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Recap of Thrones 6.2 – Home
Practical Will: Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure a Comedy by William Shakespeare
Fun Fact: Measure for Measure is the only Shakespearean play to have a thematic title. Can you find the theme? Here goes!
The Duke "goes on vacation" but is really disguised as a friar so he can observe the goings on in his hood. He leaves wet blanket Angelo in charge, who isn't getting any, so he decides no one else can get any either. He arrests Claudio for knocking up Juliet out of wedlock, even though they are totally in love and ready to tie the knot, to which Angelo says, "Too bad, they should have thought of that before they did the nasty. " Isabella, Claudio's virgin sister, pleads with Angelo to release her brother. Angelo agrees, but only if Isabella gives him a little something-something in return (hint: her virginity.) Isabella refuses and goes to her brother, thinking the request will appall him and that he would rather man up and take the death penalty than let his lil' sis be tarnished. But Claudio is all like, "Well you could do me this solid... death is pretty scary when all you have to do is whore yourself... and it would be whoring yourself for good, which isn't really a sin."
Isabella isn't prepared to take one for the team and Angelo threatens that if she tells anyone about his offer, he will ruin her reputation. So what's a girl to do? Good thing The Duke is still in town and has heard all about her dilemma. So The Duke and Isabella, along with Angelo's ex, Mariana (they were engaged but he dumped her right before the wedding) plot to entrap Angelo with his own anti-sex laws. They basically pull what, in sex terms, is called "The Houdini." Angelo thinks he's going to bone Isabella, but actually bones Mariana in disguise. Just before the big reveal scene, The Duke decides to tell Isabella her brother has already been executed, because he just can't wait to see the look on her face when she finds out her brother is alive, oh burn! Angelo is called out for breaking his own pre-marital sex laws and it is revealed he secretly banged his ex, and is now forced to marry her. So I guess things work out for Mariana after all? But Isabella is still bummed about her brother being dead, until wait, it's revealed he's alive! Isabella is so happy she doesn't even question the mix-up and accepts The Duke's marriage proposal, because after a lot of serious personal and political meddling, who doesn't love a happy ending?!
Recap of Thrones 6.1 – The Red Woman
If you're not caught up on season 5, watch HBO's previously on above, or read my GoT Round-Up post.
Enter at your own risk - SPOILERS OBVS
Practical Will: Coriolanus
The Tragedy of Coriolanus a Tragedy by William Shakespeare
Coriolanus, or as he's referred to early on in the play, Caius Martius, is a Roman war hero, who is also a bit of a stuck-up, arrogant snob. The people of Rome are rioting because the upper-crust refuses to give them corn, Cori puts all the Plebeians on blast for being greedy for wanting food. Understandably so, everyone in Rome hates Cori because of his tude, they're close to banishing him altogether, but they first need him to win one more battle. So they send big-bad Cori to Coriloi (hint: this is where he gets his new aka) to fight the evil Volscians (not related to Star Trek). Only one big snafu occurs and Cori is locked inside the city alone. He shows just how badass he is, by single-handedly killing all the evil Volscians, for which the city gives him the new moniker, Coriolanus.
Cori returns to Rome and is now super popular, the Plebeians forget all about how much of a dick he was before. So he decides to run for office, but in order to do so, he needs to humbly ask for votes, which he's really not good at. When Cori loses the election he is pissed, he's like, "I cannot believe those gross poor people didn't vote for spectacular me. I mean I am the best, I would vote for me!" So he teams up with his arch nemesis Aufidius to teach Rome a lesson for not making him their leader. All of Cori's female relatives come up on him like, "Son, you're overreacting just a tad, maybe don't burn your hometown to the ground just because you weren't voted most popular." After some sweet talk, he agrees and returns to Rome without his army. But Aufi is even more his enemy now for backing out of their deal and insights another riot, which results in Cori being brutally stabbed by dozens of Plebs in the street. Almost immediately after his death, everyone decides, "Oh actually Cori wasn't that bad a guy, he did risk his life for everyone a bunch. He was just kinda into himself." And so Cori is basically martyred and remembered as a war hero, instead of the greedy, classist he was.
Game of Thrones: Pre-Premiere Round-Up
Game of Thrones Season 6 premieres on Sunday, April 24th at 9pm EST.
It's spring time and that can only mean one thing... winter is coming.
Ah yes, the long awaited season 6 of Game of Thrones will soon grace us with its presence! A time when both book lovers and TV fanatics can gather round and debate who wore it best. Only difference with season 6 is those darn book readers have nothing up on the TV lovers, the HBO series (with season 6) will officially surpass the literary timeline, meaning no more spoilers from those pesky bookworms! So now that we're starting fresh, I decided to make GoT Season 6 my newest recap series.
