Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie

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Does a book have to be "necessary" to be worth reading? Maggie explores this idea in our spoiler-free discussion of the latest installment in the Hunger Games series, Sunrise on the Reaping. Topics include fan service, recurring narrative structures, the age of legacy prequels, and the trappings of continuity.

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The final Tyrion chapter reads like both a reversal of fortunes and a funeral procession. Cam is tracking five of these eerie coincidences, while Maggie is comparing the inverse mythologies and realities of Robb Stark and Tywin Lannister.

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Everyone's afraid of something, and nothing scares Cam more than freaky old people. The Rule of Jenny Pen introduces us to a brand-new subgenre: nursing home horror. John Lithgow is more terrifying than any slasher villain you can think of, and this movie might have more to say about mortality than any film in recent memory.

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This chapter features the richest dream sequence of the book so far, and some of the most provocative fodder for our philosophy of death discussions. Maggie explores the mantras emanating out of these kaleidoscopic dreams. Cam considers the three belabored deaths that have defined this novel – Robert, Ned, and now Khal Drogo – for all of their uncomfortable similarities and damning implications.

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We love Game of Thrones, we love The Witcher, we love The Lord of the Rings – but fantasy can be many things, including super silly stylized schlock. In the Lost Lands is the most fun you'll have with a fantasy film this year.

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What is the effect of the near constant mirage of George R. R. Martin killing off his protagonist? In this episode we examine this question from both the readers' and the characters' perspectives. Maggie zooms into Sansa's disillusionment and disassociation to find her skills of adaptation developing in the margins. Cam realizes that all the heads on spikes are a violent cherry on top of this novel's endless meditations on Macbeth.

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February's onslaught of new horror comedies got us thinking about the trickiest and most rewarding subgenre of horror. Despite their modern sensibilities, they all feel like throwbacks or reactions to earlier eras. Are horror comedies always riffing on established tropes and aesthetics? Are there any non-referential modern horror comedies? What is the identity of original horror comedies in the 2020s?

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This chapter has a little something for both of us. Maggie gets to talk about dreams and Cam gets to lose himself in the endless rabbit warren of philosophy. But it all comes down to this: is it really the dearly departed Ned Stark who visits his kids in their dreams? What would this spiritual confirmation mean for the supernatural aspect of this world? Souls, the afterlife, ghosts – it's all up for grabs now. And what's all this suddenly about the children of the forest? Are they a way for Bran to process his grief, or a tease of what's to come in his long and winding journey?

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The fifth Dune novel feels like a master of the craft finishing his central story and then just continuing to explore the world he created. This is another swirling, violent meditation on inescapable cycles of history, with an ever greater focus on the concept of manufactured immortality. Heretics of Dune is both the least essential and the most impassioned book in the series.

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Spoiler alert: Ned Stark is finally dead. The chapter we've all been waiting for and dreading is finally here, and this episode tackles the one question that we're both consumed by. Why does he die in an Arya chapter, instead of a Sansa chapter, or - you know - an Eddard chapter. Lighting our way towards an answer is a whole cavalcade of thoughts, theories, and literary analysis. Let's dig in!

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