*SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS*

Whoo chile!  I don’t know how else to sum up Episode 5.  Definitely, um, polarising, with what seems like more fans than not blasting it for a number of reasons such as Daenerys’ seemingly sudden turn to full-on wacko, the Lannister twins’ deaths in the rubble as opposed to more spectacular deaths, “Cleganebowl” not happening on a flat surface and Jaime and Euron’s weird fight.

Personally, I wish that we could have had one more season or in the least, 10 episodes instead of 6 to give certain stories more time to develop but hey, a girl can wish.  The show is definitely suffering from rushed storylines and character choices based on shaky foundations.  I totally understand writers trying to shock fans, which is something the show has been very, very good at, but in some instances it seemed akin to the old pulling the rabbit out of the hat trick.

A girl also cannot believe that we are one episode away from the end.  Sunday nights will never be the same.  Will it be the last show we watch in real time, together, all over the world? I must thank Achay-Bay-Oh for running the entire series from yesterday so I was able to watch a few episodes of Season 1 last night, yay!  A few years and a bigger budget make a huge difference for sure, haha.

Anyway, I’m going to go straight into my random thoughts:

1. The technical aspects of Sunday night were amazing.  If you haven’t already, take some time and watch this week’s “Game Revealed” segment on YouTube.  I continue to be amazed each week at the sheer amount of work that went into this series, particularly in the last few seasons when they would have been given bigger budgets.  It also shows anyone who is interested in art direction, set design, stunts and anything production-related that the possibilities are endless.

2. Dany really looked undone when Tyrion came in to see her.  I guess her on site hair and makeup died with Missandei, although I suppose she learnt how to do it herself after watching a few videos on WesterosTube so she was back to normal by the time she went all Capelton on King’s Landing.

3. I hope that prior to his execution Varys was able to send some Express Ravens out with the notes to Dorne and to the northern Lords about Jon, or what would be the point?

4. And as fuh Jon….the man annoyed me fresh in this episode.  I know this is waaaay back in whatevertime so a male ruler would have been preferred anywhere outside of Dorne (I see you Varys!) and Jon has a much better temperament than Dany but does that make him a better ruler?  He holds on to this “honour” like Tom Cruise on a plane in an action movie.  That is what got Ned killed, you dumb &%$#!  In Season 1, Renly Baratheon asks Ned, “Tell me something, do you still believe that good soldiers make good kings?”  He was right.  Jon is a good man, he is a good fighter, although he has found himself needing to be saved a number of times.  He is honourable but to a fault.  Ygritte is still right, he knows nothing and by nothing, I mean, he seems not to understand the twisted ways of the world he lives in, so I dunno man, he might not last on the Iron Throne if he gets it.

5. I will be pissed if Arya kills Dany.  I said what I said.  This is not the Arya show.  I love her character generally but how have they made her impervious to practically everything?!  Dragonfire, falling debris, falling buildings, explosions? Clearly this is a preview of the next Die Hard movie! Ok, so she is to survive to the final episode, I get it but don’t make it so Hollywood guys.  Please.  She should be dead. She.should.be.dead.  Or she should have escaped sooner.  I know, I know, we were meant to see the destruction on the ground from someone we cared about but not even a bad burn?  An asthma attack?  A broken limb?

6. Was the white horse that Arya used as her Uber Jaqen H’gar?  Or Bran?  Or just a horse?  I think a horse, yeah, a horse.

7. While I would have liked to see Cercei “dead bad” as Bajans say and I was duped at the end of episode 4 by thinking that Jaime was heading back to King’s Landing to kill her, in the end I was ok with how they died.  As gross as we think it is because they were twins, for him, she was that one person he couldn’t get enough of.  He loved her unconditionally, even if they “broke up” for a while and “started to see other people”.  They came into the world together and they left together.  Sigh, “The things we do for love”.  The books go into a depth about their relationship that would be difficult for a television show.  It is spoken of as them being two halves of a whole, mirror images and having a bond and connection that was unprecedented.  So I get it, I really do. Additionally, Cercei was killed by the same building that she felt the most protected by, the building that would “never fall”, so a form of poetic justice. 

