First, part of the reason I’m doing this review is that I recently started watching clips of the show and spent one night (and morning) binge watching a chunk of the episodes. It had been quite a while since I’ve seen it. While I do recall much of the TV drama, I will admit that it’s not exactly an easy show to watch. Beyond the language barrier issues, the show can range in emotion from downright annoying to utterly depressing with some uplifting moments. As I had divested myself from Japanese culture a while back, I figured it might be good to see how I really felt about the production of this show as well as one of the special follow up episodes.

In re-watching the series, the main thing I realized is that the TV drama ended up really stretching the original source material. We’re talking taking Tolkien by Peter Jackson and squeezing the plastic from the toothpaste tube, opening it up, scraping everything little drop and maybe even using a sharp edge to floss. There is a lot of fictionalized bits from what I can tell like the stalker, Densha Otoko being a fake surfer (or rather just an internet surfer), the crazy incident of the message board denizens doing a massive Akihabara campaign to force Densha Otoko to read the message board, etc.

Next, there are an incredible amount of extraneous characters added to the story that probably (or more than likely) never existed in the actual world. For instance, Sakurai-san, the brotherly friend of Saori, who out of the blue changes into this near Vaudeville style villain where he encounters almost nothing but mishaps for comic relief. Or the repugnant and utterly sadistic Jinkama-san, who enjoys torturing poor Densha Otoko and almost “rapes” the guy. Then we have the sheer volume of people representing the anonymous characters on the message board itself. Most of these people lack official names (because they’re anonymous figures) but are colorfully depicted sitting behind a computer in various garb or settings that we can immediately identify. In certain instances, these characters become horribly distracting to the point where they’re downright annoying (such as Yamada’s toxic two friends). But let me discuss a few of these characters and how they’re used.

I know the actress who plays Jinkama-san (Miho Shiraishi) received a reward for her portrayal of the Jinkama-san. I think she’s the type one would have a love-hate relationship; as a viewer, Jinkama-san is incredibly entertaining to watch from afar mostly when she transforms into this manipulative bitch with the signature Darth Vader music ominously playing. Even Yamada-san uses the Vader theme as a ringtone for when she calls him. However, she can be a bit too overbearing towards Yamada-san. In one instance, Yamada-san is “encouraged” to enhance his etiquette skills in preparation for meeting Saori’s family for dinner and takes a great deal of physical abuse from Jinkama-san. But the worst instance of her is when Yamada-san is having a bad day and has to go to her agency but is late. In delivering her paperwork which was thrown into a canal by some brat, Jinkama-san verbally abuses him unnecessarily. Of course, it is a turning point for her in a small way because of how she sees Yamada-san crying for having a bad day and not realizing that it also is his birthday. But it is one of those cases where I felt she went too far in her treatment of him.

Despite that, we do later find out that she uses men, knowing what she is. Some women might find this type of person justifiable especially in Japan. But this is a clear example of toxicity where she effectively ruins the lives of other men. While the character is meant to be fictionalized, I don’t think this type of person is uncommon over there (and I’ve known a few).

Next, there’s Saori’s two friends, Kaho and Yuko. I mentioned that Yamada’s friends are toxic in their own manner but Kaho and Yuko do have a certain sway over Saori. Both do change over time, especially Yuko who ends up dating one of Yamada’s friends (namely for money initially) where they realize that in the end, Saori is happy with Yamada-san. Kaho in particular apologizes to Saori because of how she wanted to protected Saori, knowing that Saori had past trauma from a bad relationship. That said, the types of friends Kaho and Yuko represent are those that I see with many Japanese women over there. It’s like this buddy system where you might go on a date with one girl and suddenly they bring some friends to evaluate you. It’s horribly patronizing where you feel self-conscious because you know afterwards they’re going to gossip behind your back.

In mentioning Kaho and Yuko, I need to immediately bring up Yamada’s two buddies (one guy’s name is Matsunaga but I’m not certain of the guy with the hat). Like Kaho and Yuko, I viewed both of these guys as being enablers for Yamada-san. But I don’t consider them to be real friends. Both are rather self serving and when the heat is on, they bail. Their primary role in the show is meant to serve as comedy (I’m guessing both guys were comedians) but I thought they were incredibly annoying to the point where I wanted to fast forward through their segments. Maybe the most telling aspect is when they peer pressured Yamada-san into going to the convention and helped landed him into hot water with Saori. Rather than trying to aid Yamada-san, they threw out some rotten jokes and jammed. I keep thinking how poor Yamada-san might’ve been less of a dweeb if he had better quality people in his life.

Aoi/Tsuneo Yamada (sister/father) – These two are quite useless too. Yamada’s father is almost worthless as an unsupportive figure while his sister seethes in anger most of the time towards her brother because of his otaku-ness. I think gradually Aoi becomes more receptive when Yamada-san changes his image and tries to help him out but for the most part she’s cold towards him and his friends.

Yamada-san’s boss – Most scenes involving this guy is highly reminiscent of a Japanese version of Bill Lumbergh from Office Space. Micromanaging, passive aggressive and someone who inherently detest Yamada. Of course, karma bites him in the ass in the end but this is some person you wouldn’t find uncommon out there. But his main purpose is to show another angle for how Yamada’s entire life is miserably setup.

Sakurai-san – This guy comes out of nowhere and changes course upon discovering the message board. He’s really Wile E Coyote where he’s got this semi-geniusness with these elaborate strategies in trying to enthrall Saori but he ends up falling on his face from sheer bad luck. At one point, you just end up feeling really bad for this guy, despite his conniving nature. Next to Jinkama-san, he might be my second favorite character in the show (well outside of Densha Otoko and Hermes) just because he’s tragically hilarious. The domino marriage proposal is actually one hell of a cool scene. But it’s a real shame he ended up becoming a one note joke by the end (where they even parody the love confession except using him and Jinkama-san where the whole thing ends up in disaster for this guy)

Saori’s family – I’m going to group them up together. The brother’s has a fair amount of on screen time and his main purpose initially is to create a red herring for Yamada-san in thinking he has no chance at Saori. Later, he overreacts in discovering the message board and thinking Saori’s privacy is being violated and punches Yamada-san in the mouth when Yamada-san goes to try and explain himself. In truth, I found the brother to be a turd although he manages to redeem himself once he reads the message board and realizes his mistake. The mother is a strange character along with the father where they introduce the divorce plot. But Yamada-san’s typical humility and showing his appreciation for family and Saori blunts the impact of the inevitable divorce. That incident does allow the mother to give her approval of him, despite initially showing no respect towards him but changing her mind in knowing how her daughter glows at his presence.

From there, I want to talk about some themes in the show. Probably, the biggest theme is the role reversal of masculinity. That probably is the biggest theme that comes out of the actual Densha Otoko story where the idea of an otaku/geek who is socially awkward has trouble admitting his feelings towards a woman he falls in love with. In the context of the J-drama world though, normally you would see the willowy, weak female trying to gain favor with some guy. Here, that situation swaps. One part this clearly happens is when Yamada-san is the one waiting in the rain and gets sick. He’s utterly loyal to a fault for Saori and doesn’t bring an umbrella but waits the entire time in the hope she arrives. Yamada-san crashes before handing his gift to her and is knocked out with Saori calling his name. Often, you might see in a J-drama a woman chasing after a guy, calling his name then tripping or injuring herself. Here, Yamada-san is literally stricken with love sickness and his common sense goes out the window in his methods. Saori even asks, “What are you doing?” because it’s sheer insanity.

Another theme in this show is the rise of otaku culture. The dot com industry and movies like The Social Network helped improve the general stigma in Western society of nerds being uncool. But otaku culture in Japan is a subculture frowned upon. These days with the aid of the internet and globalization, actual otaku culture (from Japan) have become more normalized. What Densha Otoko had done was shine the spotlight on a particular type of character, which was a lonely but good hearted person that had been buried by a negative stereotype. A comparable Western movie would by Revenge of the Nerds in that nerd culture was mostly considered lowly compared to jocks, etc. However, Revenge of the Nerds mostly changes the mechanisms of the people inside a frat from jock to geek but the underlying person mostly remains a shallow jerk type.

The otaku culture presented in Densha Otoko still is mostly portrayed as being disgusting and offbeat. However, the one scene that is absolutely heart breaking is when Yamada decides to reveal his real self to Saori (his own literal coming out of the closet scenario). There’s a very familiar backstory where he explains himself to Saori in talking about when and how he became an otaku. Part of that story though was developing the stigma of being an otaku. However, he’s earnest when he says he can’t help be what he is and that it’s clear he’s ashamed but doesn’t want to change himself entirely. It’s a huge step for him because he does not know how she might react and only wants to be honest with her as well as make up for the anime convention part (which was a huge misunderstanding by both people). Saori though never has seen him as an otaku but as the hero that saved her. So in seeing his room, she thinks it’s fantastic. He then gives Saori his Mina figure as his true birthday gift to her, which is more sincere as he’s highly valued that figure. But that whole scene is something I think anyone in the position of a Yamada can relate to where being different and ostracized to finding true love might be scared of losing everything.

We also have to discuss both Saori’s message board discovery (or actually her brother’s) and Densha’s confession. That scenario with Saori learning about the message board was obviously added to create dramatic tension and to put doubts (even though anyone with half a brain would know didn’t matter) into Yamada’s chances with her. I did think that her brother was a complete dickhead for punching Yamada-san and it’s something I got threatened by ages ago in jr high when a girl I liked found out that I had feelings for her. Some “friends” told me that she intended to get her older brother and boyfriend (who was in high school mind you) to beat me up. The year after she left the jr high never to be seen again. So in turn, seeing Keisuke being unreasonable just made me think of him as a putz.

Once Saori is encouraged to read the message board by her friends, it’s more of a situation where the producers continued to milk the show. There’s a LOT of flashbacks that get almost as annoying as WWE TV these days. But they do focus on the high points rather than every single moment while getting Misaki Itoh to react. Also, there’s a small moment of last minute doubt where Sakurai-san just happens to be around the area, creepily flying his drone against Saori’s window and decides to drive her towards the train station where somehow he managed to take an ad out and place a wedding bed inset into the ad.

But once Saori sees Yamada (who again was waiting on top of the secret meeting place initially) it’s clear that she has feelings for him because of the intense look she gives him. They return to the top of the secret meeting place but at this stage it’s really the climax of the actual Densha Otoko story where we get the payoff of Densha Otoko’s confession for his feelings towards Hermes. It’s a scene that has can be a mixture of things for me. I think in general it was well done with sincere emotion but at the same time it does feel over-the-top because of Atsushi Itoh’s constant crying. Maybe if he wasn’t crying all the time in the show, this moment would have been less aggrandizing to me especially after subsequent viewings. What helps this scene though is Misaki Itoh’s presence. I think because the pairing is such a huge contrast (Atsushi is small while Misaki is incredibly beautiful almost unearthly) the scene ends up working really well.

The thing though I came to realize here is that by this point, Saori already had made up her mind in how she mostly felt about Yamada-san. We never truly get to hear what she thinks about him until this moment, which is incredibly frustrating if you think about it (and very Japanese too). And I say that this really was more about having Yamada go from being passive to being active in this relationship because he needs a lot of nudging from almost everyone. And again I realize that the writers decided to prolong the story and artistically fill in way more than had existed but in a way the plot really dragged because you could see that Saori already liked him.

