Lol you cite this like it's not another example of awful writing. They have built the bothers up for 7 seasons to finally meet and we get....The hound saying some nonsense.

And miss out on the chance to lol at ppl being dumb on the internet?

I think upon rewatching there could be more foreshadowing that becomes apparent. We had Brienne last episode saying she could not leave Sansa alone with Littlefinger. We have had multiple episodes of both Sansa, Arya, and others saying he could not be trusted. There is really no reason to believe Sansa trusted him at all for the last couple seasons and upon rewatch will probably be more obvious.

i was referring to your first point, actually. if you could call it that.

tyrion has been failing upward for at least the last two seasons. dany bailing him out in slaver's bay was pretty strong evidence that he wasn't cut out to be a war-time consigliere. he's not suddenly a moron, he's been out of his depth for quite a while now, and you're only just noticing.

no, awful writing would be if the hound just walked in to this parlay with like 20 other people after having a complete change of heart and putting his life on the line for the cause of saving humanity, and then being like, nah wait, i risked my life for this, and i'ma let you finish, but first let me fight my zombie brother and kill him so cersei definitely won't want to make peace with anybody.

and then everybody else just standing by and letting it happen.

the show hasn't built us up to cleganebowl, the fans have. everybody wants to see these two huge dudes duke it out so bad (and it's the subject of so many theories), but aside from the hound reliving his childhood trauma with arya a few times, there has been very little in the actual show to suggest they need to fight, and to my recollection he's never actually verbalized wanting to fight his brother.

He did it all for the nooky

I think the writing in this season has obviously taken a step back (and the ridiculous task of bringing together all of these story lines is probably why GRRM has all but stopped writing)... but this was a good episode. If the last few episodes weren't lacking in comparison to the earlier seasons (writing/pacing wise), I don't think this episode would be getting crapped on by half the people here.

yeah i think there was a lot of foreshadowing, the issue i have (without rewatching) was just that it seemed very uneven. for instance, the scene with arya catching sansa in her room and threatening her. taken at face value, they are actually pushing us in the other direction from the eventual outcome. it's not that this event couldn't fit into the flow - what it suggested to me was that sansa was more onto what LF was doing than arya was, and arya may actually have been fooled by him. and that sansa may not have realized what was happening until a good bit later. but then, by the time of the execution, all three siblings seemed to be well aware of what was happening. they basically foreshadowed several different versions of events leading up to sansa turning on LF, but in a way that makes it hard to tell which one they actually intended. and then, in the sansa / arya denouement scene after the execution, they kind of revert to making it seem like arya didn't walk into the room knowing what happened, and they are clearing the air, but again, it's not totally clear. this is why i thought it could use more exposition - not to completely tip off the outcome or telegraph peoples' decisions, but at least to make it possible to be fairly clear on what happened in retrospect.

OK, but I think you could argue that they've been setting up this scene for the entirety of the show. I've been talking about Sansa outplaying LF for weeks ITT:

I'm no writer but my ideas of a good ending for him could have been to just let him live. Season 8 finale fades to black on him or something for a possible spin off. Maybe he destroys the new kingdom or w/e that is built by the winner.

The current writers could have given his story arc more time simply by killing off Yara and letting Theon die in some white walker fight later instead of giving him more on screen time.

As is, I thought they rushed it wayyy too quickly. Just an episode or two ago Arya and Sansa were fighting with each other with real emotions 1 on 1 not trying to put on a show in front of anybody to let down Littlefingers guard. But now, jump cut to them ambushing him and it seems like there's a ton of dialogue missing somewhere.

I still enjoy the action but some of this is catastrophically bad writing.

Getting kicked in the nuts is Theon's super-power? GMAFB

Yeah the scene of Arya threatening Sansa when they were alone really makes the LF outcome seem really strange and half-assed

see my post above. i don't take issue with the outcome at all. there has been lots of talk about sansa eventually outsmarting LF in this thread, you can go back and find my posts about it too if you want. my issue was how it played out.

i was actually wondering during that scene, if you've got no junk left, how much WOULD it hurt to get kneed in the groin? you've still got lots of nerve endings in your thighs and butthole, i feel like it would still suck.

1 day

Is Arya gonna disguise herself as LF to assasinate someone? One would assume Cersei, but Cersei might hate LF by now too. In any case, I think a fitting end to Cersei would be for Arya to stab her a few times in the lower abdomen, then have Sansa finish her off in an uncharacteristic direct use of violence.

In my quick thoughts, having no balls/shaft to stop momentum may actually make a knee to the groin considerably worse and crush your pelvic bones.

But I mean clearly it just wrecks people's knees like a piece of granite.

Bingo. Terrible red herring writing.

