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How would you rate episode 501?


Ran
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How would rate episode 501?  

603 members have voted

  1. 1. What's your rating from 1-10, with 10 being the highest/best

    • 1
      8
    • 2
      8
    • 3
      23
    • 4
      27
    • 5
      60
    • 6
      92
    • 7
      131
    • 8
      155
    • 9
      57
    • 10
      42


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Gave it a 7. Decent opener. Didn't really have a problem with anything (although the Loras scene was pretty pointless), and I really liked Dany/Daario, Tyrion/Varys, the dragons, and the Unsullied brothel scene. Liked all the Meereen scenes really.

Edited by Nictarion
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They even managed to botch up Maggy the Frog scene with no valonqar and 3 children (what about that boy with black of hair in season 1. Continuity? Anyone?)

That's actually a pretty cool bit of medievalism. What with the mortality rates in Ye Olde Times, infants did not really count as children until they survived long enough. Cersei has three children who survived infancy, which means that she has three children.

Honestly, this must have been mentioned here, multiple times, since Season 1. I don't believe it wasn't.

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Gave it an 8.5, rounded up to a 9. Probably the best season premiere since Winter Is Coming. Was prepared for a couple of changes that would have annoyed me otherwise, but I was able to roll with them and just enjoy.



What I liked:


- Kit Harrington killing it. He has been really growing into this role since season 3, and now he really is everything Jon Snow should be.


- Cirian Hinds. He hasn't been fantastic as Mance honestly, but he saved the best till last, and I'm sad to see him go (even though I knew it was going to happen)


- Mereen. I loved that they included the whole thing from the books with Unsullied visiting brothels and just getting whores to hold them. And they've captured Dany's dragon dilemma really well. And Daario is actually pretty cool, but still just enough of a devil on Dany's shoulder.



What I wasn't wild about:


- The belated return of Lancel. I watched with a bunch of Unsullied, and they really weren't clear on who he was. And I doubt anyone even noticed Kevan.



Overall though, very promising start. Though the dialogue still occasionally leaves a bit to be desired, something about the way they framed this episode just worked. Looking forward to this season.


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That's exactly what happens in the books, the only difference is that Jon orders someone else to do it IIRC.

This. Jon orders a few of his men to shoot "Mance" as he's burning. Since at this point of the show he's not LC, doing it himself seems a perfectly reasonable change. I thought it was pretty awesome actually.

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A solid six. The weak spots that I thought were going to be weak were played off for badly done comedy (Vale characters--Sansa, Littlefinger, Robin) and too intense despair (Brienne, and Pod)--not that Brienne wouldn't react that way after that, but I think they chose a bad take of the scene.

Not really a fan of the Varys change, but I can understand why they did it. Conleth and Dinklage do amazing jobs as always. Issue with that scene is more the script change than anything else.

Dany was good until she did the whole "Viseryon, Rhaegal... come out come out wherever you are" scene--would have been better if she hadn't said a word at all during the sequence--calling out their names ruined it.

Daario was nicely handled, as was Mance--but then I like the actor as an actor (though I do agree he was miscast).

Jon/Mance scene was mehh... could have been better, could have been worse--most of it up to the less than stellar dialog, though both actors do try and work around it with good visual acting cues, so that's something.

Dang are they doing the bad exposition drop with Kevan Lannister's explanation of the Sparrows (as subtle as a Looney Tunes anvil), though Lancel was appropriately creepy in the fanaticism for his scenes.

The obvious set up for Loras still hanging around while fanatics cluster at the edges, shows he's getting reckless or too comfortable (a common theme throughout the episode).

Forgettable scenes were the Grey Worm and Missandei dialog, though I guess now Missandei is going to put herself in danger finding out why Unsullied would visit a brothel.

The best scene IMO was where the Unsullied actually visits a brothel for just a hug and then gets killed by the Son of the Harpy. Well done, well done indeed. It worked on the source material well, but also felt somewhat fresh all the same.

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That's actually a pretty cool bit of medievalism. What with the mortality rates in Ye Olde Times, infants did not really count as children until they survived long enough. Cersei has three children who survived infancy, which means that she has three children.

Honestly, this must have been mentioned here, multiple times, since Season 1. I don't believe it wasn't.

And the Free Folk do not name their children 'til they're two or three, if I remember correctly.

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What if that was the first episode I have ever seen from the show? Would I go on watching? Would I be thrilled or intrigued of events to come? With all my good intentions towards the show I wouldn't and I would be not.



Emilia Clarke is especially weak in this episode.


Clumsy rhythm and overall dynamic (yes, I know, season opener).


Claran Hinds is just the worst possible Mance, Even if show's Mance is a whole other character, he overacts it beyond any possibility to like this new character.


I hated the prologue. In the first season the show succeeded with mystic scenes several time: birth of the dragons and maegi, prologue... Since then maybe not, and this "witch" looked like some stoned club whore from a cheap holiday resort.


I liked Brienne and the Wall, although I still have to chew the whole "let's ride to Winterfell" Littlefinger/Sansa thing.



Maybe 5.


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That's actually a pretty cool bit of medievalism. What with the mortality rates in Ye Olde Times, infants did not really count as children until they survived long enough. Cersei has three children who survived infancy, which means that she has three children.

Honestly, this must have been mentioned here, multiple times, since Season 1. I don't believe it wasn't.

I am sure that is why they did it - to educate the masses about medievalism. And no, it was never mentioned in the show. Finally, how do you explain everything else dumbed down to brain numbness and suddenly one has to know their medievalism to understand a scene? Please.

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6



Good points



Unlike in the books, I liked Tyrion self pity in the series. PD made it less irritating. But probably one of the reasons it is less annoying you hear only when he says something self pitying, you can't hear all his thoughts. And the actor who plays Daario, made me actually like Daario while in my opinion in the books he is a very useless character.



I also cheered on the dragons when they attacked Dany. Payback for locking them up.



I was also happy Jon killed MR with an arrow instead of burning him. I was started becoming afraid he would really burned to death. (I really think D&D are more evil than GRRM.



I think it was actually quite interesting to give Mance the choice between kneeling to save their people and choosing freedom. Jon is actually a descendent of someone who did kneel (The King who knelt). However I never wanted Mance to be dead, I still it would be totally wrong if Mance did kneel. So I am happy they did not do that.



Bad points



We don't know what is going to happen but I will get really get angry if Stannis' army is only built out of wildlings instead of people of the North. I get it when the wildlings go south of the wall to help the NW to protect the Wall but please no, don't let them fight the war between Stannis and Roose. I will have the same opinion about the army of the Vale standing behind Roose/Sansa. In my eyes it would completely destroy the dynamic in the North.



Everyone (or Stannis at least) knows RB was the man who killed Robb. Really. It thought it had to be a secret? At least it would not be common knowledge at Dragonstone and the Wall? Really?



Dany was annoying as ever."I am a queen. I don't compromise." Really Dany. No compromise or not listening to your people leads to uprisings and rebellions. If you need entire army to control your city, you are doing something wrong!



No valonquor in the flashback? No reason anymore why Cersei is so afraid.



And no Bran :-( (a point for the entire season).



Edit: I forgot to say. What are they doing with Varys? Group of people who wants to place a good queen in Westeros/supported the restoration of the Targ dynasty? And the known members are Illyrio and Varys? Why would they care about Westeros? And indeed really sad they left out of Aegon and Griff; makes less sense to me.


Edited by Tijgy
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I am sure that is why they did it - to educate the masses about medievalism. And no, it was never mentioned in the show. Finally, how do you explain everything else dumbed down to brain numbness and suddenly one has to know their medievalism to understand a scene? Please.

Honestly, I think that most people don't care. But if they do, then they should also probably be aware of some basic facts from history.

I mean... 'one has to know their medievalism'? Really?

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7/10


I found it a little too bit too scattered to enjoy properly (I guess it can't be helped as season opener, but still). I had also spent ages lurking on the speculation boards and knew exactly what was going to happen and half of the dialogue, which didn't help.



Didn't see the purpose in Missandei/Grey Worm's scene and Brienne's was powerful and beautiful acted but so brief and felt jarring.



I really liked the last scene with Mance: he was great; crazy Selyse smiling when he was burning was horrifying; Jon doing the Last of the Mohican thing was touching. (I had completely forgotten how things had happened in the books). I like seeing the characters from different storylines interacting.



If I hadn't known that Lancel was a Sparrow, I wouldn't have recognised him at all.

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I gave it a 9 but that's because I like everything. I should have given it a 10, even.



Awesome: The creepy flashback, Lancel and Kevan, the Sweetrobin fight, everything at the Wall, especially the last scene.



Good: The Daario and Hizdar scene, the dragon scene, the Tywin corpse scene, the Unsullied assassination, the Harpy falling, the more-and-more cinematic mise-en-scène throughout the series.



Meh: The Brienne and Pod scene (because we don't see where it is going rather than because of the scene itself) and the Varys-Tyrion dialogue that is quite slow.



Bad: Nothing was bad. But to give you an idea, I think that a maximum of three scenes in the show were bad.



Thing I found awesome but I'm not objective: The Loras/Olyvar scene.


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7



Minus:



--The interminable bitching between Jaime and Cersei: it doesn't make sense. Why would Jaime give a shit about the Lannister family power-game prospects when he's already decided long ago to go full-in just for Cersei and not family power? Why does Cersei harangue Jaime ad nauseum about "family responsibility" when she sees every day that he has committed to her and not the long-term family power-game prospects? Martin understands this logic far better than D + D.



--Mance Rayder: Jon: It's about your pride. (accurate). Mance: No, it's not about my pride, and if you think so, you know nothing. (completely without evidence). Mance dies anyway, without shit prospects for the free folk. Martin gives a better "out" for this issue that I don't think D + D will follow...so this conflict is contrived and stupid.



--If Littlefinger is taking Sansa to Winterfell (not directly stated, but one probable possibility)...then...all I can imagine--based on at least two actors' pearl-clutching near-spoiler gossipings to the media--is that we are headed to some Ramsey torture-porn on Sansa later in the later episodes. If that happens...it would be one of the cheapest, dumbest pieces of exploitation ever committed in American television. Do D + D think so little of Sansa's intelligence-survival instincts, that she would agree to an LF plan that would involve her married into the Bolton mafia...without any back-up? Seriously, who in the fuck--above a 30 IQ--would agree to that?



Plus:



--The Tyrells: well done.



--Varys-Tyrion: well done.



--Dani's missteps in Mereen: well done.



--The Unsullied murder: well done.



--Brienne, bitchy and sulky, with Podrick: well done.



--Production values: well done...The Harpy statue fall is memorable.



I don't need "Urgggg...Urgggg...Violence, sex, swords through brains, dragons fry people, moon door fly, urggg, urggg..." every second, as many of the TV fans seem to crave...All I want is plot logic and character logic.


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Gave it a 9, and that was mainly because I didn't think we needed the Loras / Olyvar scene. By all means have a scene with Loras and Margaery briefly discussing changes in their situation after Tywin's death, but we didn't need Olyvar's 'involvement'.



Loved the final scenes at the Wall, and especially appreciated all the little shots of the various characters as Mance was set to burn. The cold self-righteousness of Mel as she set the pyre allight, the almost fanatical look of glee on Selyse's face, with poor little Shireen next to her closing her eyes in horror, the way Gilly turned away to Sam, the suppressed anger of Tormund and the wildlings, the stoicism/muted horror of the NW. And then of course, Mance's growing agony and fear as he burned, and the way Jon finally broke and put him out of his agony. Beautifully done.


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With 155 votes in, the episode has an average of 6.92, 7 with the top 5% and bottom 5% removed.



Bit surprised. This would make it by far the lowest rated premiere episode on the forum, and so far the lowest rated episode ever, lower even than Breaker of Chains (the Jaime-Cersei sept episode) and only the second episode of the series to go under a 7 average normally.


Edited by Ran
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