And calling all of us “hipster haters” is a sure way to endear you to us.
WhollySchmidt was actually implying the opposite. TV has been so good lately, that it’s hard to fathom there isn’t something else you like. Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Parks & Rec, Friday Night Lights, The Wire, The Sopranos, Chuck, and on and on. No matter what your preferences, there’s a lot of really great shows out there.
The Sansa-Arya-Baelish arc just irks me.
Baelish has been a master schemer throughout the whole series and then in this season he turns into a caricature of himself where he just leans on the wall for seven episodes waiting lamely to get discovered and be executed.
Why on earth should we believe that Sansa should be a good enough liar/player to fool Baelish who had been fooling people for decades? Baelish’s getting outwitted by someone like Sansa undermines what a devilish character he was supposed to be. Baelish’s purported goal to get Sansa to kill Arya – how does that help Baelish out at all? (more on that in a moment)
First, there just isn’t any reason for him to hang around in Winterfell after the Battle of the Bastards has been won. He brought the winning forces (the Vale) and is Lord Commander of the Vale. A partial reason might that he is obsessed with Sansa but he was obsessed with Catelyn too before her and was able to pull off a number of schemes despite not being in the same location all the time. There isn’t anything more he can accomplish in the North. Sansa and Arya plainly don’t trust him and Bran knows way too much for him. The Stark forces are decimated from the Battle of the Bastards. He needs to be somewhere else to hatch his next plot, he doesn’t have to tell anyone the truth about his destination. He could make up any kind of excuse to tell the Starks – I’m off to try to find allies in Dorne or Essos.
Second, the very moment that Bran drops that “chaos is a ladder” line on him he should have been out of Winterfell like he was on fire. He clearly recognized the importance of that line because it made him speechless. But, he did absolutely zero with the information. When did he get so stupid? He knew that no one was around when he had that conversation with Varys and even if they were then they were no friend of his if they are telling that to Bran.
Third, Baelish’s plan makes no sense. Suppose for a second that Sansa falls for Baelish’s manipulation and discretely has Arya pre-emptively murdered. How does that help Baelish? No one in the North is really loyal to Arya, they barely know her and in fact we haven’t seen a single Northerner even be happy that she has returned. If Arya disappears who in the North even notices?
On the other hand – suppose Arya kills Sansa? That really borks Baelish’s plan - a) he loves her in his creepy way and b) Arya as Lady of Winterfell is going to be much tougher to manipulate.
Baelish’s master plan to sow chaos made sense as it created opportunities for him to leapfrog up the ladder. Getting Sansa to kill her sister doesn’t do that.
The only plan that would have made sense to keep Baelish in Winterfell would be: to kill Bran. Bran’s sudden appearance and inside information sources are a huge threat to someone like Baelish. If Baelish didn’t run once he heard the “chaos is a ladder” line, his next move should have been to remove Bran from the board entirely.
I interpreted it as it’s been a long time since Tyrion has had sex and he is aching for it.
I am a TV junkie. Of those you listed I have seen all except Friday Night Lights.
I have also seen Twin Peaks, Leftovers, Lost, Quarry, Black Sails, The Knick, Horace and Pete, Fargo, True Detective…I could go on.
Game of Thrones is among the best. Compared to the rest however, it has the epic fantasy scope, visuals and battles of such production value that it rivals hollywood blockbusters. There are scenes in GoT I would like to capture and frame and put on my wall. So glad this show exists, and I hope Witcher show will be just as good or better.
I know, I know, me too. And it leads to thoughts like, “The writing has gone down the tubes since they stopped having GRRM’s actual writing, plotting and characterization to work from.”
Essentially, all the writing now seems like the shittier bits that they injected into the story in the first 3 seasons.
HOWEVER, we say that, but I wonder if any of us could have condensed the material any better? I mean, if the show had continued with the same density and detail, we’d be looking at another half a dozen seasons, somehow they had to compress everything down so that it could all be gotten over with as quickly as possible (because of aging actors, etc.) while still doing as much justice to the epic scale of what went before as possible. I think maybe they’re doing the best they can, which is probably better than most could do given the depth and complexity of the play set up by GRRM.
Or to put this another way, I bet you many of the alternative “better” plots and resolutions any of us could come up with, would take longer/be more expensive, etc., etc.
