I gave this episode a 50 out of 100. This episode for me was a hot mess. Now, I understand Martin has pointed out these are grey characters with different sides of their persona’s coming out based on the circumstances at hand, which is what gives them their richness and complexity. Part of this I feel resides in knowing or having an understanding of how the characters are feeling up to that point where their change in behavior unfolds.
That being said I don’t feel I have been shown enough things that could cause Dany halfway through the episode to snap and suddenly decide to go out on a blood thirsty rampage of innocents while making her way towards Cersei.
Fine, she feels alone because Missendei is dead or because Jon broke off his romantic involvements to her. He did reswear his oath of loyalty to her. What is the logic behind destroying everyone in King’s Landing? People will fear her now. Who is going to believe she’s the breaker of chains? Who will believe this is the same person who liberated all the Slaves in Slavers Bay? Or nail 163 Slave masters to crosses as they had done to child slaves? Or more recently named a bastard to be the Lord of Storm’s End?
Drogon won this weeks Game of Thrones.
Good:
Cleghane Bowl finally realized; two brothers who’s mutual hatred for one another was created and ended by fire.
Sort of Good:
Cersei and Jaime die in each other’s arms.
Bad:
Jaime’s redemption arc has proven to be a sharp change in direction for me. It wasn’t like Cersei was losing at the time he decided to go back to her and defend her. She was winning; having just killed Rhaegal and decimating Dany’s fleet. Was it love for his unborn child too? Unclear…
Dany’s destroying everyone in King’s Landing; including innocent men, women and children. Unexplainable, shocking and horrific. That left me feeling empty. I didn’t feel anything; like yeah they got what they deserved or that she’s a righteous bad ass.
I felt confused and lost by her choice half through the episode. I feel the need to clarify something that has happened again and again with this show and that is the lack of seeing *reactions* of Commoners to Nobility making decisions on their behalf in Westeros. This was done really well in Essos; not Westeros.
Before the battle in S8E5, Tyrion and Dany walk through her plan of leveling King’s Landing. Since at that point Varys has been executed, we are left with Tyrion representing the common man:
‘The people who live there, they’re not your enemies. They’re innocents, like the ones you liberated in Meereen…They’re afraid. Anyone who resists Cersei will see his family butchered. You can’t expect them to be heroes. They’re hostages. They are…In a tyrant’s grip. Whose fault is that? Mine? What does it matter whose fault it is? Thousands of children will die if the city burns. Thousands of children will die if the city burns.’
We did get reactions of commoners in Essos:
* The liberated slaves showed their adoration to Dany for freeing them from the Slave Masters; ‘Nissa Nissa!’
* Missendei was a slave who made it a point to mention she serves Dany because she was the ‘Breaker of Chains’.
We didn’t really get reactions of commoners in Westeros:
All we have really is the spokeperson for the Commoners, Varys. We never actually see the commoners reactions to any of the Nobility’s reactions except:
* The Northern nobility cheering Dany and Arya for defeating the Night King and Armies of the Undead. The toasted Dany before anyone.
* Joffrey nearly dying and pelted by manure as he walked the streets of King’s Landing in S2E6 and the commoners attacked calling him illegitimate.
Did we ever see the commoners reactions to (?):
* Cersei burning the High Sparrow and Queen Margaery in the Sept of Balor?
* Cersei taking over after Tommen committed suicide? (All we hear is that the people despise her all the way in Season 8.
I needed to be shown some commoners and their reactions to all these plot points to truly show what the people of King’s Landing felt.
All I saw was the destruction of innocents which left me feeling this is horrible and the loss left me feeling empty. I didn’t feel Dany’s actions were justified, whereas most of Dany’s war actions put the people she liberated standing behind her. I don’t think eliminating them entirely is the same thing. Dany more than anything has stated she wants to liberate people from Tyranny and all she has done is create more of this and Jon warned her about this ‘more of the same’.
Seeing commoner reactions throughout all 8 seasons would also reinforce the statement about manipulating the common man by Nobility and how they are in most cases victims of their decisions.
The victimization of commoners has always been there (Hardhomme, attacks by Wildlings, attack of the Riverlands and the North after the Red Wedding), however their voice and reactions have not.
Victimization is an action being done upon them; hearing their reactions to it matters to the story because that puts the main characters actions into better perspective.
Knowing the common people truly hated Dany and they wanted her gone for Westeros would do a better job of isolating Dany than Her just stating she feels alone. That just isn’t enough for me.
I felt they rushed to get to that beat in the story without anything that led me through her thought process so I know if she is truly mad or is being tactical with severity because she can’t see any other way.
There was nothing satisfying for me about Euron’s death at the hands of Jaime. He didn’t have enough substance to care about him.
Unknown:
* Will Tyrion be discovered as the freer of Jaime Lannister? Will he then be executed for betraying Dany?
* Will Jon take out Dany? I hope so given the fact they have baked in Dany’s madness resulting in the death of thousands of innocents. If he doesn’t then his whole character arc revolving around protected the realm from evil doesn’t play out.
* Will Arya take out Dany? I suppose if someone is willing to put up a large enough bounty more than one Faceless person will show up to do the job.
Overall:
95 out of 100
This episode blew me away with the goals it took on. Elaborate, gritty, heroic medieval epic war action; meets quiet dialog at times under duress; tempered with revolving check in on characters helped balance things out. I was visually exhausted in two places where I literally had to pause my video stream feed; once at 40 minutes and then a little past an hour. I was confused at times due to how darkly lit most of the episode was as well as some cameras being out of focus on occasion made also for difficult viewing. I suppose all that was intentional. BTW: I would hate to be custodian on clean up at Winterfell right now. There’s not enough Medieval Febreeze available to deal with the smell. If there was ever a medieval equivalent to Burning Man; it will be at Winterfell now…Literally… 🙂
Arya Stark wins this weeks Game of Thrones for me by killing the Night King and saving everyone who was still alive.
Good:
*YES!!!! Arya slays the Night King! Mel teased this in her conversation with Arya, however when it happened I was cheering and yelling at the screen.
*I did feel like I was in the battle. It was per amidst winter conditions. If all that was intentional then that was really well done.
*Ser Jorah meets his end defending his love; very romantic and chivalrous; every bit the way I thought it would play out.
*Lyanna Mormont dies taking down a giant Wight! A lady who’s actions lived up to her strong words. That was the most spectacular death of the episode (aside from the Night King). My honor and respects are with you my Lady! The Mormonts fought and died harder than anyone!
Bad:
*Some of the impact of the war tactics was underwhelming because there was never any specific talk about how to use the Dragons in the battle, which
is a point commenters made last episode. They couldn’t get the dragons to light the trenches because the Night King obscured the sky with winter weather and it took me a few seconds to understand the plan that was being referenced that I never knew about to begin with.
* I have a setup issue here. After the ferocity and numbers of attackers; somehow almost all the major characters survived. This is understandable for those who have already battled the undead which actually is all of them but Arya, Brienne, Grey Worm and Jaime. Jaime also has one hand. I know at one point he was arguably the best sword in all of Westeros, however given the volume of opponents my suspension of disbelief was hard to maintain. Jaime was arguably at one time the best swords man in the land; not anymore though. I had problems suspending my disbelief with his survival during the episode. However, if he dies I suppose that’s believable. Grey Worm was raised to be a fighter. Brienne was arguably the best Knight in the land also prior to the battle (just not in title.) Arya’s entire training was done fighting Death in different forms. I have to assume one handed Jaime survives because of Brienne and his abilities. All of them should be able to take anything that Cersei dishes out from a fighting perspective and still survive. If they don’t then to me that’s a little strange.
*At a certain point there is so much going on it gets too overwhelming to process.
I honestly think they could have kept the intensity and spread the action over a couple of episodes. This one is hard to watch multiple times.
*I think the sudden removal of the Night King and the Army of the Undead from the story arc at this point in the season is acting like a giant wildcard and is going to change the dynamics (or calls into question) about what is most important to different characters; in some cases this may run contrary to established canon.
Jon: Now the Night King has been dealt with; and Jon now knows he is Aegon; and his lack of acknowledging to Dany that the throne doesn’t matter to him in Episode 2, is Jon still of that mindset or has that changed for him and wants the Throne now?
Samwell: Defying considerable odds he has finally has provided the proof that he is a Tarly and a fighter. Does he fight with Dany as Lord Tarley or Maester Samwell? One could say he always was a Maester (never a fighter) and that fighting just proves he’s a Tarly. It’s not his true calling.
*At one point Jon is very close to the Night King and stops. Why?? This gave the Night King time to resurrect the dead fighters Jon used to have. Why are they attacking him a few at a time? Wouldn’t the Night King just order all of them to swarm him?
Unknown:
Bran seemed to know Theon was going to die and the way he looked at the Night King made it look like he knew Arya was going to kill the Night King.
Does Bran know the future? I think so and that he has limited influence on present day characters towards the visions he sees.
*Does a major character have to die in battle of this scale to show the devastational impact to the overall story? I think you probably would get a 50/50 consensus on that. I know I was surprised at how few of them died and that did have an impact for me. I suppose from a Benioff and Weiss story line perspective; keeping most of the major character alive for episode 4; offers enough possible deceptive resolution points to twist around the audience for the next three episodes. That being said, the major underlying tension of an existential threat that has existed for years to us is no more; putting an increasingly sharp focus on the Game for Throne and putting more relevance back into that game. What’s the overall message there? Is it people will still play games regardless of the looming threat of death? Not sure…
This leads to the following questions:
*Did Cersei just get lucky with her ignorance of participating in the Long Night battle or was that a brilliant well plotted move on her part looking to the witches prophecy for guidance about the beautiful woman that would succeed her?
*Will Jaime and Brienne die heroically in a battle against Cersei? Will they end up together?
*Will Tormund end up with Brienne?
*Will Sansa end up with Tyrion (if the Dany issue is resolved)?
*Will Arya kill Cersei? Perhaps using Euron or Qyburn’s face?
*Who ends up on the Throne? (Now that matters again).
*Is Dany pregnant?
*Clegane bowl? It’s looking more and more like this will happen.
*How does Bran function now in the rest of the story? Will he fade into the background like Lord Varys has the past four episodes?
*What troops does Dany’s forces have now to fight Cersei? Dornish? Troops in the Reach? Are there any troops left from the Vale?
Deepwood Mott had bowed out of participating in the Long Night, are there any inhibitants left who could lend a hand?
Have we seen the last of Meera Reed? What about her father can he help out Dany with troops?
*What was Bran’s warging session accomplishing? Was it just positions on the Night King or was he getting the lay of the land for the final battles with Cersei for King’s Landing?
Tin Foil theory wise:
*Did Qyburn figure out how to mass produce versions of the Mountain for Cersei?