Despite all the headlines you have been reading, HBO’s new hit series Westworld is not “the next Game of Thrones,” and that’s a good thing.

As the first season starts to wrap up, it is clear the show runners Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan have implanted something there that the show’s HBO comparative has not: intention. While Game of Thrones is plagued by the writers’ lack of conception of what the implications of their writing may be, Westworld is the polar opposite. Perhaps it is due to the diversity in their staff and writing team which isn’t comprised solely of white males, or perhaps it is due to the level of professionalism and experience in both features and television the creative team have had, but either way, the picture they are painting this season is a thematically relevant response to the problems a great deal of us have had with a lot of mainstream media and pop culture giants like Thrones (though certainly not everyone here agrees).

We’re less than a month away from another new Star Wars movie with another new woman in the forefront. If Jyn Erso is half as awesome as she looks in the Rogue One trailer, then Rey will have some stiff competition as my favorite new Star Wars character. For so long, the only woman we had in Star Wars was Princess Leia. As great as Leia is, she was all by herself for a long time. Padme Amidala did little to help relieve Leia, but that's no fault of the character.

Star Wars post-Disney-buyout has been doing some great work bringing new awesome women into its narrative, and I’m not just talking about the movies. The new EU Marvel comics have been doing a bang-up job as well, and if you haven’t been reading them, you might consider taking a look at some of these new series. There is no Mara Jade (yet) but what they do have are some amazing new women characters in the Star Wars universe.

“The Great River” is the first chapter in Book II of The Fellowship of the Ring that feels a bit redundant. In terms of emotion, we’re in the same spot as “Farewell to Lórien.” Despite definite forward progress down the river, all of our characters are still trapped in indecision, unsure whether to head east or west.

In terms of setting, the chapter feels like a callback to “The Ring Goes South.” There are a lot of dreary barren landscapes, ominous circling birds, and hints of paranoia (and both after a nice reprieve at an Elven stronghold). It’s a treading water chapter, despite the fact that it is very literally the opposite of that (sorry). But even though the narrative stagnates, there are plenty of nice little details in “The Great River,” and it provides a perfect opportunity to talk a bit about Tolkien’s use of language and landscape.

all Simon’s idea--wish we could take the credit. He made editing hard from how much we were laughing.

My Immortal is celebrating its 10th anniversary and, with it, a milestone in fandom history and fanfiction.

Harry Potter is arguably the most fertile fandom for fanfic writing and its stories range from the magical to the bizarre to absolutely wrong. For My Immortal to be the most famous/memetic Potter fic is no small feat. That it would remain in the collective conscious a decade after its original upload was taken down is a curse from Satan himself and we are blessed for it. We've tested superheroes and blood explosions as cathartic mechanisms in these dark times. Now, the twain shall meet...somehow, as I dissect the layers of My Immortal.

In the end, I will try and put the eternal question to rest: Is it a troll fic, or just bad?

The Last Evening

So, here we are: the finale of the first season. Narrative-wise, there isn’t much I can say that I haven’t already. Instead, let’s just take a breath and look at the greater scope. Surely, not all that shines is gold. This is proven most true when looking at Laura Palmer, the central focus to this mystery. Throughout this season, unearthing the circumstances behind her murder has also meant unearthing foul, concealed affairs. Things that were initially obvious have proven complex, and thusly our expectations have been challenged and subverted. Even now, the plausible is to be taken with a grain of salt. Nothing can be taken for granted when seeking truth in a world roamed in light and dark.

Not that it’s hard over last week, but the lack of Negan (yay!) combined with the return of Maggie and Sasha, plus the show’s sudden ability to juggle more than one storyline per ep, made this episode a definite improvement.

Recap

Whooo boy. The episode opens in Alexandria, where Rick and Aaron are leaving to go scavenge for Negan and co. Rick is trying to convince Carl to go with him, but he refuses. He’s practicing his aim by playing darts and missing badly (poor kid), and generally being a surly teenage because Rick is (literally and figuratively) bowing to Negan.

