10/10 description of her character.

You should check it out. They're detached miniseries/anthology style so there's no need to go sequentially.

And yeah, Imperioli is absolutely the draw of this cast.

They were fairly down to Earth characters. It's not like any of them were depicted as absolute monsters, just varying degrees of normal to asshole. But you combine that with money and some people just can't empathize.

The teenage girls were awful.

…cool

Who the fuck are you talking to lol? "Move along boys, this isn't about the childhood cartoon I'm weirdly obsessed with."

Why do you want to watch anything? You can reduce any shows plot if you want.

Also, they aren’t having fun

Fair point!

Honestly this is even worse than GoT on that front. Any article criticizing the show had tons of comments with hundreds of upvotes saying it's an Amazon paid article. People are losing their fucking minds.

They often feel like annoying plot devices more than characters with personalities. It's not the kid's fault, they just become a focal point for issues with the writing more broadly.

> In stuff like drama its like the kid characters are ripped into for being 'boring' And I can't figure out why.

In this case, because unless you're retooling the show to really deep dive on the kid, they're by nature going to be a simpler, stupider character than their adult equivalent.

> I think it’s a story that functions much better if you’re not actively rooting for anyone, but actually seeing it as fascinating historical events unfolding, even though I admit I’m biased, because that’s how I consumed the books.

I wonder if that's even something you can replicate on TV. Like, woudl the dry documentary style of the books work as an HBO show?

It's like the show doesn't have the balls to engage with her character. Like she clearly fucks up on an epic scale producing all these bastards, but the only one ever vocalizing that is Alicent, who's presented as a tightly wound, overly pious, sex negative shrew. Rhaenyra's fuckups are obviously present in the show, but it only engages with them as plot devices, not one a real character level.

Also, the whole tie in of the prophecy is stupid and I don't understand why it's even there.

Yeah I really don't think I liked how they did the last two episodes as one all green and the other all black.

I just want to have some emotional resonance with these characters. Rhaenyra is a stranger to me. She seems to have nothing in common with her younger self, she makes horrendous decisions that we never really see her reflect on or grapple with and when she is on screen she just seems kinda blandly concerned about things. Aside form "less war hungry than Daemon" I can't really think of any personality characteristics I'd ascribe to her in the finale. Like I would shed some context for some reason to care about any of these people.

Like the finale chase/dragon seen was phenomenally done, and it got a reaction out of me. But that reaction was because they did such a good job suddenly switching in to horror film mode, not because I have a shit about this glorified extra or how Rhaenyra would feel about it.

I just feel like an entire season being Act 1/a setup is a bit of a stretch. Have any other shows gotten that degree of leeway?

It leaves you wondering why we ever even got to know the Strong family. It's not like we needed a big murder to show how evil Larys is, dude gets up in the morning wondering how he can cosplay scheming sociopath.

> > I don’t care that much about anyone and my reasons for supporting Rhaenyra are entirely pragmatic. I will say her kids are infinitely better than Alicent’s but that doesn’t mean much.

This is the main issue with it I think. I feel like in an attempt to be gritty/"grey" they just landed on "there's no reason to advocate for any of these people over the others and very little reason to care who wins."

It was quite good, but I don't think it would be a phenomenon without the GoT name attached to it. Ultimately it feels like so many spinoffs, just lacking the charm or chemistry or charisma of the original. Any scene without Viserys just felt like minor characters dicking around.

That said, that's grading on a very specific scale, aka comparing it to other HBO tier quality flagship shows. By the normal standards of television the production values alone make it worth watching.

EDIT: Also seems a bit more transparent in its moments of cheap shock and over the topness, but I could be applying some rose colored glasses to GoT on that one. Watching Cripson be an untouchable serial murderer just got boring, as did the 26 or so minutes we spent this season watching violent births. Also people seem to love it, but Daemon's behavior never comes across as rogueish or "badass" to me, it comes across as spoiled, petulant child. "Look at me not stand when decorum demands it I'm such a rebel!"

Noted, thanks for the suggestion

Musketeers ended up becoming a term for French soldiery units, and during the time of the musket sidearm melee weapons were still very much viable. They didn't really go away until the way underrated military invention of the bayonet.

I mean, it has for pretty much all of history

No way, this is a Tracy Jordan original for sure.

Lol what a thing to get pissy about

What are you on about? Plenty of shows have female nudity

Well she does fit the show's general criteria of "impossibly, ethereally good looking"