“What, you think she’d ruin his life because of a joke?”

“A good person doesn’t ruin somebody’s life over some random accusation.”

“Bearing false witness is the worst crime that you can commit. Otherwise, anyone can say anything about anybody, and just saying it ruins their life no matter what they did. Does that seem fair?”

Provided you didn’t toss your laptop across the room or yank your Amazon Fire stick out of the TV in disgust the moment you heard lines like those, episode five of The Romanoffs (“Bright and High Circle”) is worth talking about.

I reviewed the false-accusation episode of Matthew Weiner’s The Romanoffs, which was bad in more story-specific and complicated ways than you might have heard, for Vulture.

If I had to select a “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” knockoff declarative lede for a glossy magazine-style profile of Julia Wells, the wealthily careworn protagonist of The Romanoffs’ latest episode, “Expectation,” it might be this: Julia Wells can’t settle down.

Played by Amanda Peet — who seems to somehow become fuller and realer in the role as time passes — Julia spends most of the hour, during which she is almost continuously on-screen, moving from one place to another, and always with another, further destination in mind. She takes a couple of subway rides, catches a couple of cabs, mills around in a couple of famous New York retail establishments, gets dressed for two separate meals out at two different restaurants. Her big errand for the day involves picking people up at the airport and dropping them off at their hotel. Her workout of choice is moving in place on the elliptical machine, and her post-workout visit to the gym locker room just entails her walking through it, navigating other women’s bodies. Even her job entails helping the homeless and the transient. And if she pauses for more than a minute, her mind does the wandering for her, flashing back to events from decades ago, years ago, hours ago, minutes ago; she daydreams about resolution and absolution that are not forthcoming. Wherever she goes, there she isn’t.

I reviewed the Amanda Peet episode of The Romanoffs for Vulture.

Horror is a genre in conversation with itself — more so, perhaps, than any other genre, because the topic of conversation is always ultimately the same. Horror filmmakers study the things that frighten them, then reimagine, refine, and revise them, the better to unleash their own specific fears upon new audiences. This is as true of capital “G,” capital “F” Great Films like Under the Skin and Hereditary as it is of derivative corn like Stranger Things, or of recent critical darling Mandy, which after the weed-scented glacial pacing and lush psychedelia of its first half has nary an original idea in its head and is basically just Stranger Things for heshers. The stuff that’s truly worthwhile does more than merely remix the past, because the people making it filter those fears through their own unique ideas about the present.

Among many other things, “The House of Special Purpose” is a horror film, and it is not Matthew Weiner’s first. As the creator and showrunner of Mad Men he presided over several eerie and gut-wrenching hours of television, primarily during the show’s death-haunted fifth season. The fever-dream murder (guest-starring Twin Peaks’s Mädchen Amick) and the real-life terror of mass murderer Richard Speck in “Mystery Date,” the car-crash scare tactics and the shadow of tower sniper Charles Whitman in “Signal 30,” the acid-trip creepiness and artificially lit missing-person freakout of “Far Away Places” — all this is before the season’s climactic death, which I prefer not to name-drop publicly if I can help it but to which the character’s fellow cast members reacted, by all accounts, with genuine horror. (Of course, let’s not forget the lawnmower scene, either.)

But the anthology nature of The Romanoffs enables Weiner to go deeper into the genre than ever before. A self-contained story, with no previously screened backstory for the characters and no need to write for their continued existence either, abrogates the need for Weiner to do anything but creep people out in his own idiosyncratic way. Working with writer Mary Sweeney, he does exactly that.

Playing long-overdue link catchup: I reviewed the Christina Hendricks episode of The Romanoffs for Vulture.

Two episodes in is too early to hazard a guess as to what ties Matthew Weiner’s anthology series The Romanoffs together. But there’s no reward without risk, right? So here goes. Based on “The Violet Hour” and its followup, “The Royal We,” The Romanoffs might be so titled not just because its lead characters share ancestry with slain Russian royalty, but because they have nothing else to share. Both episodes feature antagonistic protagonists as hollow as Anastasia La Charnay’s Fabergé egg; the drama, and in this episode’s case in particular the comedy, arises from what they choose to fill that egg with.

