[Poll] How would you rate episode 609?

[Sand11751]

9/10. Nothing beats Hardhome. The cinematography of Jon and Ramsay's battle was beyond incredible. Too bad Dany's not bi on the show because I could totally ship her and Yara. I'm assuming Viserion and Rhaegal were highly motivated by the sounds of their brother cause they busted out quite easily.  For whatever reason they did it, the reunion of the dragons was second to Jon and Sansa's. Ramsay Snow - talk about the dogs of war indeed. Very satisfying end; now if only the show could come up with something equally entertaining for the High Sparrow.... Anyway, I've always loved Sansa; she is in my top five of characters, but the woman who watched Ramsay get ripped to death amazed me. Will that same woman have the courage to one-up Littlefucker too?  Is it bad that Wun Wun's death hurt more than Rickon's?

[Emanresu]

10 for me.  This and the Door standouts this season, the last couple of episodes - 8 in particular which was poor - throw this into sharp relief.

Was it perfect? No.  We'd all predicted how it would play out and Vale armies was a bit Helms Deepish and plotwise that jarred a little.  But the battle was brilliantly done - I can't think of another depiction of a battle of that era which felt so real.

Why, though, didn't Sansa tell Jon about the Vale armies - could have saved hundreds and hundreds of their side's men.

I did get a little grit in my eye when the Stark banner was unfurled again at Winterfell.  Sure that was just me.

Mereen was swiftly dealt with - Tyrion had a good episode for once (it's the writing, not the acting which is always great from Dinklage, and the writing this time was up to it).  Tyrion vs Dany was good and the Dany/Tyrion/Theon/Yara scene was really good.

They set up R+L=J for ep 10 as well (Jon will find something in the crypt to show his parentage in parallel to Bran revisiting ToJ - a letter, a harp, a scroll, his own future resting place with his parentage on it, whatever).  So he finds out at the same time we do.  Or at least that's what I reckon.  Plus Davos will want a wee chat with Mel, and I wonder if Littlefinger will be feeling as smug at the end of ep 10 as he is at the start of it.  Throw in Arya vs Walder Frey and Cersei's Bonfire Of The Sanities and we might have us an episode...

Edited June 20, 2016 by Emanresu
Added Sansa nit

[Emanresu]

4 minutes ago, Sand11751 said:

 Is it bad that Wun Wun's death hurt more than Rickon's?

We're invested in Wun Wun.  Never saw much of Rickon.  Fairly sure we all felt the death of the former much more than the latter.

[ummester]

8

Jon cam was absolutely amazing, you know, just after the cavalry collided how the camera followed him around the initial fray - that was one of the best scenes in the whole series.

The ending was fucking stupid - why did Ramsay's dogs eat him? Was a very silly scene, not as bad as Arya last week but very silly.

I swear Wun Wun and Drogon get a little bigger every time you see them - I guess Wun Wun won't be growing any more though.

Dany and Tyrion were kind of boring and annoying. The whole girl power thing Dany had going with Yara was dumb.

But, that initial battle fray - that was just so good that I can't hate the episode.

[Sascha Kersken]

If ever poetic justice has been served, it has been served to Ramsay Bolton by serving him to his pack of dogs. R.I.P. Bastard.

[madchad]

This show is just getting worse and worse. How did Asha and Theon get to Mereen so quick and this depicting Asha as a lesbian is just absurd. The whole episode was boring  I am slowly losing interest in the whole thing just bring out book 6 George.

[The hairy bear]

I've given it a 4. As usual, I wish we could vote for separate categories because I'd like to vote 2 for the writing and 9 for the execution. We've got excellent production values and amazing acting, but at the service of a weak plot that neglects logic and build-ups for the sake of momentary shocks. On the surface it's cool and shiny, but as soon as you scratch a little bit there's nothing underneath.

[Kytheros]

3 minutes ago, madchad said:

This show is just getting worse and worse. How did Asha and Theon get to Mereen so quick and this depicting Asha as a lesbian is just absurd. The whole episode was boring  I am slowly losing interest in the whole thing just bring out book 6 George.

To be fair, the last time we saw Asha/Yara and Theon on the show, an episode or two back, they were in Volantis, which is most of the way to Mereen already. And, it's not really all that clear where the Iron Islands stuff lined up with everything else chronologically, at least until they interacted with other plotlines.

But yeah, the fast travel network is getting irritating.

And, yes, book 6 needs to come out asap.

[Stonelands]

11 minutes ago, Kytheros said:

To be fair, the last time we saw Asha/Yara and Theon on the show, an episode or two back, they were in Volantis, which is most of the way to Mereen already. And, it's not really all that clear where the Iron Islands stuff lined up with everything else chronologically, at least until they interacted with other plotlines.

But yeah, the fast travel network is getting irritating.

