(originally published May 11, 2019)
E01: "Winterfell" (David Nutter, 2019) - [7/10]
E02: "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" (David Nutter, 2019) - [6/10]
E03: "The Long Night" (Miguel Sapochnik, 2019) - [7/10]
Last season I felt pretty comfortable endorsing the direction this show had taken after running out of book, but its increased reliance on pandering repetitions of battles and reunions, as well as the increasingly contrived invulnerability of the main characters made it still feel like a watered down version of the first few seasons. That trend has largely continued into this new season, and in particular, the first two episodes comprise a largely-interchangeable process of table-setting, first by getting everyone in Winterfell, and then by assembling nearly every possible combination of characters. Both of those episodes are comprised almost entirely of talking and consist of very little narrative momentum, and while I do truly love most of these characters, there's just so many of them now that it's hard to remain invested in every single conversation, especially in the second episode, where every conversation is bittersweet and moderately funny, but they're all bittersweet and funny in basically the same way.
When this show tries to generate interest just by reuniting two characters who had a relationship in the past, or by trying to explore how two popular characters would interact, it feels cheap, especially since the show isn't interested in making much of these new connections. But the slow pace of the storytelling does allow it to build atmosphere, and although the show simply doesn't have a whole lot of story left to tell, it takes those scraps of story and explores all of their implications. It's a very admirable approach, and it's where much of the show's remaining integrity comes from. That's why the relatively bleak third episode is so refreshing, even if it's just another epic battle. For much longer than I thought possible these days, the show is unremittingly bleak, showcasing an extensive process of abject failure. Alas, it still comes down to a few contrivances which allow the named characters to prevail. Too often someone shows up out of nowhere, right in the nick of time, and for a show which is still so slow-paced and serious, it's immensely frustrating.
What makes episode 3 really stand out, though, is its strange, experimental visual style, which looks like nothing else in the show. The entire episode is cloaked in the darkness of night, and at its best, this results in gorgeous images where brief flurries of motion and small pockets of torchlight pierce the fog of war. But it's clearly not optimal for viewing conditions in a bright room, and too often, the episode fixates on a barely-visible face as if the audience is supposed to see their emotions. It works far more often than it doesn't, and better yet, the battle itself is tense and carefully paced, more than making up for the sluggish first two episodes, and it really demonstrates what a gorgeous show this is, even when nothing is happening but banter. Even the CGI is particularly impressive for television. The show's storytelling has been questionable for years, but the dialogue, the characters, and the visuals have lost none of their power.
Also, I actually liked episode 4, but I'll write about that when the season is over. We'll see how the rest unfolds.
(originally published May 20, 2019)
E04: "The Last of the Starks" (David Nutter, 2019) - [7/10]
E05: "The Bells" (Miguel Sapochnik, 2019) - [6/10]
E06: "The Iron Throne" (David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, 2019) - [6/10]
Spoilers follow.
How do you end a show like Game of Thrones? For whatever reason, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss seem to have faltered in this last season, despite having set up the two prior seasons with (admittedly unwelcome) increases in sentimentality and optimism. They were putting the dark power games behind to finally confront the greater threat. But there were too many unanswered questions: What does Jon's true parentage mean? How should we feel about Daenerys? What is to be done with Cersei? Betraying the tone of the first five seasons is probably the only way to bring this story to a conclusion, but it was never easy to imagine an optimistic answer to those questions.
Maybe that's why these final three episodes feel even more packed with contrivances and cheesy sentimentality than the previous three. "The Last of the Starks" marks a strange turning point from contrived survival to contrived deaths, but in some ways it appeared like an appealing step back towards moral ambiguity and political intrigue. But the lack of narrative momentum throughout this season was felt in the rush of "The Bells," which somehow struggles to justify character developments which had been foreshadowed for years, and contains some of the most wretchedly maudlin scenes in the show's entire run. It's at its most abstract, rather, that the show is at its most powerful; the scenes of King's Landing being destroyed have a visceral impact, even if it's unclear why Daenerys is causing them in the first place.
And it's true that optics of her descent into villainy may leave something to be desired, and it's easy to see why a lot of people are disappointed by a man taking the throne in the end - not to mention that he then filled his council with more men. But Daenerys has always been established as unmerciful, with little patience for her enemies, and believing in part that the throne was her birthright. Those developments suffer because, for some reason, the last two episodes shift focus away from psychological complexity. It brings up the question of why these events are so rushed when so little happened in the first two episodes. Clearly this is a meatier story than the White Walkers, and yet that's where the show wasted the most time.
What bothers me more is how cheesy those last two episodes become. Both are filled with moments of overblown sentimentality, and the last episode wraps everything up in a tidy bow that seems so much less nuanced than I know the show can be. The show didn't earn several of these moments, and it relies on overly emotive music and crummy dialogue to tell the audience how to feel. For anyone who cares about these characters, many of their endings do feel appropriate, and even those which are disappointing carry a bit of poetry or humour. None of it is necessarily out of line with the dumbed-down version of the show presented in seasons 6 and 7, and it never fully gave up on the qualities which have kept it watchable even through its biggest blunders. But that doesn't make it any less of a shame to see the show end up this way.
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