On the other hand, as someone who tried to date out there, I will say that it’s absolutely one of the most infuriating experiences in my life. There’s a lot of stupid rules that as a foreigner, as a Japanese American and as someone who doesn’t know this type of culture has to endure to go on a date. For instance, someone once told me about the three times rule where if you don’t confess your feelings by the 3rd date, you’re out (and yes this does happen BUT NOT FOR EVERY GIRL). Or how you must be aggressive and do more to hint at how you feel. But it’s just brutal so maybe for Yamada-san, his hesitance is highly warranted in a culture that has tons of rules and where he’s an oddity.

Moving on, the last bit of the main story is wrapping up his relationship with the message board. Yamada-san at one point reveals how Saori bought him a matching necklace and that seems to piss off the people on the board. Then he’s surprised at how there’s no support for the gift he’s received, which shows a hint of conceit at this sudden power he has over this board as well as this symbiotic relationship he grew over this period. Now that he’s got a person he treasures, the others discard him like common trash because he really doesn’t fit the profile of the board anymore. There is a huge farewell as the board nears the post limit before a depiction of the normally faceless characters and Saori/Yamada see one another in an imaginary/metaphoric setting. That one is pretty sad because it’s a way of Densha’s “graduation” and how he must grow up away from the message board with his new life.

There’s a little more wrap up with Jinkama’s story intersecting with Sakurai-san and how she eventually caused him injury. Then the coffee shop where various “victims” of Jinkama’s schemes show up (including Saori’s brother). Finally, Yamada and Saori leave for an onsen vacation and see the original drunk still complaining about gyudon bowls where both Yamada and Saori smile, knowing that the drunk was the reason for their relationship.

But the thing with these endings (and I pluralize that here) is similar to Peter Jackson’s ending for Return of the King where you had numerous points that were in themselves finales for the series. I suppose part of it was tidying up the loose ends like Saori and Kaho reconciling, the Jinkama victimization, etc. However, to me the real climax was when Saori kisses Yamada. For this story though, the writers put a lot of emphasis on the characters from the message board in giving them more life than their anonymous personalities suggest (because the message board did play a huge role acting as the 3rd person in helping Densha and Hermes hook up). So the visual representation of the train flying into space was a beautiful send off.

However, the story didn’t exactly end there. There were two other specials. One mostly to indicate that Yamada and Saori eventually got married but lacked the same emotional impact as the others. The 12 “episode” though focused on one of Yamada’s friends (Matsunaga-san) and the Hanshin Tiger super fan. There is some additional parts like Sakurai-san getting additional side scenes. For the most part, this was supposed to be about “Guitar Otoko” (i.e. Matsunaga-san) because Saori ask Yamada what he did before the message board. However, this episode to me was kinda wretched because it either was flashbacks to fill in time or really bad comedy like Yamada’s two idiot friends redoing the confession scene with odd expressions and voices. I’m sure there was some sort of demand by fans to see more but none of these shows really added anything. If anything they mostly were there to continue to milk the popularity of the series.

Now, I would like to compare the TV drama briefly to the movie (because I did see that). The movie is completely unmemorable. My biggest complaint was horrible casting. Takayuki Yamada simply has a bad hairdo and poor wardrobe but the minute he switches, he’s no longer some otaku. And Miki Nakatani doesn’t have the unearthly beauty qualities nor grace of Misaki Itoh. So it’s hard to really feel bad for Densha here because he’s not the same underdog character compared to Atsushi Ito, who has a fucking mountain to climb.

And I did save both Atsushi Ito and Misaki Itoh for last because they do deserve special attention. Unlike Takayuki Yamada, Atsushi Ito is small and unremarkable in appearance. So when you see him initially and even after his change, you can buy into him being this character. Some might say that Misaki Itoh is too pretty for this guy but I think she makes the role work mostly because the visual is a huge stretch. There’s numerous occasions where we see Yamada-san fantasize about Saori, sometimes in costume other times just an image on his phone. She is the ultimate guy fantasy and as a super model she works well in this casting. She certainly acts as the heart of the show because the rest of the cast are mostly assholes and bitches. Except for her flaw of hating lies and having a few ill advising friends, Saori is completely likeable and admirable. She’s really one of those too good to be true types, which makes this Olympian feat for Densha to overcome seem like a huge deal.

But let’s talk about the main elephant in the room: Atsushi Ito’s constant crying and stuttering. This is one aspect that aged really poorly for me. Even if his character is sincere, the way he’s crying consistently is overdone to the point where it’s almost off putting and hurts the character. There’s a few key moments where his crying was deserved such as his birthday “celebration” on the roof, Saori’s discovery of Yamada outside of the convention, his coming out as an otaku and, of course, the confession scene. But stuff like the surfing scene felt completely unnecessary. I get that the episode in particular was to introduce the idea of how Saori hated lies but he has to deal with this two more times.

Another thing that bothered me was certain liberties in coming up with extremely exaggerated scenarios whether imagined or like in the case of the SWAT team at the convenience store that caused Yamada to be unable to pick up a simple recharger. Some of it is played for laughs but I just found the situation to be embarrassing and annoying rather than character building. Like the weird ninja kidnapping scene of Saori and Yamada experiencing some mental breakdown did not help give him more sympathy from me.

In addition, I get a little bothered by how Yamada puts more emphasis on sexualizing Saori rather than talking about her qualities as a person. It’s like he completely misses the point and focuses on the wrong aspect with her especially in later viewings. We don’t get to learn more about why he likes her outside of her appearance or the fact that she bothers to talk to him at all. I think part of the problem there is that they don’t give Saori a lot of depth as a person. We see that she does all these “elegant” things like drinks Benoist tea or goes on a fancy flight with her friends. But there’s almost nothing said about her hobbies or what she’s interested in. It’s more about Yamada bringing Saori into his world rather than growing their relationship.

Then there’s the other major elephant in the room which is how the story does its own version of Pygmalion. This is very much a Japanese thing where the guy has to undergo this physical transformation before being accepted by a high class lady (I mean maybe that’s just a thing in general but it definitely is a thing you’d experience in Tokyo). I am very critical about this part because of the emphasis on materialism and shallowness here over the value of heart. I don’t know about the book as much but I do think at least once Yamada shows his true self some of this aspect is de-emphasized (which makes Saori look even better as a person). But I dislike the notion of how this guy needed to transform himself to appease a woman. That’s my critique of social structures and why this world is in trouble.

Yet one of the interesting things about the Densha Otoko story is the idea that no one is certain whether this actually happened. I read on Wikipedia how there’s been some contradictions in the story such as the age of this guy. Supposedly, the author met with the producers but no one has ever been able to verify any of this. Also, who’s to say that the writer was actually a guy but not a woman? Or maybe even the woman in the story?

One thing I maintain though is that at least for the drama, Saori to me is the actual heroine. Yamada is a sympathetic babyface type and we might see him as the hero, but in truth that part only exist when he saves Saori. The message board too is the other hero in supporting Yamada to gain enough confidence to confess his feelings for Saori. But again I argue that early on Saori already knew how she felt about Yamada and was there supporting him along the way. I mentioned that one major issue is that Saori never really admits how she feels about Yamada except in a few rare instances. She plays her cards very close to her chest in the show but I think once she reads the message board all her hidden feelings towards him are affirmed and all she wants is to be there to hear him say how he actually feels about her. Like when Yamada has trouble in the final steps of his quest, Saori reaches down to hold his hands to give him courage so he’s no longer afraid.

Nonetheless, the story remains one of heart and remains something relatable. I think that the humor was often distracting from the main plot but I can see it was interjected to prevent the story from becoming either too mushy or depressing. I do believe that the general story drags a lot because of the excessive parts to make up for the razor thin plot but the main points they manage to do a good job. This is certainly not a conventional drama either but one that feels mostly real because one can see it happening. And who knows? Maybe I am the Train Man…

The post Densha Otoko Retrospect Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

The reason why this movie stands out to me are how a few key scenes had been burned into my memory. I suppose when you’re young and you see certain things that you can relate to, you might end up remembering those things for the rest of your life. But before I hone in on those particular scenes, let me outline the plot.

The movie starts off by introducing us to a newly hired counselor who works for a foster care service. The manager of the facilities comments that the woman (Lilian) is a little older than the normal hire but she replies that she had waited until her own children had gone off to school. We don’t get much more background on her at the moment but the key thing to note here is how much younger she appears as this movie moves through numerous years.

The manager of the facilities describes the plight of a case that Lilian is assigned to where they have thre abandoned children in which the oldest acts as an authoritarian replacement for the missing father. Small touches are shown where we see some of the psychological plight these children have such as drawings of what they imagine a family is. In one image, we only see three people with the center person being the largest figure representing Donald, who is the oldest among the three.

Taking a step back, we get a little background on how the agency discovers the children. Here, prior to them arriving at the center, the three would pile up in the backseat of a beat up vehicle with their actual parents, whose first names and occupations are unknown. The narrator callously placates their situation as being common over out in Florida (of all places!) where apparently it’s not just them but a social symptom. The kids pretty much have filthy faces and we barely can see the father and mother except through small hints from mirrors, which I presume are the only images the kids can witness of the adults while in the backseat.

At some point, the parents manage to “rent” out a derelict home and eventually just permanently leave the kids to survive on their own. And for the most part that’s the last we’d hear of the two parents (well the father but we’ll come back to the mother later on). From there on out it’s Donald, the eldest, who takes on the responsibility of caring for his two younger siblings. Now, before I get further into the plot, this is where most of my memory sticks out in terms of what drew me originally to this movie.

First, the images of the kids sitting in the back of the car with the father figure passing them packages of chips (or whatever) that he’d pick up at some gas station. Then there was the girl brushing her teeth with her finger and later the kids eating cereal with a milk-water product. Obviously, no child should ever have to endure such conditions but the squalor seemed pretty unbelievable. Honestly, if you take away the drama and overall depressing mood of this movie, the images they portrayed of these kids were akin to the home Beavis and Butthead lived in. In fact, I don’t even know how they managed to stay in that home because there certainly was no way they could pay. But watching this at this juncture in my life, it’s easy, especially as a writer and someone who realizes how more modern shows tend to do a better job filling in details like that, to criticize the way things are glossed over in the movie.

At any rate, the main way they are able to survive at all is through Donald’s neighborhood thieving. He goes around to a local gas station to pick up chips or grabs milk when the local milk man shows up (remember those???). Honestly, if you eliminated the sister and just had the two brothers eating nachos, I would almost say these scenes could’ve inspired Mike Judge. That said, none of this is funny. It’s actually quite sad and it makes you wonder why the parents had these kids in the first place (we may answer this later). Also, this partly reminds me of this one Highway to Heaven episode where this homeless kid named Arnie would go to the local liquor store to steal cat food or bread. Sadly, America still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the homeless issue but these days I can’t help but think how this could be possible because of digital cameras. Or at least it’s a hundred times more difficult. Again, more social commentary later.

Anyway, Donald gets followed by some police, who so happen to be on patrol in that neighborhood. They believe they have uncovered the neighborhood thief and decide to pursue him. They follow the kid to his home and even enter without a permit. I don’t know what the exact rules were in those days but I have a feeling that you still would need a permit to do what those police did. More than that, if that happened today, the police would probably just shoot especially in Florida where I presume the kids were originally discovered. On top of that, you would think that in such an impoverished neighborhood (and I can justify this because of how the manager of the foster home facilities even described the home being in a near condemned state), the police should probably be chasing the parents or people like their parents if this situation was as common as the manager had described. But you get the point on why this was frustrating to watch.

