Brock Beauchamp

There's a difference between watching a guy and posting his box score every day as proof of success or failure. I'm also watching Arcia's daily scores. If Arcia posts five consecutive oh-fers, everyone gleefully posting these box scores will suddenly go silent. And that tells me people are more interested in showing that they're right than actually evaluating the situation.

While letting Arcia go was, IMO, dumb, we don't need a running tally of his hits nor should we rush to judgment after two games. Let's not all pat ourselves on the back quite yet.

Of all places, ArsTechnica wrote up a piece that mirrors pretty much everything Levi, Mike, and I have been saying about the series: http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2016/06/game-of-thrones-sixth-season-provided-what-the-show-sorely-needed-motion/

No, because those are the only two flags I recognize.

I assumed the larger fleet was due to the commandeered fleet of the Masters. And I was looking at the flags, trying to figure things out... Then I realized I have no idea what ANY of the flags look like for the various families and stopped.

They're basically the Mountain without a Cersei to point them in a more complex and intriguing direction. Or, in comic book terms, they're Harley Quinn. Fun characters you want to follow for awhile but only if they're alongside something with more depth and/or ambition (the Joker). Those characters have their uses but they really need someone to complement their motivations... And the Snakes killed everybody else. But now that they're allied with Highgarden, they could have their puppetmaster again.

Ooh, good point. I could easily see Arya hooking up with the Hound and then blazing a trail to King's Landing to kill Cersei and the Mountain. Actually, this just keeps getting better. Arya kills Cersei, the Hound kills the Mountain, Jamie kills the Hound, Arya and Jamie square off. I'd watch that episode. Probably twice.

I found them too chaotic and childish to care about. They're largely one-dimensional and just kinda evil; not exactly the type of character I want to follow or cheer for a prolonged period of time.

Another option is for Arya to kill Cersei and then Jamie to kill Arya. Actually, that could lead to a pretty great scene. The audience wants to see both characters live.

Oberyn was the one character in the Dorne storyline that I really liked. He died in book three.

Another question: Dorne appears to *finally* be doing something, which is good... But remove Dorne from the story entirely. Does anything really change? Highgarden could wage the coming war by themselves given how weak King's Landing is now. I still think Dorne was the biggest misstep in the series. I'm glad they're being woven into the story now but I still don't see the point of them existing at all.

Another possibility but I think the story would be better if Jamie did it. His character made such enormous strides through books 2-4 and then stalled out... I think it'd be a bit of a betrayal of the character if he wasn't the one to kill the thing he loves most in the world: his sister. I think Cersei will do something terrible (or try to do something terrible) and Jamie will stop her. After the death of Tommen, I think Jamie finally sees his sister for what she is. His character was 90% of the way there already.

Who kills Cersei? It is Jamie or Dorne/Highgarden? I'm still betting on Jamie. I've thought his character arc ended with the death of Cersei ever since he lost his hand and made that pact with Brienne.

Square Reader is brilliant. One of the best uses of tech in the past half decade. https://squareup.com/

My point was badly stated. Political intrigue and alliance-building/breaking can and will continue to happen but this story needed to set the table for the end game. And it did that quite well, in my opinion. Having a dozen broken factions isn't where this story should be right now... It's too late in the series for that to continue. There are between 15-20 episodes left in the story and we've barely scratched the White Walker story. Daenerys still hasn't invaded Westeros. This episode could have been called Unification. There are now four power brokers in or heading to Westeros: Daenerys, the South, the North, and King's Landing (or the Middle, I guess). On top of that, there are wild cards in Brienne, Arya, Littlefinger, Bran, the Iron Islands, and The Hound. In that group, there is still plenty of room for intrigue and betrayal and I expect that to happen in season seven (and maybe even eight). On top of all that, there is the Big Bad Enemy whom we've barely seen. The latest episode required the death of a half-dozen major-to-middling characters to make it work. It was unfortunate that four major powers with their own motivations had to die but given how this series went into a holding pattern for so long, I don't know how else they could have handled it. Unlike the Red Wedding - where one power faction died - this episode had the deaths of Margerie, Tommen, the Sparrow, and Walter Frey. Those were four unique powers that were just getting in the way of what needed to happen. On top of that, Dorne and Highgarden had to be brought back into the story or all those minutes/pages would have been a waste. Using a bit of teleportation here and there to reduce two dozen major characters to just over a dozen or so was the right move, IMO. Now we can get into the part of the story we've wanted to see for 3+ seasons: the war for the Westeros throne followed by the war for Westeros itself. And I don't see how it could have happened without killing characters wholesale and playing fast and loose with the timeline because I sure as **** didn't want to see the continuation of the seasons 4/5 storylines bleed into season seven.

