Game Of Thrones Season 5 Episode 8

[Beeks]

Holy F**king Sh*t!!!!!!!!!!!

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Yeah, that was an impressive episode

[Theblazeuk]

I enjoyed that. And {minor book spoiler, entirely subjective} [spoiler]the kind of scene George RR Martin is still waiting to write but has instead chosen to derail things massively with more internal squabbling[/spoiler]

[JOE SOAP]

Shit my pants!

[ThryllSeekyr]

All I could find on You-Tube

Certainly sounds interesting.....

Here.

Would you believe I just found the very episode on telly right now, great stuff!

[Richmond Clements]

Brilliant stuff.
I really like how the series is ploughing its own furrow away frm the books.

[Link Prime]

Certainly the most entertaining hour of TV I've seen all year.
I will admit- I thought it was the end for [spoiler]John Snow[/spoiler].

Cracking effects too.

[locustsofdeath!]

Very nice episode, but has strayed so far away from the books I'm left wondering how we're going to get back to certain key plotlines written by GRRM. Or maybe they're not going to bother. There's the one bit with John Snow at the end of A Dance with Dragons that seems way too important to the story for them to pass over, though...

[radiator]

I don't think they're going that far from the books plotline. They're roughly covering the same ground - [spoiler]Jon Snow needs to forge an alliance between the Night's Watch and the Wildlings[/spoiler] - but they're doing it in a way that is far more dramatic and visual - which is what a good screen adaptation needs to do.

At this point in the books, [spoiler]Jon is mostly doing admin - checking winter food stores, overseeing repairs, negotiating with various factions, having strategy meetings with Stannis and generally proving himself to be a capable and pragmatic leader[/spoiler]. While it would have been neat to see this kind of thing in the show, perhaps as a montage, I can also see the argument that it probably wouldn't make for compelling television, especially during a season where the popular tide seems to be turning against the show, with a lot of complaints that 'nothing is happening'.

I thought it was very cool - I'm consistently bowled over by what they can achieve on a (admittedly relatively large) TV budget. There were scenes in there that wouldn't have looked out of place in a $200m blockbuster, and it makes the battle of Blackwater from season 2 look positively unambitious and small-scale by contrast.

It's always tricky bringing something like the [spoiler]White Walkers to the screen (think I'm right in saying 2000ad artist Will Simpson had a hand in designing them...?).[/spoiler] They've been hyped and teased for so long, they could have easily fumbled the execution - but I think they looked great and I think the show really delivered on something even Martin has long denied his readers. Especially in the show, you can't just keep saying how much of a threat they are - you have to show it. And they nailed it, imo. They have really made the urgency and importance of Jon's plan apparent - and also highlighted just how self-defeating, petty and futile the whole power-struggle in the South we've all been watching for the last five seasons has been.

I was pleasantly surprised to see [spoiler]Wun Wun (the giant)[/spoiler] too!

[Grugz]

blimey how good were that?
  do the white walkers fear water? or is it damaging to them in some way as they (and the wights) didn't make much of an effort to get to the survivors ...if so then my theory stands up that [spoiler]the dragons possibly commanded by bran warging drogon melt the wall and those that aren't frazzled are watered to death.[/spoiler] and the valerian steel sword was a surprise walker repellent!

[Professor Bear]

especially during a season where the popular tide seems to be turning against the show, with a lot of complaints that 'nothing is happening'.

I thought the complaint about the show this season was "rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape"?
It does seem a bit more rapey this year.

[IndigoPrime]

My wife and I watched 'that' scene a couple of days back and were very much: "Was that it?" I'd been led to believe that it was some kind of ten-minute horror show, with one of the major characters crying out over its length. Given that we're both staunch feminists, it was quite something to see what actually happened and not be that concerned.

Frankly, I think people should know what GoT is by now anyway—hell, there's a nasty rape scene right at the very beginning. However, there is a feeling that the writers this season slipped into using a woman's horror as motivation (and deviating from the books in order to do so)—the 'necessity' of the scene itself was certainly up for debate.

As for the rest of it, people complain about pacing but again the series has always ebbed and flowed. It often feels more like one ten-hour movie that's been chopped into parts than bite-sized episodes in a traditional sense.

[Jim_Campbell]

As for the rest of it, people complain about pacing but again the series has always ebbed and flowed. It often feels more like one ten-hour movie that's been chopped into parts than bite-sized episodes in a traditional sense.

I'll confess, I don't get the pacing complaints... every GoT season starts out slow: with the sheer number of viewpoint characters, locations and running plots, it's inevitable. The reason why the 'big' episode(s) at the end of each season work so well is because of all the work in the early episodes moving everything into place.

Cheers

Jim

[IndigoPrime]

People have no patience these days—too used to watching US procedurals, I guess, where every episode wraps up neatly, and an 'arc' is drip-fed so slowly it might as well be eradicated entirely.

[radiator]

I thought the complaint about the show this season was "rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape"?
It does seem a bit more rapey this year.

Well, yes. That too. I find the show's obsession with rape quite troubling and really wish they didn't lean on it so heavily. While I wasn't outraged by the infamous scene a few weeks back, I did kind of wearily sigh. For me the other problem is that Sansa's story this season just doesn't make a lot of sense (in the books Ramsay's bride is another character entirely) and actually damages the story by making Littlefinger look like a reckless idiot (the explanation of his plan from a few weeks ago - that Sansa will be just fine whether Stannis fails or succeeds flies totally in the face of logic and is totally at odds with Cersei's description of what happens to a castle under siege from 'Blackwater'). I understand the need to condense, but they could have easily hit all of the same story beats by incorporating her into the Winterfell storyline in the guise of 'Alayne Stone', blending her role with that of another book character, Barbrey Dustin.

I'll confess, I don't get the pacing complaints... every GoT season starts out slow: with the sheer number of viewpoint characters, locations and running plots, it's inevitable. The reason why the 'big' episode(s) at the end of each season work so well is because of all the work in the early episodes moving everything into place.

Totally agree - I was actually having this exact same discussion on facebook yesterday. People moaning about the story being 'slow' and 'boring'*, then something crazy happens late in the season and everyone losing their minds is what happens every single season, even season 1!

*You have to wonder why these people watch in the first place, given that world-building, dialogue, character relationships and political sparring - rather than dragons and battles - has always been the real meat of both the books and the TV show...