All right, here we go. Quiet. Roll up. Hello, and welcome to the Big Picture Podcast, where we take a look at the latest movie news, the films of today and yesterday, and put them all into some sort of context.
Seated across the microphone from me is FilmBuff Online Editor-in-Chief Rich Drees. And seated across the microphone from me is FilmBuff Online Contributing Editor Natasha Bogutsky. How's it going, Natasha? It's not too shabby.
Yourself? It's going pretty good. It is officially spooky season, isn't it now? Yes, it is.
As we are recording on a Sunday evening, and it's starting to become a nice crisp fall air here in our neck of the woods of northeastern Pennsylvania. Yeah, it did literally drop like 20 degrees in like the space of three days. You think? I've been using, I started wearing flannel pajamas to bed and I have comforter on the sofa.
Yikes. Yeah, it's not fun. No, no. I'm really trying.
I have like a personal rule that we don't turn the heat on in my apartment until after New York Comic Con, which is this coming weekend. And you failed, didn't you? I came really close once or twice. I was like, it's only 69 degrees.
It's only 68 degrees. I could just throw on an extra sweater here or something. So yes, but busy week. Is it a busy week?
I don't know. I would say so. We've had a lot going on recently. There's been movies and plays and more movies and more movies and more movies.
And we're pretty much starting to get into the season of award season. Yes. Things are starting to drop everywhere. Not just movies, but TV shows too.
I'm getting screening invites. I have, I literally, if I felt like driving down to Philly every night this week, this coming week, I could at least Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And I'm only going down Tuesday because as I said before, I've got New York Comic Con coming up this, this week, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Don't let his complaining get you down.
Secretly, Valacharinisi. If you speak High Valyrian, you know what I just said. And wow, you're tipping your hand about what we're going to talk about later on. But I'm not complaining.
I have a personal rule that we don't turn the heat on in my apartment until after New York Comic Con, which is this coming weekend. And you failed, didn't you? I came really close once or twice. I was like, it's only 69 degrees.
It's only 68 degrees. I could just throw on an extra sweater here or something. So yes, but busy week. Is it a busy week?
I don't know. I would say so. We've had a lot going on recently. There's been movies and plays and more movies and more movies and more movies.
And we're pretty much starting to get into the season of award season. Yes. Things are starting to drop everywhere. Not just movies, TV shows too.
I'm getting screening invites. I have, I literally, if I felt like driving down to Philly every night this week, this coming week, I could at least Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And I'm only going down Tuesday because as I said before, I've got New York Comic Con coming up this week, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Don't let his complaining get you down.
Secretly, Valachainisi. If you speak High Valyrian, you know what I just said. And wow, you're tipping your hand about what we're going to talk about later on. I'm not complaining.
You will be in a week and a half when you're exhausted. Well, yeah, a week and a half when I'm exhausted and I have like four minutes to turn around and get ready for the Philadelphia Film Fest for the last 10 days of the month. Yeah, it's tough. Nerd world problems.
Yes. You're just looking at me like. While also recording a play that I'm in. Yeah.
God love you. I don't know how I'm doing all of this, honestly. You're not sleeping. Oh, yeah, that's right.
I'm pretty certain he works just on cocaine and caffeine. After All Saints Day, just, you know, I'm going to go into a slight coma and I'll see you on Thanksgiving. No, no, no, no, no, no. You'll go into the coma right around the epiphany because you're going to be going until the end of the year when award season is technically over.
And then the awards actually start happening. Oh, I know. I know. I'm probably going to have everything that I need to see for the year by early December.
What's that like? This year, I am not doing all that well, ladies and gentlemen. This is my first year in the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle. Yes.
And congratulations on that. Thank you again. I always appreciate that. Well, you earned it.
20 years in this business. Yes, you earned it. That's very kind of you. But we have, you know, our group voting, you know, best of the year for the year end.
And we do that at some point in December. So I need to see everything. And there's probably going to be a couple of special screenings for us ahead of time for certain things, possibly. Nice.
I mean, I know which one is still taking the cake for my best of the year so far. And yes, I know we still have a ton of movies that need to come out. But I've only given one movie five stars this year. Everything everywhere all at once.
