Game of Thrones Season 4 Finale Review

A few things happened in this episode the definitely set up the show for next season. As I've stated previously, this show climaxes in episode 9 and episode 10 tends to be more of an epilogue than anything.

Here, we saw how Stannis seized the Wildlings with Mance Rayder and the dead were all burnt from the previous episode. Ygritte, of course, was burned separately after Mance and Tormund reminded Jon that she loved him, no matter what. And she died in his arms last episode, so that was tragic. Yet another character death.

Then, we go and see Daenerys in Mereen. A man's daughter has died because Drogon burnt her to death. The girl was three years old and Daenerys is forced to lock up the two dragons of hers that she knows are there while Drogon roams free in places unknown to her.

[Addendum:]

Somewhere in the episode Bran appears with Hodor and Meera and Jojen and Summer and they finally find the tree that they have been looking for. Jojen dies before he reaches it by being stabbed by a skeleton and The Children are finally shown. These faerie type creatures appear and Bran reaches the three-eyed crow telling him that he can never walk but will learn to fly.

Afterwards, Cersei confirms that she and Jaime have been having an affair for the longest time and Tywin denies it and she decides to go back to Jaime and stay in King's Landing because she wants to stay near both her brother and her son.

Jaime, later on, releases Tyrion and lets him know that Varys is willing to take him to the Free Cities to escape his execution and Tyrion, before going, wishes to visit his father and give him some sort of farewell only to find that in his father's chambers and within his own bed is Shae. Shae calls Tywin "My Lion" the same way she called Tyrion and Tyrion is obviously hurt by this. He is even more hurt when she attempts to kill him and he is forced to kill her to live. He even sheds a tear and apologizes after she has died. When this is done, Tyrion grabs the crossbow and goes over to visit his father who is in the loo. Tywin tells Tyrion that he is his son and that he should leave the restroom so that they can have a more civilized talk elsewhere. Tyrion disagrees after telling him about Shae and Tywin calls him a whore. After being given a warning not to utter the word whore, Tywin does it once more and gets shot by Tyrion. After being shot, he says that Tyrion is not his son and never has been, which prompts Tyrion to denies this and shoot his father once more, killing him. Tyrion then goes back and gets taken by Varys to leave for the Free Cities and after Varys hears the bells tolling, he decides to leave with Tyrion as well.

One of the final, and more important, scenes is the one that takes place after Podrick loses his and Brienne's horses. Brienne finds Arya and she and The Hound fight to the death, unbeknownst to either of them, I presume. This fight was intense as both lose their swords at one point and decide to kill each other brutally and mercilessly. Arya hides whilst this happens and later on finds the Hound. He practically begs her to kill him and all she does is steal his silver and leave him to die. After she walks away and takes her horse, she rides to a small harbor and asks a man to take her away to the Wall. He refuses, naturally, and says that she cannot have a cabin and will not even let her work to be aboard the ship. After he mentions that he is a Braavosi man she says the famous words Valar Morghulis and gives him the coin which was given to her in season to and he responds with the appropriate Valar Dohaeris and we see her leaving Westeros aboard the ship looking towards the small harbor from whence she departed.

This season finale is extremely important considering how both Tyrion and Arya left Westeros after struggling for the longest time, and how Tywin is finally dead. Additionally, Brienne now knows that she's lost Arya and that will be major next season. This was a good season finale, although far from perfect because it's execution felt a bit iffy at parts and the pacing certainly made the plot points feel less important than they actually are. Nonetheless, the show continues to be good and will definitely have a good season next year, as much has happened and the set up will be interesting for the fifth season premiere.

Samurai Flamenco EP1 Review

The first episode of Samurai Flamenco was very...interesting.

At first, it begins with the certain formula of guy being the straight man, kind of like in a comedy, and he lives alone and he's a cop so it's all good. This guy is Goto.

Then, as we witnessed at the beginning of the episode, he encounters our second main character, Masayoshi.

This guy is a model. He grew up with superheros and the like and then found himself wanting to be one. He is eponymous (the show is named after him) and is much more fun and quirky than Goto who is slightly more serious and down to Earth. They have the popular best friend dynamic that is popular in anime and media in general that for some reason really reminds me of Domeki and Watanuki from xxxHolic.

Anyhow, onto plot and stuff.

Basically, the show begins with a very interesting first impression where Masayoshi is nude in an alley beside his superhero outfit and Goto meets him and then the outfit is set on fire and through a list of events Goto ends up rescuing Masayoshi after encountering a band of middle-schoolers who just beat him up cause they're thugs and stuff.

While the concept is similar to Kick-Ass, I certainly love the originality here, and the characters. For an anime, it surely seems like it could even be a TV series and is extremely grounded but still has an anime feel to it that is nice and makes it much more lovable.