Fast forward a little bit we go to the foster care and the manager concludes that the three need to be split because most adoptive parents don’t want to accept the responsibilities for more than one child. So he wants to proceed as “easily” as can be. For the next part, the manager and Lilian effectively, uh, kidnap the two younger siblings while they’re sleeping and place them into the manager’s car. Donald wakes up and decides to chase after his siblings while the manager drives off. Imagine the plot twist if Donald was Captain America or the T-1000 from the Terminator 2. Now, that would’ve been funny as fuck. Slightly modified note here. Originally, I thought that the manager grabbed the kids while they were napping because Lilian had been introduced while the three were playing and awake. But time got distorted somehow in the story where they swapped to the morning even though it was supposed to be Lilian’s first day. Again, details that are missing….

Obviously, the manager gets away with the two kids (how any of this is justified is pretty mind blowing) and we get to fast forward even more. The next time we see Donald, he’s a teenager in his last year at high school. He’s on the borderline of becoming an adult (5 months out) and he tries to contact the agency again to see if he can get more information on his siblings. Because he’s not a legal adult, he can’t receive any more information legally. So here’s where I think the real start of the meat of the matter is in terms of showing the legal bureaucracy. Effectively, Donald is dicked around for quite a while before he can legally contact his own brother and sister or even the foster care families, so this part is where I think the show tries to make some sort of a statement because I do feel frustrated for the guy.

Back at his foster home, we see a more or less loving family that had adopted him but Donald remains aloof. He has an adopted sister too and they bond a bit because he feels sympathetic towards her own case. The father tries to be a nice guy but he’s in this strange state as a character. The only thing we get about him is that he didn’t want to deal with diapers, which is why he wanted to adopt. Now, I can accept that to a degree but his character is kinda bipolar in a way. Also, you have the wife who is quite kind but she plays a very subservient type that has almost no input. With Donald, his main quality is that he’s difficult which is understandable because of his traumatic situation. However, we don’t get a great deal of depth with him in terms of exploring his trauma outside of bizarre flashbacks (I wish they used the Shaw Brothers/Chang Cheh sepia colored flashback style just for giggles). Either way, the main reason he seems to be living is to reunite with his two siblings.

That said, he acts very responsible and mature for someone at that age especially as one who had to endure that level of neglect early on. Presumably, a lot of that was through how he would take care of his younger siblings. But here’s where it again gets muddy for me. From what it sounds, the siblings were found after 4-5 weeks (a month or so) of being abandoned. Now, sure Donald most likely was the primary care giver in the backseat of that beat up car, but one month of being the father role shouldn’t affect him that badly. Also, they never go into detail how long they were under the agency’s roof. I imagine it wasn’t long though. His siblings were younger and they did show how he would care for them in the car or carefully watching over during pit stops. Yet we don’t learn how long his family had been like that as we only pick up the story when he was roughly 7 years of age.

Gradually, Donald continues to persist in searching for his siblings. He charges the family phone line a lot in making various attempts to locate them. His foster father sees the bill and they have an argument that effectively spells the end of Donald living with his foster family. Now, here’s where I’m unsure how the foster system works but Donald leaves prior to reaching 18 years of age. And while the father doesn’t fight him on the matter, there should have been some sort of legal repercussions one would think. The only thing I know for certain is that once Donald reaches the age of 18, the foster family could just kick him out. So I don’t know if the foster system checks on those things prior to when someone hits 18. I mean that to me seems like negligence.

Anyway, Donald leaves and goes to live with a friend. The foster mother does provide a little extra cash to help Donald survive, for which Donald is very reluctant to take. Eventually, Donald gets his own place and we encounter the most out of place character in the movie: Rose. Rose becomes Donald’s girlfriend and eventually wife. She’s such an odd character not because there’s no reason for Donald not to get involved with someone but because she just decides to take him because “he appears mature.” Then when he’s having thoughts about marrying her, she freaks out a little later and suddenly accepts afterward. The character is so out of place to me because she doesn’t really add much to the story. The only part is where she gives a suggestion to Donald about how he can possibly find his sister or something like that. But my pet peeve here is that she mostly felt like a waste of time because they don’t give her much to develop upon.

Eventually, it’s graduation time for Donald and he’s 18. So his parents go to his graduation ceremony and he’s not present. Instead, he’s working so they figure to interrupt him. He does some landscaping job and his foster father hands him his diploma. I guess this scene is to add some sort of closure for the foster parents with Donald. But Donald is such a distant character whose sole motivation has been to find his two siblings that this sidetrack added nothing to the story. Also, for whatever reason Donald tells his foster father to keep the diploma. You know sometimes those things come in handy for paperwork. Not a very bright guy is this Donald.

We get back to the main issue of his search for his siblings. Once again, despite him being 18, his two siblings aren’t so their foster parents won’t release any information back to Donald (what a bunch of assholes!). So Donald has to wait even longer before he can proceed. It’s more of this back and forth with the counselor and at a certain point she decides to help Donald. We don’t get a clear reason what makes her change her mind, we’re just shown (as the old manager of the facilities is about to retire) how he casually received some information on Donald’s siblings. Then supposedly out of the generosity of her heart, she decides to help Donald. I mean, I get that a scenario could pop up like that but you would think that Lilian would have to make exceptions in many cases. There’s nothing special about Donald’s case given how many years have passed since she started and how many cases she probably had dealt with since that time. The only thing we know about Donald’s case is that he doesn’t give up his pursuit of his siblings. Maybe she got tired of fighting with him.

But the important aspect is that Lilian managed to find information about the sister, Carolyn. So summoning Donald one evening Lilian tries to get the air force (whom Carolyn apparently worked for at some point) to call Donald at the facilities. They wait around to receive the call only to be disappointed that Carolyn rejected the call. So Donald is back to square one.

He ends up trying to look for his brother instead (this might’ve been a suggestion by Donald’s wife/girlfriend). Before that though, we get a little more background on the mother (remember I mentioned that). He was able to get the police statement about his parents because they had put a trace on the parents for abandoning the children. The father seemed to vanish but the mother was picked up by police in Washington. We learn the mother’s true occupation: prostitution (they show the mother again in the mirror putting lipstick on). Lilian tells Donald that he shouldn’t insist on pursuing the case because he would just continue to get hurt. Oddly, Donald’s rather stony demeanor does not hint at him showing any emotion on discovering what his mother had done for a job. But I actually accurately had guessed this just before Lilian uttered the exact word. I mean, it’s not like there were remote dev jobs back then!

I wanted to interject another thing here in that his mother having the occupation as a prostitute, while kinda obvious from some signs, actually doesn’t make a lot of sense in the scheme of things. What did his biological father do then? Was he her pimp? I doubt he was some drug dealer just because they probably would’ve been balling a bit better. I do think the mother being a prostitute seems like a way to shift the blame of the situation on women in an indirect way. I mean, wouldn’t the father be angry that the mother was selling herself? Why bother staying in that situation driving from place to place and lugging three kids around for 7 years? There’s just details in this story that don’t add up but other aspects have a weird social slant that don’t work well at the end of the day.

Anyway, Donald goes after David with Lilian’s aid. Both David and Carolyn had run away a few times during the course of the show and Donald concludes that they probably were searching for him (btw this NEVER was confirmed but it is an interesting common personality trait I’ve heard in foster children who are siblings). David ended up being adopted by rich parents but ran away at some point which prevented the agency from locating his exact whereabouts. Nonetheless, Lilian goes to the home that David had been living in only to discover that it was on sale. So she locates another place where some random store clerk somehow knew one of the parents and reveals David’s name, occupation and location.

Lilian continues hunting David down where she find he’s working from his own business selling vacuums. She sets up a meeting with Donald at Donald’s home. Rose goes out wanting the two brothers to have their moment together. After she leaves, David nervously approaches the home. As the two brothers greet each other, there’s a lot of awkward conversation that occurs.

Pause here. I had a LOT of issues with how this part was done. The dialog and initial meeting were incredibly awkward and borderline awful. At one point, the two started to argue where Donald would say he was just a child and David had to swallow the reality. I guess the writers were trying to go for some artificial tension where maybe both had unsaid resentment for leaving one another. But given how badly Donald was trying to find his siblings, I thought there should have been a lot more emotional connection between the two. Eventually, they DO hug but I was expecting both to break down in tears considering how close they supposedly were as well as Donald’s life long quest of reconnecting with his siblings.

That leaves their sister and we’re running out of time. So Lilian reveals that Carolyn did not realize her last name was actually Branch and did not recognize Donald’s full name when she was contacted. But she, of course, knew Donald and finally made the connection and wanted to meet up with them. First, she calls them and Donald says that they’re going to fly THAT VERY NIGHT to meet with her. Oh god my head hurts….I mean they didn’t even have Expedia back then….but again we’re running crucially low on time.

So they get to some airport, wherever the air force base where Carolyn lives with her husband on the border of. It’s just the two brothers and Rose. They don’t see Carolyn (which would be damn hard to do considering they’re all years apart since last seeing one another) so they go off in different directions with Donald being impatient and figuring on making a call to try and reach her (thank god we have mobile devices now! Can you imagine the money they’d all save with a simple Zoom or Google Meet video chat?)

Anyway, as Donald is making that call, he sees his brother drinking some milk which causes another bizarre, oddly placed flashback that really had nothing to do with the plot than some nostalgic factor for him. Then some random little girl starts asking strangers going through the tunnel if they’re her uncle Donald (mind you she’s on her own). Donald hears the little girl and picks her up. Some woman in the distance sees her kid being picked up by a total stranger (yeah, we all trusted each other like this back in the day) and walks up to see who it is. It’s none other than the dude from Taps!

Okay, not the same guy from Taps just the actor. But they run to meet each other around the bend. We see some guy in a uniform who probably is the woman’s husband and Donald gets to hug his sister. David joins them and it’s a bit of a tear jerker except that this shit ends quite abruptly with Donald announcing, “I’m home.” Or something like that.

Man, this movie really ended up being all over the place. That’s the only way I can describe it now that I’ve watched it from front to back. I feel that there’s an anger that wants to be directed at the social welfare system but that anger ends up dying in the last 10-20 minutes because the writers are rushing to finish up the story. The story really is about Donald rather than the system because he’s the only one that really was given any kind of motivation and development as a character. Everyone else acts as an accessory to him in reaching his goal.

The part with David felt as though there needed to be more because of how they were cut from each others’ lives. There’s some small social commentary about David running away from his rich foster parents because the mother ended up being an alcoholic abusive drunk once the father died. So in that sense, it’s a case where the adopted kid has no choice in the matter in terms of who picks that person up. But like other things in this movie, that little but pertinent detail ends up being another bit that gets quickly swept under the rug. It’s almost as bad as the “I have breast cancer” line from The Room, if not worse just because David’s situation feels trivialized.

With Carolyn, everything ends so abruptly. The three get reunited but there’s no real payoff besides the hug. We don’t get to hear her story or the three siblings sharing their collective memories. She’s barely given any lines. Donald’s foster sister receives more development than the older Carolyn. It’s kinda sad too because all that trouble Donald goes through to reunite with David and Carolyn gets roughly a minute of screen time. It feels like another 30 minutes should have been tacked on to develop the three a little better.

Then what happens with Lilian? Despite all the hassle she goes through, she just disappears for the finale. Although she’s a bit of a bitch at the beginning, she ends up becoming the real hero in the story because of how she went out of her way to help Donald. We did get to learn she was divorced and had children but there’s not a lot else. I suppose those tiny details are what we’re lead to believe are the things motivating her to take this kind of BS job. But considering all the rules she must obey, doesn’t that mean the way she ends up helping Donald risks her job?

