‘The world doesn’t just let girls decide what they are going to be.’ Sure, there’s a lot of waffle about how you need to see the undead to truly understand – but where every other big penultimate battle has risen organically out of the series’ events, this felt like a contrivance created solely so everyone could converge on King’s Landing next week for what looks increasingly like it’ll be the mother of all cliffhangers. Tyrion himself tells Daenerys-Not-Dany that Cersei won’t give a damn about her ice zombie present. It makes no sense … Tyrion himself tells Daenerys-Not-Dany that Cersei won’t give a damn about her ice zombie present. But once the episode ended I found myself thinking: wait, who thought capturing a Wight to take to Cersei was a smart or even coherent idea? Did Benjen riding to Jon’s rescue with his Thurible of Fire make me cheer? Absolutely. Is it entertaining to watch the Hound throw a snowball at an ice zombie? Of course. Fun to watch? Yes, but then Game of Thrones, even at its most bombastic, always is. Alfred Hitchcock famously coined the idea of the “ice box scene” – that moment when you’re raiding the fridge at 2am and you suddenly stop and think: “Wait, why did that happen?” Here, the entire central mission is one big ice box scene. Where once this show gave us interesting pairings whose discussions surprised us, now it seems more keen on big bangs and in-jokes.Įven the big bangs felt contrived. Some conversations were genuinely interesting – Beric’s discussion about death with Jon gave us a man’s entire philosophy in a handful of words – some were arguably necessary (it would have been odd if Gendry hadn’t mentioned his treatment by the Brotherhood) and some, such as Tormund and the Hound’s brief chat, were straight out of a bad buddy movie. Thus, in the frozen North the Westerosi equivalent of the Magnificent Seven traded quips, exchanged swear words and swung their dicks around. For while the stand-off with the Night’s King’s forces, Dany’s ride to the rescue and the dragging of Viserion from the icy deep were fun to watch (who wouldn’t gasp at the possibility of a zombie ice dragon?) the script was almost unbearably clunky. This penultimate episode suggests that, for now at least, spectacle has the upper hand – and with that comes a host of problems. The main problem David Benioff and DB Weiss have had with this truncated season is maintaining the balance between these two strands even as both the final battle with the Night’s King’s forces and the end of the Great Game draw closer. On the other, it is also a drama about deception, manipulation and quiet trades that happen in dark corridors. GAME OF THRONES BEYOND THE WALL VIEW SERIESOn one hand, this is a series that not only loves a showy set piece but that has consistently been able to deliver them. Game of Thrones has always been a show at war with itself.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |