Good Morning, World

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Anybody watching World on Fire, PBS' current WWII miniseries about ordinary folks dealing with wartime? Besides Parker Sawyers and Sense8 star (and my subway pal) Brian J. Smith seen above bringing the homosexual it co-stars a heap of great people like Sean Bean and Helen Hunt and Lesley Manville and ooh Jonah Hauer-King -- he grabbed my attention playing that sweet boy "Laurie" in last year's PBS version of Little Women that also had Maya Hawke and Julian Morris in it...

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Say what you will about the PBS adaptation of LITTLE WOMEN from a couple years ago, besides a very good Maya Hawke as Jo it had Jonah Hauer-King playing Laurie as a saucy fop and Julian Morris in a uniform with a mustache pic.twitter.com/COZdSAG0ew

— His Name Was Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 13, 2019

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Weirdly I was already thinking of Julian because "gay stuff" plus "World War II" immediately makes me think of PBS' terrific Man in an Orange Shirt mini-series that had him and Oliver Jackson Cohen, swoon -- PBS is really representing for the period piece gays these days! Good on 'em. Anyway scanning down through the cast list of World on Fire I see it's also got Cold War cool boy Tomasz Kot for an episode and now I need to re-watch Cold War right now too, dammit. The list never ends! Take me away, gay boys...

Which is Hotter?

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Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings and Derek Jarman regular and a million billion other things actor Sean Bean is turning 60 today, and we've celebrated him several times here on the blog but weirdly never asked the following question so let's...

online survey

Today In Bova

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This news is not new news, it's several months old, but we'll take any Raoul Bova news we can scrounge up whenever we can scrounge it - back in August the Italian Rapscallion that we've been keen on ever since Under the Tuscan Sun signed on to play the Pope (circa 15th century) in the second season of the Netflix series Medici: Masters of Florence. Hot Popes are all the rage these days! Medici is that show that got Richard Madden's Bum out back in November of 2016, you may recall (that's how I keep track of all these shows anyway) - the second season is set 20 years after the first and will be about Richard Madden's grandsons, who will be played by Bradley James and Daniel Sharman...

... in other words this is another one of those period piece TV shows, a la The Tudors or The Borgias, that are all about a monstrously gorgeous bunch of young men wearing great big flouffy outfits. But hey those sorta show brought us Henry Cavill & Oliver Jackson Cohen & François Arnaud so s'good with me! Also cast for the second season of the show - Sean Bean and Julian Sands! Gosh! No word on when it will air, but it's supposed to be this year.
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Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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Since Brad Pitt's got a new movie out this weekend I decided to go with one of his (many many) death scenes for this week's Way Not To Die, and why not this, his maybe most outlandish one ever? (Or at least second to this one.) And I kind of fell in love with how gorgeously rendered this sequence is by Ridley Scott though so let's hit the jump, there are a lot of caps...
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I Am Link

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--- Cappy Foes - I don't think they've announced who it is he's playing yet but on Friday it was announced that Daniel Bruhl of all people will be playing a bad guy in the third Captain America movie. This one's subtitled Civil War, which I guess is a big storyline in the comics; the brothers who directed the second movie are returning. They didn't show much interest in ogling Chris Evans so I was kinda hoping they'd be replaced, you know, by like David DeCoteau or something. Speaking of actors who need to be ogled, Frank Grillo, the one-time muscle-model seen to the left who was in the second film and who now co-stars with Nick Jonas on Kingdom, is supposedly returning and spoiler spoiler spoiler so on.

--- Bean Rises - The Frankenstein boom continues unabated - Sean Bean has signed on to star in The Frankenstein Chronicles for ITV, which is about a detective in early 19th Century London investigating some bodysnatching and ritualistic killing, no doubt whilst wearing a very stiff collar. Will somebody smoke some opium? I think somebody might smoke some opium!

--- Big Dick's Back - Time magazine shared a brief portion of their magazine's recent chat with Channing Tatum online the other day - specifically the part where he talks about making Magic Mike XXL; he says this one "services" gay men as well as women, and then he baits us thusly:

"We got Joe Manganiello naked as much as possible. Everyone in the world: you’re welcome."

--- Foreign Terror - I've really liked all three of the [REC] movies so far - they're all pretty different, with each one being about 10% less awesome than the one before it, but having started out so high that leaves a pretty high standard. Anyway the fourth film, directed by Jaume Balaguero (he co-directed the first two films not to mention the very creepy Sleep Tight), just got a release date: it'll be out in theaters and on demand on January 2nd!

--- I Camelot - I'm starting to think that Guy Ritchie reads MNPP for all his casting ideas now - his King Arthur movie already stars Charlie Hunnam as the titular hero, there was that rumor (since discredited) that Idris Elba was about to play Hunnam's right-hand fella, and now comes word that Jude Law is going to play the movie's bad guy. Hopefully the whole film centers on an epic lover's quarrel between Charlie and Jude, which ends with them reenacting my favorite scene in Excalibur.

--- Swede Stuff - In today's edition of "I haven't read this yet so let's all do that together" here's our pal Glenn's final report at The Film Experience from the Stockholm International Film Festival, which apparently involves two of my favorite A's - I mean Adam Driver and ABBA, of course. And now I want to see Adam (in the white jumpsuit, natch) performing this scene from Muriel's Wedding. (What you thought I was going to make a Mamma Mia reference?)

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I Am Link

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--- Wheat Fire - Luke Evans is making it really difficult for me to ignore him like I'd prefer to - he's signed on to star in yet another Ben Wheatley movie, and I love Ben Wheatley movies dammit. Evans just finished High Rise, that Ballard adaptation with Tom Hiddleston, and now he and Wheatley (and Armie Hammer!) are going to make Free Fire, which is about an illegal arms deal in 1978 gone wrong. It'll be Wheatley's first US film.

--- And Fine yes here's more Luke Evans news - he's still apparently going to star in The Crow remake, reboot, whatever, and they are planning on filming that in the Spring. I love that The Hollywood Reporter got his name wrong - they called him Lee Evans! Ha! Obviously mixing him up with his closet-case Hobbit friend Lee Pace.

--- Listen Up More - You should read Max O'Connell's review at The Playlist of Listen Up Phillip if you've seen the movie by now (here's my not-nearly-as-good review); it's a really great piece placing the movie in the context of Wes Anderson, Woody Allen, and Noah Baumbach's asshole characters. Loved this especially:

"In a way, "Listen Up Philip" is as perverse a mentor-student film as "Whiplash," where the teacher only gives his pupil advice that will make him a worse person."

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--- Hell Boy - I made it through the majority of the first season of Eli Roth's Netflix show Hemlock Grove in one sitting almost as a dare to myself, seeing how much crap I could actually take - my brain hurt for awhile afterwards, and once the crap-spell wore off I never was able to work up enough energy to care about how it ended, much less make it back for Season 2. My point is before HG I would've been more enthusiastic about an Eli Roth TV show, but the news that he started shooting South of Hell, a Lifetime exorcism drama set in Charleston, this week hits me with a wet thud. (All this said I still wanna see his cannibal movie if it ever gets released.)

--- Classic Scares - Reading this makes me wish I'd been laying on Joe Reid's floor watching all these movies with him - over at the Atlantic our pal Joe hit up a bunch of horror classics for the first time and shares some thoughts on Nosferatu, Dracula, House on Haunted Hill, The Mummy, Black Sunday and Peeping Tom. So much wonderful stuff!

--- Little Green Men - For a movie about a dude stranded on a planet all by himself Ridley Scott's The Martian sure does keep adding an awful lot of people to its cast - Chiwetel Ejiofor, Halt and Catch Fire's (terrific) Mackenzie Davis, and Sebastian Stan are the three latest folks piled on alongside the previously announced (deep breath) Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Donald Glover, Michael Pena and Jeff Daniels.
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--- Grr Argh - Remember how just a couple of weeks ago I wrote a big post about how hot Frankenstein is these days? Well the big dead lug just got hotter - he's getting a TV show. X-Files and Buffy producer Howard Gordon and Homeland producer Rand Ravich are behind the announcement, but there aren't any other names of you know, talent, involved, so we'll see what happens from here. They say it'll be about an FBI agent who's brought back from the dead.