Correct. That's still a big contender for me. Yeah. It's literally the best movie I've seen all year.
That and RRR are still like my front runners for. RRR. The Indian action film that came out. That's right.
I remember that. I thought it was on Netflix. It's on Netflix now. Sorry, when I hear triple acronyms, it just never goes right in my mind.
I mean, you've got KKK. You've got XXX. I mean, so the triple R makes me go, wait, what? Triple X.
Are you like down on that? I mean, even AAA doesn't sound all that great. Well, they're great if you get a flat tire. But are you down on XXX because it's just a crappy movie?
No, I just mean the rating. I'm talking about the rating. Okay. Usually it doesn't have a good story.
And that's what we watch it for. Hey, sometimes I like a good story. Look at Debbie Does Dallas. Okay, if we're going to sidetrack into porn chic here for a moment.
Do you honestly believe that that's a good story for Debbie Does Dallas? No, it's not a good story, but it's better than half of the other ones I see. Hi, I'm here to bring you a pizza, please. I brought the pepperoni.
The milkman? Come on. Yeah, I know. At least they try.
Yes. I give them credit for trying. I mean, even Caligula, when we think about it, is pretty much an outright porn film. Well, it's produced by Bob Guccione, publisher of Penthouse.
Yeah, and Dino De Laurentiis. So it's like this interesting creation, this hybrid. And it does have a decent story. Yeah, I will grant you that.
And I think we're just letting on how much porn we've actually watched. Oh, boy. Are you guys in for a long night? Oh, jeez.
Maybe a bumpy one, too. Hey-o. But anyways, if you're interested more in the porn chic era, I would suggest, have you seen Boogie Nights? No, actually.
I've been meaning to, but I haven't gotten around to it. I think you would find that interesting. I probably would. Not just from the porn angle.
No, I know who the cast is, and I've heard it's a great film. It's Mark Wahlberg. A few others, yeah. I've heard it's a really good film.
I just haven't gotten around to it. Granted, every now and then I'm trying to pick up on things that I have never seen. Obviously, when you walked in, I was just sitting down to watch Ally McBeal for the first time after trying the first two episodes of Seinfeld and feeling like it was just either wasn't for me, or I just needed to be in the right mood for it. I think for Seinfeld, you kind of have to be in the right mindset for it.
And I was happy. Well, first of all, you know, those first couple of episodes, that whole first season, which is only like, what, six episodes or something like that, is not that great. I mean, you can sort of see the bare bones of what the show is going to become. I can sort of see it, but I'm just...
Like that waitress, she's gone. She's gone after the first episode. I figured. It's a shame, because I kind of liked her.
No, the thing that I have an issue with, and it doesn't happen all that often with shows that I watch, because I'm really good with references, but there was four references made in the first two episodes of Seinfeld, at least four of them, and I had to Google them all. The only one I got was Sophia Loren. When I have to start Googling who the hell you're talking about... What did you have to Google?
Do you remember? The only one that I can think of off the top of my head right now is Lonnie Anderson. I had no idea who the hell that was. Wow.
I know. This is an age... This is one of those rare times where I'm like, really, just, wow, this must be a total age thing. You know it's WKRP in Cincinnati because of fucking Google.
You know my Jokes about what you just heard on the news, which I thought was very clever. I mean, yeah, it's, I mean, obviously talk shows, late night talk shows, The Daily Show, things like that all take that same day to be, have that same kind of timeline. Kind of like go after current events, yeah. But this is really the only time you ever saw it in like a sitcom.
And it's very funny. Andy Hamilton is like one of my favorite comedy writers from England. And I just love the show. And every three or four or five years, I go back and I revisit like a season or two.
So that's what I've been doing. I will say that there are things that I am trying to catch up with. And some I'm doing really well at, some I'm not. She-Hulk has kind of fallen by the wayside for me over the last three weeks.
And I was actually thinking about it today. I was like, I should probably catch up on the last few episodes of She-Hulk. And I'm going to try this show instead. But I have not missed a single episode of Rings of Power or House of the Dragon.
