I’d seen a few people’s (non-spoilery) reactions to the episode on twitter, but when I saw it last night I wasn’t particularly blown away. Maybe having seen one zombie horde, you’ve seen them all?
I was also a bit bored by the fight between Jon and the white walker commander, with the white walker never really pressing the advantage so we could see a bit of footage of Jon crawling along the floor for a bit before (suprise!) rolling out of the way when the walker finally tries to stab him.
Perhaps that white walker commander got overconfident and didn’t think he needed to press his advantage so hard over a puny human. He Oberyn Martell’ed it!
“Klaatu Baratheon Nikto!”
It’s Wun Wun.
I kept thinking to myself that 1) the fight went on way too long, they could have given us the gist of it and moved on without really losing anything 2) if I wanted to watch a zombie movie I’d watch a damn zombie movie.
I’m disappointed that, given such infinite possibilities that a fictional fantasy world provides, we got… more zombies.
But as mentioned in the article, they are not traditional zombies, more like dead puppets to the white walkers. The idea that every good guy casualty just adds to the ranks of the enemy army is a chilling one. The lemming leap was also very new and visceral in a way that the ant-like behavior of the CGI zombies in World War Z were not.
I guess the idea that the zombies were actual warriors, going around stabbing people was kind of new, rather than the normal “I just wanna chew on someone living”, but you never got the idea they were any more than mindless automatons.
"Olly is still pissed about his family getting massacred. Get over it! I
kid. But why do we have this scene? So that Sam can explain why Jon Snow
is doing the Hail Mary thing at Hardhome, presumably. "
EDIT:
SPOILER:
As a book reader, rest assured Olly's continued pissed offness about the Wildlings is important and going somewhere
That is a spoiler.
Hardly. But I will edit.
From the article: “I really liked Bjork-y Wildling Badass lady, and I think it was a major drag that she got eaten by the zombie kids. Would have been fun to see her more.” That is Danish actor, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen. We’ll see her again on HBO. She’s going to be in their untitled rock and roll drama set in the 1970s.
Since they’ve deviated so much from the books, who knows what will happen. Book spoilers are hardly show spoilers anymore.
So true. Although I feel the show is still heading into similar waters and ideas so for us book readers its now a “guess the change and adaptation” game. IMO it is easy to see Olly’s story being shoehorned into another plot from book 5.
Yes, I get that Olly is being built up to an eventual moment; just felt a bit as though the scene was a paraphrase of the one a couple of weeks ago between him and Jon Snow.
I see Cercei capitulating and confessing her transgresstions for the sake of her son and then becoming a believer.
I read it as, so that Sam can feel really guilty when Olly does something stupid later on. Something stabby, I reckon…
I found the action at Hardhome (lol) to be impossible to follow, even to the point of obscuring basic physical orientation during the fight scene, where it seems that Jon et al. routinely switch what side they’re on of the defensive pale based on, well, I dunno, cuts and stuff. It seemed at times like they’re all out in front of it, then all behind it, then half-and-half, but without seeing transition shots or usual means of showing movement. And then lotsa shaky shaky shaky Private Ryan-type close-ups that are dramatic and all but that also prevent a sense of where everyone is in relationship to each other. That said, it was a blast, loved the tension, loved the “Bring it, Crow” gesture of the Walker at the end as he reanimates the newly-born Walkers. And no rape! Fun times.
I just wonder how Jon explains himself down the road.
“So you had a bag full of super weapons that could have given us a real chance against these frozen dudes, you tried to give the whole lot of 'em to a bunch of people that hate your guts, and ended up not only leaving every single weapon behind but didn’t manage to kill a single zombie with one?”
“Uhhhhh… didja see I brought a giant back with me??” thousand mile stare
I the book it seems that dragon glass(knapped obsidian) wasn’t rare, there were several caches found while making camp on the butte during that early in the story full force Night’s Watch sortie north of the wall.
