Game of Thrones

[SD]

Benioff said Jon killing him would be too predictable...ehhhh...I guess. They've been teasing a Jon/Night King duel for a few seasons now. I know the dagger Arya used has historical significance but I thought it would take more than valerian steel to kill the night King. I had Jon being Azor Ahai using Lightbringer to kill him in the back of my mind. The deaths were whatever...nobody of importance

[Munson]

I was sad about Lyanna just because she's a little badass....Jorah and Theon were tough but I was also expecting them. The score during that last scene was great.

While I didn't need Jon to do it, I still would have liked it if he did...but at the very least I was hoping they'd at least cross swords a bit, fight for a few seconds before getting interrupted by the dragon or something and getting separated.

[Zanshin]

I thought the episode was okay, but it did feel a little rushed and lacked some of the nuance and detail that's really been a hallmark of the show over the years. Just a little out of place and less thought-through. I kept hearing about everyone complaining about the darkness, but I didn't have that problem. I was streaming it on a 65-inch 4k Roku tv at a high brightness setting, which probably helped.

[Rome]

The darkness was a stylistic choice and it was an excellent one too. 

The reviews of the episode have been mixed but I thought it was overly long but still compelling. 

[SD]

The writers really mailed it in this season.

[Zanshin]

The writers really mailed it in this season.

Completely agree. It has a completely simplified, different vibe this season over any other. Also, did you see that Starbucks cup on a table in Winterfell? Hysterical. For a show that made its bones on the details, so far this year it's been a little slapdash.

[Munson]

The rush to get it done and over is showing. That being said, still liked the episode a lot. Everything just feels so rushed and characters are just getting from Point A to Point B at this point so they can all be where they need to for the final act.

Tyrion/Varys scenes were fantastic though. The celebration scenes after the funeral were a lot of fun.

[Eagles_Legendz]

I wrote this somewhere else last night but the dialogue / acting / visuals are still good (latter two being top notch). But they've lost track of the plot the last two seasons.

8x02 was such a good episode because it was all dialogue and no plot.  Any time they actually have to advance the plot it's all yadda yadda big plot to big plot without any connective tissue to make it all make sense.  They have big plot points they want to hit and then write backwards instead of letting decisions flow organically from a plot standpoint.

[Munson]

Yep...this season has started to feel like a more a summer blockbuster movie than a well written TV drama. Big moments galore but missing all the little stuff that made this show a GOAT in the first 6 seasons.
That's why the Tyrion/Varys scenes were great this week, the plotting and scheming and talking and etc.

Saw someone else make a joke about how in 10-15 years we'll end up getting a "True to the books" remake and I laughed but then I thought of Arianne and Darkstar and the Grand Northern Conspiracy and instantly wanted it lol

[General_Failure]

It's almost as if they've run out of source material and aren't actually very good at writing.

[Eagles_Legendz]

Yep...this season has started to feel like a more a summer blockbuster movie than a well written TV drama. Big moments galore but missing all the little stuff that made this show a GOAT in the first 6 seasons.
That's why the Tyrion/Varys scenes were great this week, the plotting and scheming and talking and etc.

Saw someone else make a joke about how in 10-15 years we'll end up getting a "True to the books" remake and I laughed but then I thought of Arianne and Darkstar and the Grand Northern Conspiracy and instantly wanted it lol

GRRM lost track in the other direction making it too unwieldy but he's a brilliant storyteller from a plot perspective. 

I still like the show and it's still entertaining, but the dumb shtein GoT used to avoid from this genre it now does regularly. 

When you look at things like binge mode/alt shift etc they put 10x the effort thinking things through logically compared to the writers. They can still write a scene with strong dialogue and there's great actors (most of them) but the story...

S7 - we need some reason for WW to get through the wall...then they write backwards and come up with truly convoluted and non sensical plot to get there.

S8 - we want to ramp up dany / Cersei drama so we concoct ways to even the playing field.  No explanation on why Missandei would be important, how she's captured, why Varys etc has no scouts (hell, why they take ships at all other than keeping Euron's character relevant), why Cersei doesn't destroy their tiny army outside the gates.  I'm entertained watching the scenes but they're compressing 3 episodes worth of shtein into one episode and what you miss is all the motivation for things to actually happen.  GoT used to be better than that plotwise.

[QB Eagles]

It used to be a deconstruction of the fantasy genre that was adapted into an HBO prestige drama.

Now it's The Walking Dead or Spider-Man movies or whatever. A lot of people like that stuff, but it's not my bag. I didn't get immersed in the world of this show because there were CGI dragons in it.

The books decreased in quality after the Season 4 material too, but not like this. This is fan fiction, and it's probably the only ending we're ever going to get because the creator of this world is a morbidly obese 70 year old with writer's block.

[QB Eagles]

Benioff said Jon killing him would be too predictable

Good thing they don't write anything too predictable. After Sansa promised to not tell anyone about Jon's parents, I was absolutely stunned when she spilled the beans like 2 show minutes later.

[SD]

The books decreased in quality after the Season 4 material too, but not like this. This is fan fiction, and it's probably the only ending we're ever going to get because the creator of this world is a morbidly obese 70 year old with writer's block.

Prior to the season 8 premier I read a bunch of fan fiction that were supposed plot leaks. A bunch of fans called them dumb and nit picked every detail. They were 10x better than the crap we're seeing now.

[Eagles_Legendz]

Season 6 was good other than Episode 8 with the dumb Arya stuff.

They can still write effective dialogue.  I really liked the second episode this season.  But they've lost track of cognizable plot developments or character motivations.  So when you need dialogue to drive plot and not just be strictly dialogue ...