Game of Thrones Season 3 is here! Need to catch up? Don't miss Regina Thorne's Season 2 refresher or her recap of episode 3.01, episode 3.02, episode 3.03, episode 3.04, episode 3.05, episode 3.06, and episode 3.07.

And now, onto last night's episode 3.08, “Second Sons."

*****SPOILERS*****

If last week’s episode of Game of Thrones was a meditation on the many facets of love, this week’s “Second Sons” was a cautionary tale about sex and marriage. (Boys of Westeros, if you get a woody, watch out because someone is either going to cut it off or attach a blood-sucking worm to it. It’s enough to make you join the Night’s Watch!)

We open with Arya and Sandor “the Hound” Clegane; the Hound captured Arya after she ran away from the Brotherhood without Banners last episode. Sandor is sleeping, and Arya lifts the biggest rock she can find so she can crush his skull and escape again. Arya, you need to let sleeping dogs lie! Sandor, of course, isn't asleep and he tells Arya that if she kills him, she can go free, but if he survives, he’ll break both of her hands.

[Decisions, decisions...]

Note: This post contains SPOILERS for Season 1 of Orphan Black.

If you’re not watching BBC America’s Orphan Black (and you should be!), you’re not only missing out on a great mystery/sci-fi drama series, but also one very twisted love story. When our grifter heroine Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany) happens to witness the suicide of a woman, Beth Childs, who looks identical to her, she slips into her doppleganger’s life as a police detective hoping to score some cash. She gets more than she bargained for in all kinds of ways, but the most intriguing is Paul Dierden (Dylan Bruce), Beth’s live-in lover.

Streetwise punk-rock Sarah (who was previously dating a drug dealer) isn’t too impressed as she scopes out pics of the chiseled clean-cut guy, declaring to her buddy Felix that “If that was my boyfriend, I’d jump in front of a train too.” But hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. When Paul comes home unexpectedly, Sarah tries some distraction, in the form of stripping him for some sexytimes on the kitchen countertop.  (And this is cable, so there is skin. And thrusting. And moaning. Mmhmm.)

[From twisted beginnings come ?...]

This post contains SPOILERS for all aired episodes of Scandal, including last night's Season 2 finale, episode 2.22, “White Hats Back On.”

(Need a refresher? Check out Kwana's recaps of episode 2.12, episode 2.13, episode 2.14, episode 2.15, episode 2.16, episode 2.17, episode 2.18, episode 2.19, episode 20, and episode 21.)

*****SPOILERS*****

Hey, Gladiators, are you with me? Sure you are! Bleary-eyed, certainly, but you’re here. Cheers to you! You went to Shondaland, you rode all the rides, and you made it out to tell the story. Today’s season finale recap is going to come at you a little fast, but like Quinn, you’re no longer a wide-eyed virgin, so I’m thinking you can handle it. You’ve proven you like to play it a little fast and loose, so let’s go.

The show opened up where we left off last week with the Gladiators coming to terms with Billy Chambers being the mole and a quickie recap of the life and times of good 'ol Billy. Sort of like a video Holiday update, but more entertaining with murder and mayhem. “If you want someone killed right, you’ve got to kill them yourself,” Huck says.

[Annnnnd Huck gets the side-eye...]

It’s that time of year again, when the major TV networks unveil their fall schedules and we get a little glimpse of what we might be obsessing about at the water cooler from September to May. Here’s a look at the schedule and, more importantly, new shows that The CW announced at its Upfronts presentations in New York City today:

The CW's Fall 2013 Schedule (all times ET)

MONDAY
8-9 p.m. — Hart of Dixie
9-10 p.m. — Beauty & the Beast

TUESDAY
8-9 p.m. — The Originals (DRAMA) – The Vampire Diaries’ first family head on down to New Orleans to stir up trouble. All your favorites, Klaus, Elijah, etc., will be there, and facing off with the sexy King of the city (and Klaus’ former protégé) Marcel (The Game’s Charles Michael Davis). Oh, and did we mention that undead Klaus is gonna be a daddy?
Ship Watch: Klaus/Hayley?

