Thoughts on my Game of Thrones Rewatch

After the great early success of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, a really nice show that I hope stays that way even if they've now more directly connected its characters to the central ASOIAF lore (the Targaryens), I finally decided to bite the bullet and do a Game of Thrones rewatch. I haven't done a full one since right before that final season. Not surprising, since that last season was so universally shamed (very much so by me as well) that I never felt inspired to rewatch it, knowing just how badly the stories came together. Didn't stop me from watching House of the Dragon and enjoying parts of it (though Seaseon 2 was hilariously slow from an actual moving the plot perspective). Didn't stop me from jumping into Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. But Game of Thrones was something I thought I had fully left behind.

And then I decided to rewatch it. I know how badly it ends. I've long said that if I ever rewatch it, I would stop after Season 6, when I wish the show kind of did end. To remind, that season ends with Cersei blowing up the Sept & most of King's Landing, effectively making her queen, Jon is crowned King of the North with Sansa & Arya by his side, and Dany finally starts sailing across teh Narrow Sea, with all three dragons, the Dothraki, the Unsullied and the houses Tyrell and Martell to boot. That should've set-up an epic end - and I'm sure GRMM's actual way to end it would be great, but of course the show fumbled that fully.

Anyway, I'm now at the tail end of Season 4, and I'm starting to already think do I watch Season 7 and 8 when the time comes. I probably just sack up and do it (very notably, there's not many episodes in those seasons!), but watching this again, knowing how it ends, I definitely have some newfound thoughts on the whole thing.

= Firstly, while we can all hate Season 8, and many hate Season 7, we should all remain a bit objective in saying at its early peak GoT was just incredible. It is still incredible television told at a scale rarely done before with generally great success.

= It's hilarious though how small the budget clearly was in the old days - Season 1 is the most stark (no pun intended) example, where King's Landing wasn't yet in Dubrovnik, the Wall was just Castle Black, and they had to essentially cutway from any real fight scene. Hell, Dany's tiny dragons in the finale were seen as some incredible CGI magic. Even in Season 2 they couldn't really show much of the Blackwater Bay battle for the same reason. What I guess needs to be said is the show wasn't any worse off.

= Knowing how badly the story ends for many "honorable" characters cuts no easier this time even knowing their fate, but what's more clear this time around is how badly Robb Stark fumbled everything. Many people noted how dumb Nedd was throughout Season 1, how many outs he had to avoid his fate, but the same is so true of Robb - from how often he just ignores Roose Bolton's ironically generally sound advice, to his inability to realize he could probably just get away with Talisa being a mistress. He really was as dumb as his Dad, which ironically makes The Red Wedding hurt less this time.

= While the Red Wedding wasn't as depressing (it was never going to be as shocking), Joffrey dying was just as fun this time. It is amazing how everyone alive knew he was just a piece of shit but had to just bow down to him - gratefully something that we don't have to face in real life in America.....

= The casting and performances are amazing. It's truly incredible how many unknown actors Game of Thrones was able to unearth. It's sad many have been largely typecast in their roles ever since, but truly from the Stark kids, to Joffrey (just brilliant at playing a devil), to Dany (yes, I will continue to stan that Emilia Clarke is very good, moreso in those early seasons), to so many other unknowns, they just knocked it out of the park in those early seasons. Case in point, in Season 4 where we see Pedro Pascal show up as Oberyn. I had to look up, but indeed this was before Narcos (not sure if he was already cast in Narcos...). Other than The Wire, I don't know if any show with nearly this large an ensemble ever did a better job.

= For one of teh few criticisms I have with the early seasons, I think Jaime's turn to honorable was way too quick. He was still very much an aggressive dick when in captivity in Season 1-2. I geuss it was getting his arm chopped off, and the moment he goes back to save Brienne from the Bear that is his turning point, but that was way too quick. This is the same criticism of course we would levy way later in the way they turned Dany, but tehre were signs of unearned change.

= Speaking of Dany, many people point to various decisions in these early seasons that show this secret monster (e.g. locking Xoro and her handmaiden in teh vault, her crucifying the Mereen masters) but truly all of these things make relative sense in the show. None of this justifies the seconds-quick turn to her burning King's Landing. None of these things was any crazier than Robb chopping the head of Lord Karstark, or Cersei blowing up the crypt, or a score of other things. Don't let people gaslight you into saying the groundwork for Dany being a monster, or "Mad" was being laid well.

= There are a few storylines that I hated the first time and continue to hate with a passion - particularly Ramsay Bolton torturing Theon. But also early Theon taking over Winterfell as well. Basically everything involving the North post Robb Stark getting killed is just a mess, and this is before I have to watch Sansa get raped and what-not. I know in the back of my head the Battle of the Bastards is some sort of comeuppance, but still Ramsay is just too cartoonishly evil (even in a show that had Joffrey). 