I reviewed the second episode of The Romanoffs, aka the one with Corey Stolle and the god Kerry Bishé, for Vulture.

If you want to return to the world of Matthew Weiner, you’d best prepare for a rough reentry. We’re not just talking about the opening titles to The Romanoffs here, which replace Mad Men’s falling silhouette in a suit with the trickling blood of the massacred royal family of Russia as its connecting thread. Mere minutes after the last notes of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Refugee” close out the credits, we’re subjected to an almost unbearable torrent of racist invective — in subtitled French, no less — from an aging descendant of aristocracy to her grin-and-bear-it Muslim caregiver.

The younger woman, Hajar (Inès Melab), has to stand there and take it as the older woman, Anastasia La Charnay (Marthe Keller) — Anushka to her friends, and there are precious few of those — rolls out her bigoted litany. Anushka accuses Hajar of terrorism, suspects her of assassination by poison, recites half a dozen historical military victories of Christendom over Islam, brags that the traditional French croissant is the West’s way of literally eating the crescent that symbolizes her faith, and tells her, as she admires the La Charnay family’s heirloom Fabergé egg, that she “will never, ever have that.”

To Anushka, the egg means literally everything: wealth, respectability, Paris, France, Frenchness, humanity. All of it, held perpetually out of reach of people like Hajar by sad old white folks clinging to triumphs (whole Arches of them, in fact) they themselves did nothing to earn except through accident of birth. Behind Hajar’s placid grin you can all but hear her thoughts in response: “Look, lady, I just work here.”

For all its initial, confrontational unpleasantness, “The Violet Hour,” the first self-contained installment in Weiner’s ambitious anthology series for Amazon, soon settles into a familiar story pattern. Too familiar, perhaps: From my notes, I see I first predicted where the story was going at the 18:05 mark, approximately 32 and a half minutes before the inevitable big reveal. Nevertheless, some stories are worth retelling, whether because they force us to confront unpleasant truths or comfort us with resolutions that, in the real world, are much harder to come by. This episode is a little from Column A, a little from Column B.

I’m covering Matthew Weiner’s new series The Romanoffs for Vulture, beginning with my review of the series premiere. Join me, won’t you?

Looking back, do you have a favorite moment from shooting?

Harris: Pag Island.

Menzies: The time on Pag Island? Really? That’s interesting.

Harris: Yeah, that was a fantastic place for us to shoot. It was totally different when we were in Budapest, because people were in and out from London for their bits. Once we were on Pag Island, everyone was there for six weeks, so we all got to hang out properly. And it was just gorgeous. So bleak and beautiful. The [tourist] season hadn’t started yet, so we had the run of the town to ourselves, and there was a really lovely feeling to it.

Menzies: In terms of filming, I think [my favorite moment was] finally doing our long walk-and-talk with you, up there on the high ground of that island.

Harris: Yeah, that was good. We rehearsed that a lot just the two of us. We would go for walks around the little town.

[Your favorite part] wasn’t playing against Pag F.C., Tobias? Taking on the locals?

Menzies: You know what? That was a bit of a letdown, because the day before I pulled a muscle in my leg so I couldn’t really play. I remember being disgusted about that. That might have been a high point, but not for me.

It might have been watching you order pink drinks around various continents. [Laughs.] Jared is very partial to a pink cocktail, so I saw more pink cocktails than I think I’d ever seen.

Harris: Yes, yes. I do love pink cocktails. My theory is that pink cocktails are very potent.

Menzies: You mean they’re more potent the pinker they are?

Harris: Yes. The only thing more potent than a pink cocktail is a blue cocktail, but …

Menzies: What? I’m going to accuse you of false science. What the hell is that? Blue is better than pink?

Harris: No, blue cocktails are very potent as well, but you’re properly forewarned when you look at a blue cocktail. Pink cocktails look quite friendly. They have an umbrella in them, some sort of fruit … they look innocent, and boy do they pack a punch.

