If you’re gonna read our brand new Smash recaps starting next week, you’re going to have to know what’s happening on the newest season. Thanks to Best Week Ever Associate Producer Abby Holland, Smash devotee, we’re going to be recapping this clunker every week. Read more…
Here’s an Archive of every TV Recap we’ve ever done here at BWE.tv, organized by show and season, for Breaking Bad, Lost, The Walking Dead, Game Of Thrones, Mad Men, The Office, Teach: Tony Danza (essential), American Idol, The Real Housewives, Boardwalk Empire, and Top Chef.
Feel free to read them at your recap-needing leisure, or all right now in a row (mini photo-spoilers):
BREAKING BAD
Breaking Bad Season 4:
Episode 1 – “Box Cutter”
Episode 2 – “Thirty-Eight Snub”
It’s the Game Of Thrones Season 2 Finale, entitled “Valar Morghulis”, but we have no time to unpack that title cause we have 7,800 plots to wrap up, so let’s just go straight to the lightning round – the darting from plot-to-plot in this episode almost felt like the movie Magnolia, but with fewer dragons (there were a bunch of dragons in Magnolia, right? Phillip Seymour Hoffman was like 7 dragons himself, I think. Whatever, this is not what we came here to talk about. Magnolia-Dragon Night is Tuesdays.)
The episode opens with a classic eye shot reminiscent of our old recappin’ grounds LOST:
It’s the eye of Tyrion Lannister, who narrowly avoided a another shocking Game Of Thrones death in the second-to-last episode (at that rate, in Season 3 they would’ve had to kill off, like, George R.R. Martin, or at least one of his R’s). After some taunting from “The Maester of Slams”, Tyrion receives an unexpected visit from Varys, who explains that Tyrion is no longer Hand of the King, that he’ll receive no credit for his bravery on the battlefield, that Bronn has been relieved of his command too, and that Cersei instructed Mandon Moore to kill Tyrion during the Blackwater battle, and for good measure, a puppy Tyrion really liked was given chocolate by Ilyn. MONDAYS.
Tyrion is also visited by the slightly more pleasant Shae, and he removes his bandage to reveal his scar to her:
On the plus side, Tyrion now shares a face-scar with the other best character in HBO history:
It’s Game Of Thrones Season 2, Episode 9, the second-to-last episode of the season, entitled “Blackwater”, because it’s a shot-for-shot recreation of the brutal “Blackwater” battle depicted verbatim in the source material – this Doobie Brothers song:
You don’t even WANT to know how violent next week’s “What A Fool Believes” Season Finale is.
This week’s episode picks up where “The Prince Of Winterfell” left off, with Joffrey valiantly striding into battle with his new sword “Hearteater”, his new shield “Brainpuncher”, and his trusty dagger “Juguluarpeeronner”:
For the record, Joffrey’s sword is actually a nonfunctional prop purely for adorable purposes, not unlike baby shoes.
It’s Game Of Thrones Season 2, Episode 8 entitled “The Prince Of Winterfell,” a reference to the possibly-burnt ‘Prince’ Bran (aka “The Even Younger Wolf”) and his brother Rickon (aka “The Wolf Who’s Constantly Eating Wolfnuts”), who’ve yielded Winterfell to its current ‘Prince’ Theon (aka “Dick Wolf”).
Theon’s sister Yara arrives in Winterfell to ridicule Theon and confidently sit in chairs:
Yara tries to convince Theon to leave Winterfell before Northern forces instantly slaughter him, but when Theon stubbornly refuses, Yara tells him the touching story, “When you were a baby, you used to scream all the time. Also, you couldn’t walk, speak, or understand things, and now, you’re four times larger and can speak and walk upright and are an adult. My point is, if you’re gonna get obviously killed because you have no idea what you’re doing, at least do it closer to the sea so we can have a traditional Pyke Funeral with squid pallbearers in tuxedos.”
Over at Camp Robb, Jaime Lannister has escaped in the custody of Brienne, making for the show’s first official Tally-Smally couple, not unlike a reverse Chris & Adrienne Bosh. Needless to say, Jaime is slightly confused when his blindfold is removed:
It’s Game Of Thrones Episode 17, entitled “A Man Without Honor”, a title which clearly and specifically refers to Bran. Or possibly every character on this show ever, except for that guy who insulted Theon and got decapitated and like maybe one of the direwolves (the other, dishonorable direwolf is constantly stealing the others’ Raven-Milk-Bones and having sex with them.)
