Latest / Pod Save America / “Pod Save The Realm.” (Game of Thrones bonus!)

Transcript

“Pod Save The Realm.” (Game of Thrones bonus!) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save the Realm.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I knew, I was wondering what he was going to do.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: We figured we'd wrap up our Game of Thrones commentary
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: that was sort of impromptu during the last couple Pod
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Save America episodes and talk about the finale, talk about
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the show. We have Priyanka Arabindi here, one American who
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: has binged all of Game of Thrones within a little
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: less than a month so she could make the finale
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: in time. That's so cool.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I'm so proud of you.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I have a few questions. What do you got? What
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: were our initial reactions to the finale? I don't know
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: if I should have started with that one because it
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: can go anywhere, but. Short initial takes.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: I am mostly grateful for eight years of amazing television,
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: and I don't want to be one of those fucking
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: people that just whines about a show, but the finale sucked.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: You know, let's just be real. I mean, like, you
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: agree to suspend disbelief.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: For a show because there are rules that are set
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: up for the thing that's constructed that tie it all together.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: We love Game of Thrones because plot points from season
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: two get tied up in season five, and just none
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: of that happened here, in my opinion.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: So I will say the finale was not the worst
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: episode of the season. The worst episode of the season
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: was the fourth episode, which is the worst episode in
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: the series. I thought that the beginning was actually beautifully made.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And now I'm not going to rehash the Daenerys turn
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: and use that to color this episode. I'm just accepting
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: that and then looking at this episode in its own terms.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: And I thought they did a really great job. I
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: thought seeing her as this other force, this outsider commanding
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: this incredible army with this weapon of mass destruction seeing
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: her in her full Darth Vader mode. I appreciate it.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I liked it. I thought it looked beautiful. I thought
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: they made it work. I thought that what happened with
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Daenerys and Jon made sense. I liked how surprising it
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: was given how early it happened in the episode. I
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: thought it was one of the most beautiful moments in
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the series when the dragon, when Drogon is so overtaken
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: by grief but doesn't want to kill Jon and kind
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: of just sprays the throne. I thought that was Well done.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Destroys a metaphor.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yes. I'm avoiding allowing myself to believe that Drogon finally
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: turned on the abstraction of power, but as represented by
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the chair, I'm taking it as a.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Our pal Andy Greenwald over at The Ringer said, and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: suddenly in that moment, Drogon becomes Bret Stephens. He just
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: becomes a pundit. And he was just like... After all
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: this time, he's eating goats. He's just like, and then
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden he was like, this is a
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: metaphor that I don't like.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: So I took it more of like when like, you know,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: a character doesn't want to punch somebody. So they punched
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: the wall next to that person. That's how I took it.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: That's the interpretation I'm most interested in. But, uh, Then
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the show devolves into a PTA meeting, and holy shit.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: The scene where Khaleesi is at the top of the steps,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: and the dragon takes off behind her, and the wings
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: are momentarily... There were beautiful shots. There were things that
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: were really cool. But yeah, the PTA meeting was... Yeah,
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, I loved the first half.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: I thought that the character arcs for a lot of
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: our favorite characters, with a few major exceptions.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Ended pretty well.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: But.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: The PTA meeting. And I even liked the start of
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the PTA meeting. The start of the council seemed promising.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: And then I just, the Bran thing is, my two
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: major problems with the episode are obviously the choice of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Bran and the choice of how Jon got back to
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the North. I think Jon being in the North at
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the end was a fine place for him to end,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: but how he got there made zero sense. No sense.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: No one gives a shit what Grey Worm thinks.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I just want everyone to know, too, there was a moment.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: No one gives a shit what Grey Worm thinks.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: I also just sort of... What's Grey Worm's mindset? You know,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: he has this prisoner that was taking orders from the
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: prisoner in the PTA meeting. I will say, we had a...
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: So we did a live show at the Anthem in D.C.,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: and then the Anthem graciously agreed to show Game of
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Thrones on the big screen after. So we watched in
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: this empty theater.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Just a couple of us.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Just a couple of us. And it was really great.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Some of the anthem staff.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: And so we all just watched it together, which was
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: very fun. And then when Sam gets up to give
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: his speech about democracy, and for a moment, I was
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: starting to like literally shake with anger that not only
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: was the show going to end with democracy, but that
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: John was going to be right. And I was going
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: to fucking lose it. We were all looking at each other.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: We couldn't believe it. And then when they laughed, I
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: felt very relieved. Now I will say to John's credit,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: They do have... They diminish democracy and then actually introduce
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: a kind of nascent feudal lord selection process, which is
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: better than the.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, this gets.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: The whatever. What's it called when a kid gets it
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: from the parent? What's that called?
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Succession? Sure.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Whatever.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: They do that. Lineage?
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: No, so this gets to my bigger problem with the finale, too. I...
