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We all knew it would not be a rousing ending. Since Season 5 the series ran out of book, and without George RR Martin’s world-building imagination, the show became fan-fiction. And not even as good as your fan-fiction. Yes, Game of Thrones descended into bad writing, character inconsistencies, sloppiness (Jaime’s hand growing back, etc) and a desperate race to the finish, but on balance it was a greatish show. For ten weeks a year it gave us something to talk about outside of our own lives (We especially needed that these last three years), and it turned non-readers into fantasy fans—no small feat. (Some years ago I made a vow to myself: GoT can NOT be the high point of my year or a substitute for a life.)

This last season reminds us of a fact we’d forgotten: The books are always better than the adaptation. So if you are dissatisfied with this last season, go to the books. Don’t hound GRRM for the next volumes, write them yourselves.

All I wanted in the finale was justice for Ghost.

Here’s the spoiler-laden full closure recap. If you’ve not seen the finale, stop right here.

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David Suchet’s Poirot was a kind of super-intelligent, eccentric, cuddly penguin.

Whenever I am glum, or dispirited, or my brain won’t shut up so I can’t sleep, I put on the long-running British-made Hercule Poirot TV series starring David Suchet as the fussy Belgian detective. I have not read Agatha Christie, but I have seen every episode of the TV series at least thrice, and find it very comforting.
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We were talking about sleep (My real talent), which led to dreams (I don’t remember mine), which led to Paprika (I cannot forget my friend Jay yelling “Etchosera!” during a screening of Inception), which led to the late Japanese filmmaker Satoshi Kon, which led to his television series, Paranoia Agent.

This weekend I saw the complete Paranoia Agent. It’s brilliant. Paranoia Agent starts with a seemingly random series of attacks committed by a boy on roller skates, wielding a dented metal baseball bat. This leads to a police investigation, which then moves into unexpected directions. The attacks are not random after all: the victims share feelings of anxiety, dread, helplessness. It is as if their worst fears have taken external shape, like Jung’s concept of synchronicity (“temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events”).

For a simpler illustration, listen to this song by The Police.

(Aye and I used to sing this between classes. I thought the line “Only the rush hour hell to face” was “Only the Russians have soufflés”. Which I think is better. Also I think this was Sting’s audition for the role of Feyd-Rautha in David Lynch’s marvelously terrible film of Dune. Or Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.)

Paranoia Agent (2004) reminds me of other works I love: David Mitchell’s novels Ghostwritten, number9dream and Cloud Atlas (Note David Mitchell’s long-standing Japan obsession) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia.

Just seeing this trailer makes me want to watch the movie for the 20th time. Those tracking shots.

And if I watch Magnolia again, I’ll have to see The Earrings of Madame de…(the Criterion edition has an intro by P.T. Anderson and by the way I love Phantom Thread even if I frequently want to strangle Daniel Day-Lewis’s character, which is the point).

Meanwhile, the final chapters of my travel book are waiting…waiting…waiting…

So this is really a post about procrastination.

Illustration by Richard Baron Reyes in ArtStation.

There’s a Voltes V exhibition at UP Bulwagan ng Dangal. I will drop by on Saturday after visiting my optometrist. In the meantime, here’s a repost of an essay I wrote for Kasaysayan: The Story of the Filipino People, a ten-volume collection published by the Reader’s Digest on the occasion of the Centennial of Philippine Independence in 1998. The essay was based on a column I’d written years earlier, which in turn was based on one of those meandering conversations with Roby Alampay that turned into material. (Disclosure: I never watched Voltes V because everyone was so ga-ga about it. That is how I misspelled “Boazanians”. Much later, I met the voice actor who did the English dubbing for Prince Zardoz.)

Click on image to enlarge.

Cats and swords, be still my heart. All the great TV series—The Wire, Breaking Bad, Buffy The Vampire Slayer—bow before your master, Neko Samurai!

Who is the genius who thought up this series? When will it be on Netflix? And what band is singing that bonkers “I’m So Great” song in the trailer?

Our travel show The Flip Trip premieres on TV in April, but you can already watch our short travel features on YouTube and our show’s Facebook page, and see the photos on Instagram (@thefliptripph). Follow us so you don’t miss anything.

Here’s Pepe introducing our show to adobo Magazine.

Ideas for features: Women flirt with Pepe, baklas hang out with Jessica.