9-10 p.m. —  Supernatural

[What else is new to the schedule?...]

It’s that time of year again, when the major TV networks unveil their fall schedules and we get a little glimpse of what we might be obsessing about at the water cooler from September to May. Here’s a look at the schedule and, more importantly, new shows that CBS announced at its Upfronts presentations in New York City today (the CW will present tomorrow):

CBS's Fall 2013 Schedule (all times ET)

SUNDAY

8-9 p.m. — The Amazing Race 

9-10 p.m. — The Good Wife
10-11 p.m.— The Mentalist

MONDAY
8-8:30 p.m. — How I Met Your Mother
8:30-9 p.m. — We Are Men (COMEDY) –Left at the altar, a betrayed bridegroom (Paranormal Activity 3’s Chris Smith) moves into an apartment complex and gets advice from three older but-not-so-much wiser dudes  played by Jerry O'Connell (The Defenders), Kal Penn (House), and Tony Shalhoub (Monk).
9-9:30 p.m. — 2 Broke Girls
9:30-10 p.m. —  Mom (COMEDY) –The return of West Wing alums to TV continues! A newly sober single mom (Anna Faris) moves in with her own mother (Allison Janney) to get her life back together. With these two funny ladies on board, this might be the best of the surprisingly large bunch of sitcoms this season where adult kids move in with their parents (or vice versa).

[Clearly comedy is king on Mondays!...]

It’s that time of year again, when the major TV networks unveil their fall schedules and we get a little glimpse of what we might be obsessing about at the water cooler from September to May. Here’s a look at the schedule and, more importantly, new shows that ABC announced at its Upfronts presentations in New York City today (CBS and the CW will present over the next few days):

ABC's Fall 2013 Schedule (all times ET)

SUNDAY
8-9 p.m. — Once Upon a Time 

9-10 p.m. — Revenge
10-11 p.m. —  BETRAYAL (DRAMA) – Twisty and infidelicious, this soap/legal drama hybrid follows a female photographer who has a torrid affair with a defense lawyer. But when he gets a big murder case, he has to go up against her husband, the prosecuting attorney, in court. James Cromwell (American Horror Story: Asylum), Henry Thomas (E.T.), Hannah Ware (Boss), Stuart Townsend (Night Stalker), and Wendy Moniz (Damages) star.
Ship watch: Sara/Jack

MONDAY
8-9 p.m. — Dancing With the Stars
10-11 p.m. — Castle

[What about the rest of the week?...]

Watch Downton Abbey: The Cast on Hopes for Season 4 on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

PBS has just announced the date of Downton Abbey's Season 4's return: January 5, 2014. And they've shared a video featuring cast members teasing us about what might be happening to their characters.

What do you hope to see in Season 4?

*****MAJOR SPOILERS for How I Met Your Mother's Season 8 finale, “Something New,” below.

Seriously, DO NOT READ until you've seen the episode—and the mother—for yourself.*****

Okay so Barney and Robin still haven’t walked down that aisle, Marshall still hasn’t told Lily he’s been offered his long-awaited seat on the judicial bench days before they’re set to spend the next year in Rome, but HIMYM fans still have reason to celebrate. Ted, so distraught over losing Robin to Barney that he plans to move to Chicago the night of the wedding, hasn’t met the mother of his future children, but we have.

In the last shot of Season 8’s finale, “Something New,” we finally get to put a face to the still unnamed Mother, as she purchases the fateful ticket that will take her to Farhampton and her date with destiny. In this case, a destiny named Ted. She doesn’t yet know that she’s about to meet the man who will love her drawings of robots playing volleyball and delight in the way she makes breakfast foods sing show tunes, but she’s only hours away from her life changing forever.

[And without further ado, the mother was revealed to be...]

