What I Watched Today
(rambling, random thoughts & recaps from today’s real time TV watching)

Game of Thrones

The ships attack Meereen. Tyrion tells Dany the rebirth of Meereen is the reason for the violence. He asks if she has a plan. Killing every last one of them is the way she wants to go. Tyrion talks about hidden wildfire and how it’s not difficult to destroy a city.

Dany and Tyrion meet with their enemies on the beach. The head guy tells Dany she made her own mess. Tyrion says they want to discuss terms of surrender. Dude gives a list of demands, like the dragons being slaughtered, but Dany says they want to discuss their surrender not hers. He says her reign is over and she say it hasn’t begun. Drogon flies down and Dany gets on his back. He is seriously cool.

The other dragons join Drogon in the sky. Now it’s triple cool.

Meanwhile, the Meereens are being slaughtered by the Sons of the Harpy. Everything stops when they hear the hoof-beats of Dany’s army coming. Dany and her dragons circle the ships. She tells them Dracarius and they do their fire thing. Bye-bye, ships.

Grey Worm tells the dudes on the beach they can give it up or die and all the soldiers throw down their weapons and run off. Tyrion says Dany is forgiving, and Missandei says that the queen has decreed one of them should die. Two of the three dudes push the third guy forward, saying he’s low born and they barely know him. Grey Worm cuts off the other two guys’ heads. Good one. Tyrion tells the remaining guy to let everyone know he lived by Dany’s mercy, but also tell them what happens when you mess with her.

Jon tells Sansa she doesn’t have to be there when he meets Ramsey, but she says she does. Ramsey rides up and says he’s missed her. He wants them to proclaim him Lord of Winterfell and he’ll forgive all their trespasses. He says why lead everyone to their death and there’s not need for a battle.

Jon says he’s right, there’s no need for thousands of men to die, just one of them. He suggests they end it the old way, mano-a-mano. Ramsey says he doesn’t know if he’d beat Jon, but his army would definitely beat his. Jon asks if Ramsey’s men would want to fight for him if they heard he wouldn’t fight for them. Ramsey asks if his little brother is worth the risk. Sansa asks how they know he has their brother and Ramsey throws down Shaggy’s head. Sansa tells him he’s dying either way.

Ramsey says he can’t wait to get with Sansa again and throws out a bunch of threats invovling his dogs. He rides off.

Jon says Ramsey’s weakness is his men are forced to fight for him. Davos says they have the number and they have the patience. It’s crucial that Ramsey charge them, not the other way around. Jon says he wanted to make Ramsey angry so he’ll come at them full tilt. Jon and Sansa speak alone. Sansa says she knows how Ramsey’s mind works. She says he lays traps and Jon says he’s over-confident. Jon says he’s defended the wall from worse. Sansa says he doesn’t know Ramsey. She says Rikkon is lost because he’s the true born son of Ned Stark. They argue. Sansa says she would have waited until they had more men. Jon says this is all they’re ever going to have and greater odds have been surmounted. Sansa says if Ramsey wins, she’s not going back to him and Jon says he’ll protect her. She says no one can protect her.

Jon asks Red Woman #2 if she has any advice. She says don’t lose. Jon says if he does, don’t bring him back. She says she serves the Lord of Light and only he can decide those things. Jon asks why he was brought back the first time. She says she doesn’t know; maybe he brought Jon there to die again. Just the thing you want to hear right before a battle.

Theon and Yara stand before Dany. She says they must be there to get her support for Yara becoming queen. Dany asks what’s wrong with Theon and he says he’s not fit to rule. Tyrion says they agree on that point. Dany says their fathers were evil men and they need to make the world a better place. Dany asks that they acknowledge her as queen of the seven kingdoms and if they do, she’ll help them. They shake on it.

It’s time for the battle of the bastards. There are like 6000 of Ramsey’s guys to Jon’s 60. Doesn’t John have a giant or two he can pull out? Ramsey rides forward leading Rikkon on a rope. Way to distract Jon Snow.

