110 replies to this topic

[Ran]

Rate the episode!

[Kaitscralt]

Best episode so far, without a doubt. The pacing finally found a rhythm and they stopped to explain the back stories to four important characters. Plus three direwolves including Ghost.

Kit-Jon stole every scene he was in.

[RAddichio]

Gave ep4 a 9. Last week's ep was my fav so far.  I didn't understand why Ghost appeared for a split second tonight, after not seeing him anywhere other than the 1st ep when Jon discovered him as a pup?  Tournament was exciting and rather gruesome..as written.

[Mr Bean]

Kaitscralt, on 08 May 2011 - 09:21 PM, said:

Best episode so far, without a doubt. The pacing finally found a rhythm and they stopped to explain the back stories to four important characters. Plus three direwolves including Ghost.

Kit-Jon stole every scene he was in.

Best episode to date

The Episode in which Sir Allister is the world biggest dick to everyone in existence
Best Episode, gave it a ten.

[Ran]

Ghost was in episode #2. He's lying down near Jon and Tyrion.

[Valmy]

I do love how gloomy and serious all the Starks are in the series.  Especially Jon, Robb, and Ned.  As it should be.

[Bishop437]

Yes I also feel it was the best yet. Love that we get to see Ghost in all his glory. Now some will complain that he shouldn't be growling but good luck explaining that to a television audiance. Wish the tourney was a bit more involved but the essential thing happened. It was weird that the hounds story was told but littlefinger but at least it was told. Love that Theon finally gets introduced and explained. My guess is we are about 2 episodes from Viserys being "crowned". Could happen next but I don't think so. Thought the crossroads inn was perfect. I like that it was Bronn who Tyrion threw the coin to. And we hear of the Freys of the crossing. Curse them curse them curse them. What else..... Oh yeah! The Three Eyed crow! I was afraid they would skip it but it appears my fears were unfounded. Well done indeed. Rated this one a ten

[Lord Godric]

By far, the best one of the season so far.  Loved the dialogue and action!

[SergioCQH]

Another vote for the best episode thus far. Bryan Cogman just did the exposition better than D&D.

[moonjump05]

The "LF telling Sansa the Hound's story" ruined this one for me, sorry.

[Daenerys]

Loved it. I'm going to be a dick and only give it an 8, even though it probably deserves a 9. Main reason being nothing super exciting happened, and a few scenes were slightly awkward or unnecessary. But overall the show is starting to feel more smooth and flow more naturally. Sansa continues to grate on me, but I suppose she's supposed to at this point, to some extent.

[John (Snow) Doe]

7

This episode was very refreshing after last week's travesty: there was legitimate plot advancement, exposition was laid out by means other than shameless 2-way dialogue, and there were some good action scenes.

I still think this show is dangerously lacking in "wow" factors that will sustain a non-reader audience.  The writers should be smarter about departures from the book - instead of having another exposition scene such as the one with Viserys in the tub, why not have a Dothraki raid on an anonymous village, or a flashback to a battle in Balon Greyjoy's rebellion?  There are better ways to give information and advance the story, ways which could also offer broader appeal.

I agree with moonjump05 that Littlefinger telling the Hound's story was painful - why do we have to learn about everybody and everything this way?  It felt just like last week's terrible scene in which Jaime recounted the executions of Rickard and Bran Stark.  

On that note, Sophie Turner actually earned some points in my book this week - I've been skeptical on her acting thus far, but I think she finally showed some promise.

Overall, I'm losing faith in this show - it's employing the same formula each week, and there isn't much creativity or risk taking in the writing and directing.  I think a lot of people on this forum should take the view of a non-reader and essentially ask: is this a good show apart from its foundation in great literature?  There is a lot of ratings inflation going on.

[arrowfan]

Yea, Jon is really nailing all his scenes.  Perfect casting and acting.  

Only scene I didn't like so much was Viserys and Jiqui in the bath tub.  Maybe because it was such a departure for the books. Still, it was a op to advance some the legend/dragon aspects of the story.  Viserys is doing a great job though.

Sam is awesome!  Was really happy with his scenes.  His friendship with Jon is believable.  Too bad we don't get more Ghost.  I'm missing the bonding between Jon and Ghost.

The Hand's Tourney was pretty good.  Gregor's lance through the squire's throat was gruesome... gave Gregor a good deal of foreboding.  Didn't like that LF told Sansa the story of Sandor's burned face (instead of Sandor himself).  Hmmm, seems like a missed op to develop Sandor's character.  

Theon is growing on me... didn't like the casting at first, but think he did a good job in this ep.

Ending was pretty good.  Overall gave it an 8/10

[MargaeryTyrell]

Definitely the strongest episode to date. The previous ones were good but had some clunky scenes and the exposition was often heavy-handed. This episode flowed very smoothly and the transitions between the different locations were much cleaner.

They did a great job with Bran's dream and the Three-Eyed Crow. I wasn't sure how they were going to pull it off but I was very impressed, especially given how difficult dream scenes are to film. It was also an excellent way to begin the episode.