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I wasn't like excited when Sam started giving his, his speech,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I started getting so anxious because I was like, this
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: is the wrong way to do it. Like, because I
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: know the reason I was saying, I said when we
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: were talking about democracy that I thought some vague notion
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: of democracy would come to Westeros is because there is
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: no way, no fucking way that show could have been
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: set up for mass democracy of just people all across
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the realm voting. Like that was silly. And I'm really
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: glad that they made fun of it. And, and, uh,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: it made it seem silly, but where it should have
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: ended up if they were going towards a more democratic direction,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: which they did is, and where I thought they were
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: going to end up is like, I love that sunset
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: gets the North. And then all those other people at
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: the council, uh, gray joy, you are a gray joy.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Iron islands had also previously been independent at one point.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Dorn had previously been independent at one point, by the way,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the new King of Dorn, which is no one knows
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: who he is. He's just like sitting there.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Um, Hey, shout out to the kid from the Eerie
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: who was breastfeeding at age 13 like a total weirdo
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: like three seasons ago.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Turned out that worked out pretty well for him.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's becoming an upstanding young man.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Robin Aaron really turned out well. No, and so, like,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: no one has any objections to Sansa being like, oh,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: by the way, as people on Twitter were calling it,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: she went for a winterfexit. So she goes to the north.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: She gets to be queen. Everyone else is, like, fine.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: And then instead of just having, like, one council and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: then everyone else having like autonomous kingdoms. They're like, no, no, no, no.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Bran's going to take this.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: But here's my problem with like Tyrion gives this speech
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: where he recommends Bran as the leader. And he talks
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: about how that was the vision to break the wheel.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: But in no way is that breaking the wheel. The
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: wheel was the Lannisters are on top, then a Targaryen
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: is on top, then a Baratheon, then a Stark. Getting
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: rid of uh, handing it down to your done like
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: succession or dynastic rule is not the wheel. The wheel
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: is that you have these like mini Kings, these little
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: feudal Lords fighting it out constantly to see who's on
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: the iron throne. So what we do then is we
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: name this weirdo who immediately outsources the role of King
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: to Tyrion to go search for a dragon for some reason,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: who's carrying a corpse still heading East on whatever I 95.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: And then, uh, Tyrion now oversees the realm. And like,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: I'm led to believe that when he dies, or maybe
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: he breaks bad too, they'll just fight it out.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: For the next king.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: I don't think that they introduced democracy in any way.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: I thought your prediction made a lot of sense, and
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: they maybe tried to deliver on that, but they ultimately didn't.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Well, I think Bran is the problem with why they didn't.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: But I disagree. I do think breaking the wheel was,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and Daenerys is very specific when she said it's family
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: after family after family, and then it's handed down through succession. No, no,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: this is the line. Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell, they're
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: all just spokes on a wheel. This one's on top,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: then that one's on top, and on and on it spins,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: crushing those on the ground. I'm going to stop the wheel.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I'm going to break the wheel. To me, you're just
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: rotating the families, not their kids. Yeah, but because Bran
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: can't have kids, the next time they vote, it doesn't
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: have to be another Stark. It can be a family
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: that wasn't one of those families that she lists.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but then I think we're really suspending... whatever Ross
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: is spending disbelief. But then we think that the bunch
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: of feudal lords are going to pick someone outside of
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: that group. To me, that is the wheel. It's just
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: that same collection of people choosing among themselves.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say one more nice thing and then
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: I'm going to fucking lose it. Okay. Last nice thing.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I thought the ending was nice. It looked nice. Now
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: to this insane decision to have it go to Bran
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: and this council. So I am choosing to take a
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: dark ending to all of this. That what we saw
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: is a kind of quiet moment in the this kingdom,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: but what they're actually set up for is just another
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: round of the exact same war.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That's what I think.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: The series began with a king who was disinterested in
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: ruling with no real heirs and a bunch of very
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: powerful houses who decided upon that king's death that the
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: throne belonged to them. That is exactly where we will
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: be when Bran steps down. Now, I think that this
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: episode mostly worked, but the problem is this season has
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: like four mortal sins that are unforgivable and... even though
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I think George R. R. Martin told them where to go,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: that this was just sort of a really, they really
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: mistreated their fans and they really mistreated the world. One, Cersei,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: supervillain of the series, one of the great villains in
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: all television, one of the great female characters in this
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: show that I think was a defense against the criticisms
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: of it being so misogynistic towards a lot of female characters,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: which it certainly was over the years. They had built
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: these incredible female characters. Cersei was given nothing to do
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: this season. A supervillain literally scooching by her enemies as
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: she leaves. Two, if you know, because George R. R.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Martin told you that Bran is the ultimate ruler of
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: this kingdom, give him a fucking personality for the last
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: two and a half years. And then third, mortal sin
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: is the Daenerys term, which I don't think they earned.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: But all of that to me... are the big sins,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: but it hides the smaller problem, which is all of
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: our great characters became so incredibly stupid. Tyrion, who was
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: just in jail for six weeks, we know because he said,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: it's been six weeks, goes and says, here's how you
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: pick a king, guys. You need somebody with a good story.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: That is a subjective reason to pick a king. And
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: they're all like, okay, we're with you. Who has the
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: best story? Is it Arya who killed the Night King?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Is it Sansa who overcame incredible hardships to become a
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: leader in the North? Is it Jon Snow, the rightful
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: heir who rose from the dead? No, it's Bran. And
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: everyone's like, okay, I'm cool with that. But this is
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: what's so frustrating about it. In a show about stories,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: the only expert on who has the best stories is us.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: We all watched it. We are the audience for their stories.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: We are 100% certain that Bran's story is not the
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: best fucking one.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: This is longer than Tyrion's speech. Oh my God. I'm
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: less effective. So, trying to unpack some of that. Yeah,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: so there's a lot of evidence that Martin does believe that,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: you know, or did plan for Bran to be the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: king at the end. He starts the first book from
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Bran's point of view. And there's, you know, book readers
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: will say there's like sort of evidence throughout. You're absolutely right, Lovett. Like,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: if you know that Bran's going to end up the king.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: So there's an argument. Maybe I'll try to make the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: best argument for, even though I don't really believe it,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: for why Bran rules at the end. The real fucked
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: up line that they gave Tyrion is, it's the person
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: with the best story, right? Before that, he does say,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: who better to do this than someone who knows all
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: of our stories, knows our history, knows everything that's ever happened.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And so then you can imagine maybe they do something
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: where it's like, you know, those who don't learn from
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: history are doomed to repeat it kind of trope. And
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: then the person who knows literally every single thing that
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: happened in the realm is useful because they know everyone
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: else's story. But then, so that, maybe they could have
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: done that if they you know, did a better job.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: But to go right from, like, it's the person with
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: the best story, well, you can't say that he has
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the best story. That doesn't make sense.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: But also, in addition to your, what you just said
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: about Bran knowing all of history, he could change it.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: He could travel through time and make Hodor hold the door, right?
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: And so, if this little.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And I've been upset about this for a while. The
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: fact that they did not fucking, that that Hodor thing
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: was just about Hodor?
