JagLover

I hear lots of complaints about this and yes it is getting a bit old. Thematically though it works very well. In both Essos and Kings landing we have causes we can identify with as 21st century people. Anti-slavery and power to the people rather than elites. Real life is more messy and historically incremental change has worked better than revolution. As a "theme" for an entire season I give those scenes a pass, particularly as the guy is decent at giving speeches.

They have noticeable less gratuitous sex and nudity now than back in the halycon days when the show followed the books more faithfully. Don't get me wrong season 5 was my least favourite season, but if your only yardstick is how faithful an adaption is to its source material then you will rarely enjoy an adaption.

Fairly tricky one this. I found parts of it fairly slow, but it finished very well, and many other parts of the episode were very solid as well (Theon, Jon and Sansa, Maegery) So I voted it a 9 mainly for the end. Can I just say that after nearly 16 years it was nice for Dany to finally do something again, long may it continue!

Not particularly The fact that the wall storyline appears to be nearing the end game while many key characters are meandering around in Essos is a fault of the books D&D are converting not of their adaptation. Unless that is they were willing to be far more daring in their alterations.

double post

Judging the show on its own merits it was around an 8. Good scenes for a number of key characters including Arya and Jon. As a book conversion they did partially mess up the TOJ scene by not including more original dialogue. Seriously would it have killed them to actually use GRRM's words?. Fight choreography was fine though and HR saving the day was how it was expected to happen.

The departure from the book storyline has always been overexagerrated IMO Take the POV characters from the first book and the ONLY one who has had significant deviation from their book plot is Sansa. For everyone else it has been the same locations and plot elements, simplified at times but the same. ASOIAF has grown in the telling and many of the elements introduced after the core story was started have been great. Book Jamie's ark as one obvious example. Were they part of the original three book vision though?, that is the question?. Seven or eight 1,000 page books could never be faithfully adapted to the screen. It is an entirely different story if they are trying to adapt an earlier, shorter, story. Personally I think we will get a story reasonable faithful to the original POV characters with everything else just put on the screen if it is useful, adds some time with a popular character, or just as filler.

Yep We have had about six complaints about Davos being respectful to Melisandre, which is only a plot hole if Davos is telepathic. If he finds out that she burned Shireen and his response is to shrug his shoulders THEN you can talk of a plot hole. Decent episode I thought let down only by a few scenes (like the opening one)

gave the episode an 8. Jons return may have played out as it will in the books but it felt very undramatic. Plus the opening scene was a complete waste of time and was rather implausible. The rest of it was good though I thought, including Tyrion for once. Winterfell good and a bit shocking, Iron Islands decent (if a little late)

Mixed feelings really They did some storylines from the books well. Such as the walk of shame, others competently like “For the watch”. Also Arya’s scenes were great all episode. However it left me feeling a little empty like much of the season. Dorne continued to be a dreadful waste of time, as it had been all season. Instead of some surprising last minute reveal we just had Ellaria finally succeeding in killing Mycella for no apparent reason. I think as well that they were too respectful in not wanting to spoil anything for any of the major characters. The Dany cliffhanger was as per the books and worked well. We will have to wait for the next season to see how the Dothraki treat her. The Jon cliffhanger does not work in the show. If he is indeed resurrected he will be filming in a couple of months and it will be revealed all over the internet. How is that an incentive to come back next season?. Meanwhile a few hundred thousand of the more casual fans will see another favourite being killed and may drift away. Being willing to kill characters is good, killing off all the favourites makes people stop watching. If Jon is going to be resurrected then they should have done it at the end of the episode. Now that would have been a great ending. Overall an 8 and a 7 for the season as a whole.

An 8 from me and a bit of a comedown over last week. They went back to the sleep inducing scenes too much. Even Arya was far too slow. The burning of Shireen was disturbing, as it should be, and personally I think it was a mistake putting it in the middle of the episode as everything afterwards would feel flat. I don't know if it is due to this, or poor execution, but the Pit was less exciting than it could have been and Dany's decision to fly away wasn't adequately planned out.

Just as people had started to write off this season they produce an episode like that. Near perfect from start to finish. 10/10 Not only the Hardhome scenes either. As suspected once Tryrion reaches Mereen it became allot more interesting.

The season up to now has had some very good individual scenes, but has never seemed to produce great individual episodes due to the duller scenes contained within, or downright diabolical as with Dorne. I think it came alive this episode though, everything, even Dorne, worked and those first twenty minutes as winter comes to the North were brilliant IMO.

