Draven

dhmac

In the week between episodes 4 and 5, I got caught up on the final 5 episode of "Star Trek Discovery" season 2. Great special effects, but - Wow! - talk about bad writing. Characters would be in life-or-death situations but still take a timeout for extremely weepy farewell scenes. The last few episodes were full of so much awful schmaltzy shit that it became nearly unwatchable and I had to struggle to get thru them. (I think the only good thing from the whole season was seeing the setup for a possible Captain Pike show - now that's a Star Trek series I would want to see.)

Seeing such bad writing in another current show makes me appreciate this season of "Game of Thrones" much more. Yeah, the quality of the writing has fallen off in seasons 7 and 8 compared to previous seasons. But compared to other shows, GoT is still the gold standard of current television.

slop101

The main issue is that the first few seasons unfolded like a true novel, and these last couple seasons felt like Cliff's Notes. I understand they don't have the time to stretch things out, what with aging actors, and limited time, but it's still a jarring contrast.

I just hope they don't "Dexter" Jon by sending him North of the wall, making him a lumberjack or some shit! He's literally the only decent, non-asshole character in the show (Sam is too, I guess).

Rob V

Can somebody explain the significance of Dany having green eyes?

beavis69

andicus

Melisandre told Arya she would "shut many eyes forever. Brown eyes, green eyes… and blue eyes."

Eric F

jpcamb

I liked how the hound went out. Seemed fitting to have him die in battle with his brother and by fire. I wondered if Aria was going to swoop in and save him in her mad scramble during the carnage but I'm glad she didn't. I really have to wonder if Cersi is actually dead as they never panned over the corpses of her and Jamie. I really hated that Jamie did in fact go back to save her and not kill her to stop the madness. It seems strange to me how little overall dialogue Cersi had this season up until this episode aside from the battlement seen from last week. I enjoyed the episode and I'm not the least bit surprised Dany went crazy, I had hoped that she might take out Cersi with the dragon and a blast from stored Wildfire might send her to the ground.

I'm looking forward to the finale for sure. Last nights episode is however the first I am thinking of re-watching in full again before next week. I've tuned into the last 10-15 min of other episodes at most 'live" on HBO before the new one starts but haven't watched any of them yet before the next ep airs.

Giantrobo

Maybe they won't have too. Maybe Jon will take him if Danny dies?

Giantrobo

Yep. That was brilliant. Euron kept shading his eyes and it was clear he couldn't keep up. Even his orders were back and forth and confused.

BobO'Link

I never watch those. If that's required to know what really happened in an episode then the writers failed.

IMHO, they've failed very often in the past 3 seasons.

wendersfan

Exactly. People are complaining about the episode by saying that Daenerys' personality changed drastically. It didn't. She's been shown since the end of season one that she's capable of that level of violence, but she'd always had someone she trusted to remind her of her better instincts. All those trusted advisers are gone now.

Yeah, I get that the character development has been rushed over the past couple of seasons, but that's not a problem with this episode specifically. The people who are saying "worst episode ever!" aren't getting that. Hell, I knew Dany was going to "cry havoc and let slip the dragons of war" before the episode started. It was the logical conclusion to what's been happening this season.

Giantrobo

Yep, I got a RORSCHACH's journal feel when i read your post. Will his messages be found after the fact and expose the truth?

Giantrobo

I got 2 things I wanted:

-King's Landing on fire/crumbling
-Wildfire. <3

Gotta be be honest, I don't really care what's in ep 6. I'll watch it, but I'm happy now.

Josh-da-man

Hiro11

I have mixed feelings about this episode:

- They have been setting up for a while that Daenerys has a vindictive streak, has been isolated from those who made her better and had reached a breaking point... but I still don't think the story earned her acting like a genocidal maniac yet.
- They've been setting up that dragons are essentially the nuclear weaponry of this world and the episode definitely demonstrated the wonder and terror of seeing them in full action... and yet they killed one last week with a fairly routine Big Crossbow, neatly undercutting their invincibility. This back and forth in service of plot demands feels low rent.
- It was important to get some named characters on the ground during the rampage so that we could understand the reality of what was happening... and yet Jaime's plan made no sense, Arya had ridiculous plot armor and Cleganebowl was pure fan service to me. Setting up the frail-looking mother and child just so Arya could see them killed was downright cheap. The show used to be much smarter than this.
- I really liked that after all of the back and forth, it turns out Varys is one of the few truly moral people in this world... and yet he went out like a complete chump: blathering treason to anyone who'd listen, jarringly at odds with his character as a smooth, behind the scenes operator

I enjoyed one thing unreservedly: I really liked the slow settling of reality in Cersei that this was going to be an utter rout. I also liked her last (I assume) moments with Jaime, I kept thinking somehow she would get out of this but no, there was no way out.

