Killing Eve: Season 2

Tyger, tyger, burning bright 

In the forests of the night, 

What immortal hand or eye 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Tyger by William Blake

Season 1 of Killing Eve found Eve Polastri on the edges of a a web of intrigue as she determinedly persisted pushing herself deeper into that web to locate and stop the assassin Villanelle. 

Season 2 of Killing Eve finds Eve Poslastri closer to the center of the web. Being at the center of the web is never good for anybody. Except the spider. 

Villanelle and Eve out for a stroll

Season 2 began  with the aftermath of where Eve stabbed Villanelle.  

Villanelle escapes but spends the first couple of episodes not exactly on her A-game.  Eventually Villanelle reunites with Konstantin (who is not dead despite Villanelle's efforts to kill him last season) and the two go into the free lance assassin business. Then Villanelle gets a contract hit she wasn't expecting. Her target? Eve Polastri.  

Eve's got her own problems. 

Shell shocked from her encounter with Villanelle, Eve goes back to London where Carolyn re-hires Eve back to MI6 to investigate a string of mysterious deaths that turn out to be...
MURDER!  MURDER! MURDER! MURDER! 

Stealthy and silent where Villanelle is splashy and loud, the MI6 teams name this killer "The Ghost". With almost nothing to go on, Eve is able to profile this killer to a very detailed degree. The woman who is our erstwhile Ghost is located and arrested but she ain't talking. 

The only thing Eve can get out of her is this: 
The Ghost has heard of Villanelle.
The Ghost is scared of Villanelle. 

Eve needs to get to Villanelle. So she arranges to have a hit taken out on herself. 

No, this is not a good plan but dang if it doesn't work. 
Villanelle shows up at Eve’s place and Eve makes her pitch: Eve needs Villanelle's help. 

Eve and Villanelle go out to the woods where the Ghost is being held inside a storage pod. Villanelle goes in. Then she comes out with information.
 
Eve goes into the pod to check on the Ghost. The Ghost is alive but traumatized. She has only one word for Eve: “Monster.” 

Is she describing Villanelle? Or Eve for letting Villanelle in there?  

Anyway… 

The inside skinny is that the Ghost was hired by Aaron Peel, a super rich and super creepy sociopath with a nose for all our dirty little secrets and apparently, he has weaponized his information resources, a weapon of profound impact and influence being sought by a bunch of clandestine organizations including “The Twelve”.  So now the deal is to get close to Aaron Peel to learn more about this weapon. Getting close to Aaron Peel will be tricky as he holds himself aloof and apart from the mere concerns of humanity, ferociously guarding his privacy.  It would take someone of incredible skill and more than a little crazy to worm their way past Peel’s notoriously protected shell. 
 
Skills? And cray-cray? This, thinks Eve, sounds like a job for Villanelle.   

So Eve and Villanelle are… partners? 

One is a psychopath assassin, there other is not. Together they fight crime. 

Sort of. 

Things do not go according to plan. 

MI6 boss Carolyn Martens is pretty clear on this: Villanelle shouldn’t kill anyone.  

Villanelle does manage to worm her way into Aaron Peel's inner sanctum and a trip to Rome with the sinister and smarmy tech billionaire looking to peddle his info-weapon. Eve follows along, keeping tabs on her charge. 

Overhearing the “safe word”, Eve thinks Villanelle is in danger and rushes over to Peel’s hotel. Well, Villanelle is not in danger but the jig is, as they say, up. Villanelle slashes Aaron Peels throat, forcing him to watch in a mirror as he dies. For the first time since we’ve met this bastard, he smiles.  

Now Villanelle and Eve are on the run. A lot of people are going to be angry now, says Villanelle. And assassins do seem to be everywhere. As we learn from Konstantin, these assassins are to kill Villanelle but as a professional courtesy, not to do so until after she’s killed Aaron Peel.  

Since killing Aaron Peel was not allegedly part of the plan, that’s an interesting bit of news.

Eve herself dispatches one of these assassins herself.  

With an axe.  

Yep. An axe.  

In shock, Eve follows Villanelle as they run underneath Rome’s streets before emerging among some ruins.   

It’s in these final minutes my perspective on Villanelle gets seriously bent. 

As they run, Villanelle is riffing on her and Eve running away to Alaska, getting a cabin, hiding away from the world where no one can find them.

She’s talking, rather matter of factly, like she and Eve are a couple.   

