What's going on guys Carmine here and welcome to my season 6 episode 9 review for Game of
Thrones.
Naturally because this is the dreaded episode 9 we got some explosive action and all out
bad ass scenes involving some of our main characters.
We get the battle of fire in Mereen quickly being decided by Dany and her dragons and
the battle of ice on the outskirts of Winterfell between House Bolton and their allies vs House
Stark and those loyal to them.
I've notice many websites and reviewers giving this episode a perfect 10 and I can see why
but at the same time there were some problems here and there and we'll get to them but ultimately
it was a very good episode and I am satisfied with how it played out.
The burning question remains: Did the epicness of this episode make up for the last few that
weren't up to par with the show and the answer to that is no.
As Stannis would tell you "the good does not wash out the bad" but it does make it stink
a little less so there's that.
Once again keep in mind that I am a reviewer, I will be letting you know what I liked and
what I disliked and yes you can expect some nitpicking here because nothing's perfect.
Lets get to the review
First lets start in Mereen and just let me say....I was correct.
Dany does comes in and saves the day with her dragons.
Episode 8 did ruin the suspense and sense of peril that Mereen had when the masters
began attacking by having Dany show up when she did.
I think it would've been a lot better to have Tyrion meeting up with the masters for talks
and then have her and the dothraki come out of nowhere to kick ass and change the tide
of battle.
While that may sound a bit more Hollywood?
I can forgive it if we get to see three dragons in action which is something that hasn't happened
since the end of season 2.
But that aside I did enjoy the Mereen stuff this time around.
I would've liked to see more of the masters armies and not just their naval power try
to take out Mereen, that way we could see more of the Dothraki in action.
I would've also liked to have seen more of the Unsullied fighting in the streets against
the harpies considering this was suppose to be an all out war against one place.
You'd kind of want to do more than just bombard them from afar.
The reason I say this is because it almost becomes like a cheaty hack to have dragons
do everything instead of armies and it makes Dany's story line almost boring in a sense.
It wasn't boring in this episode, dont get me wrong but over relying on dragons to take
care of all your problems just seems like a one way ticket to snooze fest in terms of
stoy telling.
It makes almost every single threat that she'll be facing have less power and I hope they
try to avoid that and still find a way to make any of her future enemies more threatening
and interesting.
And the reason that the siege of Mereen in the books is more of an entertaining thing
is because Dany isn't there to coordinate her dragons to attack, mainly because she
is still out in the wild with drogon and because her other two dragons are just flying around
causing chaos.
The siege of Mereen became even more chaotic when the Ironborn show up to complicate everything.
Whereas here it's all over in an instant.
Personally I would've liked to see Greyworm try to coordinate a counterattack against
the Harpies who have begun to invade the city and the great pyramid.
Then have the Ironborn show up from the rear and attack the masters ships,
maybe see Yara and Theon fighting their men and giving the Ironborn soldiers the spotlight
to show that they actually don't suck.
All the while Tyrion goes down and frees the other two dragons in the hopes of having them
turn the tide in their favor and then we have Dany come in and do what she does.
If I was writing for the show that is how I would do it.
I would put an emphasis on how crazy and chaotic battles can be to parallel what was going
on over in Winterfell.
But like I said I did enjoy what we got with Mereen but I just wish more characters had
more time..more screen time their own thing.
Also I've got to give props to Greyworm here who hasn't seen action since the first half
of season 5.
That double neck slice was awesome.
I also really liked how Dany comes back and Tyrion is trying to explain how things are
kind of working out despite all the crap being flung into the city.
I always love his banter with other characters...except Missandei and Greyworm.
That shit can be cringey as hell.
After the battle we get a nice little scene between Dany, Tyrion, Yara and Theon who I'd
never thought would be meeting each other in a thousand years.
If anything I always thought it would've been Arya that meets up with Dany or maybe even
Samwell Tarly.
But Yara explains to the situation and we find out that they actually escaped with 100
ships which is more than I expected but it isn't enough for Dany's army.
She needs 900 more and maybe some extra ones for her dragons to chill on for the ride over
to Westeros.
What I was really loving were Tyrion going after Theon for the shit he gave him in season
1 and Dany's interactions with Yara who is either a bi-sexual or lesbian...either way
HBO you're so close to making my fantasies come true.
All we need now is Sansa to join in and we got ourselves a party.
But here we are my friends...it seems that Dany is finally heading on over to Westeros
by next season just nobody tell her that there are more slave cities.
Jesus Christ if she finds out we'll never leave this fucking place.
Now lets turn out attention to the battle of bastards.
The prelude includes a nice little discussion between Jon, Sansa and Ramsay.
Ramsay was...a little off his game during his first meeting with Jon.
Especially during the whole "will your men want to fight for you when they hear you wouldn't
fight for them?"
You can tell that really got to him and he definitely lost that little engagement but
that was Jon's mistake.
Maybe Sansa's right....maybe Ramsay would've never let Rickon life but if there was any
chance of that happening?
pissing Ramsay off definitely helped put a nail in Rickon's coffin.
Ramsay wanted to return the favor by pissing Jon off and trying to goad him into charging,
which he later does.
But before we get to that let me just say that I absolutely loved the conversation between
Davos and Tormund.
I love little discussions like that among characters you couldn't imagine being in the
same room together.
Hopefully we get to see Tormund and Bronn together at some point.
I also really liked Sansa and Jon.
I agree that Sansa should've been involved in the discussion because she does know the
most about him.
In the book, Art of War, by Sun Tzu he states that in order to defeat your enemy you must
know him and yourself.
Since Jon Snow knows nothing...I think he could've used Sansa's advice and tips.
