Game of Thrones (HBO)

TJ

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I have loved the show until this episode. Doesn't damage the whole series, just a very poorly executed near finale. It feels like it should have another season left now.

The pace of the show stinks. The conversion from ally to villain by Dany will now have to be resolved in one episode. This is something that should've happened either in the beginning of the season or the end of last season as it needs time to process. Basically, they're going to have to accelerate things to the point in which key aspects of the story will be forgotten or glossed over.
 

Chris_Sanders

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My big question is: what's the point? Dany KNEW Cersei was up in the Red Keep, and for all intents and purposes, she destroyed it anyway, why not do that first and not completely destroy the city? I get they are trying to make her out to be the Mad Queen (who has green eyes by the way and will be killed by Arya), but it seems strange.

It's a great point. I don't mind the villainous turn. It's been hinted at a long time. It is just the execution was so over the top.

That is why I feel like there should be a full season left not one episode. Have this be the Night Kings Season and then the season ends here. Setting the stage for next season.

Oh well...like you said, HBO doesn't care what I think
 
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Cheesebeef

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I have loved the show until this episode. Doesn't damage the whole series, just a very poorly executed near finale. It feels like it should have another season left now.

yup. to resolve everything that just happened in 83 minutes next week will be ridiculous. There was NO REASON the "last season" should have been split into 7 and 6 episodes. Feels like Benihoff and the other dude just got tired of writing the show and wanted to move on.

Also, what an ABSOLUTE WASTE of Cerscei this entire season.
 

crisper57

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Ways to improve the episode that wouldn't have taken much effort.

Have Dany contemplate a peaceful surrender of the city when the bells toll, only to have some idiot take a shot at her and cause her to see everyone in King's Landing as the enemy. (i.e. they didn't abandon Cercei like Tyrion promised) -or- alternatively, the bells don't toll and she just gets tired of waiting, razing the city before they finally do start to ring, but by then, it is too late.


Have the Wildfire cause the explosive properties in the city, rather than Dragon fire. Perhaps Dany accidentally sets these off, killing most of the innocent people. Carrying the blame for the destruction, she is unable to win the support of the surviving Lords and goes full "Mad Queen" next week when it is clear that they won't bend the knee.


Show that Bran warged into the white horse to save his sister, rather than have it just show up.
 

LoyaltyisaCurse

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HBO doesn't care.
As evidenced by their complete "mailing it in" for this final season. It's like the executives caught a case of Senioritis. Here is yet another example, apparently they had layoffs in the continuity department. First Starbucks and now this:

You must be registered for see images
 

LoyaltyisaCurse

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...

What is left for "Game of Thrones"?

Nothing, really. For viewers who have stuck around for eight seasons of the HBO fantasy series, all that's left after the penultimate episode is ash and a bad taste. When Daenerys Targaryen lived up to her terrible family's reputation and burned King's Landing to the ground, she incinerated the last hope for "Thrones" along with it.

Where to begin with "The Bells," an absolute disaster of an episode that exhibited every bad habit the series' writers have ever had? They threw out their own rule book (suddenly the scorpions don't work and Drogon can burn everything?) to pursue gross spectacle.

Character and substance were left by the wayside so that the plot could go where the writers wanted. The pace was rushed in the beginning, painfully lagging by the end. The script created plot devices and conflicts out of thin air (no really, when were the bells ever so important?), relished in violence and let a main character survive beyond any reasonable odds. (How many buildings have to fall on Arya before she stays down?) "Bells" is somehow both fan service and indulgence in all the tropes that fans hate. ..

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life...daenerys-arya-tyrion-jaime-cersei/1166469001/
 

Cheesebeef

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As evidenced by their complete "mailing it in" for this final season. It's like the executives caught a case of Senioritis. Here is yet another example, apparently they had layoffs in the continuity department. First Starbucks and now this:

You must be registered for see images

is that his human hand which should be gold?
 

Chaplin

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yup. to resolve everything that just happened in 83 minutes next week will be ridiculous. There was NO REASON the "last season" should have been split into 7 and 6 episodes. Feels like Benihoff and the other dude just got tired of writing the show and wanted to move on.