Now I know a lot of you can barely keep all of these characters straight, let alone their relation to one another and the GoT universe, so here I've made for you a handy-dandy round-up of where we left off with each major story-line at the end of season 5, and with all the material HBO has released on season 6 thus far, predictions of where the new season is going. Now keep in mind, I am a fan of the TV series, I have not read any of the books, I tried once but George (Rest and Relaxation) Martin just gets way too descriptive with the feasts and I got lost. But it doesn't matter, the best thing is, there's no one that has read ahead of me to tell me I'm wrong! So for now, the possibilities are all in my favor to be 100% accurate in my predictions, though we know Thrones always throws us for a tailspin once the fans think they're onto the right theory.
I digress, anyway... to make sense of the multitude of characters, locations and overlapping timelines I've broken down my round-up into region (Westeros and Essos), further broken down by sub-region and character group (we all need our squads), and then I included separate categories for characters that are missing from season 6 teases and those that are (presumed) dead. I give you, Round-up of Thrones!
Do I even need to warn you about SPOILERS?!
Click the links below to follow your favorite characters into Season 6!
MISSING IN ACTION | PRESUMED DEAD
Click to view more HBO TEASERS, TRAILERS, STILLS!
Practical Will: Love’s Labour’s Lost
Love's Labour's Lost A Comedy by William Shakespeare
Honestly I was lost most of the time. There's not much story to this one, it's all in the wordplay. So much of this play is written in verse and Shakespeare takes a lot of time with the characters' dialogue. What's really interesting about the last of Shakespeare's comedies is that it's also one of the only stories that can be completely attributed to Shakespeare. Not many people know this, but Shakespeare was more of an adapter than an original story-teller. Lost in particular cannot be traced back to any earlier work, rather, Shakespeare based it off two distinct classes of Elizabethan time, basic country bumpkins and the royals. Which basically accounts for his audience, both English commoners along with Queen Elizabeth attended the Christmas production of Lost.
What I was able to surmise from the play is not much, but here goes. The King of Navarre and his royal dudes decide to take an oath of celibacy for 3 years, in order to improve their studies. But the Princess of France is in town with her girls and word is they are all DTF, putting the royal dudes in a pickle. Meanwhile, in the country, all the simple bros are into this one dairy wench, Jaquenetta (I know, great name!) I really can't keep any other names straight, so one dude writes her a love letter, meanwhile another dude writes one of the royal ladies a love letter, and of course, they get mixed up. Fast forward, the men go to the women disguised as Russians (for some reason) but someone has already tipped off the gals and they also exchange their identities. Then there's a play within the play, which is broken up by news that the Princess' father, King of France has died and she must return. Navarre pleads with the Princess to stay with him, but she's like, "Yo I got a funeral to plan. Why don't you take that vow of celibacy again, but for a year? If you're still standing after that, we can talk." And then she peaces. Then there's a song about a year passing, the end.
ESPN Journalist Wears “Caucasians” Shirt on Air
Bomani Jones, an ESPN journalist, wore a shirt mocking the Cleveland Indians in light of a movement to get rid of all racist mascots. Molly Qerim gets right to it and calls out all the sports teams currently marketing offensive mascots: Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians, Florida State Seminoles, Atlanta Braves, she forgot the Kansas City Chiefs, but the list goes on and on in minor leagues. Sports fans and team owners have been trying to defend their blatantly stereotypical usage of Native culture as simply, celebrating their own history and tradition as a sports team, similar to the argument wavers of the confederate flag spew. Many white fragilists took to Twitter to express their hurt feelings, only to be put in check for hypocrisy. I'm confused, do these Twitter mongers not understand sarcasm? I thought it was a give in. If someone is going to call you out for being offensive, you can't respond by childishly saying, "Treat others as you wish to be treated," if you're then going to continue giving them swirlies like the playground bully you are. It's a two-way street people, if you're not blantanly mocking someone's culture, then they won't have to call you out for it, will they? Bomani explains his choice to wear the shirt best,
"The reason they won’t get rid of Chief Wahoo — it’s completely indefensible — is because they can still sell stuff with it. They can say they’re going to de-emphasize it, but they’re not going to set money on fire. If you’re quiet about the Indians and now you’ve got something to say about my shirt, I think it’s time for introspection."As a white person, I personally prefer this style because I think it's more indicative of true Caucasian culture. I mean, backwards sunglasses, that's the coolest... Right?
