleg recording. Oh and it might just be the best work of his career. Our discussion explores the album's exhilarating, non-commercial release strategy, that paradoxically perfect title, and all those glorious throwbacks to the electric early days of The White Stripes -- from lyrical motifs to guitar tones to fearless showmanship and iconic, genre-hopping zeal.
Check out the album here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiMvJylbX3Q
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Seven Episodes into Season Two, Cam has finally seen the matrix — and identified the reason why even this fantastic episode feels so different from Season One. This episode starts with a celebration of David Hancock’s fantastic writing, ranging from GRRM-level one-liners to characterizations so powerful that they feel like full reintroductions. From there, we discuss Rhaenyra’s deliciously slow turn to the dark side and Daemon’s ever-faster descent into madness. We start to close things out with a big ole chat about dragons: how many reptiles would it take to beat Vhagar in a fight? Do riders ever really have control over their dragons? And finally, we revisit Shakespeare to take another look at Alicent / Ophelia.
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George R. R. Martin hits another grand slam home run in this bonanza of literary allusions. Cam charts Catelyn’s treacherous journey to the Eyrie through the lens of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Maggie dissects the many shades and shadows of Tolkienian anthropomorphism in this chapter. And for good measure, we throw in some Sapkowski to make sense of the two characters who feel like narrative preoccupations on every page: Jon Snow and Lady Stoneheart.
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Let's not waste any time here: Oddity scared the bejeezus out of Cam, and this episode is his attempt to figure out why exactly his palms were sweating for ninety minutes. There's an alchemy to this film, a strategic evocation of some of our very favorite (and most terrifying) works of horror. Join us as we work through three of those wicked, masterful elements that make Oddity such a tour de force: The Conjuring, The Haunting of Hill House, and Hell House, LLC.
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00:00 First Impressions
02:10 Longlegs Tangent
03:49 Discussion Framework
05:07 The Conjuring
06:18 The Haunting of Hill House
09:01 Hell House, LLC.
11:45 Closing Thoughts
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This season’s giving us whiplash! “Smallfolk” is a fantastic episode, but there’s something creaking under these floorboards. How much does inconsistency affect audience investment / long term payoffs? From there, we look at the ever evolving role that dragons play in this story, before settling in for another thorough analysis of Daemon and the (possible) grand finale of his dreamy side quest. Cam poses a treacherous, lore-breaking question about Alicent’s future — and we close things out with a discussion about Rhaenyra & Mysaria.
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This chapter sits at squarely the dramatic intersection of philosophy and politics. Cam chases down George R. R. Martin’s shockingly unvarnished critique of power. As a thought experiment, we call King Robert’s bluff and imagine how the series would have ended if this plot against Daenerys Targaryen had been successful. Cam steps out of his comfort zone and into Maggie’s, and we try to compose a Renaissance-esque painting of this chapter’s heroic deconstruction. Maggie examines Robert’s and Ned’s relationship through the lens of control and choices, and aims to understand the point at which Ned’s failure becomes inevitable.
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Cam's swooping in with another mid-week bonus episode! We saw 'Longlegs' again and all of those Doctor Faustus puzzle pieces finally fell into place. He tracks the continuous demotion that sees the seemingly mythical Longlegs character humbled into the traditional Mephistopheles role, before unpacking the film's greatest twist, which splinters and innovates upon the traditional Faustus framework -- which Cam continues to believe is the bedrock of all worthwhile storytelling done in the past 400 years.
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Silence is the pervading theme of this episode. Throughout ‘Regent,’ most of our lead characters are ignored, passed over, or lost for words. Our discussion looks at the many shades and colors of this strategic silence to uncover the subtle, insidious shifts happening as we shift into the back half of the season. Then we break out the Freud to unspool whatever the hell is happening inside Daemon’s head and once again manifest our grand vision for a Viserys cameo. Finally, we examine a sharp, unexpected parallel between Rhaenyra and Aegon — and carefully consider Criston Cole’s dire declaration about the future of the war.
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The hype around Longlegs has been some of the most intense we’ve seen for a horror movie in recent years. And for the first time in a long time, this movie lives up to that hype. After our first impressions, this is an enthusiastic, spoiler-filled discussion that traces the origins and influences of Longlegs – from some of the more obvious comparisons like Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, and Zodiac, to more unexpected classics like Dracula and A Clockwork Orange. Longlegs perfectly remixes these titans of horror into its own, twisted mess, until it becomes a new, terrifying monster.
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We’ve got some peak fantasy in this chapter: dragon skulls, prophetic dreams, climbing through a scary castle – it’s got it all. Maggie starts us off by unspooling Arya’s frightening dreams about the Red Keep, to examine past and future references and ramifications for her character. Cam chases down another curveball Tolkien reference, searching in vain for wizards and Rings that feel conspicuously absent. We close with the kaleidoscopic mystery of Arya’s overheard conspirators.
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House of the Dragon’s mid-season finale certainly delivered the goods. But beneath all the screeching, high-flying dragon combat is a bounty of rich character work and a whole spiderweb of echoes from the long legacy of battle episodes across this franchise. This discussion examines the Battle of Rook’s Rest both within that wider context to find out who really won the conflict, what all those pointed references and inversions mean, and why Cam can’t stop thinking about Stannis Baratheon. We also work together to better understand Daemon’s increasingly surreal side quest and the emerging supernatural element within House of the Dragon!
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Our first full-on adventure chapter delivers unexpected heroes, brutal lessons, and deviously ambiguous echoes. Cam examines the sudden Tolkien riffs within Tyrion’s evolution. Yes he’s wielding an axe, but does that mean GRRM wants us to see him as Gimli, or is something more tricky happening between the lines? Maggie takes a look at the newly introduced shadowcats – as omens, as talismans, as embodiments of the grim realities of heroism in this world.
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I swear we’re not trying to be hyperbolic here, but this was the best House of the Dragon episode yet. The show comes roaring back after last week’s stumble, with some of the most gorgeous fantasy storytelling we’ve ever seen, and more rich & compelling character work than you could shake a Valyrian steel sword at. Discussion topics include: Geeta Vasant Patel’s stunning visual revolution of Westeros, the power of suggestion in character interiority, the grand return of the supernatural via Daemon’s vision, and the show’s greatest / most seamless effort yet to dramatize Fire & Blood.
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For a character who’s so often described as “simple”, Ned is proving time and again to be one of the most rewarding to unpack. We start this discussion with different perspectives on Ned’s current position in the titular “game,” and both walk away with a deeper understanding of him. Is Eddard Stark a stubborn Northman who refuses to play the game? Is he a floundering outsider, desperately clinging to any sense of control he can? Or is he playing his cards close to his chest, learning as he goes and cleverly identifying the right allies? We contemplate these questions and more, through the lens of character echoes, clever word choice, and the harsh irony of this world’s political system.
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