Face Off

The seventh season of "Game of Thrones" premiered last Sunday night, and it was as awesome as we fans had expected. It has become one of my all-time favorite shows, and I own the first six seasons on Blu-Ray discs, which I watch frequently to take my mind off the news.

Another of my favorite television shows is the original (pre-Tom Cruise) "Mission: Impossible," in which Impossible Missions Force leader Dan Briggs (and later, Jim Phelps) assembled teams of unusual specialists to carry out ... well ... impossible assignments. I loved the show because the villains were always really bad, and they always ended up totally screwed in the end as the IM Force's complex plans came together and left the bad guys wondering which truck had hit them.

Now, you might think that Mission: Impossible and Game of Thrones don't have much in common, but they do, as I was reminded with the passing earlier this week of veteran actor Martin Landau. Landau played the character of Rollin Hand, "The Man of a Million Faces" on the show, and many episodes climaxed with a character peeling away a false face to reveal a grinning Rollin Hand (or, later in the series and in the movies, one of the other IM Force agents) ...

On "Game of Thrones," the character of Arya Stark (brilliantly played by Maisie Williams) ends up in the city of Braavos where she trains to be one of the "Faceless Men" - assassins who take on various identities, murder their targets, and vanish without a trace. Several key scenes in the show reveal a character peeling away a false face to reveal a vengeful Arya Stark, much as Rollin Hand helped bring justice to the bad guys through his disguises ...

It's been said that we each have three faces: the first is the one you show to the world; the second is the one you show to your family and closest friends; and the third is the one you never show to anyone, because it is the truest reflection of who you are.

It's what makes us ... appealing.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, when Great Moments in Editing and Signage returns.

Bilbo