Recap: After the Thrones, HBO’s “Epic Weekly Recap Show,” Episode 3
The third episode of After the Thrones, HBO’s in-house “Epic Weekly Recap Show,” has arrived, as it will be every Monday, after the latest episode of Game of Thrones has aired.
After the Thrones was created by executive producer Bill Simmons. Its hosts are author, screenwriter, and critic Andy Greenwald and writer/editor Chris Ryan, from Simmons’ upcoming content site, The Ringer. this week, Andy and Chris are joined by guest Mallory Rubin for the “Ask The Expert” segment.
An About After the Thrones video PR clip has appeared, and the show itself has been retooled and reformatted a bit, with both positive and less-positive results. After the usual exuberant hellos, Andy and Chris jump straight into the map, pinpointing where each major character is and discussing their statuses in “Oathbreaker.” They begin with Jon, and the boys make an interesting point:
"Chris: “This was the thing that interested me the most because this was obviously the most overt religious imagery we’ve ever dealt with on the show. He’s essentially a Christ-like figure coming back to life, apparently with a big destiny to fulfill. But Davos brings it back to a very secular, humanist level, in which he says ‘you may not have a mission, there may not be something beyond the next world or even in the next world. Your mission is to fail and fail again.”Andy: “Just to keep doubling down on the religious imagery: humility, being penitent, this idea of almost kneeling before the enormity of your task and probably failing at it, that’s not a way that most people have ever taken power in this world. You play the game of thrones to win, not to fail.”"
Arya Stark’s character is awarded WHO WON THE WEEK for regaining her sight and leveling up to No One.
When the hosts discuss the much-needed funny moments in the Meereen storyline, I liked how they identified the narrative functions of the Davos and Tyrion characters:
"Chris: “As much as we talk about Davos and his role as the audience surrogate on the show because he is really representing our morality and humanity and basically being like ‘I don’t know what just happened—we just have to keep trying,’ Tyrion kind of represents our modern selves: he’s dependent on connection, on communication, on stories and recreation, and he’s the guy who’s spent, the times he wasn’t literally in a box, wandering the world map saying ‘that’s amazing’ and ‘that’s incredible,’ and he makes a pretty strong case for how the world should actually be run, here.”"
The selection for the weekly WHO THE F!&K WAS THAT award was Kevan Lannister. Personally, I would have chosen Smalljon Umber for that honor, because his appearance coincides with a big twist.
In THE BIG IDEA segment, Chris and Jon identify a major theme taking root in Game of Thrones: how the next generation is rising to take power while the established generation is fading out. Young characters like Arya, Jon, and Sansa are shedding their old skins and taking on new ones, and the decimated Stark family appears to be on the brink of reshaping the world.
Mallory Rubin returns in the ASK THE EXPERT segment. She plows into the Bran storyline and the immense anticipation among fans regarding the Tower of Joy sequence. If you’re a casual viewer of this show, it’s a confusing moment, history-wise and who-is-that-character-wise, and Mallory does a good job explaining what’s going on.
The hosts and Mallory PREVIEW next week’s episode, and I felt the best question raised was “where is Jon off to?”
About the Thrones has retooled its format a bit, rearranging segments and reducing its use of swooping graphics, which made the transitions between subjects more seamless. There’s less fluff, especially at the beginning, and more depth and meat in the subject matter. This may be the show responding to fan criticism, and while it’s never going to make this a down and dirty, critical, minutiae-mining program, I thought there was more depth this week.
I’d like to remind hardcore fans that After the Thrones is a recap show for casual viewers who enjoy the program even though they haven’t read the books; the show, with its myriad of storylines and conspiracies, its immense unseen history, and its characters who pop onscreen with minimum introduction, can be confusing to people who only tune into this universe once a week for 10 weeks out of every year. It’s a lot for the uninitiated to swallow, and the bright humor of the hosts provides the spoonful of sugar required.
On the flip side, I’ll say that the hosts looked a bit uncomfortable with the new formatting, and were constantly glancing off stage while talking—this made me feel off-balance, because when the angles changed, it appeared as if the hosts were constantly looking at the wrong cameras. Greenwald looked a bit anxious, and his normally free-flowing humor felt a bit rushed in places. At the end, as soon as the hosts signed off and the set lights go down, Greenwald asks Mallory “How did we do?” and while her response is positive, it was odd.
It looks like After the Thrones is experiencing some growing pains, which is to be expected. I hope HBO isn’t pushing for too many changes because, love it or hate it, the show caters to the casual audience I mention above, and nothing is worse than a show like this when its forced off its natural course of development and turned into a half-arsed version of something else.