Also, what an ABSOLUTE WASTE of Cerscei this entire season.
I think both lead women (Cersei and Dany) have been wastes this season.
 

Cheesebeef

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I think both lead women (Cersei and Dany) have been wastes this season.

they just didn't need to cut these seasons short. If the last two seasons were 10 like the others, I think they could have run this same exact storyline and had it be REALLY successful... well, except for the Jaime thing. That arc just ended up being a real head scratcher.
 

Chaplin

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they just didn't need to cut these seasons short. If the last two seasons were 10 like the others, I think they could have run this same exact storyline and had it be REALLY successful... well, except for the Jaime thing. That arc just ended up being a real head scratcher.
There's very little resolution to that. How is anyone going to know what happened to Jaime and Cersei?
 

LoyaltyisaCurse

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they just didn't need to cut these seasons short. If the last two seasons were 10 like the others, I think they could have run this same exact storyline and had it be REALLY successful... well, except for the Jaime thing. That arc just ended up being a real head scratcher.
They should’ve made it 13 episodes this final season
 

crisper57

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The problem wasn't the number of episodes, but how they were used.

I'm not sure they needed more episodes to give us more time to have Dany's arc feel earned. I think they could have done it in the allotted number of episodes quite easily. She is such a reactive character that it would have just taken one inciting incident to set her off. Obviously, the writers thought this was Missandei's death (or worse, Jon's rejection). However, I think they needed something more immediate to tip her over the edge, not an event that happened days or weeks before her attack on King's Landing. Dany has been a character that makes brutal decisions in the moment, but if given enough time for her advisers to do their work, always allows for reason and logic to prevail. She needed one final push to "justify" her rampage in her own mind. Something that her advisers/allies would have no time to undo.
 
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Dback Jon

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I knew folks would outline most of what sucked about this episode. One thing that hasn't been hit on yet:

Suddenly dragons don't just breathe fire; they breathe bombs. Like, since when would dragon fire tear apart the red keep? Even Harrenhal only burned, and that wasn't just one dragon. And not only that, since when can a dragon breathe like 5,000 bombs all at once? It's fantasy, I get that, but I'm never going to believe it can continuously breathe fire for most of the day. So very lame a direction to take it, especially since it would have been so easy to write it well. There's wildfire stashed all over the city--but only used at the end, and not for its bomb effect. A burning city is just as freaking scary--scarier--because it doesn't stop being a threat when the dragon isn't swooping over you. And it'll still destroy the damn city in the end. Oh, wait, then we wouldn't be able to drop a castle on Cersei and Jamie. Oh, wait, that would be a positive!

/rant.


I
yup. to resolve everything that just happened in 83 minutes next week will be ridiculous. There was NO REASON the "last season" should have been split into 7 and 6 episodes. Feels like Benihoff and the other dude just got tired of writing the show and wanted to move on.

Also, what an ABSOLUTE WASTE of Cerscei this entire season.


Co-sign
 

Shaggy

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The thing that I didn't understand was why did Dany burn everything and wait till the end to attack the red Keep? Made little sense to me as we all know she wanted to kill Cerci, but way waster your time blowing everything else up and waiting till the end to take out where you know Cerci was?
 

jf-08

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The thing that I didn't understand was why did Dany burn everything and wait till the end to attack the red Keep? Made little sense to me as we all know she wanted to kill Cerci, but way waster your time blowing everything else up and waiting till the end to take out where you know Cerci was?

I thought she went inferno so that Cersei could see what had happened to her whole world around her, to show how wrong she was, and basically rub her nose in it.
 

Shane

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I guess I am in the minority. I love this final season. Not that I don’t have complaints. Much of this feels rushed and there is a certain character that bit it that deserves a slow death.

I guess I just resolved myself to that this final season would feel rushed once they announced a short and final season.

That episode was simply scorched earth and devastation.

It’s been awesome and everyone I know at work loves it.. About the only negatives I’ve seen is on this site
 

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