[Poll] How would you rate episode 506

[jbob]

The fight scene in Dorne was pretty crappy. It felt like they rushed it. Which is probably true since they had limited time at the place, but then they should've found some other place.

[Ran]

176 votes... and a 5.31 average. Gosh.

[of man and wolf]

5/10

One point is given solely to outstanding cinematography of this episode, especially to the Hall of faces and the Godswood scenes.

Tyrion/Jorah

Shallow reading of the books and lazy and stereotypical writing continues.

Cliché no. 1 - Tyrion&Jorah bond over their life stories

Error no. 1 - They tell the audience something the said audience already knows about = waste of screen time

Cliché no. 2 - At the very moment they bond shit happens.

Error no. 2 - Jorah, infected with greyscale, touches Tyrion

Cliché no. 3 - Slavers are stupid and can easily be talked into things by lying AND by telling the truth, depending on the characters.

Ian Glenn had moments of fine acting there. Dinklage has lost the will to act in season 4 and I don't blame him. The writing is unbearable.

King's Landing

Unlike Loras, LF recognises (brother) Lancel immediately. That is why he probably does not get arrested. The fact that LF wasn't arrested does not make any sense from the show established point of view. Faith Militants arrested every single employee of LF. But, they did not arrest LF although in the same episode they arrest the queen taking a word of a male prostitute over hers. Logic has been thrown out of the window a long time ago, but this is insulting my intelligence.

One point to LF for the best line in the episode "We both paddle fantasies, brother Lancel. Mine just happens to be entertaining."

Olenna's conversation with Cersei was excellent. What it lacked is a hint in Lena's acting that Cersei is actually going mad.

The faith hearing was so stupid and shabbily written that it's a waste of space. No suspence, nothing. Logic totally lacking. Although Loras was played superbly, it didn't help much. Direction was totally confusing, because even the director cannot work miracles when the writing is unredeemable. Thank God for Olenna. Lena's facial expressions were coming out of some 19th century farce. Marg was as bad as ever and Tommen was showing nothing, because his character does not exist on the page, so the poor young guy does not know what to do. Pryce is overdoing a nice grandpa act. He should be showing some signs of ferocity, but why would he? He does not know what he is supposed to play.

Dorne

And that leads us to mother of all nonsense.

Doran and Hotar scene was good. And that is where the good bit ends. Acting was awful. Fight scene was the poorest thing I've seen in my life. I do not think one has to write about this any more. Solid gold shit.

Arya

Hall of faces was awe inspiring. The rest was tolerable. As I said before, it is obvious D&D like Arya and try to stick to the books when it comes to her arc. And when they do stick to the books, the situation improves significantly.

WF

The bath scene was excellent both in writing and acting.

The Godswood scene as well. It had all the right ingredients and it was magical and creepy at the same time as it should be.

The rape scene as a scene was well acted by Sophie. Masterfully acted by Alphie who should be given an award for staying in character despite of the script. As for Iwan, I think he did a terrible job. His facial expression changed from one extreme in the Godswood to the other in the bedroom. And I would not blame Iwan. Since Ramsey had no motive for what he was doing, the actor improvised. And badly so. Dumb&Dumber should understand (and this is not difficult) when they replace one character with another (fArya with Sansa) they have to stay true to the character that acted as a replacee, in this case Sansa's. It is understandable that fArya was raped and molested. She had no value. Ramsey knew she was fake. However, Sansa is not a fake Stark. So, the whole rape does not make sense. Ramsey is a psycho, but there is a method in every madness. Not in Ramsey's according to D&D. In the books, Ramsey knows what he is doing. He is not rash. He knows his boundaries. He knows the value of his victims from lady Hornwood onwards. Here, he makes no sense even to himself. This is a true torture porn and an insult to GRRM who said he would never write a rape scene. Is the fact that D&D let it roll off camera and reflect on Theon's face, their way of staying true to the books? Disgusting. And unsurprisingly stupid.

Finally, a message for D&D (I hope some of their employees are on the forum). This type of torture porn is the lowest you managed to get so far. I do not believe it is fit for TV. Not because it is a rape unnecessary for the plot created for shock effect alone, but because it is a brain rape of the audience. I am glad to know actors were reluctant to take part in it. I just hope next time they spit in your smug self-absorbed faces and walk away.

Iwan played his part incredibly well. As he always has. Of course GRRM has written rape scenes. It's all over his books. The books were going in a different route here...now LF has GIVEN the Boltons the keys to the North on a silver platter...Ramsay no longer has any reason to pretend to be anything but what he truly is. The marriage happened, that's it and that's all.

[dannyk65]

All I'll say is that this episode was a giant, unadulterated middle finger to TV viewers.

1/10 since there's no 0....

[Ser Not Appearing]

176 votes... and a 5.31 average. Gosh.

You can't finish botching the Sand Snakes and marriage-rape Sansa, then expect much in terms of star ratings.

... but I also hated it. Disappointment.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

176 votes... and a 5.31 average. Gosh.

Can we have negative numbers? Please?

[Ran]

Torn as how to rate it myself. King's Landing was okay, accepting that they hinge it on Loras being gay and just looking at it from acting and story purpose. It worked to entrap Margaery, so she stands accused as well, although it's all very flimsy. ("Hey, remember that bit about his being my squire? Yeah, about that... occasionally squires help to dress their knights, or might be asked to see a bath prepared, and in the course... well, what's nudity between men? But anyways, that's how he knows about the land of Dorne on my thigh.")

Braavos was fantastic. Everything came together well there: set design, acting, writing, scoring. Quite liked it.

And Winterfell... again, scoring, set design, acting. Costuming, too, Sansa's gown was quite beautiful, and Theon's outfit worked well. And their choices in how to depict what had to happen... well. But then the whole thing is about adaptation, and how far afield they've taken Sansa, and the crazy hand-waves they've had to do to get her there, and it lessens it somewhat. It has to be seen in isolation, yes, where it works surpassingly well (in an appropriately stomach-churning way), but also as part of the whole, where the way they've conducted themselves with characters in the past makes one feel a great deal of disquiet.

And then, right in the middle of it all, the unsightly effluvium that is Dorne. Holy hell, but that was sheer awfulness, start to finish, mitigated only by how lovely the Alcazar is. That was the worst fight scene the show has ever perpetrated.

And yet, it's definitely a minor note (despite the episode title). So how to rate it, given its unevenness? I still don't know. Need to ponder it further.

[Nictarion]

Gave an 8. Much, much better than last week. Thought everything was good except Dorne. Obviously the end was hard to watch, but there was some great performances by Alfie Allen and Sophie Turner.

[The Drunkard]

I think this is the second episode ever that I've given a rating above the average.

[darksellsword]

Gave this episode a 1 .You could have cut off one of Jaime lannisters legs as well as his hand and the Jaime of season 1 would have beat the shit out of every one of those sandsnakes thats without even factoring in Bronn, to say the fight sequence in the water gardens was a disaster would be an incredible understatement, I dont get how they could have filmed that watched it back on the monitor and thought it looked good, I have a stupid question how did those guards know Allaria was in the tunnel its not as if the sandsnakes would of told them. We have a song here in Ireland about the green green grass of home should we change that to the green green grass of Dorne? Jaime and Bronn looked ridiculous riding through a grass field dressed in flamboyant desert clothes as for the end scene what was that about ? maybe it was symbolic of D&Ds rape of Georges masterpiece. I have said it before this whole season feels like it was created with a random fanfiction plot generator. This television franchise climbed so high in popularity the only way is down this has been heralded by the reappearence of fan favourites like Bronn and Lady Olenna at the expense of other characters and plotlines its all going down the toilet.

[Eve]

The Queen of Thorns line about smelling shit is what I think of this episode.

[Alfie]

It's a rememberable episode for sure, Tyrion and Dorne were the weakest parts. Arya was ok, at least she was included.

Seeing Littlefinger, Olenna and Cersei was great, it reminds us what he Game Of Thrones really is then to have someone who learned from all of them (Sansa) come in and really take all the attention to remind people she's already a player and continuing the game through a marriage....

[Neds Secret]

I actually thought that episode 6 was the best so far. Littlefingers plan started to make more sense, albeit quite optimistic, and he never should have left Sansa to that fate, but it actually made sense for the most part, Jorahs finding out his fathers death was really well shot and some of the plots and actions are starting to make a little more sense. However the final scene involving Sansa was terrible, just terrible, I really wanted her to escape that, or kill ramsay or something, LF should not have left her to that if he was truly a mastermind as he is being portrayed!

Edited May 18, 2015 by Neds Secret

[Ran]

191 votes, now 5.25 average, 5.23(!) with top/bottom 5% removed, 6 median

[FC_Lymond]

I wouldn't know how to rate it.

The good scenes were great, the bad scenes terrible.

[Lord Reaper oOo]

I've defended each episode until this one.

Just terrible. The only thing I cared for was Arya. Everything else was bland and mediocre.

4/10

[Dez]

Ommmmm

[Ser Creighton]

Torn as how to rate it myself. King's Landing was okay, accepting that they hinge it on Loras being gay and just looking at it from acting and story purpose. It worked to entrap Margaery, so she stands accused as well, although it's all very flimsy. ("Hey, remember that bit about his being my squire? Yeah, about that... occasionally squires help to dress their knights, or might be asked to see a bath prepared, and in the course... well, what's nudity between men? But anyways, that's how he knows about the land of Dorne on my thigh.")

Braavos was fantastic. Everything came together well there: set design, acting, writing, scoring. Quite liked it.

And Winterfell... again, scoring, set design, acting. Costuming, too, Sansa's gown was quite beautiful, and Theon's outfit worked well. And their choices in how to depict what had to happen... well. But then the whole thing is about adaptation, and how far afield they've taken Sansa, and the crazy hand-waves they've had to do to get her there, and it lessens it somewhat. It has to be seen in isolation, yes, where it works surpassingly well (in an appropriately stomach-churning way), but also as part of the whole, where the way they've conducted themselves with characters in the past makes one feel a great deal of disquiet.

And then, right in the middle of it all, the unsightly effluvium that is Dorne. Holy hell, but that was sheer awfulness, start to finish, mitigated only by how lovely the Alcazar is. That was the worst fight scene the show has ever perpetrated.

And yet, it's definitely a minor note (despite the episode title). So how to rate it, given its unevenness? I still don't know. Need to ponder it further.

I don't know how to rate it either, you didn't mention Jorah and Tyrion, I was glad to see a conversation about Jeor. Curious about something, we all had a pretty good idea of what was coming with Sansa. It's a manufactured arc and they felt the need to place Sansa in this role, though I am not sure why. But I can't help but notice that Tyrion had a certain scene removed from his arc in Dance involving a prostitute, well very much changed. Why is it ok to add the one and remove the other? It actually bothers me, I feel like it involves ratings. They don't want to depict Tyrion in that light, but it's ok to victimize Sansa? I can't help but notice that right before it happened, they are actually talking about Tyrion, and basically how kind he is. Almost like she is being punished for not wanting to be with him. Why bring it up there? Remind us of how kind Tyrion is and remove that scene of his with the prostitute.

I don't know the idea is really bothering me.

Also and this is a bit confusing I am watching inside the episode and D&D are talking about Dany, and showing Dany scenes from last week. It's inbetween talking about Sansa and talking about Dorne. To quote what they had to say about Dorne. "Unlike Dany or Sansa, Myrcella is a pawn in someone elses game." Not sure if D&D actually watched this episode, but Dany is not in it, and Sansa just got totally used as a pawn by someone else named LF who they said was using her. Literal double talk on inside the episode, they can't even explain their own episode. I am sure it is bad editing but I am getting used to that. Seriously though watch inside the episode after the episode, it starts off normal and then it's like Dany and Sansa is a pawn but not a pawn. Did I miss something or is LF not using Sansa in his own game?

[LmL]

That was the last episode I will ever watch. I already was having trouble taking it seriously any more, but now this.

Rape, murder, and violence are a part of life, especially war. George R. R. Martin deals with those issues with the appropriate complexity and thoughtfulness that they require. Dave and Dan have interpreted that as a license to create senseless murder porn. I should have stopped watching after the completely unecessary pregnancy-stabbing they added in for shock value to the Red Wedding, but this surely put the nail in coffin.

Not only was that Dorne scene not worthy of appearing on Xena Warrior Princess, it wasn't even worthy of the shows that COPY Xena Warrior Princess. As if we needed another reason to stop watching. That entire scene was just silly, as all the Dorne scenes have been. What a travesty.

If you only watch the show, please understand, you are not watching basically anything that happened in the books at this point. Not even close.

Finished.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Lucifer means Lightbringer

[Trasali]

6/10

King's Landing and the North were excellent in my opinion, Jorah/Tyrion and Arya were simply okay, and Dorne was a hot, stinking mess.

Dorne-

- How did Jaime and Bronn get to the water gardens so quickly? One second they were pointing to it on the road, and the next they were standing next to Myrcella and the Prince.

- How were Jaime and Bronn able to get into the water garden so effortlessly? Why not spend a few minutes showing them entering the gardens? Killing a guard? It felt contrived.

- Right after Jaime and Bronn arrive, the Sand Snakes show up. Um..what? Where did they come from? How did both parties arrive at the same time?

- Cue bad action sequence.

- Guards arrive and arrest the fighters + Obarra. End of Dorne. WHAT?!!?!?!

Who are the Sand Snakes? They all have had zero characterization on the screen. To me...they all could be replicas of one another for all I know. On this show, the writers have given me no reason to care about any of the living characters in Dorne.

Edit: Forgot to add that recasting older Myrcella and adding in the make out scene was unnecessary to the plot, and I'm annoyed that it ate up screen time.

Edit: The make out scene had zero impact because up to this point both of these characters have either been nonexistent or extras. The writing in Dorne is not up to par with the rest of the season. Good writing makes me care about the characters, or interested in their journey, but again...ZZZ.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Trasali