Frewns (GoT S8E4 SPOILERS)

Very much an episode of two halves, for me. TL;DR: loved the first half, second half not so much.

I thought the first half was nicely paced and had some good character moments. Gwendoline Christie got to show some more of her emotional range – turns out yaas, queen, slayyy is not all she can do after all – and the scene where Jaime heads back south was wonderfully shot. The opening was good and Da Former King In Da Norf’s speech suitably touching. The atmosphere at the feast and the isolation of Dany there and later were nicely portrayed.

I absolutely hated Ghost just being rehomed with Tormund, though in fairness to D&D the whole link with the direwolves simply hasn’t been done in the show, so for shownlys it might make more sense than it does to me (and indeed they probably wonder why people like me get so upset there isn’t more direwolvery overall: though surely – SURELY – Nymeria will have SOME kind of role in the final two episode.)

I loved Arya’s refusal of Gendry and her reunion with the Hound; I enjoyed the Godwsood scene though I really wish they’d shown Sansa’s and Arya’s reactions and that whole conversation (in past seasons they could have put that in, cut the episode in half and called it two episodes, one of which would have been great and one, well, less great.)

Would have been nice if they’d given Gendry the correct Bastard Name though – those kinds of details don’t really count as incidental and it just jars. Also – and I’m totally not defending the feudal system here – but Lords tend to get raised as such, with the knowledge of how to manage lands and people and administer finances and justice and so on. Tough gig for someone who’s only ever been a smith. Also for someone who’s only ever been a sellsword, come to that (and I guess we never do find out why Bronn had been north of the wall before).

Still those nits aside I can get behind the first half. It seems like between Bad Bran and Bad Dan they’ve plumped for the latter. Fair enough.

The second half, though…the second half…

The shock dragon death was well done inasmuch as it was unexpected, sudden, not telegraphed by the score (the last two season or so the score has telegraphed things a lot more, it seems to me). But how the hell did they have no scouts – and if they had no scouts because dragons, how did Dany miss a fairly reasonable number of ships (that rock wasn’t that big after all) – and then if they can hit one dragon a fair way away and kill it with very few shots, how can they all miss Dany when she dives right at them? (And does she not know the history of how Harrenhall was … no … no, she probably doesn’t). Also the bolts seem remarkably effective at dumping their kinetic energy into their wooden targets when the fleet itself is fired upon…

So all of that made no sense.

Why would Cersei not simply kill Dany, Tyrion, Varys and the rest when they came to parlay? Yes of course it would be “wrong" but surely entirely within Cersei’s character, book and show, to do just that? And, if you’re *not* going to simply kill them, why take a significant piece of leverage over the other side’s leader and just throw it away? Surely it would have made more sense to keep Missandei as collateral in case things go badly later on?

It’s so frustrating because they have the pieces to do so much better.

Obviously Ep 5 is now the major battle and everyone’s speculated about wildfire and burning them all and so on. Does Arya get in, kill Cersei, take Cersei’s face, come out as Cersei and bend the knee stopping the war, only to be captured with hands bound so she can’t take the face off and then Jaime kills her? Probably not, in fairness. Varys and probably Tyrion will go over to Jon at some point, unless it’s been set up that we expect that so they can subvert…see, I really don’t like all the snark aimed at D&D but it’s so hard not to slip into it even though I don’t want to. Sigh. And I’d hoped Rhaegal would have sided with Jon when that moment came but…

A fortnight to discover the final Holy Shit Moment – that at least will be worth the wait and I imagine the battle will be visually incredible (or at least, well, visible).

Posted By: Old Man, May 6, 13:05:40