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: But beyond that, if this silent weirdo could have prevented
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: a genocide, why didn't he? And then, why does that
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: make him the best king?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Right, so.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: And then he smiles like, why do you think I
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: came all this way?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you came all this way to run the... I
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: wanted to tear my hair out. Why do you think
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: I came all this way? I don't know. You were
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: interested in murdering all of King's Landing, you psychopath? You
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: little goth weirdo?
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I have to say, it doesn't bode well for Branton's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: governance that his first act as king is... blatant nepotism
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: by allowing his sister to rule the North and no
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: one else gets to.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: And rat fucking his brother.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Because Grey Worm wants him to, to go defend a
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: wall that shouldn't exist anymore because we were all told
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: the Night King was dead because we saw Sansa, you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: shiv the guy five minutes ago.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: We have no idea. What happened to those kids in
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: the north that make Night Kings? Where are they at?
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: What happened?
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Caster's kids, yeah. I wanted some kind of blue eyes
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: at the end there because they made a big deal
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: in that episode way, way back of Caster's kids of
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the Night King giving a baby blue eyes, which is not,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: you know, changing a dead person into a white. That's
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: like something we hadn't seen before. Oh, yeah. I forgot
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: about that. But that meant nothing. None of it. That never...
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: What is the three-eyed fucking raven?
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Six episodes of Finale, two of them were chit-chat, setting
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: up characters in their final moments with each other who
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: then didn't die and continued to have moments after. By
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: the way, it's another sort of like the craziest fans.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: First of all, a lot of fan fiction dialogue where
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: characters are constantly referencing things they said in old seasons.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: which we remember cause it was in a lot of trailers,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: but why would they, they're constantly referring to things they
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: said to each other years earlier, whatever. And then you
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: make Braun who punched him in the face and threatened
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: him with a crossbow like three and a half hours ago. Like, yeah,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: you're in charge of the money. He's a thief. He's
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: a thief and a murderer. He's a, he's, he's brought
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: on the cutthroat and now he's in charge of the money.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Makes no sense.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: What do you think the iron bank is thinking right now?
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: They invested all that money in, uh, the Golden Company
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and Searcy and now the whole fucking King's Landing's burned down.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: There is some... They're like Deutsche Bank. There is a
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: debt crisis.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: It's like Lehman Brothers. There's a lot of guys moving
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: their boxes out on wheelie chairs.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: There is a downgraded credit rating for Westeros.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Lannister bond rating is junk.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Can we do favorite parts of the finale? Good things.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Sansa telling Ed Mortali to sit his ass down was fantastic.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe the best part of the whole episode. Uncle, sit down.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: The only thing that made me feel was a weeping
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: CGI dragon, which I don't think speaks well to the
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: rest of the episode, but it was really cool.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Well, it tells you a lot because, first of all,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I think that has something to do with it. We're
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: dog owners, and so we're a little sappy about stuff
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: like that. But what does it say that so many
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: people suddenly felt sympathy for Drogon's in that moment. Yeah,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: love its face right now. It's feeling a lot of sympathy.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: But yet we're all like, how could Daenerys have done that?
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I know. He just literally killed, he mass murdered an
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: entire city.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I was struck.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: But it was, it was very moving. It was very moving.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I was just struck by how dirty, how they did
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Drogon so dirty. Like, this poor dragon, one of three
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: magical creatures, impossible, not seen in hundreds of years. One
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: of his siblings dies in, Because of a dumb fucking
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: expedition to do show and tell with Cersei that came
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: to nothing. Another one dies because they didn't look forward.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Look ahead. Because the camera didn't look forward. No one
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: else looked forward. And then your mom dies because she
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: has a weird character turn that wasn't fully justified. And
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: now you're alone. And it's just like, Drogon, I'm sorry
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: for what happened to you. I'm sorry that no one
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: treated dragons with the respect that they deserved. And I
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: hope you find happiness in, you know, Volantis or wherever
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: you go.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Where is he going? I like that we have basically
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: just Bran's first order of business is to deal with
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon that is just roaming around the realm.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: He's like, fuck this, I'm going solo.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: So I believe.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Fuck Destiny's Child, I'm out of here.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: I do think Dan and Benji and I were discussing
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: this after the finale. There was an immediate nerd conference call.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: to discuss every episode, and Dan felt very strongly.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Pretty sad that I missed that dial-in.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: You didn't... Is Jon on mute? We were discussing the
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: fact that it seems like when Bran goes to Warg
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: to find the dragon, that there seems to be... There
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: could have been a moment where he successfully found the dragon,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: and we saw some kind of cliffhanger, because my view
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: of the end of the series was that we were
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: going to get a sense of these characters as the
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: legend's that they were in a world where magic was gone.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: And that basically happens, right? They present literally a song
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: of ice and fire. I like that they're like midway
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: through the episode. The magic of gone thing didn't happen
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: at all. There's no magic left in the world. The
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: dragons are gone. The Night King's gone.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: The dragons are still roaming around.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Well, maybe. The dragon went off east. It's sort of.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: We don't, yeah. I mean, Bran's warging. There's all the,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, except for the Night King dying, all the
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: magic that had been in the world in the past
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: is in the world. The Faceless Men are still running
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: around somewhere.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I'm just specifically, like, right now in the realm, there
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: are no dragons. There's no threat from the Night King.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: They present a copy of George R. R. Martin's Game
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: of Thrones for a signature.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: They open it up.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, look, George signed this, which I thought was fine.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I love that Tyrion wasn't in there.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Which doesn't actually make any sense.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense, but it was funny.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: They fought a war for Tyrion.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: There was some funny stuff.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: But the series sort of ends like, you know what?
