Better but still bleh
In case you’re just starting out with us here at All My Feelings, All The Time, I love Sansa and hate Daario.
Cersei
In Case You Missed It, Kevan Lannister, Tywin’s younger brother, popped up for a quick scene to get mad at Cersei for telling the entire Small Council that sorry, Tommen can’t come hang right now, he’s playing XBox or whatever she actually said. No one I was watching with knew who Kevan was, and I reeeeeally think the show needed to be like “this is who this person is” because guys, come on, he hasn’t been on the show in years. Idk what’s happening here yet, y’all, but Sunday’s ep is the High Sparrow so let’s do this.
Brienne and Sansa
They don’t hang out in the books, y’all. And Petyr is gross and this scene was gross and bleh.
Not a fan of Sansa’s “I saw you at the wedding” line because like…what. Brienne’s line “neither of us wanted to be there” line is totally accurate but Sansa KNOWS this and like, what is the point. If they were trying to make it clear that she’s being sneaky and is actually not hating on Brienne, they did a crappy job. Kinda wish Brienne had just been like “I’m sorry, my lady, but I wasn’t at Joffrey’s wedding in the books, so idk take it up with Benioff and Weiss. Can we just go now? This scene is dumb.” Just break the fourth wall that way. Then Gwendoline and Sophie can skip away happily together while flipping off the camera.
Also digs in that Lady Stoneheart is nowhere so yayyyy ugh screw this season guys I am Grumpy McGrumperson I’m sorry
Dorne
What do you call Emilio Estevez when he watches the first scene in Dorne? Emilio Unimpresstevez. (h/t Scuzzo)
I hated this so. much. SO much, guys. This entire scene basically felt like a bad Spanish soap opera up to and including the music. You have Alexander Siddig as Doran, with SO MUCH potential here, and we did nothing with the entire scene, which was the FIRST TIME they’re showing Dorne. They are also ruining Ellaria’s character because they refused to cast Arianne.
The refusal to cast Arianne Martell was one of the main reasons I was already disappointed in this season before it began. Arianne is Doran’s daughter, who is strongly opinionated, ruthless, charismatic, and the goddamn HEIR to Doran. Dorne is so important because they practice primogeniture: the firstborn, male or female, inherits. She is a POV character later on, and her specific planning is crazy important for all of Westeros, and they just CUT her out. They are most likely going to give some of her plot to Ellaria, which makes no sense, as they are entirely different women (sidebar: Ellaria would NEVER hurt a child, ever, so her claim to want to cut Myrcella up makes no sense). They are going to give some of her plot to the Sand Snakes, who are Oberyn’s daughters, several of them by Ellaria (which is why her saying “the Sand Snakes are with me” makes zero sense because you don’t say that, some of them are your daughters who are still babies and just wut). And they are going to cut some of her plot out, because of this next section, and I’m pissed.
Jaime goes to Dorne
Just for the record, Jaime does not go to Dorne in the books. He is pretty much sent to the North to clean up the whole “shit, Robb Stark is dead, what do we do now” mess. Edmure Tully is still very alive, as is the Blackfish, who is still holding out under a siege. I really enjoy Jaime’s chapters when he’s doing this, because we get to see him politicking for pretty much the first time: he’s still trying to learn how to fight with only one arm, so this is basically all he can do. It’s also an important part of his redemption arc, since it demonstrates that he can still be pretty ruthless: he threatens to throw Edmure’s soon to be born child over a castle’s wall if he doesn’t comply.
What the fuck was this Bronn scene, for reals. Is this amateur hour? Just to recap: Bronn was given his betrothed, Lollys, by Cersei in exchange for not engaging in the trial by combat on Tyrion’s behalf. In the books, Lollys is pregnant from rape, and is developmentally disabled. While those things are not true in the show, she is still GIVEN to Bronn. When Bronn comes to tell Tyrion “moats before mates” and peaces out never to be heard from again, he tells the reader that while Lollys is not the heir, the heir is her older, barren sister, and she’s going to have some kind of accident at some point. Bronn’s going to kill her and become Lord Stokeworth and continue to have children with his nonconsenting wife. Bronn is GARBAGE.
Oh, but Bronn in the show is so ****sassyyyy**** I literally do not give a shit about Jaime and Bronn’s excellent adventures. He is Daario 2.0, a more weathered but equally treacherous above average warrior, who has risen to importance only because important characters and the fandom can’t get enough of Liam Neeson/Captain Jack Sparrow-esque quips coming out of men’s mouths.
