Good morning, friends! We remain in sort of a quiet zone for television — and it’s going to stay that way for a couple of weeks, as MIFFmas is upon us! The Melbourne International Film Festival is HERE, and that means I will be seeing some FILLUMS.

I’m not really a big cinema person, because I’m kind of like, “And you can tell … a whole story? In less than three hours? Really?” But I’d like to be a cinema person. A few years ago I started to make the effort to see more films that aren’t superhero-related, but I am definitely not a knowledgable or sophisticated film viewer. However, if you’re curious, you can follow my adventures over at Letterboxd.

Let’s watch TV!

I feel bad for Alys the Witch. All she wants is a Harrenhal of her own and a white-haired prince with mummy issues to love. And yes, she has her wish … but one of the several advantages that Daemon has over Aemond is that his mother is safely dead. Not popping around uninvited with an assassin in tow and a recipe for poisoned tea up her sleeve.

Now, usually in terrible mother-in-law stories, she’s targeting her son’s partner. So you do have to give Alicent props for being here to assassinate Aemond. However. If she had not dismissed Alys out of hand as Weird and Common, maybe she would have taken the witch off the board before poisoning Aemond.

Not that she has much stomach for murder! I totally understand that Alicent doesn’t want to watch her son die, but girl, you gotta stick around to make sure the poison works, and that he’s not crawling to his girlfriend/personal physician to get his stomach pumped.

None of the Hightowers are having much fun this week, except maybe Lord Ormund. (We’ll get to him.) Gwayne has to put up with Ormund. Helaena (hey, she’s a Hightower by blood!) has Rhaenyra waking her up for a surprise debrief on her dreams. Daeron continues to be a nice child in a bad situation (specifically: putting up with Ormund).

And Ormund … well. I love Ormund. He’s terrible, but in a fantastically 2026 way: he’s a religious fanatic who hates women and queer people, and he’s obsessed with diet and wellness. He’s basically a right wing TikTok influencer who has been dropped into a fantasy medieval world. He’s going vegetarian, guys. He’s veggiemaxxing. I hate him, but I enjoy him so much.

Hey, you know who’s doing okay? Aegon. Somehow. Facing death at the hands of an enemy army, with Larys noping out (“Someone has to tell your story!” Bro.), he gives a kingly — if unhinged — speech, and THEN his dragon turns up. Sunfyre! It’s so good to see you’re not dead! Oh, you’re … you’re burninating those men. Cool.

Aegon has spent most of the series being the actual WORST, but I appreciate where we get a single moment where he seems … monarchical.

Speaking of monarchs, I almost fell off my dragon in shock when Rhaenyra herself turned up to deal with Sheepstealer and his rider. She’s … doing things? Taking action? Leaving the Red Keep?

Okay, none of this is for the benefit of the realm, but, you know. Baby steps. I feel terrible for Emma D’Arcy that they spend so much time playing this character who is confined to castle walls, even though it’s a good metaphor for how the ruler of Westeros has a frighteningly narrow vision of the world.

But nevermind THE WORLD, what’s important is that the dragon is out of the bag: Sheepstealer’s rider was Rhaena, and Daemon burned some poor goat herder alive to cover it up. (And Rhaenyra has been sleeping with the guy’s skull next to her bed? Girrrrrrl.)

In some ways, Rhaena is lucky that Daemon’s deceit has also been uncovered — it gives Rhaenyra a focus for her anger. She actually seems more saddened than vengeful regarding Rhaena herself, but Rhaenyra is … not the most consistent of people right now. But let’s focus on the little things: Rhaena has had a bath and a proper meal, and is sleeping in a bed, and Sheepstealer is gonna be okay, I swear, if they hurt one scale on a dragon’s head—

I mean, seriously, the special effects were SO janky and YET I could not watch the dragon fight because they are too much like cats, and I cannot handle the idea of a cat being hurt. They’re gonna walk it off! Or fly it off!

Finally, in this week’s As The Keep Turns: Mysaria is unwilling to admit that being a courtier is an awful lot like being a courtesan, HOWEVER, she will combine the roles and seduce Rhaenyra. (My TikTok algo has informed me that the Rhaenyra/Daemon shippers are very mad about this, as if Daemon hasn’t also slept with Mysaria, and ALSO WHY ARE THERE RHAENYRA/DAEMON SHIPPERS.)

