Game Of Thrones Season 6 Discussion Thread (Spoilers up to and including the latest episode)

With The Winds of Winter nowhere close to being finished, Game of Thrones is now truly sailing into uncharted territory. Episode One wastes no time by....condensing the remaining cast, and if the trailers are any indication, the rest of the season is probably going to follow suit.

Since we are way out of book territory, I think we can keep the spoiler tagging to a minimum, but just to be clear: if it hasn't aired yet, you should tag it. If it something from the books that could still happen, tag it. If it has already been broadcast, it's fair game, so don't come in here before you see the latest episode or you may not like what you find.

With that out of the way; man, gratuitous nudity really can go both ways, huh?

I have to say this first episode has me a bit worried.

There were some shocking reveals, but at the same time, it feels a bit rushed? We had the Prince of Dorne literally on screen for all of a few minutes and now his bad ass guard and him die. While that scene was very game of thrones, it was also very unceremonious and undramatic. It just sort of happened and we're left to deal with that. Again, very Game of throneish, but just not really devastating since I feel we did not really get enough time to connect with those characters.

The same can also be said for the rest of the "new" scenes like Sansa being saved by Brienne. Not going to lie. This scene had me groaning that Sansa once again refused to do the sensible thing and run away while Theon distracted the guards, but that was made better once Brienne came into the picture and somehow her and Podrick managed to take on a good 8 soldiers/guards, then swear their allegiance to Sansa. It was cool to see but after thinking about this it's just sort of weird and rushed. The other thing I didn't like too much is how we're just supposed to assume that after jumping off a 4-5 story wall, that both of them are unharmed after that.

After seeing so much of the Watch in the beginning I almost half expected for Jon to be revived already and with that ending, I think it's kind of safe to assume that he will definitely come back since Melisandre has obviously been around for quite awhile. Perhaps she's biding her time or knows that that kind of magic is very taxing on her already frail body so she's contemplating the decision to do it or not which is why she took off her brooch to remind herself of who she really is.

In conclusion, it just feels like the story is starting to be very predictable all of a sudden and now the mysterious veil is starting to slowly be removed episode by episode as the series is getting geared for it's climax. Maybe I'm just sad that this show is on it's second to last season and that these characters are going to either have a satisfying or disastrous conclusion. Or maybe I'm just sad that the payoff of this show might now be as great as we may think it will be.

I don't get the Dorne plot at all. "Our dad got killed in a fight to the death he volunteered for? Well, we're gonna kill his brother and nephew! That'll show 'em!" It sucks that the Prince was taken out so quickly and unceremoniously, he's a really cool character in the books.

@whitestripes09: I think Mel is very disillusioned with the Lord of Light; the one guy who she's been banking on to lead the world into The Long Night is now dead, and all that child burning and shadow baby-ing has been for nothing. It looks like she's ready to give up and die...

...the same way that Thoros had all but given up when he spoke "the only words I knew" and something quite unexpected happened.

wtf is even happening in Dorne. god, after the amazing Oberyn, most everything there's been pretty lame.

not the most exciting first episode, but i was pretty fucking stoked to see Brienne galloping in. interesting ending.

Dorne I thought was fine. I mean, it wasn't great, but it felt like a course correction after how bad/pointless/misused it all was last season. The show has a long history of introducing great book characters just to barely use them or poorly use them, so I am neither surprised nor worried, yet. Personally, I enjoyed the episode and that it moved. Last season, despite my enjoyment, took a little to long to get going.

Weak starter. For a series that seems only build towards season cliffhangers this is expected. However, it would be nice if we could get something else than filler before the season finale.

I don't get what we are supposed to think of the Sand Snakes and Ellaria. Are we supposed to be rooting for these "bad ass" ladies sticking it to the "man"? Do the writers think they're cool? It's just so bad. Doran, Areo and Trystane were the coolest parts of that horrible plotline and it's all gone...

I enjoyed the Wall bits and Brienne though.

I'm really glad that we don't have to spend the whole season hearing about how much better or different the books were compared to the most recent episode of the show.

I'm started to lose interest in this show the last 2 seasons and this episode pretty much solidified that i should just wait until the season is over to watch the show.

My problem is that there is so much going on, so many characters in different locals that the show just skips around so much and nothing feels accomplished and there is no satisfaction when the episode ends. It's just 5 minutes scene at castle black, followed by 5 minutes at Winterfell, then Dorne, Kings Landing, Mareen, etc. Right when you start to feel invested in the scene and characters it cuts to a different area and the previous area won't be mentioned until the next episode if you're lucky.

Man, you'd hate the books then!

Brienne outta fuckin nowhere!

The episode kinda ended on clunker though, with everyone in the room going, "Thats it?". Its the first episode still and they have to dust off the gears and get them turning again.

Davos is my beautiful onion dad. A lot of the comedy bits fell totally flat for me (the Dothraki, the Sand Snakes) but Davos can still do no wrong. He's hilarious and one of the only reliably smart people left in the main cast.

Also I loved the Sansa/Catelyn parallels. It was really cool to see Theon pick up a sword for the first time in about 3.5 seasons too, knowing that he used to be just as talented as Robb and Jon at fighting. Besides that, I wasn't totally charmed by this episode. I was really banking on Ellaria's bad choices catching up to her.

These guys ran out of crib notes from Martin and are going to take the show on a nose dive. Everytime they have deviated from Martin before (Dorne, etc.) the results have been bad.

A little bit of stuff happened and nothing stupid happened, so good episode I guess? See you guys in Episode 5 when the plot moves forward (just based on the HBO formula).

Yeah, I have the same problem with the show, but I don't think I'm quite as put off as you are. That said, I think I'd be okay with like two of these stories converged or like one of them got abruptly ended. The show has a lot of plot going on in different places and too short of a running time to give the attention they need to any of them. I can't tell if I'd prefer each episode just be dedicated to one thing or if I'd rather the episodes be twice as long, but something isn't quite satisfying here.

That said, I'm elated that they're getting away from the books. Hopefully they don't flounder creative control. It does feel like things are starting to move somewhere, and that's a huge relief.

I just don't get why they're doubling down on the bad parts of the Dorne plot. Getting rid of the only parts that weren't unbearably bad is just pants-on-head bonkers.

Otherwise the episode was better than last season in my opinion. We didn't get long scenes of Emilia Clarke being unable to act (although I'm sure we'll be getting plenty of that later on) and it felt like characters were being written as characters and not plot devices.

Could've been a stronger start but it exceeded my (low) expectations.

Plus, Tyrion saying he wants to eat a baby had me in stitches.

I thought it was a surprisingly good first episode for Game of Thrones. Usually their season premieres are part 1 of an extremely pro-longed 8 part setup to the final two episodes where all the key events take place. To have so much actually happen within the first episode is truly uncanny. Overall I was happy with it. I share the sentiment of some that at the end of the last season I was really on the fence about how much more Game of Thrones I actually wanted to watch. The plot was moving at a snails pace and the payoff was marginal at best.

Pretty good opening in my opinion. I will triple down on the Dorne plot line if it means I get to see less Daenerys meandering, although seeing her back at square one is a nightmare. She barely grew as a character for the entire 5 seasons, and now it almost seems like she is regressing. Not looking forward to anything involving her in the slightest. The only saving grace of that entire part of the world is Tyrion.

This episode had the job of establishing where the characters are from last season in less than an hour, so I wasn't expecting huge strides. It still managed to avoid the most interesting part of this whole show: what's going on with Bran?

When is the next book due to be completed? If this season has no text to draw from, should we be expecting 10 episodes of filler that are mostly inconsequential to the overall plot?

No hard date for the book, as per usual for GRRM. But allegedly they got a basic summary of where the books are going, so while I don't expect there to be zero filler, they have a destination, and I wouldn't be surprised if they get there before the next book is even out (and keep in mind the next book is book 6 in a 7 book series -- also keep in mind that the series was originally supposed to be a 3 book series...and then a 4 book series...and then a 5...and then a...well, you see where I'm going here).

@mike: yeah now all we have to talk about is how bad this show's gotten!

