Game Of Thrones returns with all the tits and dragons you could ever want
Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Sunday, April 24. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
Game Of Thrones (HBO, 9 p.m.): We have learned to pay attention when Ian McShane curses at us, educated as we were by years of Deadwood. As such, we heeded his memorable response to inadvertently spoiling his upcoming Game Of Thrones role: “Get a fucking life, it’s only tits and dragons.” This was made easier by the fact that there were some big issues with season five, including its botching of the Dorne subplot and the fact that the show’s tone-deaf approach to sexual assault has gone past being embarrassing. Also, like Maisie Williams, we’re really damn sick of people asking about Jon Snow.
However, while we agree issues do exist, we still appreciate tits and dragons an awful lot, as well as the things Game Of Thrones does well: gorgeous settings and set design, action sequences unlike anything else on TV, deeply complicated interpersonal dynamics, payoffs to long-awaited meetings. Hence, we retain excitement at the season premiere of HBO’s fantasy juggernaut, otherwise known as of Gene Belcher’s thirteenth favorite holiday. With an end closer in sight than previously expected, the stakes are ever higher for Daenerys, Tyrion, Arya, Sansa, Cersei, Jaime, Brienne, Hodor (Hodor!) and all other residents of Westeros, as well as for showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to steer the series to a successful conclusion.
Once more, Myles McNutt sits upon the Iron Throne, bowed under his responsibility to lead the people and provide Expert reviews. As for Erik Adams, he has gone north to take the black, and his position as Hand Of The King and Newbie reviewer will be filled by Brandon Nowalk.
Silicon Valley (HBO, 10 p.m.): At the end of season two, the Pied Piper team were handed both victory and defeat, surviving the Hooli intellectual property lawsuit only to see their not-at-all-fearless leader Richard Hendrix stripped of his title as CEO by their investors. Now a new season puts Richard, Erlich, Jared, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle in a tricky position, trying to balance their outsider sense of identity with the increased scrutiny and expectations that come with success, as well as the management style of a new CEO. Erik Adams, serving as a special consultant, reports that despite the new scale it’s still business as usual.
The wonky workplace concern of these early episodes revolves around “scaling” the Pied Piper platform for a larger customer base, but that’s nothing showrunners Mike Judge and Alec Berg need to fret over. By putting Pied Piper in a situation where it must behave like an actual business—like the Yankees to its Bad News Bears, digital behemoth Hooli—season three of Silicon Valley organically adds to all that’s at risk. And that serves to intensify the anxieties and pettiness that fuel the show’s humor.
While he admits to some bitterness that he wasn’t picked to be Pied Piper’s new CEO himself, Les Chappell has survived the scrutiny of the shareholders and is back to provide regular season three coverage.
Veep (HBO, 10:30 p.m.): In an equally unsteady position is President Selina Meyer, whose election was left in deadlocked status at the end of last year. Season five begins in doubt as to whether or not Meyer’s presidency will continue to exist, as well as the real-world doubts as to where the newly anointed Emmy winner for Best Comedy will go now that creator Armando Ianucchi has left the show. In an early address to the nation, Joshua Alston says that the latter doubts have no place here:
Iannucci’s singular, outsider voice and the crystalline vision for his funhouse-mirror reflection of American politics, he seems like an especially tough act to follow. But the fifth season of Veep doesn’t just win the expectations game, it just wins. The rapid-fire, acid-tongued dialogue hasn’t changed, nor has the almost unfathomable ratio of zingers per minute. With a cast this talented—Julia Louis-Dreyfus remains at the height of her talents—the only thing that could go wrong is the writing, but it’s as assured and hilarious as ever.