That’s why I said this movie ends up going in all types of directions. There’s the subplot with Rose that doesn’t add much except show that Donald hates being abandoned. She doesn’t get much of a personality outside of being a sheer support device for Donald’s trauma. Or when she becomes indecisive about Donald’s initial marriage proposal then suddenly agreeing out of nowhere, that whole situation made no sense. She never explains why she would or wouldn’t want to marry Donald. In fact, outside of the maturity factor, she just straight out accepts Donald when he asks her to go out with him. I would believe Anakin turning to the Dark Side as fast as he did more than Rose unquestioningly going out with Donald in a single line.

But that’s the thing with this movie. Things just would move from point A to point B without much transition. You’re just traveling along and there’s not a lot of thought put in these things. It is a TV movie but I can’t tell what the actual message was supposed to be. Don’t give up? Foster institutions suck? Parents should be more responsible?

It’s really hard to tell because there’s no true focus. There isn’t enough anger or detail about where the foster agency goes wrong nor what the answer should be. It’s like someone just hung out by a road and peeped into every car that passed him or her and decided, “Yup, this is the problem with these families in America.” Or they blamed prostitution (which wasn’t so subtly hinted how the three siblings were conceived).

Then you have the missing father figure. We have no idea what that person is just an anonymous character. His only personality trait is that he wasn’t there. One thing that really bothered me about that whole thing is that the parents managed to raise three kids even to their respective ages. Donald made it to 7 apparently. They weren’t necessarily physically abused outside of undernourishment that we could tell. I don’t understand why the parents didn’t try abandoning Donald the moment he was born. Not to be cruel but if the mom had the child because she was a hooker with that father, then why not just leave Donald in some garbage can after he was born? Why have two more kids and live in some beat up car driving up and down a road?

I’m sure some of the story was just random things the writers might’ve discovered from things they’ve read or heard about to portray a more “realistic” setting. It’s just that to me at least there’s so many things that made no sense once you deconstructed them that the story felt more frustrating to watch, especially these days.

But one reason I’m harping so much on the issues presented here is that I don’t really see that much has changed in terms of similar problems. We still have very irresponsible parents. We still have problems with foster care. We still have abusive adoptive families. This show changed nothing.

I guess the thing to me is that I still feel for kids in those conditions. I think the little chips meals or cereal with water-milk make me consider how bad living conditions can be for some. The exception is that I doubt people can even afford those things anymore if they were in the same predicament.

The post A Long Way Home 1981 TV Movie Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

The basic premise is that in 2002 the WWF held a PPV in England with a tour in Europe. While the voyage to Europe was fine, the return back is what lent itself this infamous scenario. A storm caused the return flight a long delay, in which the wrestlers ended up imbibing too much alcohol for their own good amongst other issues which supposedly instigated the events.

Tired, worn out and ready to return home, the wrestlers ended up downing three carts worth of liquor, where the crew (one stewardess) claimed they had never experienced this situation before. On top of that, the plane was a private type of craft used for high profile guests, mostly sports players. Effectively, this was first class accommodations as you might expect around 2002 with the WWF at its peak.

The idea of “boys will be boys” broke down as wrestlers descended into the usual antics of ribs (pranks) that lead to brawls and other issues, including drugging other wrestlers’ drinks, cutting Michael Hayes’ ponytail, Dustin Rhodes doing karaoke in a depressed state with the cabin microphone and worst of all Ric Flair harassing the attendants (the old helicopter as a few wrestlers described it).

Vince McMahon was amongst the people onboard along with JR (who commented on this show). At the time, JR was head of talent relations and was responsible for maintaining order. In short, he was the papa figure for these immature men and in the end had to make a few brash but needed calls in getting rid of the top trouble makers.

Of course, the situation wasn’t so simple for the flight attendants, especially the one interviewed here. She ended up taking a settlement but was sworn to not publicly talk about it apparently as part of the deal. The company effectively told her about their policies as they would deal with powerful and rich clients and said this was a common thing to them privately.

Besides, JR and the attendant, other speakers here were Rob Van Dam, referee Mike Chioda, Terry Runnels, Justin Credible and Tommy Dreamer. X-Pac and Scott Hall had a few sound bites included with Scott Hall deflecting his issue onto the now deceased Curt Hennig as drugging his drink. However, both Hennig and Hall would be targets in JR’s firings while Ric Flair ended up “getting a pass” as JR would say (which means that Vince covered for Flair).

In Terry Runnels’ case, she sounded too jaded in that industry. She said on several occasions she would “no sell” other wrestlers’ bad behavior towards her and even claimed that she probably had been harassed so many times that she could make a career of lawsuits. Instead, she just left the situation alone.

Tommy Dreamer did a lot to cover up Ric Flair’s behavior. A lot of people on reddit are now hating on him for protecting one of the boys. It’s hard to say whether cancel culture will affect Dreamer in Impact at this point but it certainly won’t do him any near term favors.

I think what this boils down to is a tiny glimpse of the wrestling industry as one wrestler (can’t remember which one) mentioned. But from a larger viewpoint, it’s basically the alpha male persona at its worst. Supposedly after that incident, the WWF would go onto clean up the behavior backstage but I’m certain it still persists to a degree.

But if you take Ric Flair as the worst offender in that group, it’s because of the era that he grew up in which justified it. Take a look at old NWA shows from the 80s and see the number of women in the audience compared to today. There’s the whole idea of the ring rat that no longer is applicable because of how lawsuits can easily be waiting (although certainly this type of thing probably exist to a much quieter extent). But also take a look at the amount of money the wrestling industry was making at the WWF’s peak. It was pure decadence mixed in with these characters who thought they were Greek gods.

However, that lifestyle has a tragic ending in other ways for the wrestlers themselves. They mentioned how after Hennig’s firing he would half a year later be found dead. Scott Hall had continued to battle his demons for years. Dustin was forced to get clean while many others from those days have been dying left to right from their vices.

Of course, there’s the other sad part which is the effect on the flight attendants themselves. One thing I thought when I listened to the main flight attendant being interviewed was that she was very well spoken and was a victim of circumstance. She did not behave like some lawsuit crazy nut, just someone who was trying to do her job and left with no options at the end. So I felt the worst for her because she didn’t deserve that type of treatment and generally it’s the people at the bottom who get crushed by these powerful elite who protect each other.

Overall, I didn’t find this episode as dark as people were talking about. I was expecting worse horror stories than a helicopter Ric Flair. Like hearing what Snuka did to his girlfriend, the findings from the Benoit case, Flyin’ Brian’s descent especially with how his wife Rochelle was treated. I think for this generation of people, the behavior of people like Flair, etc. seems gratuitous and slimy but in earlier times, it might have been considered the norm.

The real question people are asking is what AEW will do now that this episode had aired. Supposedly, there have been big rumors flying around that Ric Flair would be another acquisition while people are saying that this episode might put a stop to that situation. With the big Arthur Ashe Stadium event coming up next week, this episode might be one of the worst timed situations for Ric Flair and AEW if they do decide to sign him.

Other people who might not get a pass are JR, Dustin Rhodes and Tommy Dreamer after this episode. There’s a lot of condemnation going out on reddit after this episode aired with all three taking a lot of the brunt. In the episode, JR does try to own up to the situation but a lot of people aren’t buying.

That said, one thing I feel in JR accepting the responsibility by doing this episode is that it’s almost confessional. He admits that “if I never hear about the plane ride from hell again, I’ll be happy.” So I imagine that part of him agreeing to do this at all is trying to apologize for what happened by making the situation more public. It’s obvious he was uncomfortable about doing it as well as hinting that it wasn’t exactly all him (i.e. McMahon). However, having some of the truth come to light I think is what these Dark Sides do in serving as a way for people inside the business to publicly as best as they can without damaging too much admit to some of the wrongs.

The post Dark Side of the Ring Plane Ride from Hell Season 3 Episode 8 Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I feel that the last few seasons of South Park had been the writers grasping at anything. While probably the biggest subplot has been Trump as seen through the portrayal by Mr Garrison, most of the seasons felt dry and energiless compared to past ones.

But when a major issue like COVID-19 comes up, I think South Park truly can shine. Here, it feels the writers not only had a ton of material to work with, but a lot of pent up frustration shared by everyone in the world, especially for Americans who aren’t used to the prison-like conditions of the pandemic.

There’s a lot of meat in a variety of issues packed into this episode. Obviously, the biggest is how the world has changed. Everyone in the show are wearing masks at first with a few being conflicted. We start off seeing Butters being depressed while his father, wearing a mask, yells at one of the other parents for covering only half his face.

This reaction is absolute truth. From my own experience, my friends are all on extreme sides of the equation. Some of my friends express their outrage like Mr. Stotch where they openly criticize others for not wearing a mask properly (often using Facebook). Others feel no need to wear the mask, claiming that their own healthy lifestyle make the situation absurd.

Right after, the town holds an informal meeting where Randy Marsh gloats over his success of being a weed seller, making snide, passive-aggressive remarks to those individuals within the town who lost their businesses due to COVID-19. While Randy Marsh isn’t an inherently evil person, Randy Marsh’s character over the seasons has become more outlandish and annoying, almost worse than Cartman in terms of being insensitive.

On the other hand, his family members all have been slowly distancing themselves from Randy over the past seasons, especially his wife Sharon. Sharon effectively has become the voice of reason in their household and is probably what the audience is thinking whenever Randy does something stupid.

Contrasting everyone else’s attitude towards the pandemic’s isolation is Cartman. Cartman has fully embraced social distancing where he subverts the idea of six feet distancing towards even his mother and uses “bad internet” as an excuse to effectively play hooky during the virtual classroom.

Now, before going more into the plot, I just want to say that I still believe the showrunners of South Park have a secret camera hooked into my home along with reading this blog and other outlets of social media that I use and possibly interviewing friends of mine. I mean, Cartman, for all intents and purposes, is me here. I love the stay at home policies because it has reduced traffic, crowds and let me work from home for the most part. Not only that but I ended up taking cooking up as a hobby and have made my time effective. So my life has not been ruined at all.

However, Cartman is still a child and has to deal with the other children and that world, unlike me (in terms of his general existence) So that’s one area that I lack a certain type of perspective, which will be important down the line in the plot.

At any rate, Cartman’s mom points out that the school is trying to get the kids back into class, which destroys this new glass cocoon of peace and happiness Cartman finds.

In the meantime, we learn that Jimbo is in the hospital with COVID-19 and practically dying, which is something that Randy Marsh denigrates as Jimbo’s fault for being a fat alcoholic instead. Still, as they watch TV, it’s revealed that the disease was first discovered in Wuhan.

Here, Randy, who had been doing business with the Chinese, reminisces about his night life with Mickey Mouse while in China. He recalls in a haze how they both ended up fucking a bat, which possibly had started the outbreak. Then he contacts Mickey Mouse about they had started it all.

Despite hating Kyle and wanting to stay away from Kyle, Cartman actually visits Kyle to protests the idea of returning to school because he wants to use Kyle’s father as a lawyer. Of course, Kyle points out the irony, which is something Cartman can’t deny (which is odd and almost out of character for him).

A Zoom call between the parents and Mr Mackey go on with a near riotous result. It forces Mr Mackey to mute people individually and prevent them from arguing. But we learn that the school allowed the teachers to stay away which would force the school to hire new, recently “out of work” people. And those people are the police, who lost their funding from the protests of violence.

At the farm, Randy and family watch the news to discover that the virus was pinpointed to a pangolin and Randy recalls that he had sex with one (which was wrong in all sorts of manners, but I digress….)

At the school, things try to resume with the police now being the instructors (complete with them still bearing arms). Cartman is hauled like a piggy into class then pretends to vomit on Kyle. Kyle no longer can take Cartman’s intolerable action and they break into a fight. The police, of course, react by opening fire into the classroom and only hit Token.

