How my hair look, Mike?

[sarea]

I have a bag of roasted plantain chips (recommended by adelagia -- they are DELICIOUS) by my elbow and I'm ready to talk TV.

I've finally finished The Wire. What a great, great show. I will definitely miss it, but in some ways it's a relief that it's over. It's hard to care about so many characters and then have terrible things happen to them. >.>

- Not every minute of the show is this brilliant work of art. It can be pretty boring sometimes, particularly for storylines that you're not really interested in (for me, all the politics and media crap).

- But then there are certain scenes that just OWN ME. The scene between Michael and Snoop, when you know one of them's not coming out live... Michael and Bug, saying goodbye... Michael and Dukie, saying goodbye... oh hell, the whole Michael storyline, basically. I really, really liked the character and I'm just glad that he didn't turn into some Stanfield stooge for long; that wouldn't have been right for him. He was smart but didn't make a great choice there, and yeah, was probably forced to make the "right" choice, but that's true of pretty much everyone. His forcing function was just a little more forceful than others. I like to think he would have come to the realization on his own, eventually. Hopefully before he was totally broken. Anyway, it's much better that he should be the new Omar, a vigilante stealing from the bad guys, even though this probably means he'll meet the same tragic end Omar did.

- Speaking of Omar, that was another death that was spoiled for me. -.- I knew it was coming and who was going to do it, due to this stupid "The Wire Bracket" pitting characters against each other. See, I can't resist anything to do with brackets and that totally spoiled me about Omar and little Kenard.

- I still think Kenard is a cute pie, despite the fact that he was also a little punkass. :D

- I feel really sorry for Dukie, who ended up being the new Bubbles. :( He relied on Michael too much, and after that, didn't rely on the right people. Why didn't he go back to Cutty for help? Or go to Prez earlier?

- Speaking of Cutty... did they just totally forget about him at the end or what? He didn't even merit an appearance in the closing montage! If I recall correctly, the last time we see him is when Dukie comes to him for boxing lessons... and then the show just sort of forgets him after that. Not that I minded THAT much; Cutty was never one of my favorite storylines. Still, THEY seemed to really give a shit about him, and it was a surprise that he had no presence at the end. I guess his whole storyline is kind of closure, though, since it was all about how he got out of the game and made a new life for himself that didn't involve drugs or being a thug.

- I never really much cared for Poot, so it figures that he would be the one to get out of the game and be working in a shoe store. O.o Then again, he's probably able to do that because he was such a nonentity... the more colorful characters would never have been satisfied with that kind of existence. I can't see Bodie working in a shoe store.

- I'm glad we got to see Bubbles clean and relatively happy. I mean, he really earned that. I don't typically care much for addict storylines, but luckily in the context of the show it was fine as it wasn't completely focused on Bubs all the time. So I got to feel bad for him as opposed to irritated -- "Get your shit together!" -- and we really got to see him earn that happy ending throughout the series. I'm particularly glad to see that he's repairing his relationship with his sister. I tried to be understanding of how cold she was toward him, because we don't know what he put her through during his addict years, but sometimes when she would close that basement door I felt super bad for him.

- As for the other kids, I'm glad one of them got out and had a happy ending, even if Namond wouldn't have been my choice. Of course, they're all so young and deserve more, but my heart breaks for Dukie and especially Randy, who I loved. He was such a good kid and society utterly fails him. At least Michael still mainly owns his own destiny, but then he was always the strongest of them.

- I really touught they'd jumped the shark a bit with the McNulty serial killer storyline. It didn't end up being as bad as I thought, once they wrapped it up, but when it first started happening I was seriously like WTF is this? How can this possibly not end with him either dead or in jail? And then when Lester got involved it was that reaction x2.

- I really, really loved Bunk by the end. I'd started liking him early on, but in S5 he really shone. He reacted to everything exactly the way he was supposed to -- with fury and disgust at what McNulty was doing, but just kept working his cases and didn't rat him out.

- Even though I thought what McNulty was doing was very wrong, I also understood that within the context of all the bullshit political stuff, it was a twisted kind of right thing to do. I get that Kima felt she had to report it, but I didn't share that feeling, especially considering what it gained. And I guess that's why they call it a slippery slope. But I thought Bunk did the right thing; not Kima. The great thing about this show is that there are different ideas about what "right" is and it's all so gray.

- Carcetti ended up being a huge disappointment. I mean, not that I had that high hopes for him to begin with, given that he was a politician. Also, since he plays Littlefinger on GoT I already had a healthy wariness of him. :)) Still, I felt bad for Daniels and Pearlman, who were taken by his initial sincerity, before, as happens with all politicians it seems, that got overtaken by his ambition.

- LOL that Sydnor becomes the new McNulty. I can dig that though; I always liked him. I liked him more in S1 than any subsequent season, but he's still one of the good ones.

