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Was Episode 704 The Best Ever? If Not, What Was?


Cron

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Episode 704 premiered last night, and I was very impressed.  I gave it a 10, and said I think it is at least tied  for the best episode ever (in fact, it might BE the best ever, but I'll probably have to give that some more thought)

And sure enough, taking a look at the Rate The Episode thread for 704, it seems that 704 was a powerhouse.  As of a little bit ago, 43.9% gave it a 10, and nearly another 27% gave it a 9.

WOW!  That is over 70% giving it either a 9 or a 10.  I've been coming here for a few years, and offhand I can't remember an episode rating out like that.

How about you?  I'm interested in BOTH your personal opinion about where 704 ranked, AND whether anyone can point to a Rate The Episode thread for another episode that was even more impressive.

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Dunno about statistics, but personally I think Blackwater is still the best GoT episode. It had everything: great quotes, good CGI, an intense battle, dramatic moments, and the build up was very well done. This recent episode is definitely one of the best in a long time, but aside from the badass Jaime/Bronn moments and the nice-looking CGI, it didn't knock it out of the park with the story and dialogue.

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My personal opinion was from start to finish Episode 4 Season 7 was single handedly the best episode to date. To me it was everything I had been waiting for and more, after a poor start in Episode 1 which only got worse throughout Episode 2 and into Episode 3. 

There is few episodes in the series that I can say were even close to this. I had goosebumps as the Dothraki Screamers came and then the sound of Drogon and seeing him flying and destroying. 

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I actually didn't think this even cracked the top 10.  I enjoyed 701 a lot more than 704 actually.  The dialouge is not nearly as good as the earlier seasons and the plot armor for many characters is too thick these days.  Too many characters have become single note songs and we aren't seeing the depth and range of emotion and thought with them as we did in earlier seasons - everyone seems a bit less human.  Having not read the books at the time, and still being only one season removed from Ned's beheading, the Blackwater episode had amazing tension, a beautiful and vast setting, and so many more named characters with legitimate threat of death.  The stakes felt much greater.  The last 30 minutes of Hardhome were the best battle scenes as well.

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On 8/7/2017 at 6:35 PM, Hol Horse said:

Dunno about statistics, but personally I think Blackwater is still the best GoT episode. It had everything: great quotes, good CGI, an intense battle, dramatic moments, and the build up was very well done. This recent episode is definitely one of the best in a long time, but aside from the badass Jaime/Bronn moments and the nice-looking CGI, it didn't knock it out of the park with the story and dialogue.

Interesting.

So, are you saying you didn't like the stuff with Arya in Winterfell?

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I don't know that it was the best episode, but I will say that the visual of Drogon as he appears above the Dothraki at the beginning of the charge, that might be my single favorite image of the entire series. Can you imagine being one of those soldiers? You're practically shitting yourself when you see the Dothraki, but then this monster appears, this superweapon. It would be sheer terror. 

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I think for me Spoils of War just missed the top ten.  It was good overall, and the ending battle was great but there are better episodes.  I think an episode that's frequently underestimated and left off of every top ten list I see is Kissed by Fire.  Talk about an episode with everything: Beric vs the Hound at the beginning, Jon Snow and Ygritte hooking up, Jaime meeting Roose Bolton/ bathhouse confession, great scene with Jorah and Barristan, Rickard Karstark's betrayal and beheading, Tyrion vs the Queen of Thorns, meeting Selyse and Shireen, Tuesdays with Davos, Tywin telling Cersei she'll marry Ser Loras, etc.  That I think is the only episode that captures everything that is great about this show and it never seems to be in the top thirty on any of the lists I see.  

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2 hours ago, YoungGriff89 said:

I think for me Spoils of War just missed the top ten.  It was good overall, and the ending battle was great but there are better episodes.  I think an episode that's frequently underestimated and left off of every top ten list I see is Kissed by Fire.  Talk about an episode with everything: Beric vs the Hound at the beginning, Jon Snow and Ygritte hooking up, Jaime meeting Roose Bolton/ bathhouse confession, great scene with Jorah and Barristan, Rickard Karstark's betrayal and beheading, Tyrion vs the Queen of Thorns, meeting Selyse and Shireen, Tuesdays with Davos, Tywin telling Cersei she'll marry Ser Loras, etc.  That I think is the only episode that captures everything that is great about this show and it never seems to be in the top thirty on any of the lists I see.  

Kissed By Fire Ive seen on many top tens or top twenties.

For me, its probably the most consistently strong episode in entire series. No weak scenes.

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I don't consider "Spoils of War" to be the best episode, but I did notice that this is the first time that the show hasn't portrayed Dany's actions as inherently "badass," but rather as something dangerous that has the potential to harm many people. The director said he wanted to focus on the perspective of the soldiers being attacked, and I think that was a brilliant decision. 