Ironically, the “Man Without Honor” episode doesn’t include Joffrey – I assumed the episode was just gonna be a 60-minute closeup on Joffrey with dishonorable sh*t happening in the background, like the “You Don’t Know How It Feels” video – but Tyrion and Cersei do sit down and discuss the grim reality of Joffrey on the throne, with Tyrion adding “It’s tough to leash a dog once you’ve put a crown on him” (not true! I do this to my basset hound Doggfrey on an hourly basis).
In one of the season’s more subtlely interesting scenes, Cersei tries to confide in Tyrion but can’t quite do it, and Tyrion tries to comfort his sister but also can’t, and they spend the scene tragically beating around the Joffrey bush (without actually beating Joffrey this week, sadly):
They stop just short of talking themselves into agreeing “Sometimes, the sincerest form of loving your child is killing him and letting a more reasonable child take over…”, but still, the ‘Joffrey’ tension between the two Lannisters in this scene was thick enough to beat with a crying prostitute’s scepter.
It’s Game Of Thrones Episode 16, entitled “The Old Gods And The New,” which refers to both the symbolic ‘changing of the guard’ at Winterfell and King’s Landing, as well as the literal disparity between the Wildlings’ “Old Gods” (The Gods of Murder and Rape) and the modern society’s “New Gods” (The Gods of More Humane Murder and Slightly Lighter Rape).
The episode opens with Winterfell instantly being conquered by Theon, thus confirming Bran’s prophetic dream:
Theon instructs Bran to yield the town to him and Bran does, prompting the wildling Osha to tell Bran “Don’t you see? It’s your dream – the sea has come to Winterfell.” Bran’s like, “Thanks, Sparknotes, but we all figured that out a week ago.”
With this dream now come true, Bran worries, “Uhoh, I hope I don’t have to take the SATs naked at this place that’s kind of like my high school gym but also part of it’s like my friend Jeff’s house, and Jeff was there but it wasn’t really Jeff, you know? But I knew him in the dream. So weird!”
Theon continues to play the part of a proud conquering Greyjoy, and tells the townspeople to kneel to him, though not for the reason Theon is usually telling people to kneel to him:
This week’s Mad Men episode, “At The Codfish Ball” (titled after Captain Hook’s screams) featured not only a return appearance by grown-up Alex Mack, now a series regular, but also her character’s father, who just so happened to be Leland Palmer, the relentlessly-f***ed-up father from Twin Peaks (aka actor Ray Wise).
Needless to say, anyone who’s watched Twin Peaks had the same semi-shocked reaction last night:
I’ve enjoyed pretty much every episode of this Mad Men season so far, and this week’s episode was no different, highlighting one of the aspects of Mad Men that the series does particularly (and unfortunately) well: Showing the characters’ unparallelled abilities to find a reason to be depressed in the midst of complete joy.
We have four concurrent, happy-turned-depressing stories:
It’s Game Of Thrones Season 2, episode 5 entitled “The Ghost of Harrenhal”. Will this version of “Ghost” involve two lovers spinning pottery together then a rat tunneling through the pot and into the couples’ stomachs? You’ll have to read on to find out. Nahh, I can tell you now: It literally does!
We pick up right where the last episode left off, with the show’s magical element jumping from “omens, prophetic dreams and unlikely powers” to “witch lady giving birth to magical shadowy deathmonster”. Needless to say, Stannis’ closest companion Davos is still shaken up by the unusual birth he witnessed, and confesses his doubts about Melisandre’s intentions to his lord:
It’s Game Of Thrones Season 2, Episode 4 entitled “Garden Of Bones,” which may end up referring to actual human remains, boners, or some combination therein (graphic scene of skeletons f***ing each other in a garden that’s also f***ing another garden). This week’s episode set a new television record for “Most Scenes You’re Ready For Them To Cut Away From,” breaking the previous mark of 7, set in 1966 by an uncharacteristically violent episode of F-Troop.
We open Cringefest 2K12 (that K is getting rat-tortured by the 12) with Robb Stark scoring a dominant battle victory over a Lannister force using the classic “I think I hear something / I’m not falling for that” battle tactic straight out of the “Jason Voorhees” chapter of The Art Of War. The following morning, we cut to a guard with his intestines torn out by a direwolf (also the image on every Game Of Thrones subway poster, oddly), and Robb celebrates the victory with his exuberant bannerman:
The bannerman suggests that Robb torture the remaining prisoners for information, but Robb insists that he DRAWS THE LINE at having mythical wolves rip out their intestines. Robb’s mind is somewhat elsewhere, though, when he becomes infatuated by a battle surgeon with a heart of gold, who manages to be onscreen for an astonishing two minutes without getting naked:
