I mildly enjoyed ep. 3 "Oathbreaker," the coolest part of which was the flashback. Not because it had the fighting (granted that was kickarse), but it actually was interesting and moved the plot forward. The rest was meh.
I'll sum it up for you from meh to interesting:
- Danerys: Gets told something she's already been told.
- Sam & Gilly: Still traveling, we're going to get to meet Sam's family...because, care?
- Lannister Twins / King's Landing: What I actually perked up for, "how do we respond to Dorne?" is postponed.
- Arya: It's always a nice payoff after all of Rocky's training that he beat Ivan Drago, right?
- Winterfell: Rickon's return is mildly interesting, but if Ramsay's IT'S A TRAP radar isn't going off...
- Varys: Actually interesting look at his character.
- Castle Black: Jon executes traitors (I mean, expected given his father and previous season's beheading) and quits the watch. Before, in between, and after basically saying everything we've all been speculating/hearing for an entire year (if not longer for the book readers).
This last point brings me to the main reason for today's entry.
Reading a decent number of reviews that are calling last night's episode a "monster episode" (Paste Magazine), or Vulture's "excellent episode" get the raised eyebrow. The episode was slow moving at parts, and interesting at others, giving it an "ok" from me, but I think "we" think it was a great one because the interesting parts of the show aren't actually in the show -- they're outside it.
We've all gotten to a point where the conversation, and the hypothesizing has eclipsed what's actually happening in Game of Thrones. We don't realize Oathbreaker was mild, because we're more interested to see if what we read in EW, Nerdist, the forums, etc. is going to happen or not. In previous seasons, we simply had to keep the #spoilers mum or avoid them.
"I bet Jon Snow is going to quit the watch, because he technically DID end his watch!!!" is our payoff when it happens. Ok, so we were all right, and will probably continue to be so for quite some time.
Is this fun?
Maybe we've all collectively jumped the shark here, because last night's episode was simply "very set-up heavy" and we're simply drunk with the speculation?
I guess this is what happens when a series of not-yet-finished books becomes insanely popular on TV and the rest of the world collectively writes the end? I could be angry with Martin, I could cry #doublestandard when it comes to book readers not spoiling it for TV viewers (funny comic on that here)..., but I guess this post will do.
