So I was somewhat underwhelmed by Avengers Endgame.
I was seriously disappointed in the Battle for Winterfell on last night's Game of Thrones.
For eight years they built up the coming threat from the Night King and his army of undead. And then in about 44 minutes of so-blurry-you-couldn't-tell-what-was-going-on action he was dispatched by a simple knife prick. This after absorbing a lengthy blast of dragon fire with no ill effects and waking the dead (and long dead) with a smug wave of his hands.
I realize the series is barreling to its end and I realize that that bloated sack of lazy goo George RR Martin wrote them into a box with an inconvenient white walker mythology that needed at this point to really just get the fuck out of the way so we can reach the end of the journey for Jon, Ceirsi, Dany, Sansa, Arya, Jamie and Tyrion.
But to get the entire threat the fuck out of the way like THAT? With no exposition, no explanation of what they really wanted and how they intended to get it? It felt incomplete. It felt rushed. It, for the first time, really felt formulaic. Last night was not great television. It was not up to the standards of the show that came before it. It was not worthy.
First, what the fuck with Bran? While all that's going on he's got his eyes rolled back into his head, flapping around with crows and offering nothing of substance or help. We didn't even get to find out what he was doing with the damn birds or what he intended to see.
So the Night King walks up to him. What does he want? What's his purpose? And why did Theon's stupid ass run at him like a drunken monkey instead of offering a defensive, fighting posture and at least having a chance. Such a stupid suicide run. The ignorance of that moment took away any emotion I might have felt when Theon died.
What a wasted opportunity in the crypt. How utterly cool would it have been to see a blue eyed Ned Stark crawl out of the crypt and try to murder Sansa? Oh wait, he was beheaded. That might not have worked. I don't know. Wasn't Robb or his mom down there? Let one of them do it then. Just an opportunity squandered you ask me.
That whole episode looked to me like a cross between The Walking Dead and World War Z with a little bit of "kill the head vampire" lore from any of a hundred different movies tossed in. It just wasn't what I'd been led to believe or hoped for.
The decision to bath the battle in dark tones and make the action nearly indistinguishable was a bad one. Very bad.
Also disappointing was the too-convenient decision to only remove a few fringe characters and leave the primary ensemble intact. That was formula television, not Game of Thrones. I didn't want to see any of them die, but I didn't want to see Robb, Ned, Littleweiner, Roz, or many of the others fall either. The fact that in the past that was possible helped elevate the show. Making all the "big stars" untouchable detracts from that.
Only three episodes left. I've got a feeling this series like far too many others is going to limp to the line.
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