Here’s a very silly excerpt from what is otherwise a very serious interview I conducted with Jared Harris and Tobias Menzies about their work on The Terror, the best show of the year so far, for Vulture.

33. Han shot first (Episode IV: A New Hope)

Look, does my self-conception as a nerd depend on this? No, it does not. I’m secure in myself as a person, as a cineast, and as a huge dorkus malorkus to not be all that bothered by the older, more moralistic George Lucas’s revision of Han Solo’s cantina confrontation with a green-skinned mercenary. That said, I truly don’t care what subsequent releases of the first Star Wars movie attempt to portray as reality: Han saw the threat from the snout-nosed bounty hunter Greedo coming in that Mos Eisley drinking hole, and plugged the goon before the goon could plug him. End of story. It is what it is.

32. Han shot first (Solo: A Star Wars Story)

At first glance, Han Solo’s climactic killing of his partner turned betrayer Tobias Beckett at the end of his origin-story spinoff feels like pure fanservice — a guilty pleasure derived from the message-board complaints of Star Wars smarks, just a few notches above X-Men: The Last Stand’s “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!” But there’s more to this moment than merely correcting the record after George Lucas got cold feet about Han’s cold blood in the cantina 30-plus years ago. Immediately after shooting Beckett mid-monologue, thus saving his own skin, Solo immediately rushes to the man’s side, cradling and caring for him as he dies. You don’t shoot first because you’re the coolest guy in the galaxy, you shoot first because you’re desperate not to get shot yourself. Han may be more hardboiled when he plugs Greedo an unspecified number of years later, but for now both he and the audience get a bitter taste of what a blaster is really for.

I updated my list of the 50 Best Star Wars Moments for Vulture, too.

9. Yaz, “Only You” (Season 3, Episode 4) / Pink Floyd, unspecified (Season 3, Episode 6)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPpHLK4SHt8

The Ballad(s) of Jim and Kimmy. Along with Peter Gabriel, Fleetwood Mac, and Roxy Music (don’t touch that dial, music fans!), Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet’s synth-soul duo Yaz — that’s Yazoo to us Yanks — were one of The Americans’ go-to artists. They were never employed better than when poor infatuated teenager Kimmy Breland played the group’s gorgeous love song “Only You” to “Jim,” the hipster weed-dealer alter ego Philip employs to gain access to her CIA father’s house. Sweet but never saccharine, it suits the dancing-in-the-moonlight ambience of the scene perfectly.

“Jim” returns the favor a few episodes later, with a truly brilliant non-music cue: Placing headphones on the ears of a very stoned Kimmy, he plays her an unnamed song by Pink Floyd, the mind-expanding beauty of which we’re left to imagine through watching the blissed-out expressions on the face of actor Julia Garner, then 21 and already a formidable talent. The heart of Kimmy and Jim’s relationship was a dark one, and it only got darker when she returned for the final season. But in these two scenes, Kimmy’s need to be acknowledged and understood, Philip’s desire to do right by a teenage girl while failing his own, and the power of music to transport and delight shine through anyway.

Combining three beats I love—The Americans, pop music, and the use of music by TV dramas—I wrote about the best music cues in the show’s history for Vulture.

The Last Unicorn (1982)

One of the most beautiful, melancholy, magical, and genuinely adult animated features in American film history. This adaptation of fantasist Peter S. Beagle’s novel comes to us courtesy of Rankin/Bass Productions and Japanese animation studio Topcraft — the former responsible for the stop-motion Christmas classics Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, the latter eventually evolving into Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. Together, they produced the J.R.R. Tolkien cartoons The Hobbit and The Return of the King, plus this gut-punch of a film, about a unicorn who becomes trapped in the body of a young human woman. With a body-horror subtext worthy of Cronenberg and a ridiculously impressive voice cast (Mia Farrow, Jeff Bridges, Christopher Lee, Angela Lansbury, and Alan Arkin), it’s like a cross between Stranger Things and a story from the Dungeons & Dragons game its characters play.

