AdmiralKyrd

10/10 - "Hardhome" reminds us what Game of Thrones is like when it is good. King's Landing - Pretty much spot on, although I would have liked to have heard that Qyburn had finished his champion. Maybe we'll get that next episode. Braavos - Arya finally gets some sunshine. The Wall - They're laying it on a bit heavy. Winterfell - Sophie and Alfie kill it again. Hardhome - Everything from Karsi and Loboda's introductions, which were perfectly executed for how little of screentime they both had, to the effects, to everything - the tone, the music, it was almost entirely perfect. So eerie and well done. My only caveats for the whole thing so far are the Insurance Salesman looked creepily like Tobias who plays Edmure Tully, Edd and Jon running away from the White Walkers jumping off the cliff looked kind of more like a comedic 'Run!' moment than an epic moment, and... Rattleshirt had a Dornish accent. But he got beaten to death, which made the fact he had a Dornish accent kind of a satisfying meta moment like "we don't need that garbage up here." Hardhome had this very... Titanic vibe to it as well - minus the mushy love story. Everything from Karsi putting the girls in the boat and saying she'd get in a later one, to Loboda closing the "Wighter"-Tight doors, to the icebergs and cold, to the rushing to the boats... its a good thing imo. It was like Lord of the Rings meets Titanic.

It's underwhelming because we as an audience are unaware of how much Dany knows about Tyrion, if anything at all. Plus, it happens simultaneously with Jorah reuniting with Dany which is obviously way more powerful because there is so much emotion behind it due to their history. If they wanted to do Tyrion/Dany this season they should have waited to do it until 5.08 or 5.09 and separated the two events. You could even have a scene where Jorah says he brought Dany Tyrion Lannister but she kind of thinks he's just lying about it. This could have been used as a springboard to give us some knowledge of what Dany thinks about Tyrion before their meeting. It would also add to the dramatic tension to Dany meeting Tyrion, because Dany would realize Jorah wasn't lying after all - yet she already made a decision. I really can't think of a more... blah way to write the specific moment when they actually meet each other. I'm excited for seeing what happens though, I just wish it would be a more spontaneous interaction, whereas it will probably be very calculated and staged now with each person kind of knowing what exactly to say in advance.

There was more Egg in this episode than all the omelets on a cruise ship. Winterfell* - intriguing and good, but the plot really didn't move. Camp Stannis* - intriguing, but nothing really happened. (is Balon's leech trying to be retconned?) Wall - Aemon's stuff was good, nice to see Ghost, the defending of Gilly was different, I thought the Fat Pink mast scene was done well. King's Landing - Carol doesn't do it for me. Pyrce was great, but his scenes were a bit long for the information provided. Dorne* - I mean, it wasn't offensive, but nothing really happened. But good Lord we're what, 400 minutes into the season with less than three minutes of Doran in any scene? Meereen - interesting, yet weird Jorah and Tyrion are known. We'll see how it plays out, but I think it would have been better to hold that off until 5.09, but at least this story moved. Probably an 8/10. It felt a lot like 5.02 to me.

I wouldn't call Cat of the Canals or Beth ruining her adventure.

