"Shut the fuck up and let me die in peace."

[falafel_musings]

So I spent the last weekend of my holiday in the beautiful Hay-on-Wye, town of books (seriously it's a tiny country town with about 50 thriving book shops). I crammed a lot into just two days of the huge literature, philosophy and music festival they have there every year. I also had the pleasure of seeing a lot of great novelists - my hero Patrick Ness, but also Matt Haig, Nick Harkaway and Saci Lloyd. Ness couldn't answer my questions on the Charlie Kaufman adaptation of Chaos Walking for pesky legal reasons (sigh). But Ness is always awesome to listen to and I got to hear him read from his new novel 'More Than This' which is either a story set in the afterlife or a last survivor at the end of the world story. I can't tell yet. I also saw a wonderful gypsy band called Miss Maud's Folly who played a great original set laced with covers of 'Mein Herr' and 'Belleville Rendezvous'.

I'll have to go next year for longer.

I'm back at school now (for seven and a half long weeks) but I can cope with anything because I have my Breaking Bad S5 DVD. This includes the great new missing scene Chicks n Guns: seven minutes of brand new BrBa and I've been starved for ten months so it felt like a feast. Seven minutes of Jesse, Saul and Skinny Peteness! Yay!Chicks n Guns basically gives us an insight into Jesse's life during his three month vacation from cooking meth with Mr White. Which (as usual) consists of booze, boobies and loud music with his sweet stoner friends until Saul shows up to give Jesse a gun and warn him to watch out for "bears". And Jesse's all "Yo! Don't talk to me in metaphors, bitch!" And Saul's just trying to gently explain to Jesse that Walt is a kill-crazy sociopath now and Jesse's all "But Mr White wouldn't hurt Mike's guys because that would make Mike angry and Mike isn't dead, Saul, Mr White sent him away to live on a farm!!" Sigh. My poor Pinkman. I'm worried about Jesse's vaguely suicidal talk to Skinny too. I'm going to hurt this final season. Now I'm just sitting enjoying the audio commentaries (OMG, Jonathan Bank's rants are a treat). There's also a lovely tribute to Mike: The Cleaner and a longer ickier version of the Walt/Skyler bed scene where Skyler gives Walt the most desperate despairing handjob ever. I actually wish they had kept that part in. It was such a creepy parallel to the hilarious distracted-by-E-bay handjob in the Pilot. Oh, and the new DVD has the best Gag Reel so far I think. I guess it'll all be on youtube soon for those of you who aren't obsessive enough to pay £20 for eight episodes and so extras.

I also caught up with Game of Thrones S3 in the holiday. And I was going to make a post about everything that has been happening in S3. But I just watched the latest episode and now I can't remember anything that ever happened in GoT apart from...that last fucking scene. That was, well...brutal and horrific doesn't cover it. I'm only a casual Thrones fan and as such I just want simple things like Stark family reunions and a little less Theon torture. But no...everyone is going to die screaming, aren't they? I'm dreading my mum seeing this episode. Every time I watch Game of Thrones with my mum, she'll tell me that all she wants is for Arya to get back to her mum and her brother. Every time we watch a damn episode. And (for my mum's sake) I was still hoping that Cat and Robb might flee the Red Wedding in despair and at least have the comfort of finding Arya waiting in the wilderness. But no. Of course Frey doesn't care about his child bride. So Cat has to watch her first born son get stabbed in the heart. This only shortly after her husband's head was cut off and the rest of her children are lost or captured. Cat is the one I really feel horrible for because she fucking told you so Robb! Man, I'm gonna really miss Michelle Fairley on this show. I was so caught up in Cat's final moan that I wasn't prepared for Cat being slaughtered herself. Well damn. Maybe when Game of Thrones S4 comes out I'll just watch episode 9. Seems like episode 9 is now the annual episode where everything goes to hell and heads are gonna roll.

I'll try to catch up with Mad Men S6 next (unless I die of boredom that is).

And if I wasn't juggling enough shows...I've watched the first two episodes of Orphan Black. Ugh. I really need a break from TV too. Why does this show have to be so awesome? Does it stay this good? Who's watching?    

Comments

[waltzmatildah.livejournal.com]

Re: Orphan Black. I was watching (it finished on the weekend) and nope, it definitely doesn't stay as awesome as it was in the first two episodes, no siree. But that's only because it gets exponentially MORE awesome.

Holy crap.

SO GOOD.

You won't regret watching!

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I won't regret watching. I just have too much TV eating up my time. Ah well, S1 is only 10 episodes, right? I'm excited that it gets better!

