Whither the Oxford Comma?

I’m one of those heretic writers/editors who does not use the Oxford comma. We don’t use it at work so I’ve gotten used to avoiding it. If I worked somewhere else, would I use it?

I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking about this recently since I read Between You and Me by Mary Norris, a copy-editor for the New Yorker. Of course this magazine uses the Oxford comma and given that its language standards are legendarily high, should I also be including a comma before every “and”?

There is a need for the Oxford comma in a sentence like “I invited my parents, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump to the party” because that second comma clarifies that Clinton and Trump are not your parents. (Technically, if they were your parents, the sentence would still need a second comma, just in a different place: “I invited my parents, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, to the party.”) But a sentence like “On this Fourth of July, salute the red, white and blue” does not need an Oxford comma because the sentence is easy to understand either way. So why use a punctuation mark that doesn’t add anything?

Commas are, I think, a notorious judgment call in writing. I try to be consistent with them. I will use Oxford commas in longer lists or sentences with more than one clause: “Cersei found out about the stockpiled wildfire beneath the sept, put on a magnificent leather and metal dress, poured another glass of wine, and watched her enemies burn.” I will also use the comma if there is an “and” in an individual unit of the sentence: “I saw Bananarama, Leonard Cohen, and Hall and Oates at the music festival.” These bring clarity. If I can get away without that extra comma, however, I don’t use it. Most of the time, “and” takes the place of a comma anyway.

I’d prefer for language to be streamlined and have fewer punctuation marks to stop the reader. But there’s no reason to be dogmatic and if an Oxford comma means less confusion, I’ll put it in. The English language is a notoriously inexact science but the overarching rule is that clarity is number one.

Admit it: You want more of this. Join me next time when I expound on the difference between “that” and “which,” why splitting infinitives is obscene, the proper use of the em and en dash, and why the diaeresis exists.

Game of Thrones S6 E10: The Winds of Winter

Wow. So that was … a lot of information to process.

She killed them. She killed them all — the High Sparrow, Margaery, Loras and all the religious people — in a jaw-dropping green explosion of napalm-like wildfire and now Cersei crosses the moral event horizon.

Keeping King Tommen away from the sept looks something like mercy but you have to wonder if Cersei wasn’t sparing her son just to make him watch and know his wife (the only one in the sept perceptive enough to know what was going to happen) died. Then the king puts down his crown and walks out a window, a karmic counterpoint to the Lannister twins pushing Bran out the window in the pilot. Did Cersei know he would despair enough to do that and leave the throne open for her? She reportedly loves her children but her son sold her out to the sparrows and her cold attitude toward his burial suggests that she might have been done with him and resigned to his fate.

With all three children dead, the fortune-teller’s prophecy comes closer to fulfillment. Queen Cersei seizes the iron throne, fulfilling another bit of it. She has to know her reign will not last for long. Destroying the sept was the biggest power move ever in Game of Thrones but she must know nobody will follow her, as she’s become as mad as Aerys II. He didn’t go through with his promise to burn King’s Landing with wildfire; she did.

Cersei has destroyed all her enemies in one fell swoop but she saves the most delicious punishment for the shame nun, leaving her to the tender ministrations of the Mountain. “I killed my husband because it felt good to be rid of him” and slept with her brother for the same reason, she finally confesses (looking fabulous in black, I might add). Mocking the septa with chants of “Shame” was absolutely magnificent, such a guilty pleasure. She’s evil but so much fun to watch. The queen regent who one season ago endured humiliation by the common people now sits on the iron throne.

One season ago, Jon Snow’s soldiers stabbed him to death. Now, the remaining houses proclaim him king of the North, thanks mainly to Lady Mormont’s fiery intercession. Can I just say I love her and need to see more of her? It’s impressive to see a little girl silence a room full of tough warriors and provide some perspective on the coming wars. I was skeeved out to see Littlefinger mention marrying Sansa after pining for her mother and marrying her aunt and heartened by her telling him “It’s a pretty picture” and walking away. The last thing Sansa needs is another messed-up marriage while still in her teen years. Plus, she must know that Littlefinger is implying that he wants to kill Jon.

