Fantastical Musings

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this episode of Game of Thrones. On the surface, there's nothing wrong with it. We're back to the political drama which characterized the earlier seasons of the show, and I'm happy about that. I always enjoyed the political intrigue and plots more than the dragons and ice zombies. However, to me,  this wasn't a very memorable episode. I enjoyed it while I was watching it, but it didn't leave me burning with anticipation of the next episode. I'm guessing that the last three episodes are going to represent A Dream of Spring , the forthcoming last book of the ASOIAF series. So, episode four was probably designed to set up the conflicts for the second half of the season. In this episode, the showrunners are moving all the pieces into place before the action kicks off again. But, viewed as a single episode, it's a bit uninteresting. Plus, as others have pointed out, there are some frustrating and disappointing moments i...

What do we say to the god of death? NOT TODAY! Guys, that episode absolutely destroyed me! I was a nervous wreck the whole time! I was literally shaking when it was over. But, seriously, it made me horribly anxious. About half way through, I checked the time stamp, and I was like "I still have 45 minutes of this! I'm not going to make it! It's too intense." At that point, I actually wanted to stop watching because it was too much, but, by the same token, I had to keep watching. Usually, I watch each episode several times, but I don't think I'm going to be able to watch that again! Once was enough of a heart attack. Typically, I try to go through the events in each episode in chronological order, but I'm not even going to try to do that this week. I'm too overwhelmed by what happened to try. Now, as much as I was shocked and overwhelmed by this episode (in a good way), and, as much as I appreciated it, I do have some nitpicks that I want to ge...

The title of this episode should have been "sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya." All kidding aside, I loved this episode. I loved all the emotional moments and seeing all my favorite characters (probably for the last time). However, let's be real, nothing really happened here. As I was watching, I kept checking the time left in the episode, like "okay, I'm ready to get back to the plot now!" In another season, I would have loved seeing this episode. However, we only have four episodes left and one of them is going to be entirely the Battle of Winterfell.  That means we only have three episodes left to wrap up this huge plot! Keeping it real, we don't have time to be sitting around talking about the good ole' days. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the episode, but I worry that we're going to have to rush to wrap up the rest of the season because of it. Anyway, I'm going to move past that concern and dive into the review. Fi...

Game of Thrones is back, all right! (Kudos to you if you got that very early 2000s reference). Like everyone else in the English speaking world, I was beside myself waiting for season 8 to air. I almost can't believe it's happening! I feel like I have to keep pinching myself. As I was watching episode 1, I kept thinking "this is the last GOT premiere ever! How is this real?" I thought this episode was a good way to start off the season. True, we didn't get any big surprises or dramatic battle scenes, but this episode did a good job of setting up the stakes and conflicts for this season. Plus, we got to see some great reunions between our favorite characters. The episode opens with callback to season one. We see a nameless little boy running to see the Dragon Queen and the King in the North arriving in Winterfell. I have to admit that when I first saw this little boy, I expected there to be a horde of wights behind him. I was imagining him getting killed in s...

Like everyone else in the world, I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for Game of Thrones to come back for its last season. I've been spending the last couple of days re-watching season seven, and, as I was watching the last episode, I realized that I never finished my review of it. So, as we're all getting ready to shocked and awed by the last season, I wanted to share my thoughts on season 7, episode 7. Let's get into the review: Wow. Just wow. Let's be real, this wasn't the best season of Game of Thrones ever (more about that in my upcoming season review), but this was a very satisfying episode. I've talked about all the issues I've had with this season ad nauseum, but I have to say that--for me--this episode went a long way to making up for all of that. I don't think this was the best episode of GOT ever (that honor goes to the Battle of the Bastards episode in my mind), but it was certainly the best episode of the season. So, let's ge...

Guys, this episode was A LOT. It was almost too much. It was a lot to take in. Just a lot. Like, I had some issues with this episode, which I'm going to go into later, but you can't fault this episode for not being eventful. It was pleanty eventful. I mean, there was a zombie polar bear and a zombie dragon. It doesn't get much more eventful than that. We start off with Jon's Dream Team (Magnificent Seven? Suicide Squad? Pick the right nickname) tramping through the snow as they cheerfully go in search of a zombie to capture. Dude. No group of people has ever been less concerned about embarking on a mission that is probably going to get them all killed. And, when I say probably, I mean that there's a 95% chance. Also, did I miss the scene where they talked over their plan? At least, I assume they made a plan before they embarked on this suicide mission. But I don't really care about this because, instead of doom and gloom and conversations about strategies, we ...

After I finished watching this weeks episode of Game of Thrones , I had to sit down for a minute (well, I was already sitting down) and think about what I just watched. There was just so much stuff that happened in this episode that it was hard to get my mind around it. When the episode was over, I asked myself "what was that episode about?" and I had no answer because so much stuff happened  that there wasn't really one moment that stood out as the climax. Look, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Was this the best, most memorable and exciting episode of GOT ever? No. It was, however, a solid, story building episode. In order to have big, emotional payoff, you have to give the show time to get all their ducks into a row (or dragons into a row). So, you'd better buckle up for a long review because we have a LOT of things to discuss. The episode begins with the most improbable thing to happen on Game of Thrones for a while: Jaime survives. This makes absolu...