--- Just Dandy - It's unfairly brief but here's a chat with American Horror Story's Finn Wittrock, who is so fucking good in a character created for just me to adore on this Freakshow season that I am immediately and completely smitten with him. (thanks Mac) I love Dandy so much I might even never make fun of Finn's Flintstones name again.

--- Rings Hallow - I haven't watched this myself but here's the teaser trailer for the third Insidious movie, this one from the writer of the previous films Leigh Whannell. I just linked to the first pictures from the movie the other day. I have no idea when this is supposed to be out, I figured it was awhile away but maybe I was wrong.

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Which Is Hotter?

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Sean Bean: Manly Man or Manly Woman?

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poll by twiigs.com

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Happy 54, Sean! 

I Am Link

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--- Strong Hand - Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth and Mark Strong are all starring in a thriller called Before I Go To Sleep, which is from the writer of 28 Weeks Later (he'll also direct). Firth and Kidman are husband and wife, while Strong is her doctor. Her sexily gravel-voiced doctor? Check and check.

--- Falling Cards - I assume some of you guys have already watched David Fincher's Netflix series House of Cards? I have to finish up the final few episodes of Breaking Bad before I move on to it, but it is definitely next on my queue. Beau wrote up some thoughts on the series over at The Film Experience he wasn't entirely sold on it.

---  Good Greenery - Also at The Film Experience yesterday I wrote up the news that the writer of Beasts of the Southern Wild has just been hired by Guillermo del Toro to adapt The Secret garden for the umpteenth time. Del Toro is only producing, not directing. 

--- People Food - Empire chatted with Eli Roth a little bit about shooting his new movie (yeah it still seems weird that he's really gone and made another movie after the long ass break he took) The Green Inferno, which is about NYU students meeting cannibals in the Amazonian jungle, to no doubt bad effect. Apparently he showed the movie Cannibal Holocaust to the locals, who'd never seen a movie before in their lives. Great introduction to cinema there, Eli! (thx Mac)

--- Pier One - At Stale Popcorn, Glenn's take on a pair of Pasolinis (Teorema and Salo) is worth clicking over for the title alone. I still haven't seen Teorema yet - I've had a copy for ages and ages but it's never moved to the top of the pile. Shame on me. Meanwhile I've seen Salo like three times, which is at least ten times too many if one wishes to remain sane.

--- Bald Assassin - Five years after Timothy Olyphant shaved his spate to play the Hitman, now it's Paul Walker's turn - they're rebooting the character with the Fast and the Furious blunk, who I can already tell you will lose some of his extremely limited appeal without those perfect golden locks to frame those perfect aqua eyes. It's not like he has "acting" to fall back on.

--- Sciffy Duo - I'm a lot less curious about the Wachowskis next sci-fi movie after the slop-heap that was Cloud Atlas, but Jupiter Ascending does have a great cast in Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum and now they've just added the perma-gravitas of Sean Bean to it.

--- Evil In Your Genes - The producer of Marie Antoinette is going to direct a horror movie with Joseph Fiennes and Morena Baccarin that's based on an idea from the dudes who made the Spanish zombie [REC] films. That's a weird sentence, but I'm in. And it's about scientists looking for the genetic code for eeevvvil! Oh, yes.

--- Full Penetration - The Playlist has the first image from Lars Von Trier's sexual firestorm Nyphomaniac, and some people will be very happy and some very sad that for now Shia LaBeouf's penis is nowhere to be seen. neither is Jamie Bell's, for that matter! (meanwhile that pic is via here)

--- Ziggy Pic - A bio-pic about David Bowie and Iggy Pop's 70s collaboration is in the works - as if Velvet Goldmine isn't enough? Anyway this thing had best be as gay as it needs to be. Also, Tilda Swinto needs to play Bowie. And don't anybody say she's too old - Tilda is beyond trivial matters like age.

--- Shuffling Thrones - George RR Martin has inked a deal with HBO to make more shows for them, other than A Game of Thrones. Because he doesn't, you know, have some goddamned books to write or anything!

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Good Morning, World

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Yesterday was Sean Bean's 53rd birthday and we posted on it but we also have some pictures of him in some 1988 movie by Mike Figgis called Stormy Monday looking youthful and dangerous and attractive and naked so we figured we'd post them too. See 'em after the jump.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... finding inspiration in Sean Bean.

The sexual tension between Sean Bean and Nigel Terry in

Derek Jarman's Caravaggio is pretty off the charts isn't it?

I used to maintain that I found Bean much sexier now as a weathered tough-guy wielding swords and armor in stuff like Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones than I did when he was a pretty young thing, but Caravaggio kinda spoils that thesis. A happy 53rd birthday to Mr. Bean. See a few more pics after the jump.

Gratuitous Max Beesley

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My British readers will have to enlighten me about this Max Beesley chap - it's his 41st birthday today and when I looked him up, all these naked pictures fell in my lap! So I figured what the hey. But I've never seen him in anything. Yes that includes Mariah Carey's Glitter, in which he apparently played her beau, a role that appears to have immediately killed any chances for him of having a career in America. Aww, poor Max Beesley.  Looks like he does a lot of Brit-TV, and he's also a musician - he's good friends with Robbie Williams!

Yeah it's only a matter of time before the phrase "good friends with Robbie Williams" begets a really gay picture. Anyway he makes me think of Sean Bean and Ewan McGregor kind of mashed up. Maybe he makes me think of Ewan because of his proclivity for exposing wang.

I mean as you can see he obviously has his reasons. And they are obvious. As you can see. Hit the jump to see a whole NSFW bunch.

Carice Van Houten Is Melisandre!!!

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The last thing I saw the beyond wonderful actress Carice Van Houten in - best known for being beyond wonderful in Paul Verhoeven's beyond wonderful film Black Book - was Christopher Smith's Black Death, where she played a sinister witch drunk on her own religion opposite Sean Bean. Why I couldn't see this giving-me-goosebumps news coming from that obviousness I have no idea. It was basically an audition for this.  Via EW comes word she'll be playing Melisandre on HBO's A Game of Thrones!

"Melisandre is powerful woman who counsels the late King Robert’s older brother, Stannis Baratheon, in his quest to claim the Iron Throne. She’s described as a seductive force possessing prophetic powers who’s willing to impose her religion on the world by any means necessary. While Stannis believes himself to be the Iron Throne’s rightful heir. He’s described as humorless and authoritative, with a strict moral code, but is gradually succumbing to the power of his newfound religion."

The wonderful actor Stephen Dillane is playing Stannis, but I can't even think about that right now, so fucking beyond excited am I about Carice. Carice! My beloved Carice! She is going to be SO BEYOND AWESOME in this part you guys! I love everything about Melisandre, she's an incredible character, and this shit will be insane. I can't even type anymore I am so thrilled right this second. AWESOME!!! (Melisandre art via)

I Am Link

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--- Post Cappy - Supposedly there an an Avengers preview of sorts at the very end, post-credits, of Captain America. That link has a couple spoilers for the movie so click with caution. I usually don't bothering sticking through the credits of these movies for Samuel L. Jackson's annual appearance but I might have to for Joss.

--- Carnage Quartet - The Playlist has a couple of new pictures from Roman Polanski's Carnage with Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet and Hans Landa and that pudgy guy who could never marry any of them not even Hans Landa.
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--- Sam Noir - Sam Rockwell is replacing Jeremy Renner in Better Living Through Chemistry. It's about a pill-popping pharmacist who has an affair with Jennifer Garner and plots to kill her husband. Sounds very Body Heat On Vicodin.

--- Getting Gangsta - Slash has got word on what director David Yates is looking at doing now that he's finished with Harry Potter (he directed the last four films) - perhaps an Al Capone bio-pic with Tom Hardy, for one! I like it. The thought of Tom is loose suit pants over boxers and wife-beaters and suspenders fill my head and I like it. Also a possibility is a trilogy based off of Stephen King's The Stand.