And, yes, book 6 needs to come out asap.

Exactly, the show is like the books in this regard in that we often can't gauge how much time has passed within different segments of the show. People tend to overlook that.

[GilletteMace]

even though it was a pretty good episode i rated it an 8. sansas move not to tell anyone about the vales army was as shitty as moves can get. dany riding the dragon looked visually a lot better than back when she escaped the attack of the harpys, still it doesnt convince me at all. it has somewhat of a preteen horse romance. tyrion getting back into shape after that miserable last weeks episode was really good and the girlpower meetup with yara was one of the highlights. ramsays death by stupid dogs was nice but cant overpower sansas fucked up move with the vale. another thing i liked was davos finding the little figurine and the questions it throws up. 

the battle itself was pretty good, intense but the sansa fuck up... i just cant get over that wicked evil sansa bitch, killing all the wildlings, killing wunwun.

[Princess of Ice and Fire]

10

Great episode 

[Grey and White]

The cinematography was great, but the entire storyline was so obviously expected. Danny's dragons will burn everything, Vale armies will come at the last second and will save everything, and after all those threats with not feeding the dogs, Ramsey will be feeded to them. I mean who didn't see these coming? Especially the whole Vale thing left a bad taste with me. Maybe if we didn't see Sansa writing the letter in the previous episodes, it might've been a surprise. But it was too obvious this way.

Compared to the other 9th episodes, and the plot twists they had, I believe this was the weakest. Maybe I would rank last season lower, but they had the main twist at ep. 10 that time. So I hope they have something in store for the last episode.

[Darkstream]

 

29 minutes ago, Stonelands said:

Exactly, the show is like the books in this regard in that we often can't gauge how much time has passed within different segments of the show. People tend to overlook that.

It's one thing to gloss over the time it would travel from Castle Black to Winterfell, which is roughly a months long journey. But to travel from the Iron Islands to slavers bay is a significantly longer trip. This would be at least the equivalent of sailing from New York, all the way around North America to LA, and then heading west, all the way across the Pacific ocean to Asia. It's preposterous to think that Theon and Yara could have made this Journey, even using the most generous gauge of how much time has actually passed. I'm only guessing, but I would imagine that this trip should have taken at least a year.

[dbunting]

I gave it a 10, only episode I ever gave a 10 to. I kept trying to think of reasons to give it a 9 and realized that if I had to think that much then it must be a 10. There were a couple minor things I didn't like but that's all. For me, the best episode of the series.

Mereen - loved the action there. Got a huge reminder of the wildfire in KL for Ep10. Dany got more than one reminder of why her father was called the mad king. I liked the fact that there was actual combat and such from Dany's side. Normally it's all just threats and a few deaths, this time it was like, yeah you f'ked up and now you are going to pay for it. Dragon scenes were pretty damn good and Drogon is about twice the size of the others, nice to see them out and in the action.

Sansa - she reminded me of Catelyn at first in the tent scene with Jon. About how she should have been consulted. Things calm down a little and then they talk and she made valid points, don't do what he wants you to do, he is better at this game than you are. She was right, Ramsey sucked Jon right out of his plan and likely caused more of his men to die than would have had he stuck to his plan. I liked the last scene where when Ramsey is getting nibbled on how Sansa starts to leave, then stops and turns back to watch him get ripped apart, then leaves. Like she needed to see it to believe it or because she is supposed to, kind of a nod to Ned.

Tormund - Nice to see he didn't die in battle like I thought he would. I like his character and it wouldn't be the same without him.

WunWun - Well, pretty much as expected, he breaks the Winterfell walls but dies in the process. RIP

Davos - Nice little rallying cry to go get them into the fight. Sad to see him find the stag he gave Shireen in the pyre.

Jon - really disappointed that he fell right into Ramseys trap but you know he had to. There is no way he wouldn't go out there to at least try to save Rickon. The thing he should have done differently would have been to turn back after Rickon died instead of going berserker Jon and rushing an entire army alone. I really liked his battle scenes and I hated the crushing part of it. I have a touch of claustrophobia so when Jon was struggling to breathe I was dying! So glad to see that he didn't die that way. Nice little feeling when he was beating Ramsey to death.

The Battle - I thought it was shot amazingly well. The look was great, the way it showed how horrible combat truly is, blood shit and tears. I don't know how they did those scenes with the horses crashing together, it looked so real I would swear it was. Glad to see Winterfell survived with minimal damage.

Dislikes - No Ghost at all? The expected Knights of the Vale running in at the last minute to save the day, again fully expected.

I am sure there are things that others don't like, but for me and what I like to see, this was a great episode. 

