Fire and Blood 6

 Being the spoilertastic review of House of the Dragon episode six. The review that only discusses events up to that episode is here. But in this post, I'm going to start off by immediately talking about the next major death that will occur in the series, probably in Episode 7. So go away if you don't want those sorts of spoilers.

House of the Dragon 6

 Being the up-through-the-end-of-this-episode spoiler. Future spoilers are, as always, in the companion post. Except in one notable instance where the show spoiled it for you (it's that thing Princess Bug-Collector said).

House of the Dragon, 4 and 5

 Wow.

As always, this post will spoil the episodes themselves; the companion post will contain book spoilers (i.e., spoilers for future episodes). (Yes, I know the "HotD Spoiler-Free" tag technically contains spoilers, but only up to the most recent episode. I specifically want to avoid future spoilers with that tag.) I'll also discuss the book up to this point, which I think is fair game.

Oh, I will be mentioning the upcoming significant... alteration to the cast, but unless you've been living under a rock you know it's coming. (The other significant exception to the "no future spoilers" rule is that I'm allowed to tell you that everyone dies, because this is a prequel. I'm just not allowed to tell you how they die, even though in one case the parent show already did...) 

Fire and Blood, 4 and 5

 Being the future-spoiler review of the two most recent episodes of House of the Dragon. The companion post will only spoil those two episodes; this one will spoil far more. (Not that any of this matters, because, again, Game of Thrones itself spoiled the ending, lol.)

So, again, major - MAJOR - spoilers for upcoming episodes in 3... 2... last chance... 1...

House of the Dragon, Episode 3

 Just like last time, this post will spoil this episode. A companion post will spoil subsequent episodes.

Fire and Blood, part 3

 Being the book-spoiler review of House of the Dragon part 3. If you don't want future episodes spoiled, do not read this because I'm going to straight-up spoil some very major plot points. The that-episode-only recap is here.

House of the Dragon, Episode 2

  Lord Strong got some screentime, Rasputin did a stupid, the Eleventh Doctor stole an egg, and the king decided to not marry a child, so he married a teenager instead.

This episode had no sex and very little violence (which is not to say there's no disturbing imagery; there's a guy getting crucified - done very tastefully, you know what's being nailed where without them actually having to show you - a guy getting eaten by crabs, and a guy getting his finger eaten by gangrene and maggots). It also had just the right amount of Matt Smith. Until the next generation gets up and running, the story runs the risk of being the Daemon Targaryen Show (which I'm totally here for), but they wisely keep him back for most of the episode's runtime. 

Spoilers for this episode (book spoilers are in a different post)

House of the Dragon, Future Spoilers

TURN BACK NOW if you don't want me to spoil basically everything that I think is going to happen this season. The less-spoileriffic review of Episode 2 is here.

House of the Dragon, Episode 1

 Look, I don't get paid the HBO bucks, I didn't go to the HBO School of Narrative Storytelling or the Miguel Sapochnik School of Proper Lighting, I just think it's a dumb dumb thing to remind everybody about the unmitigated awfulness that was Game Of Thrones Seasons 5-8. 

But, no, we're going to start the episode off tugging those nostalgia themes with the "Daenerys," "Iron Throne," and main Game of Thrones theme. Okay then. And we're going to end the episode-

No, no, let's do this one bizarre decision at a time. And fair warning: I've read the source material and we should all have some idea of where this is going: Game of Thrones Season 8 The Wars of the Roses The Anarchy no really just The Wars of the Roses Again.* So I consider everything up to King Viserys's death (which probably won't happen until near the end of this season) to be fair game to spoil. Who marries who, who has kids, etc. Not saying I'm going to lay out the entire thing in this post, but I could do that in a future one.

*Okay, I'm lying, it is the Anarchy, but boy oh boy are they trying to head-fake you into thinking its War of the Roses again.

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone

 The Godfather Part III, the bastard child of the Godfather not-actually-a-trilogy, gets a bad rap, which is partially undeserved. Yes, Sofia Coppola is not an actress, and no, you can't paper over that without digiswapping her performance Spacey/Plummer style. But a) I counted only two scenes in a two-and-a-half-hour film where she actually let the film down, b) her being in the film at all was not a deliberate choice by anyone but rather one practically forced on the production by behind-the-scenes turmoil, and c) she did a far better job than I could have done (even if I hadn't been a toddler at the time and/or had the right set of plumbing to stop it being a gay romance in addition to kissing cousins, yikes), so I'm not really here to rag on her or blame her for the film being what it is. And as for which two scenes I'm referring to in a), well, you'll just have to guess.

Oh, and d) long-time readers of this blog know that I'm a huge fan of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, another franchise film where the acting talent of one of the leads occasionally leaves something to be desired, so it's not like the occasional wooden delivery is a dealbreaker for me.

Borderlands 3

 Alas, there is no Vault Hunter whose sole role is KILL MAIM BURN this time around, that was fun.

The plot of Borderlands 3 could be summarized thusly:

The villain is a superpowered individual with a god complex springing forth from the circumstances of their upbringing and their less-than-stellar relationship with their opposite-sex parent. The identity of the villain's father is a late-game plot twist, and the villain's father dies around the time the final act starts. The villain's goal is to become a god and consume the universe. The villain merges with an alien entity and transforms into a monster for the final boss fight. One of the playable characters, a former soldier for a corporation, has a crush on another playable character, a buff girl with an exposed midriff.

Did I miss anything? Ah, yes, the cruel murder of a White Magician Girl halfway through the story.

What an original concept.