[Poll] How would you rate episode 506

[AdmiralKyrd]

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.

Edited May 18, 2015 by AdmiralKyrd

[zeppelincheetah]

All of these changes are simply making my head spin. I try to watch it for what it is but it is difficult. I give it a 4. King's Landing was very sloppy, particularly the LF/Cersei scenes, Dorne was laughably bad, Jorah and Tyrion was alright and Arya was decent. WF is WTF. I hope Dave and Dan know what they're doing, because it sure looks like they're ruining the show.

[BearQueen87]

This is such a hard episode to rate. I really enjoyed most of the first 35 mins or so and then they went to WF. In the end, it's getting an 8 with the understanding that I'm pretty unhappy about WF/Sansa's story.

LIKED

--Arya and the House of Black and White. The lying game was well done as was the hall of faces--seriously spooky.

--"Possibly the least charming man I've ever met." (or: why BQ really loves Jorah Mormont...a lot.) I'm glad they're keeping the spirit of the Jorah and Tyrion dynamic from the books alive. I would hate for them to become bosom buddies; theirs is a fun relationship because it's so snarky. Also: the return of Iain Glen's FACE OF PAIN!

--"This song really is all about the ending" I feel like that line is supposed to be pretty meta given that this is "A Song of Ice and Fire"

--The Queen of Thrones and Cersei. More of that please.

--The trial scene was well done; even though I knew what was about to happen, it had a feeling of intensity. Also, Jonathan Price!

--Sansa's wedding outfit was lovely.

MIXED

--Jorah describing his belief in Daenerys. Oh heavens. I melt. BUT Book! Jorah remains a cynic and a pragmatist throughout the series, even if he does have that much belief in Dany. The book purist in me (and someone who adores Jorah, cynicism and all) is slightly irked by that.

--The LF and Cersei scene was good but Aidan Gillien's need to impersonate Batman is still annoying and gets worse every season.

DISLIKED

--Obviously, the ending. At this point, I am pretending that nothing is happening at WF; Sansa isn't there; Ramsey did not just rape her. They are so far off the book map that I feel like I can call it hogwash and be justified in doing so. It feels very much like Sansa's rape is only for sensationalism, to be gasp worth and tweetable. At this point D and D have no clue what to do with Sansa (except they know they don't want to do what GRRM is planning based off what we do know is coming in WOW) and so they go for the horror and cheap gasp-worthy moment.

--I still cannot with what they did to Ellaria. I get that they wanted an Arianne figure without actually casting Arianne and while in the books Ellaria is more a minor figure, her speech about vengeance and how useless it is is powerful and perfectly fits with the war-soaked narrative of AFFC. Reducing her down to another Dornish woman looking for revenge and taking away her speech/ideas from the show narrative as a whole leave a very bad taste in my mouth. The show and the books are great at demonstrating how bad war can be, but where the books go further is that GRRM inserts characters who speak about the futility of it all (Meribald, Ellaria). It'd be nice if the show did too.

--The Sand Snakes and the fight between them and Jaime/Bronn was almost comically bad.

--The writers are making Cersei too competent. She's supposed to be really floundering.

--Not nearly enough Doran! Come on. Stop teasing me with Siddig.

Edited May 18, 2015 by BearQueen87

[Red Tiger]

I give it a nice 4, Dorne continues to suck, what Arya's doing wasn't interesting at all and how the KL plot was handled was ridiculous if you think about it (really Loras, lying about what you do in a city full of schemers and spies?).

[Tyrion the Perfect]

An 8 I guess.

Is there anyway at the beginning of next week's show D&D can make an announcement just apologizing for the Dorne storyline. You know, just tell the audience that it isn't working out and promise that Jaime will be back in Kings Landing next season and to please just forget everything you saw involving Dorne. Then replace all the future Dorne scenes with, well, just about anything. Maybe some nice Grey Worm and Missendei outtakes.

[King's Bane]

8/10

The sand snakes bore me.

[of man and wolf]

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.

So all the horrid acts that were commited at the RW...a complete massacre...and also the desecration of corpses afterwards is ok...but stabbing a woman in the belly while pregnant is going too far?

[Fjordgazer]

I gave it 3. For production values, and a bit of the Jorah-Tyrion and Arya scenes. Not that they make a whole lot of sense as a whole.

[Alboin]

Dorne is beyond awfulness. I haven't seen anything so badly executed, staged and acted, so clumsy for a long time on US/UK television. (1/10) and that's being generous.

Carol's stuff was just boring where it should be heart-pounding. It is so obvious that the essence of this plot should be queen infidelity instead of gay persecution! All those scenes scream about it. And "if there's nothing else?" she says to Baelish after SHE summoned him from another part of the world and he made that journey? WTF? Writers just needed him to leave Sansa and didn't even cared to come up with some issue why she needed Baelish? That's some poor job. (4/10)

Mormont and Tyrion scenes were somewhat raw. They needed something else to work. Like for example some concrete obstacle of their journey they have to overcome WHILE having all those interesting conversations. Just like that - walking on the beach as if these two guys accidentally bought holiday package for a wrong season and have to walk around the beach fully clothed cause it's cold - it's just not good. Slavers were made in the quality of Dorne (see above) (5/10)

Arya's stuff was great. Pillars with faces were weird but epic. (7/10)

And "that scene" and everything that was leading to it was so awesome as the show once was. Frightening, full of suspense, tragic, violent and heart-breaking. (10/10).

Average? I'll go with 6, just for Winterfell.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Alboin

[Lord Damian]

4, Dornish plot is a waste of time, they should have cast Arianne Martell since the showrunners like sex, rough or complicit.

[of man and wolf]

Aside from Dorne, I thought the trial scene in KL was the worst part of the show. The Tyrells, aside from Olenna, came off really dumb. I cant get into Marg either.

[Trinket2]

I'm going to be constructive about this and just say that it was utter crap, hitting a new level of crappiness that this season has hinted at but never quite reached before. 1/10, Good going!

Edited May 18, 2015 by Trinket2

[Mrbsct]

Cersei storyline....good

Dornish storyline.....the fight was cheesy. The two sides happened to bump into eachother at the same time? And the Sand Snakes are a joke. Their best fighter trained by Oberyn Martell himself....couldn't even handle a handicapped Jamie?

House of Black and White was okay. Nothing happened.

The Sansa wedding....well marry Ramsay what do you expect?

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

8/10. KL, Winterfell, Tyrion/Jorah, Braavos, all well done. Dorne was a 0/10.

[LmL]

So all the horrid acts that were commited at the RW...a complete massacre...and also the desecration of corpses afterwards is ok...but stabbing a woman in the belly while pregnant is going too far?

Yes, there was no reason to add that. It was horrible enough to murder a family at a wedding - showing that dude repeatedly stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach was completely unnecessary and only done for shock value. You have to consider the medium when you make art. Certain things are quite different when depicted visually, and must be handled appropriately. I can't imagine being a pregnant woman (or the husband of a pregnant woman) and watching that scene. The show consistently chooses to cut out interesting dialogue, complexity, subtlety, the consequences of violence, etc. in favor of more porn - violence porn and murder porn. Consider the scene at Crasters with the mutineers. Yeah. Then we have the debacle with Jamie and Cersei. Five or six episodes of SHOWING Theon's mutilation and torture, thinly only alluded to in the book. Dave and Dan are clearly not capable of handling the issue of rape with any kind of sensitivity or tact.

The plot changes they make don't make sense, and do not take character's motivations and arcs into account. Thus we get Sansa wildly careening back and forth between victim and player, even within one episode. She puts the stupid bath maid in her place (seriously, that character is terribly written), that's good, you can't intimidate Sansa. Then five minutes later, she's back to being a victim again. I mean... choosing to have someone get raped is a pretty major change to their character. Thus, this episode was wntirely symbolic of their handling of this book series. They raped it, pretty thoroughly.

[MordredDayne]

I gave it a 1. This episode gave me both a headache and a stomachache. This might be the first episode ever where I didn't feel there was at least one redeeming moment.

[LmL]

I'm going to be constructive about this and just say that it was utter crap, hitting a new level of crappiness that this season has hinted at but never quite reached before. 1/10, Good going!

It's just sad. I'm done watching.

[olenna123]

I gave it a 3. Not just for Sansa. The writing and overall quality of the show are rapidly deteriorating.

[Red Tiger]

It's painfully obvious that D&D ran out of ideas.

[of man and wolf]

Yes, there was no reason to add that. It was horrible enough to murder a family at a wedding - showing that dude repeatedly stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach was completely unnecessary and only done for shock value. You have to consider the medium when you make art. Certain things are quite different when depicted visually, and must be handled appropriately. I can't imagine being a pregnant woman (or the husband of a pregnant woman) and watching that scene. The show consistently chooses to cut out interesting dialogue, complexity, subtlety, the consequences of violence, etc. in favor of more porn - violence porn and murder porn. Consider the scene at Crasters with the mutineers. Yeah. Then we have the debacle with Jamie and Cersei. Five or six episodes of SHOWING Theon's mutilation and torture, thinly only alluded to in the book. Dave and Dan are clearly not capable of handling the issue of rape with any kind of sensitivity or tact.

The plot changes they make don't make sense, and do not take character's motivations and arcs into account. Thus we get Sansa wildly careening back and forth between victim and player, even within one episode. She puts the stupid bath maid in her place (seriously, that character is terribly written), that's good, you can't intimidate Sansa. Then five minutes later, she's back to being a victim again. I mean... choosing to have someone get raped is a pretty major change to their character. Thus, this episode was wntirely symbolic of their handling of this book series. They raped it, pretty thoroughly.

OK....but can you imagine yourself as a mother watching what she believes is her last living Son being murdered right in front of your eyes? Could you imagine yourself as a Mother witnessing such an act? In both scenarios a mother dies only after the realization hits that their children die before them. Except one mother has raised her son for 16 years or whatever the age was.

Talisa should have never been there really. That's my problem with the show for that episode. Since they did put her there though, I dont really see that as any more shocking tha anything else that occurred.