![]() Fun to watch? Yes, but then Game of Thrones, even at its most bombastic, always is. Alfred Hitchcock famously coined the idea of the “ice box scene” – that moment when you’re raiding the fridge at 2am and you suddenly stop and think: “Wait, why did that happen?” Here, the entire central mission is one big ice box scene. ![]() Where once this show gave us interesting pairings whose discussions surprised us, now it seems more keen on big bangs and in-jokes.Įven the big bangs felt contrived. Some conversations were genuinely interesting – Beric’s discussion about death with Jon gave us a man’s entire philosophy in a handful of words – some were arguably necessary (it would have been odd if Gendry hadn’t mentioned his treatment by the Brotherhood) and some, such as Tormund and the Hound’s brief chat, were straight out of a bad buddy movie. Thus, in the frozen North the Westerosi equivalent of the Magnificent Seven traded quips, exchanged swear words and swung their dicks around. For while the stand-off with the Night’s King’s forces, Dany’s ride to the rescue and the dragging of Viserion from the icy deep were fun to watch (who wouldn’t gasp at the possibility of a zombie ice dragon?) the script was almost unbearably clunky. ![]() This penultimate episode suggests that, for now at least, spectacle has the upper hand – and with that comes a host of problems. The main problem David Benioff and DB Weiss have had with this truncated season is maintaining the balance between these two strands even as both the final battle with the Night’s King’s forces and the end of the Great Game draw closer. On the other, it is also a drama about deception, manipulation and quiet trades that happen in dark corridors. On one hand, this is a series that not only loves a showy set piece but that has consistently been able to deliver them. Game of Thrones has always been a show at war with itself.
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