bekestua-95 Reviews

Game of Thrones: Battle of the Bastards (2016) Season 6, Episode 9

Flawed, but still good

[7/10 · 22 June 2016]

The episode, all others, contain both good and bad elements. So I will start with the good.

The series have been brilliant when it comes to the cinematography, and this episode is no exception. Visually, the episode is stunning, and there can be no complaints about the acting either. However, as usual, D. Weiss and D. Benioff will do something, stupid, unrealistic, simply to try to add shock value. It's overused, and it's getting pretty dumb.

Let's start with something very basic. The war council. While there's nothing wrong with the scene, in fact the concept of having a war council is great, the fact that Davos knows how Stannis was, and is able to give Jon a good strategic advise on something Stannis didn't do, even though he supposedly was one, if not the, greatest battle commanders in Westeros, is just stupid. (Terribly sorry for that overly long sentence)

In great soap-series fashion, Rickon avoids (or Ramsey purposely misses) every arrow, until he's just an arms length away from Jon. Very cheesy, but OK. The entirety of the Bolton hosts archers then start firing volleys at a Jon, now charging towards the Bolton army, yet for all their arrows they somehow only manage to kill his horse. OK, fine, I'll let that one slide as well. Now however, the Bolton cavalry will charge at Jon, only for him to be saved by his own cavalry just in time! Ugh. Jon somehow survives in the middle of two cavalry hosts, at the same time as the Bolton archers slaughters both hosts.

Let's skip ahead. Jon's army is now trapped between a wall of dead bodies and the Bolton army. What? It seems as Benioff and Weiss tried to replicate that famous wall scene from 300, and it is just plain bad. It gets even worse when The Vale comes to the rescue, and Benioff and Weiss have once again tried to replicate a famous movie scene, in Lord of the rings this time. The Bolton army is just plowed down by heavy cavalry, that doesn't seem to lose pace even though they just literally run down enemy soldiers, which are all pikemen, just to make it worse.

Skip ahead some more, Snow and his remaining force, apparently not a single Knight of the Vale decided to help, storm the gates of Winterfell, and rush in with bows and arrows? Not only that, but they somehow defeat the already stationary archers inside the castle??? Now it's of course time for the epic showdown between the bastards. In which Ramsey tries to shoot Jon with several arrows, although it's quite clear for him that Jon defends against the arrows with his shield....

Otherwise, great episode, would still rate it an 8.

Game of Thrones: Mother's Mercy (2015) Season 5, Episode 10

All good things must come to an end

[6/10 · 16 June 2015]

Where do one start. Game of thrones has provided us with 4 great seasons of adaptations of the books. However, all good things must come to an end. The show writers have clearly showed their incompetence now. I think it's safe to say, that all the book readers and non-book readers agree that some changes are needed, to make a series of the books. However, as Benioff and Weiss has showed us, you can't do too many changes. And that's exactly what they did with season 5. Yes, the show is now ahead of the books in some story lines, but no, that's not an excuse.

Benioff and Weiss have decided that shock value (although few of the events were even shocking) is more important than good writing. So lets start with Jon Snow being stabbed. In the breakdown of the episode they talk about how they didn't want a ''bad guy'' like Alliser Thorne to kill Jon. So they decide that Ollie should ''surprise'' us all and stab him. Although it has been clear for almost the entire season, that Ollie would do something stupid when Jon returned with the Free Folk. It was simply predictable and boring.

The battle for Winterfell was almost a major disappointment. I don't mind that Stannis lost the battle. We still don't know the results in the books, but I assume he loses in the books as well, or this would have been an EXTREMELY stupid way to go for the show. However. Stannis is supposed to significantly outnumber the Bolton force, and he's perhaps the greatest general in Westeros. Take that, and combine it with the build up they've done for the entire season, and you'll get one hell of an ending to the season. Or not. Because what the f*ck, happened? In the show half of the army desert before the battle. OK, but that if he had such a large force to begin with, he shouldn't have been so outnumbered as he was. Not to mention how he just walked into a trap, and then not even preparing a strategy. They didn't even show the battle. So what was the point of the build up then? And then, at the end you have Brienne killing Stannis, with some stupid logic. I mean, you butchered the character of Brienne and Stannis in one episode. Do you really mean that Brienne was THAT stupid? ''Rightful king''. What!? Everyone. And I mean EVERYONE in Westeros knew Stannis was the rightful king by law. It doesn't mean they supported him, but they weren't stupid. Brienne obviously was.

The Sand Snakes continue to be awkward and bad. ''You want a good girl but need a bad pussy''. Are you shooting a porn? Like seriously, WHAT THE F*CK!? How did anyone come up with lines like those? And yet again, you kill off a character who haven't died in the books (and probably won't do anytime soon either).

Theon rescuing Sansa from Miranda, only to jump of the wall in what seems like a suicide. What a surprise! Now we're left with a useless cliffhanger.

These are just some of the things I've found bad with the episode, I could have gone on for much more, but that wouldn't leave place for why I didn't rate the episode 1 star. For even though the episode were at times incredibly stupid, some parts were brilliant. Cerseis walk of shame, and the incident with Arya was both well done storyline-wise, and actually done in the show. Making an otherwise stupid episode at least watchable, and also earning it 6 stars fr