You can see the writers are aware of all this from the self-conscious way they deliberately had some of the “old” GoT feel in the first half of the episode, with the character interactions, it’s like they were apologetically saying, “Hey guys, we know this is the stuff that you really loved, and we know the writing’s getting shitty, but unfortunately we’ve got to get it over with ASAP, so here’s a reminder of what used to be great about the show, and then we’re going to give you a few major plot resolutions, perfunctorily handled, and some CGI.”
Basically, I’m torn between being a bit annoyed by the drop in the writing quality, but still enjoying the lavish scale and spectacle, and still wanting to see it through to the end because these are characters we’ve lived with and grown to love over the years.
I think that the second option is the true one. I still don’t understand everything that happened, and some things weren’t done in the best possible way, but I think that Sansa was genuinely scared during that game of faces. Arya wasn’t really threatening, she was just playing, and in the end, she gave Sansa the knife. “It’s your turn now.” And something happened off-screen, probably after the next scene with Littlefinger which triggered Sansa to go ask Bran for advice or help. Keep in mind that characters like Cercei and Littlefinger and Sansa didn’t have much contact with magic and didn’t truly believe in many things we, as the audience, were aware of.
I would agree with that. I think @WhollySchmidt would as well. I was just irritated that Jason was framing it as if Wholly was hating on this show when he was praising the rest of TV’s landscape. True Detective might not be for some people, Chuck might not be for other people, Stranger Things might just be nostalgic nonsense for some, Master of None might not be brilliant comedy for others, Better Call Saul might be too slow and boring for others, that doesn’t mean they’re bad shows. Not every show can be everything for everyone. TV in general is amazing right now. You say that Game of Thrones has production values that rival the best Hollywood movies at times, and that’s true. Honestly, to me it’s more impressive when shows on a lower budget produce amazing television despite their lower budget.
I think the Sansa Arya plot was poorly executed, but we got enough for it to make sense, especially in the “Think of the worst thing it could be” convo between Sansa and Baelish. Baelish led Sansa down a path that she knew was false, because Arya could’ve done it already, if she really wanted it.
But it’s a bit “and then stuff happened” to go from that conversation into “And you did this, and that, and that other thing too that nobody could’ve known about”, there’s trusting the audience to fill in the gaps, but I wouldn’t quite call this a gap, showing Sansa speaking to her brother would’ve helped…
Which scene in the episode would you have cut in order to include this extra scene?
A few seconds of the “John is actually the rightful king / look at the sexy naked people” to show Sansa entering her brother’s room would be enough for me, don’t show the conversation, just imply there was one after she realized what Littlefinger was trying to do.
I’m glad they didn’t go Deux Ex Bran.
I prefer to think that Sansa reached her decision on her own, per my previous post. Sansa doing it on her own, based on Baelish’s own “little game” makes it ironic.
But they did go Deus Ex Bran since Sansa accused Baelish of things she couldn’t know. It’s one thing for her to realize what Littlefinger was trying to do, another for her to go “This MF’r helped kill my father, he’s to blame for all the misery, he’s gonna die”.
So, Bran told her about those things is the only thing that makes sense, no?
Yes, Sanse needed a witness. She wanted a fair trial, not revenge. That was necessary if she was going to keep the knights from Vale.
Aren’t those things things she could have learned from Arya?
I’ve never said there isnt other stuff I like, tv is awesome right now(I prefer it to movies most of the time) with more to watch than anybody could ever get too. GoT IMO is simply the best of it right now and on another level taking all aspects into consideration. A chunk of that is of course the size HBO allows. They can do stuff other shows simply can’t afford but it is what it is. We see stuff on this “TV” show that is only comparable to blockbuster theatrical releases. So I appreciate the truly unique experience we are being given with this show.
From almost the start I’ve considered each year more of a 10 hour movie(now 6+) broken into weekly chunks than just an hour long drama.
If Arya had known those things, Littlefinger would have been a dead man long time ago.
The only real crime Sansa had firsthand knowledge of was Littlefinger killing Lysa Arryn, which is kind of suspect because at the time, Sansa was in real danger of getting killed by her in a jealous rage.
Bran saw the conspiracy and betrayal of Ned as the Three-Eyed Raven, but it’s unclear how much stock the rest of the northern clans put in his powers of sight.
Tyrion is either secretly loving Dany, or believe the couple is a really bad idea that will end horrible. Also Tyrion has been wrong more times than right in the latest season.
That’s probably the thing I’ve liked least about this season.
Tyrion’s a very smart knowledgeable person, plans ahead, usually has things come up his way because he’s intelligent and uses his brain… Actually, nope, none of his plans work out, it’s all a shitshow, Dany should’ve had literally anybody else for a Hand.