GAME (BACK) ON

Hey, Thronies!

It’s that time of year again: the eighth and final season has finally begun for Game of Thrones, the most notorious perpetrator of fan abuse in the history of entertainment. Not only does the show routinely kill off its seemingly most important, fan-favorite characters, it’s been 20 months since the last episode of Season 7 aired.

Yes, it’s been a long dry spell, but now the Internet is burning up with commentary, predictions, crackpot theories and wild-ass speculation. And since you can already read tons of that stuff online, you don’t need to hear it from me. But here’s the thing: whatever show runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss do with the plot, devoted fans deserve a rip-roaring finale that stays true to the characters so painstakingly crafted over the previous seven seasons.

Jon Snow and Daenerys: compatible story arcs

Patience has thus far been rewarded for viewers who have picked up on characters with the most interesting story arcs since the beginning. Like Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), the girl who talks to dragons, bartered bride-turned-queen of a massive army of freed slaves.

Jon Snow (Kit Harrington), long assumed to be the bastard son of Ned Stark (the show’s nominal hero, until he was ruthlessly exterminated at the end of Season 1), has been testing his mettle and honing his conscience up in the frozen North for most of the series. (Hint: building a wall against your perceived enemies is always a stupid idea.)

Jon is honest to a fault — a fault the size of the San Andreas. He’s incapable of not telling the whole truth, even when a little minor dissembling might get better results. Remember at the end of last season, when he led a delegation of leaders to the odious Queen Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) to secure her help in fighting off the encroaching White Walker zombie menace?  When Cersei demanded his loyalty, he just couldn’t bring himself not to mention that his first allegiance was to fellow delegate (and lover-to-be) Daenerys.

Cersei and Jaime: shocked, shocked, to learn his sister lied

He should learn to borrow a page from Cersei’s own playbook. After pretending to join the alliance, the cold-blooded vixen revealed her true plan to her brother (and lover; it’s complicated), Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who was shocked . . . shocked, to learn that, despite her promise, she would not send her army to the fight, hoping the zombies and all her rivals would kill each other off so she could rule whatever's left of the realm unchallenged.

Then there’s Tyrion Lannister, Cersei and Jaime’s wily, outcast dwarf brother, one of the few other characters in the show with a consistently functioning moral compass. As played by the inimitable Peter Dinklage, Tyrion’s dry wit and sense of justice have propelled the series through many a rough patch. Statisticians who follow these things report that ratings go up even higher for episodes featuring Tyrion.

Tyrion: on the lookout for an exit strategy

Who doesn’t want to see Dinklage earn another Emmy? We didn’t see much of him in the season 8 opener, but there’ll be all kinds of hell to pay if the writers haven’t dreamed up a magnificent exit strategy for Tyrion by season’s end.

Okay, it’s weird that the last two seasons are no longer based on the novels in George R. R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice and Fire series, the books that spawned the show. As consultant and godfather to the show (he’s gotten a script credit on all 73 episodes so far), Martin simply hasn’t had time to finish the next (possibly final) book in the series. Which means Benioff and Weiss (supposedly with input from Martin) are now making up the end of the story as they go along.

So, even when the curtain rings down on Season 8, it still might not be the end. The show runners may or may not be sticking to Martin’s vision, or they might be concocting an alternative story of their own. It could all be “what if . . . ?” speculation, entirely different from whatever we find in Martin’s next novel when it finally hits the bookshelves (if it ever does), inviting fans to choose sides behind their favorite version. Ensuring that the GoT legend just goes on and on.

Oh, consider the possibilities!

PS: Forget about who will sit on the Iron Throne. The mystery I want solved is, what happened to Jon Snow’s loyal white direwolf, Ghost?

THE WAR AT HOME

Political made personal in lush, heartfelt 'Testament of Youth'

It was called the war to end all wars. Its effects were so cataclysmic, no one who lived through what we now know as the First Worlds War, either in the trenches or on the homefront, could ever conceive that there might be another one.

Vera Brittain was a young Englishwoman whose studies at Oxford were derailed by the war. She wrote of her wartime experiences in the memoir, Testament of Youth, published in 1933, when, incredibly, the international drumbeat had already begun for the march toward the Second World War.

Brittain's book is a very personal view of the effects of the war on an entire generation, particularly the women—mothers, fiancées, sisters, friends—left behind.

It was adapted as a TV miniseries back in the 1970s. And now comes a powerful new feature film, Testament Of Youth, directed by TV movie veteran James Kent.

Adapted by Juliette Towhidi (Calendar Girls), the film is both searing and heartfelt. By maintaining Brittain's focus on the minutiae of women's daily lives, and the gradual, inevitable encroachment of the war that leaves no aspect of those lives unscathed, the film paints a very broad canvas in very delicate strokes of all that is lost in the brutality of war.

Egerton, Vikander, Harrington, Morgan: no idea what lies ahead.

 The film begins in the clamor of Armistice Day, 1918, with people thronging the streets in hysterical celebration. Flashback to the summer of 1914, in the idyllic English countryside of Buxton, where 19-year-old Vera Brittain (Alicia Vikander, last seen as the oh-so-sentient robot in Ex Machina), and her 17-year-old brother, Edward (Taron Egerton), are entertaining Edward's school chum, Victor (Colin Morgan) with a swim in the lake.

The talk of the Brittain household is Edward's impending graduation from preparatory school and acceptance at Oxford. Vera also dreams of attending Oxford to study English literature, but their father (Dominic West) considers it a useless expense for a girl—he wants her to find a husband instead.

Vikander as Vera: Oxford bound.

Just when volatile Vera is denouncing marriage as a barrier to women's self-expression and freedom, another of Edward's school friends arrives, Roland Leighton (Kit Harrington). An amateur poet himself, smitten with prickly Vera, he makes all the wrong moves trying to befriend her—until he encourages her to write.

During the next year, they become pen pals and soulmates, exchanging poems and fueling each others' dreams.

The lush, pastoral nature of these early domestic scenes, and the languorous pace with which Kent and Towhidi set them up, show what is sacrificed to war, in terms of lifestyle, dreams, and, of course, promising young lives.

Harrington and Vikander: collateral damage

When the young men graduate the next year, war is looming. Edward helps Vera convince their father to let her take the entrance exams for Oxford, and she's thrilled when she's accepted.

But by then, Edward, Roland, and Victor have already signed up to go "fight the Huns" in Europe—with no earthly idea of what awaits them there.

Vera soon disappoints her headmistress (Miranda Richardson) by quitting Oxford to volunteer as a nurse.

The hospital scenes can be harrowing, but no less so than Vera's attempts to reconnect with her psychologically damaged friends after they've been to the front, or the heartache of letting them go again.

Vikander, Richardson: left behind.

The eagerness of these young people to make a difference, to be a part of something larger than themselves, can't be faulted. But the more experienced she becomes (at a field hospital in France, she tends German as well as English soldiers), the more fervently Vera believes that war itself is the enemy, a lie to seduce young men into madness.

Vikander is luminous as Vera, with Egerton buoyant as brother Edward. Harrington (aka Jon Snow in Game of Thrones) makes a properly romantic Roland, but the real find is Colin Morgan, warm and dynamic as their friend, Victor.

And director Kent has a shrewd eye for telling details: an island of women waving goodbye as a troop train pulls out; a church pew full of mourning women in black on Armistice Day; innocuous objects the eye zeroes in on while a woman receives devastating news on the phone.

It's these personal details that make the film so hauntingly universal.

The real-life Edward Brittain, Roland Leighton, and Victor Richardson, ca 1915

DIRE STRAITS

Buckle your sword belts, folks. It's that time of year that Game of Thrones fans fear above all others—the end of the season. Which means the dreaded season finale is almost upon us. (Tonight, to be exact.)