= That said, there is a storyline I do like more this time, and that is John's adventures North of the Wall. It's odd, even if ultimately the white walker story ends stupidly with the Night King just getting beaten in a traditional way, everything going on North of the Wall works fairly well, from people ignoring the threat, to all the Craster / Mance / Wildlings stuff. I'm not really sure why it's playing better this time around when I found the North of the Wall stuff a slog the first time around (and I'm not even that big a Jon Snow fan) but yeah, I would go for a GoT spinoff just focusing on the comings and goings of the Night's Watch.

= We needed more small council scenes - from Nedd making a fool of himself, to everything involving Tyrion during his run as Hand, to Oberyn in Season 4, every Small Council scene is amazing. The politicking of Game of Thrones was one of the underrated apex points early on, an area that got way less import and air time after Tywin died and Tyrion escaped, but my God did I enjoy every one of those. I know I'm a few episodes away from this being a focus of the show, but I've enjoyed every moment of it so far.

= This is a random one, but at this point I have no idea where Dany's dothraki that go across the sea come from. It's clear after Khal Drogo dies that most of them leave her. She never makes any concerted effort to find others, seemingly content to go on with the Unsullied and Second sons. I assume I'm forgetting something in Season 5 or 6 that shows where the Dothraki return to her side, but it's just weird knowing how clear a role they play in teh Loot Train attack, and how Danaerys is still referred to so often as Khaleesi that there's like none of them around.

= The one storyline that I think works exactly the same this time as it did on teh first watch, in a negative way, is everything to do with Stannis. Now, I realize I'm writing this before he slightly redeems himself by actually caring about the white walker threat (before he, you know, burns his daughter alive and loses to Ramsay...) but still he's just so damn boring. What's odd is that I remember at the time book readers were saying how book Stannis is far more interesting, but show Stannis was written in a way that boring-ness was the point (in that he couldn't get any loyal following compared to Renly). All in all, that storyline is a mess, and just a waste of Stephen Dillane's immense talents.

= On the other side, the one storyline that works as well on the positive side this time around is Arya's pre-Essos days, particularly her sparring with Tywin at Hardhome and her time with the Hound. I know the story is abut to take some boring turn in Essos before some intersting stuff after, but man was that such a well written, pointed character in Seasons 1-4. Her interactions with Tywin and her winning his affection (to some degree) was excellent. Same with her rapport with the Hound; just great stuff.

= My last random point before a closing thought/hypothesis - on rewatch, my new worst character (in terms of emotions, not at all performance) is Cersei. Like I get we are supposed to feel some level of pity because she was used as a pawn with Robert and later Loras, but fuck all that. She's just the worst. I get "she loves her kids" but everyone in the realm knew Joffrey was just pure evil (including Jaime and Tywin) but she didn't accept that. I guess we're supposed to appreciate some maternal instinct or something, but eff that, she just sucked. Lena Headey played it great, but tehre's no character who I think less of on this rewatch than her - other than maybe Stupid Robb Stark

To conclude, early Game of Thrones remains excellent. I've seen a lot of talk about how good Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is, and it is great, but let's be truthful - peak Thrones was better. Few things are better than peak thrones, even if it was a bit inconsistent at its peak. There's good reason why it was such a cultural touchstone, and that brings me back to my final takeaway - I think we're being too hard on Benioff & Weiss.

Here's the main aspect of that - I 100% believe that they assumed when they started the show in 2011 that GRRM would finish the damn books by the time they ended the show. Hell, the final book came out during the run of the show. Now, we can criticize them for just throwing their hands up at the end and doing these abridged Seasons 7-8, which they absolutely should not have done, but this idea that they were nothing without GRRM's material is only half true, because it was never supposed to be them doing the show without his material. I don't know if there's any parallel in TV or even movie history where the creator was expected to adapt content for part of it and then shift seamlessly into creating his own.

Granted, I 100% believe the ending was what GRRM told them it would be: Dany turning mad and lighting fire to King's Landing, Cersei and Jaime dying together, Jon being Aegon VI Targaryen, and ultimately even Bran of all people being on the Iron Throne. And yes, D&D did nothing to actually earn that ending, but they were never supposed to. We can critique them for Season 7-8, and more largely Season 5-8 (given that's when the show outpaced the books), but that was never the deal. They were brought in to adapt books and that they did brilliantly. Even the stories they cast aside (Jayne Westerling, Lady Stoneheart) were reasonable. Get off their backs, their job of adapting GRRM's source material was done excellently.

As to the opening question on this, I'll watch Season 7-8 because I'm pot committed at this point. I know I'll hate Season 8. I'll probably think less of Season 7 than I did at the time. I know GoT ends badly, but much like HIMYM, which I did rewatch through its glory days before, that shouldn't overlook how magical this was at its peak. It was one of the last true cultural touchstone shows, and for great reason. It was that good, and upon rewatch it still is in most ways. God bless the fact this show existed, even if we can rightly crucify its last few seasons. But I think we shouldn't just assume the terrible ending says anything about how good, how enthralling, how well acted GoT was at its peak.

Learning to Love the Winter Olympics?