@dgtlty: It's not complete filler since apparently GRRM has been closely working with the writers of the show, sharing the rough outline of the story with them. The way I understood it is that both GRRM and the show writers are heading towards the some eventual conclusion, they'll just take drastically different routes getting there.

even more i liked his body guard, who they hardly show has a whole POV in the books. He actually is supposed to be badass. but the idea being that Dorne is for the strong and uncompromising. I get why they did it. I bet the prince dies at some point anyway in the next book. he has polio or something.

Like a boss.

I'm just worried that this season will spoil the next book.

I find it interesting that people are concerned that getting ahead of the books means meandering plot, filler, and nonsense. I never read the books, but the impression I get from people who have is that the books are full of that. Plots and characters come and go that have no bearing on the main plot and large amounts of time are spent on basically nothing.

This being the first episode mostly gives it a pass for me. It has to re-establish where everyone's at and set up things to come. Exposition dumps are rarely the most compelling. The two gripes I have are 1) No Bronn. 2) I don't understand how both Sansa and Theon could have lived that fall.

@omgfather: I don't think you're supposed to root for them necessarily. I think their stuff is just leading into a war with King's Landing. The characterization does feel like they want people to like them, but they are just trying way too hard.

Although, now that I think about it, I have some questions that I may hate the answers to.

Maybe their just saving it, but Cersei is going to crush those zealots right? I can't imagine why she would want to keep them around.

There better be a god damned good explanation for The Sons of the Harpy. Their numbers, organization, and "firepower" is insane being a simple rogue element.

I'm already pissed about the Melisandre/Jon Snow story line. I thought after last season that it was fairly obvious that she was gonna involve him in some of that fire god stuff. This is the plot of worried about meandering the most.

Still wondering how Arya ties back into everything. She's still the only main cast member who is outside the plot. If the only payoff for her ends up being "she's good at killing now!", that will be really disappointing(though still a little badass probably).

I'm worried about the Margery plot line too. It's kind of felt like they don't really know what to do with her, but have to remind us once in a while that she exists.

And finally, some predictions based on nothing really.

Jaime dies a hero's death, potentially taking Cersei(and/or The Mountain) down with him.

The contenders for the throne(if anyone gets it) are Jon, Danaerys, and Bran. Or a left field Tyrion or Sansa.

There's still one "oh shit" moment left with the whitewalkers, no real guess as to what though.

This show is doing a great job of filling the void left by LOST.

@yi_orange: as someone that has read the books...yeah, they're a bit of a mess at times (and there is a reason the number in the series continues to grow as he continues to throw more shit into the mix while occasionally cutting other stuff out). One of the weirder aspects of this show has been watching book readers act as if though the book series is this flawless example of modern literature, when it really isn't. It's a collection of tomes that scream "EDIT ME PLEASE" that has a number of cool characters and moments sprinkled throughout to keep you going. Not unlike the show.

Episode was great, don't know what you all are talking about.

- Tied up the Sansa + Brienne cliffhanger from last season, in a very bad ass way.
- Excellent scenes at Castle Black, keeping everyone on their toes.
- Dornish women showing that they are serious. Show Doran is not Book Doran, get over it. Dornish lines are corny because these girls are playing at war and actually have no idea what they are getting themselves into - they are still green and will get crushed accordingly. The Dornish are hot headed and quick to anger - hence the ladies' bloodlust.
- Cersi is utterly broken, Jaime will now fuel her hatred fire to start murdering some zealots.
- Melisandre reveal is showing that she too is utterly broken, to set up the resurrection ala Thoros of Myr being broken before resurrecting Beric.

Overall it was a faster paced episode than last season's opener which EVERYONE hated for being too slow. People are never satisfied.

It was bad just like most Game of Thrones episodes since season 2. Dorne's entire plot seems gutted in favor "look at how cool these badass ladies are!". Somehow they made Dorne worse. Greyjoys continue to be non-existent even though Balon is actually the winner of the War of Five Kings. I'll continue to watch for my weekly dose of anger.

