Here's Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen from Sunday night's new Game of Thrones, arguably the two most prominent characters in the ensemble series, played by two actors who weren't at Comic Con. Which is fine, there's no reason anyone should have to face the heat and crowds if they don't want to, but I'd have been angry if I'd waited all night to get into Hall H for the Game of Thrones panel which didn't have much to compensate for not having any of the writers, directors, or most popular stars. Not to mention the whole thing, of course, ended up on YouTube anyway:
There are some cute, slightly awkward exchanges between Gwendoline Christie, who plays Brienne of Tarth, and moderator Kristian Nairn. But for me the highlight of the panel was Nathalie Emmanuel's blue lipstick.
Liam Cunningham was pretty funny, I'll say that. I am glad I didn't have to wait all night to see the panel--I didn't expect to get in, I was aiming for the Twin Peaks panel that immediately followed it, but it was a good thing I did get in because I heard later they didn't clear Hall H fast enough after the Game of Thrones panel to get everyone into the room for the beginning of the Twin Peaks panel. For some reason, all the most popular television series were scheduled for the same day in Hall H this year, beginning with Big Bang Theory followed by Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Twin Peaks. I suppose the fact that a massive number of people left after the Walking Dead panel indicates that show is still more popular than Game of Thrones, though maybe it's just a reflection of the fact that more of the main cast was on hand for the Walking Dead panels. Certainly, Game of Thrones is a better show than Walking Dead at this point as Sunday's beautiful new episode, "Stormborn", written by Bryan Cogman, demonstrated, flawed though it was.
Spoilers after the screenshot
I feel like we ought to have seen Grey Worm's (Jacob Anderson) grey worm, or lack thereof, just to maintain Missandei's (Nathalie Emmanuel) POV and give us a visual idea of what they were dealing with. I would have liked there to be a little more awkwardness about the oral sex, too. Would Grey Worm really know what to do right away? Her explaining to him what to do would've been a nice way to develop the dynamics of this relationship but as it is it was a pretty scene.
I want to thank the show for finally putting Missandei and Melisandre (Carice van Houten) in a room together, hopefully now I'll stop getting their names mixed up.
It was nice to see Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) finally being given something to do in this episode, Daenerys' (Emilia Clarke) whole war strategy apparently coming from him, though Olenna (Diana Rigg) almost immediately undercuts him and the conclusion of the episode makes her seem pretty smart. It really feels like Tyrion's story ended when he killed his father and he's mostly been treading water ever since, which is fine--I'd rather he slip into a supporting role than for the writers to force a bigger story on him, but I do miss the dynamics he was part of in King's Landing.
To be fair to him, I don't think there's any way he could have predicted what happened at the end. A potentially better sex scene between Yara (Gemma Whelan) and Ellaria (Indira Varma) is interrupted when apparently Euron's (Pilou Asbaek) entire fleet, with flaming catapults, somehow got the drop on Yara's ship, presumably the flagship of her fleet.
What a pretty battle sequence. It's a little hard to follow the action once those embers are falling everywhere but that gives you some idea of how disorientating it would be for someone involved, the show here following its own lessons from "The Battle of the Bastards".
It's a little hard to accept what happened, though; there's not much about it that makes sense. So Euron promises to deliver a gift to Cersei (Lena Headey), apparently this was meant to be Ellaria. Why a gift from him is required I'm not sure since Cersei seemed quite open to an alliance. But he acquires this gift by wiping out the invading navy so he's basically done the job he was hoping to get by delivering this gift. And he did it by sailing his fleet into the middle of Yara's fleet with huge flames on his ships. These ships also continue firing on Yara's ship long after Euron and his men have boarded it.
That Euron is one lucky guy. I guess Theon (Alfie Allen) has some luck for once, too, as he seems to have survived the battle by jumping overboard. Presumably they're not that far out to sea?
Meanwhile, Arya (Maisie Williams) continues to fail at keeping a low profile but I loved her scene with the wolf pack and her reunion with her dire wolf. Most of the trademark Stark stupidity seemed to be at Winterfell where Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) were once again squabbling like children in front of their court.
I don't think Jon has once put forward an idea that most people in the room liked. Maybe it's a good thing he's leaving though Sansa hasn't exactly shown herself to be a great leader. Still, you can't do much worse than Jon who assaulted and threatened the very dangerous Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen) for no reason and then let him live. With the enemies Jon let live last week, he's certainly living up to his reputation for knowing nothing. If he doesn't get himself killed for real this season I'll be very surprised.
No comments:
Post a Comment