[Spoilers] EP601

[Bluesnow]

I literally yelled when Doran got stabbed. 
And when the sand snakes showed up to get Trystane I had to pause it and get some Oreos ready to appease my rage. 

I wasn't fond of the Dornish Plot, but Doran was a great actor- and I was genuinely interested in seeing what kind of character they would make Trystane. What I didn't like about the Dornish plot was Ellaria.... period. Her character I felt was a blasphemy against everything Oberyn stood for. Every scene she was in I would physically cringe at the screen screaming "THIS IS NOT ELLARIA!!!!!" till my boyfriend told me to shut up. I can understand her mourning her  lovers death and being angry- but I feel like they wanted to make another unhinged Cersei-ish character that was willing to resort to child murder in order to avenge her lover. 

Well now she's a child murderer and a Kin Slayer and the only characters in Dorne worth watching are now dead. 
There is nothing the show writers can do to fix this mistake- The Dornish plot is dead. 

Other than this I was more or less happy with the first episode- not too exciting, but definatley building up to some interesting things. 
 

Edited April 25, 2016 by Bluesnow

[briantw]

7 hours ago, ummester said:

It does say the ship, not Myrcella's ship. It's vague and can be taken either way.

It's not vague, as they quite literally showed us an establishing shot of the same ship Myrcella was on right before cutting to Trystane inside of said ship.  The editing makes it clear that he was meant to be on that ship.

And unless he just magically disappeared from the dock in episode ten of last season, he got on that little boat with Jaime, Bronn, and Myrcella.

7 hours ago, ummester said:

If you rewatched it you would know that Jamie says 'I'm glad you're coming home' to Myrcella and 'I'm glad he's coming with us' - ie home. He does not specify that they are coming/going home on the same boat.

You never see Trystane board the boat, saying he clearly got on is a flat out lie. He stops at the top of the steps down to the boat and the scene changes. He is not with Doran in the first scene as the boat departs but then Doran is not in the next scene on the docks when Obyren's missus has that antidote.

Again, unless he magically disappeared from the dock, he got on that boat.  No idea why you're being so obtuse about this when you're very clearly wrong.

[Mauvka]

Count me in the minority, but I enjoyed the Dornish massacre.  

Seems to me that it would be foolish to murder Myrcella and then _not_ go though with a full coup. Also, Doran Martel was making an error in keeping his plans so close to the vest.  The Dornish are an easily riled people, angry at the Lannisters, and as far as they could see, Doran was just endlessly appeasing the enemy.  His killing made all the sense it needed to in my eyes. 

[hallam]

I wrote a longer argument then the site went down.

My theory is that Mel is dead already. Jon is now back from the dead.

It wasn't removing the necklace that caused Mel to age. She removed the necklace because she was dying.

There are many clues - Davos looks at the snow - blood, KINGS blood, the vials on the table. Mel has used blood magic to bring Jon back.

[Ingelheim]

It's quite clear now (as it was already last year) that D&D should have cut the Dorne plot.

Without Aegon, there's no point in doing it. And it got screentime that could have been used to improve some of Season 5.

[hallam]

28 minutes ago, Ingelheim said:

It's quite clear now (as it was already last year) that D&D should have cut the Dorne plot.

Without Aegon, there's no point in doing it. And it got screentime that could have been used to improve some of Season 5.

But Myrcella had to get iced and Jamie had to do something with his time. Season 5 was too crowded already to do the riverlands plot and visually it would have been very samey to the battles they have already done. 

Keeping the Ironborn and the riverlands and old town to Season 6 made a lot of sense.

And the show story is TOTALLY consistent with the books. Sorry, in Book 6 you are going to find that Shireen really does get burned, Stanis gets whacked and Doran gets chopped. Can see those coming a mile off in the books.

[Pocketsaviour]

Not a bad opener apart from the Dorne scenes.

Sansa accepting Brienne's sword was great.

Jorah and Daario just happening on Dany's ring though. 

Daario: Sucks you'll never get to bang Dany. I have.
Jorah: What's this? Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall... Less than a day ahead of us. She may yet be alive. Come!
Daario: FFS Jorah this is Game of Thrones. You never even auditioned for Lord of the Rings, get over it.

 

[Ingelheim]

30 minutes ago, hallam said:

But Myrcella had to get iced and Jamie had to do something with his time. Season 5 was too crowded already to do the riverlands plot and visually it would have been very samey to the battles they have already done. 

Keeping the Ironborn and the riverlands and old town to Season 6 made a lot of sense.

And the show story is TOTALLY consistent with the books. Sorry, in Book 6 you are going to find that Shireen really does get burned, Stanis gets whacked and Doran gets chopped. Can see those coming a mile off in the books.

Then make Jaime stay at KL, as he is for the most part of AFFC. Then you can make things between Jaime and Cersei go worse and worse (or not, as D&D seem to want, but still better than his Dorne arc), and, voila, there you have it. It fits more with both books and characters.

And sure, I know Shireen, Stannis and Doran are going to die. The question is how. I can assure you Stannis won't burn Shireen, nor Ellaria will kill Doran.

Those are changes I would have made to Season 5, and I'm pretty sure they couldn't have been worse than Show Dorne. You cannot create an entire storyline around fanfiction, and, as good as I think the Show is, Dorne was that, plain fanfiction.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Ingelheim

[Tall Tyrion Lannister!]

1 hour ago, Bluesnow said:

I literally yelled when Doran got stabbed. 
And when the sand snakes showed up to get Trystane I had to pause it and get some Oreos ready to appease my rage. 

I wasn't fond of the Dornish Plot, but Doran was a great actor- and I was genuinely interested in seeing what kind of character they would make Trystane. What I didn't like about the Dornish plot was Ellaria.... period. Her character I felt was a blasphemy against everything Oberyn stood for. Every scene she was in I would physically cringe at the screen screaming "THIS IS NOT ELLARIA!!!!!" till my boyfriend told me to shut up. I can understand her mourning her  lovers death and being angry- but I feel like they wanted to make another unhinged Cersei-ish character that was willing to resort to child murder in order to avenge her lover. 

Well now she's a child murderer and a Kin Slayer and the only characters in Dorne worth watching are now dead. 
There is nothing the show writers can do to fix this mistake- The Dornish plot is dead. 

Other than this I was more or less happy with the first episode- not too exciting, but definatley building up to some interesting things. 
 

I'm still confused on  how she thinks that Doran let Oberyn be murdered. I mean A) it's not murder  if he willingly puts his life on the line and B ) it's not like  Doran knew all that shit was going to go down.

 

And you're right she is going against everything oberyn said. " we don't murder children in Dorne" and what does she do? murders a innocent child.

 

 

Fucking dorne.

[Fisch]

Thoughts while watching:

 - How does anyone watch anything other than sports in a bar? A local joint's the only way this graduate student can get to Sky Atlantic, but with the noise, you really wonder if it's worth it. Lucky they had on the subtitles.

- I liked the stuff at the Wall.

- I liked the stuff with Sansa and Theon. Though, and I felt this last season too - Brienne is a really brutish fighter. Like, really brutish. These Bolton guards seemed like nasty guys, but I was reminded of last season where she carved up knights of the Vale who were only doing their duty and just got massacred for it.

- I liked the stuff with Dany.

- Brief and uneventful though it was, I liked the scene between Varys and Tyrion.

- Ramsay Snow is not a sympathetic character. A dead girlfriend and the threat of disinheritance are not going to make him a sympathetic character. His efforts to bond himself to his father last season did not make him a sympathetic character. Stop trying to make him a sympathetic character. If you were more careful in how you adapted the material for Season 5 and hadn't gutted so much good stuff that belonged to Theon or to Sansa's in-Winterfell book equivalent to make room for Bolton scenes, you wouldn't be in a situation where you had to try and make them sympathetic to justify following them as main characters in the first place.

- I'm increasingly concerned that, over the years, the show seems to have decided that Cersei and Jaimie are not just empathetic, not just sympathetic, but a loving and victimized couple who've been done terrible wrong. Whether it's this episode or the bulk of their material in Seasons 4-5, this sort of whitewashing is the kind of thing teenage fanfic writers do when shipping their OC with an obvious villain.

- I said at the end of last season that Stannis and Cersei were two characters that D&D either fundamentally misunderstood or never cared to understand, so caught up were they in filling those slots of the story with their own material. I think I can add to that list every single Dornishman, a possible exception made for Oberyn. I'm surprised GRRM didn't request that Doran's name be changed, he seems so far removed from his book counterpart. Dorne easily remains the worst thing about this series, with some of the most embarrassing writing I've seen on a dramatic TV show. Between them and the whitewashed Lannister party going on in the Red Keep, I'm concerned about where this season's heading.

- I'd hoped we'd seen the last of Pouty Teenage Whacky McFaceless at the end of last season. Shame.

All things considered - aside from Dorne and Dany, not a lot happened in this one. Not bad, but I've no idea how to feel about where we're going from here (of course, unless you read the leaks, none of us does anymore).

[~DarkHorse~]

45 minutes ago, Ingelheim said:

Then make Jaime stay at KL, as he is for the most part of AFFC. Then you can make things between Jaime and Cersei go worse and worse (or not, as D&D seem to want, but still better than his Dorne arc), and, voila, there you have it. It fits more with both books and characters.

And sure, I know Shireen, Stannis and Doran are going to die. The question is how. I can assure you Stannis won't burn Shireen, nor Ellaria will kill Doran.

Those are changes I would have made to Season 5, and I'm pretty sure they couldn't have been worse than Show Dorne. You cannot create an entire storyline around fanfiction, and, as good as I think the Show is, Dorne was that, plain fanfiction.

If they wanted to include Dorne for the 'female empowerment' they could have just cut the Sandsnakes and included Arianne and the queenmaker plot. I would have rather had the adventures of Darkstar than the show Sandsnakes. 

The problem is that it was illogical. Period. It did not even make sense within the shows verse. I have unsullied friends who can't wrap their heads around Oberyn's vengeance being the slaughter of his other sibling and nephew (the whole point of him being pissed about Elia). 

I thought this was a good episode, but the Dorne plot is dead. I am just going to ignore it. It is hands down the biggest disappointment of the show so far (followed by Sansa's arc last season). 

[TheRevanchist]

The North story is still brilliant, but every other storyline was awful, with the Sand Snakes being the worst thing ever. They made Doran a craven and a fool, despite that he is one of the most intelligent players in the game. Oberyn's girlfriend seems to have gotten the Arianne story part, but cannot see Arianne killing Doran.

Mel's part was the biggest twist, but then it was common knowledge that she is old. I hope that they do not continue this masquerade of Jon being dead dead. We all know that he is going to be revived.

 

[TheRevanchist]

2 hours ago, Ingelheim said:

It's quite clear now (as it was already last year) that D&D should have cut the Dorne plot.

Without Aegon, there's no point in doing it. And it got screentime that could have been used to improve some of Season 5.

Indeed. And they actually cut the by far the main character on Dorne. 

[Daemon I Blackfyre]

Finally managed to remember my password and log in. This was a baaad, bad first episode.

The Wall: THANK GOD for this part. Davos and Edd were really two of the good things that came of the episode. Davos probably because Liam is so good at playing him, and Edd because he is sticking around (after loosing Pyp and Grenn we really need a character like him). Ghost was cool, I'm sad Jon wasn't already brought back, but hey, there's time.

The reveal of Melisandre really was a brilliant scene. It made me feel so sad and vulnerable just like she is in the scene; Carice Van Houten is really a great actress and she killed it in this ending.

The North: Not much to see. I liked the fact that Brienne and Pod reached Sansa and Theon in just one episode. This could've easily dragged longer than it did. So, all in all cool. Nothing to say on Ramsay except that his "feed her to the dogs" speech was way over the top.

Dorne: No. Just no. They butchered it. They destroyed it. Alexander Siddig was great as Doran and Doran had yet to do something. They killed him, Trystane and Areo, they killed characters that were just introduced, before they could contribute to anything and there is no explanation for it. They insist on the sandsnakes that were universally despised throughout all of S5 and for what? For WHAT? This SUCKS.

KL: I really, REALLY don't like the path they put Jaime on. He seems to be devolving and I have the feeling D&D are going to kill him off soon  and if so, they are going to do it in a ten times worst context, before he can meet Brienne for the last time. Also, where the hell is Bronn?

Essos: Tyrion and Varys filler and Daenerys is going to Vaes Dothrak like everyone expected. Really liked the humor with Moro's Khalassar. Also, too little Arya.

No Bran, no Rickon, no Iron Islands, no ToJ flashback yet. Like I said a poor first episode.

 

Seriously tough, the Dorne scenes made me feel so sick with the show, something I never felt once even through all of S5. It's like Benioff and Weiss did not even try.

After watching the episode, I felt the urge to start reading the books for a second time and never have I wished for The Winds of Winter like to this day. I really hope George is hard at work. 

 

 

[Lordsteve666]

Hmmm....interesting opener.

1. Dorne can just go to hell, really it just can. I don't care about any of the characters there and they just killed off the only remotely good actor/character combo they had going for it. So the Sandsnakes, not content with bringing all the wrath of KL and the Lannisters onto them have now started a coup as well. As if their country wasn't in a big enough pile of shit as it was!
   And how in seven hells did two of them teleport onto that ship!?!?! They watched it sail off last season, are we to believe that they just snuck on past all the guards and hid for the duration of the sailing to KL?
    
2. Danny, nothing fancy here really. Just what we all expected. She get captured and will be taken to live with the old widows. No surprises, just a bit odd how nobody had heard Khal Drogo's wife was still around or knew what she looked like.
    
3. Sansa & Theon (& Brienne & Pod!). That was a surprise but turned out pretty well. Only nitpick here is the mystery of the vicious, nasty hounds that suddenly vanish as soon as Brienne appears.
    
4. Tyrion & Varys. This was cool. I'd like to believe that a whole show could be written about their times together and it would kick Dorne's nonsense into last century. They were being watched, so i'm guessing the Harpy is not dead yet, just hiding in the shadows. Burning the boats also locks them to one place i guess, so we'll probably be heading for a siege here once the rest of Slaver's Bay gets its act together and wants it's slaves back.
    
5. C&J. LOL....Carol is so sad now, look what all her scheming has brought her! But they are going to have to make her go batshit crazy and throw Jaime away into the Riverlands.
    
6. Margery. I see the first hints of her being released here. She's obviously considering trying to play the game in her favour. The Seota is hilarious, CONFESS!!!! Easy lines to learn!
    
7. Ramsey. Hohoho...it's all going tit's up for you pal. Looks like dad is warning you to get your shit in order, the Lannisters are coming (possibly)! Also, a confirmation that Stannis is dead, bit of a cop out if you ask me, from a show that had a scene of a mans head getting splatted it's a bit odd the shy away from a beheading!
    
8. The Wall.
   Ah, here we go, the real meat of the episode.
   The guys in the room with Davos are probably my favourite characters in the show. Ed, Davos, Jon Snow, Ghost, Mel. That's a serious team right there if one wasn't dead! Davos should be king, not any of these other idiots people want to sit on the Iron Throne! He's decent, honest and actually gives a shit about the kingdom.
   I think we all know where this thread is going; deadline passes > Thorne tries to fight his way in > all hell breaks loose> Wildings come to the rescue (plus giant!) > someone realises what Mel's jewel does and puts it on Jon > Jon comes pack to life > Night's Watch realise they were wrong and swear to follow to him.
   The reveal about Mel was actually really well done and probably the best part of the episode. And as something most people never saw coming it was a cool reveal.

[Ser Harly of Southwell]

I think the direction they took Dorne in this episode was logical to where they have been leading the story there for a while. I was very disappointed to see there would be no Dornish master plan and to see Hotah taken out so easily. 

But, I can't figure out how those two Sand Snakes got on the ship to take out Tristane. Would have been much more logical if it was a hired assassin who killed him.

And that Mel seen... Just... MY EYES

[RadSam]

6 hours ago, johndance said:

Don't feed the trolls...

My bad. I realised a little too late.

[RadSam]

After re-watching, in the scene with Sansa, Theon, Brienne and Pod, the dogs don't just magically disappear. One of the men are holding them in the background. Why he doesn't let them loose to save his buddies is beyond me, but they're still there.

[dornishdame]

4 hours ago, Bluesnow said:

Every scene she was in I would physically cringe at the screen screaming "THIS IS NOT ELLARIA!!!!!"

This pretty much sums up how I felt about the Dornish arc. 

The rest, I did enjoy, however - particularly the northern arcs. 

[Sandsnake820]

11 hours ago, Protector of Stokeworth said:

I think the grass showed where the horde was and where Dany had stood. That's how they could find it so easily.

Yes,  It was clear that horses were surrounding her since the grass was trampled in a very distinct shape.