#typed this out after watching the episode then forgot about it 💀 whatever

[greywoe]

some thoughts on that first episode bc i might as well

- that first scene in the north did not make me very happy… maybe it’s just me who likes negotiations but i was looking forward to Jace’s World Tour of North/Eastern Westeros and his talks and bargains with the different houses (especially lady jeyne! i guess i can understand why they cut it out but i think when it comes to her there’s material to build an interesting character from, but whatever. another arryn L i guess :(), but what did we get but one (1) scene at the wall for some reason. i mean i like the night’s watch as much as the next person but this just felt like straight up GoT fanservice… like what does the threat beyond the wall have to do with this conflict? they could at least have given us some parley but there was barely anything of that either. cregan stark’s going to be important later so i thought they’d do more to establish him as a character now. but literally the next scene we see jace in he’s back at dragonstone….. ok (tho i guess they could return to the north later? idk we’ll see) (also, i care less for the sara snow subplot but i was sure they would do something with it since they love to go with the juicy stuff like forbidden love and whatnot)

- on that note i expect they’re going the singers’ route with erryk and arryk which i don’t really care for (they need to make me care more for those characters first) but it makes sense

- i’m ashamed of the fact that the alyn reveal made me go “ahh” aloud and my mum (who hasn’t read f&b) went “what???” and i just vaguely waved it off because it’s so annoying when people do that and i try not to but… i was surprised they introduced him so early

- aegon ii keeps being the most entertaining character on the show and he was the highlight to me. thank you for bringing a tinge of comedy. i’d say keep it up, but… well

- this is old discourse but i don’t have much of a problem with them showing alicent being groomed and manipulated in the show which probably makes her seem more sympathetic to viewers (and i can’t help but fall for every instance the lingering and complex feelings between her and rhaenyra that still clearly affect her come up) but now i’d like to see her being more active. i liked her confronting otto but (so far) for the most part she seemed a bit uninvolved and inactive (except for the sex scenes with criston… -_- which i guess are intended to bite them in the ass later which is why it’s continuously brought up, but so far i do not care for it). i just want to see her contributing more of her own i guess. but there’s plenty of time for that in the upcoming episodes, especially now after the death of another child 😔

- i sure hope we get to see more of baela and rhaena. this was only the first episode, i will have hope in my heart

- helaena’s line about being scared of the rats felt like clever foreshadowing when i heard it, except that the blood & cheese thing happened just a few scenes later……. suddenly it didn’t feel so clever anymore, nobody will have forgotten it at that point (the best foreshadowing imo is stuff that you maybe don’t notice at first and only catch on your rewatch)

- and about that, as relieved as i am about the violence being toned down, reading the book the whole “damning one child to die but the other one is slain, so now you and your child have to live with the fact that you named him to be killed” business was very impactful so i’m a bit disappointed nonetheless. for a show that so clearly opts for emotional impact, i mean… though i suppose cutting a kid or two out is understandable. but the way they made a whole deal about not knowing the sex of the twins (and the assassins being surprisingly gentlemanly about it lol) made me wonder if they mean to do a big plot twist where helaena was lying about it and actually rescued jaehaerys, but also that (unnecessarily) changes some things and what would be the point of that. 🤔 i did really like helaena’s acting during the scene though, opting for pure shock and dissociation rather than making it a dramatic tearfest. i like helaena as a character too, from what little we have seen of her anyway, and i wish she’d had more moments previously in the show so that we as viewers would be even more emotionally connected to her, but she gets pretty sidelined in comparison to her brothers. we don’t get to know much about her in the book so i feel like that’s what the show is for! expanding upon the book!

[notasapleasure]

Robin Hood S03E11 (2009)

Another staple of BBC afternoon TV that I barely watched. I doubt I saw this episode and if I did I definitely forgot it.

In which we await Isabella and her goons :) She is the Big Bad, and Joplin's character has no name so I suspect this appearance is brief and backgroundy and one for the completists but I needed some silly medieval nonsense after all the drama of Doctors.

In the meantime there's some powerful homoeroticism going on - Guy and Robin are teaming up to fight said Isabella, but first they have to have a brawl in the woodlitter about how Robin's dad seduced Guy's mum and how they both loved the same woman who Guy killed. My my, that's a lot of history for three seasons!

Ah, this is like....the third from last episode ever so I guess it's going to continue to be 1000% Extra.

Oh hello love!

Ok, he has no name, most of his lines are "Yes Sheriff" and he's largely there so Isabella has someone to monologue off, but otoh 🥵🥵🥵

Oh yes, there's also a soft wee Northern accent, it's rather lovely.

That is a LOOK. For my fellow Lymond fans reading this, yes he is too tall to be Jerott, but also yes, I still have a type. 🥴💀

And he has a little mission on his own now! Probably doomed tbh, given the no-name, one-episode, single-handedly being sent after the heroes kind of deal.

Thinking of @donnaimmaculata​'s tag for the show when Guy gets thrown in a jail cell and....all the inmates just fall on him, grabbing at him. The Guy of Gisborne fetish show indeed. And his brother Archer gets in on the action with some handcuffs and involuntary stripping!

Oop, arriving slightly too late to catch Robin at the Sheriff's table!

Also the Sheriff apparently has a memory like a sieve, but whatever. Look at this:

Pic spam incoming, he is a mere goon but GOD he’s my type of goon

Baby is having a dreadful day at work: one sheriff wants him to take two of these three idiots alive, but another sheriff has a vendetta against the third and just wants to have a good old fashioned hanging so he’d rather kill the lot. Nameless goons don’t get to argue with sheriffs :(

They do get really fricking sweet red-lined swishy cloaks though

Even goons are amazed when one brother betrays another!

Aww, like a very big cat bringing not-quite-dead shrews home to his boss.

Sorry buddy! Sheriff of York overrules your boss.

Cue chaotic failed execution scene and heartwarming reconciliation between Guy and Little John.

Sorry I only noticed the screenshots still had the control bar on when I’d closed the window and going back and getting new screenshots right now feels like excessive self-indulgence. Trust me when I say: big sword.

But he’s never going to get out of this, not with such excellent Villain Sword Handling Technique:

As you’d expect for the villain’s henchman in The Robin Hood Show :’)

Rating:

Dead? Decidedly. The show even showed Isabella being mad about it!

Evil? Now, far be it from me to apply modern concepts of morality to medieval society, life was often cheap and he lived by the sword. He didn’t kill the old man, he tried to bring the outlaws in alive, and the one he was going to kill was a nob. I don’t think he did anything wrong tbh.

Affects the plot? Oh my no.

4/5 my judgement is clouded by studded pleather, chainmail and big sword.