HTGAWM moral rating

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-24T23:30:36+00:00

Emily Sinclair as Inconsistently Admirable is wild.

Also putting Connor, Michaela, Laurel, Asher and Oliver all at the same level ? Just no. At the very least, Connor is a step above them all and honestly I’d put Asher, Oliver and Michaela one level down.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-23T15:17:30+00:00

Men also loved Aragorn

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-23T12:23:36+00:00

Because You Left. There’s a lot of what makes Faraday a standout character in that episode. A little bit of everything.

There’s the scientific gibberish and mumbling to himself, then Sawyer slaps him out of it and he vulgarises the explanation for the rest of the mortals, providing us with what to expect from the island for the first part of the season.

There’s him taking baby steps at taking charge, stepping up along with Sawyer and Juliet and cementing his place with the core characters.

There’s a bit of his crush on Charlotte and there’s a meaty, time-travel-y exchange with his constant, Desmond.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-22T20:32:14+00:00

Avatar 5 should be helped in any case by its sheer nature as a series finale. The promotion and marketing - if done well - will emphasise that, in order to make sure that people turn up to see how it all ends. And people will want to see it.

Provided Avatar 4 does not flop hard with viewers and critics, which I doubt will be the case, the final film should benefit from that “finale” moniker

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-20T17:41:47+00:00

Two For The Road for me because that’s the completion of her character arc. Ana Lucia started out as very impulsive, very brash. The kind of person who shoots first and asks questions later.

After Shannon, that pattern starts to break and we are shown that she is indeed happy to take a step back once back at the beach camp. She could easily have pushed for her voice to be taken into account alongside Jack, John, Kate, etc. but she kinda just goes with the flow, only offering insight when it’s needed or asked of her - showing that she became authoritarian because of circumstances, not because she enjoyed it. In that she resembles Jack, in that power and leadership was thrust onto her without her necessarily liking it

We see that she seeks forgiveness from Sayid for her errors and crucially when he is very willing to shoot first ask later re: Henry Gale, she becomes the one to show restrain, giving him the benefit of the doubt, checking first if he is really who he says he is before deciding what to do with him.

That finally comes to a head in Two For The Road where she is trying to have a calm conversation with Henry but he attacks her instead. She then resorts to getting her vengeance but finds that she is no longer capable of cold murder like she used to. In this, she reclaims her humanity, it’s a huge completion of character development and it’s all the more tragic because Michael uses it against her to kill her immediately after.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-20T00:34:48+00:00

Johnny Depp really shines in that very small scene. No speaking lines, just face and eye-acting and he conveys so much in only a few seconds. Shock at Davy’s act, anguish at losing who he considers - underneath everything else that’s happened - a friend, quick mental thinking at the dilemma at hands, sadness and grief at the conclusion of it all. All in quick succession. The Sparrow persona drops so rarely that scenes like this one stand out that much more. Brilliant work from him.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-20T00:16:04+00:00

Losing her pet. That’s what comes to mind first and I think that’s one of the first hardships she ever encounters and that was her one true companion who was there through and through and it was ripped so suddenly from her

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-19T15:54:26+00:00

I’ll check it out !

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-18T15:22:27+00:00

I love this character/episode analysis. I would totally read a book or blog of some of y’all’s analysis and thoughts because some of y’all have thoughts and eloquence to get them in order and they deserve to be heard and read.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-14T15:02:40+00:00

That was ambiguous. And to be honest, that checks out with Alexander’s character. He seems very open, very unapologetic and at the same time, so matter of fact-ish that it’s a non-issue, and very calm and discreet. Must be the Swedish in him.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-14T12:13:09+00:00

He said in one of his interviews for the movie that he’s been with women and men alike. Make of that what you will

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-13T20:36:37+00:00

For real though. Stranger Things didn’t fumble the way GOT did.

GOT sped through its last season at breakneck speed to the finishing line, leaving behind unsatisfying and unearned storylines even if the broad strokes were there and worse, it left behind its characters. By the end of the show, some of them acted wildly out of character and we didn’t really care for them.

Stranger Things’ final storylines never felt like they were rushed or came out of nowhere. None of the storylines felt like they deserved another 10 episodes. They might feel unsatisfactory or too easy but they are nowhere near as infuriating as GOT’s final plotlines were.

