It

Gah! I've gotten very bad at remembering to post things lately. Anyway, I saw It a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. Never saw the early '90s TV adaptation and I haven't read the book, so everything about this was new to me. It was good! Stephen King, we all know I've had my struggles with him, but watching this movie has really made me want to read It. Which is 1100 pages long. Fuck.

The Guest Book: Season 1

I genuinely have no idea why I gritted my teeth all the way through this. It's not horrible, but it's exactly the kind of comedy I'd have expected from TBS like ten years ago - only marginally funny, and inconsistent at best. And the thing is, I could tell this is exactly what it would be by the middle of the first episode. I couldn't quite place my finger on what show it reminded of, but as soon as I made the Greg Garcia connection I knew, instantly - My Name Is Earl. Imagine My Name Is Earl without the centered, grounding presence of, well, Earl. Imagine if every episode followed a different main character but with the same array of supporting characters up to their same old weird bullshit week in and week out. There's no need for something like this to be eating away even five more hours of my life. Let's drop that load!

Transparent: Season 4

Feels like the luster's worn off of Transparent quite a bit, and honestly? I think I find it to be an easier show to watch now than I once did. Make no mistake - I'm aware of how monumental and important the show was in its first couple of seasons, and even how important it still is, in normalizing and humanizing LGBTQIA characters. (Wait, hang on. L yes, B yes, T obviously, Q for sure, but have we seen G? We've probably seen G and I just can't remember it, right? But have we seen A? I don't think we've seen A. Hell, BoJack Horseman has shown us more A. And as for I, oof, I'll be honest, I can't recall if we've seen I, but I also am not fully aware of how we'd be able to tell I from T when it comes to some of these characters without asking rude, probing questions.)

Okay, so as I was saying, I just think this is an easier show to watch as a pretty clever and very sex- and identity-focused family comedy. You know what I never really noticed before? How Jewish this show is. Like the Judaism was sort of hiding in the shadow of the transgender stuff all these years. Holy smokes, more than half of this season takes place in Israel. And I love that. I love how this isn't just a show about "one" thing, you know? It's also a show about a deeply dysfunctional family, or moreover, an entire family of deeply dysfunctional people. But like, thanks to the weight Transparent shouldered in 2014 and 2015 in breaking so much important ground, it can just sort of relax a little and be a funny comedy in 2017. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. Like it's definitely a sloppier and messier and less poignant show, but that's okay! It's also kind of quietly a funnier and easier and more relatable show.

Game of Thrones: Season 7

There have been a lot of shows I've been scrambling to finish as the summer comes to a close. But this show... this one is perhaps the pinnacle of summer TV, maybe even TV in general! It's Game of Thrones. And as we look down the barrel towards the final season lurking somewhere around late 2018/early 2019, I want to share my take on the show thus far and some predictions on where I think it could go.

No surprises here. I loved this season. Just like how I loved the season before this. And the one before that. What can I say... it's a great show! However, I do feel like the reason for this season's greatness varied slightly from previous seasons. What I mean is that when I think Game of Thrones, I think of plot twists followed by surprising deaths from beloved characters we're not ready to say goodbye to. From losing Ned Stark at the end of season one to Cersei blowing up the Great Sept at the end of the season six... holy shit, does this show know how to rip our heart out again and again. It teaches us to be weary about the bonds we form with these characters because they could easily be gone in an instant without warning. 

Then we come to season 7... what I like to refer to as the reunion special. I didn't feel this season came with as many gut-wrenching deaths and good-byes (sans Lord Baelish), but rather brought people back together. This season was filled with the moments we've been waiting years for. Tyrion returning to King's Landing. Arya reuniting with Sansa in Winterfell. Snow and Daenerys getting... well, friendly with one another. 

Rather than this season chiseling away at the cast we're deeply connected to, it built them up. Maybe only to hurt us even more when the show finally finishes next season. Plus on top of that we got plenty of dragon fights in. I mean... yeah, you gotta love that. 

But where is this show going exactly? I have some takes. Maybe you'll like them. Maybe you won't. But they're just some thoughts on how the show could finish as the series is brought to a close.

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So as we've seen at the end of this season, the White Walkers have broken through the Wall and are now barreling down Westeros. Seems like the apocalypse is inevitable. And like with most ends of the worlds, there will be deaths. Probably a whole lot of deaths. So... let's play game I want to call: Live, Die, Reign. Pick those characters who will survive the White Walkers assault. Those who will not. And, finally, the one person whom we'll sit on the Iron Throne (note: could easily be the Winter King for all we know).

