It starts quietly. Through the halls and stairways of an empty palace just before daybreak, a serving boy brings news: The King is dead. It ends spectacularly: From beneath the ground where thousands have gathered to pay homage to their new ruler, a dragon erupts, screaming its fury before flying …
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It had been seven years since Last Week Tonight first devoted its main story to transgender rights. On Sunday, John Oliver celebrated the fact that more people now appear to feel comfortable coming out as trans, but he also acknowledged that “in the past few years some on the right …
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A review of this week’s Atlanta, “Crank Dat Killer,” coming up just as soon as I have a safe farm… It feels strange to describe an episode like this, built around an active shooter situation, as a relatively light one for Atlanta, yet dammit if “Crank Dat Killer” doesn’t feel …
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The King is dead. Long live…who, exactly? With the passing of Viserys Targaryen — valar morghulis, buddy — the big question posed by this entire first season of House of the Dragon has now become inescapable. Who will sit on the Iron Throne now that House Targaryen’s patriarch has finally …
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“If it bleeds, it leads” goes the old saying about the way TV newsrooms choose their stories. Grisly murders, gruesome accidents, and graphic violence often lead news broadcasts because producers know just as well as politicians that scaring people is a great way to make sure they keep paying attention …
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A review of this week’s Atlanta, “Work Ethic!” coming up just as soon as I develop a tolerance to grits… The last time Atlanta put Donald Glover into heavy prosthetic makeup, it was to play the unnerving title character of the incredible “Teddy Perkins” episode. That one was a commentary …
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A child runs across the moonlit sands. As the stars shine down into the ocean nearby, the boy approaches a dragon asleep on the beach — Vhagar, massive and ancient, the largest and oldest animal in Westeros. Determined to seize what he feels is his birthright, he braves the beast’s …
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John Oliver and his Last Week Tonight crew decided to do a longer-than-normal show all about museums. Which on the face of it sounds like a terrible idea, but it actually worked, because Oliver’s focus was on the theft by Western colonizers of other countries’ antiquities, and today’s Western museums …
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A review of this week’s Atlanta, “Light Skinned-ed,” coming up just as soon as I take the Shmurda Exit… Earn’s parents, Riley (Isaiah Whitlock Jr.) and Gloria (Myra Lucretia Taylor), appear briefly in the series premiere, mainly to establish that Earn is on bad terms with them due to his …
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Fear not, people of Westeros: The line of succession is strong. True, we’ve said goodbye to Milly Alcock as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Emily Carey as Queen Alicent Hightower, two key peformances that helped make House of the Dragon a massive hit. But even after a 10-year time jump, the …
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