TV Series Review – Game of Thrones S8E4
After the last episode immersed us in the biggest battle in the history of cinema, in this one, we needed to understand what exactly has come out of it, and more precisely what is left out of it. Amazingly, a lot. According to the generals themselves, about half of Dany’s army was hacked/slashed, that apparently balanced the strength between the forces of the two queens (how unexpected). But this article is not about that. In it, I want to ask whether this was the laziest episode in the history of the saga that is GoT?
To answer it, I have to look at the events in the aftermath of the battle for Winterfell:
- Everybody enjoys the victory… without Dany. This girl can’t stop thinking about the damned Iron Throne for 5 minutes and enjoy the fact that she is alive. All of them have sex in this episode, except her because she makes Jon swear, that he will not share his heritage with anyone which is as naive, as to believe that Cersei was going to help in the fight against the white walkers.
- Dany wants to throw everyone, who survived the white walker grinder, against the Red Keep without giving the army any chance to rest after experiencing 8 seasons of The Walking Dead in 1 night. Absurd. Bravo to Sansa for the suggestion to let them rest, but it looked like that any “tactics” in future episodes will be dumber than the previous one. You would say, “But Danny is driven by emotion and that’s her character!” But actually emotion hits her later in the episode. So far, nothing is pushing her to rush, even more so that Cersei filled the fortress with civilians. I defended Jon’s idea of throwing the Dothraki against the walkers, because I found some logic, but in this episode there is simply none at all.
- Half of the support characters were hacked in an absurd way. Tormund returns to the north with the Wildlings and Ghost, which looked like a watermark in front of a green screen. Ghost did not get any chance to thrive this season because there were simply no money for him. Was it so hard to get Jon to squat down and caress the air. It could have probably been fake and ugly, but at least it would have been emotional. Sam and Gilly just go somewhere, unclear where, because she is pregnant by him. Sansa remains to “support” Winterfell and Arya walks away with the Hound in a vague direction. Jaime sleeps with Brienne (shock) and then goes to save Cersei, whom he still loves, despite all. And once again, armies and heroes were teleported within Westeros.
- Rhaegal died in a stupid way because Dany could not see the giant ships of the Golden Company from birds view. How and why? They appeared behind a cliff, but it doesn’t have a roof, dammit. Even assuming she was blind as a bat, why did she fly against the crossbows just to avoid them and disappear somewhere, letting Euron obliterate her fleet? Are these crossbows firing at 90 degree angle? I do not think so, but why did she just not fall on them and burn them off? We have already proven in the previous episode that she can breathe perfectly diluted oxygen, from points above the clouds. Pure madness to cut the budget by removing a dragon (at least they should’ve left some for Ghost). It seems that from now on Jon will only ride horses.
- Bronn appeared somehow in Winterfell, threatening two of the most important characters with a crossbow. How he came in, where he came from is not clear. It seems not only Arya has the knowledge of the assassins. Bronn, will be a worthy student of the Faceless God. After exchanging a few snappy words, he just goes away. His entire presence in this episode was like black in a rainbow. Absolutely irrelevant.
- Somehow Euron captured Misandei and took her to the King’s Landing for a what felt like a minute. Then we saw Tyrion, trying to make his sister listen to reason (a lost cause). Beyond any reason was witnessing the death of Misandei, infuriating Dany. Better to keep her as a hostage.
Now what? Half the supporting characters, one dragon and half an army, were hacked “equalizing” the military forces. In general, this episode was filled with lazy pushing of the characters in the direction – THE ENDING! I’m not even going to comment on Starbucks’s glass that somehow ended up in a frame, but I’ll assume that mistakes happen. Next Monday we will see the final battle for the Iron Throne and the fan theories are everywhere. I am most angered by the disposals of Ghost and Rhaegal in the most ridiculous ways. This episode was just a filler, which in a six-episode final season is just absurd insult. It is not possible for screenwriters to hope that two episodes of battles justify the other four being just “something is going to happen, to keep us from falling asleep”. I strongly hope the fifth episode to wash the bitter taste left by the fourth. Either he will be better or he will be more foolish than the third. We are yet to see!