WHO WILL LIVE?

Sansa: She'll make it out of the fall of Winterfell by the skin of her teeth only to return to Winterfell after everything is said and done to follow in her father's shoes and be the leader of the north.

Bran: Sure, he'll live. But no one will really care. After evil has been stopped, he'll return to the north with the wildings to start his own freaky cult as the Three-eyed Raven.

Samwell: Dude will make it through, no problem. Not only that, I think the big twist we'll discover is that he's the true writer behind the historical chronicles of A Tale of Fire and Ice.

Daenerys: Not only will she survive the surge of White Walkers, I think we'll be in for a surprise to find out she's with child. (Let's ignore the fact that it's a bit of an inbred child and just be happy for her.)

Brienne: She will fight, and she will fight well. Battling alongside Tormund, I believe a romance will sprout. 

Davos: He'll make it through, although I think he'll have survivor's guilt as to why an old fart  like him, after all he's seen and done, deserves to be among the living. 

Bronn: I don't know how... but he'll pull through. He always does.

Tyrion: I don't see how Tyrion can't make it through the battle. It may not be pretty, but he'll get through. Then he'll have some quippy chat with Lord Varys commenting on humanity or the ruthlessness of war or some seemingly insightful shit about what this all meant.

WHO WILL DIE?

Cersei: Yeah, of course she's going to die. I think the only twist here is that she's going to die by her own hand, much like she was prepared to do in season 3. And much like in season 3, she'll be killing her own unborn child as well. Oof...

Jamie: If Cersei is going, I think Jamie will go to. Not because he'll die defending her honor—in fact he's already abandoned her in a sense. But with another child of his dying and the guilt of supporting Cersei for so long... I just think he wants a warrior's death to prove he can still be a proud fighter protecting something much larger than himself. 

Arya: This is going to be a tough one. I imagine she'll die in the battle of Winterfell. Maybe even die defending Sansa to ensure her escape. What's going to be really heartbreaking is that the next time John sees her, it will be when she's a White Walker. Not the reunion they had in mind.

Theon: He will give his life to save his sister and kill Euron. Honestly, that's the only way his character can be redeemed at this point. 

Jorah: I feel like this guy's days have always been marked. But makes sense that he may sacrifice himself to save Daenerys at some point. 

The Hound: I think we'll finally see the battle of the Hound versus the Mountain. My take is the it's going to be a mutual knockout. They'll kill each other in the process. But the Hound will be able to take the Mountain down just a shade quicker, and maybe fulfilling some other worthwhile goal in the process—like saving innocent townsfolk from an evil plan hatched by Cersei.

Snow: So, this is definitely going to be the bittersweet moment of the entire series. Likely the climax of the series finale. John is already marked for death. At this point, he's just on borrowed time until he fulfills his destiny—defeating the Winter King. 

WHO WILL REIGN

I think it goes without saying that Daenarys is the favorite to be the one true ruler of the Iron Throne. But if I had a dark horse in this race, my second pick would go to Samwell. Maybe the point of this show is to finally kill off the notion that only bloodlines deserve to rule. Rather, those who are intelligent and compassionate enough deserve to lead. 

Regardless who reigns supreme, Tyrion will likely continue his counsel as the Hand of the King (or Queen). 

Oh... and one last category.

WHO IS MY FAVORITE

Tormund. No one better fucking kill off Tormund or help me God! This man is my spirit animal.

Big Brother: Season 19

Big Brother. Big Brother! Ugh. The summer reality show I jumped into ten years in, out of curiosity, and just haven't been able to shake. I was so close this year, you guys. So close to saying, "no, fuck it, there have been maybe two or three good seasons of this show in the ten years I've been watching it, I will not blow another forty hours of my summer on this drivel."

But Sweeney pulled me back in after, like, two episodes. (And then he bailed with a month to go and left me with the proverbial bill! What a dick!) Anyway, heading into this season, with my tail between my legs, I made one promise to myself: that I would not grow overly invested in any of the castmembers this year, that I would treat the whole thing as television, as entertainment, and that I would not get mad or sad whatsoever about underdogs getting picked off and sent home or lazy alliances floating all the way to the end so long as they journey was full of characters and entertainment. And I think I succeeded at that for about two months, Here's the problem - part of the entertainment of this show is tied directly to how exciting the gameplay is and how inflammatory the house gets. When one man puppetmasters his way through the entire second half of the game, it's inherently boring. Never mind who should have won - it's boring wither way!