Overall, I liked this more than I liked the messy, dishonest "The Long Night", but it isn't close to as good as the best episodes of the first three seasons. This show has become a rushed spectacle in its last season. They should have just done a full season, thought more carefully about plotting and character and done fewer Sapochnik episodes and more Nutter episodes.
​​

General Zod

Funny to me how Danny didn't even need anyone else there. Jon and Grey Worm could have just gone and laid out on a beach somewhere. Danny just needed her Dragon and it's unlimited fire power.. added to that the fact that nobody firing their weapons couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat and it was pretty easy peasy.

B.A.

Exactly.

Why So Blu?

Dany and her dragon not being able to get hit again. "Fool me once,..."

wendersfan

Regarding the scorpions not being able to hit Drogon: first, Drogon had a rider; last week, when it was hit, Rhaegal was riderless. It seems reasonable that there might be a difference there. Also, Dany undoubtedly learned from earlier mistakes.

mugwump

I wonder what all the parents who named their daughters Daenerys think about this turn of events? Hopefully their sons aren't named Adolf.

I never liked the Daenerys character in the books or on the show so I really don't care that she broke bad. And trying to tug the viewers' heartstrings over the destruction of King's Landing is ridiculous since the place has been portrayed as a cesspool of deception, inhabited by a wholly complicit population only too happy to turn feral at any given opportunity, since the very first episode of the show. At this point I'm still rooting for Sansa as the only major player that still has a functioning brain which surprises the heck out of me since that character started out so unlikable.

And yes, this stinking, stuttering end will certainly impact the rewatchability of the show.

Decker

Not only that, but Rhaegal was badly injured with holes in his wings. Sansa had told her to wait and let her troops heal, but she moved ahead right away and paid for it. No problem with the difference now (though the fact that ships could see dragons in the sky yet dragons in the sky couldn't see an armada of ships in the water is but one of MANY issues I had with The Last of the Starks last week - a nadir of an episode for sure).

Decker

I have a toddler named Daenerys in my practice. I did wonder about that name going forward after yesterday's episode. Though I had an Anakin in my old practice, and this is still better than that.

melasnus

I think this pretty much nails it:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/1...massacre-recap

Benioff and Weiss reveal that her decision was even more abrupt than it seems. They say Dany spontaneously decided to destroy the city when she saw the Red Keep, the King’s Landing castle built by the Targaryens.

“I don’t think she decided ahead of time that she was going to do what she did,” Weiss says. “And then she sees the Red Keep, which is, to her, the home that her family built when they first came over to this country 300 years ago. It’s in that moment, on the walls of King’s Landing, when she’s looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her, when she makes the decision to make this personal.”It’s manifestly unclear why “making this personal” didn’t just involve tearing down the Keep to get to her enemy Cersei Lannister, who just executed Dany’s friend and adviser Missandei, and instead involved massacring women and children. She’s obviously suffering because her lover Jon Snow has pulled back from her after realizing she’s his aunt. She’s watching the process of her closest confidants disappearing — Jorah dying to save her from the undead, Missandei murdered, Varys betraying her, Tyrion failing her for the millionth time — and she clearly sees that the men of the North love Jon more than they love her, and they will rally to his side and support him as king, rather than embracing her, a woman and a foreigner in their eyes.

But taking that rage out on the weakest, most helpless people available still feels frustratingly out of character for her. It’s a betrayal not just of her people, but of all her ideals and goals. “I am not here to be queen of the ashes,” Daenerys tells her ally Olenna Tyrell in season 7. Now she’s exactly that — though probably not for long since it falls on the last of her allies to punish her for what she’s done.There’s one thing worth considering: the lead-up to Daenerys’ massacre may feel rushed and clumsy, hinging on Varys’ not particularly compelling claim that madness runs in the Targaryen family, and that when a new Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin to see whether they’ll be stable or monstrous. Her supposed dark side has never been all that evident. Evidence like her lack of sympathy when her awful, vicious brother earned his grotesque fate, or her willingness to execute Randyll Tarly and his son Dickon for grossly betraying her, seems weak at best. But one thing has been consistent about her character: she wants to be loved. She believes she’s the rightful heir to the Iron Throne and that she comes as a liberator to her people. Even in “The Bells,” in the depths of her depression and despair, she talks about freeing Westeros from tyranny — even if she’s focusing on saving future generations at the expense of the current one.

When she arrives in King’s Landing, she truly believes the people will take up arms against Cersei and welcome her as the rightful heir. They don’t. They surrender, but they aren’t glad to see her, and they don’t fight for her. Maybe her sudden decision to “make it personal” isn’t because Jon rejected her or because the North is about to. Maybe it’s because she’s spent all this time fighting for people she thought should love her, and when she realizes they never will, she’s willing to let their world burn to punish them.

Why So Blu?