In fact, Rings of Power usually airs, comes out on Friday. I don't get until like Saturday, but that's okay. But I never miss House of the Dragon while it's airing. I know, I know.
And that's what's so funny because, you know, as we said on our last episode, we wanted to definitely do a Rings of Power episode where we talked about Rings of Power and House of the Dragon. And we're actually recording this a couple of hours before House of the Dragon airs, but... An hour and 20 minutes. Not that we're counting.
I am. Are you kidding me? Of course I am. But we're, you know, so it's going to seem odd that we're not going to reference anything that happens in the most recent episode because this way we're only up through six episodes on each show.
Tonight is episode seven of House of the Dragon. And then this coming Friday is episode seven of Rings of Power. Awesome. Yes.
So let's dive right into it, shall we? I'm loving the fact that we have two high fantasy shows with some great production value. Oh God, yeah. That are based on very popular literary property that has some amazing world building in it where the mainstream literary property, i.e.
Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones, were adapted very well for the most part. People can have some quibbles with The Hobbit. People can have some quibbles with the last season of Game of Thrones. But overall...
And now we're kind of doing like a prequel to these things from different creators, not the same creators of Game of Thrones or the Lord of the Rings stuff. And they're both mining for their source material from essays, right? In world essays and histories that were created by, you know, the primary creator of each franchise, George R.R. Martin or J.R.R.
Tolkien, whose share is my birthday. Oh, that's right. That's right. We Capricorns, babies.
So, using those as our starting points, how do you think each of these, and I will say that I think they're both going about their own stories very specifically differently. How do you think both shows are kind of stacking up for you? I'm loving both of them equally. Yes, I know Tolkien purists are having big issues with Rings of Power.
But here's the thing that I have always said, and Rings of Power is starting to prove me fucking right. Okay. The first four episodes of any new television show is about... The first two are about introducing your main characters.
So the ones that you're going to be playing a close, really close eye on. Three and four usually introduces supporting characters tangential to the main ones that you're going to see a lot. The story doesn't get moving until five or six. Call the fuck down.
It's all introduction stuff. You don't really get the story moving until episode five or six. And Rings of Power proved me right on episode fucking six. I'm sorry.
I saw it with His Dark Materials a couple years ago, and I know that I spoke to you about this off air when we were watching it. Do you remember how I was just like, okay, we're heading to the north in episode three, blah, blah, blah. Episode four, when they finally brought in Lin-Manuel Lee Scoresby and finally introduced the polar bear Yorick Bernison, that was the episode that finally said, okay, we've got the last of our tangential supporting characters in. Now we can start the plot.
And that's kind of what I was seeing here. Yeah, I would definitely say with Rings of Power, the first several episodes, you know, sometimes we don't even follow a certain storyline. We had like four storylines being established. Some episodes we would go without Elrond and Durin.
Some wouldn't even have the Harfoots at all. Yeah, exactly. And I kind of like that because it was allowing, it wasn't like going, okay, well, we have an hour and eight minutes. We have to squeeze in at least a little bit of everybody.
It's allowing more of these, you know, different storylines their time to breathe. So yeah, we'll spend episode two or three, you know, just going, you know, half an hour with this person, 20 minutes and maybe 10 minutes on the third. And then that fourth storyline will hold over and we'll check in with them next week. You know, I personally had no problem with that.
I think that's fine. I think that's a good way of letting everyone kind of have their due. Everybody seemed to be like, when the first two episodes dropped, they were all very, well, what's happened? They're just still setting stuff up.
And I was like, you know what? Take a moment. Take a moment. This is gonna be five seasons about 50 hours of television.
These first two hours and change percentage wise over what this whole plan is. This is basically if you were watching Lord of the Rings, the movies, theatrical cut, and you only got as far as just at the end of Bilbo's birthday party. Oh, they're only just setting stuff up. Why hasn't anything happened yet?
That's the exact same amount of percentage of the overall thing. So to me, it was like, guys, calm down. You know, we've got a ways to go. And remember, it's Tolkien, so it's always about the journey.