Really enjoyed it...usually the first episode back into a series its slow to start, except for GoT. Brienne/podrick is my fave duo since hound/arya, kinda waiting to see if hound makes a return...house of B/W storyline with arya is something im really excited to see fleshed out, now that shes paying the price for being too bold and trying to rush her ascent...yeah really liked it.

How about the college campus level of dialogue the Dothraki had with each other? That honestly felt pretty bad. Show continues to be...half and half right now. Some things are working, some things clearly aren't. I'm not a big fan of the show just murdering people that they give the audience zero time to connect with either. It feels kind of lame, and a big reason why the show felt so good is that it introduced you to characters, showed you their motivations their thoughts, let you get to know them, and then some of them died. It had stakes. Now we see characters who've been given 10 minutes of total screen time getting killed like it's some big moment when it isn't. Other shows kill off the same "level" of characters all the time as well.

I'm starting to get the feeling that Game of Thrones deserves two threads. We can have this thread for discussion of the show, and then we can make a separate Game of Thrones thread strictly for bitching about the show you hate, but are still going to watch every Sunday for some reason.

I thought it was alright, it was an episode to set things up because you know they have to which I don't mind as it reminded me where each of the characters ended up from the end of last season. I was totally disinterested in Daenarys' plotline, and in fact, I'm worried about where this is going if it's going to be her dragged off to the place where the other Khaleesi widows are and it's going to be this whole big deal in rescuing her. I'm curious where the Lannisters will go from here as they are just lousy with enemies that they could be targetting at this point. Sanza's arc was the feel good moment, pretty happy that her and Reek are in Brienne's company now. More importantly, Podrick got some action! Good for him! Castle Black plot was pretty good, the ultimatum has been thrown down so hopefully we get some payoff sooner than later. I think Ser Davos is pretty likable so it's good to see him rally the remaining loyal troops around. I didn't get the big deal behind the "twist" that Melisandre is actually super old. I mean, she gave birth to a shadow assassin, I think it stands to reason that she's not human or is magic from that point. What else happened... Natalie Dormer is still trapped in that cell I guess. Oh right, Arya got beat up a bunch, I have to assume that's a form of training that they're forcing onto her? And where's Bran?

simple question: What's up with the smooth skin on the witch?

It doesn't help that the Witch came out 2 months ago, so I'm not shocked at seeing naked old ladies. Just there is that weird plasticiness to her considering how gritty the show is with stabs, cuts, gore...... I'd imagine there's going to be some CG blog breaking down the effects work on the witch...... it looked scarier in the mirror just directly seeing her felt "This is plastic."

My major complaint about last season was how slow the Mother of Dragons plot was moving in relation to getting her over to the other side of the show with everybody else and all the zombies and shit.
Then she goes and gets kidnapped and somebody sets all her boats on fire and her Dragons are in who the hell knows where land again. One big old damn sign.
I don't hate that side of the show or anything, it has some pretty cool characters, I just can't care about what any of the characters are doing over there, because to me at least, the show has set up the other side as being the 'main' side, it has the warring factions, it has the White Walkers, it has the winter that's coming. It feels like the A story, while the other side feels like the B story that is supposed to merge but just keeps not, but that just might be me.

Anyways, that's it for the bad.
Sansa's "Hey, you're totally my sweet new awesome knight, seriously, kick ass" speech was awesome, probably my favorite part of the episode, it really felt like a great pay off to Brienne's whole thing, and it was great seeing her squire get in there and kick a little ass as well (I'm shit with some names on the show still) the Nights Watch continues to be the most interesting part of the show to me, dig everything that is going on there. Dorne is Dorne, don't love it, don't hate it, curious to see where it goes.
I hope Sansa goes towards the Wall and we get to see Brienne face off against a few White Walkers, that would be pretty cool.

Man how did Dorne end up so terrible when Oberyn was so great? I feel like the show has lost all direction, which I guess it has since its passed the books. Hope the Greyjoy and flashback subplots are better done. Also why is Davos protecting Jon's body? Like I get they don't want to burn his body from the obvious future plot but the characters don't know that and it feels like Davos does. I usually don't care for the first few episodes of the last few seasons so I'm gonna chuck it up to overhyped expectations. Also who brings a spear or a whip to a fight in a tiny room. Like I get it they need to be identified from one another but I was honestly wondering how whip girl thought she could take rapier prince in a room to small to use a whip. Also needed more Hodor

All I have to say about it is that the burning of the ships in Mereen seemed like such a ham-fisted way of addressing the whole separation issue. It was bad enough when Danny just decided that she didn't want to cross the ocean just yet, but this was basically ten seconds of "yeeeeah, we're not gonna make this story-line converge for at least one more season".