Have you got the new BrBa DVD?

[waltzmatildah.livejournal.com]

It is only ten episodes long. And the finale is Face Off levels of jaw-dropping. I AM NOT EVEN JOKING.

O_O

I don't have it yet. I have the first four, but I don't think five has been released here in Australia yet. WE ARE FOREVER BEHIND.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Aww that Jesse and Saul scene sounds really good! What does Jonathon Banks rant about, Walt's character? I noticed he was starting to do that a lot in interviews during season 5 lol, really identifying with his character :P

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

Jonathan Banks rants about everything! He's great on the commentary tracks. At one point he is mid-rant and one of the writers jokes "I'm glad we killed you". Oh and at one point Jonathan calls Aaron "Sweetpea" which is adorable. Aaron talks a lot about how much he misses JB and then rants about how much it hurt when JB hit him in their first scene together. Vince, Bryan and Bob are great on the commentaries too. Sadly there's no Dean Norris. I guess he must have been filming 'Under the Doom' by the time they were recording.

[trovia.livejournal.com]

*snickers* Oh fanfic. I once collaborated with some people on a big Harry Potter first war fic, in which the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix was located in Hay-on-Wye. So I read this and I was like, "Oh! I've been there... no wait, I've written fic about it... ah well, almost the same." It sounds awesome, anyway. Bookstores! ♥

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

LoL! I can so easily imagine Harry, Hermione and Ron wandering around Hay-on-Wye. Most of the streets look like Diagon Alley. If you get the chance, I do recommend visiting!

[cylune9.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed your weekend in Hay-on-Wye! It must be so cool to meet authors you admire. :)

I'm so jealous that you got the Season 5 DVDs one day in advance!! How did that happened? I want your secrets!!

And yeah, GoT. Your mum's been wishing for Arya to meet her mother and brother all season long? Oh dear lord. She's going to be devastated... I was spoiled for it but regardless, I was still in shock after the last scene.

And ditto your comment about too much TV. I'm currently watching GoT, Hannibal, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, waiting for Breaking Bad to come back and I want to watch Orphan Black. I'm usually the 'one-tv-show-at-a-time' type.

Hannibal is sooooo good. If you're interested, I would suggest you wait until you're done with your other stuff. It's so freaking addictive. I kind of lost interest in SFU since I started watching Hannibal... I knew I should have waited. argh!! Now all I want to do is read recaps about Hannibal, go on message board and discuss Hannibal and peruse Hannibal graphic on Tumblr (which are absolutely gorgeous!!!) and re-watch the episodes. again and again. and wait impatiently for Thursday.

ETA: Oh and Dexter coming back June 30. TV has to stop being so good! ;)

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

I'm so jealous that you got the Season 5 DVDs one day in advance!! How did that happened? I want your secrets!!

New DVD releases always come out on a Monday in the UK so I guess that's how I got mine quicker. But hey, don't be jealous of me! This is the first and probably only time I'll get to see new BrBa stuff before you do. You won't envy me when the BrBa series finale is airing and I'll be giving myself insomnia waiting for a download to appear :p

I'm usually the 'one-tv-show-at-a-time' type.

Me too. I tried to ween myself off BrBa with Homeland, but that show really isn't as great as the Emmy voting suggests and I quit halfway through its ridiculous S2. Then I got sucked into Six Feet Under followed by Dexter. I couldn't keep up with Mad Men and Game of Thrones at the same time so they've been on hold. I'm caught up with Thrones now (only one more episode, right?) so I'll catch up with Mad Men next. Then Orphan Black. Then Dexter S8. Then Breaking Bad will take over and no other TV will matter to me (phew!)

My mum is also behind on GoT and she usually gets me to watch it with her (she gets scared :D) so yeah...I'm dreading her seeing the Red Wedding. Robb and Arya are her favourite characters.

I kind of lost interest in SFU since I started watching Hannibal...

Noooo! You can't quit now!! I know S5 starts a little slow but the last four episodes are among the most powerful TV I've ever seen and the early S5 episodes actually do a great job of transitioning all the characters to where they need to be for that perfect ending. Remember it was the raves about SFU's ending that made you wanna watch SFU in the first place? You are so close! You gotta get there!! Don't do this to me!! I've been holding back spoilers so long!