I'm an unabashed Summer Olympics head, probably starting with the Rio 2016 games where I had more time on my hands, the games were on at the right time (for me), and NBC's app game was starting to elevate itself. During the 2020 games (in 2021) it remained and then reached a new maximum with Paris 2024, where through Gold Zone and the various other elements of the Peacock Olympics app, I watched a bit of everything. I truly love those games. Which leaves a weird counterpoint of never being a huge Winter Olympics head. It's odd, as I love hockey, and like the cold but until this year probably never gave it the same chance. Until now. It isn't like I'm suddenly a big Winter Olympics fan, and I won't be counting down the days to 2030 games in "The French Alps" (yes, the official host designation), but still this has been a new start for the Winter Olympics in my life.

Let's start with the obvious - as a huge hockey fan, of course Olympics hockey has meant a lot to me over the years. I remember in 2002 watching Canada win gold - more happy that Marty Brodeur and the two Scotts played big roles than I was sad the US lost. I remember even more in 2010 when Canada won again with Crosby's Golden Goal - it was a thrilling hockey game, a brilliantly played one where Devils great Zach Parise scored a game-tying goal at the death. It was a brutal loss as a still proud American at that point.

2014 in Sochi had NHLers playing, but combination of time zones and a pretty feeble US team made it a romp for the Canadians, and then the darkness. The biggest reason I probably tuned out the 2018 games in Pyeongchang and 2022 in Beijing was that the NHL stupidly didn't let their players go. This is the biggest marketing opportunity for the NHL - and yes people get hurt (like Steven Stamkos in 2014 breaking his leg), but still. Anyway, with no NHL players there in 2018 or 2022, adn the games being in Asia so at brutal hours for Americans, I basically tuned those two events out.

But the NHL is back this time, the follow-up for the little appetizer of the Four Nations Face Off last year. We haven't even hit the full stride of the tournament this time around, but just that specter has gotten be more interested in the Olympics as a whole, and I think I've been missing out. It isn't the summer games, but there's a lot special here.

For maybe the first time, I sat and watched most of a curling match (the semis and gold medal US matches in teh mixed tournament). I looked up the rules. The sport is probably a bit too long (the matches I mean) but damn isn't it brilliant strategy on display. I then sat and watched more of the downhill skiing and luge and skeleton and so much more. I'll get to a few reasons why I don't think the Winter Games lends itself to the brilliant the Summer Games does, but all these sports are interesting and more than that, require some amazing athletic feats. 

Truly, there is more danger, more death-defying brilliant feats in teh Winter Games, from downhill skiing and ski jumping, to all the track sports (luge, skeleton, bobsled) where ypure' going 70mph+ inches above sharp ice. All of it is just insane. All of it requires such ability to block out the lunacy of what you are doing. That element of danger just isn't there in the Summer Games, but works brilliantly here.

These are the things I love about teh Winter Games, also the idea of just how easy most of the games are to get - just who gets down a hill or track faster, or who can fly longer, or skate faster. But it's where you get outside these more simple ones that the Winter Games starts to struggle a bit more for me.

The judging sports, be it figure skating to all the games lifted from the X-Games into this (the freestyle skiing, snowboarding) just miss the mark for me. Of course, teh athleticism is insane, but much like with Gymnastics in the Summer Games, I can't undersatnd the weird scoring system, I can't really tell visually the difference between a 1080 and a 1200 and a 1440 and what not. I have no real way of saying who is better than who other than listening to the announcers. This all hurts my love of gymnastics relative to how most people see it, and for the Winter Games there's just a lot more of these sports.

Secondly, I don't like that so few of them actually put all the competitors on the field/track/etc at the same time. Granted, it's tough to do in downhill skiing or luge or what-not - people go too fast being the main issue. But it just takes away some of the head to head competition element so present in nearly all the best summer games. There are exceptions of course, and that's why i love the speed-skating (where even in long track at least we get 1v1 heats). It's also why I got so enthralled by Snowboard Cross, which was an incredible back and forth of the four snowboarders going at it side by side trading blows. We need more of these types of events.

Back on the positive side, what this games has oozed is how fun it all seems - the setting in northern Italy is stunning, with such perfect light snow, great chalets and villages. People all seem to be having a great time, no group more so than the athletes themselves who seem overjoyed - probably helps that for the ones that have been to teh Olympics before this much seem like such a relief vs. the still Covid-effected 2022 event. The setting, the coldness, the hot cocoa and everythign else makes me actually think attending an Olympics is more fun at the Winter Games than Summer.

Let's see how my views change the rest of the games over this last week, when the hockey heats up, the short-track speed skating takes over, and we get the bobsled (not sure why that one appeals to me, but have taken a liking to luge and skeleton as well). I may continue this upward trend of interest to the point where I may put out a ranking of Winter Olympic events, or fade away if hte US hockey teams do poorly (granted, that women's team is absurdly dominant so far). But either way, my appreciation and love for the Winter Olympics is higher now than it was ten days ago.