@crithon said:

It's makeup and prosthetics for the face; that's actually Carice Van Houten under all that for the closeups, but the body was a double, so any weird smoothness is au naturel.

From a nice article on the ending:

The idea is there’s an indefinite indeterminate quality that she could be ancient. We were limited by choosing to use a real person rather than a complete CG creation. Because what does a 400-year-old person look like? We don’t know. So if you try to create that, then you’re creating something that looks beyond our known reality. Here you feel like she’s very old without putting a number on it.

I think the performance of both actresses helps making her look ageless. There was a question of whether we should add more effects to make [the body double] look older, but I think anything we could have done would have made them look less real. When doing a fantasy show – or a show with fantasy elements – the more you can anchor an effect to reality the stronger the illusion is.

I kind of can't believe how out of touch the writers are with criticisms of the show. People have been complaining for at least 3 years that Daenerys never does anything and should have gone over to Westeros by now, and then they ship her off to god knows where and burns all the ships she had to acquire in order to go across the continent. For a show that seems to have cut a lot of popular, important stuff from the books, it's astounding how much useless filler and wasted time there has been, and continues to be.

Worse, how out of touch can you be to see all the criticism that Dorne, and specifically the sand snakes, received from season 5, and then decide to double down on the sand snakes as major characters. How do you look at last season, and decide that more sand snakes is the answer?

Finally, the weird sitcom bro jokes from the Dothraki were some of the most out of place dialogue I can think of.

On the plus side, I liked the Melisandre scene. It says a lot about her character, while at the same time grounding some of the more fantastical aspects of GoT magic in a very traditional, folkloric idea of what a witch is.

I like Davos, and I thought those scenes were good at the time, but the moment you stop to think about it, it doesn't really make any sense. It really feels like we're watching a bunch of plot devices interacting in order to achieve the author's desired outcome. It doesn't much feel like a story naturally unfolding through the actions and motivations of it's characters.

I think this season has already stumbled right at the outset. We'll see if it can turn around. At least we seem to be getting some Frankenberry action next week.

I came out of the episode fairly happy with it. Castle Black continues to be the most interesting part of the show, Sansa reuniting with Brienne finally happening was good, and the situation in kings landing seems to be escalating which was good.

I really hope they're not giving this much service to the Dorne plot just so they can have more strong female characters or something. Don't get me wrong, I like the mom and her scheming, she's clearly lost it and I wouldn't mind seeing a little bit of her every now and then. But I cannot stand the three sassy daughters oh my god. It's like watching three Michelle Rodriguezes try and out-do each other at being Michelle Rodriguez every time they're on screen.

Other than that not so bad. Always enjoy Tyrion, but Daenarys' plot has somehow faded even further into oblivion which i didn't think was possible. Pretty ambivalent on that one. Her plot is good when stuff is happening, but it looks like we won't be getting any of that for a while. I liked that Arya's plot felt like it was going somewhere last season, but it seems we're right back at square one with her. Her plot needs to not be the exact same thing as last season or I'm out.

After killing Jon Snow last season I was pretty upset, mainly because i felt like he was the only character they hadn't killed off yet that I cared at all about. Pretty obvious where they're going with that plot now, but I sincerely hope they don't take 3/4 of the season to get around to that. I guess now I'm watching the show for Tyrion and the Jaime/Cersei story primarily? Which have never been my favorite parts of the show before, more like side stories I found mildly interesting. Now they're the main (or only) attraction for me, which kind of sucks.