We see that the pangolin is kept at a science facility in the US where scientists attempt to figure out a cure. Among a group of science tourists is Randy, who steals the pangolin. However, he receives a package from Mickey Mouse and a call with Mickey saying Randy is a dead man. However, Randy figures out that he could use his own DNA to infuse with the weed he’s growing to create a cure. He does this by masturbating and placing the remnants into a jar then sees the huge collection of jars, which makes him pull down his pants since he has a lot of work to do.

He visits Jimbo, masturbates once more into a fresh batch of weed (which is odd since supposedly he had all the jars already prepared beforehand) and forces Jimbo to smoke a blunt. Apparently, Jimbo recovers and Sharon is able to retrieve him from the hospital. This deludes Randy into thinking that he has in fact created a cure and he starts to freshly masturbate for his customers in a little shed similar to Cartman’s for his assburgers.

But there is a side effect where Jimbo grows a Randy Marsh-like mustache. Although Sharon doesn’t seem to recognize the shape of the mustache, Randy does making him even more paranoid and wanting to destroy all his products. At the hospital ward, the spread has gotten worse with everyone now sprouting a mustache, even the women.

Back at the school, the kids have been quarantined as a result of a COVID-19 outbreak. Stan calls out the police saying that their incompetence in shooting Token is what really occurred. But they deny everything and blame the situation as a leap in logic to COVID-19, which means that the kids are forced to live in what Cartman effectively and not-so-ironically had described the situation earlier as slavery.

Butters has a nervous breakdown about the Build-A-Bear situation, which is what he was demure about at the beginning of the episode. The mood in the school is more akin to a prison ever since the police had taken over (more on this in a bit). Butters is taken away while Stan has an epiphany that the kids need to help Butters.

So the police state of the school is very much a calling out to the reaction of many states initially to the pandemic, especially California where Trey Parker and Matt Stone, I think are currently based. California Governor Newsom, while some have felt being progressive on the issue, was probably the most radical in handing down very imperialistic edicts towards people here, which only resulted in a lot of resentment (heck, at one time the protestors marched onto Mayor Garcetti’s property, even though it all was after the start of the BLM movement gaining a large amount of traction for George Floyd)

The best part here is where Stan, who effectively acts as a voice of reason at times and generally Trey Parker’s own feelings in my opinion, assaults the lack of logic in the police’s arguments. Anyone who has been keeping up with events in the country will see the flaws and lack of accountability in the current police system. The show portrays them quite brutally more than ever in this episode as mindless warmongers, who have enough of a low cunning to justify their malpractices.

There is a cameo by Dr Fauci who instructs people how to wear the “face diapers” properly. At this point, it is Mr. Stotch, who now defies the face mask procedure and basically says “fuck you!” to the useless Dr.

Here, I found it funny how Mr. Stotch made a 180 in his position about the masks. We never see the actual reasoning behind his switch in attitude, but my best interpretation is that a lot of people probably either got fed up or switch sides.

During this, Butters starts to bemoan the fact that he’ll never get a chance to have his Build-A-Bear experience while Stan starts getting anxiety and feels the need to defy the rules. He calls up Mr Garrison (i.e. the president) directly, using duplicity from name dropping Mr Slave but only finds out Mr Garrison’s true intention of letting the pandemic destroy the country: to get rid of the Mexicans as part of his campaign promise.

I have to pause again here to say that when you look at how things have evolved, it certainly looks like Trump has been doing something fishy in not reacting to the pandemic up to this point (outside of getting it; but that’s another story). Part of it might be the writers alluding to some of the conspiracy theorists (me!) in believing that Trump is actually trying to destroy the country by remaining impotent.

Either way, Stan and the rest of the students stage a break out, which causes a mass riot in the town as fear of super spreaders by the kids makes the news. All Hell breaks loose and the mayor gives the police their armaments back, allowing them to kill the innocents in very violent manners (Kenny among those).

Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Butters make it to the Build-A-Bear where they’re denied entrance as a result of someone being stricken by the mustache plague entering the establishment. Nonetheless, Stan is not perturbed and sneaks the group inside where he takes it upon himself to try to make Butters a bear.

Meanwhile, Randy tries to dispose of the evidence in stacking the jars up in his truck. However, Sharon stops him because their son is missing and tells him, “Fuck you!” so that they can rescue their boy. As the go through the wreckage of town, Randy discovers Applebee’s take the fall (along with Red Robin earlier). He mourns the loss of yet another business that he liked personally and decides that he needs to rectify things.

At the Build-A-Bear store, Stan continues to fail disastrously at making the bear to the point where his friends question his actions. But he remains determined as a tank pulls up and is ready to murder Kyle. At that moment, Randy comes clean with the pangolin without fully disclosing the source of the DNA.

As the main scientist for COVID-19 accepts the pangolin, Cartman rushes out to snatch the creature away and threaten to burn it in the do-over machine. However, here’s where the show gets real.

Stan reveals the entire reason for his actions is his own fear at what’s become of him and what the COVID-19 response has done. He simply wants his life back and cries because he cannot see a future anymore.

At that point, an obviously distraught Cartman silently returns the pangolin back to the scientist, to which even Kyle is caught in awe and disbelief. However, the celebration is for naught as Mr Garrison burns the scientist and pangolin with a flame thrower and even tosses in a “vote!” while a shocked crowd stare at what just happened.

We’re left with Randy back at the farm with his wife who is sleeping. He’s ready to repent about everything and admits how the whole weed business had distorted him. However, Sharon turns around with a mustache, implying that she smoked some too, even though she denies it. Then Randy concludes that he’ll make a few more specials and says that she has some on her face.

Wow, what an episode. There’s just so much to process that I had to type up the entire thing to grab all the details once more. Honestly, this episode reminded me a lot of the earliest episodes in terms of the raw energy, the ideas and the gut punching shocking humor.

However, unlike the earlier episodes, this one was definitely more refined. The one thing that this episode had that I feel the earlier ones actually lacked was a soul. Stan’s speech about returning to normal was very heartbreaking and to me it’s how I imagine a lot of people feel right now.

During the episode, Stan reiterates how he is strong but in the end we learn that he’s attempting to hide his fear from himself by trying to help Butters. We see how the chaos has created this war among ourselves and put people into a duress that no one has experienced before (even episodes like where the kids are interned is not like this one). This chaos is what Stan fears because he cannot fathom what it is nor what will happen.

The way the town breaks into chaos also is far different than previous episodes because in those dark periods, it was a localized event. This chaos, while dramatized as usual, was a reflection of the writers’ and many peoples’ darkest fears of how the world is turning into this massive prison.

The mask portion, while trivial, isn’t because it’s almost like an act of condemning or shaming. In reality, there is nothing that terrible about it outside of being uncomfortable but the ridiculously of people’s attitudes have taken to the point where irrational fights break out on both sides.

The police brutality aspect is heightened more than ever in this episode as well. Most of the times in the past, it just felt like simple parody. This one felt really personal. The amount of police incidents this year have generally been of the worst behavior that normally would (and should) be associated with a felon. Here, we see them as brazen murders, who not only are senseless, but take glee in what they do. The part where some kid dropping a snowball and being disintegrated almost is like the guy who was shot in the back 7 times.

Also, the part with Mr Garrison burning the scientist and pangolin was a pretty clear statement from the writers about which candidate to vote for. Despite their general stance on the choices between a Turd Sandwich and Giant Douche, there’s no question who the writers are siding with here. It’s very hard to deny the problems in the US government at the moment to all but the completely stupid and those that are unfailingly loyal.

But I think the clear message 99.9999% people will agree upon is that most people just want some semblance of normality to return. I think when Cartman returned the pangolin it was one of those statements where all but the biggest shits in the world (i.e. Trump here) would want anything else. And that’s a huge statement considering what Cartman represents in the show.

If there’s anything that’s clear, it’s the distinction that Cartman’s choices are always done through the viewpoint of a child, who has yet to fully form a real consciousness. On the other hand, Mr Garrison is an adult and by associating him to Trump on a very overt level, you can say that Trump too must be held accountable for his behavior in effectively “burning away” opportunities to treat the situation.

At any rate, this was probably one of the most inspirational South Park episodes. I think it fully voices a lot of the frustrations, fears and problems going on at the moment with the pandemic at the center of everything. It is nihilistic in many ways with Mr Garrison burning the pangolin and scientist, but there is a voice of hope in Stan crying, trying to unify the harshest critics of what’s going on and speaking from out hearts (those that have one anyway).

The post South Park: The Pandemic Special appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

First, the main issue is addressing Daenerys’ ruthless destruction of the city. I read some interesting write ups on how GRRM essentially told the story of a villain in how that person came to be. Effectively, with Daenerys’ utter destruction of King’s Landing, we see a side of her that many did not realize existed…or perhaps we did?

For myself, when I first encountered Daenerys in season 4, my first instinct about her as a character was, “Man, this is a bitch!” Usually, my instincts are never wrong. But the thing about the show is that her hints of cruelty are peppered throughout the seasons. One of the essential moments occurs when she encounters the Spice King in Qarth. Although the Spice King is not the most humble of people she encounters, he is one of economic reason. In turn, she threatens out of sheer anger to reduce the city because she feels entitled to anything and everything.

Emilia Clarke portrays Daenerys as someone who can be, bluntly stated, very bratty. In retrospect, her infamous “WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS?” incident had become a meme. In truth, despite questionable acting, it wasn’t necessarily unwarranted. That scene demonstrates Daenerys’ short temper and demanding personality. She does not succumb to tears nor weakness and her vengeful demeanor only receives encouragement from a blindly loyal Ser Jorah.

And while the character is accepted and worshipped as an icon of feminism, the character ends up turning on herself in the end. One of the characteristics people have identified in Daenerys is that she defies the stereotypical villain being an ugly, powerful being. Instead, she’s beautiful with an occasional kind heart and idealistic mindset. But her ultimate downfall is her jingoistic notions of a free world.

Enter Jon Snow after Tyrion tells him he has to make a choice. Jon Snow, being one who has learned the meaning of difficult choices and the highest value of freedom (being that of making ones own choice) realizes at the end that Daenerys’ lacks the empathy and hubris to allow others to decide for themselves. Her world is only her world and she becomes a tyrant because she does not want to allow others to choose.

It’s at that moment Jon Snow decides that he needs to end her life. Was it necessary though? That’s a question both Tyrion and Jon Snow would be wrestling with for the remainder of their years. In truth, Daenerys becomes a symbol of the last spoke on the wheel she wants to destroy because she’s a tragic figure that people wanted to love but in the end could not accept.

From there Tyrion faces judgment in the Dragon Pit with all the remaining lords and ladies in the realm. At this point, I felt that the show had become very preachy as Westeros would effectively start democracy with the first king, being Bran, getting elected by a group of people.

The Dragon Pit scene is very ideological and dialogue heavy but ultimately comes back to the idea of stories being the most important driving force for leadership. I feel this is a very GRRM thing in that it’s Dan and Dave speaking about how they fell in love with the series. In truth, the Dragon Pit scene makes absolutely no sense to me because Tyrion is a prisoner but manages to elect Bran as King. If he’s a prison how and why should anyone listen to him? He’s on trial for treason.

Also, I don’t understand how Greyworm can sit by and watch this take place. He’s obviously still very upset that all his loved ones are dead and that he seeks justice. That’s where the dialogue feels contrived and just trying to fit towards an ending.