Voted an 8. Aside from Doran all of the Dornish scenes are unbelievable bad. The sand snakes fight looked like it was an out take from Xena Warrior princess. I find the Sansa scenes a bit jarring but more for the fact that she shouldn't be there rather than their content. After all they have toned down what happened to FArya in the books. Aside from that. Very good scenes with Arya, decent ones with Tyrion and in Kings landing.

So much was right with this episode from the Wall to Arya to Kings landing. But I only voted an 8 as I find the Sansa plotline just too jarring (well acted, but jarring)

Rated it a 7 as it was a mixed bag and what was good was often feeling a bit rushed. First the bad The Brienne scenes were frankly a bit bizarre. She seems to be trying to endear herself to the Stark girls by killing the protectors of each. Mereen was dull in the books and dull on the show. The good (which felt rushed) Jon's election Dorne Arya Leaving only the small council which had the right pacing.

Rated it as a 9 Some great, great scenes but did feel disjointed and I am not entirely clear still why Brienne & The Hound fought to the death over who takes care of Arya. I think really they haven't got enough time for what they are trying to achieve each season.

What is very entertaining about all the people marking it down because there was no Stannis is that there was no Stannis in the books either! In the books the Nightswatch fight the wildlings off, then Jon is sent to kill Mance and then, and only then, Stannis arrives. Aside from combining this with an earlier attack from the south and changing some characters around (due to characters not created on the show) this was fairly faithful to the books.

Wanted to give it a 10. But I felt for what actual story progression was accomplished it was a little dragged out and the fighting down below went on too long for such limited forces being involved. So a 9 from me, but some moments of great quality in the episode.

My favourite season so far as well (and it looks like it will end with two great episodes) . If you looking for poor writing look at Dany in S2, most of the invented material has been pretty decent this season.

I would disagree. Mereen is going to be a key location next year and who do we have there that is interesting?. Aside from the Queen of wood we have Ser Baristan (who I like but cant carry a season) and, gulp, Dario. It is going to be vital that we care about Grey Worm and Missandrei. Added to which following their story makes the whole Slavers Bay story less some sort of white man's burden of Dany bringing civilisation to the savages. There isn't much, if any, flab to cut out of the series. But many will tell you they are looking forward to the Greyjoys, Quentyn, Faegon etc being added next season.

as far as I am concerned in 8 episodes, nearly 8 hours, the only lengthy scene that might even be considered a waste of time is the raid on the dread fort (and even then I don't consider it as such). Aside from that every scene has developed a key character or progressed the plot in some way. Based on only a third of a book but they have brought in AFFC material for people like Sansa and Brienne. Based on the best section of the books I agree, but they have nailed nearly every key scene. I think the quality of the writing is a matter for debate and personal taste. Personally I loved the beetle scene and thought it very apt that a man being on trial for his life by something like trial by combat would speculate and reminisce about something like this. On the things that can be objectionable measured like production values and acting performances that was again very very good, and better than most movies. Yes the show can seem a bit rushed, but that is due to the sheer number of characters and material to get through (which is why I have always argued for cutting back the cast list when they move into AFFC/ADWD proper). There simply aren't loads of wasted minutes that can be given to other storylines so they are more faithful to the books.

Personally I think people are continuingly comparing the show to the books rather than to other shows. S4 of GOT has been very good indeed. Exceeded by the best of BB perhaps but certainly better than anything else on TV right now. To watch an episode like this one and then rate it a 4 or a 5 is just ridiculous really. What does that make the latest tired police procedural or some cr*ppy soap are they getting negative scores or something.

Book purists are being a bit ridiculous when rating this episode. From start to finish this episode was gold. If I have one criticism it is that I found Emilia a little wooden, other than that it was one great scene after another. Yes LF was at Sansa's mercy, unlike in the books, but LF of the show isn't anywhere near as intelligent or subtle than book LF so it is somewhat in character. Yes Sansa surprised us all, but I bet we are seeing WOW Sansa rather than some dreadful character destruction. Turning to the beetles story, it wasn't in the book, but it could have been as the message fits both show and book.

I gave my first 10 of the season. Yes some of the scenes weren't perfect. But the episode would have been a great one even without the fight at the end-a fight which was awesome! Sansa, Theon, Tyrion all great scenes and even Mereen was interesting this week!