One thing about the creators and writers of Lost Girl: they’ve spent a lot of time constructing this interesting re-imagination of the world we live in. Everything from the Dal being a place of neutrality between the Light and Dark Fae...not to mention the unaligned ones...to incorporating Dyson’s wolfness into a variety of Fae are just a small sample of what we’ve encountered over the last three seasons. It has taken things we may have learned (and quickly disregarded) in high school to whole new levels.

Sure, along the way, they may have some continuity errors. They might have also irked their fans with storylines that sometimes go against popular opinion (you really can’t please everyone), but they work hard to bring interesting mythologies from around the world and make it entertaining for us viewers. With the introduction of Tamsin, a Valkyrie, in season three, we caught a bit of Old Norse in the works. If resident expert, Kiersten, is correct we’ll be looking at more to come in the form of the head Norseman himself, Odin.

While we wait for the big reveal (confirmation?) of the identity of Bo’s father, here are some book recommendations that may please the Fae worldbuilding contingent.

[May these recs soothe some of our Lost Girl needs...]

It’s that time of year again, when the major TV networks unveil their fall schedules and we get a little glimpse of what we might be obsessing about at the water cooler from September to May. Here’s a look at the schedules and, more importantly, new shows that NBC and FOX announced at their Upfronts presentations in New York City today (ABC, CBS, and the CW will present over the next few days):

NBC's Fall 2013 Schedule (all times ET)

SUNDAY
7:00-8:15 p.m. – Football Night in America
8:15-11:30 p.m. – Sunday Night Football

MONDAY
8-10 p.m. — The Voice
10-11 p.m. — The Blacklist (DRAMA) — With shades of FOX’s The Following, James Spader (The Office) stars as a most wanted criminal who will surrender and talk on one condition—he works only with one specific rookie FBI agent to whom he seemingly has no connection. It’s nice to see co-stars Homeland’s Diego Klattenhoff and Dollhouse’s Harry Lennix back on our TV!
Ship watch: Too soon to tell.

TUESDAY
8-9 p.m. – The Biggest Loser
9-10 p.m. – The Voice
10-11 p.m. – Chicago Fire

[Is it fall yet?...]

Game of Thrones Season 3 is here! Need to catch up? Don't miss Regina Thorne's Season 2 refresher or her recap of episode 3.01, episode 3.02, episode 3.03, episode 3.04, episode 3.05, and episode 3.06.  And now, onto last night's episode 3.07, “The Bear and the Maiden Fair."

*****SPOILERS*****

“People work together when it suits them. They’re loyal when it suits them. They love each other when it suits them, and they kill each other when it suits them.” Two characters disproved Orell’s bleak view of human nature tonight: Danaerys Targaryen put her plans to invade Westeros on hold for the sake of 200,000 slaves who are of no possible use to her war effort; and Jaime Lannister, whom we first met screwing his sister and throwing a boy out of a tall tower, risked his life to save a woman he’s come to respect and love.

We open in the aftermath of the Wildlings’ epic climb over the Wall. They’re in the green lovely area known as “South of the Wall” and Ygritte teases Jon about all his peoples’ quaint customs such as marching on roads, having flags and drummers for their armies and needing a drummer to give them a beat. Ygritte marches to the beat of her own drummer of course, although I notice that she didn’t mock the quaint southern practices Jon Snow uses in bed. Orell is clearly jealous of Ygritte and Jon’s relationship and tells Jon he’ll never hold onto Ygritte. I think he’s doing okay, actually!

[Maybe you know a little something after all, Jon Snow...]

Anybody here ever go into a show or movie already knowing which couple you'll be rooting for, or shipping? Because I absolutely do, and not only when it's a book-to-screen adaptation where I'm already attached to a version of a couple.

No, I mean brand-new-to-me pairings that I get prematurely hooked on with very little to go on, like promo pictures, interviews, or even just character descriptions. Such was the case for me with Jack/Rose in Titanic back in the day (yes, I admit it!) and Clint/Natasha in The Avengers just last year. I also blame a certain recent post on LiveJournal's Oh No They Didn't community for my recent marathon catchup of The Borgias, which, let me tell you, will really make you wonder what TV is doing to your moral compass, even when it's all fiction. Anyway. This ever happen to you? Just me?