Villanelle is crazy, homicidal. But there is in her fantasy of domestic bliss with Eve Polastri something that seems poignant about Villanelle’s delusion she could have anything like a normal life with Eve. 

Eve’s fascination with Villanelle can only carry her so far.

(And if Eve knew what was going on in a locked storage room in London where Villanelle left Eve’s estranged husband, going mad with the dead body of his friend Gemma, killed by Villanelle. Whoa.)

Eve turns her back on Villanelle and walks away. 

Never turn your back on a homicidal psychopath, no matter how much she is proclaiming to love you.
Even more importantly, never turn your back on a homicidal psychopath with a gun.

Villanelle fires a single shot and Eve falls to the ground.

Villanelle turns and walks away.   

There is a symmetry with the events of last season. In an intimate moment when Villanelle lets her guard down, Eve looking her right in the eyes stabbed Villanelle. Now, together and alone against a world conspiring against both women, Eve lets her guard down and turns her back on Villanelle; this time it's Villanelle who takes the shot, literally.  

We watched over the course of the season as Eve kept pulling at various strings, pulling herself deeper and deeper towards the center of a web of intrigue, deception and violence. Eve should've been repulsed, she could've turned away. Instead she kept pulling herself closer to the center of the web, alone with Villanelle.

Being at the center of the web is never good for anybody. Except the spider.

Eve Polastri was never going to be the spider.  
   

Mueller Speaks

Robert Mueller spoke on Wednesday. It was the message of a man who really did not to have to say anything at all. He said all he had to say in his 448-page final report on the 22-month Russia investigation.

“I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner. I am making that decision myself. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. The report is my testimony.”

But in Mueller's remarks before the cameras at the Justice Department on Wednesday, it was this sentence that carried the most weight, wielding the most power:  

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so." 

What he said next seemed to reference Congress’s power to launch impeachment proceedings.

“The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing." 

Translation:

"Congress, impeach the motherfucker!!"

Double Standards

While Li'l Donnie was in Japan, he went on Twitter to side with North Korea dictator Kim Jung Un against former Vice President Joe Biden. 

Which prompted a tweet from Joe Walsh which led me to recollect a response to Obama's own Memorial Day weekend visit to Japan in 2016.  

Here is a live link to the post from May 31, 2016. The post was centered around the image below which somehow wound up on my Facebook feed 3 years ago.   

Meanwhile, how did Trump comport himself in Japan during his Memorial Day weekend excursion? 

The always delightful and wicked incisive Mrs. Betty Bowers covers that ground for us.  

Yeah, you just know if there had been a photo of Obama on a golf course yucking it up with the Japanese Prime Minister during Memorial Day weekend, the level of burning rage by right wing pundits would've been off the charts. 

Obviously Ludicrous and Yet Kinda Plausible

Meet Ian Bremmer. Ian is the president of the Eurasia Group and a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. 

Ian decided to have a little fun and posted the following on Twitter. 

“President Trump in Tokyo: ‘Kim Jong Un is smarter and would make a better President than Sleepy Joe Biden'."   

Ha! Ha!

You see, it's funny because it seems like something Trump might say, right? 

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and CNN contributor Ana Navarro-Cárdenas didn't quite catch that "seems like" part and shared it on Twitter as something Trump said.

Uh oh.

And guess who was paying attention? Yeah, Donald Trump.  

“People think they can say anything and get away with it. Really, the libel laws should be changed to hold Fake News Media accountable!” 

Now here's the thing. Here is something Li'l Donnie actually said as at a news conference in Tokyo: “Well, Kim Jong Un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low-IQ individual. I think I agree with him on that.”

Bremmer initially defended the tweet, writing that he believed it was both obviously ludicrous “and yet kinda plausible.”

But he apologized Monday as media coverage grew, saying he had made the quote in jest.

“My tweet yesterday about Trump preferring Kim Jong Un to Biden as President was meant in jest. I should have been clearer. My apologies.”

I don't know if Ted Lieu or Ana Navarro-Cárdenas have had anything to say but I would suggest they need to be more careful.  I mean, Donald Trump says so much brazenly crazy, stupid shit, it can be easy to be tripped up by parody posts. It can be so easy to parody what Trump actually sounds like but it can also be difficult because Trump is such a parody of himself, sometimes the stupid shit people come up with to sound like Trump almost, as Ian Bremmer put it, "kinda plausible". 