Ramsey pulls his sword out and Jon marches forward. Ramsey dramatically cuts Rikkon’s ropes. He tells Rikkon he wants to play a game and to run to his brother. As Rikkon starts to run, Ramsey puts an arrow in a bow. Job starts to ride toward Rikkon as the arrows fly. Just as Jon is about to reach Rikkon, Rikkon gets an arrow through the back.

Needless to say, Jon is mightily pissed. Ramsey smirks and Davos tells the men to prepare. The battle begins. Oh, there’s that giant. If nothing else, you’d think that would be disconcerting, since it’s doubtful they’ve ever seen one. Ramsey’s men shoot arrows into the air and Jon’s horse is down. He stands as Ramsey’s army rides forward.

Jon takes out his sword. WTF? Jon is in the middle of everything like General Custer at Little Big Horn in Little Big Man. He slices up a few guys. Now he’s like Tony Curtis during the pie fight in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Somehow, he is unscathed. He’s just that good. Or that angry. Or both.

Davos, who was supposed to wait for Ramsey to move forward, has had enough and proceeds with his men. The rest of Ramsey’s men go forward. Ramsey hangs behind like the coward he is. Oh shit. Ramsey’s men have surrounded Jon’s and made their shields into a wall. The Romans used to do that. They move forward with these spears sticking out, slicing up the men as they go. This gave me a headache.

The giant starts tossing guys round. The last ones in the middle fight like crazy. Ooh! The giant just ripped some guy in half. That was pretty good. Ramsey’s men close in. I have no idea what’s going on because it’s all shaky cam and sometimes blurry. Uh-oh. Jon almost gets squashed because it’s like a mosh pit, but manages to come up for air. Somehow, he, Davos and Tormund are still alive.

A trumpet is heard. Holy! Here comes back-up. It’s Littlefinger with the cavalry! Ha-ha! Ramsey’s face.

They bust through Ramsey’s wall of guys. Sansa watches with satisfaction. Jon, Tormund and the giant see Ramsey who runs away like a little girl. Well, rides anyway. Dammit! The big baby makes it back to his castle. He says their army is gone.

The castle gate is being broken open. The giant pops through. He’s covered with arrows and meets his end, but well done, good and faithful servant. The army comes in. Ramsey pops out and says he’s reconsidered one on one combat. Jon walks toward him fielding his arrows with a shield and proceeds to punch the living snot out of Ramsey as Sansa watches. The entire audience is satisfied. The Bolton banner comes down and the Stark banner goes up.

Applause. Just from me. On screen, they’re busy carting bodies around. Jon wants Rikkon buried next to their father. Sansa asks where Ramsey is.

Beaten to a bloody pulp in the dungeon. Sansa comes into the cell. He tells her their time together is almost at an end. She tells him everything about him and his house is going to disappear. Hahahahahahaha! Here come his dogs! He says they’ll never harm him and Sansa reminds him they haven’t been fed in a week. This is so good, I can’t stand it. Headache gone.

Sansa watches and I laugh, as the first dog pretty much takes Ramsey’s face off.

Touche.

Next time, who cares? I don’t think they can top this. Okay, next time, Cersei and Loras stand trial, Littlefinger wants something from Sansa, and Tyrion tells Dany the great game is terrtfying.

The Real Housewives of Dallas – Reunion

Because I forgot they were starting on the quarter hour, I missed the beginning. I come in while Leeanne is making excuses for being aggressive. I think I have her “story” memorized by now.

Cary’s husband, Mark, joins the group. We find out that Cary got her first Birkin bag for her 40th birthday. Forgive me, but if I was going to drop that kind of cash for a bag, it wouldn’t be a Birkin. Am I the only woman on earth not impressed with that style? Cary addresses the rumors that she married Mark for his money and that she broke up his first marriage. Cary starts to cry, saying that she was joking about some of the things she said in her interviews. Since she is a rather sarcastic and funny person, I totally believe her.

