In Which We Turn Our Face To The Light

Half Lowborn

by DICK CHENEY

Thrones. Watching an illiterate horse trader learn how to read, struggling over every word, reminds me of so many things, but mostly, it reminds me of Richard Nixon. He was the type of man who you could trust because he was exactly what he seemed. He wasn't elected president because of his charm. Still, he could surprise you with a remark, or a particular sign of warmth. You knew it was genuine because he was a complete dick the rest of the time.

Nixon had people like the Onion Knight, who counseled ethical behavior. He fired them, or made them feel unwanted. Our current president never had these people to begin with. The only advice he gets on a regular basis are answers to the question he poses again and again: "How can we use the murder of innocents for our own political gains?" Even innocents have enemies.

at least her small counsel can read

Relying on the counsel of yes men could get the Queen of Dragons in trouble. Ask Michael Jackson how things turn out when all you have is a group of admiring ninnies in your cause. You'll notice that there's not many shades of grey across the narrow sea. Every single person is 100 percent good or bad, and spends the entire day saying exactly what they mean. It is hard to find a liar in these Thrones, because with 242 characters, including over six Hot Pies, we'd never have time to distinguish the lie from the truth.

jeez New Hot Pie, it's a leech not a cobra

Oh new Hot Pie. You were forced to House Baratheon against your will. Melisandre throwing Genry the precursor to a hot bone was a nice gesture; I recall Henry Kissinger once doing the same thing for a boy he sacrificed to the devil. I do feel that there was a missed opportunity to not have Melisandre screaming, "New Hot Pie! New Hot Pie!" The reason rich men are usually the ones to lead us is because they're used to it.

you should really be bowing to the father of the realm there varys Joffrey's face during Sansa's wedding was absolute heaven. in politics we have something called facials, which is best described as the expressions you have in still photographs reproduced on Drudge. David Axelrod always looks like Goebbels, and in fact it turned out his administration targeted Jews in precisely the same way, which should come as no real surprise. The facials of the wedding party were just spectacular all around even though the event came off super rushed. I made over 3000 gifs and saved them to a flash drive that I labeled "not porn":

where was bronn during all this I don't know

The event thankfully went off without a hitch, an improvement on a wedding of a trusted colleague I attended last month where the only thing anybody could talk about was... You know what, I need to conserve all my wedding jokes for the Tully-Frey nuptials.

It made zero sense that none of Tyrion's friends were even at his wedding, but I guess I should be thankful that his valet wasn't quietly drawn off by Grandma Tyrell. 

I think I may have spotted her poker tell.

Everyone you know or love will let you down eventually. Watching Sansa tell Tyrion she would never want a hot bang reminded me it is time to make amends. I know I've been hard on Bran over these last months. But then, that's just when you start missing everybody. Bran is my little catcher in the rye; he will find a savage teenage love with his mossman, or at least that's what GRRM would do if he was actually interested in depicting real homosexual love instead of depriving repressed homosexuals of their affection for one another. Then again, Robb Stark was not in this episode.

margaery gets a psychopath, tyrion gets a wilting flower and cersei gets a gay. i don't think she can complain really

Cersei broke the bad news to her betrothed; that being that a life with her doesn't involve a whole lot of talking. She did not want to hear what Loras' father had to say, possibly because it was, "You know son, Lannisters can never be pleased sexually except by another Lannister." This she already knew. Somewhere, the joie de vivre of a state wedding was lost.

I could have done without that scene, as well as the pathetic interplay between whore and dwarf. Tyrion giving Shae a significant look when she took his post-matrimonial bedsheets away was so fucking hokey; I mean Jesus, throw Sansa a bone before Joffrey flays her skin in front of his fiancée and all their friends. Joffrey really needs to get Sans a back tattoo of his face with the caption "Killed Ur Dad."

"And just over that rise you will find an Arby's, little girl."

Having Arya be super bratty to the poor Hound really reduces my sympathy for her. Also, her thinking the Red Fork was Blackwater just reinforces the idea that women aren't capable of geography, a savage myth that ensured Hillary Clinton would never know how many countries border Uzbekistan. Reportedly Chris Christie did not run for president last year simply because he did not know his geography well enough, and also because he was worried it would come out during the campaign that he accidentally ate an endangered falcon.

