So it looks like lots of people think it was the best or worst episode ever. I think it had its flaws, it's definitely not perfect, some things were huge disappointment, but it was a great episode and the good part, the overall atmosphere and some intense moments make up for it. It's been a long time since I've been so caught up in a tv show episode. That's something unique that can only come with time and growth. The time spent reading the books, the delight at the show annoucement, the dread at the idea that they might fuck it up, even worse, that it would be good but get axed because not enough people like it, seeing the result, the phenomenon it became, then several seasons, the whole time spent with these characters, then years seeing them, thinking about them, talking about them. That's something that's impossible to recreate in a single movie no matter how good it is. And this one is even more special as the books aren't finished yet. (Will they ever be though ? Didn't the show killed the books ?)
1) The darkness So obviously it's too dark. That's the one thing I got spoiled from multiple sources before watching it. So yeah, it's a shame with all the money put into it, and as the culmination of 8 seasons hyping, even more as I started reading the books maybe 15 years ago, that we can't really enjoy the action that much. But it's perfect for the beginning. The tension, the waiting, the darkness, the deads are coming, they know they'll probably all be dead come morning, most of them haven't really seen the enemy yet, it's still part of legends, and still they are waiting for the attack, not even able to see where the enemy is. And when they're fighting, there's the extra confusion of combat and the blizzard. It might have been weird if all the fighting action was all crystal clear afterwards. I mean we're probably seeing much more than what people fighting there would actually see. That's less glamorous but that adds a lot to the desperation feeling it's supposed to convey.
2) The start of the battle The battle in itself is ok. The wait is great. Melisandre setting the weapons on fire is a great start, making for great visuals and a huge "it's gonna be epic" feeling. Why not do it for everybody though ? What follows made no sense at all, why would you charge into the enemy before you can even see him when you're supposed to defend the place ?? But I guess Dothrakis are not really good defenders so... That also rendered the catapult useless, and they were never used again afterwards, why ? It did a great job darkening the mood a little further though, so the result it perfect. Though how awesome would it have been if the first wave was the dead Dothrakis already raised ?
The first wave is perfectly in line, just an overwhelming number of corpses throwing themseves on the defenders. It's not a fight, you can't see anything, there's no room to swing your weapon, just an unending wave of deads crashing into them. Again, it's perfectly in line with the feeling this battle is supposed to convey. They're not fighting to win anyway, they're jsut there to win some time. Then comes the only thing that works, dragons clear the field and the fighting can start. And yes, there should be a lot more deads and a lot more dragons breathing fire at them here... But one could accept that the blizzard is an effective anti dragon weapon and is there for this purpose (and not only for preventing us to see anything of the action).
Then the retreat into the castle walls, where you can see the Unsullied doing their job (contrary to all the rest of the troops, if we assume new deads are coming at the same rate, they're doing an amazing job at stopping them and enduring the assault. Makes you wonder why they were not put to better use than just cobering the retreat of lesser troops. Light the trenches! is the new Hold the door! At last some tactics in this battle, otherwise it looked like they were totally unprepared.And the tension again here, Melisandre's doubt and the ignition is a great scene.
3) The dragons and the army of the dead Huge letdown. The dragons are the one thing that works in the battle, and... they don't do anything for 95% of it. When they do it's great, but they're hardly used. The whole thing is not really called Game of thrones, it's called A song of ice and fire, it's about this one moment, the confrontation of dragons and the white walkers. The dragon are idle, and we don't see a single white walker fighting ! Also there's only one giant ? And no other weird creature. And the dragon battle was unwatchable. When the ice dragon first attacks it just looks like a 60's Godzilla movie.
Jon: Basically useless. He's supposed to be the savior, he does nothing. Not quite sure what happens to his dragon. One cool scene though, trying to avoid the ice dragon was pretty cool. You expect an awesome fight to happen at some point, but that never comes. Obviously couldn't die (again).
It was great to see Ghost before the battle, then... I don't think we see him again outside of this shot :/
Daenerys: At least her dragon had some use. Can't say any of her scenes is specially good. The fire attack on the night king was a good moement, but you don't believe for a second it would work. And why why why would she stay on the ground and almost lose the dragon ? Obviously couldn't die either.