--- Slave People - The director of Smart People - that movie that should've just starred Thomas Haden Church and Ellen Page and forsaken all the rest which was bullshit - is who they've picked to direct the 300 sequel? Okay. Slightly random. I guess he almost directed The Ring Two but bailed, which shows wisdom.

--- The Trance Dance - Seems like Danny Boyle is turning to Michael Fassbender's co-star in A Dangerous Method now that Fassy can't be in his new film - no, not Viggo, but Vincent. Cassel that is. Fassy was going to star in Trance opposite James McAvoy and reignite their hot sexual chemistry again, but it wasn't meant to be. Not that I don't want to see McAvoy and Cassel make out. Not that they will. Not that that's stop me from imagining it.

--- Balls Deep Herself, Ari Graynor, has got another role lined up - she's co-starring in For A Good Time, Call... opposite Lauren Miller, actress and more importantly Seth Rogen fiance. It's a "raunchy comedy" co-written by Miller about two broads, said broads being Miller and Graynor, who start a phone sex telephone line. Do those things even exist anymore?

--- Two Weeks - Meant to link this up last week but there's the first official shot of Colin Farrell in the Total Recall remake. (via)

--- White King - The King dies in Snow White, doesn't he? That's how the Evil Queen takes power over the kingdom? Or is he just too weak to upstage her? I can't remember. Anyway Sean Bean has just landed the part of the King in Tarsem's movie version (with Julia Roberts as his Evil Queen) so we can assume he'll die, him being Sean Bean and all.

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I Am Link

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--- Animal Rites - A writer's been hired to adapt Beasts of Burden, a comic book series about a bunch of talking animals that fight witches and demons, for a CG-animated adaptation. I just read the first collection of this series a couple of weeks ago and they're a lot of fun and much darker than you might think from the description. This is no Scooby Doo. There's some real horror tucked up in here. Which is why I'm worried that it's a bunch of folks from Walden Media, the production house that's made an effort to create family-friendly spiritual-friendly entertainments like the Narnia series, that have their hands on the stories. There is a lot of room for error tone-wise here that could ruin the reason the series works in the first place.

--- Still Siggyless - Lost's Damon Lindelof is one of the screenwriters for Ridley Scott's not-an-Alien-prequel Prometheus and he gave up a bunch of details the other day on what this whole "not-a-prequel" business actually means. Sounds promising in theory, although all his praise of Ridley Scott's "genius" is undercut by the steady string of godawful movies Ridley Scott has been responsible for over the past 20 years. Anyway Fassy!

--- Dewey Sliced - I hope everyone's been keeping up with Glenn's "Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene" series! He's made it to what he calls his "favorite scene in the entire trilogy," and you know, now that he says it I think it could be mine too. I remember the way I felt in the theater watching this scene - so helpless and horrified. Courtney Cox is phenomenal here. Plus, the second scariest pizza of all time!

--- Fall Carnage - Slash rounds up some release date announcements of note: Steven Soderbergh's Contagion - his flick about a world-wide virus starring a cast of thousands! - will be out on Spetember 9th, a month and a half earlier than expected. Plus Roman Polanski's Carnage, his adaptation of the play God of Carnage with Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz, is out in limited release on November 18th.

--- Miss July - I was just thinking the other day that it was about time for another installment of Low Resolution's Movie Preview, and poof a new one appears. I think perhaps I've got a mental clock devoted to them at this point. Never let me down, Joe. My sanity's built around these now. I mean, I'm linking over even though you diss Miranda July, which no.

--- Call It 301- There is a chance that the director of Orphan might be directing the sequel to 300, which is awesome! But the film is now retitled from Xerxes to 300: Battle of Artemisia, which is awful.

--- Dead Mission - I'm so conflicted about Mission Impossible 4. It is the first live-action movie movie directed by Brad "The Incredibles" Bird, and it stars Jeremy Renner! If I could pretend that was where it ended I would be so excited! But it really for real stars Tom Cruise and Renner's just his sidekick or whatever, ugh. If they build their advertising campaign upon promises of Cruise's brutal death with Renner taking over the film & franchise, I will make it over the hump. PopWrap has the first teaser trailer.