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: We're kind of back where we started. I kind of
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: appreciate that. Which made me think that we were going
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: to get a shot of a dragon saying like, yep,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: this is going to come back. The dragons are going
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: to come back. All the dangers of the world.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Are still there. Laying eggs somewhere.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Laying eggs. That's what I thought. I thought we were
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: going to see some fucking dragon eggs. Because every season
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: of Game of Thrones, I think pretty much, correct me
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: if I'm wrong, I think literally every single season has
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: ended with a meh. And this was the only one
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: that doesn't. So I was a bit frustrated. And it
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: did feel like an odd moment because Bran just sort
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: of rolled out of the room saying, I'm going to
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: go look for a dragon. End of Bran character.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I liked the conversation between Jon and Tyrion. They talked
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: about love being the death of duty and duty being
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the death of love and all that kind of stuff.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Because that kind of conversation is what I wanted more
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: of in the last couple episodes. One of the things
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: they did, and this gets to the Cersei problem, is...
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: both Danny and Circe stopped being point of view characters
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: in the last couple episodes. And so you didn't see
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: from their perspective why they were making the decisions they did,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: why they were doing the things they did. And so
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: that's like Circe's standing there with a, you know, glass
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: of wine sort of watching the destruction of the city.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: It would have been great for her to have Circe
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: have a few more conversations with someone. I mean, she
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: had sort of bad characters around her by the end.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: She's a mute giant. Yeah, exactly. So that's probably why.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: But like, you know, maybe her and Jamie talking more
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: about like, how she lost the kingdom, what, you know,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and then, and Dany especially, you would have, I wanted
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to hear Dany talk a little bit more about why
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: she did what she did, because we heard it between
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Jon and Tyrion, that you sort of wanted to hear
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: it from Dany herself, and it was a good scene
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: with Jon, I mean, I think Emilia Clarke played those
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: scenes fantastically, because she wasn't, she didn't show that she
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: was totally mad at all, it was like half political calculation,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: half mad, like there was a lot of mix, and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: she sort of played it well but I would have
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: liked to hear her explain a little bit more why
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: she did what she did.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: You know it reminds me a little bit of how
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Mad Men ended in that double spoiler I'm not going
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: to spoil anything on Mad Men but in the final
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: scenes of Mad Men the final scenes of Mad Men
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: there were just these moments where it was like hey
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: get our fucking main characters together. I want to see
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Peggy and Don. What are we doing? Why are they
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: all gone? Why are they all thrown to the wind? Like,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: show me my characters together, these people that I love.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Well, they did that at the PTA meeting, and it
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: didn't work.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah. They did it at the PTA meeting.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: They also did it at the top of the steps where, like,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: Arya just kind of sort of saddles up next to Jon.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Like, hey, what's going on?
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Well, she's given a psychotic speech in Dothraki about how
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: she's going to massacre the world.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Stay tuned. Where was the white horse? What happened to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the stupid white horse? I know, a lot of things
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't introduce.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: I just, but also just, you know, Cersei talked to Dan,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: like another, these moments of these characters having their final conversation.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: And it really felt like, you know, they ended up with,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: they had this arc that they had designed for this
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: final six episodes to just sort of wrap it up
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: and just be done with this series. And there was
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: no point in which anyone said, hey, we're not there yet.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: This isn't done. This is under, this is a half-baked fucking... cake.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Here danny doing what she did makes sense but they
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: introduced ambiguity about whether she was the 50 of her
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: family that is nuts or whether she did it for
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: some political reason or whether she felt betrayed and we
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: never answered that question and.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I think it would have been yeah that's the most interesting.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Part of the show are these very complicated characters like
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: a jamie lannister who we've loved we've hated we've gotten
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: kind of back into but he ends by being a
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: a total prick and To what's her face?
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Brienne.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Brienne and running back to his sister. You know, it's like,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: it's a complicated, fun character.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Jon, who's the other sort of, besides Bran,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: was my biggest question of the finale. Like, so Jon
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: is the one true heir to the throne. A fact that,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: a secret that a lot of people know now because
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Sansa spilled the beans. He... was instrumental in if not
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: he didn't kill the night king but getting everyone to
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: focus on the dead and the night king he then
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: kills Daenerys who's like a threat to the realm and
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: uh and basically they're like yeah you know what Grey
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Worm's a little pissed Yara Greyjoy said she uh she
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: was uh bending the knee to Daenerys so uh we
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: gotta send you out of here even though you're brother
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: is the new king and Sansa rules the north, we're
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: going to send, like.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: And no one's even going to raise it. No one's
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: even going to be like, wait, hold on.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: He's actually the.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Point of order.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Like, if they had said, even if they had said, like, look,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: we can't have another Kingslayer or Queenslayer as king. And
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: so you have to, you know, like, They didn't even
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: give a good explanation for why he needed to go north.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Again, Grey Worm and all his people are going to
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: die and not reproduce because they got their jennies cut
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: off a long time ago, right? So he's not someone
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: I would sweat. Also, Jon Snow's only reaction to literally
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: everything this whole season was.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Furrowed brow and a sniff.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so sad.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: His character went from legitimately someone you rooted for and
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: interesting to just boring and annoying.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: And like, look, okay.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Maybe we were set up to believe that he was
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: in love with Daenerys, and then that's why watching her
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: torch infinity small children was what didn't turn him in.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: He needed to hear from Tyrion that he was the
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: rightful heir and that.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: She was bad. Whatever.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: But we've been set up to believe that so many
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: of these characters are in love with Khaleesi throughout the season. Like,
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: for a while, Peter Dinklage was in love with Khaleesi.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: That was a whole thing we thought was set up.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: He sort of says that at the end to Jon, too.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought that trying to convince Jon was like
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: trying to convince one of your friends that their significant
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: other is really bad for them. Jon knew it. Jon
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: knew it through that whole conversation, but he couldn't really
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: get there. But then he got there because he stabbed
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: her in the heart.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: At least, look, Jon Snow benefited this season from the
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: fact that he's been dumb since season one. So he
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: didn't get dumber. He's actually the only character in the
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: show that didn't get dumber. like didn't lose like 30
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: IQ points between season six and season eight. Tyrion got
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: real dumb. Tyrion got incredibly dumb. Poor fucking, poor Varys.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Poor Varys is like the smartest guy, you know, slinking
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: around King's Land and playing chess, figuring things out. And
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: he's like, I got a plan.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: At least he got his, at least he got his
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: told you so through Tyrion at the end. I like that.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Small comfort to a burnt corpse.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Well, he did try to kill her, you know.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: But in the lamest way possible. He walked around being like,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: he got, look, I got a weird. He had a
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: kid trying to poison her. I got a weird vibe
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: off her eyes. But, but like, sending out the ravens,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: telling Tyrion his plan. So Varys has a big plan
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: to kill Daenerys, and instead of just doing it, he
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: tells Tyrion, and then Tyrion, one of the heroes of
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: the show, the smartest man in the realm, overcame all
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: of the adversity he faced in his life, walks up
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: to Daenerys and went, Varys is trying to kill you,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and I think it's bad. That was the end of Varys.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: They did Varys wrong. They did Varys wrong.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: I don't agree with that one. Biggest unanswered questions. Biggest
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: unanswered questions, everything about Bran. Yeah. What is he going
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: to do? What are his powers, which we still don't know.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Why was he just laying in wait this whole time?