Much less graphic than last week, “Trace Decay” dealt with the reveal that Bernard was a host, gave much needed answers on the Man in Black storyline, and showed a new and more vicious side of Maeve in a solid hour.

Carrying on straight from “Trompe L’Oeil”, Ford orders Bernard to erase every possible connection they have with Theresa’s murder. Those were all pretty great scenes relying heavily on Jeffrey Wright’s acting. He starts having his mental breakdown as Ford, in a very Hannibal-esque manner, lacking any guilt or regret whatsoever, gives off a bit of backstory.

In this episode review of Star Wars: Rebels, Nick and Zach talk about how meh this episode is and rag a bit about Mart’s annoying personality.

Nick’s Thoughts

“Iron Squadron” is best surmised as okay. Its story is okay; just a bit creative. Its writing is very okay. It’s so okay that it’s at what I like to call “tofu level”. It’s bland, blank, and utterly inoffensive. There’s nothing wrong about, and there’s nothing quite good about it. You could miss this episode and lose nothing except some Thrawn and some potential plot foreshadowing. There’s not much to say, though I’ve managed to scrounge up a few points.

After painstakingly wafting through anything and everything Gilmore Girls had to offer in all of its 7 seasons/154 episodes (and in a span of under 5 months, I might add), the revival is now almost upon us. On November 25th, 4 new 90-minute episodes will go up on Netflix, giving us the conclusion the series deserved to make up for the dumpster fire of disappointment it actually got.

So this is probably the perfect time to sort through everything we know about the revival already, don’t you think so?

Kelly Fremon Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen loves her characters so much she allows them to dictate the story. The movie is hard to pin down because there’s no great plot or obstacle to overcome. The obstacles are the characters themselves.

So many Hollywood stories are clear outlines of events. By that I mean, you can clearly see the structure of the movie; and within a certain margin of error predict where’s it’s going to go. They are story driven, and their characters are mere puppets of the screenwriter’s imagination.

In episode 8 of Pitch, "Unstoppable Forces and Immovable Objects," Mike meets with his agent to discuss the whole "am I being traded? what’s going on with the traded?" thing.

People are into the idea of getting him on their teams, but he’s stubborn and doesn’t want to leave the Padres, which is fair, only there’s a ridiculous plot element about saying “we’ll get rained out before I leave San Diego” (which doesn’t happen, ever) and then they get rained out with a drop in his coffee.

Act Two of The Crown sees the struggles that Queen Mary warned Elizabeth about come to pass. As Elizabeth navigates her duties as Queen, she is faced with decisions that contradict, or at the very least call into question, her opposing roles as a monarch and as wife, mother, and sister.

Despite a few touching moments the majority of Episode 4 is rather forgettable compared to the rest of the mid-season section. The Great Smog that rolls in over England is fascinating and devastating event; however its impact on the events of The Crown is relatively minimal and requires us too spend a little too much time focused on Churchill and his secondary supporting characters. However, we do get a beautiful opening in which Philip finally learns to fly a plane like he's always wanted. Churchill then decides to spend more time discussing the reasons why Philip shouldn't fly planes instead of discussing why the people of England shouldn't be dying over a fog.

The Steven Universe famine end last night with a feast. Or, rather, a "Gem Harvest". It’s appropriate for a number of reasons, not least of which is the time of year it’s premiered during. But, being Steven Universe, they aren’t as explicit with their holiday references as many shows. Or, at least, they don’t actually talk about turkeys and, well, the traditional holiday. But everyone does gather around a table, talks about family and giving thanks.

Well, uh. It's over. That was an ending, anyway. I'm not entirely sure what to say about this one, but I'll do my best. Let's start with a recap...

Recap

The episode opens with the cast and their real-life counterparts at Paleyfest. Once again we have like 15 minutes of Ryan Murphy fellating himself: apparently My Roanoke Nightmare was this HUGE cultural phenomenon and blahblahblah everyone loves it blahblah cosplayers yadda yadda. Yes, we get it. You're wonderful and your show is wonderful. Let's move on.