2025 NFL Playoffs: Super Bowl LX Review

Player/Coach of the Game: Mike Macdonald  (Coach, SEA)

This was his masterpiece, much like last year's was Vic Fangio's. Once again, a defensive playcaller schemed up his already great defense to produce some legendary results. This one more prominent because the offense didn't help all that much, and this was the head coach doing it. It's surprising that this is the first time a defensive playcaller headcoach has won a Super Bowl - to be honest, not sure how many got the chance, but Mike Macdonald was able to showcase every bit of ingenuity. His hammering of secondary blitzes, going against type, was brilliant. The coverage games was great, and more than anything he got his team to play at such a locked in level from the jump - again much like Fangio's defense last year. Just another amazing defensive performance to swarm to a Super Bowl.

Runner-Up: Kenneth Walker  (RB, SEA)

Anytime a defense dominates a super bowl but has no one standout player, there is some outcry for a defender, or even a unit to win MVP. Once again that happened here, but Kenneth Walker absolutely deserved that MVP. His patient style was brilliant, so often evading initial Patriots line penetration to spin things outside and repeatedly beat a defense that had been playing so fast to the edge time and time again. He was quite good between the tackles as well. Walker even had two first down receptions, much to the chagrin I'm sure of Cris Collinsworth who bashed him after the one drop. I was stunned to realize it had been nearly 30 years since a RB won Super Bowl MVP, but this was absolutely deserved.

Goat of the Game: Drake Maye  (QB, NE)

It's really more a goat of the playoffs. To be honest, not sure Maye was any worse in this game than in the Broncos game or Texans game. He was better in teh Chargers game, but only because he got a scoche more time. Yes, the Seahawks are a great defense, but Maye also flat out missed a half dozen throws he sshould make. He was slow to get rid of the ball. He missed easy checkdowns. He fumbled twice, again, and nearly a third time. Drake Maye is such a conundrum headed into next season but this was a disastrous playoff for him - just exposed because finally he had to score more than 16 points. It will be so interesting to see if there's much carryover. We can play the "well, what do you want, he played great defenses" card, but if you play four great defenses you should have more than zero good games.

Runner-Up: Josh McDaniels  (OC, NE)

What didn't help Maye at all was maybe the most listless performance by McDaniels in a long time as an OC. He's supposed to be a savant, but he was absolutely a joke in this one - made no adjustments, got beat on the same secondary blitz time and time again, did nothing to help his offense other than calling a few swing passes on that first drive. The Patriots offense had just no creativity all postseason and that was never more clear than in this game. I don't think McDaniels will get a 3rd head coach crack anytime soon anyway, but certainly not after that performance.

Surprise of the Game: Seahawks Run Game

It's not so much that the Seahawks ran it well - they do that every now and then, but that they did it against the Patriots rush defense at full strength. The Pats when they have all their horses up front had been great against the run, especially geting negative plays. They got a few of those here, and missed a few others because of Walker's aforementioned shiftiness, but also was surprsied how often the Seahawks OL won on one-on-one blocks in the trenches. It was old school, but it worked.

Runner-Up: Seahawks Punt Coverage / Punting

To be fair, the Seahawks are an excellent specital teams unit, but the one place that the Patriots seemed to at worst be on equal footing, and at best have an advantage, Well, Dickson was masterful (even getting quasi-serious / quasi-joking MVP love), and the coverage unit was just as good. They completely took out one of the few X-Factors that could've given the Patriots some life, with Marcus Jones being completely negated. In a game where the Seahawks defense wasn't going to give up much, the Seahawks had to make sure there was no other route for the Pats to score.

Disappointment of the Week: Patriots OL

To be fair, we knew they were a relatively weak unit, but the extent to which the Patriots OL got worked was still surprising in the negative. Campbell usually has at least a few good run reps and even that didn't happen here, with the Patriots run game failing to get off the ground also. Their inability to pick up blitzes and lose in space against smaller secondary players was surprising. The right side of the OL which was the relative strength was basically as bad as the left side. Just a full meltdown by that unit.

Runner-Up: Sam Darnold

This is going to sound weird, but I was sad for Darnold more than at Darnold that he missed a few throws. I mean, to some degree who cares. He won teh damn Super Bowl, and he was better than just a passenger, but it would've been cool for this redemption story to have an even better conclusion. And he came close, but a few small misses took a few TDs away, and saved this from being a Super Bowl XLVII type blowout. In the end, Darnold gets his win anyway but the storybook could have been even more perfect.

Team Performance of the Game: Seahawks DL / Blitzers

I mean, what else. The Seahawks DL just owned that game, winning with 3/4-man rush time and time and time again. Doing yoemans work against the run as well, letting the Seahawks stay in their preferred nickel / dime packages the entire game. Everyone on that DL ate, from Williams and Lawrence as the vets, to Hall as the sneak potential MVP, to even a classic Justin Smith type bull-rush sack. And then of course the blitzing from Witherspoon and others was even better - so well timed, so well rushed. This was a masterpiece.