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: And if he was waiting to be king, why is
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: he outsourcing it to Tyrion? Who are the fucking children
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: of the forest? What is the deal with the three-eyed raven?
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Why did the Night King turn out to be such
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: a little punk who couldn't win anything?
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, that to.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Me was really, in looking back at the whole series,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: I would have loved if the ending was all the
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: various realms coming together and to fight the Night King,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: and that's how we find some sort of democratic accommodation.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I think it would have been a better battle. It
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have rushed us through this seemingly invincible enemy with
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: one little, you know, tiny stab. Aria didn't get to
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: do anything cool in the finale.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think about Aria the Explorer?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: I like it. I actually think where the characters land,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I actually like the shots of behind each of our
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: characters kind of cut between. I thought it was a
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: beautiful and poignant idea that, like, we end up with
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: a Stark to the north and a Stark to the south,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: and A Stark to the west and in some sense
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: a Stark to the east because Bran is warging to
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: find the dragon. So I found that poignant and made
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: sense to me. It was just that the speed with
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: which we got there.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: But like it makes sense, I guess, that given all
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: she's been through, Arya is so broken inside that she's like,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: get me out of here. I'm getting on a ship
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: and I'm just going away. But like her family doesn't
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: give a shit. They're like, all right, peace.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I guess they're just used to having her not around
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: for a while. Like, I was trying to think of where...
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: She's not an indoor cat. I was trying to think
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: of where Arya could have been. Like, does it make
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: sense for her to be Sansa's hand to the queen?
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: That's just not her, you know? Does it make sense
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: for her, obviously, to be with Gendry, a new lord
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: of whatever he's lord of? You know, I think it
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: made sense for her. I think it made sense for
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Jon to be in the north. The ending I would
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: have liked to have seen is Jon gets the throne...
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: because he is... We've been told the entire series... But
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I don't want it. We've been told the entire series
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: that the person who gets the throne should be, like,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the rightful heir. He is the rightful heir to the throne. He,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: you know, leads the world against the Night King. He
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: kills Dany. And then he could have said that he
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: didn't want it. He wanted to go to the North.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Makes the choice to go to the North, and then leaves...
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Bran and the rest of them as a council.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Or leaves it to Sam, who then, as king, implements
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: his democracy idea.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Whatever.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of other ways. It would have been
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: cool for Jon to make the choice at the end,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: as opposed to basically them making the choice for Jon
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: because Grey Worm is pissed. Grey Worm's like, shut up, criminal.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: And then three minutes later, it's like, oh, that speech
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: convinced everybody. It's also bizarre that Tyrion is a prisoner
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: because he supposedly committed treason. But Bran makes him Hand
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: of the King after he gives a speech and Jon
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: is sent away.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Why does Tyrion get a... It's like, I will give
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: you the ultimate punishment, being the second most powerful person
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: in all the land. Wow, that was dramatic irony.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Being Hand to Bran the Broken King, that actually might
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: be the best punishment.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I was definitely thinking.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: That is pretty brutal.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: When he introduces him, if there was Twitter in Westeros when.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: When Tyrion goes, I introduce you Bran the Broken, everyone
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: would be like, excuse me, why are you identifying him
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: that way? That is so unfair to him. Actually, I
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: was like, Bran the Broken? Fuck you, you saved the
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: whole thing. How about Bran the Vision, Bran the Seer? No,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Bran the Broken, because a dick pushed him out of
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: a window a decade ago? Fuck you, Bran the Broken.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Can we brainstorm? Can we come up with a better
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: fucking name than Bran the Broken?
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: There's no detail too small. for you well.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: It's just Bran the Broken like I guess it rhymes
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: like Bran the Brave Bran the Survivor.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: The early episode like cripples bastards broken things and then
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: there's like a play on the broken wheel I think
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: that's why they called them that I still don't know
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: why every king needs a nickname it's better than Condon.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Also, didn't they say in it, like, well, Bran can't
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: even have kids. Didn't they say that in that moment?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: And I was like, that is such a specific fucking thing. Like,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: how the fuck does Sansa know? What a weird thing
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: to know. There were so many things they just sort of, like,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: say in passing. And then the other thing is like, well,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: we need some place to send criminals, so we're going
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: to have a night's watch to what? Dick around and
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: dig holes? What the fuck?
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: And the Night's Watch crew was just a bunch of
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: little kids running north.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I was wondering where they were going north from.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Why were there so many little children? Giant Spain never
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: gets to meet Brienne and have a nice moment with her.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Clearly the one she should have chosen. Brianne ends by
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: just sort of like writing a love letter to the
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: guy that dumped her.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't mind her writing Jamie's Wikipedia entry. I did
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: love the memes about that were some of the best
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: on Twitter, especially when the one that just showed her adding,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: he was also a fuck boy.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: I found that really moving. I felt, I thought Gwendolyn Christie,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: I thought she did such a wonderful job in a
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: moment that could have been really maudlin and kind of
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: against the character to kind of, she really did it.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: With such like. It did make sense for her character.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Well I just think it could have come across as
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: sort of like I don't know pathetic but it wasn't
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: it was I thought she did it with sort of
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: real she just carries herself so well in that character
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: even though the character itself was given this 30 minute
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: fucking dumb thing which was not which was just so
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: rushed god damn it.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Let's get someone up here who has binged the entire
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: series of Game of Thrones over the last couple weeks
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: to get a perspective. Crooked Media's own Priyanka Arabindi is here.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: She's been tweeting about it. There's been a wonderful thread
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: on Twitter from Priyanka. Hey, Priyanka, how's it going? Good.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: How are you guys?
