OT- Game of Thrones S7 E7: The Dragon and the Wolf

Submitted by Eastside Maize on
Should be a helluva episode, in a season of great episodes. Jon and Dany head to Kings Landing. Will Littlefinger turn the Stark girls against one another? CLEGANEBOWL IS BACK IN PLAY!!! WE DO NOT SOW

ijohnb

August 27th, 2017 at 8:27 PM ^

A season of great episodE perhaps. The Spoils of War was EPIC Thrones, Beyond the Wall almost comically bad, and everything else somewhere in between. Needs more Lannisters and less Dany and Jon Snow googly eyes. If this season has taught me anything, it is that Jamie Lannister is and has always been the best character on the show.

TIMMMAAY

August 28th, 2017 at 8:53 AM ^

Until the writers saw how much people liked his character, then they proceeded to completely jump the shark and ruin it. I've lost a lot of faith in the writers the past two and a half seasons. Stop trying to be so goddamn meta, and tell the story. 

Fuck. 

ijohnb

August 28th, 2017 at 10:13 AM ^

is a good observation.  The amount of "callbacks" to previous seasons and that kind of thing has gone from a pleasant aside to really distracting.  The show has gone from being really gritty and serious with flashes of clever humor to essentially a buddy comedy with dramatic undertones. 

Daenerys flying into the meeting with Cersei on Drogon is another perfect example of the confusion the show is suffering through.  The amount of times people can gasp in awe at Dragons reached its limit like three weeks ago.  Now it has actually become kind of comical.  I laughed in discomfort during that scene.  Emilia Clarke kind of played the scene as comedic also almost out of an inability to play it any other way.  It appeared as though they actually added a line for Cercei ("we have been waiting quite a while") to ackowledge the unintentionally funny outcome of the scene.  Sitcom-ish at times.

In reply to by ijohnb

brad

August 27th, 2017 at 8:37 PM ^

I agree with you on the one good episode, but this show is forcing Jaime on us everywhere they can. They didn't need a single greyjoy scene to make this season good, and there's so much plot armor that the show is approaching Castle and Star Trek in its predictability of survival. I'm not saying I hope they kill a bunch of stars off, but they shouldn't make them do moronically dumb things and then make them survive.

In reply to by ijohnb

Inertia Policeman

August 27th, 2017 at 8:37 PM ^

Spoils of War was an all time great episode. I really liked The Queen's Justice and Stormborn as top 10-15 episodes of the series as well. Beyond the Wall had major issues, and was easily the worst of the season, but probably an average-ish episode of the series all things considered.

ijohnb

August 27th, 2017 at 8:46 PM ^

thought Beyond the Wall was genuinely one of the worst episodes of the series. None of that shit made sense, and the entire episode was audience pandering in a way that GOT prides itself on never being. I was almost hate watching by the time Jon professed his undying whatever for Danaerys.

In reply to by ijohnb

FatGuyTouchdown

August 28th, 2017 at 1:13 AM ^

was a rushed, nonsensical way to give The Night King a dragon without really risking much and still moving forth with the plot. Was expecting much more out of the episode. I still enjoyed it a ton, but I'm a little bummed that none of the suicide squad died outside the priest, and the motivation behind it didn't make a ton of sense. 

In reply to by ijohnb

OneBadMutha

August 27th, 2017 at 8:55 PM ^

Last week's show was nearly jump the shark bad and it really disappoints me that no matter what they do to recover, there will be this cheese-fest of an episode used to move major plot points when this full story is told. It was a Marvel comic book movie and not a Game of Thrones episode.

That said, this week could serve as a clean break. Hope we get some intelligent story-telling. Been avoiding the spoilers unlike the past episodes.

In reply to by ijohnb

B1G_Fan

August 28th, 2017 at 2:27 AM ^

 Spoiler if you haven't seen the current episode don't read....

 

 Jamie is riding north to Winterfell and Bran  knows Jamie pushed him off the tower. Considering what Littlefinger just got, Jamie should probably avoid Winterfell at all costs.

I highly doubt they would kill Jamie at this point but, they should atleast consider it.

HarleyMarlboro

August 27th, 2017 at 8:33 PM ^

I was almost ready to give up on this show before this season.  It just seemed too slow and plodding.  This season had a much better balance, and was much more enjoyable to watch.

The Mad Hatter

August 28th, 2017 at 8:12 AM ^

It went from being one of the most surprising, well written, and compelling shows in the history of television, to a PG-13 Michael Bay action flick.  What happened to all the great dialog?

It's like they forgot what made the show great in the first place once they ran out of GRRM source material.  Surprise me.  Kill off a major character that appears to have plot armor.

Tonight's episode was good, but there was still a lot wrong with it.  I don't buy Littlefinger begging like a little bitch.  That whole sequence was ham-handed and could have been done better.  Why not have Sansa seduce him and cut his throat?

We've waited how many seasons to see John and Dany fuck, and they devoted all of 45 seconds to it.  He ate that girl's pussy in the cave for longer than that.

I'll keep watching to the end, but this season was meh.

Best part of the episode was Tyrion, Bronn, and Pod catching up.

 

TIMMMAAY

August 28th, 2017 at 8:56 AM ^

Agreed almost completely, but I even thought the scene with Tyrion, Bronn, and Podric was trying to be way too cute. I did not care much for this season, though it was a spectacle, and still entertaining. It isn't supposed to be a comedy, so stop making it one, D&D. 

TrueBlue2003

August 28th, 2017 at 2:55 PM ^

D&D don't have the gift that GRRM has for writing dialog (not surprisingly), I do think they had a few good scenes of dialog this season.

I thought the Baelish talk to Sansa about fighting every battle in your mind was great.

"Everyone is your enemy, everyone is your friend. Every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you've seen before."