Paperhouse (1988)

Directed by Bernard Rose — who would later adapt Hellraiser writer-director Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden” into the acclaimed urban-horror film Candyman — this harrowing supernatural/surrealist film centers on an 11-year-old girl who discovers her dreams and drawings are coming to life and consuming her reality. She’s got to figure out how to take charge and reassert control. Paperhouse is what I think of when Stranger Things is at its best.

Let the Right One In (2008)

Recast the relationship between Eleven and Mike Wheeler as a tragedy instead of a heroic fantasy, and you might wind up with this morbid proto-romance between a bullied kid and the young vampire who simultaneously befriends, protects, and uses him. There’s stuff going on here about abuse and loneliness, for characters of all ages, that digs way deeper than anything Stranger Things has done; if Netflix’s series is a 101 entry-level course, this is graduate work.

What should you watch after (or instead of) Stranger Things and its obnoxiously titled second season Stranger Things 2? Whether you like or dislike the show, I think I’ve got you covered with the list of 30 movies I wrote for Vulture.

One of the big themes of the show is putting aside differences to fight the common threat. As the wildling who made peace with the Night’s Watch, Tormund lives the values that Jon and Davos are preaching.

Yeah, exactly. It’s something my mother said to me today, actually: “Forgiveness is the most difficult way to go forward, but it’s still the only way.” You have to turn the page and let bygones be bygones. It’s nice to play a character who has that ability, because there’s so much revenge and the wish to kill each other in this show. It’s nice to have a character that’s able to turn the page and get the overall view. And it’s a skill of necessity, because you have to adapt or else you’re lost.

Your mom makes a great point. Revenge is a major plot driver for a huge number of story lines, but it’s not on Tormund’s mind at all.
No. His mentor and father figure was Mance Rayder, who gathered all the Free Folk for the reason of taking down the Night’s Watch and secure his people — but by war. That didn’t work, and I think, hopefully, that Tormund has learned from his mentor’s mistakes. I’m reflecting on the line [about Mance] that really surprised me when I came to it, in episode six, when Tormund says to Jon, “How many died for his pride because he didn’t kneel?” That’s a perspective I didn’t see coming from him.

I interviewed the marvelous Kristofer Hivju about Tormund Giantsbane and his current Schrödinger’s-cat state in Game of Thrones for Vulture.

Congratulations on creeping everybody out this season.

[Laughs.] Yeah, sorry about that. There were some cool bits to get to play, less so that creepy moment with Sansa. That was weird. I don’t think Bran meant that in a weird way; I don’t think he’s trying to freak his sister out by going, “Yeah, I know everything. Don’t fuck with me.” It’s more like Bran is processing everything he’s seen, like, “I’ve seen you there. That happened to you. I’m sorry for what happened to you.” Bran has lost that emotional connection. He just states what he sees in an almost autistic way, not really connecting with things but just saying how they are.

Saying “chaos is a ladder” to Littlefinger was so cool, though. I felt so badass in that scene, like, “Chaos is a ladder … yeeaaaah. How do you like that, Littlefinger?”

I went deep on Bran’s powers and motives as the Three-Eyed Raven with Isaac Hempstead Wright for Vulture.

Beyond Sansa and Arya’s rapprochement, the episode ends with Dany and Jon’s love scene and the fall of the Wall.

Yeah. It’s what the whole show is talking about, really, and why there is a summit at the Dragonpit in the first place. The show is so much about people fighting for power and one-upmanship and control, but at the end of the day, it’s a metaphor for life. Whatever we try — to be rich, to be happy — death is unavoidable. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, it doesn’t matter how much love you have. At the end of the day, it’s all heading that way. It puts all this gamesmanship and fight for power in relief, and it’s a big part of what this show is about.

Coming so hot on the heels of the Jon and Dany scene, which was about life and love and all those powerful forces, I was really struck by the shot you did of the zombies just watching as the Night King and the dragon destroy the Wall. There was an awful sense of violation about that.

