HOTD: A House of the Dragon Podcast - 805 – The Bells – SpoiLore Edition

Jim and I try to sort through everyone’s reactions and feelings about “The Bells”, as well as people’s reactions to our reactions! In a wide ranging podcast, we discuss what we’re still hoping to see in next week’s finale episode, what Dany’s descent to madness means in the context of portrayals of heroic women, thoughts on capital punishment and vengeance, and defenses and deconstructions of Arya and Jaime’s arcs. All this plus a ton of great feedback from you, the listener. Just one more episode left, we’ll see you Sunday night to discuss!

Bald Move Pulp - Chernobyl – Episode 1 – 1:23:45

Chernobyl is already one of the most fascinating and relevant disaster movies I can think of, and we’re only one episode into it’s five episode run. “1:23:45” does a great job of introducing us to the men and women that will be affected by the nuclear power plant’s explosion, sets up the political dysfunction that will impede the increasingly desperate and heroic attempts to contain the environmental catastrophe, and visually and audibly highlight the dangerous, hellish conditions the rescue workers and plant technicians were forced to confront. Is the Chernobyl disaster a uniquely Soviet phenomenon? Could something like this happen in the West? And what lessons about a pervasive culture of lying and misinformation can we apply to our lives today? We hash out these questions and much more.

HOTD: A House of the Dragon Podcast - 804 – The Last of the Starks

As we announced last week, we’ve declared #FanBankruptcy, and are along for the ride on this saddleless dragon we call Game of Thrones. Keeping this in mind, it was nice to see this episode, “The Last of the Starks”, run back to their roots in setting up some classic court politics and intrigue, with multiple betrayals and backstabbing in the offing! Jaime and Brienne hooked up! Pod is still very much the Rod! The Stark girls won grim smiles from the Hound! On the other hand, they’re still struggling with the way they are telling the story they want to tell; characters die in unbelievable ways, and crucially characters then later live in completely unbelievable ways. With just two more episodes left, hopefully the Double D’s haven’t declared creative bankruptcy and we’ll get a few twists and turns that manage to please most.