In Which We Look Forward To Our New Throne

Something So Good, So Pure

by DICK CHENEY

Everything is better on Game of Thrones now. We have put the miserable, awful fifth season of the show behind us for good. HBO put so much money in Vinyl and the other raging shit on their network (besides that white supremacist sitcom Silicon Valley) but now Game of Thrones is all they have, so they might as well end this thing with the gross excess the show deserved from the beginning. The checkbook is open, and pretty soon Arcade Fire will be playing Mereen and Bobby Cannavale will fulfill the rest of his contract with HBO by getting a huge engagement ring for Sansa Stark. Synergy, son.

Jon Snow was maybe the worst actor on television besides the guy who plays the son on Empire, but now he is mercifully gone. This change alone takes Game of Thrones from a seven to a ten. They teased bringing Jon back, but even if he does return someday as the Red God, we no longer have to hear his pathetic whining about the wildlings or those cold people he hates. Game of Thrones is all fealty and vague lesbian affection, the way it was meant to be from the fucking beginning!

I honestly couldn't stand that they left a whimpering Cersei in her prison cell for like a million episodes. She is free and making the same face no matter what is actually occurring:

I love this face, it reminds me of Lynne's expression when she first saw Bernie Sanders criticize Hillary for being a woman. Cersei's killed about a billion people and she is only now monologuing about having to see her dead mother, whose name I believe was Adele Lannister? My reservoir of sympathy was exhausted by the fact that Sansa Stark would rather endure endless sexual abuse than stroll through a very chilly river.

Meanwhile, Jaime is trying to make us forget about all the terrible movies he made while he was not laying with his sister. I did not forget.

Given some of the dialogue in this episode, Game of Thrones would be better off just moving to a silent collage of scenes. So much here was unnecessary, with Ser Davis bleating, "I'd like some mutton," and the inane patter of the Khal's wives in the desert outside Mereen. Game of Thrones badly needed a new character or two to come into the light. For a time I thought that would be Podric, but I think he is being held back because they don't want him to outshine the tall woman.

Fantasy used to be mainly about male power fantasies, but now it's mostly about watching women murder men twice their size with kitchen knives. (The clear metaphor for feminism murdering multiculturalism was lost on no one.) The revolution in Dorne was long overdue, given that it probably should have occurred at the end of last season. Instead all we got was a soft deadly kiss and a ship returning with a corpse we never saw. In Thrones, it is always best to demand we view the body.

The only woman not reconstituted as a superhero is Arya Stark, who is a long way from becoming Daredevil. Maisie Williams' overly broad performance as this character has not aged well at all, although I am willing to forgive it given she was only a child when she lost her dad (Sean Bean?). HBO might want to consider recasting the role and letting that little boy from Room play Arya Stark by inserting him in the rest of the series in retrospect.

But again, who cares. This hour looked like it cost more than all of last season combined, which had about the same budget as three episodes of Stargate: Atlantis. Now we get to see all the jaunty, electric places of Westeros. Summer in King's Landing! Spring break at the Citadel! Christmas at Casterly Rock! It is all within our grasp, provided we stop a Trump presidency.

As for the last scene, I guess Melisandre knows a way to stave off death. In retrospect it appears her relationship with Stannis Baratheon was more age-appropriate than it seemed at the time. Otherwise, I'm not quite sure what the big deal is: that's what I and about seventy-five percent of Americans look like in the mirror. Just because a body has a few wrinkles and sags here and there doesn't mean it isn't beautiful. On Outlander the main character shaved all her pubic hair and nobody said word one. 

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.

"Mayday" - Wild Rivers (mp3)

"Speak Too Soon" - Wild Rivers (mp3)

In Which The Game Of Thrones Finale Murders Everyone We Despise

Final Thronesings

by DICK CHENEY 

Game of Thrones
creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff

I try, on occasion, to imagine the kind of person for whom the events of Game of Thrones are deeply personal. I found myself crying the other day during a hot rewatch of a Ronald Reagan speech. He looked so handsome, vibrant and alive that it was hard to believe he was dead less than a decade later.