It's probably an 8. I thought it was slightly the best episode despite having some really drag scenes, although it might be a bit under. It's one of those where I think it will fall a bit for me as I notice more troubling stuff on rewatches, whereas last time I felt like I noticed more good things on rewatches about where certain things might be going and the purposes behind the scenes. 9 - Braavos: Was a little long, and it might have worked better to drop some of the "Arya still is failing" moments into last episode. You get this feeling that she just learns the right buttons to push, and the Kindly Man jumps right on to moving her along in the training. I felt the books kind of had it this way too, but mmm... I dunno, just a thought. Oh and the faces sets were really amazing. Although was that... Septa Mordane's mask she was touching? 9 - King's Landing: Finally, I had to stop myself for a second and go "That's my Cersei." The scheming Queen is in power mostly and totally screwing up left and right and being blind and dumb. It's a bit of a stretch that she's trusting Littlefinger so damn much, but it's plausible. Littlefinger's plan... I just kinda roll my eyes are whatever he's up to and just... "you keep doin what you doin, LF." No idea what his convoluted scheme is all about. I get the feeling he's just a monkey at a control panel pushing buttons. The stuff with Loras, Olyvar, Olenna... pretty much perfect for what they're doing, at least how they're doing it. I hope Olenna calls for backup (cue Randyll Tarly plz). 9 - Valyria Or Somewhere: Particularly touching scenes, interesting. The Slaver's were pretty good, and felt like something that might have happened in the books considering this scene's equivalent would have been off-page. 7 - Winterfell: I liked the touch of Myranda talking about the other girls Ramsay bored, but... did this bath scene need to be almost three and a half minutes long? She had less than a minute with Theon, and that's the more interesting relationship. Anyway... I miss the Northern Lords. I miss the Feast... It's very unfortunate to my personal desires of what I'd like to see, but the wedding in the show was fantastic on it's own merits. With regards to the ending... it was fine for what it was. Disturbing, but not book-disturbing, thankfully, and well-acted. I really felt like they needed to give us somewhere though to hang our hearts for the Winterfell portion. In the books we have several players in Winterfell present at the feast, and enroute. In this episode, we never see Brienne and Pod (they're flayed for all we know, disregarding trailers and such) and Stannis is miles and miles away. 4 - Dorne: I liked Trystane and Myrcella's acting, although their material was weak. I liked Doran and Hotah for all thirty seconds we had of it. I liked getting the Dornishman's Wife - not the best moment to have it though. I thought this was a covert ops mission. The rest of it was so bad it was kind of good. I felt like they should have gone full measure with it though and had Hotah walk in with a pack of dogs that scared the Sand Snakes away.

My only knock against this is...

Using one director per storyline on a composite show could potentially work for something like GoT with disconnected storylines and be beneficial, but it would be an experimental way of shooting and not something a high-budget production would want to experiment with. It would also scare away established directors.

I gave it a 7. It was the weakest episode so far this season for me. Meereen had major narrative and storytelling problems. Winterfell was a Northern King's Landing of interpersonal feuds, and the Wall had problems with the theme of killing the boy and implications for Bran's S6 storyline. The only story that was mostly well-written here was the show version of Valyria. I'm writing way more on it than this, but man, it's kind of a frustrating critic because you really have to tear the surface of the episode apart to expose why the structural frame is a mess and overall it just comes off as unsatisfying. I have loved Cogman's episodes in the past, but this one just didn't do it for me.

Also, to add to my rating of the episode, I watched this episode last night with a show-only person who had watched it once already. When we started it up and got to the Mercy scene, she said "Noooo, don't drink it!" and I was like "What, he wants to die, that's why he went there, to receive the gift of mercy. It's like a temple of euthanasia." She responded with, "Oh, I thought he was murdering him." If you go back and watch the scene, there really isn't a way to tell the man wants to die. It is very interpretable Jaqen is just tricking the man into drinking from the pool. It's probably another one of those moments where an editor got ahead of themselves and sliced too much because they over-understood the scene based on the original, shot material.

I could see it happening, but it would be an odd day for Olenna to know about Roose and Ramsay before Littlefinger. Maybe Highgarden captured Yara or part of her crew sailing around the Reach? It could also serve a segway to lead back to Pyke. *shrug*

