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Stranger Things Season 3 - A Breakup Letter to Friendship

My thoughts on Stranger Things Season 3. If you haven't watched it, all of the spoilers are ahead. So tread carefully, like a Mind Flayer could be around the corner. “But I know you're getting older, growing, changing. I guess, if I'm being really honest, that's what scares me. I don't want things to change.” - Jim Hopper True friendship, at least to the Duffer Brothers, seems defined by finding those people who truly understand you. Who you don’t really need to explain your life to because they already get it. There’s shared happiness and shared trauma. They are those with whom you speak a common language, who understand what a Mind Flayer or Demogorgon are without explanation. Who can walk into your parents’ basements unannounced. They can get you up on the walkie-talkie at any time for a meetup somewhere on a D&D game, trip to the pool, walk at the mall or take down a secret Russian military base. These are true friends. Friendships

Game of Thrones Finale - The Iron Throne

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." - Sansa Stark. Thoughts on the Game of Thrones finale, "The Iron Throne". Spoilers and more ahead... "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." - Sansa I think a lot about television shows, probably too much really. In the grand scheme of things, they aren’t important, simply blips on the artistic or entertainment radar and nothing more. Hell, most of us don’t even watch the same shows anymore. There’s so much stuff *on* to choose from (some of it good, a little bit really good, most of it very bad) that generating *water cooler* talk about television these days is nearly impossible. It really just doesn’t even happen. Gone are the days of a show airing on Sunday night and you made damn sure you caught it because if you missed it you’d be out of the loop. Except for this one. So before we start to pick apart

Game of Thrones - The Bells

Some thoughts on Targaryens, Daenerys, character arcs and more as we wind to the close with "The Bells". Spoilers ahead... What’s the point in having a pet dragon unless you get to lay waste to and incinerate a whole city with hundreds of thousands of innocent lives inside the walls? When you’ve got a sports car, you need to open that thing up every once in a while. Dragons are no different. And Daenerys opened that mother up. From the moment Missandei’s capa was detated from her head at the end of last episode and Daenerys did her rather symbolic heel turn away from Cersei and the rest of the city, I suppose we could see this coming. She’s been increasingly unhinged over the last few episodes with the writers building to a not-so-happy ending for Danny, or at least something different than we thought they’d built to over the last seven+ seasons. I think some will make a ruckus that this was, in fact, a complete 180 for her character, going from 0 to nuts all too

Game of Thrones - The Last of the Starks

I was basically (over) forgiving of last week’s “The Long Night”, willing to look past some obvious narrative fumbles in order to (mostly) enjoy the episode. It was the battle Game of Thrones had been building toward for seven seasons and there were, for sure, missteps. But I understood, for the most part, the writers’ willingness to end the rather problematic Night King saga in order push the show’s main players into a final conflict. And that was ultimately the point of this week’s “The Last of the Starks”, getting Jon, Daenerys, Tyrion, Jamie, Cersei, Arya and others face to face for a final confrontation that would ultimately decide the fate of the Seven Kingdoms and the GOT world as a whole. So yeah, I get it. But man was this episode had some real problems. Forget the rather obvious gaffs like the Starbucks’ coffee being served in the Great Hall through final edits. Mistakes, I guess, are made from time to time, whatever. But the path they’ve taken on some of these

Game of Thrones - The Long Night

My thoughts on Arya, The Night King and maybe the most polarizing Game of Thrones ever. As the Night King walked into the weirwood, smirking as only the *unkillable* leader of a 100K (and counting) undead can and stared down an emotionless (and motionless) Bran I thought, “Well it’s certainly not going to end like this. There are too many episodes left.” So when Arya did her very best Cat of the Canals leap onto an unsuspecting Night King it was for sure a momentary, “What the?” surprise. But after a beat, it really wasn’t much to have seen it coming. Of course, Arya had been set up for this very encounter, given the Valerian dagger by Bran, trained in just this kind of combat, told by Melisandre she’d close eyes of all colors, set about with a singular purpose to avenge all those in the world who would seek harm on her family. It couldn’t have been Jon. Dude makes every tactical mistake in the warfare book (see: Battle of the Bastards, see: Walking the Watch out be

Stranger Things 2 - The Scariest Enemy is Time

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't binged on Stranger Things 2 then stop here. Please... “If you’re lost you can look and you will find me, time after time” - Cyndi Lauper By the time the gate closes, the Hawkins Lab shuts down and we reach the Snow Ball slow dance with Cyndi Lauper’s iconic refrain to “Time After Time” playing in the background, something is abundantly clear in Stranger Things 2: The real enemy to the Party hasn’t been the Demogorgon or the Demodogs, or the Shadow Government facility workers or even the all-powerful Mind Flayer. Rather, the greatest existential threat to Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas is Time. It’s the threat of growing up and leaving behind the things that at once made them (and really all of us) innocent, sweet, selfless, and brave. It’s the difficult and confusing slow burn into their formative teenage years and the prospect of time changing everything they fundamentally know about themselves and each other. If life is like a string of