I have had to more than once do a double take on certain Twitter parody accounts to make sure that Donald Trump really didn't say something. The difference between real bullshit and fake bullshit is not always immediately apparent.  

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day here in the United States, a day set aside to remember those who died in service to their country.

I never served in the military but I respect those who do and honor those who gave their lives in that service.

It is important to remember the men and women who serve in the army, the navy and all the branches of the US military are just people, people with dreams and hopes and aspirations like all of us. But they are also people who have made an extraordinary choice, to dedicate their time and efforts to their country. They receive intense training to become more than they are, to develop skills and abilities most of us will never attain.  

And they do this with the foreknowledge that they may be called to use those skills and abilities in times and places of danger. All of them leave home; not all of them come back. 

Do not forget them on this Memorial Day.  

Supergirl: Season 4

So we finished up season 4 of Supergirl here at the Fortress of Ineptitude last week.  

The season was superior to last season with more time for Kara Danvers and Supergirl with Kara doing some actual honest to God reporting. In the season finale, it's Kara Danvers reporter who does more damage to Lex Luthor's plan than anything Supergirl could do.  

The season long hostility towards alien immigrants was a bit too anvilicious in its on the nose comparison to our real world issues of hostility towards immigrants. The comparison was apt and timely and needed but there were episodes where I just wanted to snap back at the TV, "Yes! We get it!"  

The biggest asset to Supergirl Season 4 was Jon Cryer as Lex Luthor. Everyone underestimated Cryer when it was announced he was cast Lex Luthor but he shut all those naysayers down. At turns intense, sinister, manic, snarky, cold with logic, hot with rage and just plain crazy, all within seconds of each other and sometimes even simultaneously, I think Jon Cryer made for the best Lex Luthor I have ever seen on TV or film. 

In the season finale, as he flies around in his power armor shooting off missiles and creating wholesale mayhem, while Frank Sinatra's "My Way" plays on the soundtrack, Lex is rapturously singing along. It is a quintessential moment of Jon Cryer's take on Lex Luthor. 

Crucial to Lex's schemes is Red Daughter. A Supergirl duplicate formed at the end of season 3 who winds up in Kasnia (expy for Russia), Melissa Benoist speaks with a Russian accent and acts differently than she does as Supergirl. I saw some complaints online but mostly, I think Melissa did a great job bringing this distinctive form of Supergirl to life.  

Actor Sam Wynter had a more thankless job of bringing Ben Lockwood to the TV screen, comics' erstwhile Agent of Liberty.  Lockwood looks to be early on as the season's big bad. He even gets a spotlight episode detailing his evolution from a fairly progressive thinker on the subject of aliens to a hard line embittered man who has zero tolerance for aliens among us. 

As the season progressed, Lockwood's obsessive quest for power and his pursuit to rid America of all that is not of this world dilutes any sympathy we may have had for Ben Lockwood.  

In the end, for all of Ben Lockwood's climb up the ladder of power to rid America of aliens, he discovers he's just a pawn from the very beginning of Lex Luthor. Sorry. Still not feeling sorry for you. 

Lockwood crosses the line into madness when he calls for the arrest of Dreamer after her broadcast plea for peace and understanding between humans and aliens. Peace and understanding? Lockwood sees that as a call to incite riot and a call to arms. 

Answering a call to violence this season was Manchester Black. In the comics, Manchester Black was a pasty white British dude with telepathic and telekinetic powers.  On TV, Manchester Black is a towering imposing black British dude with no discernible powers, just a raging mad on for the Children of Liberty for killing his alien girlfriend. 

For some reason, Manchester Black became J'onn J'onzz's Skeletor. Something weird or bad goes down and J'onn's all, "Manchester Black is behind this!" As we later learned, sometimes the weird and bad stuff was down to Lex Luthor. Eventually, J'onn destroys his "arch nemesis" with the Martian Stick of Power. Still, have we heard the last of Manchester Black? Will we see this sometime in season 5? 

J'onn goes to his pantry for Oreos. But there are no Oreos to be found. 

J'onn clenches his fists as he eyes glow red. 

"Manchester Black is behind this!" 

Jump cut to Manchester Black kicking back with a package of Oreos and tall cool glass of milk.

"Yeah, mate! Catch me if you can!" 

Or maybe not.  