4) The rest of the battle Afterwards it's more individual stories than ranged battle. It's hard to say what the turn of the battle is, and it has almost no interest. The people fighting are pretty low in numbers. It's hard to say if it's because all the others are dead or not. No idea where all the Unsullied have gone for instance. There are no white walkers or anything other than grunt deads, so no occasion for main characters to display their skills, except for one giant. When we see known faces they are usually surrounded, but still, the quantity of wights seem pretty low. In the middle there's the expected raising of the deads scene, which is greatly in sync with the We're fucked! theme of the episode, and it was done at a great moment. Though at this point it looks like there's nothing much left, whether living or dead.
Arya: She has three big scenes and they are all magnificent. Seeing her fight is so much better than the knight and she's even more efficient. The library scene is pretty weird but awesome. How the hell is there a place so quiet in the middle of this ? But again mad display of skills and huge tension in the scene. And obviously, killing the night king. People complain but she was uniquely suited for that. She's a professional assassin. She could have died doing it, but I've been betting on the faceless men getting rid of her for betrayal for a while. If it doesn't happen before the end, I'll be hugely disappointed.
Jamie: Useless here. How could he survive. He should have died defending Brienne. But I'll bet on Bronn next episode instead.
Brienne: Useless here. How could she survive ?
Melisandre: Could have done more in the fight but has two great scene. Has done her job and just let go. OK.
Sam: Useless here. How could he survive ? Though he's basically the one thing justifying Jon's lineage, so there's that.
Lyanna Mormont: Every scene she has since she appeared she's the pure incarnation of the North, badass in everything, so commanding despite being a child. She does not disappoint here. Great scene. And great way to die.
Jorah: Mildly useful, does his job. Did anybody expect him to die in any other way than defending Daenerys ?
Clegane: Meh But he can't die, he needs to fight his brother in King's Landing.
Others: Who cares ? TheyBeric does a good job, but he was never that important anyway.
5) The crypt and the godswood Obviously the crypts and people hiding are not the most interesting part of he episode Though what a bad idea. This was so obvious. A little disappointed, since the previous episode where they said they were going to the crypts I kinda hoped for a headless Ned cameo.
Sansa: Not her moment, maybe she should have died here to give it a little importance. It's not like she'll be going to King's landing anyway.
Tyrion: Some witty remarks as usual, that's it Couldn't die. I kinda hope he's the one who kills Cersei. Could be meaninglessly killed by Bronn, but I think he would go for Jaime first.
Defending Bran should have been a central point, why leave that to Theon and a few guys ? Apart from a very few, the fight is not about individuals so it's kind of a waste to have the heroes in the middle of a lost battle. All the best individual fighters should have been protecting Bran, they would have been more efficient there and could have had an awesome fight with the white walkers instead of hacking grunts.
Bran: Wtf man ! He goes all warg and you think "That's it, use your powers, do something!" And then... nothing. Not even a confrontation or some words with the night king. He litterally does nothing. Biggest disappointment by far.It's hard to be sure how important he is, but if he night king wants him that much he probably is. Hard to believe it though.
Theon: Meh, not sure he needed to be given that much importance. Sure he's probably the character that suffered the most, physically and morally, during the whole show, with highly conflicting loyalties, but for me the show never captured that copared to the book. He always felt secondary. So this redemption scene feels too cliche, with Bran telling him he's been a good boy. That's basically Bran whole action by the way.
The night king: Expected a better confrontation with Bran. I found almost ridiculous the way he walked after confronting Jon, you could almost see him singing lalala while jumping around, that was weird. I'm ok with the way he died, but very disappointed with his actions as the main villain. Well two good shots when he resist dragon fire (how ?) and the raising. Still a little lacking.
6) The final scene The whole final scene is a great moment. Death everywhere, the impending doom, the atmosphere, the music! The music was perfect.
7) And ater ? 3 episodes left. We know we still need to fight Cersei and see who ends up on the throne, but it seems so... petty ? compared to this episode. I'm not saying prolonging this battle would have been a better call, and finishing it on a cliffhanger would have been worse, having to wait one week for the ending would have killed all the atmosphere the episode created, it would have killed it. I have lots of critics, but making it a 1h20 episode with the complete battle was probably the best thing to do. That's what made this episode so absorbing. I thought the two first, though great, were kinda wasting a short season time, and at the same time now, I'm wondering what can really happen in the three that are left. It feels like this should have been a bigger part of the season, but also that it probably would have failed if it tried to.