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: You're like the Seth Abrams of Game of Thrones threads.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: How long is that thing?
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: No. Oh, no.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: That is pretty long. Oh, hi, Pundit. Hi.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, binging this show was really interesting because there were
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: very few things that, big twists, I guess, that you
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: probably all were very surprised by. Like, I knew a
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: lot of things going in just because everyone, that one
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: was interesting because I knew it was going to happen,
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: but I didn't really know any of the context. So
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: that was one of the actual surprises of this show.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Because you were tweeting, like, whoa, that scene was terrible.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I was like, oh, holy shit, that's
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: the Red Wedding.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: That's what you guys were talking about. But there was
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: so much that I, like, knew about beforehand. So that
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: informed my perception of the characters. And even as this
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: season was going along, I don't know, like I had
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: the inkling that Danny goes bad because that was what
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: everyone was talking about at work. So it was like, okay,
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: I was behind, but kind of.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: And we talked about politics. We didn't just talk about that.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: We didn't just talk about that scene.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Did it make you feel crazy being in that world
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: for that many hours.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: In a row?
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: No, actually. I have binge tips. I mean, I feel
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: like I really did it on weekends. And the first
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: week was really strong. So I got through like three
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: seasons in one week.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: What did you think about it? The whole series? Okay.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: So my like hottest take, I think, is that I
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: wouldn't have stuck with it if I wasn't binging. I
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: think there are definitely peaks. There are a lot of
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: valleys that you got to get through. And there's like
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: so much exposition.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: It's really cool. I appreciate it.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: You know, like, what goes into creating this world. And
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: at the end, it, like, really is this huge epic.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Like, that's amazing.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: But there were so many storylines and things that I was, like,
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: my phone's coming out.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: I'm bored.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Did you think we maybe spent a little too much
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: time in Dorne?
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God. Dorne, I actually wasn't bothered by. Stannis Baratheon,
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: I was like, no, I'm out on this. Sam and
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: Gilly could not care less.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Could not care less.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: They were just, like, Like time went really slowly for
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: stretches and then like the pace rapidly accelerated. So when
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: people kind of got annoyed, I feel like towards the end,
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: maybe this was just in the.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Point of the season eight that you guys were in.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: I felt people being like, I don't like this or
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: like the latest couple seasons were weird or different or off.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: I was kind of like, oh, the action's picking up
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: starting by the end of season six. So I was like,
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: I'm in on this. Battle of the Bastards, cool.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating to me because it is funny that the
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: main critique of, or one of the big critiques at
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Game of Thrones throughout the seasons is there'd be a
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: lot of people who are like, why are we following
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the storyline? It's so boring. There's not enough action. And
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden in And the end of 6, 7,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: and 8, it's all action. And everyone's like, it's too fast!
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Which both might be true, but it is interesting how
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: it's switched. It does speak to the rules issue.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: If you're going to make this season-long journey from south
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: to north, and then all of a sudden you're there
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: in 15 minutes, it's just annoying.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: They were warping around that map by the end.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: It's really interesting to hear your perspective on this, because
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: I think for a lot of people, certainly for the
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: three of us, We don't have a lot of appointment
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: TV in our life, but this became that.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: So you get together with friends and you order food
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: and you have a drink and you hang out and
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: it becomes a thing.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: You look forward to and love. I had my one
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: night of that and it was very fun.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh, I wish I had been around
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: for a couple more episodes of this.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we do need– it is now– we are in
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: need for a show and I think what a show
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: like this is, it has to be violent enough to
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: keep us engaged but smart enough that we don't feel
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: guilty and then we can all watch it together. Mm-hmm.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: What were your favorite moments from the series? Then we
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: can talk about everyone's favorite moment from the series. Wow,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: the series.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: That's tough. I mean, I liked the action. There were
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: things where I feel like anything that was a surprise
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: to me just because there were so many, like, I
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: knew it was coming with Jon Snow. Like, I knew
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: it was coming with Ned Stark, even in the beginning. Like,
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: that was the big one where people were like, weren't
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: you so, like, shocked? And I was like, no, I've
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: known that for years. Just existing in the internet and, like,
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: around makes this show really hard to watch. And I
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: wonder how people coming in now, like I feel like
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: you're not going to be able to.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Once the shock value is gone.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: What is that?
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: But I don't know. My favorite moments probably were like
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: those big epic battle scenes. Less so the last one
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: because the last one you're just like, what's happening?