Runner-Up: Seahawks Secondary

It's funny that the front gets more love for me because the secondary is the standout unit. I only have it below the front because I think that was the story of the game, the way they sped up Maye. They also didn't give him much to throw to. They were so disciplined at the back (save of Woolen's late reaction on teh TD). They were clogging up zones. They jsut locked down Diggs and the TEs. Yes, Maye missed a few throws, but there will always be some throws. That was nearly as good a performance by a secondary as the Eagles last year.

Team Laydown of the Week: Patriots Skill Players

Diggs talked a bunch this year. He was a non-factor, hilariously spiking the ball in celebration on his catch down 29-7 in teh fourth quarter. Boutte had a bad drop, and generally couldn't get separateion. The TEs were fairly anonymous. Pop Douglas was probably the best receiver, which is a problem - and if it wasn't him it was Mack Hollins, even more of a problem. The Patriots skill players were playing above their heads all year, but fell below their heads on this one.

Runner-Up: Mike Vrabel

Vrabel seemed just lost in this one, not realizing he had to paly more aggressive, that the Seahawks were not going to be the Broncos. To be honest, Vrabel coached this game like it was the Broncos or Texans on the other side. The lack of aggression on 3rd down, not even considering going for it on 4th and <3 a few times, the most egregious that 4th and 1 right after halftime. And then him not going for two after scoring the TD to make it 19-7 - not that it would've mattered. For a coach who so often his the tactical game management elements down to a tee, they were missing completely in this one.

Storyline that will be Beat Into the Ground: The Legion 2.0

It's funny there's been a rush after this win to confirm that while they were a truly great defense and well rounded team, teh 2025 Seahawks are not the reincarnation of the 2013 unit - that there isn't a Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas type on this defense. Well, while maybe this is true, it is weird that even in what was really just their second great year as a defense people already talked about Sherman and Thomas that way. Maybe they will about Witherspoon, and Emmanwouri, and others. This defense is young, with many locked up. Darnold isn't as good as peak Russell Wilson, but probably closer than people think. I don't know if this is the start of something special, or a 2002 Bucs type "it all came together perfectly one year" but I think we are underrating the chance this is the start of something special.

Storyline that Should be Beat Into the Ground: The Patriots Were Who We Thought They Were

I think what this postseason has taught us is that even though they made the Super Bowl, the Patriots were schedule merchants. They were also "it's just a down year in the AFC" merchants - a bit like the 2021 Bengals in a year where the 12-5 Titans were the #1 seed. I think lost in the "they had the easiest schedule" is just how easy, like historically easy. ANd even the record probably understated things, as the played the Bengals without Joe Burrow (he came back literally the next week) and the Ravens where Lamar Jackson got hurt and left midway through (the Ravens likely win if Lamar stays). The Patriots then got three bad offenses, including the luck of playing a backup QB. Good for them to take advantage of those things, but that Super Bowl showed what was pretty clear, this is not a Super Bowl caliber team in a normal season. Who knows if next year will be a normal one, but looking at their schedule next year, there is a damn good chance the Patriots win nowhere near 14 games again, but could still be a better team. But for 2025, they were who we thought they were, and thank God for all of us that the Seahawks didn't let them off the hook.

Super Early Super Bowl LXI Pick:  Ravens 27  49ers 20

My Thoughts on the Stranger Things Finale

It's taken me about a month to write this, mostly because it took that long for negative reactions to Stranger Things content to finally flush out of my algorithm on Twitter or Instagram. Man, was it a constant stream those first two weeks of the year when every other post that got fed to me was around it. But it's time to put some thoughts in writing.

Let's start by saying I've generally been super pro-Stranger Things. Granted, many of us were that first year, long back in 2016 when it came out on NETFLIX with no real promotion. It was aimed as nostalgia-porn for a generation taht I;m barely a part of - given it much touches on the 80s and I was born in 1991. But still, it was fresh, it was layered, it was dark where it needed to be, mysterious where it needed to be, and funny, touching, loving where it needed to be. Season 1 was a masterpiece. 

Season 2 wasn't as good, but had a ton of great moments and episodes, and also came quickly, airing in 2017. Then came the relative troubles, needing two years until Season 3 in 2019, and that season being just a touch off - with teh addition of more characters there were more disconnected plots, more bloat, a touch too much zaniness, color and light (despite a fairly good scary central premise). The dials were a bit off.

And then was Season 4. A lot of people started fully jumping off at that point, be it the movie-length episode run times, the even more disconnected plot (Hopper and Joyce in Russia!?) or the now getting comical age gap between the actors portraying the main kids and the characters they were portraying. You know what, though - despite these very fair critiques, I still loved it. I named Stranger Things Season 4 my favorite TV show of 2022. I don't regret that at all. To me, Season 4 was a true masterpiece, even more than the initial Season 1.