Supergirl made history by casting transgender actress Nicole Maines as Nia Nal who would later become Dreamer, the first transgender superhero on television.  Nia's status as a transgender woman does come up but only once is it presented as a point of contention. Nia is the younger child of a refugee from the planet Naltor. The women of that planet have precognitive powers that are passed down to their daughters. The assumption is Maeve, Nia's olderr sister, is going to inherit those powers.  Maeve has spent a lot of time researching dream interpretations. When Maeve discovers that Nia has inherited the powers to become Dreamer, she angrily lashes out, "You're not even a real woman."  

In Supergirl's world, Nia has more problems being an alien than being transgender. To everyone's credit, no one makes a big deal about it when Nia tells anyone. Hell, even Ben Lockwood's only pissed off that Dreamer's an alien with her "peace and understanding" rhetoric.  

I'm still not sure what exactly Dreamer can do. We established early that Nia as prophetic dreams and she has some cool waking precognitive abilities that make her pretty cool in fight. But then she starts zapping some kind of blue energy bolts from her fingers that do... something.  

This was the season that saw us lose Winn Schott as resident tech genius after he left to join the Legion of Super Heroes in the 31st century. Legion member Brainiac 5 stays behind in the 21st to assist the DEO as it's resident tech genius. Jesse Rath was adorkable as Brainy when he first appeared in season 3 and remained so for most of season 4 even though Rath began adopting some kind of irritatingly distracting cadence to his speech patterns as the season progressed. It was as if Rath was devolving into a parody of Brainy's speech patterns.  

Then came the next last episode of season 4 which saw Brainy being captured and tortured by Lockwood's men. Under duress, Brainy's mind begins to "reboot", recalibrating to a state like that of the original Brainiac, an evil ancestor of Brainy and a long time nemesis of Superman.  Brainy has become Dark Brainy and no one seems to notice. He looks different, he acts different, he talks differently and his voice is at least two octaves lower. Dreamer doesn't notice, J'onn doesn't notice, Kara and Alex don't notice it. Really!  

Seeing Dreamer in potentially life threatening distress re-re-boots Brainy back to his old adorkable self when he finally professes his love for Nia. But we know Dark Brainy is buried down there somewhere. This could be a threat for season 5. 

So what is on tap for season 5. 

We're not done with Eve Tessmacher. Lex Luthor's grand scheme is all kaput but it turns out that Lex's Girl Friday was a plant by a mysterious organization call Leviathan. Leviathan is currently causing problems over in the comic books so that's same damn fine corporate synergy at work there. Ever since being introduced way back in Season 2 Episode 1 as Cat Grant's new assistant, Eve Tessmacher has been on quite a journey, continuing on as assistant to James Olsen when he took over CatCo from Grant. Then revealing a heretofore unknown level of scientific skill, joining Lena Luthor as her lab assistant. Then her betrayal of Lena when find out Eve Tessmacher's been working for Lex Luthor all along. 

Speaking of Lena, her last scene in the last episode of season 4 does not bode well for season 5.  Lena has regarded Kara Danvers as her best friend. But Lena has not been in the loop on the info that Kara is also Supergirl. Kara has felt guilty about that but there never seemed to be a good time to tell her. So Lex Luthor tells her.  

After Lena shoots Lex, he spends his last moments of life to twist a knife deep into his sister's gut. He shows her video proof that Kara Danvers is also Supergirl. And he adds, "Everyone around you know that. You were the only one in the room who didn't know. God, you're so stupid!" 

Then Lex dies. 

Lena's last scene is in her office, sipping a glass of whiskey. Laying flat on her desk is a picture frame with a photo of her, Kara and Lena. Then Lena slams her whiskey glass down on it, shattering the frame. Lena is not taking this well.

Lex would be pleased. If he wasn't dead. 

And he may not be. 

The Monitor shows up where Lena left Lex's dead body to rot. The Monitor waves his hand to conjur up some glow and... who knows?

The Crisis on Infinite Earths is coming. 

Lex Luthor may be needed for that. Well, only the Monitor knows.  

Prime Minister May

Yesterday, Teresa May announced she would be stepping down as Prime Minister of Great Britain after her umpteenth failure to deliver a Brexit deal.

I'm not sure how much of this is the old girl's fault since Brexit is a fundamentally and catastrophically stupid thing to do.  

Finding a good and acceptable way to do a fundamentally and catastrophically stupid thing is rather counter-intuitive objective.  

"I want to shove bottle rockets up my ass and light them to see if I can fly. What is a good and acceptable way to do that?" 