Never in the history of the cathode ray tube has a popular TV series so relentlessly abused its loyal fans as GoT. Based on the mammoth series of books by George R. R. Martin, still being penned as we speak (five volumes and counting), this is a series that ended its first season with the decapitation of the guy everyone assumed was the hero.

It was as if Don Draper got run over by a cab after one season, or Walter White blew himself up in a meth lab. Talk about the element of surprise! 

Since then, dedicated Thronies understand that their favorite characters are on shaky ground with each new episode. No one is safe, however high up in the narrative food chain they appear to be. "Trust No One," as they used to say on The X-Files, and the ones we don't trust the most are the GoT writers.

Dinklage as Tyrion: don't call him a hero

And Martin gives them plenty of opportunity to wreak mayhem. His books are set in a fantasy world not unlike the Late Middle Ages in Europe; transport is via horseback, ship or on foot, weapons are forged steel, and combat is hand-to-hand.

And there's plenty of it, with some 10 to a dozen royal houses and various upstart factions (I tend to lose count after about seven or eight), from an increasingly broad spectrum of neighboring and foreign lands, all vying for the Iron Throne, whose king or queen rules all. (Nominally, at least.)

Daenerys and her alpha dragon: timely reappearance

Fortunately, as the GoT universe expands, there are plenty of heroes to go around—along with anti-heroes, would-be heroes, and characters who occasionally blunder into heroism by sheer accident, not to mention antagonists and outright villains. Lots and lots of the latter, villains for whose demise we avidly root for.

Sadly, villains in the GRRM universe seem to have a much longer shelf life than the good guys. But when they do meet their just deserts, oh boy, look out!

Like last year's Season 4 finale (SPOILER ALERT if you're still catching up with it on Netflix), when Tyrion Lannister finally put an end to the evil schemes of his reprehensible Daddy Dearest. Thronies were screaming like demented World Cup fanatics.

Harrington: Snowblind

Tyrion, the witty, roguish dwarf played to acerbic precision by the great Peter Dinklage, continues to be the best reason to watch the show. This year, Season 5, has fulfilled the promise of its teaser poster by sending Tyrion on a fateful (and not entirely voluntary) voyage to the Eastern realm of dragon girl Daenerys (Emilia Clarke); one of the baby dragons she helped to hatch in the first season made a timely reappearance—all grown up now, thanks very much—in last week's episode.

Fans have been waiting a long time for Tyrion and Daenerys to join forces, since they are two of the very few characters we consistently root for. A third is Jon Snow (Kit Harrington), bastard son of initial hero Ned Stark (now deceased). Jon Snow always tries to do the right thing; exiled to the monk-like brotherhood of the Night's Watch, he's been elected their commander—just in time to lead a desperate campaign against the undead armies of the demonic White Walkers.

All three of these characters were in extremely dire straits as of last week. The suspense is killing me.

(But, sshhhh, don't call them heroes! We know what happens to them.)

Btw, if you fear GoT withdrawals after the imminent end of Season 5, get ready for: Game of Thrones: The Muscal! No, not really, but that's the premise of this very funny video in which Chris Martin of Coldplay envisions just such a horrible hybrid—to the dismay of several cast members. 12 minutes, complete with songs—check it out!

Also, if you needs further proof that Time Marches On, here's a fabulous fun pic of the kids of GoT back in 2009, when they were first cast. (The series debuted on HBO in 2011.) That's little Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) in front, Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy), Richard Madden (Robb Stark), and, yes, that's Kit Harrington (Jon Snow).

GAME ON

What else is new in Game of Thrones?

Don't have enough drama in your daily life? Fear not: Game of Thrones, Season 4, begins tonight!

Why should we care? Because this show has everything—faux history, fabulous costumes, immense production values, sexy men and ballsy women (tough enough to make Katniss Everdeen look like Honey Boo-Boo), absorbing plots and counterplots, one of the coolest opening credit sequences ever devised for TV, and an irresistible component of dark magic.

Even the music is addictive; the opening theme has been the default setting in my brain for over a year.

