Eggegg

Yeah I’m hoping next season Noel is let loose a lot more, I wanted him to go full fielding but he was very restrained

I've just done a season rewatch and so this is pretty fresh in my mind. Quite frankly this is possibly the worst episode of Game of Thrones that has ever existed. Episode 7 of this season is pushing it close. But this episode had so many serious 'jump the shark' moments that it felt like it was just another show entirely to the one I had been watching for 6 seasons. Everything about it was daft and forced. It felt like there was a checklist of plot points and past grievances that needed to be addressed and so the writers made sure they had a tick against each one, and it didn't matter if they ticked them off in a clever or natural way, they just had to get them done. The 'walk and talk' sections with the ranger crew in the snow really showed that there is no imagination in the writing staff now. Each member of the crew had to go and walk with another member so that they can have a private conversation that establishes a grievance or past contact. None of it felt natural, it just felt like box ticking. But that seems to be the only way the show can get its job done in the limited time it has now unfortunately. I won't even go into the outrageous silliness of the lake sequences. If you start asking questions about 'why didn't they go back towards the wall', how did they survive on the lake, can dragons do FTL travel now?.. you'll get yourself worked up and so angry that you'll just explode. So many fake death copouts that it could be Lord of the Rings. And thats not even getting into the Sansa / Arya drama which didn't ring true at all, felt completely forced and turned Arya into some sort of pantomime villain all of a sudden. I just feel like the writers havent got a clue what they are doing and have simply given up. However many people seem to have loved this episode, which I assume means they were able to leave their brains at the door. Something I refuse to do. 1 star.

I've just finished a 'forced' rewatch of Season 7 and so this episode is now very fresh in my mind. My initial thoughts on it were that it was a fine, if overlong episode that seemed to be consistent with the lack of quality in general of the season. But on rewatch I've now seen that is much much worse than I remembered. A bit of context, I personally loved seasons 1-4, found 5-6 to be slightly flawed but overall enjoyable. Season 6 in particular I think is relevant because it was quite weak in parts but seemed to have been massively saved by the two final episodes which were 'knock it out of the park' great on a lot of levels. Episodes 6 and 7 of Season 7 however were the exact opposite. A mostly weak / mediocre season was soured for me by two final episodes which were at times both incompetent and insulting in their stupidity. So many aspects of them were found wanting that its hard for me to even connect them to the show I fell in love with. Episode 7 has so many moments which in which I can't understand how it managed to pass any sort of quality control. - Almost everything to do with the Dragons pit meeting was dreadful, woefully directed and written and amateurish. I felt truly sorry for the actors involved whilst watching it. Firstly you have what seems to be the GoT solution for dealing with any loose ends ie 'The walk and talk', where two characters who have some previous connection resolve said connection during a 20 second conversation where they walk between two locations: See episode 6 for more of this in the snow. This was exaggerated during the parley in the pit, as each character got up from their seat, walked forwards, performed a line to another character with whom they had a previous issue. Then either sat down or another character would step forward and do the same. It was bizarre and had the quality of some sort of Am-Dram stage show, or even worse, a glossy daytime soap opera.. especially with all the reaction shots and closeups. It was just odd. Almost every scene was uncomfortably shot. Characters having private conversations out in the open while the background shows all the other characters watching on as spectators. Nothing felt real, conversations just happened because they had to. I can't quite understand how this was allowed to happen, there must be some sort of huge writing rush as its like they couldn't find a single better way to hit these plot points. - The Jon / Dany romance has failed to really catch fire. It feels completely empty and false at this point. I suspect its because the characters have ceased having anything other than the most shallow depth of character and almost all conversation has become exposition heavy. Its hard to really see where these two's connection lies. Yes on paper its made sense, they say all the right things and hes a hero and shes amazing.. but theres nothing interesting about it. Compare it to Drogo or Daario and its completely flaccid. - Littlefinger's death was cheap and it should have been one of those fist pump moments, but it felt so silly and staged and lacking in any sort of tension that I simply shrugged my shoulders. It wasn't a very good twist because it just seemed to come out of nowhere, the build up to it , as in Sansa and Arya's spat, seemed so sudden and ludicrous that having it do a 180 made just as little sense. And that Littlefinger was beaten by basically a magic kid instead of any sort of wit and intelligence was a bit of a let down. - And then the final shots of the dead coming through the wall. I guess that was in some way interesting. But the ice dragon has already become some a silly idea and how it happened was so poorly executed and thought out that its hard to really celebrate it. (Also they have yet to make riding on the back of a dragon look good, the night king looked so silly) So I'm giving it a 2. On top of everything else it was just boring, even when it was attempting to be exciting. Thats a real crime if you ask me.