If only frodo asked samwise to share his blankets as often as this poor creature does Samwell Tarly prevented himself from snapping at his impoverished friend when she criticized him for using the word "refer". He took the high ground and said, "It's just the way I talk," the exact same line David Karp uses whenever his mousy girlfriend asks him not to curse at her. Samwell made a critical discovery in the field of white walker killing; he is truly the David Ben Gurion of the Andals and the first men. In my mind I have named the blonde refugee woman's baby Bojangles.

For some unknown reason Game of Thrones eschews the traditional montage sequence which shows events occurring at the same time: for example, it is known canonically that at the very moment Jon Snow climbed an ice wall as he wept about not having a mommy, Hot Pie was slaving away over a tuna casserole, Theon Greyjoy was patiently examining the place his testicles used to be and Samwell Tarly was quietly thrashing himself as his lady friend slept before a fire. The proper music for such a montage was, of course, Green Day's "Good Riddance" or Weird Al Yankovic's forthcoming Riffraff parody.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. You can find an archive of his reviews of Game of Thrones here.

just remember: almost every man who ever lived has died

"Why Am I The One? (acoustic)" - fun. (mp3)

"All Alone" - fun. (mp3)

Gary?

In Which A Bear Is Merely A Trifle To This One

What He Really Thinks Of Women

by DICK CHENEY

Thrones. "We're very complicated, you know. Pleasing us takes practice." Finally the truth, what GRRM really thinks about women. They can't be pleased or sated. They spend all their time in the nude, writing letters to their mother. They can't defeat a simple bear with a wooden stake. A dwarf defeated an army with some moonshine, but the largest female soldier I've ever seen can't defeat the bear from The Hotel New Hampshire and the David Mamet movie where Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins fall in love after the black guy from Lost stabs himself in the leg in the most racist scene in modern cinema?

The Edge was not a satire, or maybe it was, I haven't read the court transcript from either David Mamet's first divorce or his future one. Men who say women are simple are as devastatingly stupid as men who say women are complicated. It's not a man's place to say anything reductive about a woman, unless that women is permitting Simon Cowell in her bed. Then there's just one word for her.

theon greyjoy's nightmare is king joffrey's most carnal dream I can speak for men, however. Our first view of the opposite sex is usually determinative. It was Halloween, and I saw a girl I liked dressed as a hobo. She had red hair, and her parents moved her to North Carolina before school started again the next year. I never did tell her how I felt about her, but I did mail her a picture of Theon Greyjoy's penis.

brb one sec gotta gchat with someone in House Martell, you don't know this person
This week's episode began with verifiable proof that Robb Stark had one of those. In an elaborate postcoital scene in which his wife faked over three orgasms, the boy king kept going on and on about how his wife should put some clothes on lest he "attack" her. I guess he was trying to be playful? Since he never actually copulated with her again, he sounded like Renly Baratheon fawning over a woman so he would not actually have to go through with the more difficult work of maintaining his arousal.

let's just snuggle here forever and talk antibiotics; penetration is for lannisters

It almost made me empathize a little with Robb's wife that his pale, wrinkled mother disapproves of her, but we all know what's coming so it is best to focus on the Stormborn when looking to approve of a very tan woman from across the narrow sea.

P.S. If this sea is so narrow why don't they go visit the naked woman's mom right now? Hannukah is coming.

these gold bars are filled with eyeshadow
Daenarys' idle threats to a slave culture that precedes her entire civilization remains entertaining. Still, it's not a role that offers her a lot of chances to do anything other than free slaves. Spartacus is a similarly boring character. If I was the slaver with this eye-shadow, I would have just knelt. Someone will have to explain to me the economy of Astapoor and the yellow city. Real clever George, the yellow city.

Mama Stormborn's skin was looking a bit mottled, but I guess she's been crossing CGI for days at least.