Practical Will: Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Pericles, Prince of Tyre A Comedy* by William Shakespeare
It's a seafaring adventure with Pirates y'all! So Pericles is a Prince who parties his way over to Antioch and figures out that the King is incesting with his daughter, gross. Pericles now has a hit out on him, so he takes to the high seas, and gets washed up in Pentopolis, where the Princess Thaisa is up for grabs at a jousting tournament. Pericles enters and wins, of course. Fast-forward, she gets knocked up and they decide to move. So they set sail and Thaisa gives birth during a very nasty storm, and ends up "dying" during childbirth. The shipmates are superstitious about having a dead body aboard so they make Pericles throw her over. Pericles makes a really nice coffin with all her jewels and shit and tosses his Queen overboard, cold. Pericles can't even think about being a single dad so he sails his new baby, Marina, over to his bro's island and asks him and his wife to care for her. Meanwhile, Thaisa's coffin washes up on shore and some dudes find her and work some magic to bring her back to life. Now Thaisa thinks her daughter is dead and her husband is gone for good, so she becomes a nun, because what else would she do?
Fast-forward again, Marina is 14 and the people her pops dropped her off with are not cool. In fact, they are planning to kill her but she's suddenly kidnapped by Pirates, yes PIRATES! They sell her to a brothel, because as a noble 14-year-old virgin, she's a hot commodity. But Marina refuses to whore herself for some reason, she's threatened with rape constantly, but every time she's alone with a man, she somehow talks them out of it. Meanwhile, Pericles gets word that the King and Queen of Antioch are dead and he can return as King of Tyre, he's like, "Great! Let me just pick up my daughter and we out!" But when he goes to his bro's island, he's like, "Sorry, she dead."
Pericles is pissed, he thinks his wife and daughter are dead. Some dude overhears and is like, "Yo, I've got just the thing to cheer you up, I've got the ill brothel hook up." So this guy brings Pericles to, none other than, Marina, gross. Pericles and Marina have a pity off, where Marina reveals her parents' names, Pericles can't believe he's reunited with his daughter, and just in time not to have sex with her! Pericles then faints and has a vision telling him to go to this temple, which he does obviously, because why are you not going to listen to the Gods? So Pericles goes to the temple where Thaisa is and tells the nuns his story, apparently he can't recognize his wife, but she sees him and is like, "Hey dumbass, I'm alive, thanks for throwing me off your fucking ship! You're going to be sleeping on the couch for a while!" And so Pericles is reunited with his wife and daughter, returns to Tyre as King, and lives happily ever after.
*Shakespeare canon is split up into Tragedies, Comedies and Histories, however Pericles' classification has been debated and is sometimes put into a separate Romances category.
Phat Girls II: 50 Curvy Women Breaking Boundaries
In case you haven't noticed, curvy women are taking over the world. Now society has taught us that thin = beautiful, but my readers have proved this beauty myth false by making my original Phat Girls list, my most popular post ever. So I've compiled here, for my cushion lovin' readers, a list that displays the diverse beauty that Phat Girls encompass. The original post celebrated 25 voluptuous women in Hollywood, well now I'm doubling down with 50 full-beautied actresses, models, musicians, comedians and showrunners. I give you, Phat Girls II!
Practical Will: Henry VIII
The Life of King Henry VIII a History by William Shakespeare
So Henry's first wife, Katharine, uber Catholic Spaniard, thinks her 20-year marriage to the King is all honky-dory. Until Henry goes to a party at one of his boy's cribs where he meets this hottie, Anne, who's playing hard to get. So Henry is too busy flirting to realize the political shit-storm circling overhead. One of Henry's boys says he overheard Buckingham say that he should have been next in line for the throne. Now he's not all that far off in saying this, do you all remember Richard III? That evil douchebag? Well the guy that rebelled against him was Buck's dad, Buck Sr. So Buck Sr. defeats Rich and instates Henry VII in his place, who executes Buck Sr. without a trial. So when Buck Jr. is lead to the chopping block, he can't help but feel a sense of history repeating itself.
Henry is still sprung on Anne and offers her a fancy title, a sweet-ass pad and an allowance. She declines, under the guise of pretending to be Kate's friend. But one of her girls is like, "Dig girl, dig!" Meanwhile, Kate is hearing all these rumors about a divorce and is all like, "Um Catholic's can't get divorced." But everyone tries to convince her to go along with an annulment so she can remain on Henry's good side. Seeing no other options, since he's the fucking King, she agrees. And so Henry and Anne are married in a very long scene, followed by an even longer coronation scene. After the wedding we check back in with Kate, she's dying, of course, and uses her Catholic guilt to convince Henry to care for their daughter, who will turn out to be Queen Mary I, more commonly known as Bloody Mary. Thanks for the brunch beverage girl!
We jump forward to the birth of Henry and Anne's child, and surprise, it's another girl! Not what Henry wanted, even though she turns out to be Queen Elizabeth I, or the single best English Monarch ever! The play ends with another long boring scene, the christening of Liz. Then a prologue guy comes on stage and begs the audience to applaud, because for being such an interesting real story, this is one of Will's more boring plays.