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18 hours ago, Gaz0680 said:

Kissed By Fire Ive seen on many top tens or top twenties.

For me, its probably the most consistently strong episode in entire series. No weak scenes.

Yes, that's one of my favs as well

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Well most people seem to think its one of the best, IMDB is a good indicator.  It's sitting at 9.9/10 there.

Personally, the underwhelming Stark reunion is a blemish on an otherwise master-class episode.  I was really looking forward to it, so I may have had too high expectations, but I'm still pretty sure the dialogue was just flat  It had so much potential.. Seven years apart and they had nothing memorable to say to each other.  The only memorable part was Arya carting Bran around as Sansa followed, beautiful moment of all 10 seconds.  The rest was dull.

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It had the best "battle" (More like slaughter :D) I've ever seen on a screen of any kind IMO and I did give it a 10/10 rating, although to be fair the first half of the episode wasn't that spectacular. All in all it was quite a bit like Hardhome. Both episodes have a very basic first half and an epic af second half.

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On 2017-08-07 at 3:57 PM, Cron said:

Episode 704 premiered last night, and I was very impressed.  I gave it a 10, and said I think it is at least tied  for the best episode ever (in fact, it might BE the best ever, but I'll probably have to give that some more thought)

And sure enough, taking a look at the Rate The Episode thread for 704, it seems that 704 was a powerhouse.  As of a little bit ago, 43.9% gave it a 10, and nearly another 27% gave it a 9.

WOW!  That is over 70% giving it either a 9 or a 10.  I've been coming here for a few years, and offhand I can't remember an episode rating out like that.

How about you?  I'm interested in BOTH your personal opinion about where 704 ranked, AND whether anyone can point to a Rate The Episode thread for another episode that was even more impressive.

Game of Thrones has gone from a smart series to a low iq stupid series where people like it based on how many people get killed every episode. Its so sad how can you like it?

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7 hours ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

Game of Thrones has gone from a smart series to a low iq stupid series where people like it based on how many people get killed every episode. Its so sad how can you like it?

I could write a long, complex answer to your question, but I'll try to summarize.

As GRRM has basically said, "the show is the show, and the books are the books."

And I strongly agree with him.  I have an opinion that many people (not necessarily all) who dislike the show are regularly comparing it to the books, and I try to keep that to a minimum.  Are the books better, overall, to me? Sure.  Do I allow that to get in the way of engjoying the good stuff the show DOES have to offer? No.

Next, I note that even though even I nitpick the show (as I did when I started this thread) the good in the show still WAY outweighs the bad to me.  And I like to live my life focusing on positivity a lot more than negativity.  So even if I nitpick some aspects of the show, the main focus for me is still on the stuff the show DOES do well, and there's a lot of that.

Even if a scene has some fundamental flaws, I can still enjoy the good stuff in it. Perfect example: Battle of the Bastards.  Okay, Jon should have been dead about 100 times over, or more.  So stipulated, and I'll be the first to say it.  Having said that, the scene was STILL an awesome spectacle to behold, with lots of great action.  Now, if the entire series devolved into stories based on such highly improbable events, yeah, that would be a problem, and I might even stop watching (probably not, though, cuz I've got so much time invested I'll stick it out to the end no matter what, now), but I don't think it's even close to that.

Note also (still answering your question) that I'm REALLY enjoying a lot of the long term payoffs that we are getting this season, which WERE set up by GRRM over 20 years ago.  Do you know how long I've been waiting to see Dany land at Westeros? A LONG time, and this season we got it.  Same with Arya's return to Winterfell, and other stuff, too.  These are major events that I've been waiting a long time to see, and I love finally seeing them on-screen, even if it is quite likely that in the books things will happen somewhat differently.

Also, there are some things in the show that NO author, no matter how good he is, can ever match.  Exhibit A:  The Field of Fire 2.  No matter how great an author GRRM is, I'm sorry, but he can never match what we SAW on-screen during that battle 10 days ago.  And that's no slight against GRRM.   He has the greatest character development I've ever read (and believe me, I've read a LOT of books), but he can never match what we SAW, and it was simply awesome.

Now, having said all that, do I wish the show had followed the books more closely?  Sure.  If I was the showrunner, the show WOULD have followed more closely.  But that's not what we got, and that's okay, I can live with it, cuz the show gets a LOT more right than wrong, in my opinion.

There's an old saying: Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  The show is not perfect, but some of what it delivers is astounding, and way beyond what I could have reasonably expected when I first heard the show was in production (I had already read the first four books, years earlier, but ADWD had not yet been published, of course)

So, anyway, that's the short answer. HARRR!!!!

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