Something that Game of Thrones always does successfully is that action sequences are never just action sequences. There’s always a point of view, and you’re always identifying with one person or one group of people. I think in this case, it’s not that you identify with the White Walkers, but there is a strange consciousness among them. It’s not spectacle just for the sake of spectacle. There’s actually a human drama that’s being played out here, and in this case this is the implacable enemy. It’s the forces of death over the forces of life. You have to believe in them as a kind of real, living, breathing, sentient mass.

The way to create drama in a sequence like this is by making it about these figures, not just about a Wall coming down. It’s really about the forces of good versus evil, and evil has a face.

I got to ask director Jeremy Podeswa about one of my favorite shots in the finale, as well as all kinds of stuff about the Dragonpit summit, Lena Headey, Aidan Gillen, and more, for Vulture.

I’ll try to be circumspect here: Many of my female friends like you a lot. Is this something you’ve noticed?

You know what? As I like to say, the star of Game of Thrones is Game of Thrones. The show is the star. I love the whole ensemble aspect of it. The best work I’ve ever done has been ensemble work, not leading-man stuff. I love doing character roles.

I think there is a certain amount of … [pauses.] Because there are so many morally ambiguous characters in this, maybe some of your female friends have daddy issues or something like that, because Davos would certainly make a wonderful father. Listen, I’d love to be like Davos. I aspire to be that man. You know where you are with this guy. He has a sense of fun, and he’s not fearful of life. As he said to Stannis, he’s not fearful of his death, either. He’s a guy you’d love in your corner. He’s a quiet hero. He’s kind of what we all aspire to be. But if it’s anything other than that, you need to speak to your friends. [Laughs.]

I interviewed Liam Cunningham, Game of Thrones’ Ser Davos Seaworth and a thoroughly delightful man, for Vulture.

14. “The Dragon and the Wolf” (Season 7, Episode 7)
The giant-size finale of what was simultaneously the series’ shortest and most epic season played like a Game of Thrones superfan’s winning bingo card. Jon and Daenerys finally hooked up, even as we learned for certain that they’re related. Jaime and Cersei finally split up, as the Kingslayer realized his sister is beyond even his concepts of morality. The Stark siblings put an end to Littlefinger’s reign of error. Winter comes to King’s Landing as snow falls on the capital. And the Night King unleashed his zombie dragon’s blue fire to send the ice of the Wall plummeting to earth, allowing his undead army to pass through. The end is nigh, folks.

I revisited, revised, and fully updated my ranking of all 67 episodes of Game of Thrones thus far in ascending order of quality for Vulture.

People like to nitpick on Twitter, obviously, and a lot of the focus of discussion about the episode was stuff like, “How did he throw the spear that far? Why didn’t he throw it before? How did Jon not die of hypothermia?” As a filmmaker, do you prepare for that kind of response?

Yes. We really do care about believability. There’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into making the dragons as believable as possible. It’s funny: The most unbelievable things, like lizards as big as 747s that can throw flames, people don’t have any concerns about the reality of that. It’s the smaller things that people get hung up on. I don’t dismiss it, because it’s important for us to tell the story in a way that that doesn’t get in the way for too many people. I have no problem with the way the Night King throws his spear, and the fact that it does kill a dragon and knocks it out of the sky. I think that’s fine. I think haggling over that is ridiculous. I get people’s time-frame concerns — you know, “Gendry must be running really fast! The ravens must be flying really fast!” [Laughs.]

I think if the show was struggling, it would be a drag to have people getting distracted by this stuff, but obviously the show’s doing pretty well, and it’s working. So when things like this come along, they’re plausible impossibilities. You’re hoping that even if something doesn’t quite add up, if it works within the story for us, it can carry the day. So for me, I think we were aware of the time thing, and I was thinking, Okay, if you say that Gendry is really fast, which I’m willing to say, and if you say ravens are super good at what they do, which I think you can say, and if you say the time on the island is a bit hazy because it’s an eternal twilight up there north of the Wall, so we’re not really sure how much time has passed, that’s an episode where the calculation of minutes fades away and you just sort of enjoy the story. But I did read one review where the guy got his calculator out and he could not get over the raven-speed. [Laughs.]