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: Although when all the torches go out, that is like
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: one of the better moments in the whole series, I think.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: When the torches go out. Which, where? In the final
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: battle against the Night King. Oh. When all the torches
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: are skipping. That one was crazy. It's very cool. That
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: is very cool. That was wild. I think that seriously
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: blowing up the sept is that. That episode, which I
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: think is Winds of Winter, the last episode of season six,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: is probably my favorite episode. It's an awesome one.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: The end of that season was when I was like, oh,
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: this is why I've been watching this show. Like, finally,
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: we're getting to.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Learn John's parentage. Seriously, I mean, a lot of things
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: start clicking in that last episode, I thought.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: You know, there's an article in Scientific American by Zeynep Tufekci,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: which I think everyone should read. I believe Michael sent
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: it to me because he thought I would like it.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: He was correct. But What she makes this point is
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: that what made Game of Thrones special in the first
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: six seasons was that it was a sociological show, not
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: a psychological show. And part of the reason the show
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: was so exciting and different and engaging and part of
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: what George R. R. Martin did was kind of overturn
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: these tropes. And the way he did it was this
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: isn't a show about the individual journeys of characters and
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: their psychological experience of the world. It's about systems and
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: the architecture of power to the point where you can
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: have someone like Ned Stark who thinks he's doing everything
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: right And then Littlefinger turns to him, grabs him and says,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: you shouldn't have trusted me. Or you can have someone
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: like Cersei go after someone like the Tyrells and you have,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: I know, you've just watched it. Margaery, you can have
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Margaery Tyrell. So when you love and root for who
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: knows what's going to happen and deserves a chance to
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: fight back and fucking figured it out. And she still
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: gets blown up in the sept because that's just how
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: this world worked. And that's who had the power in
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: that moment. And it was what allowed characters to die
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: in the Red Wedding and the show still feel like
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: it could move forward and how heroes could be cut
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: down in the middle of their stories. And then it
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: shifts in its final season and a half and it
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: becomes a much more traditional psychological show, which I think
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: is in some ways, in addition to the pacing, why
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: it was so unsatisfying and why those early moments are
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: so captivating because now it's just a show about these
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: hero arcs and their own personal journeys and their own
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: transitions and stopping them or helping them. And that to
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: me made it feel a bit more ordinary in the end.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think, to the extent that this is
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: a show about politics and power and political power, you know,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Martin sort of asked the question throughout the show, what
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: makes a good leader, right? Because who should win the
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Game of Thrones? And he actually goes through with all
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: these characters the different qualities in a leader. Like, is
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: it honesty and forthrightness? Well, no, Ned Stark gets his
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: head cut off, right? Is it, and then he talks
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: about all the things that, you know, like, love, right? Like,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: sort of ended up the death of Robb Stark and
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Jamie Lannister and many other characters, right? Like, Is it
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: someone with the right ideology? Is it like a revolutionary
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: like Daenerys? Maybe that's the person who's going to free people. Well,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: you have to be careful about revolutionaries because sometimes they
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: get too much power and that's corrupting too. So he
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: kind of goes... And basically his answer at the end is.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Go fuck yourself.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Well, the answer at the end is there's no right human...
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: There's no right quality for leadership of one person because
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: when you give too much power to one person, there's
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: a problem, you know? But then... The problem is, and
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: then because Bran, he ends up with Bran as the leader,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: and Bran's not really human. What is Bran? Bran's just
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: this fucking weirdo who's basically like the Wikipedia entry for
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: all of the realm.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: And at some point he's going to become a tree,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: I guess? When does he become a fucking tree?
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. When does he become a tree?
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: But it was, at its best, and a lot of
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: these conversations were with Tyrion and Dany or among the
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Lannisters or people like that, were conversations about power and
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. And You're right that at the end,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: because it had to wrap everything up, we didn't get
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of that. And so it sort of went
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: a little quick, you know?
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: I think my favorite parts were just the character developments
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: that happened over a long time. Like, I remember feeling
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: genuinely emotional about the Hodor, hold the door arc. I
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: thought that Tyrion and Jaime's little, like, bro love fest.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: In the end was a genuinely moving. That was a
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: great scene.
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: It was amazing to watch where they like, especially this
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: is all really fresh in my mind. It's like a
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: month ago for me, but like to watch season one
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: and be like, Oh, you hate them season one. And
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: it's like kind of amazing to watch those characters. Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Early on when Khaleesi was transitioning from the horrible situation
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: with the Dothraki to being the boss that was beloved
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: and like on the up, that was an exciting fun
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: time where you wanted to root for her and everyone
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: had a favorite for a while.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: And you're like, fuck yeah, Khaleesi's gonna win this thing.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I watched them all leading up to
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: this too and it was amazing to go back and
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: watch the very first episode because you really see how
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: much was set in motion in those first moments and
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: it's partly why this ending is so disappointing. You meet
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: all the wolves, you meet this whole world, you kind
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: of are introduced to all these characters and then you
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: watch them really change and grow which you've never seen
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: on a show before, not like this. And, like, that's,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: you know, one of the most poignant moments to me
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: is when Sansa hugs Theon.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Of all people. Yeah.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Because you actually don't know what her reaction is going
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: to be to him. And she's genuinely happy to see him.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, another moment I think do captures
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: the show is Arya getting so close to seeing her
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: family right before the Red Wedding. That was awful. And
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: the Hound grabbing her and saying, it's already over. They're dead.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: You know, we gotta go. Because it did capture the
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: kind of tragedy of this world where you're not in
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: control of your destiny, that there are forces larger than
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: you that are operating this world. And then, you know,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: that is something I do. Like, I hope people take
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: that in how I would like to see more of that.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: I do think that that's why Game of Thrones was
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: ultimately so successful beyond all the magic and the expense
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: and everything else is that it really did say what
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: happens if we explore a world where the politics actually
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: dictates outcomes the way it does in our actual world.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: And it's not just about heroic individuals.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: And that it's always messy. And it's messy. And that's
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: what I did. even though getting there was a mess
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of weird parts about the finale,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Tyrion and the small council sitting around the table at
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the end, basically having what EJ, who works here at
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media, called infrastructure week. So they're just talking about
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: the sewers and this and how they're going to fix
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: all this. I liked it because it basically, I mean,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: as you were saying, Lovett, maybe all this bad stuff
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: happens again now with Branis King, right? Which they leave
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: as very possible. It's not like a, it's not a
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: happy ending in that like, you know, now politics is
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: going to be wonderful in the realm, right? But it
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: does go to show that, like, there is just the
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: messy business of governing that they get to that is, like,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: not that sexy, that they're all just trying to work
