J and I enjoyed last week’s “Stormborn” as it both drove the plot forward at an explosive pace while offering something more for us to chew on as viewers. This week, the pace hasn’t let up — but “The Queen’s Justice,” alas, never digs deeper than the surface. In fact, the episode undercuts the enormity […]
Stark Contrast: Episode 22 “Stormborn”
Game of Thrones hits hard this week in “Stormborn” as major houses begin to band together and devious enemies already begin making their moves. Before we get into the episode itself, J and I open this week’s podcast discussing the controversy around Confederate, a new show recently announced by HBO from the creators of Game of Thrones. […]
Stark Contrast: Episode 18 “No One”
“No One” continues an unfortunate lull in Game of Thrones, a character episode that has as many brilliant moments as it does head-scratching. The plot inches forward for characters like The Hound (Rory McCann) while going almost nowhere for the likes of Brienne (Gwendoline Christie), Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and the Blackfish (Clive Russell). Despite this, we […]
Stark Contrast: Episode 17 “The Broken Man”
This week J and I split on “The Broken Man.” It’s a great episode in many ways, but J lays out some of the same criticisms we discussed for “Blood of my Blood” — repetition, slow plots and hanging threads. I counter that it’s well-written and well-shot (thank cinematographer P.J. Dillon), much like the excellent […]
Stark Contrast: Episode 4 “Sons of the Harpy”
In a slowdown before the second half of the season, “Sons of the Harpy” is light on plot and heavy on setup. Its explosive conclusion—Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson) and Ser Barristan’s (Ian McElhinney) showdown with their eponymous adversaries of the episode—is preceded by more conversation and character work than action. But is that such a bad […]
Stark Contrast: Episode 3 “High Sparrow”
“High Sparrow” picks up where “The House of Black and White” left off, giving us a much better look at The Faceless Men. This episode indicates we’re nearing the second-half spike that we usually see in Game of Thrones as Jon, Tyrion and Sansa’s storylines all leap forward at a healthy pace. J and I comment on the irony […]
