By Drew Grant and Noam Cohen 4/29 10:29am

Game of Thrones

Illustration by Alex Bedder.

Five Essay Prompts for Game of Thrones 3×5: ‘Kissed by Fire’

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. Sometimes Ygritte acts tough and independent, and others she is erratic and even immature, as when she steals John Snow’s sword like a schoolgirl with a crush. Based on her behavior in this episode, where would you say she falls on Barney Stinson’s Hot/Crazy Scale–above or below the Vicky Mendoza diagonal? Read More

By Drew Grant 4/03 2:02pm

girls

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Why Did Girls Downsize, Relocate Writers’ Room?

HBO’s critically acclaimed show Girls is mixing it up for Season 3 … and leaving a few names behind. Don’t start crying yet: it’s not any of the cast members. In an article last month by Joe Pompeo, a source spilled the beans that three of the show’s L.A. writers will not be returning to the already-small writers’ room. But why?

Well, relocation, to start. The eternal struggle between L.A. lifers and chronic New Yorkers: the oldest story in the book. But also, more things! Read More

By Drew Grant 3/26 7:59pm

off the record

vice02_tca

The Vice Guide to Serious Journalism: How a DIY Drug Mag Became Serious Business for HBO

When Shane Smith, one of the founders of Vice Media, pitched a television show to MTV in 2010, it seemed unimaginable that the company that came out of Vice magazine could establish itself as a respected informational source about, well, anything (other than how to decorate your heroin stash). And yet the network bit, and The Vice Guide to Everything ran for eight episodes, balancing ridiculous segments against heavier fare.

With its latest television program, VICE, which premieres next Friday, the media company is once again trying its hand at American television. Not just television. HBO. And this time, it’s not trading on its nihilistic reputation. Instead, it’s asking audiences to trust in its international-relations acumen. It wants to be taken seriously. Or at least as seriously as it takes itself. Read More

By Drew Grant and Noam Cohen 3/18 9:32am

Girls recaps

Illustration by Alex Bedder

Five Essay Prompts for Girls 2×10: ‘Together’


These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. When Googling “Normal Tongue,” what is your favorite hit? Please quote from the source text, and if there are images, definitely include them, because this is something I am actually wondering about now. Read More

By Drew Grant 2/27 9:30am

Boys of Girls

65th Annual Writers Guild East Coast Awards - Arrivals

About a Boy: Alex Karpovsky Doesn’t Just Think About Girls

Out of all the actors on Girls, that HBO show that has attracted the same kind of specific, rabid New Yorker-type fan base as Sex and the City [ed. note: see our front-page story], Alex Karpovsky is the most visible. That’s not to say he’s more famous than Lena Dunham. But unlike the show’s creator, he gets around quite a bit. The National Book Awards, N+1 parties, Cinema Society premieres–the man who plays the caustic, anti-social Ray on premium cable is in real life quite the butterfly of the New York literary and film scene.

And his fans aren’t always those you might expect. Read More

By Drew Grant 1/08 7:39pm

pop culture

Illustration by Kyle T. Webster.

Carrie-ing the Torch: Deep Down, We’re All Still A Little Bit Bradshaw

A few weeks before the premiere of The Carrie Diaries on The CW, The Observer drove to Connecticut to meet the “real Carrie Bradshaw,” who now lives by herself on a small farm with two large poodles.

Candace Bushnell is not an easy woman to find. After several wrong turns on a chilly, overcast Tuesday, we found ourselves driving up a small dirt road in the middle of nowhere (technically, Roxbury, Conn.). A sharp right, and we were in the gravel driveway of what appeared to be a steeply pitched farmhouse. In a puffy blue parka, bomber hat yanked over her ears, the slight blond figure bounded down the steps of the barn, calling away her dogs and exhorting us to park somewhere else so she could get her car out. She seemed so unnerved by our arrival that we weren’t even sure she was the woman behind the cultural juggernaut Sex and the City. Read More