Based on the ongoing epic fantasy book series by George R. R. Martin, the story unfolds in a Britain-like mythical realm called Westeros, with seven royal houses (and a few more upstarts) vying for the Iron Throne. There's a Hadrian-like wall in the frozen North, built to keep out the Wildling tribes (read: Picts and Scots) on the other side, and hordes of exotic chieftans, warlords and armies massing across the sea in the East.

From a traveling Game of Thrones costume exhibit

But don't think for a moment that this is a Lord of the Rings-type deal with nothing but one incomprehensible battle scene after another. There's plenty of violence in the GoT universe—most of it directed at what we thought were lead characters, in stunning reversals of what we believe to be the "rules" of series TV—but very little of it occurs on the battlefield. The body count rises thanks to treachery and betrayal, fomented by a world-class cast of schemers.

Who doesn't love Tyrion, that sly rogue?

Don't laugh when I say that GoT is character-driven. If we weren't so invested in the characters—and appalled, yet fascinated at their frequent inhumanity to each other—we wouldn't keep coming back. But from the execution of nominal hero and clan patriarch Ned Stark at the end of Season 1, faithful Thronees have come to realize that no character is safe, however beloved.

And yet, it's hard not to get attached. Take the sublime Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister. A randy, frequently drunken dwarf, despised by his powerful father and underestimated by his enemies, his intelligence, acerbic one-liners, and innate moral compass (it's not his fault he was born into the reprehensible Lannister clan) make him the heart and soul (not to mention wit) of the show.

Plus, he's the only one to talk straight to the Devil-spawn boy king, Joffrey, his nephew (played to venal perfection by Jack Gleeson), reason enough to cheer Tyrion on.

Jon Snow has some 'splaining to do

Then there's the (rapidly dwindling) remainder of the Stark clan. Bastard son Jon Snow (Kit Harington), consecrated to the Night Watch, the monk-like brotherhood that guards the wall, always tries to do the right thing. But his betrayal of a Wildling woman who loved him last season will surely come back to haunt him—as well it should.

Budding little swordswoman, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) continues her Junior Woodchuck training in the forest with her reluctant protector, The Hound (Rory McCann), until such time as she can avenge her father's death. Meanwhile, her older sister, Sansa (Sophie Turner), under permanent house arrest with the Lannisters at the royal seat, King's Landing, has just been married off to Tyrion.

We can only hope the little goose comes to realize how lucky she is!

The story arc for Jamie Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is also undergoing reconstruction. At first, the despicable "Kingslayer, and, ahem, "uncle" to the boy king, whose mother is Jamie's devious sister, Cersei (Lena Headey), the golden boy of Clan Lannister may be be on the road to redemption.

Largely due to his odyssey last season with his former captor, noble-hearted Amazonian warrior woman Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie), for whose safety and virtue Jamie ultimately risked his life and lost his hand.

The divine Diana Rigg is in here too, as somebody's elegant, sharp-tongued granny, cheerfully cracking wise and lacerating the pompous while trying to arrange a royal marriage at King's Landing.

And never count out Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), last surviving member of a deposed royal family.

Daenerys, the Dragon Whisperer

 Sure, she seems like a little blonde pushover, but she's one smart cookie. Not only did she have the sense to make a steadfast ally out of the "savage" Klingon warlord she was married off to, she's quietly amassing an army of devoted former slaves she has freed in the East while raising the three equally devoted—and growing—dragons that she has nurtured from infancy.

Of course, as in anything this epic, not every single plotline works. There's way too much torture, so much so that Thronees have a hard time remembering who's being racked by which faction. I'm sick of the witch who whips everyone into a religious frenzy. And what the heck happened to all the Direwolf pups each of the Stark offspring were given to raise in the first season? Especially Jon Snow's white wolf Ghost, who accompanied him to the wall, but now seems to have disappeared.

Nobody knows what will happen next (except those spoilsports who have already read the books).  After the infamous Red Wedding from Season 3, all we know for sure is the plot will thicken, more heads will undoubtedly roll—and those dragons are getting bigger!