I know what you mean about other TV obsessions taking over though. It's a damn good thing I finished my Sopranos marathon before starting my Breaking Bad marathon otherwise I might have just ditched The Sopranos (the most critically aclaimed show ever!) before getting to the end. As for Hannibal, a lot of my flisters have recced it. I'll probably sample it at some point (when my TV dance card is less full!). I had a boyfriend who was a big fan of the Hannibal films/books so I'm familiar with the basic premise. Though there are two things that put me off - 1) that it's (rather oddly) a network show and it seems like something that would thrive more on cable, and 2) OMG, cannibalism grosses me out so much! I can't claim to be squeamish since I watch stuff like Dexter & Game of Thrones, but eating dead flesh and drinking blood just disgusts me. This is a big part of why I'm a vegetarian and don't like vampires. Is the cannibalism very graphic on the show? Because I might have nightmares.

[cylune9.livejournal.com]

Yes, only one episode left for GoT. Should be interesting to see everyone's reaction to the Red Wedding...

No, I'm not giving up on Six Feet Under!! I love the show but you can tell it's not the type of drama I'm insanely invested in (like, I'm going to go on a message board and read about every little details!).I know the last few episodes are amazing!! I'll watch another episode tonight. :)

As for Hannibal, I think it has the potential of being in my top TV shows, along with Breaking Bad, The X-files and Fringe. The relationship between the two main characters is soooo juicy and disturbing. Will (the good guy) is someone that is described as having 'pure empathy' and can go to a crime scene and figure out what happened because he can put himself in the shoes of the murderers. But, as you can imagine, being so emphatic to this kind of horror really takes its toll. In the opposite corner is Hannibal who is totally deprived of empathy and likes to play mind games with everybody, especially mentally fragile Will.

As for being graphic with cannibalism... well not really because the... er... human meat is cooked and looks like regular meat so it's very disturbing because you KNOW these people are eating human meat but it looks gorgeous! So it's the implication that's gross. The murders scenes are very graphic and some images are really disturbing. I had just made myself a sandwich and was about to eat it when I saw this: http://heydontjudgeme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/25.jpg

I didn't enjoy the sandwich much. This show might actually be good for your waistline and turn a lot of people into vegetarians.

As for being a Network show... apparently NBC is thriving to be more like cable and that's why they have these types of shows on the schedule. A season will not be more than 13 episodes. And the NBC renewed it even though the ratings were terrible, probably thinking it will grow an audience (which I think will now that it's been renewed). I think a lot of people (like myself) didn't want to watch because Networks have this habit of cancelling most shows after the first seasons.

ETA: I fogot... you see a pair of lungs being cooked. That was a tad disturbing too.

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

Phew! I really thought you were ditching SFU for a moment. I probably would go on SFU message boards if I could find any. I have a long-winded SFU meta post that I've been meaning to finish (all based around my thoughts on ONE scene. In 5x9). I might post that soon. Even if nobody reads it!

Will (the good guy) is someone that is described as having 'pure empathy' and can go to a crime scene and figure out what happened because he can put himself in the shoes of the murderers. But, as you can imagine, being so emphatic to this kind of horror really takes its toll.

Woah, really? That does sound interesting. I found the Will Graham character in the Red Dragon book/film rather boring but it sounds like they are doing the character a little differently in the TV show. And you know I'm a sucker for twisted psychologically damaging relationships, right? Right. I will try it at some point, especially since there's only one season with 13 episodes to catch up with. Just give me time!

not really because the... er... human meat is cooked and looks like regular meat so it's very disturbing because you KNOW these people are eating human meat but it looks gorgeous!

Well, regular meat grosses me out too. Just eating dead flesh, human or animal. Totally squicks me. But LOL at you recommending Hannibal as an aid to weight loss :D It sure would be. I wish you hadn't even told me about the lungs (barfs!)

[cylune9.livejournal.com]

I'll try to watch a few more SFU episodes tonight, perhaps just so I can read your long-winded meta!! I love your meta so much!

As for the character of Will Graham, as much as I like Edward Norton, I agree his Will Graham was kind of boring and generic. The one in the TV show is anything but. It's pretty rare that the good guy is as interesting/colorful as the crazy psychopath but that's how I feel about Will. And yes, the Will/Hannibal relationship is so psychologically damaging for Will, it's delicious (yeah, we're the same). There's also a very psychological twisted and interesting relationship between the two of them a traumatized teenage girl who Will feels very responsible/protective...

As for the gross food stuff, you might have to cover your eyes. The worse was in the Pilot with the lungs... just skip that part if you're going to watch. Oh and something with mushrooms. Mushrooms don't gross you out I hope? *evil laugh*.

