What FX’s Dave and HBO’s Game of Thrones Have in Common

In the most recent episode of Dave (S1E9: Ally’s Toast) Dave Burd goes hiking with his girlfriend Ally’s family. In the middle of their wholesome family hike, Dave has to take a massive shit. He tried carrots for the first time at dinner the night before, and apparently the vegetables were too much for his delicate digestive system.

This is problematic for a number of reasons. Well, three reasons, really. First, he’s with his girlfriend, a person who he presumably wants to have sex with him at some point in the future. Dropping his pants and taking a dump in front of her is not a good way to earn her physical affection unless she’s into that sort of thing. You never really know with these two (see episode 3).

Secondly, he’s with his girlfriend’s family, a group of people who he wants to impress. And, again, crapping your pants is no way to impress anybody. Especially the parents of a person you’re dating.

The third and most glaring issue is that they’re in the middle of the damn wilderness… There is neither a toilet nor a shred of toilet paper anywhere to be found.

Dave, thinking quickly, tries to solve all three of these problems at once. As he runs towards a nearby pond to relieve himself, he yells at everyone to “Look away!” Boom, problems solved. If nobody sees it happen, it didn’t happen.

He reaches the edge of the water just in time to drop his gym shorts and unleash an absolute firehose of diarrhea into the reedy shallows. Although this was objectively not a good look for Dave and was certainly unbecoming of him as a boyfriend, you have to give him credit for shitting into the water and not just on the ground. That is a classy move.

So, what does this have to do with Game of Thrones you might ask? Excellent question.

Immediately after the scene of Dave taking a ferocious dump into a quaint little pond, the camera cuts to a shot of chocolate sauce being poured all over a pastry.

This cinematic technique was made famous by the season 7 premiere of Game of Thrones in which Samwell Tarly, performing his new pledge duties at the Citadel, alternates between cleaning diarrhea out of bedpans and pouring very chunky stew onto Maesters’ plates. This infamous scene apparently took 50 hours to shoot and has been dubbed the “poop loop” by GOT fans. It gets to the point where you can’t tell what’s shit and what’s food, it’s very nauseating and not nearly as funny as I imagine the editors thought it was.

Samwell cleaning shit

Samwell serving food

Some day in a college film studies class, I’m sure they’ll come up with a word for this poop-to-food technique and teach it to aspiring directors and writers.

Hopefully, they’ll teach it as an example of what not to do. Because — and I hope we’re all on the same page here — the whole “alternating between shots of human shit and food that looks like human shit” thing, is just foul. I get why it’s kinda funny IN THEORY. But, when you’re actually looking at it on the screen, it gets significantly less whimsical.

I hope we all learned something today!

Thanks for reading,

CP

P.S. here’s a vid about how they shot the poop scene. Enjoy.