Bran becoming king feels really stupid and it’s odd why everyone ended up just blindly accepting him after Tyrion’s proposal. Outside of supposedly knowing all of humans’ history, he has no credentials to leading. If anything his situation makes me very suspicious that he was leading people on so that he could become the ruler of the 6 kingdoms. Also, according to Tyrion’s viewpoint, how is Bran’s story more special than anyone else’s who managed to live? The only thing that is a statement here is that good story tellers make good rulers. Huh?

For the rest of the story, it’s mostly just wrapping up. Jon Snow goes North to rejoin the Night’s Watch, which would allow him to avoid further persecution by the Unsullied (although I still have to ask why should they care at this point?), Sansa becomes Queen of the North while the North becomes independent, Arya goes West to find out what’s beyond and Tyrion ends up as Hand of the King with Ser Davos, Bronn, Brienne and Sam are his council.

We know that Drogon took off with Daenerys’ body heading east. No one knows what happens to him although Bran says that he would try to follow. Jon arrives back at Castle Black and escorts the remaining Freefolk with Tormund to the real north, where I presume Jon will join them.

Overall, I felt that the ending was a bit messy. It felt rushed. Daenerys dying just like that felt weak. I honestly felt bad for her. Really bad. Ironically, despite what she did to innocence, I never really felt she was a villain. I dislike the excuse that Dan and Dave gave in how she snapped, making things personal when she saw the Red Keep. But even then, I felt in the end she was less of a villain than what people are making it out to be.

The main reason is that she simply never got psychological help. If you looked at her upbringing, you cannot completely fault where she was going. Her brother abused her and planted seeds of a psychopath in her. She was raped and convinced herself that it was love by a brutal warlord whose people only valued raw strength. Most people she encountered on her journey were either out to kill her, use her or humiliate her. And the people who did serve her were sycophants that simply fed into these misguided notions.

The thing she valued was being a revolutionary that people like her would not face similar consequences. However, at some point she become overzealous in herself to the point where her isolation brought upon her the inability to trust in others. People like Lady Olenna did her wrong in feeding into negative emotions (which I believe was a calculated move since Lady Olenna knew she wouldn’t live much longer). It’s a true shame we did not have another season for her to develop this new side of her because only in the end did she become a really fascinating character.

Then there’s the Bran issue. People are complaining that he has done nothing the entire time. I personally think he knew for the most part and had waited on the sidelines for people to eliminate themselves. I recall a quote from Tyrion in season 7 where he mentions that doing nothing sometimes is the best option when he advises Daenerys not to pursue Jon. That pretty much might sum up how Bran wins the game. Even people like Sam, Tyrion, Ser Davos or the others that survive really don’t do much. Yet they win.

When I think of Ser Davos and Sam, I think of cowards. But perhaps that’s a lesson in itself where he who runs lives to fight another day.  It reminds me of online games where people would tell you that survival is more important than your DPS; if you can’t survive, you can’t do DPS.

What about Sansa becoming Queen? Originally, I envisioned her becoming a possible Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, perhaps being the one to depose Cersei. Her story arc is interesting in that she envisioned herself being betrothed to the king. Now, she’s more learned from her own trials. If anything though she’s managed to make peace with Jon. I think it’s fitting though as she seems to be the one to take leading the North seriously.

Finally, we have Jon Snow. It’s unclear if he’ll remain with the Night’s Watch. But I have a feeling that he’s joining the Freefolk permanently. I think he sees himself more of an adventurer and being in the North (the REAL North) with Tormund and gang suits him more than anything.  Perhaps, at the end of the day, he managed to receive a pardon or that he simply wanders off never to be found again like Mance Rayder.

At any rate, I suppose the story concluded as well as it could given the time constraints. I’m not happy with the brevity in terms of what needed to be told. But most of the basic broad strokes have been wrapped up. There’s a lot of missing components like the other Red Priestesses, the Faceless Men, Daario and Yunkai, Drogon, Quaithe, etc. I think there’s enough left over for sequels but at this point, I’m glad the main adventure is over. It’s not how I would have finished the series but I suppose it makes sense if this is what GRRM wants.

The post Game of Thrones: Season 8 Episode 6 Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

First, I want to say that I want to focus on the broad strokes of this episode because it’s hard going through every single moment, especially in a very action driven pace. The real story was simply the living vs the dead. Would we see surprises? How many would die? Would we see any key character developments?

Let me start off in talking about the Night King. To put it bluntly, he’s one cool guy. Had to get that one in there. But that’s the type of tongue-in-cheek feeling I felt when he met his rather untimely demise. You would think that despite all the build up, he would receive a bigger send off. Or better yet, there would be a real purpose to him.

Nope.

It’s just as Brian Cogman mentioned: he only exist as a fuck you to the Children of the Forest. There really isn’t any depth given to him outside of the glimpses we see here and there. You could say that he was a poorly calculated mistake by the Children of the Forest and that Bran’s explanation hits it on the mark.

To say I’m disappointed is a vast understatement. I thought he had more symbolism with his marks and the way children often were used in assaulting characters. In truth, he really was just death incarnate and if anything his only symbolism was absolute real power.

There were plenty of rumors up to this point talking about his origins and purpose. Also, that he would have a far more significant role to play. Some said that he planned on assaulting King’s Landing directly while others mentioned that the Golden Company would come about to attack Winterfell after a first assault. None of this happened (which also should say a lot about placing faith in online unconfirmed rumors). All these things felt compelling as possibilities.

Since he met his end in this episode and that we have three more episodes to go, I want to make a bold statement in saying that I have a pretty good idea where the show is heading. Given that GRRM is a fan of Lord of the Rings, it feels as though he might’ve adjusted that format of a story. So while the whole Army of the Dead vs living was the main story behind the LOTR series (meaning humans/elves/hobbits/dwarves vs orcs), the ending seems to be leading towards the aftermath where the Hobbits, now wiser after their travels, end up confronting Saurumon taking The Shire hostage. Except that in this case, we have more depth in the aftermath with three episodes.

Without delving more into that part, I want to talk more about the little plots that were concluded or key pieces that happened. First, there’s the Dothraki scene where Melisandre appears and offers transient hope in lighting their weapons with fire. Then bizarrely, the Dothraki charge into the night and get obliterated with only a few survivors. We even get a brief moment with Ghost in the field before things turn dark. Even though it’s mentioned about the success of a Dothraki on an open field, the reality is that they’re dumber than their horses (as demonstrated by Khal Drogo’s manly refusal for succor) and that they’re no longer a piece Daenerys can rely on for her conquest of the throne.

Next, let’s talk about the Unsullied with Greyworm leading. Sure they probably had better surviving chances than the Dothraki but their orderly discipline pretty made them as easy target for the dead. With many dying in battle, that’s fewer pieces Daenerys will have to use against her battle for King’s Landing.

Then there’s the whole Jon Snow trying to prevent Daenerys from taking off. It’s funny that the showrunners talk about the “plan”. Honestly, that plan (which seems to be Jon Snow and Bran’s) sucked. Without the dragons breathing fire on the dead, more of the front line forces would have been decimated. If you really think how things went down, the plan was pretty stupid all around and there was no way anyone outside of Bran could have calculated the events that would cost that many lives.

The whole crypts thing turned out to be not as big of a situation as most people made out. People thought that we would see more dead Starks or key dead Starks make their return. While it did provide a few tense moments, the only thing it served was showing a tender moment between Sansa and Tyrion.

For deaths, the key ones were Ed, Beric, Lyanna Mormont, Theon Greyjoy, Ser Jorah and Melisandre. Ed was a bit sad in that he managed to save Sam, who end up fighting but still remaining a coward. Beric’s was a bit sadder in that he fought to keep Sandor Clegane and Arya alive. Lyanna’s was unexpected since she really wasn’t a big character but ended up going out in a big manner in killing a giant after sacrificing herself.

For the last three, I want to talk about each individually. Theon’s had the best conclusive arc in the series because he ended up finding honor and restoring himself to the Starks by defending Bran. Even having him outside with Bran seemed doubtful since he was a coward. But as the Night King entered the Godswood with Bran laying out in the open, Bran gave Theon the thing he needed to hear, which was forgiveness that allowed him to bravely meet his end and give Bran more time.

Ser Jorah’s was a sad one but not unexpected. I had hoped that he would be able to make it until King’s Landing. But like Theon he died with purpose, in this case sacrificing himself while standing by his Queen, the one he loved most in the world. While I never imagined the concrete manner or when Ser Jorah would die, I always imagined him somehow standing like iron as a wall next to Daenerys with her weeping as only in death would she appreciate the man he was.

Lastly, Melisandre’s demise was her own self-prophecy as she told it one season prior and at the beginning of the show. If you really examine her purpose, it was pretty pointless in the end. She only had two key moments in this episode: 1) setting blaze the wooden barricade; 2) revealing/reminding of Arya her purpose. As she walked out of Winterfell and removed her necklace, she took to her true age with Ser Davos witnessing her real form and lying to rest as an ancient crone in the snow. If anything it seems that she only existed to see the Night King and his army end but did little beyond that.

You could say she had a redemptive arc in her character but I really wouldn’t call her ending that. She knew what was coming and still did nothing beyond providing false hope to everyone except for Arya.  Her demise really leaves a lot of questions remaining like who she really was or if there really was any point to her character at all. This is where the writing starts to fall apart in my book just because these loose ends aren’t tied up neatly.

So what about the other characters? It felt empty for the most party except seeing certain key characters fighting together. Brienne, Podrick and Jaime did little beyond their action sequences and keeping each other alive. If anything the only thing significant for Jaime is that he managed to fight honorably. Hopefully, as the North recuperates, they remember where he stood in battle.

The Hound still has yet to find his purpose as well as figuring out how to deal with his fear of fire. At some point, I thought he would become the Prince that was Promised due to a few key shots from Season 7 Episode 10 as well as the way the birthing of his origins took place. With him encountering Melisandre, I thought there would be significant dialogue between the two. Instead, the only significant thing that occurred was him still trying to aid Arya in her endeavors.

Now, let’s talk about the Big 4: Jon Snow, Daenerys, Bran and Arya. Let’s be real and just say Jon Snow is fucking useless. Not only does he know nothing, his battle plans suck and he doesn’t really do anything significant except cause more shit to happen because he’s an idiot. There’s the moment where he’s about to fight the undead dragon but ends up not doing much except hiding. He looks to confront the Night King a few times but again nothing happens. He’s just there and manages to get all the credit.

Daenerys probably did a lot more overall. It was good seeing her take flight and use Drogon to burn a significant number of the dead. But the most impressive aspect was seeing her take up a Dragon Glass sword as she could do nothing else once Drogon had undead ants crawling up his asshole (okay extreme description but it’s kinda similar to what happened to that Holiphant in Return of the King). If anything that’s the first time we’ve ever seen her actually take up arms and be a warrior out in the field. I kinda hope for more.

Then there’s Arya. Arya’s training makes full sense now. In a way, I could see this a while back. The main idea here is that she’s the only one capable of hitting the Night King. Essentially, David and Dan are pulling out their Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules with Arya being a thief/assassin and doing a move silently/hide in shadows success role vs something that has a pretty good detection rate. She would’ve pulled off the +4 attack to hit backstab with x5 multiplier except that she went for the abdomen in getting a critical hit with a natural 20 as per later edition rules.

Also, Bran handing her Cats Paw in the Godswood makes sense. But in general, her main purpose has come to conclusion, although it does imply that she could hit another target like Cersei if she’s hidden away in a tower.