1: It's possible that stuff like this is written into the scenes, it's just been cut in the editing room. I really hope they include a lot of these uncut scenes in the disc editions after the season. I made a longer post about this over on reddit, about the apparent editing done this season. 2: There's almost no way to avoid some characters moving very quickly due to the time constraints of 10 episodes. And to be fair to D&D on this, there is one benefit to the show - they use a linear narrative, whereas GRRM uses time deliberately to obfuscate the reader, which brings us to this... Given that Jon's last chapter takes place after these events (book spoilers): From a certain point of view, they might think it's not a significant spoiler since it's already been mentioned. And heck, Stannis isn't even a POV character. They might not fully grasp how much people really care about characters who are not Tyrion/Jon/Carol/Daenerys. And with regard to the exact quotes, here are the full quotes I could find: Benioff does not have the same view of the internet savvy book readers about what is a divergence alone, let alone a spoiler. "It’s more season six that’s going to be diverging a bit." So if Season 6 is diverging only a bit, then I wonder what he would ascribe for Season 5, because half the arcs in the show are receiving total displacement or significant character makeovers - King's Landing, Dorne, Brienne, Sansa, Davos, Yara?, Varys? I'm not saying he's lying, but the lens through which Benioff views what is a significant divergence/change/spoiler is not the same, and shouldn't be taken as gospel that things this season are safe, except for probably the major, major players.

With regards to Sansa... There's the possibility he doesn't trust informing Sansa about it or she wouldn't go to begin with, or that she would do something to tip the Boltons off that they're aware of him and plotting something. He believes he can protect her from Ramsay by himself. And then there's also the possibility they ride a totally different rail.... ...that Littlefinger does know about Ramsay but just wants Sansa to get tortured and murdered in Winterfell to end the Stark line. While he sees her as Catelyn's daughter he truly only loved Cat, and sees Sansa as the reminder that he will never have his beloved again. Sansa is the legacy of the family and the man who originally took Catelyn from him. They need to be extinguished in the most horrific fashion possible. Lysa was just as much a relative of Cat as Sansa, and it didn't save her at all. (Just throwing it out there.) And yes, letting Ramsay know he knows would help alleviate more tension between Petyr - Roose/Ramsay. I find the whole thing weird he doesn't have a plausible reason for forming the alliance. I thought he could at least say something about opposing Stannis, because the only thing between Stannis and King's Landing after the North is the Vale. The angle of giving Sansa to the Boltons isn't a betrayl of Cersei as much as it is for their protection and ultimately hers. It's written like they wanted it to be purposefully vague to make people talk about it rather than justifiable. Exactly. Presumably there was a month's time between Moat Cailin and Winterfell. How long are they supposed to leave rotting bodies dangling on the Walls? People don't even keep Christmas tree ornaments up for but a month. It's not like Hallmark is coming out with the Keepsake Steak series anytime soon.

Well, if he's plotting to get revenge on the Boltons for Catelyn's murder, or just more power, then there are these scenes to keep in mind. If Littlefinger were to know about Ramsay, I wouldn't think he would inform him he is aware of his behavior based on the above statement. Why reveal what you know when you can just feign ignorance? It could be just like you said - in GoT Ramsay's actions aren't well-known and it's plausible Ramsay has no reason to suspect Littlefinger really knows about him. But it's also plausible Littlefinger might have spies somewhere to have told him about Ramsay anyway. The show has done stranger things. I don't know if they'll pursue that angle but Littlefinger is the man of twists and turns. I've always thought there would be a scene where Littlefinger mentions to Roose that he has heard rumors of Ramsay and demands as part of the deal that he keep him in check. They both know if any harm comes to Sansa that the Northern Lords would rise up immediately against them both. It would preserve some of the powderkeg tension in Winterfell even without the Freys and Manderlys where you wouldn't know if Ramsay would jump off his leash and cause things to blow up.