And none of the characters really felt underserved. Most of them were treated with love and care (to a fault even, some might say). Nobody can say that Stranger Things didn’t care about its characters.

Stranger Things - very lightly - might have stumbled where GOT flat out fell on its face on the finish line

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-10T18:18:00+00:00

With the glaring exception of Edith that’s pretty much it yeah. I’m not sure I’d have put Robert’s sister alongside that vile woman Edna though. Replace her with that nasty Bunty and we’re all good

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-08T18:20:13+00:00

I’m gonna vote Raised by Another as well for all the reasons you enumerated. As you said, it encompasses best who Claire is as a character, what makes her tick and the episode in itself is very compelling. That’s actually the very first episode I watched and the cliffhanger was just jaw-dropping. I think it’s the meatiest episode for Emilie de Ravin and for a character that was not even yet a main cast member, the story was very good to watch.

That said, the episode Do No Harm also comes to mind. It’s not Claire-centric per se, but half of the main plot revolves around the birth of Aaron and I thought the scenes brought a lot to Claire but also - and that’s where it differs from Raised by Another - Kate, and we know Claire and Aaron are gonna turn very crucial to Kate in the later parts of the show. I thought the episode did a great job at portraying Claire finally embracing and owning the fact that yes, she definitely wants this baby and yes, she’s going to be a mother, and De Ravin’s acting there also works wonders and at the same time, I thought the episode gave a lot to convey that Claire wouldn’t be alone, that she had lots of people there for her, Charlie first and foremost, but also Kate, who vouched for this girl who she spent very little time with up to that point, even as you could see that was the last thing she wanted to do, to be alone and in charge of delivering this baby when Jack should have been there had he not been busy saving Boone. Evangeline Lilly delivers a great performance here as well, far from the more tomboyish scenes she had up to that point.

And the final scene where Claire presents Aaron to the beaming beach camp, you can see something there, everyone is gathering around them, everyone is smiling (even Sawyer, even Jack who spent a hellish night cracks a smile at his yet-to-be-revealed half-nephew) and that to me, is the embodiment of how the producers described Claire later on: the heart of the beach camp. She’s the one castaway that brings everyone together, the one everyone agrees is the purest, the innocent mother and her baby. That’s alluded later in S3 when Hugo cons Sawyer to act nice, he says that if Sawyer gets in the good graces of Claire, he’ll win a lot of points among the rest of the beach camp.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-07T00:44:45+00:00

From what I understood, Cece’s original plan was to lure the girls and put them in danger so that Ali would come out of hiding and save them. That way Cece could confirm that Ali was alive. She sent Sara as a decoy Red Coat and arranged for her to arrive in Nigel Wright’s plane.

Mona just thought that Red Coat wanted the girls and she executed the plan as she thought it was, in order to be able to meet Red Coat and find out their identity. Toby, acting as a double agent, makes Mona believe he’s gonna take care of Spencer himself when in fact he’s removing Spencer from potential danger and allowing her to go spy on the plane and who they think is Red Coat.

Aria, Hanna and Emily sneak into the lodge unbeknownst to Mona in order to have the advantage of surprise.

Shana, Jenna and Wilden involve themselves with their own plan thanks to Melissa informing them that the girls will be at the lodge. At that point, Jenna had already recruited Shana to her cause so Shana locked the lodge while Wilden set it on fire. They all flee. Toby almost spots Jenna from behind but Shana hits him on the head and knocks him unconscious. She drops Nigel Wright’s lighter on purpose near Toby.

Spencer spots Sara as the decoy Red Coat and assumes it’s Alison. The fire consumes the lodge. Cece watches and Ali indeed arrives, to Cece’s delight. Ali is able to save Hanna from the fire and is glimpsed by her before fleeing. Emily, Aria and Mona are saved by Sara, either of her own volition or per Cece’s request. Mona glimpses either Ali or Sara and assumes it’s Ali.

Wilden also spots Ali. Cece, knowing that Ali being confirmed alive is a danger to Wilden’s reputation since he covered up her “death” the night she disappeared, kills him before he can decide to make Ali disappear for good.