And Addam has made a very polite, respectful move on Baela, only to find that she has already connected with his brother. You can actually see the moment his heart breaks! But this is a generation of mostly normal people, so I’m sure he’s gonna be cool about his niece being into his brother. (I said mostly normal.) And I just wanna say, Addam, you’re a good dude, you deserve a nice girl, may I remind you that Baela has a twin? A niece for every uncle!

All over the internet, I keep seeing a version of the same thinkpiece: did we need a new season of Ted Lasso?

Well, I don’t know. Do we need any television? Probably not.

A better question might be, is Ted Lasso worth continuing? There’s a sort of received wisdom around the internet that its second season was mixed, its final season was abysmal, everyone hates it and no one wants it back.

My feeling is that the final season was a mixed bag, but also consistent with AppleTV’s whole approach of blurring the lines between comedy and drama, and with the show’s attitude of unabashed sincerity. And outside the bubble of social media, there are a lot of people excited for a new season. (Source: the tea room chatter at work.)

I think, also, a lot of the backlash came because people were weirdly parasocial about Jason Sudeikis, and struggled when it became clear he is not in fact the wholesome, simple character he plays. (I would also argue that Ted himself is not as straightforward as he wants people to think.) And there were a lot of Ted/Rebecca shippers who really thought their OTP was going to get together. (No judgement, I’ve been there, but sometimes you have to accept that a show was never going to do what you wanted in this regard.)

My feeling, as someone who enjoyed the first three seasons without being passionate about them, is that it’s nice to hang out with these characters again. They remain fundamentally themselves — they have changed a little in the years since season 3, but Ted is still gritting his teeth and smiling through it, Rebecca is still a force of nature with a secret soft side, Keeley remains the human embodiment of optimism, and Higgins is still a Weird Little Guy in the best possible way.

I like checking in on these characters. I’m excited to follow the women’s team, and mildly optimistic that I might even recognise some of the real players when they make cameos. (I went to a Matildas game once!)

I also think that this episode’s core thesis — that, yes, parents sacrifice a lot for their children, but it’s bad to let your child see you sacrifice your passions — is a story worth telling. Ted giving up Richmond for his son was the right move at the time, and moving the whole family to England is the right move now. (Do I have questions about Michelle’s job, marriage and willingness to upend both for her ex? Yes. Did I clock Ted checking out as soon as she started talking about her issues at work? Absolutely. Again: Ted is less straightforward and far more complex than even he wants to know.)

Now, did we need to spend a whole episode on the question of whether Ted will accept the job offer? Maybe not. But we’ve established the new status quo and upended it.

In short, as a casual fan, I’m very keen. If that makes me uncool, well, I’ll just add it to the big pile of things that make me uncool.

Remember John Sugar? Private detective and cinephile who is also a secret alien? Yeah, that John Sugar.

Season 1 ended with the rest of his expedition leaving Earth after their presence was uncovered — but Sugar, still haunted by the disappearance of his sister, stayed behind. We pick up just a few months later. Materially he’s fine — it’s not clear where his money comes from, but he lives in a hotel and bought a house purely so he could spy on his neighbour, the senator who allegedly started the hunt for the aliens — so he’s doing okay. Except for the desperate loneliness. That bit’s bad.

The loneliness leads him to take a new case, another missing family member. This time, the client is an up-and-coming boxer, and the subject is the client’s brother, a formerly promising boxer, now an addict and ne’er-do-well. The case brings Sugar into a fresh milieu and ends up involving a rather interesting bit of property fraud, but also pushes him to the brink — not physically, but morally.

These aliens have strict rules, you see. They basically follow a version of Star Trek’s prime directive: they are meant to observe, not affect. Sex and violence are both verboten. Isolated and under stress, Sugar murders a man, and also sleeps with a very nice lady who promptly betrays him. He may watch a lot of noir, but he can’t recognise a femme fatale in real life.

This brings us back to the mysterious senator, and the truth about Sugar’s sister. Which I will not spoil, but I am seated for season 3, whenever that comes around.

Of all AppleTV’s experiments with genre, I think Sugar is my favourite, and I cannot recommend it enough to science fiction fans. The use of science fiction and old cinema, and a hero who has built his identity around old cinema, is genuinely interesting, and as we dig deeper into Sugar’s idealistic belief in justice and heroes, it increasingly has something to say.