Andy asks Cary about Leeanne spreading gossip. Cary says she would never go after a married man and Leeanne was very hurtful. She says she and Mark both have children and she doesn’t want them hearing negative stuff. As usual, Leeanne doesn’t admit to perpetuating rumors, but just says you shouldn’t drink and tweet, kind of winking. Then she tells some story about how Cary made Mark leave his wife after she married someone else to get his attention. Cary explains her 3-month marriage, like it’s anyone’s business, and they both say they didn’t have an affair before his divorce.

Stephanie asks Leeanne why she didn’t go straight to Cary, and Leeanne claims she did. Leeanne acts like a middle schooler, saying it’s not okay for her to spread rumors about Cary, but it’s okay for Cary to call her a social climber. Um…I don’t think those are close to being the same. And Leeanne is a social climber. While it might very well be just so she can get her charities on, it doesn’t make Cary’s point any less valid.

Mark argues with Leeanne and she asks if he needs a tampon. What adult talks like this? Cary tells Leeanne that the things she says are hurting other people, not just her. Leeanne says she doesn’t want to hurt anybody; that’s not what she does. Well, I don’t know who did it then. Andy asks what she does do and she says charity because that’s the only comeback she knows. Andy asks if spreading gossip is charity, and she continues to say that she was merely repeating something someone told her.

Then she tries to say that Cary had been saying things aout her too. She changes something Cary said in all kinds of ways. Cary says if anything she said came across like that, she’s sorry, and she’s actually proud of Leeanne and says a bunch of nice things about her that she doesn’t deserve. Leeanne manages to flip everything around to the point that Cary gets up and leaves the stage.

Andy calls out Tiffany for enabling Leeanne. Tiffany claims she came late to the game and makes some noise about how she tried her best given what she had to work with. Brandi tells Tiffany that she should have shut it down immediately and says that Heidi was only in the one scene to do Leeanne’s dirty work. Tiffany keeps trying to distance herself. Cary is back and says she knew the Heidi thing was a set-up.

Andy asks Leeanne how she’s going to move forward here. Leeanne says she apologizes for not handling things differently and privately with Cary. Leeanne says she’s sorry Cary is hurt and sorry that she’s the one who hurt her. She wants to hug it out. They hug and then Leeanne says something rude to Stephanie. Maybe Leeanne went on too many roller coasters as a carny kid.

Because Tiffany doesn’t have much going on outside of Leeanne, they talk about Aaron aka Keith Suburban. They talk about Tiffany and Leeanne’s friendship and Cary says Tiffany is different when she’s around Leeanne. Leeanne had made some stupid remark about Plano and has to apologize to the Twitterverse.

Andy asks Brandi about Bryan’s reaction to the season, in particular the strip club and the dinner he walked out on. Brandi says Bryan doesn’t like confrontation or talking about his feelings and didn’t want to hear it. He wasn’t too happy to be on camera and Brandi says they argued afterwards with him using the d-word. Brandi talks about how supportive Stephanie was and they talk about their friendship. Brandi says everything came out on a positive note though, and now Bryan travels less and sometimes the family comes along. They also renewed their vows.

Marie joins them. She says she’s nervous and excited. Tiffany wants to sit as far away from her as possible. Andy talks about Leeanne throwing her glass at Marie’s party. We go down the Memory Lane of Leeanne being a nutjob. We go over the plastic poop incident and how Leeanne tried to tarnish Brandi’s reputation. Leeanne acts like she’s five, cutting Stephanie off and when Stephanie graciously lets her go ahead, she refuses to talk.

Tiffany talks about having to defend Leeanne and how it got to be too much. We relive the scene when Leeanne left Marie’s party and slapped the trolley car. We move on to the texts about Leeanne from Marie. Marie claims she was worried about Leeanne and Tiffany says it was gossip and Marie is dangerous. All I can think about is how I want the necklace with the giant pearl that Marie is wearing in one of the flashbacks.

Marie lets Leeanne have it and Brandi is sitting there smiling. I have the feeling she doesn’t even realize it. Andy pushes things along to the Austin trip. We see numerous flashbacks, from the bus trip there to Leeanne’s threats against Marie.

