On the last episode of Sam Writes a Novel, our hero sat atop a pile of words – almost 190,000 – at the halfway mark of 2019. For context, he entered the year with around 120,000 words written, a compilation of outlines, notes, and scattered scenes. The first half of…
Next time you feel empty or underwhelmed watching fantasy of any genre, ask yourself if the supernatural or technological leaps are analogous to anything a human goes through.
2019 has been a busy year for me, inasmuch as “busy” applies to a person who sits in one place to do his work and aspires to such an existence pretty much indefinitely. The sheer fact that I am Slogging at all is an achievement, a startling contrast to my…
A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE will end with A DREAM OF SPRING. HBO’s adaptation, called GAME OF THRONES, ended with “The Iron Throne.” The titles tell all.
“The Long Night” brought us ice, now “The Bells” arrives with fire to complete the song started by George R.R. Martin and finished by Game of Thrones
I liked ‘The Last of the Starks’ but I have a hard time determining if that’s because I was so cold (puns ftw) on ‘The Long Night’ or it was genuinely good. The show is multifaceted and some of those facets remain great, even diminished.
“The Long Night” is the biggest, baddest battle sequence ever put on TV and yet it might be one of the least satisfying of the many Thrones has delivered. It was a perfect storm of factors: a silent, implacable, and one-dimensional villain, the plot armor that kept so many major characters alive to the end, or the dark and occasionally incoherent cinematography.
The show and its characters took a respite this week in the calm before the White Walker storm. Your enjoyment will depend on how much you like the show’s handling of its character reunions in lieu of action or plot momentum.
Overall, a solid return to Westeros: satisfyingly speedy continuations to the remaining plots matched with the show’s less-than-subtle dialogue and messy character motivations.
When last we spoke about Game of Thrones, it was “Beyond the Wall,” the worst episode of the series by far. It was so bad that I lost the will to finish this recap at the time, as Season 7 faded into memory. Now, almost two years later, I’m here to finish what I started, catch up where we left off, and console myself that it probably took as much as effort as the forthcoming episodes did. Probably.
