The end was certainly better than the first half hour or so with everyone basically walking up to someone else, looking uncomfortable, then walking away without saying anything. I do wish the cinematographers weren't taking their cues from the last season of GoTs. I keep having to turn the brightness up on our TV the whole way to actually see anything.
shareThis show is just a glorified soap opera with dragons. It has truly suffered with the time jumps and the lead actresses change.
share...soap opera with dragons and occasionally a nipple or two. Who might be the target group?
shareNah, new Rhaenyra coveys more with a look than old did the entire time. I kept waiting for Milly to display some acting chops, but that never happened.
shareNot really but the episode wasn't directed by a genius and all the loaded glances in the first half did have a definite soapy feeling.
Could have been done better.
I enjoyed the episode but it was very slowly paced, too much time spent on foreboding and not enough on actual doing. This is what happens when a show has more time than material to fill it. Rings of Power is even worse in this regard.
Still what happened in episode 7 has the potential to cause even more Houses to be at each others throats moving forward.
PS: How the hell did Daenerys ride her dragons without a saddle ?
Laenor & Qarl surviving in Essos is a departure from the book... It raises the problem of what to do with Laenor's dragon, Seasmoke? He obviouly can't take Seasmoke with him to Essos without blowing his cover so I guess we're supposed to believe that Laenor just quits his dragon. But I didn't think that that was supposed to be possible: a dragon-rider's supposed to be near-mystically connected to his or her dragon and separable only by the death of either of them.
Another Problem: the reveal at the end with Laenor means that Qarl and Laenor were both very receptive to Daemon's plan, but while Qarl may have nothing much to lose by leaving Westeros it's a *huge* downgrade for Laenor (leaving behind both name and dragon for goodness sake ). At the very least it deeply strains credibility to have Laenor *not* need to think over Daemon's remarkable proposal for a while before making such a decision. After all he's only just rededicated himself to being Raenyra's husband (and to giving up Qarl) etc.. Imagining Laenor literally *instantaneously* deciding to throw away his whole current existence at rotten old Daemon's instigation (and then having to depend on treacherous Daemon's beneficence thereafter?) is... difficult.
In sum, at least first time through, this Twist more or less stinks.
I guess it means that Laenor will be coming back at some stage, but to do what ? And how suspicious is it that a wife and an assumed to be husband die when Matt Daemon is in town ?
More problems with the Twist. For Qarl and Laenor to take up Daemon's offer they have to be very sure that:
(a) Laenor's parents will fall for the fake body. (They'd better be *very* sure that Laenor doesn;t have any distinctive birthmarks or tatoos for example and that the substituted body doesn't have identifying marks of any kind.)
and that
(b) Laenor's parents and perhaps especially Corlys hereaftyer dedicate his life ad fortune to kill Qarl, his son's supposed killer. (One could imagine Laenor talking Qarl out of the whole scheme precisely because he knows his father and that any life they have in Essos would almost certainly involve being perpetually 'on the run' from Corlys and maybe inevitably found out that way.)
In sum, the more I think about this Twist the more I don't like it.
Quarrel was supposed to kill Laenor but he couldn't do it. It's now in his interest to hide his identity because at any time there could be an assassin showing up to kill him. He can tell that dragon to go fly to the ruins of valyria, etc. and live there like Drogon did for a while.
shareThis whole episode was basically a result of personal guards literally failing repeatedly. π Even the leper-king comments on it.
shareThis whole episode was basically a result of personal guards literally failing repeatedly.
So this was a much sexier re-imagination of January 6 in DC, in other words. Come to think of, dragons really would've made that entire debacle much more fun to watch
I laughed at the burial scene. They have this beautiful stone casket for royalty that they just *plop* in the water. I thought maybe some undersea current would whisk it away but nope - just a pile of stone caskets.
shareYeah, that was a short final voyage.
shareThat reminded me of the Hoster Tully funeral where he almost floated away before they could hit it with an arrow and light it on fire.
shareWell, we have this gem!!!
https://www.facebook.com/norsemennetflix/videos/698202703717639/
The fireplace/body-burning gag reminded me of what they did with the raid on Laloβs compound in Better Call Saul. They took a servant, burned him up behind recognition, and told everyone Lalo was dead.
Did this happen in the book or did they just straight up rip this idea off?
There is a similar scene in Game Of Thrones when **minor spoiler for Game Of Thrones***
*****
Theon Greyjoy kills two farm kids by way of burning them and then passes them off as two other main characters.
This episode was in season 2 of GoT. So, it was a long time ago.
***end spoiler***
Anyhow, getting back to the topic.... I think this episode was better than the last one but not by a huge margin. It had some pretty good dramatic scenes but still the same ol' recipe... resolve issues quickly then move on to the next episode.
However, it was enough to keep me tuned in for at least one more episode but I kind of know what to expect at this point.
I totally forgot about that! But yes, this show has been a push/pull for me every episode. It's good...until it's not. But now I'm in the "I'm obligated now" zone. I do miss young Rhaenyra (sp).
shareI will agree, it flips back and forth between good, average and bad.
It's been a little inconsistent, I still say episode 4 and 5 have been the best, while 3 and 6 have been borderline awful. Eps 1 and 2 were solid starts for the show but nothing real amazing.
At this point, I'd rate the whole thing about a 5.9/10.
We'll see how the final 3 episodes of season 1 pan out. I think its going to be 10 eps per season...