I'm wondering now if this will be the case for me with a show reportedly a lock for the ABC fall TV schedule: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., an Avengers spinoff from Joss Whedon starring Clark Gregg's Phil Coulson and Ming-Na Wen's Melinda May that'll focus on lower-level agents in Nick Fury's Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.) spy intelligence agency.

It is still VERY early days for this show (I'm literally only going on character descriptions, some throwaway lines, and, let's face it, WILD SPECULATION), but already two characters in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s supporting cast have caught my serial-shipper imagination: Agents Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons, described as “A twosome so connected to each other they're known as 'Fitz-Simmons.' ”

[That all you got?...]

This post contains SPOILERS for all aired episodes of Scandal, including last night's Season 2, episode 21, “Any Questions?”

(Need a refresher? Check out Kwana's recaps of episode 2.12, episode 2.13, episode 2.14, episode 2.15, episode 2.16, episode 2.17, episode 2.18, episode 2.19, and episode 20.)

*****SPOILERS*****

Hey #Gladiators, how are you all doing? Me? I’m feeling used, and no, not in the ‘good morning after Fitz, tired but refreshed, we’ve taken a nice shower together’ kinda used. I’m feeling all sorts of “out too late in the VIP, morning-after raccoon eyes, run in my fishnets, going home in an unmarked Town Car with a call you maybe and some suspect sport memorabilia” kind of used. 

Last night’s episode opened with Cyrus thrown to the wolves—aka the press—where he had to dodge questions about Mellie’s allegations and call them “a private matter” with a straight face. Like that’s gonnna fly, Cy.

[Honestly, Cy, you know better than that...]

Lost Girl’s Dyson has had his fair share of ups and downs over the duration of the last three seasons. Now, with his love for Bo returned and Lauren seemingly out of the way, it looks like our favorite wolf is headed for an upswing. Sadly, we all know that things are never that simple, leaving Dyson’s future as anything but certain, especially when it comes to Bo.

Though hints have been made about Dyson’s age and events he’s lived through, we still don’t know much about his particular brand of Fae. Does he have a pack? It hasn’t really looked that way, but viewers definitely need more information before drawing this conclusion. What we do know is that he can growl with the best of them and posture in an alpha way about his relationships and their potential longevity.

It is also with some confidence that I can say there are as many fans of the Bo/Dyson combination as there are of the Doccubus union (especially around these parts). So, if you’re firmly planted on Team Wolf Man, rather than spending your time whittling wooden poppets to ensure the emancipation of Bo’s heart from Lauren’s medically certified grasp, here are some suggestions to help pass the time.

What to Read

Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series. Mercy herself can transform into a coyote, but it is the wolves around her, particularly Adam, that demand the attention here. It seems that Mercy can find her way into all sorts of trouble, but with a werewolf and its pack being so close at hand, help is never far behind.

[Moar werewolves, if you please...]

Game of Thrones Season 3 is here! Need to catch up? Don't miss Regina Thorne's Season 2 refresher or her recap of episode 3.01, episode 3.02, episode 3.03, episode 3.04, and episode 3.05.  And now, onto last night's episode 3.06, “The Climb."

*****SPOILERS*****

“We’re just soldiers in their armies and there’s plenty more to carry on if we go down. It’s you and me that matters to me and you.” In the game of thrones, there are kings and queens, lords and priests and generals, and at the very bottom of the ladder, there are the pawns whose only hope of survival is that they matter to someone else. Unless you have someone to give you a hand when you slip, you’re doomed to fall.

We open with Sam and Gilly, who’ve taken a moment during their headlong flight from Craster’s Keep to have a fireside chat. Sam shows Gilly the dragonglass knife he uncovered at the Fist of the First Men last season, and then sings a song about the Seven Gods to lull Gilly’s baby to sleep. This scene is super cute and sweet, even without marshmallows to toast over their campfire, but I keep waiting for a White Walker to pop up out of the woods and behead someone. Game of Thrones: where even a lullaby can be scary.