It added a layer of mythology that worked so perfectly in teh slow reveal of Vecna being Henry Creel, and more so, being "One" to El's "Eleven". It was a perfect mystery unwrapped bit by bit in great detail. The final episode with the merging of Eleven vs. Vecna, the Robyn/Steve/Nancy crew in the upside down with a bunch of guns shooting at Vecna, and "Running Up That Hill" playing was all so perfect. Again, I was more in on Stranger Things than most. I was the mark, the person ready to give them the benefit of the doubt.

That all said - Season 5 was a huge disappointment, particularly the last three episodes, and more particularly the finale. That was a letdown. So many issues, so many shortcuts, so many weird decisions, so many departures from what made earlier seasons great. So much to unpack here.

**two quick asides:

1.) Despite me not liking it, people saying this was a "Game of Thrones Finale" level disaster is way overstating things. Nothing will come close to Game of Thrones throwing away more goodwill than maybe any show in 20 years in one fell, stupid swoop.

2.) Nearly none of my criticisms will touch on the first four episodes that came out near Thanksgiving, which to me were generally quite good and with the final bit being Will realizing his powers was in theory setting things up really nicely.**

So where to begin. For starters, they crammed way too much into that final episodes. There were a lot of int he end correct spoilers that the final set of episodes would cover a lot of the backstory from the play that delvers into Henry Creel's background - that he was infected by particles representing the Mind Flayer in that cave way back when. That it would all be revealed that it was the Mind Flayer as the true big bad from teh beginning, and that Vecna was the unwitting vessel. That all ended up being mostly true - but was way too much to go through in that last episode. This should've been teased out bit by bit across the season, or at the very least across the last three episodes. Instead, it was all jammed up at the very end.

Then was the final battle, where after turning the Mind Flayer into the real big bad (granted, I credit them for not making it a total redemption arc for Henry) the final battle wasn't against the Mind Flayer all that much - it all seemed too easy and "power of friendship", a lesser battle against an active Mind Flayer than the battle against a semi-comatose / hive-minding Henry in Season 4. It was also again rushed.

Then there was the weird character stuff, making Holly Wheeler, a completely faceless character for four seasons, into a key character in teh last season, to sidelining important ones for so long. For making so much of it around Nancy's and Jonathan's relationship, something that truthfully was never all that interesting (and neutered what is generally the most dependably cool character in Nancy). The plot thinned so mcuh, from everyone kind of getting over a demogorgan I guess killing Mr. Wheeler and putting Mrs. Wheeler into a coma. Just a bunch of over-focus on plot and fake moments rather than earned ones in past.

Don't get me started on that never-ending coda, that series of endings that would make the finales of The Return of the King blush. So much of that was saccharine nonsense for a show that generally did well with emotional moments in past. The worst was probably that scene on the roof, pitting four characters in a reminisce when those four never really shared the same worldview or friendship in the past (certainly not ALL of those four). That plus the umpteen speeches, adn the general positive outlook of the coda was just jarring given again all the terror that group, that town has gone through.

Ultimately, I think what really has sharpened into focus when I think about Stranger Things is how the target audience seemed to change for the show over the years. It might be the people that watch more NETFLIX now are teh ones taht are the kids actors age, from the youngsters in 2016 to adults now. The show focsued far more on not just the kids as cahracters, but kid themes, kid emotions, gen Z stuff. That's not where Stranger Things started - despite the kids being truly kids in 2016, and them being instrumental characters, the show was targeted at adults who could remember stuff in the 1980s and 1990s and the like. The show was aimed at adults who were probably ~25-35 in 2016, but the target age didn't change as the show grew.

In the end, Stranger Things was a great show at its best, and even in this past season there were some great moments, but it didn't know how the stick the landing. Maybe that's because it never should've gotten this big and the story sprawled far more than The Duffer Brothers ever expected it to. But then again they had three years to plan for Season 4 (which was great), and they had three full years for Season 5 and messed it all up. It's sad really. It isn't a Game of Thrones level failure, but more in like with a HIMYM level one, where you think adn look back on how easily this all should've been fixed differently. In the end, though, I'll never forget the joys of the show at its best, even if I'll forget the mess of its end.

My Favorite Restaurants: Top 50 Tasting Menus, Pt. 3 (#12 - #1)

12.) Salon  (Cape Town - 2024)

One of my only real regrets through all my trips to Cape Town is taht I never made it to The Test Kitchen, which for years was the premier single restaurant in Cape Town. Bookings were frighteningly tough. Then Luke Dale Roberts closed it during Covid, but I guess got the itch back to open a fine dining spot. It was incredible, a culinary tour through all the spots the Chef Roberts has worked or taken inspiration from. Brilliant South African dishes to be sure, but also a foie gras take on black forest cake, a brilliant "tamale" dish featuring the most Mexican of flavor profiles, to a brilliant play on Duck l'Orange, to authentic Korean to end it. It was all brilliant. In isolation, maybe you would worry about how successfully a place could pull off all these different cuisines, but apparently Mr. Luke Dale Roberts is a talented, worldly man - and after going to Salon, if anything I rue not having gone to The Test Kitchen even more.