Also, how is this going to work, exactly? Oh noes, we can’t send an army to Dorne, that would be a declaration of WAR. Our next best option is clearly three hands on two dudes who encompass the spectrum of Westeros’ best and worst-dressed. (*grudgingly admits that Nikolaj looks freaking great in his stupid outfit*)
I am Not Here For an obnoxious Medieval Fun Time Land version of Two and a Half Men.
However, I am decidedly Here For –
The Wall
Shireen teaching Gilly to read? Yes yes and more yes. I absolutely adore Shireen, and the actress playing her is doing an excellent job of being a cute as heck kid who is not annoying. Gilly is a self-deprecating delight, and Shireen’s encouraging joke about “I taught stupid old men how to read you got this don’t even worry” was A++++. Also I know Selyse is supposed to be kinda creepy but she literally just reminds me of the mom from Hairspray basically not allowing her daughter to play with other kids because of the devil or something.
Jon’s Lord Commander election was not terrible, but I didn’t love it. In the books, Sam does a huge amount of pretty great negotiating to get Jon elected, and while they do chant his name, it’s definitely more evident that the rest of the Night’s Watch isn’t just like “ho hum we lost guess we should go back to whacking each other with sticks or…what is it we do again? OH YEAH WATCH ON THE WALL”, they’re more like “I am Not Pleased Mr. Kit, I don’t care HOW good your smoulder is, you are an infant and a wildling and you’ve had sex and your dad was a lord so we are PISSED OFF.” It wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t as subtle as the book was, and I missed that and am therefore a little sad.
Jon’s face when Sam stands up was the funniest moment of the episode, just his beautiful little pout suddenly turning into “FFS SAM CAN U NOT” and I loved it.
They are screwing up Stannis pretty badly and not using him to his full potential and bleh. We’ll see, but I do not have high hopes, and I really like Stannis, y’all.
Arya
Actually great. Really liked this scene. Really honestly did. Maisie is playing the stone-cold badass especially well considering she has a face like actual sunshine, and I’m legitimately scared of her, which is like being scared of a French bulldog puppy but she MAKES IT WORK. Her “prayer” (the recitation of names of people she wants to kill) overnight in the rain was a particularly good scene, and I don’t really have anything to criticize here.
Many bookreaders are pissed that Jaqen is back, specifically that Tom Wlaschiha, the actor, is back, and they do have a point: there is really no reason the House of Black and White would reuse a face to teach her. She refers to this man as The Kindly Man in the books, and he doesn’t look like Jaqen. But you know what? Tom is really pretty and it’s nice to see a familiar face and screw it, I’m on board. We need more beautiful things in this series and A Man can get it, so A Man can totally stay.
Daenerys
So once again Daario proves that he sucks enormously. Specifically, by giving some ridiculous speech about how “if you’ve forgotten how to fear, you’ve forgotten that bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the decision that something is more important than fear” oh no wait that’s Mia Thermopolis’ dad in a birthday card in The Princess Diaries. My B. Maybe this week Grey Worm will give him a wedgie.
This week’s best thing I saw on Twitter was about her plotline. Someone tweeted “this scene is the best example of ‘hoe don’t do it’ I’ve ever seen in my life” and I couldn’t stop laughing. I tweeted “oh hey look white saviors don’t always work out so great do they” and I stand by this completely. Dany standing there simply saying “slavery is wrong” louder and louder does not actually fix any problems. This scene grossed me out a little bit because you have the large group of brown people calling her “Mother” and then hissing(?) when she carries out the sentence and it just reminded me a lot of the racist grossness of the Dothraki portrayal in the first season and book. I also am not sure if I just missed it or if it genuinely didn’t happen, but “this man shall have a trial” got thrown out the window for Moqorro, I guess? Like, girl, the point of laws is that they apply to everyone. Idk, guys. I get that this is a tough plotline but can we be a liiiiittle less racist please and thanks.
Do you guys think Rhaegal and Viserion are just working their hardest to perfect “Roman’s Revenge” while trapped in there because they literally are dungeon dragons right now? Sorry not sorry. Also pretty sure they just reused some Smaug animation for Drogon and he’s been off burning Lake-town and just came back to say hi. Drogon’s voice will be provided by Benedict Cumberbatch, who also did motion capture. (Drogon does not talk…FOR NOW)
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