8. I loved the WWE clashdown with the Clegane brothers.  I’ll miss Sandor but I enjoyed the fight and the Hound’s sarcastic laughter in realising that his brother was clearly telling him, “Not today” in all the attempts to kill him.   Imagine him knowing that he had to end Gregor by sacrificing himself into the fire, his ultimate fear.

9. Euron and Jaime’s fight was dumb.  First of all, how the hell did Euron survive the explosion on his boat?  All of that to randomly meet Jaime on a beach and trash talk him some more?  To me their fight would have been more convincing if they had discovered that each one of them was supposed to be the father of the slowest growing baby on earth.  Or even about the fact that Euron didn’t really want Cercei and Jaime did?  Then there was Euron’s dying words about being the man who killed Jaime Lannister?  Dude, that made no sense.  Speaking of not making sense, either Jaime’s adrenaline was on a 1000 or he just turned into a cast member of the Fast and the Furious franchise, because he got stabbed stabbed by Euron and was still able to make it to Cercei?  Again, “The things we do for love”…

10. I loved loved loved Jaime and Tyrion’s final scene.  I was trying so hard not to cry.  It was such an emotional goodbye and felt extremely sincere and warranted.  Tyrion, in spite of all the crap they put him through, loved his family and cares generally about people, especially those who he knew would be collateral damage in battle.

11.The Golden Company…who? I guess that’s why there was no need for CGI elephants, lol.  I think even they deserved a touch more screen time.  Just a touch so that when Captain Strickland was mowed down by Bae-Worm, we would have done something more than laugh.  Well, I laughed.  And while I know that all the Dothraki didn’t die in the last season, did Dany send a raven to another nearby Khalasar?  I didn’t know that so many had survived.

11. All the milk of the poppy in the world will not make fans feel better about the writers’ decision to have Dany kill innocent citizens (and tourists) of King’s Landing.  Even I asked at one point, why doesn’t she just make a beeline for the Red Keep?  That’s where your enemy resides.  She is literally watching you from a window right now!  Look, I know she is capable of ordering her dragons to burn people who refused go all Boyz II Men for her (e.g. Tarlys), she burned Varys without any sort of trial, she crucified the slave masters of Mereen way back in season five and the Lannister army last season, but they were all persons she perceived as bad (mayyybeee not the Tarlys’ so much?).  However, she always seemed to want to protect the downtrodden and became famous for freeing slaves, including Missandei.  I remember that her close advisors (Varys, Tyrion) had always tried to stop her from making rash decisions.  This is coupled with the fact that she lost one dragon on the capture-a-wight expedition that she didn’t have to attend, her closest friend was beheaded, her advisor betrayed her, she got NO LOVE in the north in spite of everything she sacrificed.  She lost the one man who loved her the most in the battle of Winterfell and the man she loves (albeit her nephew) has come down with a serious case of heebiejeebies because she is becoming a different person from who he thought she was, which has led him to pull away from having any romantic relationship with her.

I understand her choosing “fear” because she wasn’t given any “love” but it was all done so quickly.  I wish we had more episodes to see some more examples of “madness”.  She just seems to have turned into a very conventional tv/movie baddie.  Her MO?  To kill everyone and rule the world.  Again, I have no problem with changing her character into what happened on Sunday night, I just would have liked for there to be a longer buildup to her actions.

However, no matter what all the armchair and other critics are saying, on Sunday night we will say goodbye to a show that defined a generation.  A show that became the biggest television phenomenon in modern times.  Go on YouTube and watch some of the episode reaction videos, they’re hilarious and touching.  I also love reviewers like New Rockstars, Emergency Awesome, Talking Thrones, In Deep Geek and Dem Thrones.  I hope GRRM lives to finish the books and I’ll be there to buy the promised final two.  In spite of my concerns I am so excited and sad to watch the series finale.  I hate to see it go and I’m sure so does HBO.  Peter Dinklage, you’re amazeballs.  Lena Heady deserves her Emmy and/or Golden Globe next year, I am now a fan of Raleigh Ritchie and among others, I now follow Emilia Clarke and Nathalie Emmanuel on Instagram.  Interested to see their post-Thrones moves.

Until Sunday night….