Showmances are boring. Happy-to-be-here pawns are boring! Betrayals and blindsides and confrontations are exciting, but then also, confrontations often just make everyone involved look awful. Which works for schadenfreude purposes, but doesn't really give me a compelling reason to keep watching a television show, you know? Rooting interests are inevitable, simply because you want "good TV characters" to stay in the house longer than shitty ones. (It seems like every single year, by the final weeks of the season, I am clamoring for more Jury House footage and less "houseguests are bored and so they jump out and scare each other from under the bedsheets six times a day" drivel.)

With all this in mind, let's rank who made for good TV and bad TV in Season 19 of Big Brother. No, wait, let's go beyond that and score each contestant on three axes - good/bad player, good/bad person, good/bad television character. An example of a triple "good" is Dan, the guy who won that one season and came in second in another. An example of a triple "bad" is that soccer asshole from last season, Paulie, who spent his summer crying and demeaning women.
 

Player/Person/TV Character:

Josh - Good/Neutral/Good - At one point I said of Josh, "this guy's got Week 4 exit written all over him." At another I think I called him human garbage. And yet by the end I was rooting for him. (Goddammit, this show sucks.) Tough not to credit the winner with playing a "good" game, and so I did, but holy shit, this guy did nothing but paint targets on himself from the outset and pick fights with people when they were down. Oof!

Paul - Good/Bad/Neutral - For what it's worth, last season's Paul is Neutral/Neutral/Good. Own your game, bro! Embrace your vet-status villainy!

Christmas - Neutral/Neutral/Bad - An early favorite of mine, but she turned into a real asshole somewhere in the middle of the show and never really did anything game-wise to make for compelling television. Props for competing on the broken foot, and I want to see her come back for another season in a year or two when she's healthy. (You know, if CBS insists on bringing back veterans year after year.) You can tell she came in attempting to be a combination of competition beats and social game master (mistress?) but that once the foot broke it all went to shit for her and she struggled to play a more passive, understated game.

Kevin - Bad/Good/Neutral - This year's token "old man" at, like, fifty. We've seen sadder competitive performances, but not many. Bumping him up from "neutral" person to "good" just because he was always such a gentleman on the live shows. But, bumping him down from "good" TV to "neutral" because the "shady Italian guy from Boston" archetype isn't exactly fresh material and he never made one game move of any kind besides taking a quick twenty-five thousand dollars and blaming someone else right off the bat.

Alex - Neutral/Bad/Neutral - It's funny because she had at least three huge fuck-ups, one time just completely blanking on live television and voting to evict the wrong person (then lying about it), and another time running into a room to bitch about Mark while he was sitting in the same room, and a third time chewing out someone who misinformed her, with the best of intentions, that another contestant had made racially disparaging remarks. She lied, poorly, to deflect blame for both situations, and I think it worked? She also fell hook, line, and sinker for Paul's ruses. Impossible to call her a good player, even if she won a few competitions. Also hard to see her as anything more than a bad person, picking fights and covering her ass. She also hit Jason, like, all the time. And like, hard. Don't do that, Alex. He's married. And also a person.

Raven - Bad/Neutral/Good - Imagine if two-time player Rachel were: one-tenth the player she was and one-tenth as hotheaded, but just as crazy and grating and a little more "tiny and cute" and, oh yeah, like a thousand times less comprehensible. That's Raven! Only thing keeping me from giving her "bad" on the person axis is that she's living life to the fullest despite being under the impression that she'll die young from gastroparesis. She was a good character in the sense that she was an absolute space cadet who, right up to and through her time in the Jury House, felt that she'd been both the mastermind in the house and beloved by America, neither of which could have been further from the truth. Bring her back, CBS! I want more Ravens, not more Victorias!

Jason - Neutral/Neutral/Good - I'm a sucker for a 6'8" rodeo clown just yippin' and hollerin' and cowboy-hattin' all over the house, even if there was nothing else to this dumb motherfucker. I liked him!

Matt - Bad/Neutral/Bad - Tempted to go for the triple bad here, I mean, what an all-around zero. But "bad person" should be reserved for bullies and assholes and manipulators and schemers, and Matt wasn't any of those things. He was just a cereal-humping void.