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: things out, and that they're fallible, and they're probably going
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: to fuck up again.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: And that makes it all the more powerful and poignant,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: where in a world where being a hero doesn't always count,
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: that individuals actually still can move things and shape things,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: even despite the power system. Actually, the thing that's on
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: right now that I think it's odd, but Chernobyl, which
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: is hard to watch, but really worth watching, actually explores
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: a lot of this in the same way, like individuals
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: in a broken system in which the system is dictating
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: all kinds of heinous outcomes are trying their best to
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: help people and be human in a communist Soviet system.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: And so I just, it's interesting to see other explorations
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: of that same theme, but I do think it's actually
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: part of this moment in Peak TV where We're seeing
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: people try to find other ways to tell stories because
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: we're so saturated by so many different versions of the
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: anti-hero overcoming the odds because they're trying to sell drugs.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: And it also is a show that we've had heroes
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: for a long time in television. Then we had sort
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: of the anti-hero.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: Era.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: And this is a show that said no one is
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: purely evil or purely good. And that everyone has some
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: evil and some good in them. And the fact that
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: we can go from hating characters... You know, like Jamie
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Lannister pushes Bran out of a fucking window. And at
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the end we're like, this ending wasn't good enough for Jamie.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: We love Jamie. Theon went on a journey too.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Theon too.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: That's really good storytelling that you can actually feel for
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: these people. And then Daenerys went the opposite way. I
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: saw Theon getting lunch in West Hollywood. No big deal.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: That's cool.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Didn't say hi, didn't want to bug him.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: We saw, yeah, we saw, whenever we were on Chelsea
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Handler's show, we saw Sam.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was so nice.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Little did he know, his pitch for Democracy was he
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: scoffed at like a Mitch McConnell profile.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Who's the guy who said, maybe my dog will vote
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: for people, too?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: That was Uncle.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Uncle Aaron.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Uncle Tarly.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Uncle Tarly.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Who got shot down given his fucking, I'm a general,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I have experience. That was so funny. That was great.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: The fact that, given that speech was ridiculous, the fact
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: that Sansa told him to sit down was so fucking great.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: It was perfect. The speech, yeah. It felt like a,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: you know, JJ speech. It was good. Any last thoughts
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: from everyone? Oh, yeah.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: I'm, my biggest, sounds lame to say this is my
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: biggest gripe with the whole series is Do you remember
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: the period of time where the dragons were, like, in
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: the catacombs and it seemed almost like Daenerys was, like,
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: scared of them.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Because she couldn't control them?
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: They killed one kid. They killed the kid.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Came a long way. She couldn't really, yeah.
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: We never got to see, like, how she actually trained
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: them or got them to do what she was saying.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: That's, like, I don't know.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: She seemed fairly in control of them. She just kind
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: of ends up on their back at one point and, like,
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: she's flying them around and directing them, like, There was
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: a point in time where they took no direction and
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: we saw nothing about how they.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: In my mind, they were teens. Yeah, but like... Like
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: angsty little acne teens.
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and then they just kind of like, we're like, okay, cool.
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: We're going to shift to like Sam or whatever story
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: is irrelevant. And then we come back and they're like, okay, fine.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Like, we're good.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: They do what they say.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: Also, arrow avoidance went from very hard to very easy
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: and we never really learned why.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Yep. But then they figured out how to burn a
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: throne down. Yeah. And then he just flew off with
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: his dead mom.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: I also don't, you know.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, then fire melts stones and knocks them over like
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: a hose.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the variable, the elastic quality of dragon powers and
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: dragon strength was definitely frustrating. But I tried to put
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: that aside because there were so many other things that
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: were worse.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Any other final thoughts?
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: I want to say something nice about the show. I do. Like,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: I loved Game of Thrones. And it actually really bothered me.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: People were like, I can't believe you guys love this
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: show so much. Why do you care so much?
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Like, I liked it.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: I thought it was a cool show.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Is that a straw man? Who says that? People, you know,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: there's like the Twitter voice.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: They're like, are you guys done watching your Dragon show now?
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: You're in your mentions too much.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's very overwhelming.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: People love this show.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Dragon, didn't you hear he took Twitter off his phone?
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I thought he put it back on. It's back.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course it is. But no, it really is.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: And I know I made fun of them a bit.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: But like, Game of Thrones was an incredible achievement. And
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: it does, it is worth like, even though I think
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: the last season was a fucking disaster, like it was
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: an incredibly difficult and amazing thing that they pulled off.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Like this was an almost unadaptable book and story.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: And I think quite literally since it's not done. Yeah. Yeah.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: It's not even done. And I think probably George R. R.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Martin is struggling to give it an ending that it deserves.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: So I, I do do think that they did something
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: incredible and it is an incredible world that they built
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: and I loved it and I'm glad I got to
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: watch it and we should all find something to watch
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: together again.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think that part of the reason that
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: you hear so many complaints and It's because people care
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: about the show so much. If people didn't care about
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: it or love the show, no one would give a
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: shit if things didn't make sense. Right. Yeah.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: We love these characters. We wanted it to tie up
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: in a way that felt smart and creative. And I
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: think kind of paid off our fandom over the course
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: of a decade. And I don't think it delivered on
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: the latter point. And that's why people are a little bummed.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: But I loved the show, too. I'll never regret watching
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: the show.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: No. I loved it. And I could see myself watching
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the whole thing again in a couple years.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Wow. Binge.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe not as... Fast as Priyanka did, but I could
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: get into it again. I'd love to go. I almost
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: want to go back and read the books. As you know,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I don't read, so that's probably not going to happen.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: I am going to read the books. If George R. R.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Martin finishes the books, I'm going to read the books,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: but I'm not going to read the books until another
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: book comes out.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: That's smart.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Because I'm not going to do that.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: You're going to be sitting there waiting for a couple
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: of years.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not going to do that. Come on, George.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: You're in Santa Fe. Type, type, type. All right.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: That's all the time we have for today. Next episode,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: we go back to talking about American politics.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: But obviously, if you want to help, if you want
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: to get involved, go to votesavewesteros.com slash donate. There's a,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: it's a fuck Jerry fund.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Dragon Mandarin.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: It's because of fuck Lord Jerry.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: It's off the reach. If you want to bring John
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: back to the throne.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Now we have two hours to buy votesavewesteros.com. Did we
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: do it? Find out.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: All right, everyone. Bye.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Bye.