@mirado: Oh wow, thanks for the article..... yeah, I did notice the eyes were hers..... but I still felt it came off plastic skin especially since this show has a gritty gorey and details and now here's an old woman with flawless skin even on her arms and chest.... it was really surreal. Sure magic, maybe ethereal quality, but like I said before Witch came out a while ago and I'm okay with seeing naked old ladies. Although I do have to admit, it does feel like a commentary on the gratuitous nudity of the show.

@jesushammer: man i didnt even think of the greyjoys. But considering how they've been marginalized in the show that's not surprising to me.

Guess i should be happy at least for a terrific season 1, and mostly good season 2 and 3 before all plots and character motivations went out the window (red viper vs the mountain was still awesome to behold i will admit).

@brackstone: I actually find it hilarious that this part in the books seems like when cool shit is actually gonna happen with Dany, but they threw a lot of that under the bus the past few seasons and now they are in an even worse place with her than Martin was. Another thing I though was impossible.

I read your comment earlier, and for some reason it kind of stuck with me throughout the day. I'm not exactly sure what causes people to keep watching the show when they seem to get so little out of it. That's not to say this thread should be a criticism free zone; I'm more forgiving than most and even I feel a bit down at times (Sansa's regression arc, Sand Snakes), but I've seen some real vitriol in various circles and that confuses me to no end. If you are at eyeball clawing territory, maybe it's time to move on?

On top of that, a lot of criticism is framed in a way that makes the crew seem like talentless hacks, which also confuses me. I recently had a chance to sit down and watch some of the Blu Ray extras where they go behind the scenes and really dig into the process of making the show, and the level of detail is frankly obscene. I dare anyone to listen to the costume designers talk about their color selections or the intricacies in the embroidering or textiles and come out of that thinking they just fart out a bunch of boobs and gore and call it a day. These people put a lot of effort into details that barely even register on TV, so if they are creating garbage, they are at least expending a lot of energy and thought when they do.

Yeah, sometimes the dialog misses the mark and yes, some stuff was probably better in the books (or so I'm told, I haven't read them). But putting up with the Sand Snakes gets you Dinklage's Tyrion, Dance's Tywin, Dormer's Margaery (who seems to be much more fleshed out over her book counterpart), Pascal's Oberyn, Rigg's Olenna and Hill's Varys, among other excellent portrayals. The ratio of poor or average performances to great or outstanding is heavily skewed towards the positive.

Finally, adapting a show is always going to result in exactly that, an adaptation. Some things are going to come out of that relatively unscathed, and some things are going to get a bit butchered. Dorne's not my favorite part but to book people, it sounds like it's a travesty, and that's a shame. But, believe it or not, some things actually can get improved! We got to see Arya x Hound for far longer (seems they don't go all the way to the Vale together in the books) and that was magical, we got way more Tyrion and Bronn bro time, and they cranked up the Red Wedding to 11 (even Martin couldn't believe they topped him).

I know a lot of that sounds like I'm gushing or making excuses, but there's just so much bitching lately that I think people need to take a step back and realize that the show isn't fucking everything all up. It's not perfect and certain things could be better, but it's not a fucking dumpster fire.

Yeah every time they do something in Dorne I just totally don't get it. Lady, that dude agreed to a fight to the death, it was his own choice. He wasn't murdered in the night or betrayed. Yeah he died horribly, but he was the one that decided he wanted to fight someone three times his size.

Yeah but now we're going to get to hear "This will be handled better in the books, you just wait".

First episode was decent. It felt more like it was the next episode of the last season rather than say the opener to a new season which is a good thing.

The only thing that stood out to me, and maybe I just never picked up on it before, but in this episode there were two (almost three) parts of dialogue which felt completely out of the universe they're in. First was the sister killing the Prince and calling her a bitch like some high school girls and the second was the Dothraki stack ranking what is best in life through a comedy routine.

@mirado - I agree with pretty much everything you're saying. There's really strong casting in the show and some weak casting too. But I'm getting a good fantasy TV show that doesn't require me to have to sit through an author indulging himself for page upon page of prose talking about clothing and dinner settings.

When most TV is either a) reality tv or b) procedural cop shows, it's nice to have one fantasy show that not only exists but also has the budget to get some really top tier actors in.