Mark - Neutral/Good/Good - As Marissa's coworker said, "he's such a beautiful crier." Mark's a former fat kid who lost his parents at a young age and built himself into a Rob Gronkowski clone. He just wanted to be friends with everyone in the dang house, but couldn't win enough competitions to stay there past the midway point. The ultimate anti-bully. Seems like a genuinely good dude - and so few of these people do!

Elena - Neutral/Neutral/Neutral - Wanted to give her "good" on the character front, but all of her highlights came in the Jury House. She didn't really do much in the regular house. Which is fine! But now we're starting to hit those "forgettable" types.

Cody - Bad/Bad/Good - An unapologetic asshole with an absolute trash social game. Mocked "trannies" in the house and stands by it today. Never said a word to anyone if he could help it. America's Favorite Player. It all somehow makes sense! I'd watch this asshole get booted in three weeks every single season if CBS would let me. I really would.

Jessica - Neutral/Bad/Neutral - As someone who isn't Marissa's coworker said, "she strikes me as someone who's been hot her whole life and never had to develop a personality or a sense of humor." Spot on. Cody brought out the absolute worst in her, which was great, because she spent literally all of her time in the house with him when he was around. When he wasn't, she at least started forming a social game. But then he came back! And her ship sailed, predictably.

Ramses - Neutral/Neutral/Bad - The token "small young gay superfan of color" whose whole gimmick is how impressed and in over his head he is. I think Ramses probably could have been a good person, but he was gone before we ever really found out. He was a bad character not because he was grating, but because his every expression and reaction seemed to come out of a box labeled "character tropes: small young gay superfan of color."

Dominique - Neutral/Neutral/Bad - She was able to sniff out what Paul was up to, but her social game sucked so bad she couldn't convey it to the rest of the house without making herself an easy target. And I'm sorry, but the "devoutly religious woman of color who says things like 'only God can judge me' " is, to be blunt, also played out as all hell.

Jillian - Bad/Neutral/Bad - This year's "total bore who you know was way into Greek life." Glad she was gone early, because she was bringing all kinds of nothing to the table. No offense!

Megan - Bad/Good/Neutral - When an assault survivor who served as military police gets PTSD and bails on the house on the second day, you have to feel for her. You also have to wonder what the fuck CBS thought would happen.

Cameron - Neutral/Neutral/Neutral - Day one exit, very little impact. Seemed like a "whiny nerd" type who could have won it all like Steve or Ian before him. Guess we'll never know!

BoJack Horseman: Season 4

It's uncommon for shows to be as good as BoJack Horseman is in the first place, but the true rarity is the consistency of the series so far. Aside form a shaky first season - and even that first season got better as it took shape - this show's just been amazing. Three straight seasons of tonal perfection - who else has pulled that off? I'm not saying this is unprecedented, but it's a very short list.

Moreso - there's nothing else quite like BoJack, and never has been as far as I know. It doesn't just nail the tone year after year - it picks a hell of a tone to go for in the first place. It's dark and depraved, but also light and whimsical. Visual gags and razor sharp wordplay fly back and forth at a mile a minute, but there are still some absolute gut punches sprinkled in to punctuate every other episode or so. No show this raw and powerful should be this hilarious, and no show this zany and slapdash has any business being this profound and meaningful! It feels truly one-of-a-kind in hat regard, and the only thing stopping me from calling it "my favorite show" sometimes is that I'm already taking it for granted. Sustaining a plateau of greatness feels less impressive, in the moment, than continuously peaking. But if you're continuously peaking, you were by definition imperfect until the end, right?

One year, BoJack will start to slip or it will just end. And that's going to suck! But for now, let's all just enjoy it.

One Mississippi: Season 2

One of my favorite shows and probably the biggest surprise for me in 2016 was One Mississippi, a quick six-episode semi-autobiographical comedy from Tig Notaro about breast cancer, gastrointestinal disease, the sudden loss of her mother, and a rekindled relationship with her hometown and her stepfather. And yes, I said "comedy." Not just "half-hour show," but, comedy! It was hilarious and feel-good, despite all the grief and sadness and disease it had to push through. A true gem!