[Security and happiness are overrated...]

They may be covered in blood, but the men are still hot (and in the case of Bill, a little bit crazy) in the Season 6 True Blood trailer.

When we last left Bon Temps, Bill had just gone crazy and been killed/possessed/reincarnated by Lillith and everyone was screaming and running for their lives as they tried to escape the compound. While the world seems to be caving in on everyone as Louisiana declares war on vampires, and the vamps face off against each other, there still seems to be time for some lovin'. What couples are you looking forward to seeing in Season 6—we have Tara/Pam, Alcide/Rikki, Eric/Sookie, and will we see more of Jessica/Jason?

What are you looking forward to in Season 6? Don't miss the premiere on June 16!

See all of our True Blood coverage on our feature page—including trailers, recaps, and news!

We know Downton Abbey is all over pop culture these days. How I Met Your Mother recently paid homage to the show when Marshall, Lily, and Ted found themselves addicted to a very similar period drama called Woodworthy Manor. And in an episode of The Mindy Project a few weeks back (“Santa Fe”), Mindy's ex Josh got a quick update from a high-profile pal/client (the Green Bay Packers's Clay Matthews) on the Crawley drama he'd missed while he was TV-less in rehab. Then there was the time the show was a hot topic with Gossip Girl's upper east siders (or at least with Serena's mom Lily)... The list goes on, really.

So yes, Downton is all over the place lately. But did anyone see that Iron Man 3 connection coming?

******MAJOR IRON MAN 3 SPOILERS AHEAD*****

[Who knew Tony could be so sensitive?...]

This post contains SPOILERS for all aired episodes of Scandal, including last night's Season 2, episode 20, “A Woman Scorned.”

(Need a refresher? Check out Kwana's recaps of episode 2.12, episode 2.13, episode 2.14, episode 2.15, episode 2.16, episode 2.17, episode 2.18, and episode 2.19.)

Hey Gladiators how doing’? Are you hung over? Did anyone get lucky? Cause I’m thinking last night’s episode was just about the equivalent of a long play Barry White song with some R. Kelly at his best while everyone was stuck on a 36 hour on a cruise to nowhere with a open bar feeling no pains.

The show opens with Liv swimming in a fantastic white suit with back piping which as we know means she trying swim her problems away, but when she comes to a stop there they are in the form of Captain Jake. And there they are again and again and again as Jake has now gone from cute stalker boyfriend to cute stalker bodyguard assigned by the President. Annoying much.

[All she's asking for is a little space, ok?]

This post contains SPOILERS for all aired episodes of The Americans, including last night's Season 1 finale, episode 1.13, “The Colonel.”

Your regular recapper for The Americans, Heather Waters@redline_, is in Kansas City this week at the Romantic Times convention. I’m filling in during her absence to recap the show’s finale.

Last night the finale for season one of The Americans aired. It was intricate, exhilarating, and exhausting, all at the same time. Nothing went according to plan, one marriage further disintegrated while another got off life support, Grannie got revenge for Viktor Zhukov, and an epic car chase (alright, it didn’t quite rival The French Connection, but...) ensued. Let’s count down the Top Five and celebrate the weirdness of hoping the bad guys get off.

5. “The kind of man who did what was done to you, Nina, is weaker and more vulnerable than he seems.” So says Arkady to Nina when he tells her she has two choices: 1) Return to the U.S.S.R. to face charges of treason (but not execution) or 2) Continue to spy on Stan Beeman, perhaps plant a bug on him, and eventually turn him...into a Soviet asset. She decides to turn double agent and spy on Stan, the man so willing to move heaven and earth to protect her from the KGB that he tells John-Boy Gaad, “the Rezidentura is going to go ape-shit [when we catch the illegals]. We need to do right by our source.”

[Wait till you see No. 1...]