Yeah. At least it's not. And he always has multiple endings too. So I hope they keep that going.
Season five is just gonna be all endings. But over on the side of House of the Dragon, I mean, that's my hot and heavy Sunday nights. House of the Dragon, I will admit, hit the ground running. It did.
It really did. It introduced who they needed to introduce. And they were like, look, we have the first five episodes to get you to really care about these characters, particularly while they're young. Because after episode five, we do a 10 year time jump and we're replacing half of them.
Exactly. Which is a ballsy thing to do. It is. And it's almost like a whole new pilot in the middle of the season.
Kind of. So you're kind of getting used to these new actors taking over these roles and trying to feel them out again and trying to decide if you like them or not. And I will say too that in terms of scope, I think what Rings of Power is doing is far grander and far bigger. This is a lot of very, I don't wanna say smaller in size, but if it's a smaller amount of people who are vying back and forth with their political machinations.
Which is very interesting because if you don't know this, but when you bought the box set for the first season of Game of Thrones when it came out from HBO, there was a family tree inside of, with every character's picture under the person that, you know, is, they're playing. So if you were having trouble remembering the names of these people, you could go, okay, look for the face, look for the face. Okay, and he's playing this person. And I'm not getting that same feeling with House of the Dragon.
It's tighter. It's more contained, which is the same thing as tighter. Whereas with Game of Thrones, it was like, it was the biggest cast on television. Downton Abbey was right behind it.
It had like 30 main characters, which is why on the opening of every episode, they would only list the names of the people who were in that fucking episode. Exactly. And then the next fall was cast after that was the last three years of Saturday Night Live. Oh, damn.
We're not getting into that, by the way. But no, I feel like, I feel like Rings of Power is sort of taking on that bigger cast of characters and larger storylines that, yeah, it's gonna take forever to get to the point. Bear with them. House of the Dragon, you can easily say, I love this.
I'm in on this because it is contained because it hits the ground running. And it doesn't give you any place to breathe. Whereas with if you're watching an episode and you really like the Harfoots and guess what? They're not in it for a whole episode.
You're pissed off and walking away from your television going, that's it. I'm out. Which which is short-sighted. Yeah.
And unfortunate because I think what they're, what we are starting to see, especially I thought like season, episode six of season one. It was brilliant. Was great. It was amazing.
Everybody was complaining about action. There were some great action things in there. Great action and holy shit, I did not see that ending coming. Neither did I.
Can we talk spoiler for a second? Um, let's hold back on So, there are complaints about the timeline. And I can understand people being upset about that, but I'm more of a person where I'm like, well, let's wait and see. Let's see how they play this out.
And I say that as the person who was always my biggest complaint about Solo, a Star Wars story, was everything important about Han Solo happened on one weekend. And am I right? I mean, yeah. Okay, so I want to kind of have a wait-and-see attitude towards that.
But the things that they are kind of like adding in to the lore, I am loving. I'm praying to God it's not Gandalf, by the way. I'm hoping it's one of the blue wizards. I'm thinking it's the blue wizards.
I don't think they do as big a canon break as having Gandalf arriving in the second age. Yeah, that one might get more than a few eyebrows raised by everyone. Yeah, I would not be happy if that was a creative decision. But I'm loving things like Dern and Elrond.
I think their relationship and their chemistry is so much fun. Oh, that's like the best part of the fucking show right now. Was it episode 5 with the table? I fucking love that.
I love it so much. Yeah. It was great because, you know, how these are the tables from me. You push your luck, elf.
You know, because historically through all of, you know, Middle-earth history, elves and dwarves were kind of not the best of friends. So it's nice to see that. It feels like a, I don't know what you say, it's not a callback, it's not necessarily a foreshadowing, but it's a parallel to Legolas and Gimli in The Lord of the Rings. Which was one of the best parts of The Lord of the Rings as well.
And I like that you kind of have that, yeah, that parallel going on because I think that's a relationship that you need. Yes. I feel like when you add a man into the mix, like a relationship between a man and an elf, there's always more of a respect there or there is a resentment there. There's never a playfulness to it.
