Hey, an honest-to-goodness Blu-ray post. Wow! Game of Thrones has been one of the best and most addicting shows on TV for five years now, but here in its fifth season it really started to feel like a show that's past its prime. And that's a shame, because HBO wants the series to run for at least eight seasons - which is at least three more - plus series author GRRM has at least two more books' worth of content coming. (You know. Allegedly.) So what went wrong in Season 5? Has the series truly jumped the shark, or are there reasons to believe this was just a temporary dip in what will ultimately end up being a fantastic television show?
I'm honestly not sure. I'm rooting for the latter - I want to love this show with all my heart, as often as I complain and nitpick about all kinds of great games and movies and TV on this blog - but I've got this nagging feeling that the "magic," so to speak, has worn off. When [REDACTED] lost his head in the first season, it was a huge moment that boasted, "this is not Lord of the Rings or any other typical fantasy show. Your heroes are going to die here." When [REDACTED] and his wife and mother got betrayed in the third season and an entire bloodline was wiped out, it was another great "holy shit!" moment. Yet here at the end of Season 5, when [REDACTED] was betrayed by his comrades and stabbed to death Julius Caesar style, it was just kind of like, "eh... he'll be back." The series - both the written one and the televised one - is more than halfway finished now, and thus we're slowly winding our way toward a conclusion. This means that the principal characters who've made it this far probably aren't going to die at this point - at least not before the very end of it all. It also means that we likely won't see many new locations or families introduced (although based on how the whole Dorne arc went in Season 5, that might not be a bad thing).
My main point here is that a series as epic and sprawling as this one can't keep expanding - soon it'll have to collapse back in on itself, connect all of its disparate plot lines, and reassemble its heroes and villains. And honestly, that should be awesome. I can only begin to fathom the (surviving) Starks, Lannisters, and Targaryens teamed up (perhaps) against an invading army of white walkers, with dragons on their side. That should be fucking awesome, right? Like bringing all of the Avengers together. Or who knows? Maybe these families will take up opposite sides in the presumably climactic conflict. But they should all be in one place - maybe two or three - and that should be pretty hard to fuck up.
In a way, Season 5 felt not like the beginning of the end, but like a transition season. When you compare where we are now to where we were at the end of Season 4, it's actually quite different, which means a lot of this season featured people moving around, realigning themselves, and "setting up" for the next big conflicts in general. But watching all these characters maneuver themselves both figuratively and in a literal geographical sense doesn't necessarily make for compelling television. In fact in some cases it was downright clumsy. Season 5 introduced a ton of new conflicts and changes, but it lacked the memorable moments that shaped the first few seasons - and the last two seasons in particular.
I'll try to demonstrate what I mean. Here - thanks, Reddit - are the final scenes from every episode in Seasons 3-5. Spoilers will obviously follow...
S3E1: Barristan Selmy saves Daenerys and reveals himself
S3E2: Brienne and Jaime captured by Locke
S3E3: Locke cuts off Jaime's hand
S3E4: Daenerys purchases and frees the Unsullied, then flame-roasts their former master
S3E5: Tyrion and Cersei learn of their respective wedding arrangements
S3E6: Jon & Ygritte climb the wall and then kiss
S3E7: Jaime saves Brienne from the bear
S3E8: Sam kills a White Walker
S3E9: The Red Wedding
S3E10: Daenerys crowd surfs
S4E1: Arya and the Hound kill Polliver and his men and Arya reacquires Needle
S4E2: The Purple Wedding
S4E3: Daario kills the Mereenese champion and throws chains over the walls
S4E4: White Walker baby
S4E5: The battle at Craster's keep
S4E6: Tyrion demands a trial by combat
S4E7: Lysa out the moon door
S4E8: The Red Viper vs. The Mountain
S4E9: Battle at the Wall; Jon Snow leaves to find Mance Rayder
S4E10: Arya sails for Braavos
S5E1: Mance burns at the stake
S5E2: Drogon flies away from Daenerys
S5E3: Jorah captures Tyrion
S5E4: Barristan and Grey Worm collapse after the Harpy attack
S5E5: Jorah has Greyscale
S5E6: Ramsay rapes Sansa
S5E7: Cersei is arrested by the Faith
S5E8: Battle of Hardhome
S5E9: Drogon rescues Daenerys from the fighting pits (also, Shireen burns at the stake)
S5E10: "For the Watch"
I dunno, is it just me? It felt like every other episode in Seasons 3 and 4 ended on some kind of huge water cooler moment. This time around, when a primary character was raped, or when a child was burned at the stake, it just didn't register as ballsy or shocking or jaw-dropping. The lone exception to my apathy was the Battle of Hardhome, easily one of the most intense and thrilling and harrowing sequences the show has ever created.
But again, what really happened this season? Let's observe the principal characters and their arcs.
Tyrion spends the season getting to Mereen.
Daenerys spends the season struggling to rule Mereen.
Jon spends the season struggling to rule at the Wall.
Arya spends the season training to be an assassin.
Sansa spends the season as a miserable pawn in a political marriage.
Bran is entirely absent this season.
Brienne spends the season looking for something to do or someone to serve - seriously.
Stannis spends the season preparing to attack the Boltons.
Jorah spends the season trying to get back in Daenerys's good graces - and also contracts a terminal illness.
Cersei spends the season trying to undermine her new daughter-in-law and ends up pissing off the Faith.
Margaery spends the season being undermined by Cersei and targeted by the Faith.
Jaime spends the season milling around in Dorne and accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Theon has perhaps the lone interesting arc this season, as he slowly overcomes the torture and anguish he's been put through. It's an internal conflict more than an external one, but over the course of the season he stops being the meek and subservient Reek and reclaims his identity as Theon Greyjoy. The problem is that this plays a lot better on the page, where we're given access to Theon's point of view, than it does on screen.
That's pretty much everyone. All the rest of the characters just act as secondary participants in the above "storylines." The question now is whether or not Season 6 (and Seasons 7 and 8) will eschew this wheel-spinning in favor of forward momentum. I hope so! I really do. But I have my concerns...
...
..."You want the good girl, but you need the bad pussy!"
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