(the mushrooms I have in my fridge are not be consumed anytime soon)

ETA: Speaking of Edward Norton, there a line in the Pilot where Will says: 'Please don't psychoanalyze me. You won't like me when I'm psychoanalyzed'. Edward Norton played the Hulk a few years ago. ;)

[kajam.livejournal.com]

What can I say... I've read all of George Martin's books from the saga, so I knew what was coming and yet there's no way to be prepared for this, not really. My heart broke into tiny pieces, especially over Catelyn.

GRRM is a bastard! >:-(((

[kajam.livejournal.com]

PS: I'm sorry about your mum. She will be devastated, the poor thing! :-((

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

I'm struggling to think of a character who has a harsher death than Catelyn. She has to go through her husband being beheaded, her daughter being held hostage by the Lannisters, her three youngest kids being missing and possibly dead, her eldest son being stabbed in the heart right in front of her. And then she gets her throat cut. God damn.

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Poor Catelyn Stark. But honestly? (And I haven't read any of the books and only caught up with the entire HBO series in ten days.) That massacre had been brewing for years. Robb had been promised since he was twelve! Cat and Ned should have mended fences long before and I don't think they ever had any intention of marrying their children to that family. They grew a bit complacent in the long summer. But that's over now. (I know the author of the books wrote the season 2.9 ep. I know he writes one ep a season. Maybe he wrote this one?)

I'll miss the actress! I really liked her!

Did you catch Ewan at Theon's torturer? I knew his voice immediately. :-)

Now I just root for Arya and hope she doesn't end up married off to someone she'll have to kill someday. :-)

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

It's great to see creepy!Simon being creepy again! Poor Theon though. Whatever Theon did, that extent of physical and psychological torture is horrible to watch.

My biggest issue with GoT is...what do you root for? Who do you root for? This is a show where the brutal, evil sadistic characters are the ones who win. Always.

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

Who do you root for? What do you root for?
I root for the strong and the canny. I root for growth. My favorite is Arya but instead of rooting for her to live I root for her to get revenge before she dies. That she she becomes wiser and more cunning than either of her parents.

I root for the kids. No, not Joffrey. But Bran and Rickon and Cersei's younger kids. They're innocent for now. Winter is coming and I hope they survive it. The show has these great moments of hope. Daeanerys owning an army out of sheer grit and bravery. She might not survive, but that young girl is the stuff legends are made of.

So I just hope for a good story. :-)

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

No, not Joffrey.

I root for Joffrey! Heh. You probably think I'm joking. It's complicated but I have my reasons.

But Arya is a favourite of mine too. It's so sad though to see a girl so young whose life is a desperate survival mission and the only thing she has to survive for is getting revenge.

Hoping for a good story is a good reason to hang on in there. Though I think I mostly watch Thrones for stunning visuals, sets, costumes, etc and because it's a joy to see Peter Dinklage in such a plum part. Oh and Dragons! I root for the Dragons.

[lenina20.livejournal.com]

spoiler alert: you're not going to miss Michele Fairley as much as you think you're going to. but... my own thoughts on this show is I want to stab in the heart everyone who works on it because if only they had bothered making the hound an actual fucking character from the beginning, you know? at this point, this is all I care about.

also: your life is so awesome, ugh, really - that sounds amazing!

and orphan black, well, we've talked of this in tumblr.

[falafel-musings.livejournal.com]

you're not going to miss Michele Fairley as much as you think

??? Interesting. So are we talking Ghost Cat? Zombie Cat? Long lost twin Cat? I don't care. Just keep that actress on the show. I'm dreading the final episode because I'm spoiled for Joffrey dying in Book 3 so I guess that must be coming in 3x10. Nooo!

My life is very blah and non-productive lately. But the Hay Festival is awesome so that's a great experience.

Orphan Black is definitely a show I think you'll like. Especially Alison! Alison struck me as exactly the type of character who lenina will adore.

[lenina20.livejournal.com]

:D:D I'll get back at you as soon as I start watching the show, I'm sure.

Zombie Cat, actually. Though who even knows with this show.

And nope, Joff is in there another season, it seems - though I don't actually know how they're going to handle all that, because they changed some major stuff in the KL parts of the story, it seems (Jaime should have arrived after Joff's death, for example) and nobody should even have a hint of a suspicion that Littlefinger is trying to get Sansa off the city. So... who knows. I'd say I just want Sansa there when Joff dies because that's one of my fave parts of the whole saga (my Joff/Sansa shpper heart!) - but these writers wouldn't give a fuck about the complexity of Sansa's feelings, who apprently is too happy to accept Tyrion's kindness or something, ugh. I can't. I hate this show too much.