I like the way they're mixing scenes that are drawn almost verbatim from the book (like the one between Ned and Littlefinger in the garden) and entirely new scenes (like the one between Tyrion and Theon). It makes the show more interesting to me than it would be if it only contained scenes from the book. Not that that would work anyway.

I agree that Kit Harrington is absolutely nailing Jon and stealing every scene. He's just perfect, and I couldn't be more pleased since Jon's one of my favorite characters. And it was great to see Sam! Although I don't think the actor playing him has quite settled into the role yet, which makes sense since it's his first episode.

I'm not sure how I feel about Littlefinger telling Sansa how Sandor was hurt by his brother... in the book it is very important the he tells her that personally. But they still have plenty of time to build their relationship and I hope there will be some interesting scenes between them to come in the next few episodes.

Overall, an excellent episode... I gave it a 9.

[Daenerys]

Alliser Thorne is great in this episode. He really came off as not just a bully (which is what I got from him in the books), but someone who has to be a jerk in order to get these soft boys ready, because...you know...winter is coming. He's seen what's out there, he knows what will happen if you aren't ready. Kind of reminded me what Curly says to Billy Crystal in City Slickers after he throws a knife through a guy's crotch: "I've crapped bigger than you." He put Jon and Sam in their place, but unlike in the book, I'm on his side. He's right.

[Hyper]

I rate this episode an 8. (my vote history: 7, 8, 7, and now 8)

The episode finally flowed well, where each scene had room to breathe and play out. Unlike the hectic last episode. The info-dumping was well handled - I liked all the non-book scenes, and they all filled in a lot of valuable back history. All Jon/Sam scenes were great. Littlefinger as well.

The loss of "SanDor" interaction (so far) doesn't bother me at all - I've never understood that shipping-esque obsession many fans have for that relationship.

[Daenerys]

Hyper, on 09 May 2011 - 02:47 AM, said:

the loss of "SanDor" interaction (so far) doesn't bother me at all - I've never understood that shipping-esque obsession many fans have for that relationship.

Regardless of how you feel about the relationship, wouldn't it be much more dramatic for the Hound himself to describe his own brother burning his face off? And right now Sandor needs a personality, I doubt a lot of people even have much sense of him at all. Littlefinger does not need to be telling that story, his personality is well established already and he will have plenty more screen time coming.

Also, why keep cutting back to shots of Gregor after the joust wih his face still covered by the helmet? Wouldn't that be a good opportunity to give him a little nonverbal acting? Is he smirking? Happy about the having brutally killed a man? Sad? Horrified? Indifferent? Confused? Contemplative? We can't tell.

[Lady Blackfish]

While I had individual issues, overall this episode was such an improvement over last week's that I'm too aglow to be able to enumerate them (which means a lot, coming from me).  It's definitely the most I've viscerally enjoyed an episode of GoT so far.  Jon and Sam were terrific and the added Jaime scene with Jory was a neat idea -- you can tell the show gets these characters, at least.  Not brilliant yet, but solid and entertaining.

Edited by Lady Blackfish, 09 May 2011 - 04:36 AM.

[lockesnow]

DAMN! the show gets better and better.  That was a ten, the first ten of the season, I was starting to get worried, but it keeps improving, they opened with an 8, barely pushed over to a 9, improved a little bit more the third time out but it was really the fourth time that was this show's charm.

And now pretty much every domino has been set, and with tonight's ending, Lady Stark just knocked over the first one.  It's all downhill from here, I think it'll be epic.

Daenerys, on 09 May 2011 - 03:14 AM, said:

Regardless of how you feel about the relationship, wouldn't it be much more dramatic for the Hound himself to describe his own brother burning his face off? And right now Sandor needs a personality, I doubt a lot of people even have much sense of him at all. Littlefinger does not need to be telling that story, his personality is well established already and he will have plenty more screen time coming.

Also, why keep cutting back to shots of Gregor after the joust wih his face still covered by the helmet? Wouldn't that be a good opportunity to give him a little nonverbal acting? Is he smirking? Happy about the having brutally killed a man? Sad? Horrified? Indifferent? Confused? Contemplative? We can't tell.

naw, I never really understood why the hound would actually blab to Sansa.  It makes sense for Littlefinger to purvey that particular information, and it's a little creepy how he's using it to kind of impress Sansa.

I think they kept Gregor in that armor because he's only really going to be seen in his armor.  He'll be an icon, recognizable by the gargantuan presence he imposes rather than his face.  And something about the Armor design screamed

Spoiler

Gregor-stein

to me.

Edited by lockesnow, 09 May 2011 - 04:31 AM.

[reiver]

I rated it 7. It was a decent episode but had too many flat and seemingly pointless scenes with protracted backstory. I'm rather baffled that after 3 episodes of dancing around names and history when it would have been appropriate that we got such an info dump with this ep. Not that i'm opposed to filling in the history but it all seemed a bit forced, clumsy and unnatural. I also don't like a lot of the changes, i'm not a book purist and i accept the need to reshape for a different medium i just think that too much has been mangled and lost for the sake of changing rather than to improve. So many of the good lines have been plucked and replaced with cliched pap that seems to be from BBC drama rather than the HBO shows i love. This isn't even scratching the awesomeness of Rome or Deadwood.