Finally, let’s talk about Bran. If Jon Snow is useless, Bran is the equivalent of a terrible project manager in tech who refuses to provide clear requirements, despite knowing better. He’s kind of a cold hearted asshole at this point because he knows what will happen and doesn’t give a single damn hint to anyone whether or not what they are doing is right or wrong. But he can see it. Heck, with him channeling it seems he’s doing his best to draw the Night King close. Did he just use Theon to allow for ample time to let Arya sneak up behind the Night King? That’s pretty fucked up.

Now with the Night King out of the way, some of the characters don’t feel like they serve much of a purpose anymore. Bran’s entire story has been about his connection with the Night King. Arya’s instagib talent had its moment so there’s few people left for her to deal with (outside of the Mountain and Cersei). You still have people like Brienne, Gendry, Greyworm, Missandei and Baby Sam just hanging about. So else for them?

Obviously, the next major thing is King’s Landing and dealing with Cersei. Most likely, they’ll call Cersei a treasonous traitor for not participating in the battle while Cersei may have an advantage since none of her troops were used. With most of the Northern forces obliterated, the fight might seem fair, even with both dragons still possibly being alive.

So what does this mean for the ending though? It’s pretty much resolving the remaining conflict. I think the tale is that people never learn. While the North might now follow Daenerys since she helped provide victory, the reality is that nothing seems learned in this fight. If anything the purpose of the battle of the living vs dead should have been about what’s important in life. Instead, it seems that Daenerys’ is more convicted than ever in her vision for conquest.

What about Tyrion in all of this? He seems to be the big switch player that’s hidden. Some say that he will betray the North and be executed for treason. At this point, if he were to betray the North, it had better be for some really good damn reasons.

Since Cesei did not send her troops, it should be very clear to Tyrion that his sister has no intention of ever helping them. If anything, she’ll do as Jaime heard and she’ll deal with the survivors.  On that level, I would have a hard time believing Tyrion would still be loyal to his family; at least his sister.

So his reasons for betraying the North and Daenerys will not be for family’s sake. I think if anything he’ll feel unappreciated and possibly be blamed for a crime he doesn’t commit. That seems to be his fate as a tragic figure. We see that occur twice; once when Catelyn accused him and the second for Joffry’s murder. Maybe Cersei will set him up and he’ll face an unfair trial. In this case, he won’t succeed as his game is at an end.

The post Game of Thrones: Season 8 Episode 3 Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

From what we know so far as per interviews with various writers, producers and Bran’s own admissions, the White Walkers represent death incarnate. In season 8 episode 2, Gendry describes his encounter with the White Walkers being like “death” while Sam explains the idea of death as being forgotten. Bran’s interpretation of the White Walkers is that their whole purpose is to wipe out the memory of man, thus starting with himself as the Three Eyed Raven.

However, we need to ask how that ties into the Night King and his powers. From what we can see, the Night King is a type of raw power incarnate. He has the capability of converting the living into his army and can hold command over those within his ranks. In short, he symbolizes a type of absolute power.

Jon Snow describes the Night King as a being/ruler that cannot be reasoned with. It is true in that the Night King has no dialogue and we are excluded from his thought process. While he may show symbols in dealing with the living, we get little else from him beyond his utter destruction of anything living and how he brings winter with him.

When it comes to ruling, his “people” are essentially mindless beings, enslaved to his will. They have no ability to reason just as Jon Snow observes and thus serve his purpose in a singular manner. At the same time, because they lack the ability to reason, they cannot adapt unlike a living creature which has its natural instinct to survive.

One could argue that they serve as a rhetorical point to reify Cersei’s thesis on power. But as I mentioned, being unable to reason and not having the ability to adapt means they have no ability to survive on their own beyond what the Night King deigns.

But that’s the point of what mindless, absolute rule implies. It’s essentially George RR Martin’s way (at least if that’s what the executive producers have adapted from him) of showing what it means to dominant a people. It turns those into a soulless corpse, lacking feeling, meaning and purpose beyond that of the leader.

One thing I have to question in all of this is whether or not we can trust Bran’s interpretation of events along with the information we have received about them from media outlet services at this point in time. Bran is not entirely a reliable narrator as his visions, while potentially infinite, require him to be able to track down precisely a situation.

Tonight the new bit of information that has been added was that the Night King had sought out other Three Eyed Raven figures for the purpose of snuffing them out, which implies destroying memory. And again one must ask what the ultimate purpose is. Is it simply that they are death incarnate through a poorly calculated mistake by the Children of the Forest?

It’s hard to see them being so black and white at this juncture of the story. The prior Three Eyed Raven once advised Bran that he required to know “everything”. Whether Bran has been able to absorb “everything” and properly disseminate that information is unknown at this point.

I do believe that targeting the living of children in providing his “messages” is important. The children we have seen were all anonymous types but like Varys’ Little Birds, they represent something else within the story. In Varys’ case, he is for the common people, which is why he seems to gravitate towards street children for his spies.

One hypothesis I have with regards to the Night King and his army is that they represent the forgotten. Much of the story is told from the viewpoint of lords and ladies. Rarely do we get the privilege of seeing the underbelly of society directly through their eyes. Even those like Ser Davos or Gendry are associated with nobility or are promoted into such positions.

But the true casualty has always been those supporting the noble class. They are the victims of the wars between the egos of rulers. Take for instance when Joffrey hunted down King Robert Baratheon’s bastard children in Littlefinger’s brothel. Many innocent children were probably killed, those whose mothers were common whores.

I feel as though that the Night King’s existence is to remind the living of the existence of the common people who have been slaughtered and assimilated by the Night King. His purpose perhaps is to demonstrate what real power is and parody the existence of ruling by removing the memory of the petty lords.

I keep thinking of a quote from another movie, Prometheus. “Sometimes to create, we must first destroy.” It’s acknowledged by people like Jon Snow and Ser Davos that the current world of Westeros is a shit one and that the people deserve better. Maybe what occurs in this world is that when the lords forget why they exist and enter into acts of petty bickering, the Night King surfaces to remind them and start a new fresh cycle where people are given a new chance to change.

At any rate, I hope that we get to find the true purpose of the White Walkers. I hope that Bran, Sam and/or Tyrion even have the opportunity to delve deeply into the past to discover what happened. The information provided by Leaf to Bran in season 6 never truly unveiled more outside of the fear and distaste of man.

The post Game of Thrones: What Do the White Walkers Represent? appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Unlike episode 1 this season which only showed us a brief moment with Jaime, a good chunk of this episode was resolving a fair amount of his story arc in terms of how he changed from season 1. He certainly has one of the largest character alterations within the story, going from an arrogant, snarky son of a rich lord to a much more humbled person who sees what his true purpose in life is.

While the arc started to evolve when he met Brienne, I think he became very conscientious when he was talking to Joffrey in an earlier season about deeds of knights. His pages were empty or filled with failures. However, he knew that he had time left in the world to make up for it. Thus, in this episode he attempts to redeem himself in a few ways such as joining the cause of the living, apologizing to Bran for his actions and knighting Brienne of Tarth.

His purpose mostly is for Brienne at this point as he pledges to stand by her side, fighting under her. As she had saved his life in the beginning of the episode, he takes the opportunity to provide Brienne her happiest moment alive by knighting her. Not only is that scene one of respect but it is of mutual love and understanding of one another where both characters can play out their final days with peace in their hearts while dying with honor.

Another major arc comes in the form of Daenerys and her position of ruling. Unlike her previous conquests, the one of the North is given as a result of Jon bending the knee. There is a begrudging from the North that Daernys cannot understand. Her misunderstanding is that the people have a gravely different perspective of Targaryens and what they had done to the North in the past.

Also, unlike other places she overthrew, the North has a very strong character built by family, loyalty and love. While she starts to gain a little understanding of how things work from a private meeting with Sansa, she starts to see the difference of what it means to be a Northerner when Theon Greyjoy returns to redeem himself after turning against Robb and the North.

It is a crucial moment because she has been obsessed with ruling for most of her life, especially after her brother died. She is a foreigner as many have stated, despite being born within the Seven Kingdoms. But her thinking is alien and she herself is alienated because she demands her position.

What complicates things is Jon’s own discovery of his heritage, which he shares in private with Daenerys. There’s a huge conflict within her as she loves Jon but realizes that she no longer has the stronger claim to the throne. Fortunately for them both, the enemy is at their doorstep before they can resolve this issue.

Much of the rest of the episode deals with how these characters will face death. Bran discusses in the war council what the Night King and the army of the dead represent: death incarnate. Samwell Tarly expatiates on the idea of death; the state of being forgotten permanently. The whole goal of the Night King is to convert the world into perpetual darkness and extinguish all life and memory of it.

Sam’s speech is a critical one that touches on one of the key recurring themes in the book. Arya herself talks about “knowing death” because of how she underwent her training with the Faceless Men. Jon knew it directly in being murdered by his own brothers within the Nights Watch. And Beric talks about how death is always the enemy, the first and the last that we must all face and that we all will eventually lose to despite being forced to confront it.

The idea of death makes everyone bond as they know that this is their ultimate war.  It will literally be the living vs the dead and the question is how people will react when confronted with it directly. It’s like Robert Baratheon’s riddle to Cersei: what is the larger number, 5 or 1?

At this time, the living finally have gathered together (minus Euron, Cersei and whatever forces Cersei still has) to make their last stand. But as Jon mentions it’s not enough. They do not have the numbers to win, especially in a straight fight. But they do have the prime purpose of any creature: survive.

The post Game of Thrones: Season 8 Episode 2 Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

At the end of Season 7, we started to see a more doubtful Tyrion where he spots Jon Snow and Daenerys having, erm….#boatsex. He gives a very dubious, perhaps even jealous glance at the door. Peter Dinklage himself in the aftermath video talked about how he loves Jon Snow and Daenerys but sees the dangers that this relationship can bring. More than that he points out that he has been smitten by Daenerys, which can turn out tragic as his past relationships have turned out.

Those doubts have yet to manifest in the current season, although we do see more doubts from Daenerys in placating Tyrion for his various mistakes as her Hand. Mostly, it’s been about Cersei’s deception, especially in not sending her army to aid the North. Both Sansa and Daenerys doubt Tyrion’s intelligence in his underestimation.

But the real question is whether or not Tyrion really has been deceived in all of this. While we cannot directly view what goes on inside of his head, we can see dubious shots of him such as him looking at Bran (and vice versa) or the way he presented the Lannister army joining the North. Tyrion, himself, does not seem all that confident in his presentation, which has led me to doubt his character even further.

Also, there’s a part where Tyrion questions Jamie in episode 2 about Cersei’s pregnancy. I feel as though there’s an unsaid pact between Cersei and Tyrion, which is why Cersei allowed Tyrion to leave unscathed during their confrontation in season 7 episode 7. But what is that pact?

On the one hand, Tyrion seems to earnestly wish to preserve his house. Naturally, he wishes his brother good fortune. But why Cersei? After all that she has tried to do against him, it’s hard to imagine why he can imagine any possibility of forgiveness for him in all of this.

But perhaps, that is his hidden agenda. Perhaps, like Ser Jorah with regards to Robert Baratheon, Tyrion wants a royal pardon if he can gain favor with Cersei. After all, the real contention Cersei had with Tyrion was how she believed that he assassinated Joffrey. Now, that Jamie has provided evidence from Ollena Tyrell that it wasn’t Tyrion, part of Cersei’s hatred might abate.

One could argue that she still finds hatred towards him as a result of what happened from how he murdered their father, Tywin. Yet you have to admit (just like Cersei) that Tyrion’s actions have allowed Cersei to gain her ultimate prize (which was the Iron Throne).