Six episodes was a perfect length in that it left me wanting more. And I got more! Season 2 just came out a week and a half ago, another six-episode installment. I liked it a whole lot, though maybe not quite as much as the first season. But I mean, if the first season's a 9 out of 10, this one's an 8. The biggest reason for the slight dropoff is that the first season just dug into such an emotional well and there simply wasn't as much water left to draw in the second. Which, hey, fine - the second season had time to explore plenty of things I was left hoping for after the first. Things like, "what's it like to be a mid-forties lesbian woman in the deep red state of Mississippi?" The first season was excellent, but it kind of painted this image of Biloxi as a socially liberal, happy-going southern city. In reality, of course, the Mississippi state flag still includes the Confederate Battle Flag in its upper left corner, and Biloxi celebrates "Great Americans Day" instead of Martin Luther King Day in order to pay equal homage to Robert E. Lee. Holy shit!

Luckily, in a Trump-as-President world, the show was not afraid to actually tackle some of the, uh, backward-focused tendencies of Mississippi and its inhabitants. This time around, two characters argue over whether not voting was as bad as voting for Trump, a few bigoted women discriminate against Tig for being gay, and one character has his eyes hilariously opened to the realities of Jim Crow and segreation in America. It's only six episodes and it's still a comedy, so it's not like the show really dives deep on this issues. But they're there, and I appreciated that. Marissa pointed out that this season was more "political" than the last one, and said that she liked it less - not because Marissa disagreed with the show's politics, but because she thought the show was at its best when it focused on the quirky characters' relationships with one another rather than the way they're affected by prejudice and policy. I hear what she's saying - I've already said I liked the first season a hair better, as well - but to me, this season didn't feel "political" so much as the first season felt distinctly "apolitical." This is the story of a gay woman in Mississippi, after all - let's embrace that there's all kinds of baggage that comes with that, you know?

Anyway, consider this my opportunity to double down on my stance that "everyone should watch One Mississippi because it is a warm and enjoyable and funny and moving show." Two seasons will take you six hours total - you can't beat that!

Version Control

I really loved this one. It's the rare book that took me almost a month to finish not because it was a slog or a bore at all but because I was savoring its 500 pages and really letting them sink in. Sadly, trying to describe it, or even why I liked it, feels like a fruitless endeavor at this point. It just kind of sat with me right, you know? Brought up a lot of good points about the way we live today, the places we're headed, the pros and cons of always-online life in the twenty-first century. Anyway, here's my attempt on Goodreads to quickly examine and explain why I liked this book so much:

Here's one of those thought-provoking page-turners where the story's about so much more than the plot, which can be summarized more or less as, "in the near future, a less-than-happy woman accidentally messes with the spacetime continuum when she fools around with her husband's giant research project." Yeah - it's time travel. Except: it's more! So much more, from an exploration of a society designed around automated cars and always-on social media connections to some speculative wormhole theory to a deconstructed longview of dating in the online era to conversations about fate and free will. Race relations, parallel timelines, love, loss, sacrifice, regret - it's all here, like a long and twisting and excellent episode of Black Mirror. Can't imagine this is for everyone, but I absolutely loved it. So glad I chose to... commit!

Yeah, I ended with a Git pun. Fight me. (Please don't.)

Twin Peaks: Season 3

"A comedy that sometimes turns into arthouse horror." That's how Sween described the third season of Twin Peaks to me the other day, and it's so perfectly adequate. Both of us bailed on the original version of the show somewhere in the second season, and neither of us could follow the plot of the third season for more than an episode or two - and it sounds like we're really not alone, as even the people I know who genuinely love Twin Peaks seemed to mostly take a "who gives a shit?" approach to the story here in the long-awaited third season. This show - and this season, really, in particular - is the completely unique creation of David Lynch, for better and for worse. Lynch has his staunch supporters; I'm personally more intrigued by the idea of Lynch doing what he does than I am by the art he actually makes. (But Mulholland Drive, at least, has only grown stronger and better in my memory; a rewatch is in order!)

I really don't have much to offer in the form of any analysis or introspection.I've seen plenty of people debating what even "happened" in the finale, and whether or not the show even took place in our reality - or which portions of it did. I don't care about any of that, really. I'm just glad that when I lost the narrative thread on this show, I wasn't alone. The plot's beyond the point of it all.

If that sounds just pretentious as all hell to you - hey, great. Yes. You're not wrong. Probably don't watch this. But as lost as the show left me, often for entire episodes at once, I can't deny that I never really lost interest in watching it. The nightmares and dreamscapes were its bread and butter, as far as I'm concerned, which left me far more invested in the episodes full of weird, crazy, dark shit than I ever was in the events unfolding day by day.