11.) Pujol  (Mexico City - 2018)

Pujol is Mexico City's best or 2nd best restaurant, going back and forth with Quintonil (haven't been). It was the first on this list to be featured on Chef's Table with chef/owner Enrique Olvera. On the downside, there were only six listed courses which expanded to eight with a few extras thrown in. On the plus side, each was immaculate, from the famous baby-corn coated in a sauce made from ants, to a perfectly cooked octopus, to another perfectly cooked dish with lamb chops and a green mole. Even the desserts with their mango dessert and best churro you will ever have were both excellent. But of course, one cannot talk about Pujol without talking about the Mole Madre dish, their centerpiece, which is just a plate with two concentric circles of dark and light mole, with nopal tortillas. It seems crazy to serve just that as effectively the main course - but it is truly unbelievable. It is accepted people will go as far to lick the last drop of mole off the plate. It truly was a showstopper of a dish that elevates a bunch of other really great dishes.

10.) I Pupi  (Sicily - 2019)

This was the second tasting course meal we had in our trip to Italy in 2019, and while the first one - Imago in Rome - was a big disappointment, the seafood-forward I Pupi in Bagheria, Sicily (about 30 min away from Palermo) was incredible. Their first course of a random assortment of small bites was inspired, each being seafood forward. The second plate which was a platter with six nigiri on it with six different salts to add on top was divine, and while not 'Italian' in any way was just an insane dish. The rest of the meal got more Italian, but still small, focused, refine, seafood plates, from a zuchinni noodle wrapped fish, to an incredible soup, to lamb chops (the only meat). Each dish was so well put together, alternating from amazing small bites to dishes that approached the size of a normal restaurant starter, to everything in between. This was just a fabulous meal and such a nice comeback after being disappointed with Imago earlier in that trip.

9.) Merito  (Lima - 2025)

The weird thing is when you look up Merito, they talk about the fact the head chef is from Venezuela. I'm sure he is, and that cuising ie present here, but realistically if you just said "hey, here's a Central protege going at it on his own!" you would imagine what Merito is, and it blows you away further, It has the fun of Central, the ridiculously inventive use of various tubers, the sharpness of tis colors, and so much more. It has the taste of it too. Merito is such a perfect place, a gold standard in its city, but new enough it gets to invejnt the worlds coolest desert because it doesn't yet have to live up to Maido's or Central's reputation (granted those two are still to come...). Merito is probably in its perfect phase right now, just amazing enough to get recongized, but still undergroudn enough that it can experiment with things like a course that was basically fish and chips - yeah, better fish and chips than you've ever had.

8.) Tresind  (Dubai  -  2025)

The best Indian restaurant I've been to is still to come, but while that one starts with Indian flavors and goes all fusiony with it at tiems (in the best way), Tresind starts with Indian flavors and just elevates and executes the shit out of them - from incredible takes on pani pure, to fish, to lamb curry, to everything else, Tresind executes in perfection - similar to any 3 star Michelin place. Not that it doesn't take risks, but there is such a focus on exacting preparations, visuals where there are a few dishes that look slightly better on the plate than they taste - in that they look like a 10/10 but taste like a 9/10. Those are the minority of dishes across their 15 course menu. Tresind is at the end of the day probably the best pure Indian restaurant in teh world - it could maybe just stand to take a few more risks.

8.) Mingles  (Seoul - 2022)

Mingles is Seoul's top ranked restaurant, and after going I can see why. It was a classic tasting menu shop, with sharp clarity on its menu, its decor, its everything. It also had a really nice 'Korean Liquor' pairing along with the wine pairing, something I took that got me to taste various different Korean localized liquors. The meal itself was great, with some of the best, most interesting dishes I've had, such as a great king-crab two ways dish, a brilliant take on surf & turf (pork & squid stuffed oyster, along with a braised beef cube), to an incredible lamb three ways dish as the primary main. The vegetable dishes were also spectacular, such as a corn soup dish that opened my eyes to just how sweet corn can be. Mingles was a special restaurant showcasing the best of modern Korean cuisine.\

6.) Borago  (Santiago - 2024)

Central gets all the notoriety from showcasing native food and different altitudes and all that stuff. Deservedly so - it is still to come. But the Chilean version, to some degree, is nearly as good. Rodolfo Guzman's restaurant was the highlight of my trip to Santiago, with some staggering dishes. From a paper scallop with a bright blue algae sauce, to a staggering monkfish and lobster cooked in seaweed. There were incredible small bites to start, like a little makeshift bumblebee of honey and a Chilean corn. And of course that final dish, that Patagonian lamb - just a piece of lamb, roasted over a fire for 24 hours. Much like say it takes balls for Enrique Olvera to serve mole as the main dish at Pujol, so too is it here serving a piece of lamb with no sauce, no sides. Nothing - and it was truly perfect. As was Borago more or less as a whole.