The music in the first 15 minutes was some of the best mood-setting I've seen in television. The rest of the episode was good but damn, those first 15 minutes... After a powerful scene, I often turn to my wife and say "How much better would that have been without music?" I hate overuse of thematic scoring but it was done brilliantly in this episode.

I agree that I'd like to see a *little* more consistency IF the series had better managed seasons four and five. Go back to the end of season three, rearrange a few pieces, delete a few others, and you'd have a more leisurely pace in which to address all these plot points. But that didn't happen. I'd prefer to see them fix as many "errors" as possible now, timelines be damned, and set up the show for the biggest finale possible. The alternative is to have a slow creep of Dorne, King's Landing, Highgarden, and all that political crap into season seven. They got it all out of the way in (almost) a single episode and hats off to them for it. The show needed to set itself up for the end game. They've now accomplished that goal and that means we get to focus on the demise/triumph of every character, not more political intrigue and alliance-building/breaking. All that **** is out of the way and that's a good thing.

As for this episode, wow. I didn't think it was possible for GoT to get me back on board this completely. After the last few seasons, I only watched the show when I got around to it... After this season, I can't wait to see more.

Yep, sometimes - particularly in a story this large - it's best to just ignore travel and timelines if it gets in the way of the story. In a perfect world you wouldn't have to do that but there were too many dangling threads to escape it in this world. Think about The Empire Strikes Back. The Falcon has no hyperdrive and is using sublight to get to Bespin. Boba Fett is following. Luke is training on Dagobah. It doesn't make a lick of sense... But no one cares because showing travel time and/or explaining away why Boba Fett doesn't call the Executioner to pick up the Falcon is a waste of time. That sequence may be the biggest plot hole in all of Star Wars but no one noticed because what was happening on-screen was so damned interesting. Sometimes, it's better to push reality to the side and just get on with things.

Yep. Every other team interested in Lucroy will pay a fair price for 1.5 seasons of Jonathan Lucroy because they need 1.5 seasons of Jonathan Lucroy. Which means the Twins need to pay a fair price for 1.5 seasons of Jonathan Lucroy to acquire Jonathan Lucroy. Which is a monumental waste of resources for the Twins. A full 1/3rd of Lucroy's purchase price will be flushed down the toilet the moment he dons a Twins jersey. Whatever you think of prospects, rebuilding, the likelihood of a prospect succeeding, whatever... Prospects are assets and have value. And if you throw away an asset, you deserve to lose your job.

Pick up Lucroy and you are literally throwing away the money, the prospects, and the player for half a season. That is a fact. The Twins are on pace to win less than 55 games. This is not the time to to pick up players in hopes you win 60 games, especially if it costs you prospects. In November, go buy all the good players you can afford. Have at it. But sacrificing potential 2018 wins to bump the 2016 winning percentage to .400 is insane.

To phrase it differently, Lucroy is a 30 year old catcher with concussion issues on a contract that will likely expire before the Twins are a real contender. The Twins haven't been able to win even one of three games this season. If a guy can't help for 2+ seasons, there's little point in picking up that player.

Absolutely. The guy is injured. Put him in Ft Myers for ten days, then put him in Rochester for another 10-15 days. He should be nearly stretched out in three weeks. He might not go more than 90 pitches or five innings for a start or two in Minnesota but that's fine.

Eh, early 2015 is being overblown. Arcia played in 14 of the team's first 16 games and in 19 of the team's first 25 games. Then he got injured and did his best Drew Butera impression for most of the season.

While I think the Twins mismanaged Arcia badly this season, holding 2015 against the team is disingenuous. You know whose fault it was that Oswaldo Arcia didn't get MLB plate appearances in 2015? Oswaldo Arcia. It's that bloody simple. The guy had a .630 OPS in Rochester, for crying out loud. He had a monster July, which probably had him on the cusp of a promotion back to Minnesota... And how'd he follow that up in August? A .385 OPS. There are plenty of reasons to fault the Twins for how they handled Arcia in 2016 without bringing up Arcia's absolutely atrocious play in 2015. Listen, sometimes it's the player's fault. And 2015 was pretty clearly the fault of one Mr. Oswaldo Arcia.