After finishing the show 2 days ago, I’ve now entered the second to last review. This one revolves around the penultimate episode, in which Dany goes a little crazy in kings landing. This episode has been highly criticised, but how does it actually hold up in my opinion? Let’s start with:
The filmmaking: Pros: Even though the story in this episode can be criticised a lot, I don’t think that the filmmaking can be in the same way, in fact I’d go so far to say that this episode is brilliant! From some great shots, fitting music and even brilliant editing(my favourite being the cutting between Arya and the Hound. We’ll talk about this later), this episode really looks and feels the way it should. Daenerys massacre of kings landing is extremely well done. You can really feel the scale of death and destruction that she brings. Everything feels as horrid as it should be, with tonnes of grit, blood and slaughter. If I’d only rate the episode from this angle, it’d be a solid max score. However as you all now there is more to an episode then just the filmmaking which brings us to:
Story: Pros: Before we start talking about what went wrong, I want to begin with what I really liked. One of these things is the Hound. This is a character that unfortunately has been in a sort of limbo for a while, not really doing much except just being a tool for funny lines(with the exception of some great conversations in these last episodes, as well holding the funeral in season 7). In fact I wrote in my s8e3 review that I thought they should’ve killed him there and then. Now I’m not so sure. I think that the way he went out and how they paralleled this to Arya was brilliant(though I think they should’ve had a bit more buildup for Aryas choice here). Ending his arc with needlessly dying with the man he has hated for his entire life was a great send off to this sometimes polarising character.
This might be controversial but I sort of liked Cersei’s end. Maybe it was because of Lena Headeys acting, which really shined as Cersei slowly realises that she’s loosing badly. I especially loved when she met Jamie, embracing him as even though she had lost it all, he was still there for her. I think there is a tragedy to Cersei Lannister, and for her to die in the arms of the one she actually loved, away from the politics and life that had shaped her worst sides was overall an acceptable way for her to end. Just my opinion here though, and I know that many will disagree.
I also quite liked Tyrions role in the episode(also controversial). While I do agree that he should’ve seen the madness coming a while ago(like a certain other character did), I do like that they show him desperately clinging on to the idea that Dany is truly good both in person and as a queen. Even going so far as to betray his closest friend out of his share belief in Dany, which of course turns out to be one of his biggest mistakes in the entire show. I feel like for Tyrion, this is the woman he put his trust in. When he was at his worst, his faith in her as a leader was one of the most important reasons for actually somewhat recovering again, so I can believe that he’d cling onto her until the end. Basically he knew what she really was, but he just didn’t have it in him to accept it. Again I think that Peter Dinklages acting is one of the reasons why I put this as a positive. You can really read all his struggles from a single facial expression in this episode. Oh well now to the bad stuff.
Cons: Oh dear. For now I’m going to ignore the elephant in the room and move on to a smaller issue. Jamie Lannister and as a bonus, Euron Greyjoy. I’ve already said in a previous review that I don’t like the way they effectively ruin his character arc, and while I have seen some good counterpoints(for example that abused people often return to their abusers) I still think that his entire story throughout the seasons just feels... pointless after these final episodes. His fight with Euron is just odd to me as well. Sometimes it feels like they’ll have Euron do the dumbest shit just because “Euron quirky haha”, and this episode is no exception. Why on earth would Euron a) sneak back towards Kings landing b) fight Jamie for no reason after just escaping death. It feels like the writers wanted Jamie to have a symbolical fight over Cersei(against a man who plowed her), but it just didn’t work at all.
The entire golden company thing lasted for like 10 seconds so I honestly don’t even know why they included it. Had the season been longer we might’ve actually gotten to know the company, which would’ve made their role bigger and more impactful overall, but here it’s just filler. The captain of the company for example was only in like 2 scenes in the entire season...
Varys death is badly executed(no pun intended) but there is one complaint I don’t agree with. I 100% agree that telling Jon(in the open mind you) is extremely out of character and stupid for the character to do, but I think that him telling Tyrion straight up does make some sense. To Varys, Tyrion is the only one he can trust. He’s the only one he’s close to, and(imi) someone he also believes has the realms best interests at hand. Combine this with the fact that Varys has seen the doubts in Tyrion’s eyes, makes it not impossible for me to believe that he’d actually trust Tyrion. Of course one could try to give the writers credit by saying that “the most secretive man died because he was honest”, but I think that’s giving them too much credit.
Grey worm following Danearys orders sucks to see as a viewer, but the unsullieds unquestioned loyalty to her has always been a plot point, so as much as it hurts to say this, I can believe that he did what he did. There is also the matter of Misandei, as her death also completely fucked with him. Having been programmed to become an emotional wall, only to fall in love and for that love to die would fuck with him. He can’t handle the emotion that comes with such and event, and just snaps.
Now to talk about the elephant that is charging towards me faster then you can say genocide. Dear god how this they mess up Dany this bad. To me it’s not the idea that’s bad, in fact I think that they’ve slowly built towards Danys turning for a long time now. Notice the word I used there, SLOWLY. Because of the length(or lack there of) in these last 2 seasons, I think that they couldn’t manage to properly end her arc in an convincing way. In 3 episodes she’s has more negative(as in the type of character arc, not an opinion of it) development then in like 2,5 seasons. This results in her massacre just feeling extremely out of nowhere, and just makes it frustrating to watch. Because she’s such a major character in the show(and the focus of the episode) her actions really sour the entire thing overall. Because of the illogic of it all, the episode really pulls you out it. Sad end for this character and event.
So while the massacre is well made, it’s really hard to care about some of it when the attack itself doesn’t make any god damn sense.
So what are my thoughts overall? There are some good moments and character progressions, but in general the episode loses you after dropping the ball so hard, it falls straight through the earth.
Submitted December 27, 2020 at 07:35PM by dracosilop https://ift.tt/3aLBcYB
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