They're so serious. Yes. Elves are immortal, basically. Dwarves live a couple of hundred years.
And then men live about 70. So the idea, you know, and Tolkien, they go into great detail about how actually death is considered a gift to man because they won't have this long-lived weariness to themselves away from being away from the light of the Valinor and all sorts of stuff. And the show does hint at some of that too, which I like. But like I said, it's there if you know it.
If you don't, you're not going to be scratching your head about it. Yeah. And I just, I don't know, I like the idea that I can start my week on watching, what is the rogue prince Daemon Targaryen up to this week? What kind of shit has he got a fucking cause?
Who's gonna get fucked? I love it. And then at the end of the week. He's gonna get kicked out of it and then walk back into it 10 minutes later.
That's my beef with House of the Dragon right now, but we'll get to that. But like, that's kind of the point of this. I like starting my week on something that's really kind of lets me indulge in my deepest, darkest desires for power, for sex, for violence. Because I have all week to wish that I could.
And then Friday, I'm given a little bit of hope that things can get better by watching Rings of Power. That good triumphs. But that's also sort of like Tolkien's thing though, is the theme of hope throughout his works. And it's nice to see that it's being shown here.
Whether it's the humans who are trying to flee the orcs, Galadriel trying to make Middle-earth a better place by ridding it of Sauron. I'm honest, besides Elrond and Druid's relationship, I'm sticking around right now because I'm fucking in love with Halbrand. Not in love in love. Yes, I may be shipping him and Galadriel.
But no. That's not happening. Yeah, I know. I'm not the only one out there hoping for it, by the way.
Oh, I know. But no, actually, I think his story is very interesting, and I can't wait to see what's going on, because obviously we saw that he knows Andar. And I want to know why he ran. And even what he says to the people who ask him, are you the king that was promised?
And he pauses, and he says, yes. It was kind of a, there wasn't a responsibility behind it. It was almost kind of snarky and snarky. And I was like, you're an asshole right now.
I'm not liking you, but I love you. I think there is a great relationship between him and Galadriel that needs to be explored there. One of, as a compatriot and as a friend. And I think that down the road, if Halbrand, there is a theory going around that he could end up being the Witch King of Agmar.
I know Agmar is of the north. I get it. But I like the idea that he would be tempted by one of the rings. I could see him being the fallible kind who will have a fall like that.
Yeah. And one of the things that I think would be horrible about it is if it does come out of this idea of doomed romance. Not that he feels that if he has that power, he can take her. No.
I like the idea that he tries to prove himself by wanting to be seen as equal or worthy in her eyes. And he thinks that if he's able to do that, then she would love him back. Which he doesn't, or even would help with the immortality thing. We have not been introduced to her husband in this show.
I don't think he's going to be coming in. There's a reason why he hasn't been mentioned. So I think that would be an interesting play for his story. He doesn't have to be the Witch King of Agmar, but to have a fall like that.
I think that would play havoc with her. And a different, a version of loss that would be completely different from losing her brother. And the idea of an immortal forging a relationship, not necessarily a romantic one in this case, but a bond with a human that, again, is a recurring theme in Tolkien. Not just Aragorn, but also Baron and Lúthien.
Even Elrond's parents. Yes, Elrond's parents. Elrond's half-elf. His father is now a star.
So it's an idea that Tolkien went back to a couple of times. So if they were to do it again, I would have no problem with that, because that feels like it belongs here. And I think that respect, there may be a time where she thinks that she sees him as almost like a brother, and he sees her as more. That would be interesting, I think, to play.
Because I feel that elves always feel things more deeply because they have to last for centuries. Whereas with men, it's always about the immediate gratification. It's kind of, we don't live as long. So we can't drag it out.
We have to jump on it. We jump by our emotions. We are impulsive. And we also have another elf-human relationship in the show, too.
Which, again, it took them five episodes to kiss or so, but I'm fine with that. But I like the idea that the parallel economy here between a relationship between a man and an elf that could last and one that could fall. And I like the idea that power is also involved in there. Galadriel is a very powerful elf.
