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The Mountain and the Viper Episode Guide


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We’ve worked overtime on this one, and are pleased to note that we have our review and detailed recap available at the episode guide for “The Mountain and the Viper”. Usually we have the book-to-screen up at the same time as well, but trying to squeeze out the recap (it’s a long one) took too much time; we’ll tackle that tomorrow, for those eagerly awaiting it.

We hope to record our video discussion tomorrow, but in the interim, we welcome viewers to drop by the A Song of Ice and Fire forum and its Game of Thrones discussion pages. A great deal of discussion going on in the community, with a lot of useful insights!



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Boojam,

Feel free to discuss the review, without appeals to authority as you too often do. You can post other people's reviews somewhere else, if you'd like. This thread is about mine.

And don't steal someone else's copyrighted material, obviously. :P

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OK i give up on thew show like Jesus Christ. They can read and write scripts why can't they read the books??

Like everything they do in show show make no sense at all what so ever??

People who have been reading the books since the start i can't even Imagen the dread you feel if the series overtakes the books.

The show is just shock value over shock value for shock value.... Oh wait better not forget the sex.

What a sell out.

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I wouldn't go quite so far, but certainly I do draw a parallel between the representation of the Red Wedding and this scene. There's some similarities in approach.

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Boojam,

Feel free to discuss the review, without appeals to authority as you too often do. You can post other people's reviews somewhere else, if you'd like. This thread is about mine.

And don't steal someone else's copyrighted material, obviously. :P

Ok, fair enough,

I was going to post a link, and should have would that have been ok?

I don't call it 'appeals to authority' and I never claimed that, but there are differing aesthetic criticisms , as there always are.

Why was my comment about the fall in viewer ship snipped? :blushing:

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I haven't checked on previous seasons but this review appears to be the one that is the most wildly out of sync with how the vast majority of the (reader and non-reader) audience feel. Especially the thoughts on the duel. Unrealistic expectations can do that I suppose. I personally didn't feel like this episode was hyped up by HBO and it's producers any more than other late season entries. And in terms of an actual one on one fight, it certainly was the best one the show has put on screen to date. Most (even on this site which is where the nitpicks are more abundant) would agree.


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And in terms of an actual one on one fight, it certainly was the best one the show has put on screen to date. Most (even on this site which is where the nitpicks are more abundant) would agree.

Yeah, I don't really get their problem with the duel. It was beautifully shot, choreographed, and acted. On the technical side of things, I still maintain that the Beric-Hound duel has been the best one filmed for GoT, but this isn't far behind.

As for other aspects of the episode, I loved practically every scene. Sansa was an interesting surprise; I can't comment much until I see how this altered storyline turns out next season, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impressed. The scene with the lords of the Vale was wonderful and Sophie's acting blew me away. And her coming down the stairs... wow. It said everything it needed to say without a word.

As for the purists... whatevs.

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I haven't checked on previous seasons but this review appears to be the one that is the most wildly out of sync with how the vast majority of the (reader and non-reader) audience feel. Especially the thoughts on the duel. Unrealistic expectations can do that I suppose. I personally didn't feel like this episode was hyped up by HBO and it's producers any more than other late season entries. And in terms of an actual one on one fight, it certainly was the best one the show has put on screen to date. Most (even on this site which is where the nitpicks are more abundant) would agree.

There are some interesting global judgments about the show.

This one by Jack Hamilton at Slate is quite interesting.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/05/game_of_thrones_season_4_a_great_show_gets_greater.html

No copyright material, or is this posted as an appeal to authority... I am not a critic or a writer... so I can't do this stuff as well as others.

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Yeah, I don't really get their problem with the duel. It was beautifully shot, choreographed, and acted. On the technical side of things, I still maintain that the Beric-Hound duel has been the best one filmed for GoT, but this isn't far behind.

Alex Graves is on of HBO's stable of fine directors... but , even with the short time they had, this did seemed 'under staged'.

Think of Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang's duel in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Takeshi Kaneshiro and Ziyi Zhang's fight in the field (not the ending, which was good too) in Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers, I was convinced that Mei was REALLY blind! These were amazing. Not Chop Socky stuff. A structured condensation of this kind of choreography would have been stunning.

Ah well, I have seen lots worse. This conveyed George's ideas , if a little muted.

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... I think that was perhaps the most unjustifiably harsh review the site has done so far, guys. ^Agreed.

This episode deserved an even harsher review.

I felt it was cheesy and hurried. Many have waited all year for this fight scene and this is what they deliver, a couple of minutes of the Red viper doing flips and twirls along with the Mountain standing like his feet were cemented to the ground and grunting. And what about Sansa? From a little innocent abused girl to a sultry seductress in a nano second. The most powerful scene was Roose telling Ramsey that he was no longer a Snow. I feel like HBO ripped me off!!! George, just give me the next book please. We had a deal, you would write books, I would give you money so I could read those books and you would finish the series. I don't want to hear about HBO anymore, just give me the next book please.

Very disappointed that this garbage series is holding up TWoW.

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Now that's my invaluable input into discussion, but honestly, the only reason I visit this site is to laugh at the rage of hardcore book-purists. It's like a mental asylum in here and I bloody love it.


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Now that's my invaluable input into discussion, but honestly, the only reason I visit this site is to laugh at the rage of hardcore book-purists. It's like a mental asylum in here and I bloody love it.

Har!

De gustibus non est disputandum .

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This episode deserved an even harsher review.

I felt it was cheesy and hurried. Many have waited all year for this fight scene and this is what they deliver, a couple of minutes of the Red viper doing flips and twirls along with the Mountain standing like his feet were cemented to the ground and grunting. And what about Sansa? From a little innocent abused girl to a sultry seductress in a nano second. The most powerful scene was Roose telling Ramsey that he was no longer a Snow. I feel like HBO ripped me off!!! George, just give me the next book please. We had a deal, you would write books, I would give you money so I could read those books and you would finish the series. I don't want to hear about HBO anymore, just give me the next book please.

Very disappointed that this garbage series is holding up TWoW.

I was actually really worried that the Oberyn flips would look extremely cheesy in the actual episode. However, his fighting style turned out to work really well. I thought the lack of loud music in that scene worked really great, and helped make it much more raw and realistic. Show duel > Book duel, imo.

Also, how anyone can be disappointed with Sansa's scene is beyond me. She didn't suddenly transform. It has been apparent for a while now that she is growing into her own, and is becoming comfortable with Littlefinger (ever since Episode 4). The only thing that was holding her back was Lysa. Now that Lysa is gone, Sansa feels a lot freer and less trapped than in a long, long time- she is becoming more confident.

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Now that's my invaluable input into discussion, but honestly, the only reason I visit this site is to laugh at the rage of hardcore book-purists. It's like a mental asylum in here and I bloody love it.

Yeah :)

I have this weird ritual every monday morning (it's morning in the country where I live), where I go on this site, look at people's opinions and get disappointed fearing that the episode will not be that great. That disappointment turns to amusement, however, when I get home and see for myself how good the episode is- then I just watch the hilarity ensue on this forum :)

I don't know why I do it, but it's part of my GoT-watching habit.

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I loved the Orson scene. I thought it was a lovely little bit of writing and performance. You're right about one thing though, they shouldn't have used beetles, they should have used ants. Orson spending his days destroying never-ending populations of ants is far more credible. But I suppose they didn't want to do that because it would render the metaphor cliche.


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