Review by FLYVIP 2BlockedParent2019-05-05T22:57:18Z
So it looks like lots of people think it was the best or worst episode ever. I think it had its flaws, it's definitely not perfect, some things were huge disappointment, but it was a great episode and the good part, the overall atmosphere and some intense moments make up for it. It's been a long time since I've been so caught up in a tv show episode. That's something unique that can only come with time and growth. The time spent reading the books, the delight at the show annoucement, the dread at the idea that they might fuck it up, even worse, that it would be good but get axed because not enough people like it, seeing the result, the phenomenon it became, then several seasons, the whole time spent with these characters, then years seeing them, thinking about them, talking about them. That's something that's impossible to recreate in a single movie no matter how good it is. And this one is even more special as the books aren't finished yet. (Will they ever be though ? Didn't the show killed the books ?)
1) The darkness
So obviously it's too dark. That's the one thing I got spoiled from multiple sources before watching it. So yeah, it's a shame with all the money put into it, and as the culmination of 8 seasons hyping, even more as I started reading the books maybe 15 years ago, that we can't really enjoy the action that much. But it's perfect for the beginning. The tension, the waiting, the darkness, the deads are coming, they know they'll probably all be dead come morning, most of them haven't really seen the enemy yet, it's still part of legends, and still they are waiting for the attack, not even able to see where the enemy is. And when they're fighting, there's the extra confusion of combat and the blizzard. It might have been weird if all the fighting action was all crystal clear afterwards. I mean we're probably seeing much more than what people fighting there would actually see. That's less glamorous but that adds a lot to the desperation feeling it's supposed to convey.
2) The start of the battle
The battle in itself is ok. The wait is great. Melisandre setting the weapons on fire is a great start, making for great visuals and a huge "it's gonna be epic" feeling. Why not do it for everybody though ? What follows made no sense at all, why would you charge into the enemy before you can even see him when you're supposed to defend the place ?? But I guess Dothrakis are not really good defenders so... That also rendered the catapult useless, and they were never used again afterwards, why ? It did a great job darkening the mood a little further though, so the result it perfect. Though how awesome would it have been if the first wave was the dead Dothrakis already raised ?
The first wave is perfectly in line, just an overwhelming number of corpses throwing themseves on the defenders. It's not a fight, you can't see anything, there's no room to swing your weapon, just an unending wave of deads crashing into them. Again, it's perfectly in line with the feeling this battle is supposed to convey. They're not fighting to win anyway, they're jsut there to win some time. Then comes the only thing that works, dragons clear the field and the fighting can start. And yes, there should be a lot more deads and a lot more dragons breathing fire at them here... But one could accept that the blizzard is an effective anti dragon weapon and is there for this purpose (and not only for preventing us to see anything of the action).
Then the retreat into the castle walls, where you can see the Unsullied doing their job (contrary to all the rest of the troops, if we assume new deads are coming at the same rate, they're doing an amazing job at stopping them and enduring the assault. Makes you wonder why they were not put to better use than just cobering the retreat of lesser troops. Light the trenches! is the new Hold the door! At last some tactics in this battle, otherwise it looked like they were totally unprepared.And the tension again here, Melisandre's doubt and the ignition is a great scene.
3) The dragons and the army of the dead
Huge letdown. The dragons are the one thing that works in the battle, and... they don't do anything for 95% of it. When they do it's great, but they're hardly used. The whole thing is not really called Game of thrones, it's called A song of ice and fire, it's about this one moment, the confrontation of dragons and the white walkers. The dragon are idle, and we don't see a single white walker fighting ! Also there's only one giant ? And no other weird creature.
And the dragon battle was unwatchable. When the ice dragon first attacks it just looks like a 60's Godzilla movie.
Jon: Basically useless. He's supposed to be the savior, he does nothing. Not quite sure what happens to his dragon. One cool scene though, trying to avoid the ice dragon was pretty cool. You expect an awesome fight to happen at some point, but that never comes. Obviously couldn't die (again).
It was great to see Ghost before the battle, then... I don't think we see him again outside of this shot :/
Daenerys: At least her dragon had some use. Can't say any of her scenes is specially good. The fire attack on the night king was a good moement, but you don't believe for a second it would work. And why why why would she stay on the ground and almost lose the dragon ? Obviously couldn't die either.