So Cersei and Euron are the only real villains left?

yeah this is what i was getting at too, re: arya / sansa, but you said it more concisely.

i assume they needed to launch theon on this next arc because he plays a role in discovering euron's trip to essos to retrieve the golden company. not that "hey no lannisters showed up for the battle" shouldn't be enough to tip off dany that something is up, but knowing that euron is still in play is probably important too.

it almost feels inevitable that we will get a reveal where arya uses the face of someone we didn't know is dead to assassinate someone, which has the potential to be really hammy. using LF probably wouldn't work that well, though because 1) as you mentioned, he can't just walk into KL these days as is, and 2) word would probably get out that he's dead. (obv it wouldn't fit the definition i just gave either, since WE know he's dead.)

but if there's some minor character with very little backstory who gets 1 or 2 inexplicable scenes next season in the midst of an utterly cramped narrative, watch out, might be arya fixin to gut somebody.

What I Liked

-Everyone meeting up in KL
-Pround parents - The Hound and Brienne
-The wright scene and everyone's reaction
-Cersei/Tyrion scene with the wine
-Jamie abandoning Cersei
-The attack at the wall
-Arya killing Littlefinger the same way her mother was killed, with his own dagger
-Bronn and Tyrion bro-ing it up

What I Didn't

-Danaerys talking about the death of her family/dragons when its exactly what she did years earlier
-Podrick and Bronn having the longest drink ever?
-The whole handling of Arya/Sansa/Little Finger...felt super forced and rushed. They knew they needed him to die but it didn't fully work in the execution. To much happened off screen that we really needed to see (esp all the sister/bran discussion that obviously happened)
-The whole ****ing Bran and Sam scene - let's basically do voice over narration so we can tell the audience a bunch of important plot stuff that is crazy important.
-Everything having to do with the Greyjoys
-Tyrion creeping on Jon humping at the end
The pacing of the epsiode
The lack of epic scenes combined with great score besides the melting of the wall and Cersei/Tyrion.
Where did Gendry go?

sure, if you don't consider the zombie king trying to wipe out all of humanity to be a villain.

(or the mountain, who's a secondary character, or jaime, who seems to be taking a face turn)

Some thoughts:

-LOL'd that Jon drew the line at BREAKING AN OATH. Just such a contrived way to force Cersei back into her chambers so Tyrion can have that convo with her. Like, even if you want to forget that he's already broken an oath of greater consequence, it still doesn't really make sense.

-It seems like, given the way they shot it, the reveal about Lyanaa/Rheagar's wedding is going to cause future conflict between Dany & Jon. But why? I mean I guess when Dany finds out that Jon is actually the rightful heir she'll be mad that she's not actually queen, but given everything we know about Jon shouldn't it be a very quick conversation? I don't think he really has much desire to be the king of the seven kingdoms.

-Love that the people who were complaining about how dumb the Sansa/Arya tension was are the same ones hating on them outsmarting LF. You can't have it both ways people. This was a great way for LF to go out, I don't see how you could argue otherwise. He's always been the best at playing the game. In fact his biggest misstep was trying to fight someone he couldn't beat due to being blinded by his love for Catelyn. Since then he has maneuvered his way to the top shrewd move after shrewd move. It makes perfect since for his demise to come due to him, once again, being blinded by love. He thought he had Sansa just where he wanted her. I also thought it was cool that Bran, once again, repeated his words to him. I wish he was more affected by that.

-One of the exciting things that happened that I haven't seen mentioned was how much stronger Cersei's position became. Both by addition (army of the iron bank) and potential subtraction (her enemies army's should suffer in the Great War vs the undead). Also having a powerful navy is as valuable as ever given the potential battle against the undead.

All in all I thought this was a very enjoyable episode. I think it was impossible for this episode to be great given how much they handcuffed themselves with the plan to kill bring Cersei proof & get her on board. It was just a terrible terrible plot device both in idea & execution. The saddest part is I think the thought process was basically "we need to have the walkers kill a dragon so it can burn down the wall". This would have been extremely simple, Jon says to Dany "Fine, don't believe me? How about I show you?" Jon and Dany ride Drogon beyond the wall so she can see for herself and bring the other two for protection, they go, the walkers see them and for whatever reason Jon has to fend them off and tells Dany to flee, NK kills a dragon, Benjin saves Jon, etc etc. Same things could have been accomplished, Jon & Dany's relationship would have actually been strengthened bc he saved her (thus justifying what would happen in the finale, rather than feeling rushed), and they wouldn't have to pretend like Tyrion could ever believe his sister could be trusted.

CDS,

the tyrion creeping thing was indeed weird, but i feel like his place in things has been a little weird this whole season. he's not cut out to be a military strategist (other than using his One Time at Blackwater) and it's making Dany wonder if he's a traitor or just stupid.

other than having that intense scene with Cersei (which is also going to turn out to be a failure and make him look worse in Dany's eyes) he has been relegated to a backup role for most of the season, and he's been screwing up a lot too. it feels like either a heel turn or a tragic downfall are in the cards for him. (or it could just be rushed exposition and questionable writing, that's the problem these days... hard to tell)