I never posted about the episode here. I will go storyline by storyline from best to worst.
The Great
The Wall - The storyline we were all most intersted in to be honest. Amazing, beautiful opening scenes. The scene with Alliser Thorne talking to the Night's Watch was pretty good too - it reinforced the point that killing Jon was (supposedly) "For The Watch" rather than personal and name-checked Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck, plus it shows how well Thorne knows how to play the game (let's all just forget Thorne that you were technically the one who opened the gates to the wildlings...). And the Melisandre reveal was obviously the main point of the episode. I wondered how they would show it if it was indeed confirmed in the show (there are hints in the books and from actor interviews for it), but I did not expect them to go so far. That will be one of the most striking and memorable moments in the series I think. Only real criticism there can be of this storyline is that not too much happened and it is clearly holding a lot back for the next episode or two... I expected we would see the resolution of Thorne trying to break into the room, but that they didn't include it in this episode makes me think it will be a pretty significant sequence with the return of Edd and the wildlings (and hopefully Ghost mauling Olly).
Winterfell / The North - Sansa and Theon's fleeing scenes were good, it really gives a good sense of the coldness. Ramsay and Roose's conversation in Winterfell was good. It was an odd moment when it was almost trying to make Ramsay sympathetic due to Myranda's death... but ending with "feed her to the hounds" is a nice reminder that it's the same old Ramsay. Finally Brienne and Podrick's arrival and the fight against the Boltons, and the scene of Brienne pledging herself to Sansa was brilliant, surprisingly moving and with nice little moments for all the characters.
The Average
King's Landing - The King's Landing storyline is the show's bread and butter, not much happened here this episode but it was a nice enough demonstration of the current state of a couple of key characters and a reaction to the events of the finale. Great moments for Lena Headey here. I am really ready for Jaime to distance himself from Cersei but the scenes in this episode were really focused on Cersei so I am fine with there not being any progression on that front.
The Dothraki Sea / Danaerys - I liked this stuff, and it is probably the most interesting Danaerys scenes that don't include the dragons in a while (not that that's a high bar). Also fairly clearly demonstrated how Jorah would easily have a chance to find the ring she dropped.
Braavos - A short scene, just tuching base with Arya really, but serves its purpose well - things look pretty depressing for her being blind and on the streets, and we've established the waif is going to keep coming back and force her to learn despite being blind. We can see more of that next time.
Meh-reen - Nothing much happening here. Nice to show the poor state of the city, and with Tyrion and Varys it looks like we might be exploring that a bit more than with Danaerys. Looks like they will acually be looking into who leads the Sons of the Harpy too. And the fleet is burned! The Ironborn may be back in play in the east. Why would the Sons of the Harpy want to take out theships? Maybe it will be explained, but just as likely it's a "let's not ask that question" moment.
The Abortion
Dorne - I am late posting here so people have probably read enough about this already... Look, Doran being abruptly killed off by Elaria Sand without getting to do anything obviously offends my book reader sensibilities, but if anyone has read some of my posts here you'll know that I am extremely understanding of changes from the book for the adaptation. I was actually quite excited to see the show diverge further from where the books will be going this season, so that they could focus on the material they have been doing really well rather than struggling with plotlines from the book that aren't easily adapted. So when I say this was an unmitigated disaster, it's not just because it's a change from the book or anything like that. I was also pretty forgiving of the Dorne storyline last year too - yes, it was poor, but it was just one weak storyline and I could understand some of the difficulties and missteps that led to it falling flat, and also see the elements there that at least had potential. I was happy enough to put the storyline behind us as one that didn't really work overall and had a couple of memorably bad scenes... but this latest stuff just took what was awful about Dorne last year and turned it up to 11 (while also killing all the characters that were at least well cast / acted and were mildly sympathetic and interesting), and shoved it right into the premiere too. To be honest, although it was just one bad storyline, it really put a damper on my enjoyment of the entire episode. Maybe if more had happened in the rest of the episode, it would have been enough to overshadow it. But since the other storylines were pretty slow and there wasn't that much other material, it was hard to just forget the utter disappointment that was Dorne.
So overall impressions... well, the beginning of the episode was fantastic. It was a little slow even by the standards of season permieres which usually spend a bit of time catching up on where different characters are and setting things up for the future, but obviously some of the stuff its setting up looks extremely promising. But even though it's just a couple of bad scenes, the Dorne stuff this time was so bad that it's hard not to let it sour the overall impression of the episode. I just hope we can get more of the good stuff next time so that I can wash Dorne out of my brain - and I really hope that the sand snakes don't become a burden that will drag the whole show down with them, which I was not worried about at all before last episode but now I must admit I'm a little concerned about...
Topic: Game of Thrones (TV, fantasy) Thread (Read 647149 times)
