Birdwings

Finished Rome. It was a Christmas gift for my guy, adding to his stockpile of HBO shows, so it's been our evening watch and he enjoyed it a lot more than me - which is fair and correct. I didn't do a write up for season one because a favorite character of mine died in the last episode and I was too glum to bother, and then season two tripled down on the bleakness and abandoned all the comedic elements that made season one fairly breezy, so when I tried putting together some notes I just wasn't feeling it anymore. I seem to have lost my taste for shows without heroes. However, I did enjoy all the familiar faces throughout, and appreciated that most of them got meatier roles worthy of their considerable talents here, so that's what this post is about.

( Spoilers for the show )

In this week's absolutely bonkers episode of Game of Thrones, the religious wars really heat up when Maester Luwin and his brethren get immolated by followers of the Lord of Light while in the far future Olivia Lannister arrives in her cyberpunk King's Landing to fuck up Katarina Tyrell's day and finish their Houses' ancient blood feud once and for all.

...Hang on.

Okay, apart from the fact that they are continuing to play super-coy about Cole's mother (what are they hiding?) this was amazing. It did have a strange cold open, though - so cinematic it really felt like a different show for a minute, see above. This isn't a knock on 12 Monkeys - I am a weird person who generally prefers lower budget television (not least of which being that we generally get more episodes the cheaper they are to make, and the violence is much easier to handle).

And since I have now reached the final season, I should mention that I really enjoy the opening theme, short as it is, since it perfectly captures the show's tone. ( Read more... )