You were no Dwight Schrute

As this episode was written by GRRM himself (thanks for taking time from your strenuous schedule of caviar and writing long passages about the Greyjoys that no one could give two fucks about), it had more than its fair share of YKNJS. Ygritte was not so fantastic in this episode; possibly Jon Snow's grimacing "you'll die when you fight a bunch of guys wearing black" took her down to his level. I miss Craster. The only thing less believable than their ongoing honeymoon beyond the wall is the idea any lord would apologize to a woman he compensates for sex.

jesus, doesn't anyone sit down and have dinner anymore
In the books we can actually believe Tyrion might care about this Shae, but in the cold light of King's Landing (soon to be renamed Hot Pie's Landing) we can see quite clearly that this is the last conversation he wants to have with this woman. Reassuring someone that you love them constantly is never fun, since slowly but surely you stop believing your own words. I think Shae's expectations are also a little out of whack; he offers her a house and clothes and she's like, "But what about an inground pool?" Just move on little guy, if she won't even do something with her hair now, it's only going to get worse.

that is one splendid fucking jerkin there bronn five stars

As ever, Bronn is the finest man alive. Why GRRM is putting out a ball-achingly embarrassing collection of Tyrion's "finest" "quotes" while Bronn's solid advice is diminished in contrast, I don't know.

GET IT? ORSON WELLES DID IT ONCE SO WE HAVE TO DO IT IN EVERY MOVIE AND TELEVISION SHOW FROM NOW ON GUYS

What you have to respect about Tywin Lannister is that he has never even tried to please a woman since his wife died in childbirth. His tact with his grandson further revealed the depths of his political skill. The cliche of him having to tower over Joffrey on his Iron Throne was a little heavy- handed, but the Lannisters are so far and away the best characters and actors on the show that you sympathize so much more with them than you do in the books.

Bran was literally there yesterday

Jaime's transformation from incest participant into the lion with a heart of gold I guess was a slow process. His sudden authority over his own life is all the more shocking. It's fun to watch someone change, even if they did not hate the person they were before. Changing yourself is loving yourself, because you care enough about it to do better or be better.

Is it wrong that it bothered me than Bran and Jaime were on the exact same set? I guess he did take the little lord's legs. I hope you're eaten by the biggest dragon in Westeros Bran.

Genry, you will be very happy now. Hot Pie, you will not.

GRRM wants you to think we are watching men and women save each other, as they must. But really, his underlying belief is that no one can be saved, which is something of a nihilistic attitude. Many times he has told us that his wife will not allow Arya to die. This knowledge ruined his creation, just as all fan service inevitably corrupts the original inspiration. If no one can be saved, then neither can Arya. Treating her differently than Hot Pie is misguided at best, sexist at worst.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He deleted at least five inappropriate jokes about Catelyn Stark from the preceding. You can find an archive of his reviews of Game of Thrones here.

"Grind or Die" - Eve (mp3)

"Mama in the Kitchen"  - Eve ft. Snoop Dogg (mp3)

In Which We Are Repeatedly Defied

Madam

by DICK CHENEY

Defiance
creators Rockne S. O'Bannon, Kevin Murphy, and Michael Taylor

Thrones. Defiance. If you are an enterprising young actress and your agent asks you to consider a role of a madam in a brothel in St. Louis, do you politely decline or is there violence involved? This exact situation happened, to Mia Kirshner. She portrays a war torn orphan who decides to sell women's bodies to the strangers of terraformed Earth on Defiance. Sometimes, if the customer is attractive enough, she refuses payment and handles the sale personally.

needs better agenting
This is sadly not the most hard to believe thing about the SyFy channel's costly original project. Despite having enough adaptable material in GRRM's garage (what about a Tuf Voyaging with Steven Wright?), it was important that the channel create its own original series so they could financially benefit from marketing it.

Defiance largely feels like the back end of a trend, only it's unclear who exactly was asking to see aliens on Earth at all. Putting creatures from another planet on this one is the most boring of premises, or maybe it's second after "make the aliens slightly paler/darker than the humans, and cosmetically alter their brows so we know they aren't us." Sadly Defiance features both of these clichés as part of its rich mythology. Aliens on Earth fails because it's obvious the person with the idea wanted to save money on sets by shooting in Vancouver.

