May 2015 – Simon’s Incoherent Blog

Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 7 – The Gift

“You should hold on to your candles. The nights are so long now.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After last week’s ep of dramatic payoffs to long gestating political plots in Game of Thrones comes… another one. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing; this was every bit as gripping and well—written as last week’s. Tonally though, it was so similar you could have watched the two together and been forgiven for thinking it was one extra long one. Continue reading “Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 7 – The Gift”

Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 6 – Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

“I’m Sansa Stark of Winterfell. This is my home. And you can’t frighten me.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After last week’s focus mainly on just two of its multifarious plotlines, this week Game of Thrones was back to business as usual with a lively ep taking in snippets of plenty of them. While there was little in the way of epic action, it was no less dramatic for that as all the patient political scheming of earlier episodes began to pay off in spades. And perhaps more than any ep I’ve seen yet, it was dominated by the show’s women, who were both the drivers and the victims in practically every snapshot this week. Continue reading “Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 6 – Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”

Mad Men: Season 7, Episode 14 – Person To Person

“You spend your whole life thinking you’re not getting it, people aren’t giving it to you. And you realise you don’t even know what ‘it’ is.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Tricky things, series finales. You never quite know what you’re going to get. They range from the satisfying (Sons of Anarchy, Star Trek the Next Generation) to the absolutely perfect (MASH, Babylon 5) to the maddeningly obtuse and disappointing (The Sopranos, Lost, Quantum Leap). So what could we expect from the conclusion to one of the most critically acclaimed, understated dramas of recent times? Well, in keeping with the show’s consistent tone of understated subtlety, what we got was… an episode of Mad Men. Not showy, not spectacular, but as excellent as ever and a perfectly consistent and logical ending to a story that could never really end in a conclusive way. Continue reading “Mad Men: Season 7, Episode 14 – Person To Person”

Mad Men: Season 7, episode 13 – The Milk and Honey Route

“I’m jealous of your ability to be sentimental about the past. I’m not able to do that. I remember things as they were.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Mad Men is not a show that does sentimentality. Emphatically not. However much you the audience may come to like these well-rounded but flawed characters, in the words of Game of Thrones, “if you’re hoping for a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention”. You might want things to turn out all right for the gang of misfits you’ve unwillingly come to love, but it ain’t gonna happen. First sign of a happy ending, and reality is going to jump up like a schoolyard bully and brutally beat them around the face until it all collapses into despair. Continue reading “Mad Men: Season 7, episode 13 – The Milk and Honey Route”

Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 5 – Kill the Boy

“Kill the boy – and let the man be born.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After a hectic flurry of excitement last time, this week Game of Thrones was back to plotting and intrigue in a sedate but grim episode. No surprise that it was grim, with the focus very squarely on events in the dour, chilly North; no sign of the Lannisters, Dorne or King’s Landing this week. Despite a couple of brief (but significant) interludes with Dany in Meereen, and a quick catchup with Jorah and Tyrion, Bryan Cogman’s script mainly dealt with just two of the ongoing plots – the turmoil up at Castle Black and Sansa’s unfortunate situation in Bolton-occupied Winterfell. Continue reading “Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 5 – Kill the Boy”

Mad Men: Season 7, Episode 12: Lost Horizon

“This business doesn’t have feelings. You get bought, you get sold, you get fired. Even if your name’s on the damn door, you should know better than to get attached to some walls.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

With just two more episodes to go after this one, this week’s Mad Men felt properly like the party was winding down. The surprise absorption of Sterling Cooper & Partners by McCann Erickson threw all our characters into a traumatic transition, and despite the feeling that things are nearly over for these guys, Semi Chellas and Matthew Weiner’s script still managed to fit in that trademark mixture of portentous drama, black comedy and social commentary that’s been Mad Men’s stock-in-trade for so many years. Continue reading “Mad Men: Season 7, Episode 12: Lost Horizon”

Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 4 – The Sons of the Harpy

“Wars teach people to obey the sword, not the gods.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After some patient scene setting and a week of musing on the mystical, this week Game of Thrones seemed to really pick up the pace, with the scheming and the character depth balanced by some real (and really gory) action. Having set plotlines running in those first few weeks, they’re now starting to pay off with some interesting consequences. Continue reading “Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 4 – The Sons of the Harpy”