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Game of Thrones 48: Hardhome

6/1/2015

14 Comments

 
Best episode of the season, by far.  Best episode of the series?  Certainly in the top ten.

King's Landing: Short and sweet.  Cersei's reduced to drinking a lesser vintage.  The work continues.

Winterfell:  More uncertainty about where this plot is going.  Sansa knows her brothers are somewhere.  Ramsay venturing out with a crack squad.  Roose allowing this to happen implies he's willing to let Ramsay die.  As are we all.

Braavos: Beautiful scenery.  Dorne looks and feels empty because they decided to film it in a historical landmark.  Braavos is filmed in Croatia, where people live, thus making it feel so much more real.  As far as the actual assassination plot, they might've made it very clear exactly how it's going to down, but that might just be setting up a reversal.

Mereen: Would've easily been the best part of the episode in an average week.  Surprisingly emotional stuff from Jorah, as Tyrion breaks down his thought process.  He loved Dany, but didn't trust her.  Tyrion then does a classic reverse-sell, in which Dany has to prove to him that she's worthy of his counsel.  And she already knows to not let him drink so much!  The world gets smaller, the show gets better.

Hardhome: Of course, all the plans of the Boltons and Cersei's possible trial and Arya's training are completely small-minded and missing the bigger picture, which we got our clearest understanding of thus far.  Men plan, the Night's King laughs.  Kit Harington doing fine work in the tent, but very nearly gets upstaged by the actress playing Karsi the wildling captain, on the show for all of 20 minutes.  The inevitability of the attack was dragged out for the exact right amount of time, and then the mist starts billowing down the mountain.  So many great touches on the attack itself, starting with the abrupt silencing of the wildlings left outside the gate and continuing with the wight frantically clawing itself under the wall.  That first shot of the White Walker horseman staring down into the valley is one of the best of the series.  The White Walker duel with Jon and the Magnar was perfect, with Harington selling his fear and then his surprise, culminating in the only victory of the sequence with the Walker bursting into pieces, the effects much improved from when Sam killed his.  More escalation with the wight children and the avalanche of wights pouring down the cliff, until there's nothing left but to run to the shore, swinging a log.  The Night's King raising the dead could've been corny, but damn, that smug look and the silence of the scene completely sold it.  

While not as technically impressive as the Wall battle and not as interesting on a character level as Blackwater, Hardhome was definitely the most visually impressive of the three big battle sequences.  Absolute A of an episode.  Good timing on the show's part to balance the worst episode they've ever done with one of their best.
14 Comments
Bryan
6/1/2015 04:00:45 pm

The Wildling fight in its entirety was good, but there was 3 minutes of wasted time in the heat of the battle where I couldn't tell what was going on due to bad camera placement and lack of any slo-mo.

I thought the female head Wildling would be a good addition to the show, then she sets her kids off on the boat and you know she's going down.

Quick question, when does one become a bone zombie vs becoming a white walker?

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Jon
6/1/2015 04:07:58 pm

If you're a dead body around a White Walker, you turn into a bone zombie/wight. No one knows how White Walker's are created.

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Bobby
6/1/2015 04:41:29 pm

I don't believe the Bone things are the same as wights... Those were the same things that jumped out of the snow/ground and killed Jojen, right? I read they were just additions to the show... so i supposed we can just consider them offshoots of the wights... perhaps long dead bones arisen in the same manner?

Jon
6/1/2015 05:05:04 pm

The bone things are probably just older wights. As many stab and arrow wounds wights take, eventually the skin's just going to come off.

Bobby
6/1/2015 05:21:22 pm

The bone things seem to... die, or at least go down easier. Wights you need to burn... BURN!!!!!!! ("There are too many exclamation points in your comment. Please remove ", don't tell me my business, Weebly!)

Phil
6/1/2015 04:34:40 pm

Holy shit that was an episode! The White Walker assault has been teased since the opening episode of the series, and now it's on the doorstep. Assuming the show is using the same map as the book (who knows at this point), we could have the White Walkers hitting The Wall in 72 hrs.

I don't know if the battle was quite as impressive as the fight on The Wall last year. It was an impressive battle just b/c of how much it was built up and several tense moments involving Jon Snow. Overall though, great stuff all around, and Night's King is a much-needed bad guy addition to the world, as it looks like we may be losing Public Enemy #1 in the upcoming weeks.

The entire series has had an air of futility, with nobles playing politics internally while the true threats amass outside the fence. That was never on display more than this episode, as we seem to be getting our first real drive to story conclusions. Granted, we know the show is going for AT LEAST seven seasons, but we certainly are getting a feeling like we're in Act 3 of the Song of Ice & Fire.

Now, the big question of course is, we got Episode 9 next week. And directed by David Nutter ("Rains of Castmere" fame). I'm not entirely sure how they top this one this season, but I'm damn excited to figure out.

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Bobby
6/1/2015 04:43:15 pm

Nutter is at the helm for 9 and 10... which last week i said I had a lot of hope for... after this episode, I'm excited!

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Bobby
6/1/2015 04:52:24 pm

Hey, thanks for showing up, Season 5!

This is the exact episode this season need. I still hate what's going on in Winterfell.. and they haven't done anything to make it remotely reasonable, but I'm hoping Ramsay dies soon enough... maybe in some manner that makes us stand up and clap at the screen, even!

This may have been my favorite Tyrion time of the series... at least up there with the best of them. I'm really excited for the Fighting Pits.. as it seems like they'll play that one as close to the books as they can (current company considered)... and that should make for some excellent TV.

The episode namesake was spectacular... I wish they joined small fight scenes as well as they do large battles. A lot of it is surely do to the stunt work required in the close one on one (or 3 on 2) fights.. but they just never measure up to the big rumbles. Anyway, as noted... the hit all the right notes with this one. The only thing that bothered me a little, were the final shots of the boats rowing away... but as we pulled back to the wide shot, they moved about negative 14 feet. Maybe upon a rewatch, it'd be different, but that's how both my sister and I saw it... just odd. Everything else about those finals shots were pretty much perfect though.



So, the question is... Valyrian Steel... forged by magic, and supposedly with dragon fire... so related to dragonglass (which is supposedly just a name, and comes from the fires of the earth), apparently has the same effect on the Others. Or, Longclaw is special and/or even made of dragonglass to some degree.

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Bobby
6/1/2015 05:22:02 pm

Also, I too really liked Karsi... she was instantly likable, and played really well. And we've apparently not seen the last of her at all.

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Bryan
6/2/2015 02:13:32 am

Oh yeah, she is risen. I forgot.

Bryan
6/2/2015 02:15:42 am

Maybe it's the series of bad episodes or something is awry, but I don't think this was an A grade episode. I'm having a hard time investing in this season. Truthfully, the sparrows and the Wall are the only story lines worth following this season.

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Bobby
6/2/2015 02:28:05 am

No interest Tyrion!?

Or Area??

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Bryan
6/2/2015 03:32:13 am

Tyrion, a little. But I didn't think his dialogue with Dany was above average.

The training of Arya is built for books. It's awful in the show.

Shane
6/3/2015 05:11:39 am

Oh boy, I sure did like that one.

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