This is like the Breakfast Club without testicles.

Death comes quicker than we can imagine. I find it entertaining mostly, what a great mystery we make out of death. When I was a kid I had an uncle with an inoperable tumor on his spine. He became very ill with the measles at the same time, and one illness offset the malignant properties of the other. He lived five more years after that.

"Somehow, I have lasted this long," Tyrion says of his surprising survival. That was the first part of the Game of Thrones season finale. The rest was rather oblique references to the man named Jesus of Nazareth. As she pranced to the Red Keep, it seemed quite likely that death was going to come to Cersei Lannister. Death is only meaningful on this show when is it unlikely.

laying the biblical imagery on hard. A Mel Gibson cameo would have made my hands clammy.

As excessively silly as Cersei's walk of shame was, I could have watched this endless sequence all night if I didn't have to hear any more whining from Dany. She knows her dragon doesn't understand English, right? Try Valyerian, anything except crying about how ungrateful she is that the poor thing saved her life. I don't understand how the dragons are going to take back Westeros when they couldn't defeat a few unorganized enemies.

"Do you like my dress? Do you want to go to Chili's? Are you even listening?"

No one really cared that Shireen died except her mother. The girl was always bragging to illiterate people about her natural talent for reading. Myrcella is about the same story. She was dumb enough to kiss a Sand Snake; she did not deserve to live. It's more fun to see dead people brought to life, although the coming resurrection of Kit Harington annoys me to my core.

This was the least sly assassination in history. I hope you get gout.

If I was going to bring someone back from the dead, it would make more sense to accomplish the feat on someone in their prime of life, as opposed to Catelyn Stark, who looked like Kathy Griffin's corpse.

Surviving is generally assumed to be easier than dying and coming back to lfie, but it feels like our dwarf did both. "I missed you," Tyrion says to his friend Varys. You just end up missing everybody. I would bring back Barry Goldwater and the guy in Blind Melon.

I'm sensing they just didn't want to pay Varys for the full season.

There is a good reason we cannot speak to the dead, and that is because we might end up trusting them more than the living.

My wife Lynne told me she thought that the Thrones finale was very sad, actually. When Ned Stark died, she cheered because he was such a casual prick. When his wife went down at the Red Wedding, she did not feel a thing. But even I have to admit: it's a very sad thing for the people left behind, like Jaime and Samwell, to be all alone in the world like orphans.

They really need to use more R&B on this show. "Whatta Man" would have been perfect for this moment.

Arya's first straight-up murder was also a bit depressing. It's nice that she has her revenge and everything, but it felt a bit cruel. I mean, all that fellow did was whip a few girls and kill her fencing master. Every fencing master knows he is pretty much taking his life in his hands when he takes up the profession.

It was very sad to see Jon go, even if we know it isn't really for good. It would have been better writing if we had seen the Watch's point of view: unfortunately, it only seemed like Jon had no choice and they were a bunch of racist pricks. I would be lying if I said a part of me wasn't relieved to end Mr. Snow's practice of talking in that stupid, borish accent about how hard it was to be a bastard.

Stand tall, Stannis. You did absolutely nothing at all wrong.

Things felt eventful last night, but nothing really shocked me or Lynne. Stannis seemed doomed from the moment he left for Winterfell; him reclaiming the North was a narrative cul-de-sac. What excites us even more than random deaths of minor supporting characters would be someone showing a little gumption and intelligence. This person would need to come up with a plan for changing the world.

The masterminds didn't really show up last night. Tyrion was begging to go on a search and rescue mission, Samwell was like, "Jon Boy, I want to be a maester!", Littlefinger was nowhere to be found and Melisandre's face looked like that of her horse. Killing off heroes and heroines demands new ones be found to replace them. I really hope it's not Theon Greyjoy.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.

