Television Game of Thrones (TV) • The watch has ended

GDaly95 said:
I tend not to be negative about the show and actually thought the first episode was fairly decent, but I can't believe people seemed to like this one. I thought it was abysmal, almost the definition of a filler episode.

What actually happened? Gendry and Arya, Brienne becoming a Knight, some comic relief from Tormund, the Hound scene. It was all meaningless imo. I guess it was a period of reflection given the battle to come, a chance for us to enjoy some dialogue from fairly prominent characters one last time, a chance to see them bond and become closer so that there can be some more emotional deaths and avenges in the next episode, but it was all quite boring to me.

And the scenes that could have been pretty big were just mediocre. The Sansa & Dany scene was shit. The dialogue wasn't clever, the acting wasn't impressive. It used to be in GoT that a conversation like that would happen and you wouldn't fully understand the intentions behind the characters involved, but there was just this really obvious and blatant fakeness in this scene. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it was horrid acting, either way I thought it was so poor.

Then there was the Jaime & Bran scene which I think went exactly we all expected. Jaime wondering why he didn't tell anyone, Bran telling Jaime he wasn't Bran anymore capped off with some an ambiguous comment. I feel like if you asked us all to write that scene in advance, we'd all come out with very slight variations of it, very predictable.

Then Jon & Dany. It wasn't the worst. I like the idea of Dany not getting a chance to react through words so that she may react through action in the midst of the battle to come, but the way all of that news unfolded wasn't great. Samwell told Jon in the crypts, then Jon told Dany in the crypts. For such groundbreaking news there just wasn't that much to it but maybe I'm being harsh.

I also still find the absolute lack of interest in Bran's three eyed raven thing quite amusing. Like when he said "The things we do for love" during Jaime's trial or whatever it was, does anyone want to ask him what he's on about? When he said the Night King tried to kill him many times, does anyone want to ask him to elaborate? Does anyone want to know how he came into physical contact with him and ended up with the handprint on his arm? No? I know Tyrion sat with him but that feels like a token gesture from the writers to show that someone has some interest, but nothing will come of that and Tyrion's attitude towards everything hasn't changed off the back of it in any case.

To try and end with some enthusiasm; the next episode should be pretty dope.
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I feel like the Tyrion and Bran conversation wasn't a token at all and we will see Tyrion come 'out of the crypts' to save the day after all hope is lost using his intelligence to work something important out based on what Bran had told him prior in said conversation.
 
GDaly95 said:
I tend not to be negative about the show and actually thought the first episode was fairly decent, but I can't believe people seemed to like this one. I thought it was abysmal, almost the definition of a filler episode.

What actually happened? Gendry and Arya, Brienne becoming a Knight, some comic relief from Tormund, the Hound scene. It was all meaningless imo. I guess it was a period of reflection given the battle to come, a chance for us to enjoy some dialogue from fairly prominent characters one last time, a chance to see them bond and become closer so that there can be some more emotional deaths and avenges in the next episode, but it was all quite boring to me.

And the scenes that could have been pretty big were just mediocre. The Sansa & Dany scene was shit. The dialogue wasn't clever, the acting wasn't impressive. It used to be in GoT that a conversation like that would happen and you wouldn't fully understand the intentions behind the characters involved, but there was just this really obvious and blatant fakeness in this scene. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it was horrid acting, either way I thought it was so poor.

Then there was the Jaime & Bran scene which I think went exactly we all expected. Jaime wondering why he didn't tell anyone, Bran telling Jaime he wasn't Bran anymore capped off with some an ambiguous comment. I feel like if you asked us all to write that scene in advance, we'd all come out with very slight variations of it, very predictable.

Then Jon & Dany. It wasn't the worst. I like the idea of Dany not getting a chance to react through words so that she may react through action in the midst of the battle to come, but the way all of that news unfolded wasn't great. Samwell told Jon in the crypts, then Jon told Dany in the crypts. For such groundbreaking news there just wasn't that much to it but maybe I'm being harsh.