Unable to find a good and acceptable way to do a fundamentally and catastrophically stupid thing, Teresa May is stepping down as Prime Minister. 

And just to make sure her last days in office are perfectly horrid, Donald Trump's coming by for a visit on June 3rd. 

Anyway, May's announcement prompted a bit of word play that I posted on Twitter.

And it was to my joy and delight to find that none other than Bully the Little Stuffed Bull LIKED my fanciful little play on words.

Thanks, Bully! It made my day.  

Doctor Who: Over the Moon For the Judoon!

Remember way back in 2018 when we weren't getting jack squat in the way of Doctor Who news. The paucity of Doctor Who Series 11 news was so extreme, I wondered if Chris Chibnall had forgotten to actually make any episodes. 

We're about a half a year out from 2020 and the debut of Series 12 and will you look at what we have here.

It's the Doctor confronting a Judoon! 

Well, all righty then! 

And it's not just a picture but we have words from Chris Chibnall.

Yes, the Chib speaks! 

"No! Sho! Blo! The Judoon are storming back into Doctor Who in full force, and the streets of Gloucester aren't safe. If anyone has anything to hide, confess now. The Judoon are taking no prisoners, and will stop at nothing to fulfill their mission."

OK, I'll take it! 

In 2018, I understood the logic behind Chibnall's twin goals:

1) keep a tight lid on everything. Let the shows speak for themselves.

2) all new monsters and aliens, keep Doctor Who moving forward.

But I think Chibnall tacked too far in those respective directions. 

1) Doctor Who fans don't want whole episodes spoiled in advance but we do feel a sort of connection to the creative process. Toss us a bone once in a while, let us feel like we're part of the team. 

2) Maybe you don't want to scare off new viewers by going too often to the well of what has gone on before. But part of Doctor Who's appeal is it's rich history. There's a certain appeal to discovering something that's been on awhile and peeling back the layers and discovering what has gone before. And for long time fans, honoring the show's history acknowledges the time and investment of those fans. 

The Judoon have a history with the show, debuting in 2007 in the premiere episode of Series 3 when David Tennant's Doctor first met Martha Jones. They appear in 2008 as hired muscle of the Shadow Proclamation. Other than that, we have not seen these rhino heads.  

I used the Judoon in a fan fiction I wrote back in 2015 which included this exchange.

The Doctor and Clara turn a corner and blocking their path are three very large Judoon soldiers.

The Doctor: Judoon!

Judoon: Target acquired. Identified as Doctor, The.  

Yes, the Judoon think the Doctor's first name is "The". 

Well, the Judoon are rather thick. 

Oh, this photograph recently turned up on Twitter. 

Yes, Russell T. Davies posing with Jodie Whittaker.

Please, please, please do NOT let that be a coincidence.

Or as I posted on Twitter.

Dave-El‏
 @dave_el1938 May 17

Replying to @TheWomenOfWho

I want this more than I want ANYTHING: I want a 13th Doctor story written by RTD and I want it NOW!!! (Sits back, folds arms and waits)

I really want that to happen. 

My Face Hurts II: Electric Boogaloo

Well, here we go again! Two weeks after my last round with a sinus infection, I'm down for round two.

It's the usual hell. My face hurts and I've got a persistent cough like a 12 pack a day smoker. 

And one more thing: MY FACE HURTS! 

So I'm on a fresh run of anti-biotics and cough meds. 

Am I having fun yet? 

No. 

Because MY FACE HURTS!!

Media Man Powers

Hi there! Welcome to I’m So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, a blog about whatever damn thing pops in my head.

 

Yesterday, the damn thing that popped into my head was Game of Thrones. So I wrote a post about the last two episodes of the series.

 

I did this, as I so cheekily confessed at the end of the post, without ever watching a single episode of Game of Thrones. 

 

So what’s up with that?

 

I have what I call “Media Man” powers. I have a broad working knowledge of a lot of TV shows and movies, many of which I have not actually seen. 

 

Sometimes I’m asked for some arcane piece of pop culture trivia and when I have the answer, the follow up inquiry is “How could you possibly know that?”

 

Basically, I’m a pop culture sponge. I just glom all sorts of news and history about the worlds of TV and film. I devour episode guides, behind the scenes books and shows, film reviews,  almost anything to build the vast and mostly useless accumulation of knowledge on TV and movies that provide my power as “Media Man”. 

