Max - Sultan of Television: Game of Thrones: Too Little Too Late

Though I usually don't quote the show I review unless it is a series finale, I'm going to take a minute to just make sure everyone knows that a certain line was written, performed, and then used in the final wrap of the season five finale.

"You want a good girl, but you need a bad pussy!" - One of the Sand Snakes.

This one line, with a few plot exceptions, should kinda sum up my thoughts on the episode. It was shocking and ridiculous, but why exactly was it in the show? Since I'm already on a negative tangent, why don't we start with the worst and move up to the best.

I am not a reader of the Song of Ice and Fire books, though many of my close friends are. The big story heading into this season, for book readers, was whether the fifth season would tackle the Iron Islands or Dorne. The show obviously had no room for the both of them, and when the natural continuation of Oberyn Martell's storyline was chosen, bringing our characters to Dorne, a lot was made about it. A brewing civil war seemed to be on the horizon along with plenty of new and interesting characters. However, as it turned out, the show didn't have time for either plotline, and despite the beautiful new sets, promising new characters, and fun of Bronn and Jaime hanging out, the entire season five Dorne plot completely fell flat.

In short, our plot for the season was this: Jaime is worried that his daughter/niece is going to be killed in Dorne, so he and Bronn go out to rescue her. In Dorne, Ellaria Sand, Oberyn's lover, and their bastard daughters, the weirdly sexual Sand Snakes, want to start a war because... revenge. Upon arrival, Bronn and Jaime kill some guards, and then literally just waltz into the throne area of Dorne without any problem whatsoever. Then, they fight the Sand Snakes a little, go to jail, get out, agree to bring both Doran's son and Jaime's daughter back to King's Landing happily, and leave Dorne. However, Ellaria poisons Jaime's daughter, continuing to start a fruitless war for no apparent reason other than missing Oberyn.

Minus the plot holes and ridiculously terrible writing for the Sand Snakes, the biggest problem with this plot was just making the audience care. Having spent no time with any of these new characters, my caring level was at a big low. Though I'm a fan of Bronn and Jaime, it almost felt as if the show had nothing to do with them for a season, so they sent them on a wild goose hunt in a pretty new location. While Doran and Ellaria both had potential as characters, the sheer lack of screentime made them into archetypes without substance. We had a stalwart, nice-guy, FDR looking king and an evil vengeful woman starting shit literally just for the sake of starting shit. While this may all lead to another war between houses next season, following all of this for ten episodes just felt like a waste of time.

Let's move on to Stannis Baratheon, the highlight and lowlight of this season. For seven episodes, we watched the rise of Stannis as a person. He accepted his daughter, he started to push away Melisandre, and he sought to take the North from the cartoonishly evil Boltons. However, in a split second, when the going got tough because of Ramsay's "20 good men," Stannis immediately sacrificed his daughter to the Lord of Light, and within in episode, was marching to his grave with a quarter of the army he once had, and got himself beheaded by Brienne of Tarth.

My problem with Stannis's plot was not the end result, but rather how rushed the narrative was. We spent most of the season learning to love him, and in a split second, learned to hate him. Immediately afterwards, he met a cold death. We just needed more attention paid to why Stannis made his decision, or how everything that happened happened. Yes, it was satisfying to see him die after doing such a horrible act that was in vain anyway, but Stannis's rise and fall felt just too rushed. The attention to detail and emotion was lost in exchange for just speeding along with the plot. It's the old problem that Game of Thrones has had before - moving along the actual course of events instead of focusing on character.

We now come to the Stark girls. Both have been tested by their respective situations, and both barely moved from where they began. Arya has been tested as to whether she can adapt to Braavos and become the warrior she always wanted to be. She ends the season by trying on a new face, murdering (in a heavily gratuitous manner) an old nemesis, and then going blind in a bit of a confusing turn of events. While I have no problem with how things turned out, we never really understood how scrubbing bodies and hearing mysterious men saying "a girl must become no one" actually caused the transformation of Arya. That being said, it was satisfying to see these rather slow and boring aspects build up to Arya taking another step toward the badass we all want her to be.

Meanwhile, Sansa has been running around with Little Finger for a while, only to end up back in Winterfell, betrothed to Ramsay Bolton. She goes through a lot, from Ramsay's rape to her discovery of what Theon has become. However, in the end, we never really learned her plan. Was it to wait for Little Finger to return? To murder Ramsay? To mope around a lot and then jump off a castle wall? In Sansa' seasonal conclusion, Ramsay's ex-girlfriend attempts to kill Sansa, when Theon comes to her aid, throwing the adversarial ex off the castle wall onto stone, where we hear a sharp snap of death. Then, in frantic confusion, Theon and Sansa jump off the castle wall themselves, into the snow.