I also still find the absolute lack of interest in Bran's three eyed raven thing quite amusing. Like when he said "The things we do for love" during Jaime's trial or whatever it was, does anyone want to ask him what he's on about? When he said the Night King tried to kill him many times, does anyone want to ask him to elaborate? Does anyone want to know how he came into physical contact with him and ended up with the handprint on his arm? No? I know Tyrion sat with him but that feels like a token gesture from the writers to show that someone has some interest, but nothing will come of that and Tyrion's attitude towards everything hasn't changed off the back of it in any case.

To try and end with some enthusiasm; the next episode should be pretty dope.
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Yeah, the Bran stuff is super annoying. Why even bother giving him the dialogue if no one is ever going to question it or let him elaborate on it?
 
As quite a few people have said, maybe the crypts aren't the best place to go against an enemy that can raise the dead but could Lyanna and Rickon be raised along with other Stark corpses? Might be what terrifies Arya in the trailers. Find it strange they didn't end this episode with the night king leading the army.
 
Irwin99 said:
As quite a few people have said, maybe the crypts aren't the best place to go against an enemy that can raise the dead but could Lyanna and Rickon be raised along with other Stark corpses? Might be what terrifies Arya in the trailers. Find it strange they didn't end this episode with the night king leading the army.
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Dont think youre allowed to talk about trailers tbh.

And i was wondering why they were your goto starks but that actually makes sense tbf.
 
Every single character that had their big moment of redemption or catharsis in this episode is going to die. None are major plot drivers but all supplementary. So Jorah, Brienne, Theon, Grey Worm are all going to die. Possibly Gendry. What else is there really left for them to do now?

Other interesting things:
- let us never speak of the Arya sex scene again but perhaps the seed is strong and she's got a Baby Baratheon now
- no Night King at all, might be flying down south to KL
- if he's around, he's going to certainly bring the dead back to life in the crypt. Headless zombie Ned :nervous:
- Ghost is back, I bet Nymeria pops up somewhere next
- assuming the Northern living win or at least don't die out completely, how can they kill the Night King? It's likely only going to be Valyrian Steel that can kill him. That leaves a handful of people with a Valyrian Steel weapon. Maybe Arya with the dagger? Though I would guess her last big contribution will be to don Jamie's face and get her revenge on Cersei.

There's still a LOT of possible options to go with, most plausible, so that's exciting.
 
shabadu84 said:
Every single character that had their big moment of redemption or catharsis in this episode is going to die. None are major plot drivers but all supplementary. So Jorah, Brienne, Theon, Grey Worm are all going to die. Possibly Gendry. What else is there really left for them to do now?

Other interesting things:
- let us never speak of the Arya sex scene again but perhaps the seed is strong and she's got a Baby Baratheon now
- no Night King at all, might be flying down south to KL
- if he's around, he's going to certainly bring the dead back to life in the crypt. Headless zombie Ned :nervous:
- Ghost is back, I bet Nymeria pops up somewhere next
- assuming the Northern living win or at least don't die out completely, how can they kill the Night King? It's likely only going to be Valyrian Steel that can kill him. That leaves a handful of people with a Valyrian Steel weapon. Maybe Arya with the dagger? Though I would guess her last big contribution will be to don Jamie's face and get her revenge on Cersei.

There's still a LOT of possible options to go with, most plausible, so that's exciting.
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I like some of these suggestions. Like the N.K flying to King's Landing as a chess move. Aren't other white walkers capable of raising the dead ?
 
kouroux said:
I like some of these suggestions. Like the N.K flying to King's Landing as a chess move. Aren't other white walkers capable of raising the dead ?
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Yes, actually I think that's correct. In fact the series started with a White Walker doing that with the Craster babies, right? Don't think we met the Night King until later.
 
sullydnl said:
Yep. Even if some aspects of the writing are less than stellar, I have zero problem with the pacing of this season. Spending a couple of episodes setting up the geography and relationships between the characters prior to a big battle (and whatever happens afterwards) is important. Jumping straight into the action (as some people seem to want) would be poor story structure on a pretty basic level. Even an episode like Blackwater took time beforehand to set the mood and that episode was at the end of a season.

