I thought it was a well done if not particularly exciting episode. I guess I’ll give it 3.0/5 for the (for me) stirring ending.
- Utah: First of all I think the show is doing a good job at making Daenerys a grey character — not an evil villain (at least not yet) but not the White Messiah of earlier seasons. I give that credit, because they are not real good at that kind of thing.
But there is a bit of a mixed message here.
The show (and I am talking about the show, here, not the books) has hammered the theme that “mercy=foolishness”; there is a sort of “only the strong and ruthless survive in the Game of Thrones theme that has been very consistently expressed since Season 1. It has been hammered so relentlessly that there is simply no other way for the casual viewer to take it other than a rousing victory.
I do feel for Tyrion walking through the ashes looking at the charred corpses, which seem consciously set up to echo old WWII photographs at Nagasaki or Hiroshima.
When you think about it, her surprise attack was no different than Robb Stark’s surprise attack on Jaime’s army, even down to the lack of scouts. She just had different weapons. More effective ones.
So I have to roll my eyes at the moral outrage that the show is trying to get me to — kind of— feel.
But I see Randyll “The good and noble” Tarly is on that side too.
This is a motherfucker who threatened to hunt Sam down and rip out his motherfucking heart. I don’t feel sorry for him. Let him burn.
I do feel bad for poor Rickon Tarly. He is a likable enough guy. And hot to boot.
But then, he also comes off as kind of dopey, so no great loss.
Some quibbles with the first scene: Why does Tyrion say “One great house has already been wiped out?” Which house is he talking about? The Tyrells? The Martells? The Baratheons? At this rate the only house that is going to last is the Greyjoys just because they are the most annoying. - Dragonstone: As far as the Jon-Drogon scene goes, it was predictable. The only thing surprising in it was how utterly filthy Jon’s hands are underneath those fine leather gloves. I know he has been mining for obsidian, but you’d think he’d wash his hands afterwards.
The Tyrion/Varys scene just didn’t work for me: again, it is the mixed message of the themes that the show gives out.
Here you have the two most cloying characters in the show demonstrating how utterly emasculated they have become: come on, the Tyrion and Varys of earlier seasons took action. All these guys do is mope and, in Varys’ case, recite second-rate 90s-style slam poetry.
I totally expected Varys to magically sprout a long nineties goatee during that recitation, which too consciously seems to borrow from Niemöller’s poem. (First they came. ) Just — you know, conciously evoking the Holocaust, however subtle the reference is, as an analogy to a battle won is weird.
It’s the second inappropriate WWII reference in one episode.
If you want to make an analogy between Dany’s victory and WWII, wouldn’t Dresden be closer to it?
If Dresden had been filled with soldiers who had just handed the Allies with a pair of game-changing losses, that is. Which it wasn’t.
No, Dorf and Dullman are trying to plumb depths that simply ain’t there.
The Jorah scene was a bit meh for me. I really feel that the whole greyscale thing was utterly meaningless. Why include it at all? In the books, it is easy to predict a greyscale epidemic breaking out to add to all the other horrors. If they are not going to do that in the show; and if Sam’s healing Greyscale doesn’t somehow contribute to the plot(which it doesn’t), what was the point? It is just soap opera: and I am not a fan of soap opera. I’m quite annoyed at that whole storyline, but now that it’s over: good to have Jorah back.
I foresee a Jon/Jorah/Dany threesome. Making a three-headed dragon. IF you know what I mean. - Winterfell: the Ravens flying over the mountains and over the wall was a cool-looking scene. The eye-popping effects continue. I’m not sure what the point of it was, since Bran already knows they are coming. But still, I liked it. But then I have technical questions: when warging a flock of ravens, do you have to jump from raven to raven constantly? Or can you just kind of blanket warg them? Because, if the former, that would be exhausting.
- The Arya/Sansa/Littlefinger stuff was way more interesting to me. Probably the best thing about this episode.
You see the Arya/Sansa rivalry rearing it’s head: sure to fuel tons of Quora questions that essentially boil down to: “Why is Sansa so bad and Arya so good?” that I will be passing on this coming week.
The thing is, Sansa is right and Arya is wrong. I think it is kind of true to their characters though.