As for Melisandre while I thought her scene with Jon was cool?
I absolutely loved how they cut to her face later on when the Bolton banners are thrown
to the ground because in season 5 she did tell Stannis that she saw them coming down
in the fire and I must say where the hell was she in the battle?
In season 3 she tells Davos that if she were there during the blackwater she could've saved
the men from the wildfire...yet she wasn't in the battle of bastards at all.
You'd think she would try and spawn a few shadow babies to go assassinate Ramsay but
I guess you could argue that it would take extra time they don't have for the shadow
baby to grow inside her.
Plus you'd need King's blood and its very debatable if Jon is the king or not.
But lets get to the battle and in short...it was epic as all hell but I did have a few
nitpicky problems with it.
For example: Ramsay is playing his game with Rickon and shooting arrows at the boy but
I've got to say...
Rickon.... don't you know what a zig zag is?
damn dude!
i was yelling the whole time "ZIG ZAG YOU ASSHOLE.
ZIG ZAG".
It would've made it a little harder for Ramsay to kill him but nope.
He dies because of course that little asshole has done nothing in the show and like every
other cameo hes only back to die so they can tie up loose ends.
I call bullshit on this.
Not only that but what really annoyed me is why didn't they give Wun Wun a weapon?
in the season 4 dreaded episode 9, one of the giants had a bow and arrow.
Couldn't they have given Wun Wun some kind of club made from a tree or something?
hell even a shield would've helped a lot.
He could've bashed through the entire Bolton defense line if he hid behind something and
just ran through them.
My last complaint about the battle has got to be the shaky cam.
Seriously you guys need to hire a camera man that doesn't do heroine.
Hold that fucking thing steady god dammit.
Its like we have a monkey filming this whole scene and you guys know me... it was one of
my major complaints from the Oberyn vs the Mountain fight.
I just love those steady wide shots that show us exactly whats happening and who's fighting
who.
The shaky cam while Jon was in that cluster fuck of men being smothered together?
I can understand the shaky cam for that.
But all those aside?
it was an amazing battle and a great episode.
The one thing I wish would've happened was to have seen Jon fighting with alongside Ghost.
Back in season 2 we heard rumors of Robb Stark fighting alongside his direwolf and I would've
loved to have seen that with Jon.
It would mirror the two perfectly and definitely setup some discussions about Jon being the
new King in the North.
I don't know why they didn't include him but I guess you could argue that the reason we
didn't see Ghost was because Jon had him stay back to protect Sansa or maybe Jon had him
scouting out the area to pick off any Bolton scouts who wanted to sneak up on them.
I just think it's a bit weird for them not to include 5 seconds of dialog where Jon tells
Ghost "okay boy stay with Sansa.".
But all that aside lets get to what I did like and this may sound like a cop out but
I absolutely loved all of it.
The Battle of Bastards did not disappoint and it definitely deserves a place in the
dreaded episode 9 spot.
What I loved about it was that it did more than the other battles we've gotten have done
and what I mean by that is that it showed the nitty gritty details of an actual battle.
Horses charging into each other, men with their guts spilled out, People climbing over
each other.
Blood and mud all over the place.
It definitely wasn't the type of fight you'd see in the Lord of the Rings
where someone slides down the stairs on a shield while firing arrows at you.
The one thing the show does best is its fight scenes and it definitely gave us a horrific
but momentous feel of it and for that?
it definitely deserves to be up there in one of the best episodes the series has dished
out so far.
Personally I will always love the Battle of Hardhome but this is right up there along
with it.
I will say the CGI stood out a little bit in some places, especially when Jon is about
to be mowed down by the Bolton cavalry and then when his cavalry come from behind him
just in time.
But at the same time?
I loved it.
Watching him just get a little overwhelmed by what was happening all around with all
those guys smashing into each other and a little afterwards how it was chaotic.
Men being flung everywhere, guys trying to run up to him to attack.
It was all just amazing.
It was also really cool seeing those Bolton banners dip to the ground and the House Stark
sigil being flown once again in Winterfell.
It was very satisfying.
The one thing I will say that wasn't was that 1v1 between Jon and Ramsay.
Now this is just my personal opinion but...I expected more of a fight out of Ramsay.
I expected Jon to win because hes been through more fights than Ramsay but I did expect some
kind of epic fist fighting to go down but no....Ramsay went down like a bitch.
I said it before and I'll say it again: I haven't seen a worse 1 on 1 like that since
the Mayweather Pacquiao fight.
But in the end it was an amazing episode, I wasn't too keen on Ramsay's death because
I felt like he should've been burned alive so we could hear his sinister laugh throughout
Winterfell but being eaten alive by his dogs seems fitting enough.
This is definitely one of the most brutal deaths that will be tough to beat for those
characters who have it coming.
But like I said it was a great episode, really happy that despite this season being a little
iffy in some places that they managed to keep the dreaded 9 still awesome with a lot of
surprises.
I also need to give a shout out to my favorite character Petyr Baelish at the end for that
Rohirrim charge.
I was expecting them to come in late but I'm glad they arrived in time to turn the tide
of battle.
Now before I end the video, as always I like to share with you guys some people in the
community who I think deserve your attention.
When the season begun I shared Miss.Lauren's Etsy page where she made some cool charcoal
paintings from the show.
I'm happy to report shes restocked a bit with some of the House sigils which include: Stark,
Targaryen, Lannister and Tyrell with more on the way.
I'll leave a link in the description below so you all can check them out and pick up
a few for yourself.
Guys once again thank you so much for watching, if you enjoyed the video then show me some
love and hit that like button, subscribe if you're new here and I'll see you all next
time.
Have a good one.