 

It is a gift AND a curse. 

 

I will, for example, read recaps of TV shows I don’t watch but I’m sort of kind of interested in.

 

Game of Thrones comes under that heading.

 

GoT was a show that should’ve been right up my alley, rooted in fantasy and layered with political intrigue. But from what I’ve heard, there were elements of the show that I found potentially distasteful and off-putting. I do not have a predilection for watching people being tortured and brutally murdered in things I watch for entertainment. I have a low tolerance for torturous and graphic violence being perpetrated against others, particularly against women. While the premise of GoT may have held some interest for me, it’s execution (pun very much intended) did not.

 

Also, I do not have HBO. 

 

But operating in the circles I do, interacting with fans of Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who and more,  Game of Thrones kept intersecting with my awareness. I kept running into jokes and memes based on GoT knowledge and I hated being left out. 

 

So like a complete Bran Stark, I flitted on the edges of Game of Thrones, reading episode recaps.

 

Without ever seeing a single episode, I was shocked by Daenerys' heel-turn as she decimated King’s Landing with her dragon.

 

Without ever seeing a single episode, it was still gut wrenching when Daenerys met her death at the point of Jon Snow’s blade.

 

I don’t know if there’s anyone at all like me out there, amassing information on TV shows and movies never seen.    

Perhaps I am the only one of my kind. I am singular. I am alone. I am Media Man.

 

And I am so glad my suffering amuses you.    

Game of Thrones

I suppose I should offer some thoughts on the series finale of Game of Thrones.

But before we get to Sunday’s big send off, a word on the previous week’s penultimate episode, “The Bells”. Therein, Daenerys Targaryen saddled up her dragon, Drogon  (Drogon? Really? Does Daenerys have a pet hamster named “Hemster”? A goldfish named “Gildfish”?) and burned King’s Landing to the frickin’ ground.

Well, that’s one way to end a war.

It’s also one way to commit genocide. 

A lot of GoT fans were not happy with this development for Daenerys.  Over the course of the series, Daenerys Targaryen has made a lot of cold calculations in her quest for power with a lot of blood on her hands. 

Daenerys has not always been a very good person but there was this idea that her ruthlessness was in pursuit of a greater good. But her harsh and unyielding quest for power, for whatever reason, also put her on a path towards madness.  When your core strategy is to MAKE things happen and FORCE them to go your way, you’re heading for a breakdown when things ultimately do not go your way. 

And this what happens to Daenerys Targaryen when she engages in a quite literal scorched earth take down of King’s Landing.

A lot of fans were upset over the sudden abrupt turn of Daenerys Targaryen from “harsh leader with good intentions” to “genocidal maniac”.  I think there was a sense by the writers that “uh oh, the series is coming to an end and we’re running out of time for Daenerys Targaryen to become the Mad Queen”.  

Game of Thrones writer and creator George R. R. Martin is often referred to as a gardener, a writer who takes times to sew seeds and tend to long term ongoing development of plot points and character arcs. It takes a long time to plant and grow a garden. By comparison, it takes no time to harvest it.  

It takes weeks to grow a carrot; it takes seconds to pull it out of the ground. 

The current writers, moving past Martin's novels, have a schedule to keep.  

Too abrupt or not, the damage was done. Daenerys Targaryen was now the Mad Queen.

It would be too much for destiny to be kind to her now. 

At the half way mark of “The Iron Throne”, that destiny comes to claim her. Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen share a kiss. 

Then Jon stabs  Daenerys to death.  

No Iron Throne for Daenerys Targaryen, paying the ultimate price for her descent into genocidal madness. 

No Iron Throne for Jon Snow who is banished to the Night's Watch for killing Daenerys Targaryen. 

No Iron Throne for anybody after Drogon, distressed by Daenerys’ murder, melts the damn thing into slag. 

There is still a winner of the Game of Thrones:  Bran Stark is named ruler of Westeros by a council of lords and ladies. Bran’s defining attribute is he’s there. 

Bran Stark's name was on the project team list. He attended meetings, occasionally brought snacks.

In the end, he wins by being not dead, not mad and still there. 

OK, Bran Stark doesn’t get everything. Sansa Starks gets to rule over, I don’t know, Australia, maybe? 

Anyway, that’s my post on the ending of Game of Thrones.

Oh, a disclaimer and maybe I should’ve said something earlier. 

I have never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones.