Frewns - GoT S7E3 spoilers

Old Man Rating: 9.202/10

I thought this was an excellent episode. The pacing of the plot is still much faster than previous seasons but they're giving each segment enough space not to feel rushed. I liked that we didn't see all of the battles - BoTB was an incredible episode and it would have been easy if not cheap to try for "more of the same". I'm glad they didn't.

Tyrion's Master Strategy looked good on paper but they had to balance out Dany's insurmountable advantages and the feint towards Casterly Rock was an excellent plan - Jamie copying Robb Stark's strategy. The Queen Of Thorns went out like a boss - that was brilliantly done. I thought Grey Worm might die (after the sex scene last episode), but maybe that or some great peril to him comes later. I think Dany will be betrayed by someone close to her - it won't be Varys, I'd wondered about Tyrion but the more I think about it the more Missandei might be a candidate, motivated by a desire to protect Grey Worm.

I liked the way Davos introduced Jon after Dany's Interminable Title Sequence and thought the Jon-Dany scenes were nicely done. I really hope they don't end up together, that would feel lazy.

Sam rocks and Jim Broadbent was superb as always. I've loved him ever since he was in Any Human Heart where he gave a brilliant performance as the older Logan Mountstuart. I loved that his punishment was, essentially, lines…

I guess Dany will intercept the gold on the way back from Highgarden (shades of Viserys' golden crown perhaps, with molten gold) - no way is the Iron Bank getting paid off that easily. Cersei's won everything so far and I suspect she will take a knock or two now. I thought her punishment of Ellaria was spot on - just what that character would have done - and I like that it wasn't anything graphic on-screen. I did wonder if Bronn would pop up to save Tyene but he was busy sacking Highgarden.

Sansa is proving herself as a leader which is great to see - good solutions both on the food and to note the issue with the plate mail. Littlefinger confuses me a little this season - he seems to have completely lost his mojo when they are literally only alive because of him. I thought Bran's return was very well done, he is clearly not going to get in Sansa's way as Lady of Winterfell and I liked the way he was so distant when Sansa saw him again. I'd have liked to see a bit more of Meera - she could be the bridge between Bran and the real world, though that doesn't seem to be the way they've taken it.

I also liked the Mel/Varys scene - I suspect Arya will, eventually, kill her. I wonder what Varys' fate is…the red priestesses all know about him and I still want to know what the voice said when his parts were burned. I guess time will tell.

The only slight nits are that everything is very linear at the minute, a lot less nuance and uncertainty than in early seasons but I guess we're at the stage of the story now when things will move fairly rapidly to resolution. We've only got ten episodes left, ever, after all…

Posted By: Old Man, Jul 31, 12:52:56