Did I love this? Oh hell no, not at all, really. But I appreciated it, I'm glad it existed, and I'd so much rather see something unabashedly weird like Twin Peaks than something vanilla and formulaic and predictable, like Legion, that sort of apes Twin Peaks without daring to get half as weird or bold or unsettling. Good work, Showtime.

The Bold Type: Season 1

I can't remember what brought me to this show about millennial women in the fashion magazine industry - a podcast? a tweet? - but I know what made me stay through all ten episodes above all odds. It was the writing. It just felt so real, so true, and so unlike any other depictions of what I'll call "career-oriented" twenty-somethings. It seems like when it comes to depicting the workplace, every female character my age on television in the last five years or so has been some combination of clueless, lazy, extremely online, underpaid, disinterested, immature, and completely lost. First to come to my mind is Aubrey Plaza's April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation. A true archetype! Fleshed out into an actual adult woman over the course of seven seasons, sure, but for a while there she was just the bored, aggressively antisocial intern doodling on her jeans. Or picture Katrina Bowden, easily the most forgettable castmember of 30 Rock as Liz Lemon's assistant, whose sole purpose on the show was to be a sex object for the male writers and a reminder of how old and frumpy every other female character was. (Let's call this "sheetcake feminism," Tina Fey.)

More broadly and generically, picture the bug-eyed mousy intern just fetching coffee for people and thanking them along the way. Picture the hipsters in beanies and glasses pitching what could "go viral" to disinterested and confused bosses. Everyone is drunk or stoned or hungover or both. A lot of them ask horribly dumb questions like "what's a CD?" just to make the thirty-something main characters feel impossibly old. And then when the millennials are the main characters, the basic premise always seems to revolve around how broke they are, how fucked over the recession has left them, how wrought with college debt they are. I mean think of the show 2 Broke Girls - it's right there in the title. Or think of Broad City or Girls and how in those shows, being a young woman at a workplace mostly means just routinely fucking up in hilarious and embarrassing fashion.

So it's refreshing to have a show like The Bold Type where three young professional women are just sort of, you know, ambitious pretty good employees. Do they fuck up sometimes? Of course they do, it's a workplace television show, we've got to let them learn things the hard way. Are they online? Oh they are extremely online, to the point where one of them is the magazine's social media director at the age of, like, 23. But this is a show that treats such a job like the real thing it is in 2017 and not simply an absurd idea. Are they all boy-crazy little nymphets running around creating love triangles? I mean, yes, sort of, but that's only maybe like ten or twenty percent of what they do - they really are very career-focused and talented and upwardly mobile!

Here's the part where I can't resist a little disclaimer, a little face-saving attempt of an insistence that, no, this is not a "good" show in the strict, curated sense of the word. I'm not calling this a must-watch! I'm not saying it's the big breakout hit of 2017. I mean the thing airs on Freeform for fuck's sake. Do you know what Freeform is? It is what they now call ABC Family, the channel that earlier this summer finished airing the seventh and final season of Pretty Little Liars. This is not prestige TV. But you know what? Prestige TV can go suck an egg. Who needs more prestige TV? What we need are more shows like this one, that are well-made and only a little dumb and filled with the types of characters and experiences that don't exist elsewhere on television.

And that's my take on The Bold Type, a show I didn't love, but liked more than I ever thought I would have.

Wrecked: Season 2

There's no real point in trying to say anything of substance about this show. It's a Lost parody, which is exactly as needless and unremarkable as it sounds. Still - I can't find it in myself to hate it, or even to dislike it. It's completely stupid and needless, sure, but it's also quietly, sneakily, very minorly kind of a fun little watch that I legitimately enjoy week in and week out. You know - comfort food television! And because Lost went so goddamn bonkers, there's plenty of juice left to wring here. Through two seasons, Wrecked has only gotten as far as the initial crash, a pirate takeover, and a failed escape by abandoned cruise ship. Now they're stuck on a different island covered in landmines.Bring on the Others! Give us the Hatch! Let's see some Smoke Monsters! Or, on second thought, nah, maybe Wrecked can just do its own thing.

Game of Thrones: Season 7

(Oh shit, left this one hanging for a week.)