5.) Maido  (Lima - 2016, 2022)

Maido will always have a soft spot for me as it was the first tasting menu spot I went to, at a time where I didn't really know just how well reputed it was. We went for lunch, unable to get a dinner reservation but the menu is the same either way. It is a japanese-peruvian kaiseke meal that is just perfectly designed, executed, presented and crafted. 13 courses, all seafood based, all incredible, from various nigiris, to incredible takes on ceviche, to a choripan of fish & octopus sausage, to a very complicated but inredible soup decanted in front of you. Even the deserts of sea urchin and what they call the 'reef' which is a giant edible reef rock, are wild. I'm sure there are places in Japan that are just as good and more 'authentic', but this is my favorite take on Japanese cuisine ever. Just now I remember being mesmerized at each dish, on how it looked when it was brought out, on the complexity of the way it is described and of course on how it tasted. This, and to be fair the two above it, are peerless for me in the sense that I have zero idea how to recreate any of these dishes. They are simple while being complex, each ingredient, each little piece just so perfect. I hope to go Lima's other world reknowned restaurant Central at some point (maybe even this year, to which I will have to likely re-write this list to add it in), but if we could only go to one premier spot last time, Maido was a perfect pick.

4.) Gaggan Anand  (Bangkok - 2022)

Because of many reasons, I'm going to rank my 2nd trip to a Gaggan Anand restaurant separately from the first one. One reason is it technically is a different restaurant, in a different space. Another is the experience was different - this is a restaurant where he serves just at a chef's table to a group of 14 people. And the biggest difference was Gaggan Anand himself was present, was there to talk to the patrons, the entire thing being equally an experience along with the food. The food was still great, with some of the most inventive dishes I've ever had with insane preparations that he explained so well. It still had all the measure of excitement, like random things that tasted like tom yum soup, or charcoal chicken balls or a dried paper lightly filled that tasted just like hummus. It was classic Gaggan, classic modern cooking, and the only restaurant on this list whre the Chef was there to personally chat with and serve to the customers. The old restaurant is higher up the lsit because at the end I think the food was even better, but my second trip to a Gaggan was about as good as I could have imagined.

3.) Azurmendi  (Bilbao - 2021)

Azurmendi came as close as any meal I've had to unseating what might be a lifetime pick at #1. The basque restaurant certainly met it for downright creativity and presentation. From the picnic basket of small bites, to the greenhouse where they were literally picking up roses from a garden bed before you realized it was sorbet, to of course each incredible bite at the table. All in all they technically had 27 dishes, almost all of which were excellent in their design, freshness, preparation and ultimately taste. My favorites of the small bites were the cod fish brioche and the truffle meringue, just incredible little bites. The daiquiri rose was incredible, from presentation to taste. The asparagurus three ways and play on fish taco were divine. The tempura oyster was maybe the best bite I've ever had, and the ending dishes of cod tart and iberico pork were just sublime. They have a rich tapestry to which to create from local produce and Iberian meats and fishes, but Eneko Atxa's brilliant mind puts it to incredible use.

2.) Central  (Lima - 2022)

Very likely next year Central will be named the best restaurant in the wrold by San Pellegrino in their World's Best 50 list. It is well deserved (the restaurant ranked above it for me has reached similar heights on the same list). The dishes are both uniformly incredibly tasty, and ridiculously inventive. As shown on his turn on Chef's Table, what chef Virgilio Martinez and his team create are art pieces, they're stunning, they're beautiful, they look as good as any dishes I've had, and they were all very good. From dishes made out of random amazonian vegetables, to amazonian fish, to incredibly weird lattice things, to some of the most inventive desserts I've had, including a panoply of peruvian chocolate as the final dish. The best part of the restaurant is how focused the theme is, with showcasing hte beauty of Peru across elevations and its various weird ingredients. It may not have been as many courses as it was in its height pre-covid (I believe 18, now down to 14) but I can only imagine what the four extra would have been.

1.) Gaggan  (Bangkok - 2019)

I don't know if any restaurant will ever top Gaggan, which had so much hype entering in, having seen it on Chef's Table, see it rise up the world rankings, and it being Indian focused. I was expecting a lot, and it somehow overdelivrered. The 25 course menu was just perfect from the start of audacious versions of famous Indian street food (still unsure how my little bit of what looked like a cracker with foam and curry leaf tasted like idli sambar), to the mains of prawn balchao, decronstructed curries, a perfect lamb leg, and multiple Japanese dishes during Gaggan's Japanese phase. The setting, sitting at the chef's table watching his sous chef's go to work, with Gaggan's noted love of Heavy Metal ringing through the speakers, was a delight. IT was so well paced, 25 dishes of 3:30, never once making you feel like you're being rushed through each delectable dish. It is astounding to think this is what is possible with Indian food, that this is how good a menu can be even if you limit yourself to just five meat courses in the 25, and how great an atmosphere, a perspective, a cuisine and a legendary chef can concoct together.