I think GOT has created a problem for itself in that its biggest successes have been in one-off watercooler moments or events (be it Ned's execution, the red wedding or various battle set piece episodes). This had led to some fans being conditioned to only want more of those meme-worthy moments and tentpole episodes, dismissing everything else that would typically be the guts of a TV show as "filler" getting in the way of the spectacle.

For example, the Brienne & Jaime stuff in this episode is massively important for both characters as characters. In a typical TV show that wouldn't get dismissed so quickly but in GOT the desire to move on the the next blockbuster moment sees some people complain that it is pointless.
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For some it may be, but I'm rather indifferent to all the epic battle scenes, I immensly enjoyed Mad Men, which relied 100% on dialogues, but I still think this episode was crap. There was barely any substance to it, barely any meaningful developments, it was like they worked off a check list with the main intention of reminding us of every remotely meaningful character, giving them some cheesy line, so we will care about their fate in the battles to come.


They invested about as much time into Davos shedding a tear for that girl who wanted to fight, as they spent on Jon's huge revelation. That imho says it all. They could've done so much to explore those tensions and conflicting emotions, but they didn't because they needed the time for that little girl to want to fight, for Brienne to get knighted, to show Arya's tits, for Sam to perform his little "I deserve respect, too!!" routine for the 100th time, for Tormund being the clown...

Meanwhile, as someone else already mentioned, Bran spouts a bunch of strange stuff and no one cares, his chat with Jaime was painfully predictable and the Dany vs Sansa sean was completely bland, too".
 
Vidic_In_Moscow said:
I feel like the Tyrion and Bran conversation wasn't a token at all and we will see Tyrion come 'out of the crypts' to save the day after all hope is lost using his intelligence to work something important out based on what Bran had told him prior in said conversation.
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Aye, they've been emphasising that he's been out of form so to speak, so they're definitely building up to him having a big character moment outside of battle.
 
Re: the crypt

Surely Bran and Sam must have thought about the scenario of the Night King raising the dead in the crypt? Of everyone left they seem to be the only two who know anything worth knowing. Is it possible that they might be risen but won't be like normal wights, thinking of Benjen for example.
 
kouroux said:
He kinda needs time and focus to ressurect things ala season 7 no ? In the middle of a battle he might not have it. Unless another white walker does it.
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It didn't take him very long at Hardholm though. I think it took a while in S7 because the dragon was at the bottom of the lake but I'd say he could have one up and causing havoc in a minute if the battle was depending on it.
 
The last few pages just pushes on that the writers were never gonna satisfy everybody. There is so much difference in what people wanted between action and dialogue , pacing , what's considered filler and not , etc

If they had done some of the stuff that people have mentioned (those who aren't happy) then others wouldn't have been happy .

Given people were in different parts of the got world and lands ,, but majority now in one, I'm happy to see the interactions especially from those who have met before. It makes narrative sense for a lot of the stuff that has happened so far this season.
 
Someone took the time to improve the scene were Podrick starts singing:

 
Sylar said:
The last few pages just pushes on that the writers were never gonna satisfy everybody. There is so much difference in what people wanted between action and dialogue , pacing , what's considered filler and not , etc

If they had done some of the stuff that people have mentioned (those who aren't happy) then others wouldn't have been happy .

Given people were in different parts of the got world and lands ,, but majority now in one, I'm happy to see the interactions especially from those who have met before. It makes narrative sense for a lot of the stuff that has happened so far this season.
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Interestingly last night's episode seems to have recieved near unanimous praise from critics, unlike last week's episode or indeed a large chunk of shows like TWD (with which the worst aspects of GOT's writing have been compared in the past). So the writers are obviously doing something right.
 
shabadu84 said:
Yes, actually I think that's correct. In fact the series started with a White Walker doing that with the Craster babies, right? Don't think we met the Night King until later.
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And also last season when they killed a white walker and all the wights he ressurected died "for real"
 
sullydnl said:
Interestingly last night's episode seems to have recieved near unanimous praise from critics, unlike last week's episode or indeed a large chunk of shows like TWD (with which the worst aspects of GOT's writing have been compared in the past). So the writers are obviously doing something right.
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It was definitely better than the week before, for all the lack of action I think they did well to convey the feeling of dread and of impending doom. The fact we had basically the entire main cast together knowing they'll start to die gradually now made it fairly bittersweet. Major issue was a lot of the writing still isn't great which undermines it when you've got a lot of scenes centred on the strength of their dialogue.
 