The show also confirms the longtime theory of Jon’s parentage. He’s not an illegitimate Stark through Ned but through his mother, Lyanna. This also makes him a Targaryen and makes him as legitimate an heir to the throne of Westeros as anyone. It also brings another dimension to Ned’s character: He besmirched his own honor and let Catelyn think he fathered a bastard so he could protect the baby of his enemy family. The other Targaryen with a claim finally, finally, makes her way to Westeros with the help of the Iron Islands rebels. It was touching to see Daenerys offer Tyrion the position of hand of the queen. It will be so nice leaving Meereen at last and getting this show on the road.

It was also nice to get a look at Old Town, which I’ve only ever heard about. It was sexist of the guy at the desk to bar Slackjawed Sally from the library but what was she going to do in there, dust the spines of the books?

Season six was confusing because certain events seemed to be stretched out, like Cersei’s and Loras’ trials, but now it makes sense that with an event as momentous as the destruction of the sept, they had to save it for a finale. There were also the weird time shifts when you consider how long it would really take people to cross continents. All this makes a lot more sense if you don’t take it literally and see events as sort of happening at once and that the show is portraying them when it needs to portray them.

Another event that was long in coming but that worked better when saved for the finale was Davos finally finding out what happened to Shireen. His anger was impressive and heartbreaking, and Melisandre dropped her mask and looked devastated, knowing that she was wrong all along to burn the girl at the stake. “If he commands you to burn children, your lord is evil,” Davos tells her before exiling her. Bingo. The irony is now that Tommen is dead, Shireen Baratheon would have a good claim to the throne, if only they hadn't sacrificed her to gain absolutely nothing.

Jamie escaped death twice this episode, being away from the wildfire in King’s Landing (returning in time to witness his sister’s coronation and infer his son’s death) and then leaving Riverrun and escaping Arya’s revenge. I had a feeling nasty old Walder Frey would die since nothing good ever happens when he sits down to dinner in that hall. I was kind of surprised to see a disguised Arya killing him. It’s kind of a stretch when you start wondering how many people she had to kill to serve the Frey sons in that pie. By the way, that was completely disgusting, even for this show. It was satisfying for the orchestrator of the red wedding to die but that mincemeat pie makes me wonder if Arya is crossing over into the evil side.

The alliances are all set for season seven of Game of Thrones. Daenerys and the Greyjoys will try to conquer Westeros. The houses of the North have united under the Starks. Olenna will rally what’s left of the Tyrells and ally with the Martells. Cersei sits on a hollow throne, gaining it at a great price.

That was a hell of an episode, almost too much to absorb at once. It will be hard to wait almost a year for the next chess moves. As the white raven says, winter is finally here.

Raising Self-Awareness

It’s very common today to raise awareness for causes like cancer or poverty. That’s great but I think lesser-known causes should also get some attention. What we really need today is to raise awareness for self-awareness so people can take a look in the mirror and see how they’re acting. Here are a few people for whom I would like to have fundraisers:

People who have enough self-awareness to realize they’re annoying everyone around them but not enough self-awareness to realize they should knock it off.

Drivers who seem genuinely shocked that people behind them are trying to get home or to work and may not appreciate puttering along in the left lane of the highway because the person in front is driving under the speed limit and braking constantly for no reason.

People who are apparently too entitled or frail to mutter “thanks” when someone holds the door for them.

Starbucks customers who get disproportionately annoyed when the employee writes the wrong name on their cup, as if they’ve just been christened with a name they’ll have to live with forever.

People who carry on like First Amendment political prisoners when someone asks them not to curse around their kid, as if it’s a superhuman act of will not to say the F-word for the duration of a child’s birthday party.

Nosy people who appear to be fluent in English except for the phrase “none of your business,” which is in a completely foreign language.

People who are loud and obnoxious in inappropriate situations and when someone asks them to stop, they stare at that person like he has three heads and just made the weirdest request possible.

Consistently late people who never apologize, assuming everyone finds their lateness a charming aspect of their breezy, carefree personality, rather than the annoying lack of consideration that it really is.

People who are always screwing things up but don’t let any of it get to them, not realizing that they wouldn’t need to have a great attitude toward their incompetence if they let it get to them just a little and tried harder.

Bloggers who are quick to point out others’ failures but have no self-awareness of their own.

Game of Thrones S6 E9: Battle of the Bastards

I needed a cigarette after that and I don’t even smoke. After all the infanticide and adult murder and direwolf killing and torture and rape and flaying and castration, it was immensely satisfying to see Jon Snow beat Ramsay Bolton to a bloody pulp, see Sansa Stark’s ice-cold goodbye as the dogs chewed his face off, and see the Stark banner rise over Winterfell. It takes a lot to be the worst person in Westeros but Ramsay proved it again and again.