Halbrand is going to be a king. And then over on the other side, you have a foot soldier elf and a peasant girl. So I like the idea of what happens when power comes into play in these relationships. And I just like the fact that we're seeing relationships across a large strata of class as well.
To be honest, that's House of the Dragon. It's all just lords and ladies. For the most part. Yes, yes, it is.
But like we said, because it's so contained. And recent, up until recent, it hasn't been as emotionally... Even though the first four or five episodes were, they hit the ground running. They got the story moving.
It's still all set up. Doing that time jump, now the real work fucking begins. That time jump felt like, okay, boom. Now we have to set up again.
Yeah, it did. It felt like that for me. But you said it's like a second pilot. It is a second pilot.
But we're now seeing the ramifications of what those first four episodes did over 10 years to these characters. I mean, Alicent was just this very innocent, naive, kind of anxious, if you want to talk about her picking at her fingers, woman, or girl, when she married the king. And now she's Cersei Lannister in the fucking making. She's very manipulative.
Very... I'm loving her. Yes. Rhaenyra doesn't know how to play the game.
I don't think she's ever figured it out. I think she kind of goes at the, you know, tune of her own drum, or beat of her own drum. And here, she's fucked over one too many people by just going after her own desires. And now she's got to have to deal with what consequences come out of that.
So I like the idea of Daemon, who recently felt a great loss, have to try to bring his family, both his children and his niece and his brother, and all that back together. Which is interesting about... If I took it. And by the end of it, you know, she had said that she wanted to die a dragon rider's death.
She wasn't going to be a simpering little girl. So when the baby, her birthing went wrong, she goes outside and barbecue. Yes. Herself.
I will admit I was very fucking impressed and I respected her all the more for it. And it killed me watching Damon watch her do that. But if anyone understands that, I know he would. It revealed a more emotionally complex character than I think in the first four or five episodes, it's just Damon's a dick.
He's a dick, but we fucking love it. He's a dick. Oh yeah, yeah. He's one of those, oh, bad guys we love to hate.
Well, I knew that there was gonna be emotional complexity when he had two bouts of impotence in certain sections of the first couple episodes. And always at moments that you, he's always thinking of doing something horrible. So like the whole section of the first episode when he's being glib about the baby, he couldn't screw a girl in the brothel. And then when he takes Rhaenyra out on her, you know, we're gonna dress you as a peasant so you can see the outside world.
Prince of the popper trip. Yeah, her eye-opening adventure. He takes her into a brothel and you can see he's out. He wants to fuck his niece.
And I, oh, I was down for it. It's the Targaryens, okay? They gotta keep the bloodline pure. How they don't all have webbed feet and are like the Habsburgs of the Westeros.
I have no idea. Not physical disabilities, but there's a reason why the Mad King was, you know. Yeah. And no, I, he couldn't.
And the reason why he was doing it was he was trying to taint her reputation. And I think that's the one person who he really understands and understands him and accepts him for just who he is. Good, bad, and all the ugly parts in between. And knowing that he was gonna be doing something that horrible to her, he couldn't do it.
So I think those moments show that he was definitely a lot more emotionally complex than we gave him credit for. And this last episode where we jumped 10 years and are now seeing him just kind of sitting in a library reading. Like, what? Are you kidding me?
Yeah, it's time to mellow out a little. Yeah, and that's exactly what he did. He mellowed out. He's fine when you get him away from his fucking family.
We're starting to see, like, the next generation of cousins starting to come into the story. We're seeing them being warned about, hey, if, you know, your life might be in danger if certain political things happen. We're seeing a little bit of, like, rivalry amongst the cousins and stuff like that. Do you think at some point we're probably gonna get another time jump?
No. No, but I do think we are gonna be in all-out war over the next couple episodes. Because, come on, Viserys Targaryen is not lasting much longer. He's a walking corpse.
Well, I'll be honest. I want to see another time jump just because I don't want to be with, like, a bunch of 10 and 14-year-olds in the story. I'd rather see them as, you know, younger men in their early 20s. And I think that allows for more dramatic storytelling possibilities.
