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.