Here comes Leeanne’s poopy pants story. Brandi explains how it started on the bus because she had to pee, and Marie immediately insists that she didn’t tell Taylor. I hate to admit I agree with her when Leeanne brings up that Taylor couldn’t have just made a lucky guess. Cary suggests they get over it already. Andy gets the real skinny, or poopy as it were, from Leeanne. Leeanne then jumps right to claiming Marie has bad temper tantrums, so she’s not the only one.

Tiffany says she’s been protective of Marie and something about keeping girl code. Andy asks what Marie’s reaction is and there’s total silence while Marie looks like a deer in headlights. Cary says she got scared during Leeanne’s craziness in Austin, while Tiffany claims she slept through it. Leeanne says that when she says it, killing someone means cutting them out of your life. Marie claims that Leeanne threw something at her and Leeanne claims otherwise, although Marie ended up getting a restraining order because Leeanne sent her threatening texts after the trip. Leeanne claims Marie was trashing her on social media. Andy asks where they go from here and Marie hopes they can come to an understanding and respect each other. Once again, Leeanne talks about her childhood and how she doesn’t “do hurt well.” Stephanie says as an adult, she needs to take ownership and get help. Thank you.

Leeanne starts to cry and says blah-blah-blah how she doesn’t like that part of her that’s the angry little girl. We bid Marie good-by. If she’s bucking for a spot on the show, she’ll have to do better than this.

Wrapping it up, Andy says they’ve all grown since they ended taping. They talk a bunch of therapy stuff and nobody says anything interesting. Tiffany uses the cliche that she’s “a work in progress.” Leeanne is in anger management. Apparently, she’s had therapy through the years and realized she’s not quite finished yet. What an understatement. She says when she gets hurt by people, it brings the childhood hurt back up. While she’s talking, I realize she gets hurt very easily in addition to her overreacting.

I guess that’s it. No three-parter for these Wives. We bid farewell to plastic poop and carnival rides.

The Shahs of Sunset

A capsule of what I missed last week. Tommy walking out on MJ, which I still don’t understand. She told her friend that when she told him what she needed, he said he was done. What the blip did she need? Jessica is playing a hot and cold game with Mike; and Reza is skeptical of GG having RA. Please, please do not say the M-word. I can’t take another storyline like that.

The best part though, was watching Asa work on her caftan fashion show. Instead of being all over the place like some reality personalities (ahem…Sonja) or having a line of something we never see (The Countess), we’re getting a bird’s eye view of the ground floor and both her and her family’s involvement in the business. The caftans are gorgeous, but so is Asa’s passion for her craft and love of detail.

On to this week…

The gang congregates at Shervin’s place. GG’s sister, Leila, joins them. We haven’t seen her for a while. Reza says he feels horrible for having missed the entire fashion show trying to help Mike get it together with Jessica. Reza thinks they need to get away from all the usual drama.

They discuss vacation destination options. GG’s cousin, Niva, suggests Belize. MJ is down with that, since she doesn’t want to go anywhere where the bugs are as big as her shoe. Me neither. Shervin talks to MJ about her break up with Tommy. In her interview, MJ says Tommy is afraid she’s going to turn into her mother. She tells Shervin maybe Tommy is right and she was too overbearing. Shervin thinks she’s self-sabatoging because she doesn’t want to take a risk.

Reza meets Jessica for dinner. He tells Mike about Belize and that he’s going to try and talk Jessica into the Belize trip. Mike isn’t cool about it; he doesn’t think his friends should be involved in his business. Reza tells him it has nothing to do with his and Jessica’s relationship; it’s strictly about the invite.

Jessica arrives and they get cocktails. I love how polite they are to their server. Definite points for that. Reza tells Jessica about the Belize trip. He says he thinks it would do both her and Mike good. Jessica starts to get teary and says she doesn’t think she’s going back to Mike.

Jessica tells Reza that Mike cheated on her. He asks if she’s 100% sure. She says the first time, she saw it with her own eyes. She said for years, he told her everything was a rumor. In her interview, she says she’ll always love Mike and wishes this was a nightmare she could wake up from. She tells Reza that until she’s sure she can trust him, she can’t move back in with him. Reza says that she knows what’s best for herself and he didn’t know that was going on, but has no sage advice. Reza says his hope is that they get back together, but he’s not telling Mike about the conversation. Jessica says she’ll think about the Belize trip. After she leaves, Reza calls Mike and says that he needs to let Jessica have space and time. He says she loves Mike, but she’s hurt.