That little smile from Sansa, walking away while the starving dogs killed Ramsay, was the icing on the cake. She earned it. Given Ramsay’s cruelty, it had to be her at the end, and her role was exactly right, not actually siccing the dogs on him but not stopping them either. She correctly noted that the Bolton line will end now, while the Starks, for all their misfortunes, haven’t done all that bad, since four of five kids are still alive. I also loved her not having any of Ramsay’s posturing before the battle, walking away and saying “You’re going to die tomorrow, Lord Bolton. Sleep well.” The show telegraphed this end anyway, with all the setup with the hungry dogs and how poetic it is that the animals Ramsay used to kill so many actually killed him. (And as his last act of cruelty, he starves his dogs for a week.)

I had a feeling it would end with Ramsay dead, since it would be too much for Jon to die twice, but the tension in the Battle of the Bastards was … something else. It was like Game of Thrones’ version of Saving Private Ryan, with unending scenes of soldiers dying horribly. It showed the contrast between the two bastard heirs, as Jon is willing to get his hands dirty and Ramsay stands at a remove while his men fight. There was no way Ramsay would have won one-on-one combat and obviously, he didn’t.

It was looking very grim for the Starks and their allies but I figured something had to happen and then the cavalry arrived as the Knights of the Vale closed in. So Sansa’s letter saved the whole damn thing. I would hope she had some good reasons for not telling Jon about the third army.

With the battle so overwhelming, the events in Meereen stand out as odd but there was a connection between it and Winterfell: Tyrion’s quote about “It always seems a bit abstract, doesn’t it? Other people dying.” The perspective kept switching back and forth between leaders passively watching the battle and those on the ground, getting speared and crushed.

Daenerys was robotic in her plan to crucify the masters and all that because she tried it before and it backfired. Destroying the insurgency’s leaders was probably wiser. In a nod to the parable about Solomon giving the baby to the person who doesn’t want to cut him in half, Grey Worm spares the life of the only person who doesn’t sell out the others, instead killing the other two.

Yara was pretty sly in linking her cause with Daenerys’s. Each had a father who was an awful ruler and the two women will leave the world better than they found it. I loved Yara’s flirtation, saying she doesn’t demand marriage like Euron would of Dany but she’s “up for anything, really.”

I’m happy not only that Ramsay is done but that his story was done. There was nowhere else to take his cruelty and it was getting a little old. Let’s move on.  

Is it getting better?

A few years ago there was the “It Gets Better” campaign, a video series featuring people urging at-risk gay youth to sort of hang in there because they can actually come out the other side live full, happy lives in the future. It was helpful to have older people tell these young people that their lives do have value.

There has been so much positive change for LGBT people in the past few years. Just a year ago we got the right to marry our beloved in all 50 states. Then something horrible like the massacre of gay people, many of whom were Latino, in Orlando and you have to ask, is it getting better?

“It could have been us” is one of the first things I thought. My club days are pretty much over but years ago, how much time did I spend with gay and straight friends at places like Woody’s, 12^th Air, Blue Moon or Cloud 9, dancing and drinking and having fun? The thought of a 25-year-old texting his parents his last words while the gunshots get closer is obscene and hard to imagine.

Years ago, I don’t remember considering going to a gay bar to be dangerous. The danger was always there but maybe you don’t see things like that until you’re older and wiser. Still, it was always in my mind to avoid holding hands with anyone on the street. I was also lucky enough to have supportive family and friends, who never would have turned their backs on me, so I didn’t need the bar scene quite as much as young, at-risk people might.

Those bars are places where gay people can feel safe to express some very human affection with their partners. One of the tragic dimensions to this massacre is how many young people will go to these bars now, once a refuge from getting beaten up just for holding hands on the street, and always have an eye on the exit, just in case.

There has been so much despair since the horror at Pulse but there have been some signs of hope. On Facebook and at vigils you see people expressing their support and empathy. In Orlando, people can’t give blood fast enough. The Empire State Building and Eiffel Tower are lit up in rainbows. The pope offered his condolences. President Obama cut right to the heart of the issue that these gay bars are supposed to be a sanctuary.