--- Whinny Whine - Listen, I grew up loving Steven Spielberg. I saw Jurassic Park in the theater 14 times. There aren't many movies that he's made that I dislike, even at this point. And perhaps my first impression will be misleading. Because this first trailer for War Horse is a pile of sentimental goo that I'm gonna be barfing up for a week. Maybe it's just the fact that I've never gotten "horse movies" - horse eyes creep me out. They're not as bad as cow's eyes, but they're up there. So mooning over a pet horse in movies always makes me sour.

--- Silent Snow - I'd mentioned awhile back that most of the cast of the original Silent Hill film - which is a bit of a curious mess but is genuinely creepy at times, as well as being visually spectacular and well-acted - were coming back for the sequel. What I hadn't noticed, since this was before HBO's A Game of Thrones had aired, was that Kit Harington, aka everybody's favorite emo-bastard Jon Snow, had joined the cast as well. He'll be co-starring with his TV papa Sean Bean! BD has a gallery of images from it.

--- Big Bad - I've avoided spoilers as well as I could but I could've sworn that who the villain is in Joss Whedon's The Avengers had leaked awhile back? Perhaps not, like I said I was trying not to notice. Maybe it was discredited. Anyway io9 is listing their top 10 picks for who the villain ought to be, is the point.

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5 Off My Head - The First Game of Thrones

That's quick - even though it only had moderately successful ratings, HBO's already renewed A Game of Thrones for a second season. Will they call the second season A Clash of Kings to follow the books? It might confuse people to change the name like that. Or rather it seems that that's a worry a TV executive would have.

Anyway I wanted to make a list of five thoughts I had while watching the first episode last night, but coming at it a day late I've already seen most of it covered. I'll direct you over to Sean again, because he's doing a bang-up job. I'll just say that I was mostly very very happy with the episode. It introduced a ton of important characters and the situations they'll be maneuvering through and manipulating pretty solidly, I thought. Everybody was at the very least good enough that I can't wait to see what they do with their bigger moments to come along. Alright, five quick fairly superficial thoughts. Don't expect this every week! I get lazy.

1. I have to say that while I was the least impressed with the look of Daenerys in pictures beforehand, I thought Emilia Clarke was fantastic. Really moving in her scenes. Although I can't exactly say I wouldn't be more welcoming to Jason Momoa's advances there at the end. Don't cry! He's gonna blow your mind.

2. Similarly, even though I've fawned over him plenty already I didn't really expect Nicholas Coster-Waldau to charm me as much as he did through the episode. I didn't think he'd live up to my expectations for Jamie Lannister since... well those are some pretty high expectations. The Kingslayer's tied with Arya as my favorite character from the books. (Speaking of, needs more Arya dammit!) He's got a fascinating path ahead of him and now I'm really very excited to watch NCW maneuver it.

3. I share all of Sean's reservations on the changes they've made with Catelyn, and I'm still not sold on Sean Bean as Eddard either. He just does not look or act at all like the Eddard I had in my head. He's too warm-natured, and too red-haired. Everybody else seems fine with him so maybe the picture I'd developed was wrong. I dunno. I have nothing against Sean Bean at all. There's just some dissonance with the Stark parents happening for me - their edges have been sanded down a bit. They're a little less interesting than they should be.

4. Speaking of dissonance and changes they made that Sean and I agree are causing such sensations, the aging up of the characters does make for some weird moments. The boyfriend and I had to have an entire conversation about how old girls are when they have their periods and how old that actress playing Sansa looks, and the fewer conversations I can have in my life about periods the better, ya know? Not to mention how much older Jon looks then he ought to when talking of being deprived of ever having a family life of his own when he talks to Benjen about going to the Wall.

5. But finally, thank you for this!

Kit Harrington has already won my favor.

ETA I was going to start a separate post on this but suppose it's not necessary - I saw something mention that we've got a gay storyline coming up in the series to look forward to but it's been so long I couldn't for the life of me remember what they were talking about. Then, with a little searching, I found this. There be spoilers there if you haven't read the books, but if you have read the books read the article and then read through the comments too; I thought it was a really fascinating conversation about that aspect of the books, which'd obviously slipped my mind.   

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