That was classic Littlefinger, but then he doesn't even heed his own advice?!  When Bran revealed himself as a seer and called out LF's "chaos is a ladder" thing, he had to know to gtfo there.  That he stuck around to get played, AND was surprised about it, after that speech about how to never be surprised was terrible.  Especially because LF had established himself as incredibly cunning.  To go out like that was unsatisfying to say the least.

Anyway, I also liked the dialog between Cersei and Tyrion last night.  Best scene of the episode and pretty vintage GoT.

The Lady Olenna scene was great too.  This season had its moments.

ST3

August 27th, 2017 at 8:36 PM ^

Beric says kill the Night King and they will all die. Jon Snow responded, "you don't understand," but doesn't explain himself. What is it that Jon understands?
The only reason for including the wight bear scene was because the producers got a great deal on bear cgi software from The Revenant. (I suppose it foreshadowed the dragon being wighted, but the story would have benefited more from scenes of the raven flying and time passing while they were on the rock.)
Saw some of episode 2 today. I would not be surprised to see Nymeria tonight, otherwise why have that scene?

TrueBlue2003

August 28th, 2017 at 1:25 AM ^

scenes of the raven flying and guys sitting on an island?  The story wouldn't have benefitted at all by showing non-action scenes that are understood.

You're correct that scene served to establish that animals could be "wighted" and was at least entertaining.  Showing the raven flying would have done nothing to advance the storyline and would have been pointless.

TrueBlue2003

August 28th, 2017 at 2:41 PM ^

how they were purposely vague about the amount of time spent on the island so the audience could possibly assume it was a few days, instead of only one.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/08/23/game-thrones-director-admits-glaring-problem-beyond-wall-episode/

They could have in 10 seconds told the audience that multiple days had passed. Have them wake up and ask each other how long they've been there, "I don't know a few days" and then have Sandor start throwing rocks. No need to spend any more screen time than that showing the raven flying or a bunch of sunsets.

But if you definitely take that route, you open the sequence up to other problems like the fact that ice up there would freeze very quickly, so there's no reason for the wights to have allowed days to go by. People would have been equally angry if they were allowed to camp on that island for days while the wights just sat there including the Night King who it turned out had spears that he could throw at them!

They admittedly wrote an absurd sequence of events and hoped the audience wouldn't care. Being vague and letting us come up with the most plausible explanation was the right thing to do after they decided Gendry would run to the wall after being attacked by the dead, send a crow to Dragonstone and Dany would save them all.

TrueBlue2003

August 28th, 2017 at 1:32 AM ^

that they did a really good job of tying up some bad storylines at the end.  And wow, incredible to see Jon and Dany finally get together, Baelish offed and the Stark sisters looking very formidable was (initially) very satisfying, and I was super happy that Cersei didn't just join forces that easily.

But then I started to get angry again about some of the storylines:

1) It was easily the most predictable thing for several episodes that Cersei wasn't going to enter a truce and that this whole plan wouldn't work. So I just can't believe that Tyrion would send the Mag 7 on a suicide trip up north that even if it succeeded in getting a wight, had zero chance of getting what he wanted from Cersei.  

Tyrion literally did not make a smart decision this entire season, and I'm beginning to think he might still be operating on the Lannister side (or is the new Baelish) at this point.  That seems crazy but it has to be either that or perhaps this was all supposed to bring Jon and Dany together?  Put Jon in harm, make her save him, put them both in front of Cersei knowing Jon would swear his allegiance. Dunno. I'll be angry if Tyrion actually believes Cersei or isn't working with her/for himself.

Watch his face when he's looking at the room with Jon and Dany getting it on.  He doesn't look very happy.  It's possible his end game is a bit more ambitous than we think. Or that he is in love and wanted to get rid of Jon...there has to be a better explanation for his awful counsel other than suddenly the most cunning diplomatic character in the show aside from Cersei, can't get anything right.

2) I think everyone was angry at how easily it seemed that Arya and Sansa seemed to turn on each other, so spoilers aside it was pretty predictable that they were playing Baelish.  While his death was satisfying, we wasted a huge amount of screen time on that whole storyline when it was unbelievable and could have been done four episodes ago.  It was a very long setup for a scene that maybe surprised some viewers.  And that's it.  No purpose in the story.  It's not like they tricked him into committing a crime that others witnessed.  In the end, it was Bran's word about a bunch of things he did a long time ago.  There was literally no purpose to the sisters game.

This is another reason there is no excuse for the sloppy plotlines when they spend so much time conjuring up tenuous conflict that wasn't believable only to resolve it in a way they could have without wasting so much time on it.

kehnonymous

August 28th, 2017 at 1:33 AM ^

OMG don't get me started on the Stark sisters this season.  The payoff was great, we kinda all knew that they were playing Littlefinger and Sansa never trusted him from day 1, so it was really annoying how the show placed so many unconvincing red herrings to artificially create tension.  The only reason I thought that Arya might gank Sansa was that the writing had gotten dumb enough that I figured that doubling down on dumbness was in play.  Again, the final scene was well-executed and satisfying, but it was also completely unearned by the season's writing.

ijohnb

August 28th, 2017 at 6:21 AM ^

concerns and issues are well founded, I just meant that I thought the show saved itself from the brink. It is one of my favorite shows of all time, but after Beyond even I was close to really not caring. At a minimum, the finale gave us some good character moments and an epic ending to bring me back to the table.

In reply to by ijohnb

TrueBlue2003

August 28th, 2017 at 1:25 PM ^

they tied up enough storyline and gave us enough great scenes (Bran witnessing the Lyanna and Rhaegar marriage) to have done a pretty good job overall last night.

Don't get me wrong, there's still a lot to love, but man, the showrunners are struggling with some of these storylines.