diarm said:
It didn't take him very long at Hardholm though. I think it took a while in S7 because the dragon was at the bottom of the lake but I'd say he could have one up and causing havoc in a minute if the battle was depending on it.
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He should focus on killing the dragons first then because he'd win the whole war easily like that
 
I don't really care for many of the characters anymore. I only really like Jamie, Arya and Tyrion and Jorah. All the rest can go as far as I'm concerned. Brienne too but I think she's pretty much doomed though.

Interestingly Jamie has become my favourite, whether you're meant to feel like he's one of the better ones I don't know but obviously, they set him up at the beginning to be a massive cnut but throughout the show he redeemed himself IMO with the Brienne/anti-Cersei stuff

Next week should be brilliant though, I thought this week's episodes was very good and as others have said Danerys reaction to Jon's confession was very interesting!
 
Cheesy said:
It was definitely better than the week before, for all the lack of action I think they did well to convey the feeling of dread and of impending doom. The fact we had basically the entire main cast together knowing they'll start to die gradually now made it fairly bittersweet. Major issue was a lot of the writing still isn't great which undermines it when you've got a lot of scenes centred on the strength of their dialogue.
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Yep. It reminded me of the bit before the fighting starts in the Blackwater episode, where seemingly irrelevant stuff like the Hound and Bronn almost getting into a fight was supposed to tell you something about their characters and how they're reacting to the situation they're in. Except this time they took a whole episode to play it out. Which I like as a choice this late in the show, even if the execution faltered clumsily at times. Scenes meant to drive character points rather than plot points.
 
HTG said:
Someone took the time to improve the scene were Podrick starts singing:

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I would be happier if he started singing "Rains of Castamere", cue the surprise assault by Jaime and Tyrion.
 
kouroux said:
He should focus on killing the dragons first then because he'd win the whole war easily like that
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And the good guys should've left all the soldiers where they were, put up some fencing to stop spears and had the dragons poke their heads over the top and roast a few hundred dead feckers every time they got close.

I must say, I'm a little bit excited at the prospect of dragon on dragon aerial combat!
 
Also, anyone else find it bizarre that the Jon/Aegon reveal, perhaps the biggest secret/reveal in an entire show full of twists and turns, has been severely underwhelming in how the characters involved responded to this what-should-be earth-shattering news?

Jon barely questioned Sam about it when he was informed of his true lineage and then the scene where Daenerys finds out (admittedly, the siren interrupted them) lasted all of thirty seconds.

Nonsense.
 
Redlambs said:
The guy with the eyepatch gave Hound the line of the Ep. And Daenerys has been grey from the start, she can clearly go full on mad or end up being a good queen with Jon. From the first season, she's been a character clearly down the middle.
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Have some respect man, the lord of fire didn't resurrect him 22 times for nothing.
 
the people mention the foreshadowing on the crypts. How many dead bodies can there be realistically to be raised? And even then they are not buried in loose soil but should be within stone sarcophagus?
 
Buchan said:
Also, anyone else find it bizarre that the Jon/Aegon reveal, perhaps the biggest secret/reveal in an entire show full of twists and turns, has been severely underwhelming in how the characters involved responded to this what-should-be earth-shattering news?

Jon barely questioned Sam about it when he was informed of his true lineage and then the scene where Daenerys finds out (admittedly, the siren interrupted them) lasted all of thirty seconds.

Nonsense.
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I rather suspect they might just come back to that one.
 
Oldyella said:
the people mention the foreshadowing on the crypts. How many dead bodies can there be realistically to be raised? And even then they are not buried in loose soil but should be within stone sarcophagus?
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Trying to apply logic to this shit is pointless at this stage. Don't do it to yourself. It's just tits and dragons man.
 
Others may have mentioned it earlier but they should have merged these first two episodes into one ‘fan service reunions/get-up-to-speed/filler’ episode and then belt away into the action from E02 onwards. They’ve essentially wasted two episodes of a six-episode season on nonsense.

For seven seasons we’ve been told ‘Winter is coming’ and now it’s finally upon us - with a great opportunity to delve into the ultimate battle over six long episodes - they decide to waste screen time on shite like Tormund over-egging the pudding with his Brienne infatuation (okay, we get it, writers. He fancies her!), another nonsensical Arya and The Hound conversation, the overly-long fire-side sequence, at least three Grey Worm scenes too many etc etc.

They really could’ve condensed these two episodes into one 80-minute episode and then straight into the Battle of Winterfell in E02, IMO.
 
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Buchan said:
Others may have mentioned it earlier but they should have merged these first two episodes into one ‘fan service reunions/get-up-to-speed/filler’ episode and then belt away into the action from E02 onwards. They’ve essentially wasted two episodes of a six-episode season on nonsense.

For seven seasons we’ve been told ‘Winter is coming’ and now it’s finally upon us - with a great opportunity to delve into the ultimate battle over six long episodes - they decide to waste screen time on shite like Tormund over-egging the pudding with his Brienne infatuation (okay, we get it, writers. He fancies her!), another nonsensical Arya and The Hound conversation, the overly-long fire-side sequence, at three three Grey Worm scenes too many etc etc.

They really could’ve condensed these two episodes into one 80-minute episode and then straight into the Battle of Winterfell in E02, IMO.
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There's roughly 6 hours of screen time left. Plenty for a huge battle and epilogue.

Theory/question about the Night King...

He was turned into the Night King by a dragon glass dagger through the heart. Why would his weakness then be dragon glass?
 
Buchan said:
Others may have mentioned it earlier but they should have merged these first two episodes into one ‘fan service reunions/get-up-to-speed/filler’ episode and then belt away into the action from E02 onwards. They’ve essentially wasted two episodes of a six-episode season on nonsense.

For seven seasons we’ve been told ‘Winter is coming’ and now it’s finally upon us - with a great opportunity to delve into the ultimate battle over six long episodes - they decide to waste screen time on shite like Tormund over-egging the pudding with his Brienne infatuation (okay, we get it, writers. He fancies her!), another nonsensical Arya and The Hound conversation, the overly-long fire-side sequence, at three three Grey Worm scenes too many etc etc.

They really could’ve condensed these two episodes into one 80-minute episode and then straight into the Battle of Winterfell in E02, IMO.
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Given the episode lengths after episode 2 what difference would that have really made? They're trying to build some character moments, with patchy success, rather than just turn the series into a big collage of action sequences. Whilst it lacks the subtlety of the first few seasons for sure, that's not overly surprising given we now have a high fantasy show rather than a political drama.
I'm glad it's not just hack and slay and death so far. I'm sure we have plenty of that to come. Whilst the episodes, especially one, were not classics, I like what they tried to do.
 
Buchan said:
Also, anyone else find it bizarre that the Jon/Aegon reveal, perhaps the biggest secret/reveal in an entire show full of twists and turns, has been severely underwhelming in how the characters involved responded to this what-should-be earth-shattering news?

Jon barely questioned Sam about it when he was informed of his true lineage and then the scene where Daenerys finds out (admittedly, the siren interrupted them) lasted all of thirty seconds.

Nonsense.
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Not really. The true heir to the Seven Kingdoms doesn't really matter when a great big feckoff zombie army is coming towards you.
 
Cheesy said:
It was definitely better than the week before, for all the lack of action I think they did well to convey the feeling of dread and of impending doom. The fact we had basically the entire main cast together knowing they'll start to die gradually now made it fairly bittersweet. Major issue was a lot of the writing still isn't great which undermines it when you've got a lot of scenes centred on the strength of their dialogue.
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So whilst I get the dialogue is defo different between first few seasons and recent season (more emphasis on action over dialogue) what is the main issue with writing ?
Is it just dialogue ?

Like I know you're enjoying it but a few people's review of the episode has been
Fck the directors and their shitty writing
But what specifically was an issue in yesterday's episode ?
 
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