I interviewed “Beyond the Wall” director Alan Taylor about returning to Game of Thrones, the Sansa and Arya scenes, the big battle, the logistical issues, and more for Vulture. I think I got a lot of good stuff out of him and I hope you enjoy it.

2. Battle of the Bastards, “Battle of the Bastards” (Season 6, Episode 9)

Ramsay Bolton got his comeuppance, Rickon Stark’s short life came to an end, Wun Wun the giant went out in a blaze of glory, Sansa Stark pulled Jon’s ass from the fire, House Stark recaptured Winterfell after years in the wilderness: You know all the details about season six’s climactic confrontation. But it’s the visual component of the Battle of the Bastards that makes it so memorable. At one point, the fighting between Jon and Ramsay’s forces was so horrific that the dead bodies piled up into a literal pile — a physical obstacle that the fighters had to climb above or drown beneath. Every speech Jon or Davos ever made about the folly of fighting each other was made real in this moment, which turned the mass murder of warfare into an actual geographical feature of the battle. It was a moment of macabre beauty, power, and tragedy.

I ranked ten of the biggest battles in Game of Thrones history for Vulture. The Number One choice may surprise you!

Bronn’s charm has completely won me over, but he still has a touch of that dark side in him. Like, after the battle where he took a shot at Dany’s dragon, my sister texted me and said, “Am I the only one who was rooting for Daenerys? Bronn’s an ass.”

[Laughs.] Well, I suppose it’s like any good writing, like with Shakespeare. I just try to keep him Bronn, which is a nice journey to roll with, and I give myself over to what he gives himself to. If I was trying to play him dark or anything, I’d just be playing what’s coming through.

When I auditioned for the part, I had no idea what sort of show it was going to be, or even what it was. I hadn’t read any of the books. But there was something in the writing that came through. I couldn’t ignore his sense of humor, these different sides to him, and how he does what he needs to do. The dragon annihilated thousands of soldiers — he had to do something, didn’t he? There was a lot on the line.

It’s amazing. I was just talking to George before this — people’s responses have been quite extreme. The thing about this season is that all these characters are coming together. It’s been easier to separate them before, but suddenly they’re in conflict. People who like Bronn also love Daenerys and the dragons. My postman doesn’t speak to me anymore because of that! [Laughs.] So it’s gonna happen, isn’t it? That’s Bronn. That’s true Bronn. That position he got himself in is a combination of courage, doing what he has to do, and looking after number one. And that’s what makes people love him: He’s so honest! It’s interesting when it comes to dragons and Daenerys, because that’s sacred territory.

I interviewed the marvelous Jerome Flynn about Bronn’s recent doings on Game of Thrones for Vulture.

Sean T. Collins: Near the end of the battle, there’s a shot of two white horses who are hitched to a wagon that’s on fire. They’re desperately trying to run away from it, but of course they’re attached to it and can’t. Both the audience and some of the characters watch it happen. It really got to me, and a lot of other people too. What was the origin of that image?

Matt Shakman: We wanted something that was iconic and that could fit in the “all is lost” moment, something that really helped tell the story of the horrors of war, and something that could unite Tyrion and Jaime. Both of them are looking at the same image at the same time; it helps you understand where they are in the battlefield in relationship to each other, and that they’re both having the same experience as the potential end of the Lannisters is happening in front of them.

A few years ago [in season five’s ninth episode, “The Dance of Dragons”] there was the burning horse in Stannis’ camp. It’s quite a horrific image, as the horse runs by fully on fire. We talked about images like that. But then it became more compelling to do this idea of a wagon on fire, with the horses fleeing even as they’re still tethered to it. You have this idea of the wagon train that was supposed to be orderly and safe and heading to King’s Landing — now here it is, off in the wild, dragging flames behind it. I felt like it was a pretty good image to tell the story of the horror of that moment.

I interviewed director Matt Shakman about filming the battle sequence in this week’s Game of Thrones, “The Spoils of War,” for Vulture. Fun fact: Shakman also directed “Mystery Date,” the episode that kicked off Mad Men’s run of back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back masterpieces during Season Five.