And I love how Littlefinger deftly manipulates Arya…or does he?
Arya can see lies, so I can see this backfiring on him. Arya has seen someone reporting to him: it seems reasonable that she knows that he knows of her argument with Sansa. what I wonder is if even that altercation, where Arya was so, frankly, unreasonable, was staged by Arya to trap the ‘Finger? Tune in next week. - King’s Landing. The Tyrion/Jaime bit was well done enough, I suppose.
Has anybody ever made a compilation reel of Nicolaj Coster-Waldau patented head-cock reaction? I would totally make a .gif of that if I knew how to make .gifs.
He constantly does it! Watch for it next time.
If there is ever a drinking game based on Game of Thrones, and their should be, that should be one of the moments where you take a drink: whenever Nikolaj cocks his head in the opposite direction and delivers a line, take a drink!
I really bought Peter Dinklage’s mixed overwhelming emotions in that scene, though. Whereas I felt Nikolaj was just acting. Doing a fine job, I guess, for a TV show, but it came off as “I feel I need to tear up in this scene to show off how I can tear up.” Dinklage’s clumsy delivery of his opening line expressed it all so much more clearly and poetically,— and originally if you ask me.
Cersei is pregnant. I guess losing that baby will drive her over the edge. Ho-hum. Yes, they are going to go there. I look forward to a really disgusting miscarriage scene.
Davos sagely tells Gendry: Nothing fucks you harder than time. Sounds like a slogan for a poorly thought-out beer commercial.
Can’t you just see Captain McBeard aka Davos in a smokey tavern, his hand patting the finely-shaped rear of a slinky twenty-something, downing an ice cold tankard of ale, turning towards the camera and saying “(Ahhhhhh!)Nothing fucks you harder than time.” {wink} . It’s so…almost brilliant.
AS for the sentiment, I can see that neither the show-runners nor McBeard have ever met ME.
Fermented crab bit is mildly amusing though and I liked the matter-of-fact way Gendry brained those NPCs.
It’s cool when Gendry kills people unexpectedly. It’s morally questionable when Daenerys does it. See? - Back on Dragonstone. Loved the leaner/shorter bit. Jon had a Napoleon moment. They are always poking fun at actors’ looks.
- Old Town. Sam reveals that his entire sojourn at the Citadel is a wash and contributes basically nothing to the plot other than healing Jorah, who doesn’t even have the disease in the books. Any hope of light being shed on what is going to happen at Oldtown is absolutely trashed by Season 7. They plainly don’t know or have cut it out. And that maester is NOT Marwyn. I do see that they casually dropped the “Ragger annullment” announcement. And Sam was too stupid to get it.
Now the end bit: Eastwatch: finally. So we suddenly get, like, a sort of dirtier, more foul-mouthed Fellowship of the Ring thing. I have long hoped for a LOTR-style Quest beyond the Wall in the books: but will it happen? The premise of it is kind of dumb, if you ask me: capture a wight and bring him south.
In my own theories/head fan fiction/whatever I was thinking more along the lines of going north and destroying some secret source of power for the White Walkers, like…an evil snowball or…you know…The Ancient Jewel of Brandon the Builder, or I don’t know something like that. OK, that is a little too Tolkien-y. Or destroying the “Queen Bee” of the Others, say.
I even thought maybe the quest might include Hodor-with-Bran piggybacking in his brain. And definitely Ghost! Or Summer.
Anyway.
I question if this quest is even going to happen in the books this way. The idea just seems too dumb for GRRM.
I mean, Beric Dondarrion being there is throwing me, too. What the heck? He is gone in the books. Why include him at all? He is so relatively unimportant. I know that Lady Stoneheart is not going on this quest. At this point I think we can confidently say the books and the show have diverged in ways we never dreamt of. Maybe Lem Lemoncloak will do it in the books.
Still, if I forget the books, and ignore the fact that the object of the Quest is stupid, it was a stirring moment seeing the Seven Questers (it would be Seven, that sounds right) set off into the Great White and I felt something in the plot click.
I also found Jon’s “we’re breathing” line to be…surprisingly right.
My guess is that they will not be successful, but maybe it will lead them to other interesting places.
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