4) The rest of the battle
Afterwards it's more individual stories than ranged battle. It's hard to say what the turn of the battle is, and it has almost no interest. The people fighting are pretty low in numbers. It's hard to say if it's because all the others are dead or not. No idea where all the Unsullied have gone for instance. There are no white walkers or anything other than grunt deads, so no occasion for main characters to display their skills, except for one giant. When we see known faces they are usually surrounded, but still, the quantity of wights seem pretty low. In the middle there's the expected raising of the deads scene, which is greatly in sync with the We're fucked! theme of the episode, and it was done at a great moment. Though at this point it looks like there's nothing much left, whether living or dead.
Arya: She has three big scenes and they are all magnificent. Seeing her fight is so much better than the knight and she's even more efficient. The library scene is pretty weird but awesome. How the hell is there a place so quiet in the middle of this ? But again mad display of skills and huge tension in the scene. And obviously, killing the night king. People complain but she was uniquely suited for that. She's a professional assassin. She could have died doing it, but I've been betting on the faceless men getting rid of her for betrayal for a while. If it doesn't happen before the end, I'll be hugely disappointed.
Jamie: Useless here. How could he survive. He should have died defending Brienne. But I'll bet on Bronn next episode instead.
Brienne: Useless here. How could she survive ?
Melisandre: Could have done more in the fight but has two great scene. Has done her job and just let go. OK.
Sam: Useless here. How could he survive ? Though he's basically the one thing justifying Jon's lineage, so there's that.
Lyanna Mormont: Every scene she has since she appeared she's the pure incarnation of the North, badass in everything, so commanding despite being a child. She does not disappoint here. Great scene. And great way to die.
Jorah: Mildly useful, does his job. Did anybody expect him to die in any other way than defending Daenerys ?
Clegane: Meh But he can't die, he needs to fight his brother in King's Landing.
Others: Who cares ? TheyBeric does a good job, but he was never that important anyway.
5) The crypt and the godswood
Obviously the crypts and people hiding are not the most interesting part of he episode Though what a bad idea. This was so obvious. A little disappointed, since the previous episode where they said they were going to the crypts I kinda hoped for a headless Ned cameo.
Sansa: Not her moment, maybe she should have died here to give it a little importance. It's not like she'll be going to King's landing anyway.
Tyrion: Some witty remarks as usual, that's it Couldn't die. I kinda hope he's the one who kills Cersei. Could be meaninglessly killed by Bronn, but I think he would go for Jaime first.
Defending Bran should have been a central point, why leave that to Theon and a few guys ? Apart from a very few, the fight is not about individuals so it's kind of a waste to have the heroes in the middle of a lost battle. All the best individual fighters should have been protecting Bran, they would have been more efficient there and could have had an awesome fight with the white walkers instead of hacking grunts.
Bran: Wtf man ! He goes all warg and you think "That's it, use your powers, do something!" And then... nothing. Not even a confrontation or some words with the night king. He litterally does nothing. Biggest disappointment by far.It's hard to be sure how important he is, but if he night king wants him that much he probably is. Hard to believe it though.
Theon: Meh, not sure he needed to be given that much importance. Sure he's probably the character that suffered the most, physically and morally, during the whole show, with highly conflicting loyalties, but for me the show never captured that copared to the book. He always felt secondary. So this redemption scene feels too cliche, with Bran telling him he's been a good boy. That's basically Bran whole action by the way.
The night king: Expected a better confrontation with Bran. I found almost ridiculous the way he walked after confronting Jon, you could almost see him singing lalala while jumping around, that was weird. I'm ok with the way he died, but very disappointed with his actions as the main villain. Well two good shots when he resist dragon fire (how ?) and the raising. Still a little lacking.
6) The final scene
The whole final scene is a great moment. Death everywhere, the impending doom, the atmosphere, the music! The music was perfect.
7) And ater ?
3 episodes left. We know we still need to fight Cersei and see who ends up on the throne, but it seems so... petty ? compared to this episode. I'm not saying prolonging this battle would have been a better call, and finishing it on a cliffhanger would have been worse, having to wait one week for the ending would have killed all the atmosphere the episode created, it would have killed it. I have lots of critics, but making it a 1h20 episode with the complete battle was probably the best thing to do. That's what made this episode so absorbing. I thought the two first, though great, were kinda wasting a short season time, and at the same time now, I'm wondering what can really happen in the three that are left. It feels like this should have been a bigger part of the season, but also that it probably would have failed if it tried to.