These are signs of empathy we might not have seen years ago. In the ‘70s, some nut burned down a gay bar and killed a bunch of people and the public shrugged and joked. There are probably still shrugging and jokes today but if you zoom out, you see a lot of support.

I don’t have a hot take here; this is just a rough draft of trying to process this insanity. I certainly can’t definitively answer whether or not it’s gotten better because weighing all the hate of humanity against all the love is too complicated an equation for some blog post. I think things have improved in a lot of ways for gay people but that doesn’t erase those 49 dead people. There is still danger out there and everyone certainly isn’t skipping through fields of wildflowers. One of the sad things about Orlando is that it makes it harder to make the argument to gay people who are just starting out that things will get better for them.  

Aww, poor wittle babyfaced wapist

After the ridiculously inadequate sentencing of convicted rapist Brock Turner, and the arguments from his father and friends that the poor wittle babyfaced wapist certainly shouldn’t have his life and his appetite for his dad’s steak ruined just because of that “20 minutes of action” when he raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster in front of witnesses, can we dispense of this pernicious nonsense of loudly regretting a convicted criminal’s dashed athletic career as if it were some kind of national fucking tragedy that the world is deprived of an above-average swimmer?

This happens so often when a college athlete commits a crime. When former football prodigy Daniel Holtzclaw was convicted of raping a bunch of women, there was this notorious article (the website deleted the article and fired some people responsible) that ladled all this pathos on the fact that the guy’s sports promise was dashed, with nobody bothering to interview the women he raped, who probably faced some dashed promises of their own due to what this man did to them. The Washington Post (which you think would know better) had a headline last week that labeled Turner as an “All-American-swimmer” and listed his swimming achievements. Because that’s what’s relevant when a man rapes an unconscious woman.

This is the fault of incompetent editors who let this clichéd tripe through and also the fault of bored, hacky writers who buy into the faux poetry of the athlete who (cue violins) will never play again. O, pity the poor felon who will never do another backstroke!

It’s not like this guy got struck down by a disease that we can build a weepy TV movie around; that would be something deserving of sympathy. Turner, however, is not. His career is harmed because of something he chose to do: Rape an unconscious woman. Grade D reporters vomit out clichés like “But his extraordinary yet brief swim career is now tarnished, like a rusting trophy” but it’s this guy’s own goddamn fault and you can’t sugarcoat the ugliness of what he did with some Vogon-level poetry. 

Sorry, who is this guy again? A college swimmer? It’s not as if compounding this rape is the fact that we will be deprived of Turner’s future cure for cancer; at most the world will be deprived of some swimming records. And while it’s a monumental tragedy that the Olympic team may lose out on his skills, Team USA will just have to go out and recruit some swimmers who are not convicted rapists. Sad day.

The woman he raped deserves all the sympathy here and if someone wants to write an article about someone with actual problems after “20 minutes of action,” write one about her. “Why? Why him?” asks Turner’s mother. The answer is not that rape chose Turner, it’s that Turner chose rape. If this guy didn’t want to have to register as a sex offender and lose his swimming career, he shouldn’t have made the choice to rape an unconscious woman.

Game of Thrones S6 E8: No One

“A Girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell and I am going home.”

With that fist-pumping declaration, Arya finally leaves behind her dead-end job with Jaqen at the House of Black and White and reclaims her birthright. Finally, the smug and annoying Waif is gone. Arya was masterful in the way she trapped the Waif, purposely smearing blood on the wall to lead her to that little room, and then snuffing out the candle to leave the two in the dark. The dark is Arya’s element after she spent all that time training while blind, and she finally proved herself as superior to her rival.

So what was the point of Arya’s long dalliance in Braavos? I guess it was to have her hone her fighting skills and rediscover who she is. Maybe the way the show cut away from Arya killing the Waif was the show’s way of saying she’s matured and doesn’t need to seek constant vengeance. Maybe that maturity is the same reason she spared Jaqen.

Cersei, however, is not over vengeance and chose violence, siccing the Mountain on the High Sparrow. It turns out she should have had a backup plan because Tommen forbade trial by combat so the Mountain won’t be able to get her out of a jam. How deeply is the king indoctrinated? He didn’t even give his mother the courtesy of a good seat in the audience. (I loved the hand informing Cersei at the last second that there will be a meeting right now in the throne room.)

What are Qyburn and Cersei up to? What rumor turns out to be more than true? Is this new information or something I just didn’t pick up on? I also wonder how much of a parallel we should draw between what happened to Lady Crane and what will happen to Cersei, or if there’s a parallel between Crane messing up her rival’s face and what Cersei will do next.

