Velociraptor

I would give it a 5. Average and in no way close to the quality that the show represented back in seasons 1-3, but an improvement over the terrible episode 6.1 at least. What I liked: Jaime's confrontation with the High Sparrow is reminiscent of the great, tension filled dialogues from the show's early days. I'm hoping that this season they take Jaime towards his book development instead of sidetracking him further. Bran's scene was also surprisingly great, although his character used to bore me. It was a good nostalgia trip - for Bran of his home and for us, viewers, of the times when the show was better. What I didn't like: Roose's assassination (if you can call it that) by Ramsay continues the trend set by Doran's death where a supposedly smart character gets vanquished by an impulsive and stupid character in a move that he should have seen coming from a mile away. I suppose D&D don't really know how to write smart characters because they aren't terribly smart themselves, evidently. As such, the Bolton arc was a complete disappointment and surprised no one. Tyrion's handling of the dragons was predictably meh. Speaking of which, why doesn't Tyrion take Missandei with him after establishing that the dragons never harmed her? It would have helped his cause to have a friendly face with him, but I guess his plot armor sufficed. Also, what is up with the Merenese being ok with being governed by two foreigners who came to the city, I dunno, a week ago? I get it, it pleases the viewers to see Tyrion in a position of ruling again and he is far better suited to it than Daenerys, but from a logical standpoint, it makes no sense. Remember when this show was both entertaining AND made sense? And last but no least, speaking of sense, what the hell is up with Davos suddenly being all mushy with Melisandre, as well as being, like, the most vocal Jon Snow supporter? What the hell happened there? Davos spent the past four seasons being thoroughly suspicious of Melisandre and seeing her magic as evil, why is he suddenly speaking as though she opened his eyes to miracles? And why does he believe that ressurection by that magic would be anything but bad to Jon? Furthermore, why does he care about Jon at all? It might have worked if the show spent some time establishing his relationship with Jon, but it didn't. Stannis was the one who Davos was loyal to, but we don't even see him grieve for his lost king. The loss of Stannis should represent the loss of Davos' entire world, he should be in the same sorry state Melisandre is in, but there he is, acting all optimistic and suddenly being best buddies with both Melisandre and Jon. What gives? Is a little consistency too much to ask? Then again, these are the same writers who made Jaime rape his sister next to his son's corpse, and made Stannis give the order to burn his daughter, so... guess I'm not too surprised.

As a book reader, I felt completely disconnected from this episode. The beginning was strong, I'll give it that much. Mance was somewhat more like his book counterpart this time around and hell, even Stannis was not COMPLETELY unlikable. Then came the changes and I honestly lost track of how many times I was left scratching my head. Jaime/Cersei resuming their incest and Cersei admitting it to Tywin? The fuck. Tyrion deciding "Hm, I'm on my way to an already risky escape, but I'll pay a visit to my father along the way. Who knows, might catch him on a privy or something, where he won't be able to defend himself or call the guards on me". The omission of Tysha motive really screwed things up there. The Hound losing a swordfight AND even a fistfight to Brienne- yeah, right, ain't never happening. The entire Bran sequence was atrocious and the dreadful CGI skeletons didn't help. Looked like something ripped out of Skyrim. I dunno, I guess I could give it a 5 at best.

I'm just gonna go ahead and give this a 10/10. The small nitpicking I may have had with the episode had nothing to do with objective quality, but more to do with my preferences. In terms of produciton quality this was amazing. And well rounded for an episode that focused on one event in one place. The cinematography was spectacular, particularly that shot circling the courtyard and showing all the different fighters. The fighting itself was good and looked realistic enough too. The show has recently gone a bit overboard with the fight choreography, abandoning realism in favor of cinematic spins, twirls, etc, but watching this episode more often than not the actors sold that they were really people fighting for their lives. The special effects deserve a recognition as well, I actually expected the show would cut the mammoths due to costs, but I was happy and impressed to see that one made it and looked spectacular to behold. All in all, I sincerely doubt this episode, focusing solely on the Battle for Castle Black could have been done any better.

This episode was weak. Filled with unnecessary things from the very beginning. The whole Gilly in Molestown seemed like a stupid idea from the very first, but at least I was hoping it would lead to interesting consequences that depart from the books. I should have learned from the example that was set by previous episodes- of course it didn't! As per usual, the writers make a departure from the books and then seems like they don't have the balls to follow through with the consequences, so they make up some silly situation which brings the things back on track, and renders pretty much the entire setting to pointless filler. It's as if someone on the writing team suddenly said "wait, guys, this is a poor idea, let's scrap that" and they did. Same issue with Jorah receiving his pardon several years late. He actually already received his pardon back in season 1. Why would another arrive so late? Well, the simple explanation would be the writers going "oh shit, we totally changed that and created a butterfly effect, but now we have to get things back on track with the book, so let's write around the things we changed. Hopefully, no one will notice the plotholes!". Granted, the very dismissal scene was powerful enough, thanks to Iain Glen's great acting and even Emilia Clarke managed to show what remotely resembled emotion. So I guess I could pardon that. What I couldn't pardon, however, is the absolutely pointless thing that is the Missandei/Grey Worm romance. I mean, really? Seems as though they were just filling the amount of tits per episode quota, perhaps as an apology for skipping out on Daenerys' sex scene in the last episode. Which I didn't mind, because Missandei is gorgeus, but afterwards we're given a conversation that is so clichee, it's cringeworthy. Such scenes serve no purpose other than to cater to the shallow watchers, either those who watch the show for the tits, or watch it to get teary eyed at cute romance couples. The Jaime/Tyrion conversation started out well enough- I just love the scenes between these two. This is what you do, when you make a change from the books- if you're gonna have Jaime in King's Landing earlier, you give him more scenes with Tyrion, which works out very well, since both are amazing actors. On the other hand, the conversation about beetles dragged on for FAR too long. Consequently, the trial felt rushed. More about that later. I did like the entire Theon and the Boltons sequence, especially how they showed Roose. The show needs more scenes with him, seeing how many non-book readers I know have a hard time grasping who the guy is at all. Now the thing everyone's been looking for- the trial. Well, the combat itself was done well enough. Skipped out on realism in favor of cinematic spear spins and leaping around, but I guess I can live with that- movies and tv shows always overexaggerate combat scenes. But the whole thing felt rushed nonetheless. I wish they had taken several minutes out of unnecessary scenes (like scrapped Missandei/Grey Worm romance) and added that to the trial characters- more dialogue, more exposition, more crowd reactions, more everything. All in all, I felt like this episode was very lackluster. While it delivers the sort of unexpected gutpuncher ending as has become the series' trademark in both the books and the show, it failed to deliver in nearly every other scene. I would rank this a 4 out of 10. To me, this was the weakest episode this season by far and quite possibly the weakest episode in the series altogether.