 

[Criston of House Shapper]

3 minutes ago, Darkstream said:

 

It's one thing to gloss over the time it would travel from Castle Black to Winterfell, which is roughly a months long journey. But to travel from the Iron Islands to slavers bay is a significantly longer trip. This would be at least the equivalent of sailing from New York, all the way around North America to LA, and then heading west, all the way across the Pacific ocean to Asia. It's preposterous to think that Theon and Yara could have made this Journey, even using the most generous gauge of how much time has actually passed. I'm only guessing, but I would imagine that this trip should have taken at least a year.

I think I've read a theory somewhere, of how Planetos is much smaller on the show, making these long distances feasible. Either way, one shouldn't get hung up on this stuff or it drives you crazy. The battle was fun, I give this a 10 for the 1-minute tracking-shot alone. I thought the cinematography was much better than the shakiness of Hardhome.

[Darkstream]

2 minutes ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

I think I've read a theory somewhere, of how Planetos is much smaller on the show, making these long distances feasible. Either way, one shouldn't get hung up on this stuff or it drives you crazy. The battle was fun, I give this a 10 for the 1-minute tracking-shot alone. I thought the cinematography was much better than the shakiness of Hardhome.

Well a theory is not show canon, it's just trying to honey pot the ridiculousness that this show gets away with. It would also be inconsistent with what was already established in the show, as Jaime's journey from the Rivelands to Kingslanding took a whole season, but now it's suddenly possible to travel the entire planet in less than one episode. I'm sorry but this is such a drastic inconsistency that it is impossible to maintain suspension of disbelief for me when details that are this obvious are blatantly ignored.

[GilletteMace]

3 minutes ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

I think I've read a theory somewhere, of how Planetos is much smaller on the show, making these long distances feasible. Either way, one shouldn't get hung up on this stuff or it drives you crazy. The battle was fun, I give this a 10 for the 1-minute tracking-shot alone. I thought the cinematography was much better than the shakiness of Hardhome.

i also think the time travelling aspect is something i dont really mind. even if it leads to this unrealistic meeting of dany and yara. it is still better to have the places drawn close together for the visual adaptation than having the books sized world. i never mind any timewarping in movies as long as it doesnt mess up reality too much, like travelling 1.500 lightyears with the speed of light but arriving next thursday. planetos is a small place and travelling never takes longer than a few episodes. thanks DnD for not showing all the travel crap.

[Fez]

8/10

I wish I could give it higher, it was just unbelievably technically impressive throughout; but the writing was just far too sloppy and/or cliched in too many places. Which just makes me sad. A lot of it I could overlook; but Sansa not mentioning that the Vale might be coming is a bridge too far. It doesn't matter if she doesn't know for sure, just the possibility that they might would make that war council go completely different.

If that's addressed next week, awesome, but there were other issues too. Mostly smaller, but they add up. Such as the fact that no army would allow itself to be surrounded the way Jon's was, as soon as they saw the Boltons coming in, they'd charge in one direction to break out before the circle could get in place. 

At the same time though, it all looked incredible; with the absolute highlight being that tracking shot of Jon. And the Meereen stuff was fairly solid too for the first time in ages. So, 8 outta 10.

[Darkstream]

11 minutes ago, GilletteMace said:

i also think the time travelling aspect is something i dont really mind. even if it leads to this unrealistic meeting of dany and yara. it is still better to have the places drawn close together for the visual adaptation than having the books sized world. i never mind any timewarping in movies as long as it doesnt mess up reality too much, like travelling 1.500 lightyears with the speed of light but arriving next thursday. planetos is a small place and travelling never takes longer than a few episodes. thanks DnD for not showing all the travel crap.

See, I don't understand this argument. It's not about actually showing the travel, but having distances traveled being consistent with the passage of time that has occurred. If the writers wanted to have someone travel from Westeros to Slavers bay, they should have planned their story better and had them leaving on this journey several episodes earlier, allowing for at least a relatively plausible amount of time to have passed. They would not have to be featured in the subsequent episodes from their departure until they arrived at their destination. Frankly, this defense is an all to common straw man argument used to dismiss a valid criticism of the show.

Edited June 20, 2016 by Darkstream

[GilletteMace]

5 minutes ago, Darkstream said:

See, I don't understand this argument. It's not about actually showing the travel, but having distances traveled being consistent with the passage of time that has occurred. If the writers wanted to have someone travel from Westeros to Slavers bay, they should have planned their story better and had them leaving on this journey several episodes earlier, allowing for at least a relatively plausible amount of time to have passed. They would not have to be featured in the subsequent episodes from their departure until they arrived at their destination. Frankly, this defense is an all to common straw man argument used to dismiss a valid criticism of the show.

its not a straw man, i really do not care about it. it doesnt matter to me. timetravelling in GoT is a non issue to me. i could have said, thanks DnD for setting up things the way they do. it may not be overly realistic but i can live perfectly well with it.

Edited June 20, 2016 by GilletteMace