- And of course, there's Herc and Carver, who I love to pieces. Many reviews/recappers/etc. that I've read are very hard on Herc, but I actually don't see that he and Carver are so different. He's dumber, yeah, but does that make it better or worse that for a long time, Carver behaved just as badly as he did, despite being the more intelligent one? I mean, I'm glad Carver got his shit together, and clearly their careers went on different trajectories, but in the end they both have their positive and negative qualities, and I don't think they're that different from one another on either of those spectrums. Until S5, it was Herc who showed the most heart, idiocy notwithstanding. Their true and enduring friendship actually speaks volumes about them. <3

- I'm so glad Slim Charles killed Cheese. I didn't have much of a problem with Cheese until he totally screwed over Prop Joe like that. And I didn't much like Prop Joe until the last season or two either -- when Marlo became the guy to hate. The actor who played Slim Charles was cute and had an awesome voice.

- Marlo... I didn't hate him. I mean, people call him a sociopath, and he is one, but they say nothing about Chris and Snoop, who were just as bad. I mean, they carried out his orders with NO compunction whatsoever! I mean, I have no doubt that Marlo would have killed each and every one of those people himself if he didn't have Chris and Snoop to do it, but it makes a difference that they were the ones to actually create all those bodies. I just thought Marlo was a good villain. He's a thug and a gangster at heart, we were shown that throughout the last two seasons, and made clear in the final episode. I know a lot of people are upset about the fact that he gets to walk free after committing all those atrocious acts, but I think we're shown that he isn't free. He's not Stringer Bell. He doesn't want to be a businessman. He's like Avon, just a dumb guy who wants to be cock of the walk. And now he's in a different kind of prison.

- He was lucky to have lieutenants as loyal and unquestioning and smart and efficient as Chris and Snoop, though. I liked both Chris and Snoop, too. I never could understand how two such people could be such loyal thugs, but I guess that's the point. I mean, Chris in particular, who seems intelligent, who has a fucking family, to do the things he did... unblinkingly killing that delivery woman... I just can't rationalize those sides of him. Then there's Snoop, who's just entertaining. Though she had a cold heart, she was also super funny and just likable. Crazy that they should commit some of the most heinous acts on the show.

- I'm glad for McNulty, I guess, that he hasn't been hauled off to prison (yet). Though I don't know that he's happy. I don't know if McNulty can BE happy. I don't know if his descent back into his old self was due to being back in Major Crimes/homicide investigations, or whether he was ready to go back because he was tired of domestic bliss with Beadie. I just don't know. What I do know is that I never really liked Beadie, didn't think their relationship actually made any sense, and am uncertain that McNulty can really pull his shit together for long.

GoT: The Ghost of Harrenhal

- I was SO HOPING that they were going to do some Rhaegar/Lyanna backstory here, since the Tourney of Harrenhal is where it all starts (well, where Rhaegar crowns Lyanna queen of beauty; not sure if they'd met before that). The fact that they didn't, and haven't even gotten into that storyline at all, makes me think that if/when they do it, they're just going to do some 1-episode backstory on the whole thing. And if they never do it, then I guess Jon's parentage doesn't come into play, or that R/L aren't his parents. But both of those seem SO unlikely.

- Arya's not a very good serving girl. She's way too uppity and impolite. It just makes Tywin seem really stupid. Seriously, he can spot that she's a girl and a Northerner, but can't put the rest of it together, considering the way she behaves?

- Ahhhhhhhh Jaqen H'gar is just as awesome as he is in the books!

- It's even weirder on the show that Arya would pick The Tickler rather than Tywin as the dude she wants killed. In the books, you see The Tickler much more and how much his cruelty affects Arya; on the show you're just like, really, you pick the torturer dude we've seen one time instead of the main guy leading a war against your brother???

- Would have been good to get a demonstration of what wildfire can do, to see its potency, rather than just be told. Doesn't have the same impact as in the books since we don't know the history of it, etc. But I guess they're waiting for the battle scene.

- A coworker of mine was shocked, SHOCKED, that Renly died. I was like... yeah I've been waiting for this to happen so the real stuff can happen. >.> ACoK is such a 'treading water' type book!

- Wow, I'm really surprised by the naked ambition they're giving Margaery. O.o

- I'm just as meh about Brienne as I am in the books. I can't believe we're still so early in the series that she and Jaime haven't even teamed up yet. And lol that Jaime has had almost no scenes and it's already ep 6 next week.

- I'm having so much more fun with Lancel on the show. The whole exchange between him, Tyrion and Bronn was hilarious.

- And Jon still hasn't even met Ygritte yet. SO MUCH STUFF HAPPENS. Even though I should approach this as "this is the story being told" I feel more like "this is all the crap that needs to happen before we get to the 'real' story"... except I don't even know what I mean by that. :)) Sigh. I think I'm going about this all wrong, that somewhere in my brain I feel like when we're caught up with canon we'll get to find out what happens next, and obviously that's wrong. We'll find out what happens next when GRRM publishes the next book.

After finishing S1 of American Horror Story, I had no desire to watch S2. And yet I've just read an article talking about the next season, the fact that it's going to be focused on Jessica Lange (the best part of S1), the fact that many of the cast LIKE JL are actually returning, but in whole new roles... it's kind of intriguing.