The overthrow of the Blackfish at Riverrun was easier than expected thanks to a dimwitted soldier who didn’t realize that letting Edmure enter the castle was a trap. Jamie basically engineered all this by force of his personality and his love for Cersei. He professes his lust for his sister but clearly has feelings of some sort for Brienne. Giving her his sword was moving and she has certainly earned it by her loyalty. I loved Brienne starting to tear up when she left and the wave between her and Jamie as she sailed away.

Another interesting tidbit: Jamie says Cersei reminds him of Catelyn because they both love their children. Make of that what you will.

I was entertained by the Hound bargaining with the Brotherhood Without Banners to be able to kill as many men as possible. I was also amused by Tyrion getting Missandei and Grey Worm drunk and making them tell jokes. Grey Worm finally gets a laugh by deadpanning “That’s the worst joke I ever heard.”

The Americans S4 E13: Persona Non Grata

Assuming the spies’ cover is blown, Gabriel advises Elizabeth and Philip that their espionage is over and they should go back to the USSR. Things look dire enough that the Jennings family should leave. But can they?

Even as season four eliminated some of the family’s ties to the United States, such as Martha, Don and Young-Hee, they are still in very deep in their adopted country. Philip tells EST (which has lasted a surprisingly long time on the show) that he would like to quit the job that makes him so depressed but that he’s made a commitment. Paige is getting in deep with Matthew (which amuses Stan and horrifies Philip).

This begs the provocative question that’s been hanging in the air all along: How American have these Russians become? Elizabeth muses as to what Smolensk looks like now and tries to picture the kids in the Soviet Union. They know they probably should leave but there’s so much doubt on their faces. They have good jobs, a house in the suburbs and a nice car. In 20 years of playacting, have they become the thing they’ve been fighting against?

The Jenningses are lucky, having better-rounded lives than some of the spies. As William lies dying, he laments that he never had that good life. In a powerfully moving comment, he confesses that he just wanted to be “like them, couple of kids, the American dream.”

By contrast, William was invisible and alone. He’s given everything for the cause and on his deathbed, will give even more, saying “Everything inside me that matters will have oozed out my orifices.” He wanted out and seeing his impending capture, did the most good he could, ensuring that nobody in the world would have to suffer the horrors of lassa hemorrhagic fever. The tragedy here is that instead of getting a hero’s welcome as Gabriel promised, William will be assumed incompetent or a traitor, as the USSR believes he either got captured or defected. (However, why didn’t Philip hear the helicopters near the drop site and infer that William got captured?)

William’s death was horrible but at least Aderholt finally made the deadpan spy laugh with that offer of a deathbed Coke.

The season finale upended all sorts of chessboards. Arkady gets evicted from the United States after being shocked, shocked, that both sides have interest in bioweapons. Oleg, the good son, goes back to his family after secretly tipping off the FBI about Directorate S. Tatiana may be going to Nairobi or may be the new head of the Rezidentura.

Offsetting all these losses is the intro of new character Mischa, the son of Philip and Irina. Like his father, he secretly opposes the society he lives in, but his rebellion takes the form of speaking out against the USSR’s Afghanistan policies. I think his impending journey to the United States means the Jennings family will be staying in Falls Church because it would be too clichéd to have father and estranged son pass like ships in the night.

Paige and Matthew make out through the Super Bowl (missing the totalitarian overtones of Apple’s “1984” commercial) and exchange hints of valuable information. Matthew admits his father cheated on his mother and Paige asks if it might be better to see his parents as real people with flaws. Philip wants them to stay away from each other and when Paige complains, it’s darkly humorous for him to warn her “You have no idea.”

I would think Philip could tell from Stan’s joking around that the FBI is not onto them, and Elizabeth noted they didn’t have a bunch of agents swarming their house when their neighbor got home. I think that ensures that the Jennings family is staying for now. At least a trip to Mother Russia is not imminent, because otherwise Philip wouldn’t have bothered warning Paige about staying away from Matthew; they would just pack their bags and go and she’s never see him anyway.

Season four was probably the best season of The Americans yet and it ended not with car chases but some meaty, subtle questions and developments. I will probably need some time to re-watch and absorb these episodes, because they need time to sink in, but for now this was my favorite season, dark and unsettling and provocative.