So I've settled on giving this one an 8, my same rating for the last episode - it would be higher but the drags really hit it hard. While this episode had some amazing scenes, there was a lot of dead weight and some missed moments. I could go into a total wall of text but I'll keep it condensed as possible with just complaints. Everything else in the episode is great. And there really is a lot of great in this episode. Most scenes I'd give 9's and 10's, but there were also quite a few a 1, 2, 3's. Tommen/Margaery stuff: - Unnecessary characterization, whether Tommen is 4 or 14 - he's still not ruling. These show added scenes could be cut/condensed to have more interesting AFFC/ADWD material elsewhere. It's a blackhole in the narrative because it's removing high quality stuff for "meh" stuff that doesn't really need to have screentime. - Messes up the "younger, more beautiful Queen" prophecy because Margaery actually is the queen who takes Tommen from Cersei and her power. Margaery's consummation of marriage with Tommen removes Cersei regency in the show and she clearly controls Tommen. I always thought the fallacy here in the books was Cersei guessed the wrong queen, whether the person who takes her power is Daenerys, Arianne, Sansa, Myrcella, etc. - Messed up characterization of Cersei. Blackwater 2.09 Cersei is best Cersei, best Lena. Cutting the crazed Cersei for a cool, calm, sympathetic Cersei is unrewarding and missing opportunity for truly great scenes. It's why King's Landing in the later part of the episode is so much better than the Margaery stuff at the beginning. I wanted to see Cersei rage on Margaery and scare her like she did with Sansa in Blackwater. Instead Cersei goes to Margaery and she's... hurt. She's just hurt and crushed. Where is Best-Cersei? One minute of Cersei drunkenly, smilingly ripping on Margaery with the teeth of the regency would be more entertaining than 7 minutes of this arc. Janos' execution -The tone is off. Jon's already killed the boy in the show. Considering "Kill the Boy" is the title of 5.05, this line is going to be fairly meaningless since Jon had almost no real hesitation with doing what he couldn't do with Ygritte. It would have been better if Jon showed excessive hesitation with executing Janos, or gave him a week to prepare to leave and expected him to go. Janos' execution could then take place in 5.05 after the "Kill the Boy" lines when Janos refuses him yet again and insults him. - It's too Hollywood-like with soldiers lining up outside forming a path for Jon, Jon slamming his drink down in the mess hall alone like it "ain't no thang" - just another day at the office. There's no subtlety or torment for Jon in this scene where he's conflicted in his heart about what to do. - The Jon/Olly/Davos/Stannis scene could have butted right up against this one no problem. The Wall didn't need to be segmented into two sections in this episode with how it was written and shot. It's messed up execution, literally and figuratively. Jon/Davos - Scene to give Davos screentime. When they don't have anything to write, D&D tend to write scenes where one person just gives uplifting words or advice to the other. There might be some future payoff from this scene, but we'll see. Maybe it encourages Jon to tell Davos he needs to sail to White Harbor (highly, highly doubtful) and even so it wouldn't need this scene to happen. There's just not much for Davos to do. This goes back to my earlier comments about how Tommen/Margaery sucks up too much time as a blackhole. If Reek only has three scenes so far of a few minutes with no dialogue, then Margaery doesn't have to have her plot expanded. Cutting this stuff would allow 10 minutes to do have Davos sail off to White Harbor and they could do Wyman Manderly in 5 minutes apiece between two episodes. Varys/Tyrion - Another box scene where old ground is revisted again. Littlefinger/Roose/Ramsay - LF'ers reason to Roose for allying with him - "I'm a gambling man" is pretty poor. It's overall an interesting scene. It's not fair to judge it until we actually understand Littlefinger's real plan. Hopefully there is a real plan here Arya/Needle - Arya's connection with needle isn't made clear within the episode. There was also no "previously on" reminder that Jon gave it to her. Good scenes, but poor setups in this regard. It would only take a line or two of Arya telling the Waif or the Kindly Man what the sword means to her when the two confront her with "The Game of Faces." Jaqen could then scold her for hanging onto her past, and that the sword doesn't mean anything to "no one."

Rating this episode is particularly difficult for me. On the one hand, I loved most of the scenes and thought they were really well-done. But on the other I am concerned about the directions of certain characters and what it means for the overall narrative. I don't really mean Sansa in Winterfell, I think that's fine for the most part so far, but there are problems in King's Landing and the Wall which are entertaining to watch overtly, but when you break things down there are major cracks with the overall writing direction and how events are portrayed. It would take a Wall of text to explain it all that I'll leave to write for a bit later.