MJ is on her way to meet GG. They’re getting their lashes done. She talks on the phone to Reza in the car and he says he’s not buying that GG has RA. MJ says she’s been with her to the doctor, but GG seems to be exaggerating what stage it’s at.

Adam can’t go on the Belize trip because of work. The rest of the group meets at Mike’s house to go to the airport. GG is a no show and when they call her, she says she’s not going to be on the flight, but that’s all they get from her. Shervin talks about how angry GG got when he questioned her about her illness and Reza insists that she’s not telling the truth. Shervin thinks GG needs something that gives her purpose and until she gets it, she’s going to need attention in other ways. In her interview, Asa says it’s not cool to exaggerate and illness, but she feels sorry for GG since she obviously has a deeper issue.

Mike says flying with his crew is like a three-ring circus. I’ll bet. He wonders how they’re even allowed on an airplane. When they get to the destination, they change to a much smaller plane. Reza says he never wants to fly in a plane so small he can touch the pilot’s shoulder again.

They go to a private villa that includes a butler. MJ calls Tommy and leaves a long message about the trip so far. She’s hoping she didn’t totally destroy the relationship. No need to say that the villa is fabulous. I don’t know what I’d do first, eat the spread laid out by the pool or get in the pool.

GG has taken a separate flight because she’s tired of the scrutiny from the others. In her interview, she says everyone seems to think she’s “one big lie,” but she’s going to have a good time regardless. She and Niva finally join everyone.

GG says it’s funny how a year ago, she and Mike wanted to kill each other and now she’s the closest to him. GG and Mike chat. MJ says she’s sorry she didn’t acknowledge that Jessica didn’t come. GG checks out her room, which is humongous.

It’s evening and everyone is still hanging around and in the pool. GG asks to talk to Reza. She says they made a deal during the camping trip that they would always be honest with each other. She tells him she heard that he said she was making up having RA. He owns that and she says it hurt her that he would think that. She says she had to process that and she didn’t want to be the old GG, and that’s why she took a different flight. In her interview, she asks if she needs to take anothe polygraph test.

Reza says everyone is saying things aren’t adding up and he wonders why she’s telling him things that aren’t adding up. He says that MJ told im the doctor never used the word “chemo.” GG says that her diagnosis came back and she’s going to need treatment. She asks if he’ll go with her. He says of course, but in his interview says he’s still skeptical.

Shervin says he’s starting to get wise to GG’s machinations. MJ calls Tommy’s voicemail again. Great. She’s being a stalker now. It is kind of mean of him not to answer her calls. Mike says he misses Jessica. Reza says he hoped she’d be there by now, but Mike says she’s not even answering his texts.

They sit down to another amazing spread. Asa says she’s already been eating all day. MJ has the idea to go around the table and “come clean” about something. Niva says he’s been enabling GG. GG says if one more person decides to discuss her RA, she’s going to flip out. Is this the place to be doing this though? On vacation? In his interview, Reza says it isn’t GG’s RA that makes her feel the way she does – it’s her drinking. Now she’s on a roll and tells everyone to look in the mirror. Well, she does have a point.

Niva says he cares about her, but she says she doesn’t think so. GG says she was in the middle of a pleasant conversation when all this started. Niva tries to turn around what he said, but it’s not working. In his interview, Shervin says GG has to hear the good with the bad and he’s glad Niva said what he did. Shervin and GG start to argue.

Shervin thinks GG isn’t being sincere. Reza says he’s tired and excuses himself. In his interview, he says the GGvention was a fail. The dinner breaks up and GG gets freaked out going back to her room in the dark.

Next time, exploring caverns and getting a massage, Reza wants Mike to fess up to Jessica, Mike doesn’t want to talk about it and says he’s done.

Hope all the fathers out there had a very Happy Father’s Day!