I have no idea where the show goes now with so many characters gone, but I am quite grateful that we will get two more seasons of this top-notch drama to find out.

Outpace

I actually make it to the gym for once and sigh before even getting on the treadmill. It’s a Saturday morning in late spring/early summer and that means all the walkers are out, strolling around the parking lot to raise money to cure disease. I am fine with the disease curing part and only object to the congestion because when the race ends, the area will be so choked with traffic that I’ll be unable to leave for awhile.

I park far away to stay out of the path of the race and walk briskly to the gym. I notice I am walking faster on my way to the gym to run than these people are walking during their race. Why are they so slow? You’d think with people dying of cancer or whatever it is, they might want to hustle a little to show they care. Able-bodied youth soak in applause at the finish line for ambling at 2.5 mph for 2.5 K.

On the treadmill, I feel not as sprightly as usual. Middle age, weight gain and missing a few sessions (due to vacation and avoiding fundraiser walkers) have taken a toll. All around me, the programmed miles per hour vary higher or lower than mine. People stroll or they sprint.

The TVs break the news that Muhammad Ali has died. I see him, white trunks against gray ‘60s ring, quick on his feet, punching and shouting. Butterfly, bee, rope-a-dope. Liston, Foreman, Frazier, Whoever. Rumble, Thrilla. Suffering slings and arrows like St. Sebastian. Lighting the Olympic torch, hands shaky but eyes still sparking. He is frozen in time, always running rings around me.

The baby-pool-deep point is that you will always outpace some people and other people will always outpace you.

Game of Thrones S6 E7: The Broken Man

The Hound, after we never actually saw him die, returns in a cold open and lives to fight another day. He takes up with a group of nice Unitarians building a sept. The Hound wonders why he hasn’t been punished but he’s gotten plenty of pain in his life, from his burned face to the beat-down by Brienne. By the end of the episode, the Unitarians are dead at the hands of followers of the Lord of Light and the Hound’s purpose is clear: Revenge. And I’m thinking the Clegane brothers will clash again.

The one who left the Hound for dead faces death rather than cheats it. Just as it seems she will triumph and get back to Westeros, Arya takes a knife to the abdomen from a disguised Waif (and really should have been more cautious when a stranger approached her). The wound is survivable and I sincerely hope the season ends with Arya wiping the smirk off the Waif’s face.

The second broken man of the episode, Theon, finally seems to have a breakthrough, thanks to some real talk from Yara. This is a welcome development. Theon is definitely right that she could be more sensitive to his mutilation but her speech was a much-needed bucket of cold water in the face for her brother.

This week’s episode spent a lot of time with houses we haven’t seen in awhile or that I can’t remember seeing before, like the Tullys, Freys, Mormonts (except for Jorah) and Glovers. Sansa, Jon and Davos go on their tour of Westeros to marshal forces to retake the North. The trio find that the North indeed remembers but they remember the betrayals as well as the alliances so getting people to fight is about as complicated as World War I. “We fight with the army we have,” says Jon, in a Donald Rumsfeld-esque pronouncement.

The ever-smart Davos finally wins over young Lady Mormont by telling her that “the dead are coming” and none of the infighting among the houses will matter once the White Walkers attack. This sounds like a sea change for the show as more and more become aware of the advancing zombie army.

The Freys sound like the totally stupid white trash of Westeros. They always seem kind of sleazy and easily confused. It was a really dumb plan to take Edmure hostage against Blackfish. It was amusing to see Jamie set everybody straight on proper military tactics.

In an unsurprising development, Margaery was faking her devotion to the faith. It was clear she was lying as soon as she pretended the Shame Nun was her BFF. It was an interesting comment by her saying that her care for the poor was all just an act and she really had contempt for them. If someone does concrete good for the poor, does it really matter to the poor if the benefactor’s heart was in it? They’re still getting something to eat.

Margaery slips Olenna a drawing of House Tyrell’s rose and warns her grandmother to hightail it back to Highgarden. As usual, Olenna was highly entertaining in her smackdown of Cersei, calling the queen regent one of the worst people she’s ever met. Cersei seemed, if not genuinely chastened, at least annoyed that she’s lost a valuable ally. If these two are smart, they’ll work together.