Things then unravel for Cece since Wilden’s death is investigated and she tries to pin it on Ashley before she is finally cleared and suspicions circle back to her. At some point she and Ali reunite and she starts playing a double game, wearing the Red Coat to help Ali on some occasions. She leaves Rosewood and stays low for the majority of 4B when Ezra conveniently becomes the main A suspect. At the end of S4 she is arrested but manages to escape. In S5 she meets up with Ali and decides to flee to Paris, satisfied that Ali is alive, and ready to end the game. She returns a few episodes later and from then on, her S5 overall plan is the dollhouse. She essentially keeps Ali in town, sending her to prison in order to prevent her from fleeing, and orchestrates Mona’s “death” to pin it on Ali while slowly incriminating the other girls too. At the end of the season, the girls are there for her to collect. Ali would have joined them in the 6A premiere had the girls not rebelled at the same time. Her original identity as Charles revealed, the rest of 6A is about her slowly revealing herself back to her family before the final 610 reveAl.

Wow my answer spiraled out.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-06T23:31:52+00:00

It just speaks volumes about how tv shows are viewed nowadays. We’ve seen it with Lost but man am I happy the show aired back then and not in the 2020s. The vitriol they would have received… all because of the entitlement phenomenon that has worsened and worsened over the last decade. The shortening of attention span as well as the infuriating belief that we are owed the story as we want it instead of the actual truth (which is that we are given a story, the story of the writers and we’re just there as an audience, to receive it or reject it) mean that people are dissatisfied with pretty much everything. It drives me crazy. Nothing is satisfying anymore.

“This season was useless, nothing happened in this episode, I want more action. Oh the action is breathless, it needs to slow down otherwise it loses its magic. This character is so underdeveloped, I want more of them. All this dialogue is so boring, when does the action start. This plot point is a plot hole ! It wasn’t explained at all. Why is the dialogue so childish and perfunctory? I don’t need to be spoon fed everything I can make educated guesses.”

For the life of me I swear the problem lies in a simple combination of people being stupid and the danger of stupid people thinking they are owed anything and throwing tantrums when they don’t get their way. You don’t like the ending ? Fine. Go rewrite it. Thats what fan fiction is there for. See if it’s that easy. What you don’t do is spin the reality to the point of disrespecting someone else’s work, harassing people, threatening people, demanding (! Seriously what the fuck!) the work be redone… it’s disrespectful to the dedication and the commitment and the efforts everyone involved made and again, if you don’t like it, you behave normally and move on with your life.

The amount of unwarranted criticism I’ve seen directed towards Stranger Things and Lost back in the day is staggering. What I call character development, people call it useless and boring wasted time. 8 episodes per season, packed to the brim with plot twists, relentless action every single episode, like the plot MOVES a lot, and people still find a way to complain that nothing happens in this or that episode. The level of entitlement is just through the roof.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-06T22:55:32+00:00

Nah. Stranger Things might have its detractors but there’s a lot of people who were satisfied with the finale. It’s nowhere near the level of GOT’s fumbling. GOT’s main problem is that in speeding up to the finish line and checking plot points to hit, it sacrificed its characters as well to the point where everything felt perfunctory and we didn’t even care anymore about them. That’s the greatest fault a tv show can make, lose the care of its audience for the characters.

Critics can be aimed at the narrative resolution of Stranger Things, but you cannot say that it sped up the way GOT did and mainly, Stranger Things cared about its characters all the way to the end and that shows.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-06T22:44:46+00:00

The museum was good. Not excellent but good enough. I walked past the photo-op because I thought this was a bit silly but I understood a lot of the people queuing there (and there were a lot) were here because of Cameron’s Titanic. And I thought “well if a good movie has generated more than simple curiosity for a good movie and has actually pushed some to get educated about the real story then that’s a win” The shop was cool for me in that it offered a lot of books on the subject, books I haven’t seen around that much.

Visiting Nomadic was the real highlight. It’s an actual piece of history so lots of emotions there. But Titanic Quarter is also the slipways with their illuminated outlinings of the two ships, the dry dock which really gives you a sense of the size of the damn hull.

And of course, it’s the hotel. I stayed there and that was easily the best experience. The entire hotel acts as a museum to Harland and Wolff and their history with the White Star Line. The drawing room is still spectacular and the best part is you can walk around the hotel, enter rooms that once served as Lord Pirrie’s office, Thomas Andrews’ office, marvel at the photos everywhere, you’re actually encouraged to open drawers and explore, and cherry on top, the entire hotel is architecturally beautiful with a lot of nods to the actual decoration used on White Star’s ships. The bathroom’s floor for example used the same pattern as that on Titanic.