Julie Benz's Knowing Smile is at your service (her sister's a whore)
The premise of Defiance is that the Votans came to Earth in order to negotiate a resettlement of their people. The humans offered the Alaska area, but the Democrats saw a moose there and decided it would not be environmentally sound.

The war between the humans and the Votans was termed the Pale Wars, even though it really only was one war. (Stop trying to make Pale Wars happen.) Earth's surface was destroyed, including Kristen Stewart and at least half of One Direction.

ffs call up oscar taveras
In Defiance, which is set in St. Louis because no other American city has any distinguishing landmark whatsoever, a veteran of these armed conflicts becomes the sheriff. The mayor of the camp (Julie Benz) was murdered by John Lithgow during the fifth season of Dexter, brought back to life through Votan technology, which is called Arkfall, and cast as the disapproving sister of the brothel madam.

Benz and the sheriff (Grant Bowler) routinely compete to see which of them has the most limited range as an actor. The show's supporting cast is a bit better, but the writers seem to have no idea what to do with them. The parallels to Battlestar Galactica get old quickly, from the way Defiance handles its alien language (subtitles and curse words that are borderline anti-Semitic), to the camera-shaking, to the insulting Edward James Olmos clone.

feels like an MMO
In private, I call Battlestar Galactica "Baby's First Television Show." I really hate how seriously it took itself, and I found the concept of the Cylons terribly dull. Reducing all the wonder of space to a machine-projection of humanity goes against everything that makes up good science fiction: saying the word spice a lot in a desert setting. The only thing I have to admit was done well on the show were the performances and the sound design. The cast was great to make you believe anything on Battlestar Galactica was real, and the right sound is better than the right set.

alien makeup, got it

Defiance lacks both. This new terraformed Earth, constructed on top of the old one, is largely silent and dull. I guess the aesthetic they were going for was, copy Firefly almost completely. The Western aspects of the town and the people are so pathetically overdone at this point that having them as subtle parts of the background is somehow worse than if everyone talked like Tommy Lee Jones in Lonesome Dove.

kind of weird relationship there
Whenever Defiance rubs up against something original, if almost by accident, it quickly turns away from that so that you immediately remember you're watching something you've seen before.

In one long scene, the married Votan couple Datak and Stahma Tarr (Tony Curran and Dexter's Jaime Murray) lounge in elaborate baths. All around them is white, their arms and legs, the walls, the servants who assist their relaxation. Their teenage son enters the refuge to relay pressing news, and Stahma rises, nude, to embrace her son. It is the only time so far we could conceivably imagine we are witnessing an alien culture rather than human actors portraying one.

still enmeshed in the terraforming process

Grey/white moments like this are few and far between. Defiance is a show badly in need of a protagonist; the type of mysterious individual whose actions at any given moment are impossible to predict. Instead Grant Bowler's Joshua is less Picard than Riker, and if you know anything about the world of interplanetary travel, you know Jonathan Frakes is boring as dogshit.

I just looked up how old Mia Kirschner is, she looks amazing for her age.

the answer to Lost was Arktech

The overarching plot of the show involves a well-meaning former leader of the town, Nicolette (Fionnula Flanagan), bringing destruction to it in secret. She is portrayed by the old woman Carlton Cuse forced to portray Eloise Hawking. You really didn't think there would be a Lost connection here? I'm honestly surprised Hurley was not the embattled pharmacist of this town. Along with her junior agent, Nicolette lives in a train designed to give her scenes a steampunk flavor, as if the drama required one more additional cliche.

So much of what we consume seems conveniently designed not to offend our senses. Of course this is the easiest way to accomplish the opposite. Creativity only begins at the level of the personal; it cannot take its marching orders from anything else. Having character motivation at the level of "I want to live in a peaceful town" makes Defiance more like Andy Griffith than Rio Bravo.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He only watches the SyFy channel at gunpoint except for when Smackdown is on. His next review will appear when Mary Tyler Moore finally returns to series television.

"Breath" - Sweet Random (mp3)

"Digital War" - Sweet Random (mp3)

if this turns out to be the afterlife i swear to god