The Americans S4 E12: A Roy Rogers in Franconia

Well, Paige did say she wanted to know the whole truth. She knows her parents have been evasive and given half-answers when she’s asked questions about whether or not they kill people and how her mother knew how to stab the mugger in the neck without much emotion. “Do you trust me or not?” Paige asks. Her parents have always asked their daughter to trust them but trust is a two-way street.

So Philip lays it out for her, telling her about the bioweapons. It’s not a game anymore, not just some petty cloak and dagger. After seeing the total annihilation of The Day After, Paige knows what her parents are messing with could affect the whole world.

“Great,” is her perfect sarcastic reaction.

But Paige hasn’t run away from her family’s dirty business. She seems to understand Elizabeth’s explanation of why she’s a fighter, with her mother explaining her hardscrabble upbringing in Smolensk. Paige is also working Matthew, even if she doesn’t realize it, reporting back information about the FBI’s search for Martha unbidden. It’s disturbing to see the teenager unconsciously engaging in this espionage. After all the Jenningses’ debates over recruitment, Paige is her mother’s daughter. The kiss with Matthew was sweet and made sense but it was almost a parallel of Elizabeth getting closer to men for information.

Speaking of Martha, we get an emotional phone call from Gabriel to the missing secretary’s worried mother, a nicely concise way of keeping tabs on the absence that haunts The Americans. They cut directly to Oleg calling his mother, assuring her of his own safety as Gabriel assured Martha’s mother of her daughter’s.

Oleg is coming unglued, though, perhaps rattled by the narrowly averted nuclear launch from the USSR and The Day After. Despite all the saber-rattling from his country, he knows how fragile the whole thing is. He wants out and his last act before a transfer to Nairobi is tipping Stan off about the bioweapons program. This is a huge, huge plot development and the FBI works quickly, narrowing it all down to William (after discovering the bug on the Mail Robot, which again establishes that Aderholt is pretty sharp).

William wants out, too. He’s understandably freaked out about the lassa. “You basically dissolve inside and then squirt yourself out your anus,” he says, and both he and Oleg know that’s not something you want in the shaky hands of the Soviets, who have abundant knowledge but not a lot of infrastructure.

William just wants to go home. An equally weary Gabriel promises him he will go back to the Soviet Union, after just one more job. We know from the previews of next week’s episode this all this will go pear-shaped pretty fast.

One more left.

Game of Thrones S6 E6: Blood of My Blood

This week on Game of Thrones, two characters reclaim their birthrights and each gets a nifty sword as a souvenir. 

What a relief to see Arya finally leave those losers at the House of Black and White and take back Needle. I’d been aggravated with her training for weeks and couldn’t understand why she’d voluntarily subject herself to such misery. Get out of Braavos and do something worthwhile with your life instead of getting blinded and beaten. Seeing that play has increasingly reminded Arya of the tragedies of the recent past and the unfinished business at home, as she extends a mercy to the actress Cersei. Now she just needs to land a solid punch in the Waif’s smug face.

I wanted Sam to throw that dinner roll at his father. What would he have had to lose? It’s not like they could have disowned him more. It was a relief to see his mother and sisters at least standing up to the jackass of a father, who apparently doesn’t see Sam doing the most dangerous job in Westeros (rather than live a cosseted life in a castle) as worthwhile. At least Slackjawed Sally finally made herself useful by standing up for Sam.

Margaery appears to have drunk the Flavor-Aid and consented to merging church and state. I’m not sure how to read this. Margaery is such a master manipulator, and has such a poker face, that it’s hard not to believe that this isn’t part of some plan to put herself back on top. This is the woman who doesn’t just want to be queen, she wants to be the queen. There was some foreshadowing in the King’s Landing play when Arya said the actress playing Margaery wanted the actress playing Cersei dead.

After all that, Jamie is no longer the hand of the king and instead has to go to River Run with nasty old Walder Frey. Benjen Stark is back. All this will come together, of course, but I have a hard time keeping some of the characters and histories together, and it didn’t help that I was tired last night after coming back from vacation.

Bran’s visions were interesting, a greatest hits of moments we’ve seen and moments we haven’t, like the Mad King trying to burn down King’s Landing with dragonfire. I know Bran is for this reason important to the story and nobody will let him die but I still resent him. He just seems kind of ungrateful, lying on his sled having visions while poor Meera has to lug him around. I know he’s crippled and all but he seems so entitled. Meanwhile, just about everybody who has gone out of the way to protect him is dead. I’m just never going to like that kid, no matter how integral he is.