Iron Fist Abridged: The Adventures of Iron Goldendoodle & The Bargain Bin Lannisters!

by Andrea Tang

This weekend, between bouts of story-editing, I meandered my way through the first four episodes of Netflix’s Iron Fist, which I’m actually quite enjoying so far, probably for the same reasons I’ve seen Vampire Academy three times. I’m pretty sure the writers pitched this series as, “What would happen if you put a goldendoodle puppy in the body of a WASPy ten-year-old blue blood, then traumatically dropped him off in the Himalayas for Fifteen Whole Gap Yahs? Probably, he would die, but that is boring and untrue to comics canon, so what if we made kung fu magic happen along the way in a manner most likely to bring the wrath of Edward Said’s ghost down on our heads? LET’S FIND OUT.”

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NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Dividends and Debts

Season four of Game of Thrones has been a tumultuous one to say the least, especially for those who have read the A Song of Fire and Ice series and know how much the television show has diverged with the characters in the last several episodes in particular (cough, cough Jaime Lannister the rapist).

The season’s sixth episode, “The Laws of Gods and Men,” grapples with a lot of thorny issues such as how leaders need to balance justice with mercy and whether they truly are able to deliver justice or just merely a series of motions with a pre-ordained verdict.

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NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: From Ice to Fire

Last night’s Game of Thrones whipped through Westeros (and Essos) almost as quickly as Aunt Lysa’s highly unstable mood swings. There’s so much to discuss and analyze — let’s get started, shall we?

The episode commences with a packed throne room, where the High Septon is bestowing blessings on Tommen as he crowns the spare heir of a King. The way Jaime Lannister watches the action makes one think that he wasn’t just participating as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. That was his son up there, the only son he has left. Was he feeling protective? Anxious? Distant, since his main connection to his three products of incest was his relationship with their mother the queen, who is now estranged from him? I know, these are a lot of questions, but I couldn’t stop noticing the way he was looking at Tommen as he was crowned.

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NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Only the Good Die Young

In “Breaker of Chains,” the third episode of season four of HBO’s Game of Thrones, everything is running amok in Westeros, North beyond the Wall, and Meereen. Things were never sweet, but they sure are sour. The long overdue death of the king has created a power vacuum, and the many players of the Game are scrambling to realign themselves with the next ruler.

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NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Nice Day for a Weird Wedding

Occasionally, it sucks to live on the West Coast: the Purple Wedding damn near broke Twitter hours before I was scheduled to livetweet the episode, and it took all my fangirl strength not to take a peek. But on my honor as a Tully, on my honor as a Stark, I kept my eyes pure until 9:00. Anything for my NOCs!

Let’s cut to the chase: by now you surely have heard that this was the episode featuring the wedding of King Joffrey of House Baratheon and Lady Margaery of House Tyrell. But that wasn’t the biggest news that came out of that wedding by any means: THERE WAS AN ASIAN WOMAN IN ATTENDANCE!

Okay fine, she was a performer, not a guest...but progress is made one step at a time.
Okay fine, she was a performer, not a guest… but progress can be measured one contortionist at a time.

Oh wait, did something else happen as well?

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NOC Recaps Game of Thrones: Reversal of Fortunes

In the immortal words of Salt-N-Pepa, I’m gonna “Push it… Push it Good…” and recap the season four premiere of Game of Thrones, “Two Swords,” as best as possible. For those who want a review of what’s happened so far and where we left all the main characters, go herehere, and here.

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