Grey Worm was reluctant to take off his clothes, but Missandei insisted, saying, “I want to see you.” It reminded me of a line from one of the show’s other most romantic scenes, when Jon Snow and Ygritte are in the cave in season three and she tells him, “I want you to see me.” They both demonstrate that when you take your clothes off in front of someone you care about, it’s not just about turning them on. It’s vulnerable.

It is. In fact, it’s a trust thing too: I want to see you, and I want you to see me in my most vulnerable state. I’m scared, but I’m here. It’s the most vulnerable place you can put yourself, essentially. And I think this is a unique thing. Everyone knows that intimacy can be so scary when it’s someone you care about, but it’s especially so for Grey Worm, because he’s in a unique situation with his mutilation. His letting her take his clothes off is such a huge deal, because he probably never considered himself able to be intimate or a lover for any woman. The fact that he loves her is huge for her. It just shows how true their connection is. It’s a really beautiful thing.

A lot of people just focus on the mechanical nature of consummating their love. I think people have to stop and consider what consummating their love entails for these two characters, because of the fact that Grey Worm has that injury. People consider the anatomy of it and the mechanical nature of it, so they forget the emotional weight of it for these two characters — to be that vulnerable with each other, considering where they came from. Grey Worm has the obvious situation of having been castrated. And Missandei touching a man out of love and care, and with intimacy … no doubt, from where she’s come from, any sexual contact she’s had has been forced upon her. So for them, this is a huge moment. Almost like they’re essentially doing it for the first time, like they’re virgins exploring each other’s bodies. It’s a huge thing.

It’s not to say that what they do physically is unimportant, but the real consummation of their love is, as you say, seeing each other.

It’s almost not physical, which is so lovely about it.

I was very happy to speak with Nathalie Emmanuel about Missandei and Grey Worm’s love scene in the most recent episode of Game of Thrones for Vulture.

Before we tackle the big issues, I’ve got to ask: What was in those bedpans?

Well, if you want to re-create human feces onscreen, the best thing to do is to use soaking-wet fruitcake and mold it into the shape of turds. The thing about wet fruitcake is, when you see it for the first time at 6:30 in the morning, it’s fresh. But when you get to 5 in the afternoon and you’ve been shooting all day, and the wet fruitcake has been in the water and under the hot lights all day, it starts to become only slightly less unpleasant than the real thing.

I recently found out, because our producer Bryan Cogman reminded me on Twitter, that while I was shooting that sequence on my own over five days, the rest of the cast were at the Emmys! They were on the red carpet in L.A. while I was on my own in Belfast, dry-heaving and pretending to scrape shit out of the bedpan. The balance is a little bit off here.

You’re like Sam, sacrificing for the greater good.

Yeah, though I was even less happy about it than Sam seemed to be. I totally forgot they were even there! I think they tried to make me forget, and not notice this kind of injustice writ large. [Laughs.]

But no, I needed to be able to shoot that sequence. It was so fragmented in those little five-second shots, so I didn’t get a sense of the overall shape until I saw it all edited together, but I knew it was going to be something special. It’s something that was never quite done on Game of Thrones. We’d never done an edited montage like that. It’s a comic set piece with such a different kind of flavor that it took people by surprise. I love the fact that we are able to take risks, because we do abandon the formula and introduce new elements and styles to it.

I think that’s why people keep coming back. Even after six seasons and 60 hours of TV, you never know quite what to expect. That could be a character dying or a pivotal plot development, or just a funny little montage they weren’t expecting. There’s so much scope to surprise people, and it’s something that Game of Thrones mines very thoroughly, and always has.

I interviewed John Bradley about Samwell Tarly, bravery, morality, and fake poop for Vulture. It’s been a while since I’ve interviewed someone from the show, but my streak of discovering that every single cast member has put a great deal of thought into their character, their performance, and the world they inhabit remains unbroken here.  Anyway, I’m psyched to be speaking to the cast and crew of the show for Vulture throughout the season, just like I did for Rolling Stone back in the day.