"Shipboard Cook" - Third Eye Blind (mp3)

"All the Souls" - Third Eye Blind (mp3)

In Which We Wonder Where Grey Worm Was

Hangin' with Myrcella

by DICK CHENEY

It was a hard week, and at the end of a hard week, you just want to kick your balls up in the air, eat some pickled eggs and watch Jon Snow teabag his ginger friend until morning. I have heard it all from people on their deathbeds — once a legit member of Al Qaeda asked his for his mom to sing him to sleep. Once she arrived he killed her with his teeth, the reasons were nuncupatory.

Children murder their parents all the time on Game of Thrones, so it seems only right that it should work the other way around. I know that I spent many grafs explaining how annoying I found Shireen, and how unappealing her greyscale, but even I assumed she would go out with a great deal more dignity. I mean, it was only by the grace of the seven that she even survived this long in the first place. Every day after that was a gift.

Go out with a little class there Shireen. Mance Rayder didn't even whine this much.

I would have thought that D.B. Weiss had the cojones to let us watch Shireen's passing without the dubious cliche of watching her mother watch her dying, but these are the people whose idea of a climactic moment was the Dragon Queen making a cameo in what appeared to be a scene from The Neverending Story. The whole battle in the arena was completely stupid, and Iain Glen looked like an awkward klutz making his way through Mereen's finest.

This guy knows how to keep a low profile. Go back to Age of Adaline and take your shit beard with you.

Worst of all was Tyrion's wretched dialogue to the Queen's late fiance Hizdahr about how eloquent men are something something. He can't bring any better conversation to the table? How about ranking the slaves based on factors like obedience and resemblance to Grey Worm? Tyrion's condemnation of violence also rang a bit hollow. I mean the man was a general who fought at the Battle of Blackwater, and he winces when he sees a few slaves cut each other's heads off?

I couldn't have been less impressed with Drogon's fighting. He inspired no fear at all and cried like my golden retriever Ariana when a few arrows went through what should have been his armor. He called for his mother when he was in pain, earning the nickname that will haunt him all of his dragon years: Shireen II. The only thing worse than the scene itself is having to watch the idiot who plays Daario Naharis act.

what I'm hearing is that sex with anyone is absolutely fine. You are a treasure Ellaria.

In Dorne Jaime was written some cute letters and having really freeing conversations with Ellaria Sand about why incest is not so bad, really. I hope this leads to the long awaited team up between Bronn and the Sand Snakes.

I can't get Tyene in particular out of my mind; she almost makes me forget that the reason Doran Martell is confined to a wheelchair is a horrendous case of gout brought on by a pet scorpion named Rosie.

Drogon buddy, you have shrunk in size and your dodging skills are mediocre at best. Go use your litter box and await my return.

Your pets will always turn on you, especially if your CGI budget was cut by HBO and you are no longer permitted to show more than one scene featuring a direwolf in any given season. Some sets on Thrones look fantastic, but this season has featured less and less of that. King's Landing is now more of a hallway and a dungeon, while the Dragon Queen's palace is only one room. Stannis Baratheon's encampment looked like a couple guys bedding down in Yellowstone before they went climbing the next day.

She's disgusted by gout. It doesn't make her a bad person.

Maybe we should just wrap things up here, make the season finale the series finale. The Queen marries Jon Snow, who is revealed as a secret Targaryen. Jaime finds love with Oberyn Martell's ex and they sire eight to ten more Sand Snakes. Their resulting children enter Kevan Lannister and the High Septon's beds, destroying them with poison and inappropriateness.

Sansa falls in love with Dany's cute assistant and Grey Worm, forming a powerful triumvirate that rules the Iron Islands. Samwell Tarly falls down a particular high set of stairs. Gilly preserves his penis in amber. Tyrion screams "Wheeeee!" as he rides one of the Queen's lesser dragons. He picks up Bran in his dragon Uber and they all decide to become maesters at the Citadel. Arya elopes with Mace Tyrell and they form an acapella troupe. Tommen sucks a dick.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.

Shireen II: an improvement on the first edition in every way

"Regeneration" - Luke Haines (mp3)

"Adventures in Dementia" - Luke Haines (mp3)