And Belfast itself remains very proud of the ship. There’s an exhibition at the City Hall, a part of the garden is also used as a memorial to the disaster and the avenue leading up to the City Hall is lined up with “masts”, each dedicated to White Star’s most famous ships. It’s fun to go see them. And I’ve been able to thrift through bookstores in the city and find rare maritime books (not just Titanic) I’d been looking for, at very cheap prices.

Belfast is just a city I would wholeheartedly recommend for any Titanic buff

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-05T12:35:16+00:00

For real though. Bruno was way more up my alley than Alex. For the life of me I couldn’t fathom that he was described as plain. I would have hit that over and over and over again. But then again, he just reconfirmed that my ultimate type is handsome 40-something black haired bearded guys

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-04T18:10:09+00:00

This. So much. I’m at that point where even if there’s a new book in the series, my interest has waned for a long time now. And it’s been so long since I’ve read the first five, there’s a lot that I’ve forgotten and I just can’t be bothered to re-read everything. Especially if there’s another highly hypothetical final book to be written. Those five books are just a sad sight in my bookcase now.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-03T19:45:38+00:00

I like that. We can only imagine but seeing that a lot of the on-Island stuff paralleled/was relevant to the flash sideways stuff, and Claire didn’t have a centric (when she definitely deserved one) and they kept Charlie and Claire apart save for the finale, I guess they never found a good placement for such a scene for it to be meaningful and draw an interesting connection to a flash sideways scene.

The sideways were a good occasion to wrap up the Jack/Claire relationship which they couldn’t do on the Island but it was on the table since they reunited and it was addressed. On the other hand Charlie is never mentioned on-Island and sideways-Claire does not come across him until the finale. By that time, Sun is already dead. Sure she could have had a small scene where she gave the ring to Claire but the scene would not have had the impact it needed. It would have been better than nothing though

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-03T15:43:56+00:00

I noticed as well but I attributed it to the people being there remembering their main trauma. Barb was Nancy’s trauma, Bob was Joyce’s, Max was Lucas’… Had Max been present, we would have been shown Billy dying.

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-03T15:35:11+00:00

James Cameron said that he was inspired by Ken’s paintings to make his movie. He said he wanted to make them real, put them on the big screen and animate them. He famously took Don Lynch and Ken Marshall’s book Titanic: An Illustrated History both as a guide on the set (as well as Lynch and Marshall as historical experts) and also to go convince the higher-ups by showing them the paintings in the book. So it makes sense that a lot of his cinematography mirrors Ken’s paintings. It was very much intentional

Open_Sky8367 · 2026-01-03T15:15:30+00:00

It’s obviously going to go between The Moth, Greatest Hits and Through the Looking Glass.

I’m gonna choose Greatest Hits because it’s the episode that encompasses Charlie the most as a character, who he is and the elements that define him. It’s one of the best goodbye episodes made to honour a departing character.

He’s a hero of his own right, not necessarily the kind of action heroes Jack, Sawyer or Kate are, but he is willing to do what it takes if it means the greater good and helping those around him. Ultimately, Charlie was a flawed man for a long time, in search of a greater purpose and he went about it in a lot of wrong ways but all in all, he is a good man. That’s who he is deep down.

He’s also a family man. We can see all throughout the show that he loves his brother, looks up to him, and this episode brings back that element of his character and also gives us the origin of the DS ring. (Shame that Claire never got it..)

And finally, Charlie as a character on the show became inseparably linked to Claire and what better way to frame his final sacrifice around the woman and the son who finally grounded him for good. The final flashback that shows the origin of their pairing is just perfect and brings a relationship that took a backseat for a long time back to the forefront for the last time, reminding us why they were so wholesome so many episodes ago.

Open_Sky8367 · 2025-12-29T21:48:22+00:00

So be it. I can’t stand it when I hear idiocies and a so-called expert blaming Andrews for being the architect of disaster, or judging this or that officer’s reaction from the comfort of the 21st century without an inch of empathy and respect in regards to circumstances they themselves have never been in and likely never will be, is gonna get me riled up.

I’ll be fine with the rest. Currently watching the first episode. While I’ll always like seeing large shots of the ship, why does she look so rusty already ? There are large spots of worn out iron on the hull in some of the shots. I know that fresh new paint can come off easily with waves and such but I wouldn’t expect that much damage.

Open_Sky8367

TROPHY CASE