So for the second straight year I found myself in Europe for the Game of Thrones finale. And maybe that's influencing the way I'm watching these finales, days late and minorly spoiled and all, and maybe in turn that's giving them this larger than life feeling and really exaggerating what a watercooler show Game of Thrones has become - the lone remaining TV show that's appointment viewing anymore - but for the second straight season, I've come away from Game of Thrones with more concerns than excitement about what's to come. Scattered thoughts will follow - it's bullet time!

• The writing on Game of Thrones used to be its strong suit, back when writing was just adapting because George R.R. Martin had already more or less written every episode fifteen years prior. But ever since the show has had to write its own seasons and episodes, it's gotten so much worse. And the shortened, condensed season length this time around made things even harder no doubt. It's as if the showrunners know that they want certain episodes and seasons to end with or include very specific benchmarks - here's where this big event happens, here's when that milestone occurs - but they have no great ideas for how to get those things to happen without making their own characters behave irrationally or stupidly or what have you. The reliance on deus ex machina has been overwhelming, not just this season but starting somewhere during the last.
• Arya, in particular. Ugh. Great character, good performance, but it's clear the show has no fucking clue what to do with her and hasn't since, like, Bravos. The entire Faceless Men arc didn't make sense, but Arya'a behavior this season made even less sense.
• Jon also makes no sense anymore. This is the shittiest leader, commander, king, what have you, in a show where it was established early and often that good intentions get you killed if you're not shrewd and tactical and scheming. Unless they intend to retroactively justify his absolute plot armor with some kind of "prince that was promised" chicanery, I mean, what the hell? Ned was honorable as hell and lost his head for it and that's what put this show on the map in the first place. Robb was less honorable, sure, but let himself get just a bit too comfortable, and bam, it was all over for him. But Jon makes just the dumbest fucking decisions time and time again, and he's not only still alive, but poised to become the goddamn King of Westeros. Speaking of which....
• Jaime. This is a guy who pushed a small kid out of a window early on because that kid caught him having sex with his sister. Then over the course of the series we gain some empathy for him, particularly after he goes through some hardships, and so he becomes one of the "good guys." Yeah - he should have died this season. You all know exactly when. And having survived that, he should have left King's Landing and Cersei for good. Hell, he should have left her last season after she did exactly the thing that Jaime killed the last king to stop him from doing! But then when does he finally leave? Only after Cersei has what is, all things considered, a very good plan. Jaime decided his honor requires him to go fight alongside his enemies, under a truce that by definition will expire once they've successfully beaten their common enemies. This is dumber than anything Ned ever did! Why has the show gone soft? Why is it that suddenly every character is either a supervillain or someone with an unimpeachable sense of honor?
• Littlefinger. How'd he not see that coming? Where was his escape plan? The master schemer, the grand manipulator, and he can't even pull one over on two feuding sisters?
• Space. No, wait.
• Space and time. What the fuck, guys? This isn't just a nitpick. How much time is passing between some of these scenes? It's been established just how big and vast this continent is, and how a journey from King's Landing to Winterfell is supposed to take, like, a month. But now we have armies literally marching across the continent in the span of an episode, ships sailing around the continent like it's nothing, and in the most absurd sequence in the show's history, we have a blacksmith sprinting several miles through the snow, a raven flying halfway across the continent, and a dragon flying all the way back across it all in the span of... what, maybe two days? A lot of people would argue that, one, who cares about what's realistic, it's a show full of incest and dragons, or, two, who cares about the little scenes, we're here for the zombies and dragon wars. And to both these camps, sure, fine, you do you. But the Lost finale had its defenders, too.
• The Iron Islands and the Greyjoy plot. Theon's arc was sloppy, but he's one of the most tragic and bittersweet characters in the series. Cocky and shitty at first, dragged into doing some terrible things and betraying his foster family by a misplaced sense of honor to his actual parents, then captured and literally physically emasculated, tortured, broken, tormented. Then he redeems himself by saving Sansa, and frankly, with so many characters and storylines and actors on the show, that's probably where he should have died. But no! Instead we were treated to another act of cowardice on Theon's part, two seasons after his redemption arc was finished, and now, what, we get to do it all over again? With the shitty villain that is Euron? There are six episodes left. Supersized or not, with everything hanging on the line, do we really need to devote any amount of any of those episodes to this shitty Greyjoy C-story?

Guys - I don't have high hopes! And if I have to wait two years to see this story wind down, imagine how poorly it might sit, marinating in my bad memories and shark-jumping fears. Gulp! Okay, back to hoping for the final two books to come out soon.