Eric & Ben will be covering the television event of the summer for us, the finale of Game of Thrones - Editor
BEN: Alright Eric, first thing's first: who do you watch with? I'm watching with my two brothers. One understands everything, but doesn't watch it religiously, while the other has never seen a minute. I'll also say that we watched while slightly impaired.
ERIC: I'll watch the whole season with my husband, who is a complete sci-fi/fantasy nerd (he even liked Krull)...and quite frankly, without him, I don't know what I'd do. I'm always saying "who's that again?" when one of the minor characters comes on. The premiere seems like it's just an establishing episode? Not tons of actual drama, but they have a lot of stories to unify, and I think they met that very challenging task smartly, did you...?
BEN: Overall, I was massively disappointed. To use a line from a character, I would borrow Bran's "We don't have time for this!"
We don't have time for this. The Night King has your dragon. The Wall has fallen.
There are only six episodes left to accomplish everything they want to accomplish, and they essentially wasted one of the six! Besides some welcome reunions, Sam's R + L = J revelation is really the only significant happening in the episode. But, I'd still like to stay positive. Give me your power rankings of all the reunions.
ERIC: Yeah, it's true that this was a bit of a brick-laying episode, mostly serving to re-orient us to where everyone is. I enjoyed both of Sansa's reunions: first with Jon Snow, and then with Tyrion. Sophie Turner is the actor who's made the biggest advancements since the start of the show: she had no idea what she was doing in season one, and now she has the confidence to deliver one stony stare that says five things. And of course Arya's reunion with Jon was moving, because it's always fun to see Maisie Williams do anything. I'm hoping they don't take Lena Headey TOO far down the villainess lane and turn her into something weirdly Disney...one of the nicest things is how she always stops just short of camp.
Do you enjoy the show more on a narrative level or an emotional level, in general? And do you think they'll find a good balance of that in these final five episodes?
Valerian steel. Do you have any for me?
BEN: That's an interesting question, because the most important narrative elements in the show only land because of our emotional connection to the characters. The reason we cared about Ned's execution, The Red Wedding, or The Red Viper vs. The Mountain is because we had the emotional foundation to build upon, and that's why people had such a visceral reaction. The show is obviously serialized, but there are plenty of narrative chess pieces that were being readied without pushing the narrative, but attempting to maintain the emotion. Many penultimate chapters have a tendency to do this. Essentially, the showrunners have a clear idea how they want the show to end, but they to get the characters to that point, so there tends to be some tablesetting. I know these episodes are necessary, but it seems like such a waste with an abbreviated six episode season. I feel they could have added Sam's revelation to last season and let it ruminate for all this time.
More pressing matters, what do you make of the Night King's "message"?
ERIC: Well, a gory death is always fun on Game of Thrones. I'm sure there's some hidden insider thing to that, since I think the White Walkers leave patterns to the bodies they leave behind, or something like that? There is so much plot in the show, and I'm so bad with plot, that I never anticipate a guess on what may come from any given scene. I just kind of let the show flow over me. I was more impressed with Cersei's putting the hit out on Jaime. Their bond seemed unbreakable despite all we've seen go down between them. I'm also wondering how we get Cersei into the scenes with all the other actors? It seems a shame to let her play out her big stuff with minor characters in these final episodes? And I was happy to see The Hound reunited with Arya as well...their scenes in their big season together were smashing. Do you think both dragons will make it to the end of the show? Is there any character who you REALLY want to survive? Like, you'd be upset if they got killed?
BEN: Samwell Tarly is the only truly pleasant and innocent person on the show and I will be genuinely upset if he dies. A close second would be Brienne of Tarth (no scenes last night), who seems to be the one person who is truly honorable. I just want one person who is enjoyable for being good to survive whatever is coming. As far as the dragons, I dont view them as characters, but more like plot devices. The dragon riding scene was not about the dragons, but actually about Jon and Dany. I had Aladdin flashbacks during that scene, and I can't wait for the inevitable "Whole New World" mashup. The dragons function as either a Deus ex Machina (like the saving of Jon in the north) or as more of a Chekov's Gun (ice dragon). I dont see them as characters, but that is a problem of the show. The animals can feel like characters (Ghost, Nymeria, Ser Pounce), so the show really needs to focus more on trying to like the dragons.
I'm not talking about the King of the North, I'm talking about the King of the bloody Seven Kingdoms.
On the flip side, who absolutely needs to die and who will you be disappointed if they survive?
ERIC: Now that Littlefinger is dead, all is right with the world (Aidan Gillian was, in my take, the only bad actor ever on the show). I suppose I'd love to watch Cersei finally get it in some incredibly grim fashion, but that moment would be sad simultaneously. I'm with you on Samwell and Brienne of Tarth... they do symbolize goodness in a way that would be shattering to upset.
Since we'll go our separate ways for a few weeks, reviewing alternate episodes until we reunite for the finale, I wish you good viewing. Any final thoughts before we wrap up for this week?
BEN: I like to think that tablesetting is over with and the next 5 episodes are chocked full of chocolatey goodness. That's my best hope. There is a lot of work to do in five episodes and I hope it all comes together.
Happy viewing!