How might he pull things off? If rumors are correct, Tyrion will be tried for treason in the last episode by the rulers of the realm. But what is that treason? How does he betray everyone?

One possibility that I believe is that he knows Cersei will still send the Golden Company. But unlike Tywin Lannister, who in the Battle of Blackwater, saved King’s Landing at the last second, Cersei intends to backstab everyone. To do this, she must gain the North’s confidence.

There is a scene in episode 2 where Tyrion mentions he would stand near Ser Davos to give a signal by fire. Daenerys quickly shoots the idea down and requests that he stay in the crypts with the others. While Ser Jorah does council Daenerys to keep Tyrion as her hand, I feel Daenerys still does not fully trust Tyrion and she detects that he might pull something off, anticipating Cersei’s assault and Tyrion being the one to give off the signal.

However, considering that the dead number in the 100s of thousands, why should Tyrion believe that his sister’s plan would succeed? How would he plan to escape in all of this? He witnessed the dead himself and seeing the army of the dead with their numbers means that he should completely ally himself with the North.

My only conclusion in all of this is to examine his character and figure out his core values. A while back, he talked about liking power when he was the Hand in King’s Landing. More than anything he admits that he feels he was born to handle power. So playing the game is what he enjoys best. Taking chances and seeing how high he can rise.

Perhaps, he anticipates the carnage from everything and hopes that all the forces defeat each other in a zero sum game where he manages to come out on top. I figure he might attempt to lead the North to King’s Landing eventually to have both forces whittle each other down. I imagine that there’s still a great deal of Wildfire remaining. So if the dead arrive along with the North, he can exact revenge against the people of King’s Landing for his trial as well as wipe out any possible rivals to allow him to become the ruler. Maybe in his mind, if he can eliminate the dragons, he might be able to convince Daenerys towards a different path.

Most of this is simply speculation on my part. I’ve read some varying rumors and have been trying to put together the end game. Tyrion’s fate seems to impinge upon what he hopes to achieve. I feel that he keeps his cards very close to his chest and that he has a few more tricks up his sleeve to use when the time is right.

The post Game of Thrones: What is Tyrion’s Motivation? appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

This episode pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the season in terms of surfacing all the main conflicts and what seems to be necessary to resolve the story. The episode starts off almost in a mirroring of the first episode from the first season where a procession leading to Winterfell occurs. This time, the procession is about Queen Daenerys as she’s escorted by Jon Snow and her forces.

Jon Snow points out that the northern people are suspicious of outsiders, even more so one with two dragons, a foreign army and one whose father had slew the previous leaders. However, Daenerys has a certain pride and defiance as her dragons soar over the castle, inspiring fear and awe into the people. One might say she has a certain confidence because of her dragons.

As they enter Winterfell, Jon Snow immediately hugs Bran who reacts in a very aloof manner unbeknownst to Jon in the manner of his transformation. Also, Jon introduced Daenerys to his sister, who almost immediately bears a bitter distance from the dragon queen.

Despite the formalities, it is Bran who informs Jon and Daenerys of the real dangers with the White Walkers destroying the Wall with Daenerys’ third dragon being part of the imminent threat. You have to keep in mind that these bits of news end up constantly being shoved under the rug by people in the show as petty rivalries end up taking precedence over the true threat.

With Jon Snow back, they debate on his position as he had bent the knee to Daenerys without the permission nor wishes of the Northern people. However, Jon argues that his stance was ultimately to provide protection for them, even though he needed to sacrifice his own title to gain favoritism from the queen. Nonetheless, Daenerys’ troops along with the Lannister forces has caused even more tension for the Northern people in giving Jon Snow credence. At the end though, it has been decided that the stand will be at Winterfell, which is why Sansa had their forces gathered there.

We see a small reunion between Tyrion and Sansa. While Tyrion gives her credit on surpassing others who did not believe in her, Sansa insults Tyrion’s intelligence for believing that Cersei would provide forces to the north. Specifically, she indirectly acknowledges Olenna Tyrell’s comment a season before on Tyrion’s intellect and it provides even more doubt as Tyrion being clever, perhaps for himself too

Next, we see the reunion that has been in the making for 8 seasons: Jon and Arya. Jon sees that Arya still has Needle which has been their material and spiritual connection while they were away. However, the real thing is that Arya is protecting Sansa and reminds Jon never to forget that they’re family. This obviously foreshadows the inevitable realization for Jon once he learns about his true identity.

We return to King’s Landing with Cersei looking over the shores, seeing from the harbor Euron’s fleet bearing the Golden Company. Qyburn informs her of the dead’s successful penetration of the Wall and soon to-be invasion of the north. Cersei though is elated because for her it implies one enemy will surely be eliminated while another will be weakened. I think with her alliance with Euron, she believes that in the event of a disaster, she can sail far away on his boats as a last resort.

On Euron’s ship, we see Yara alive but captive. Euron reveals his plans and manages to get in bed with Cersei. Cersei begrudgingly gives into him and there’s a very puzzling look from Cersei after Euron tells her he wants to put a prince inside of her. One interpretation is that she seems worried that perhaps she has overstepped her boundaries and, indeed, misses her brother. On the other hand, it could be that she may use their love making to disguise the child if she survives the war. It’s not the first time she used another man to hide her incestuous relationship.

While that goes on, Qyburn approaches Bronn to remove Cersei’s brothers. It’s an interesting proposition as Bronn had developed an affinity between both Jamie and Tyrion. While he considers himself a sell sword, it’s unknown to what degree he’s willing to sell his sword. I think that will be a huge question that will be answered down the line. But it may go back to Varys’ riddle posed on Tyrion when it came to power.

Back aboard Euron’s ship, Theon rescues Yara. Yara headbutts him but also offers a hand as the two sail away. The main thing here is that Yara wants to take back the Iron Isles with Euron’s fleet stationed at King’s Landing while Theon desires to return to Winterfell to fight for the Starks. What will be interesting to see is if he follows through in upholding his honor in fighting against the frightful forces of the Night King’s army.

There’s discussion between what looks like the new small council of Ser Davos, Tyrion and Varys about northerners and trust. Essentially, he tells Tyrion that Daenerys needs to earn their respect, which will be hard since she’s very haughty and Tyrion knows how difficult she is.

That attitude is reflected when Jon and Daenerys have a private conversation in the courtyard. Daenerys too notices Sansa’s distaste for her and almost threatens Jon that Sansa needs to respect her. A report comes in from the Dothraki that her dragons have not eaten, motivating the pair to go out for a ride. Jon gets on tepidly to Rhaegal but naturally eases into flying. They eventually land in a secluded area with a waterfall, almost hearkening back to Jon’s scene with Ygritte and Daenerys hints at simply staying for a thousand years.

Back in the armory, Gendry continues his work, forging new weapons made of the acquired Dragonglass, creating a special axe for The Hound. Arya interrupts their banter with The Hound and her having a mutual cold respect for another. However, the interaction with Arya and Gendry is more playful and there’s an underlying admiration that has lasted since season 3 for the two. However, the real immediate thing is that Arya wants Gendry to design her a special spear-like weapon.

When Jon returns to the keep, he visits Sansa who reveals that Lord Glover already has broken his pledge to stand besides them. During their discussion, Sansa comes clean in asking for what purpose Jon truly bent the knee to Daenerys: for his people or for love. Because of Robb’s own mistakes with Talisa, I’m certain that Sansa is reminded of what could happen if Jon isn’t thinking rationally. Lord Glover’s disobedience is a painful reminder of that situation which caused the North to fall in the first place.

As that goes on, Ser Jorah introduces Daenerys to Samwell Tary. There’s an admiration between the two and Samwell is a lot more respectful towards her than his family was. However, upon mentioning Samwell’s own stealing of his family’s heirloom sword and being pardoned for it, Daenerys makes the connection that she murdered his father and brother. Although she tries to stay strong, you get the sense that there might be some guilt for her actions.

That causes Sam to seek a moment alone, encountering Bran near the gates. Bran tells Sam that it’s time Jon learns the truth but from Sam himself as he reminds us that he isn’t Jon’s true brother. On the other hand, Sam is best friends and a brother to Jon with their days in the Night’s Watch.

As a result, Sam enters the Crypts of Winterfell to inform Jon of his heritage. Jon tries to deny it but Sam challenges Jon on more aspects of his personality and why he would make a rightful ruler compared to Daenerys. Namely, that Jon has known when to show compassion such as towards the Wildlings.

Over at Castle Black, we see Beric and Tormund inspecting the remains of the castle. It looks as though it had been invaded by the White Walkers, which is why they approach with extreme caution. They encounter the last defenders there with Ed greeting them. In turn, he shows them a bizarre message set by the Night King where the Umber boy is hung among a spiral of human limbs. The same message was given in the first episode’s initial scenes. The Umber boy isn’t exactly dead though as he awakens with blue eyes of the white walkers. Beric sticks his flaming blade through and the spiral erupts in fire.

Finally, we see Jamie sneak through masked into Winterfell. When he uncovers himself he sees Bran waiting for him by the gates. Jamie is shocked while Bran smirks back.

So this was a very information heavy episode when it came to setup. The biggest aspect is upon us in that the army of the dead is already through the Wall and that the people in the north must prepare. However, the various backstabbings, wars and tensions between each other prevent the living from focusing on the threat, returning to their petty squabbling and giving the Night King more time to gather his full strength.

I think the biggest question right now is about Jon Snow and what he will do with the new knowledge about his heritage. The show has proven that life is about choices and the consequences of those choices. We see the image of the spiral, which to me implies the continual loop that the living have put themselves through in concerning themselves with personal grievances as opposed to macro issues.

Jon Snow up until now has always seen himself as a nothing. Ygritte telling him, “You know nothing” was simply a reinforcement for everything around him in keeping him humble, feeling low (as he believed his mother a tavern whore). However, what does someone who has never truly known power nor desired it his entire life do when given ultimate power by law?

We see that he acts nobly and it’s possibly that Rhaegar had Ned keep this secret for a different purpose outside of protecting Jon from Robert. It’s possible that having Jon not be part of nobility and earning the love of the people, he would understand at some point what it means to rule.

While Varys’ riddle talked of power as a mysterious thing in terms of perception, Game of Thrones is all about the meaning of real power. Jon Snow does not want power nor has he wanted it. But being selfless and being willing to give it up perhaps are the ultimate statements of power in the show.

That contrast to Daenerys who is about power. Or so she thinks and is meant to believe. I’ve always felt that there are two sides to Daenerys. The Queen that has been a product of sycophants and the dragons that gives her the bulk of her power. And the little girl who wants to still go home and live in the house with the red door and lemon tree. One represents a type of manifest destiny and the other is her true self.

Right now, we are led to believe that Daenerys is more of the former than the latter. However, we need to return to her visions from season 2 when she visited the House of the Undying. The part where she sees the Iron Throne and is about to ascend the steps but moves away upon hearing her child imply, to me at least, that she’s capable of personal sacrifice in denying what she has been told is hers.

I think a huge message in the show is about forgiveness. Every time a crucial moment leading to larger negative consequences comes up, it’s about whether one is willing to set aside their pride for forgiveness. And forgiveness is directly connected to the law too. Take Stannis or Ned as prime examples. Neither could forgive but followed the law to the letter. The result was that they were perceived as either cruel or stupid, which led to their downfalls.

So power isn’t so much about control but on using it judiciously. As the children are now grown up, they can utilize history to learn from their parents’ mistakes. For many of them, their fate whether it’s dying honorably or living to face the consequences of their actions, they need to reconcile themselves with their past.

The post Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 1 Review appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.