Yes and no. I like the idea of keeping them young because, like with Game of Thrones, we get to watch them grow into something greater. If we jump the 10 years again, not only are you setting up pretty much a third pilot, you're gonna make the characters that we are— our main in the story, supporting, and you're gonna be taking away watching that journey of how they get to, how those kids get to that spot. I think you can do that with your main characters, but you can't do it with your supporting.
Make them main, and then take your main characters and push them down into the supporting. It's just not gonna work. Also, in Westeros, people grow up a lot younger. Like, girls are married at 13, 12.
Boys are married and going off to war probably by the age of 15 or 16. We've had multiple kings in Game of Thrones universe who were very, very young, like Joffrey and Tommen. By the way, that window has gone through enough. Yes.
No more needs to be said. That window has seen things. Tommen jumped out of that window. Remember in Swan Guy?
And now Daemon's got a son. That's how I managed to show you when we're off air. No, that's okay. No, it's just a photo.
I mean, but no, I like that before the story was in Game of Thrones, it's very kind of patriarchal. It's all about the men. And here, it's the same way, but I think our vying for power is going to be between women. I mean, yeah, we had that with, you know, our Khaleesi and Cersei Lannister in the other Game of Thrones.
But it was the men all around them that were kind of, let's keep you down, let's keep you down. Whereas here, Sarah's going to be flat out just between the two of them. And this is why we should be on video because I just slammed my fists into each other. Oh, yeah, they're definitely gonna lock horns.
Yeah. And I like that because we're, this is, this is definitely a show that is setting up the idea of a patriarchy and how a woman, a queen ruling could never, ever be accepted. There was a great scene, and I think like the second or third episode where you had the Velaryon princess, I can't remember her name, and Rhaenyra talking on the balcony. You know what scene I'm talking about.
That was a great fucking scene. That was such a respectful talk about power and the patriarchy and how a woman could never be seen as a ruler, that our battlefield is in childbirth. That is how we keep it going. I think the tragedy of the story is shaping up to be that these two friends ultimately are on opposite sides, that they now have to go through these Machiavellian machinations in order to keep their families alive, to, you know, ensure that they stay safe.
And they're kind of like a Cold War enemies with each other. We're starting to see the pieces on the board moving into place. We've had our first spill of blood. Oi, not good, by the way.
No. And Viserys is not long for this world. I have a feeling either tonight's episode or next week's episode, he's a goner. Yeah.
Who's ever the first king is in a Game of Thrones show, you're not gonna last. That's the end of the season. Sorry, Patty. I really like you.
Yeah, I'm enjoying him. He's great in this. He's so good. Yeah, but I'm so used to seeing him in more comedic roles.
So seeing him play this dramatic character, by the way, when he kicks the shit out of Matt Smith in like episode three or four, I had a night to his throat. I believed it. I believed it. But no, I'm really enjoying this.
I like the idea that these are the perfect bookends to my week. The only thing that I'm kind of bummed about is right now, we have what, four episodes of House of the Dragon because it's a 10 episode season, right? But Rings of Power is an eight episode season, so we've only got two more left. So we can't quite, you know, do a wrap-up show for both of them.
But I think at some point, we definitely will revisit both of these series as we're talking here. I hope that they will always be airing like the same week. Like that really, Amazon, HBO, if you're listening, please have these two shows going at the exact same time. One, it'll do great things for your ratings.
You're not stealing ratings from each other. No. It's a rising tide that's lifting all boats. Yeah, and I do like that it kind of bookends, as I just said, bookends my week.
It gives me something to always look forward to. Well, on that note, though, I think we're going to wrap this up for this week. You can find The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. And you can find Game of Thrones, House of the Dragons on HBO and HBO Max.
Now, I'm not sure when we're going to be back. I'm thinking maybe two weeks. That's like the lull weekend between all of our craziness that we have in our individual schedules. You're not kidding.
Not sure what it's going to be yet, what we talk about. Maybe we'll do something for Spooky Season. Yes, maybe. Just keep an eye on your podcasting feeds.
And we'll be back this month. Yes. Remember, you can find us online at bigpicturepod.com. And we are now available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play.
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