This seems like rather poor planning. After witnessing someone die from jumping off a castle wall, jumping off that same wall, albeit into snow, still seems like quite a poor decision. As viewers, we know that Sansa and Theon cannot possibly be dead, but it still doesn't make a lot of sense. What exactly does Sansa plan to do here, with possible broken legs accompanied only by a broken shell of a man? Hopefully Little Finger comes back to spice things up.

In Mereen, Daenarys has taken off on the back of Drogon when the going got tough. At the same time, in the city itself, Tyrion, Jorah, Daario, Missandei, and Grey Worm have been left in charge. Daario and Jorah decide to go off in search of Danny, while Tyrion agrees to manage the city through Grey Worm, whom the city apparently respects a lot.

Sidenote: why does the city respect Grey Worm? To me, it seems as if the Unsullied are just about the most useless warriors in Westeros. When they're being massacred by the Sons of the Harpy, a bunch of robed people armed with knives in masks that they probably can't see out of, it seems hard for a city to respect the leader of such an incompetent army.

Anyway, while a bit pat, our characters have renewed intrigue as to where they will go in relation to Danny. In addition, Varys reappears, having tracked Tyrion here. We get the highlight of the entire episode right here, with Tyrion and Varys's excellent dialogue and dynamic returning, patronizing each other while at the same time being thankful for finding one another. Yay Varys!

Danny on the other hand, has landed somewhere in the middle of no where, trying to get the angry teenage Drogon to at least eat! Alas, all Drogon (who wants to go by Flinn right now,) wants to do is smoke weed, listen to Pink Floyd, and masturbate to his bedside poster of Christy Brinkley. Daenarys, pissed off about this, walks off the perch where they are, only to suddenly be surrounded by Dothraki, appearing out of nowhere.

All comedy aside, I liked the Danny plot in the finale. It's a bit random, but the intrigue of whether or not the title of Khaleesi still holds or not is present. In addition, at the very least, all of our Mereen plot characters actually have a purpose and a directive, more than we can say for a lot of the other people on the show.

I've been harsh on this episode and season, but where credit must be given, I will give it. Let's zoom over to King's Landing. Cirsei Lannister has had a tough couple of episodes. After granting power to the ISIS of Westeros, the Sparrows, she has been imprisoned and threatened with execution. Now, in order to get back to the Red Keep, Cirsei is forced to take a walk of shame through the city, marching naked, with a body double, through the worst parts of King's Landing, all while a woman behind her rings a bell and says "shame." The scene was incredibly hard to watch, yet at the same time, incredibly well done. We feel bad for Cirsei, yet we hate Cirsei. We want the walk to end, yet we want comeuppance. And, when the sequence finally does conclude, we are introduced to Ser Robert Strong, the zombified version of The Mountain.

The highlight of the entire scene was the very end. Cirsei is wrapped in a blanket and picked up by the monstrous Robert Strong. It's one of the only times we've actually seen Cirsei as vulnerable and scared. However, in our last shot of the sequence, Cirsei's face changes from humiliated and scared to a face we've seen so many times. No longer is she the skinny woman suffering, but the moment she is back in the Red Keep, Cirsei realizes she can finally slaughter all who oppose her. The cards are back in her hands, and the Lannister matriarch is ready to rock and roll. Lena Headey impressed me more in this one moment than in the entire rest of the show, something hard to do, as Headey has been so impressive since the beginning.

Finally, we come to Jon Snow. Deceived by Olly, his protege, along with Alistair Thorne and the rest of the Night's Watch, Snow is led to a sign marked "traitor," and stabbed to death. While shocking and well-done, we must not forget that Melisandre, someone known to have the power of resurrection, also showed up at Castle Black earlier that day. I have mixed feelings on this whole situation. if Jon Snow is resurrected back to his old self, I hate it. I hate resurrection. It's one thing with The Mountain, where he is resurrected as a zombie killing machine, but it's a whole different song and dance should Snow come back his nice ol' self. On top of that, the emotional impact of the Mountain's death was little, while killing off one of the main characters of the entire story in Jon is quite different.

However, on the other hand, it was well-done. Game of Thrones has always had a central theme of leadership, and what it takes to rule well. Jon took the route of sympathy, forging an alliance with the Wildlings, something taboo yet necessary. In the end though, the leadership route, though best for the world, was perceived wrong, and Jon paid the price of death. He was a good man, no one can deny that, yet ignorant of his people's demands. While we're all sad to see him go, it goes to show that in the world of Westeros, reality is harsh, and when one does something against their people's wishes, even if it is an act of kindness, they must all get their comeuppance.

In an overall sense, I was dissapointed by Game of Thrones season five. After an amazing fourth season, I was psyched for the fifth one. Aside from a couple episodes, ("Hardome!") the season was lacking. By no means am I done with the show or anything dramatic like that, but the HBO fantasy epic certainly has a lot to build back after what we've just seen.