@mirado: While you make a lot of good points, I do think some of the criticism being thrown at the show right now at least in my own circles has nothing to do with a comparison to the books. Everyone has kind of accepted that the show is going to do a lot different and to most people who are not some insane obsessive lunatics, that is fine.

What the criticism ends up coming down to now is how good the actual show is. I know for myself, it was during periods of the last two seasons leading up to this that I started to feel more conflicted about the show. Not just because I saw weak things in it, but because it's fandom has created this "sage like" reaction where people herald it as one of the best things to ever happen to TV. I'm not saying it hasn't had some of the truly top scenes I'v ever seen, or even exceptionally strong seasons. (Season 1 still remains the best of the series, but 2/3 were both very strong.) But it hasn't really been consistent.

Whats worse? When you have so much excellent casting, excellent CG work for TV, basically as you said all the details they put in, when you have so much of that love and labor when you find something that is truly awful it sticks out like a sore thumb. The Sand Snakes aren't just awful because of some bad plot device choices either. Season 5 featured a fight scene with those girls that a stunt choreographer should be ashamed made it to the final cut. The actresses or stunt doubles whomever was doing it looked clearly out of place, confused, the fight had almost no flow and looked so fake that even sketch shows like SNL do a better job. And again, whatever it's a small blemish in what is otherwise great. But the blemish sticks out so much more because so much of the shows quality is as high as it is.

I still find that some of the criticism such as that should be welcome in this thread. We don't want to just gush and gush over Thrones unless it deserves it imo. And don't get me wrong, there have often been times it does. I also don't think any of the more recent troubles of the show, which seem to be happening more frequently later now somehow make the show awful or not deserving of praise either. There is a reason a lot of us still watch it. There has yet to be a season where I overall felt like the show wasn't good. But I've tempered my own expectations a bit on that front as well. After the first few seasons I thought I was in for something up to the Breaking Bad or The Wire quality of television. After the last few seasons and the first episode of this season I think it's clear to me that it isn't really vying for that category anymore. It's still excellent, but it's also so far up it's own ass sometimes, and that leads to very fan service style moments. Take the absolutely out of character Dothraki dialogue mentioned as a criticism from this episode, the sometimes needless deaths purely for the gore/shock factor, especially on characters that in a book setting would be far more developed. In a TV setting? Not so much. I mean look at the most recent deaths we've seen even stretching into last season. With the exception of a couple, it's been characters who have maybe in all their appearances had 10 minutes of total screen time. With very little of that giving us any indication on character motivations, or purpose. Even nudity in that regard too. I can't count the times I've seen a sex scene that easily is filmed and they leave running for several minutes longer than it needed to be. That is to say we learned what we needed about the characters and understand the intimacy (or aggression) of the situation. In so many cases those added minutes do nothing to those scenes either, it's just the show making the statement that they can "go that far" just for the sake of it. Which hey fine go for it, but again that feels pretty fan service lite to me.

Dorne part continued to be not interesting at all, I could skip through the few minutes Ramsay was in it because I was watching alone and that was nice, and the rest had some interesting set up to see what comes next in a few of the different plots. One thing though is the dialogue in all the Dothraki parts of the episode was goofy as hell.

@artisanbreads: Man, it has been said by a couple of people, and I couldn't agree more. It was so strange and out of place. It didn't bother me, per se, but I just found myself so confused. That and it wasn't remotely funny.

When those two were on the horses, most of it was just goofily vulgar in a lame way. Then after, there was a bit of snark and sarcasm between the Dothraki that felt far too modern of a way of talking.

@artisanbreads: seriously...I laughed in spite of myself at the absurdity of it all when it was like a Buzzfeed "5 Great Things Only a Dothraki Will Appreciate".

@sethmode: I looked around the room like "uh what?" even though I was alone. But yes the list, great call, the list was such an internet thing to drop in there.

I'd said it earlier in the thread that that scene and the part between the Sand Snakes stood out to me and that's exactly why. The dialogue and it's delivery just felt too modern to exist in the world that we've been given for five seasons already. It reminded me of a part in the new Star Wars which also felt out of place for me - when Finn is telling Captain Phasma that he's in charge now it felt very 2016 and not very Star Wars.