Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discuss

Rate and discuss (with spoilers for the episode, but not for forthcoming episodes) "The Watchers on the Wall", airing on the 8th June on HBO and on the 9th June on Sky Atlantic.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su9dq1vXtoU[/yt]

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Great visuals and fight scene
Light on plot
Not used to an entire episode on one story line

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

"Sir, they have giants. Riding mammoths."
"Well. Fuck."

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

I thought that shit was pretty great, much more engaging than Blackwater was IMO.

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

I've been waiting years to see this episode. I was not disappointed.

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Meh. Nowhere near as good as "Blackwater", mainly because the Wall's always been one of my least favorite parts of the story, so spending a whole episode there isn't terribly exciting for me. And I was disappointed the episode ended before the point I was hoping it would end at.

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

I have to say I like the TV version of Thorne way more than the book version (who is just this random asshole). This Thorne was a respectable, but bitter, badass. He's starting to remind me of Rawls from the Wire.

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Agreed on TV Thorne.

I thought this was fantastic, and I actually liked it better than "Blackwater." That might be because I'm biased in favor of the Wall and the Night's Watch, which is my favorite storyline from the books. Frankly I've grown a little weary of the show's obsession with King's Landing, so this was a fantastic break from all that.

Neil Marshall needs to direct more episodes. That 360 tracking shot was outstanding.

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Fantastic camera work. I know I'm being greedy but I want more mammoths and giants!

The bastards killed Pyp and Grenn. And we didn't even get to see Grenn's fight against the giant. Alas.

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

I love GoT fans.

Spoiler: This episode

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4oQzTGTc_g[/yt]

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

I tuned out after 40 minutes of the fight. It was well done, just not my kind of thing. Did anything else happen?

Jan

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Hum...

Spoiler: missing character

Where is Stannis and his army? I was really expecting their arrival as a reverse "Blackwater", narratively speaking

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

I thought it was a change for the worse to have the kid kill Ygritte rather than the emotional toil on Jon of not knowing if it was one of his arrows that took her down. Other than that I thought it was solid. Clearly they were trying to recreate Blackwater which is one of the shows high points but I don't think it was nearly as good as that episode. Also there seems to be a ton of story they intend to cover next week

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Loved the giant anchor sweeping the wall clean of wildings. I can easily see how a fully manned wall would be impregnable. The show needs more episodes per season seems like it just started.

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Awesome episode. Way better than Blackwater. Real men were fighting here.
I liked that we stuck with the main characters throughout.

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

The episode had its moments such as Grenn leading the men to hold the gate and inspiring them with the Night's Watch oath or Jon Snow arriving at the battle inside the Wall and going to town on the Wildlings with his Valyrian blade.

I'm sad to see Ygritte gone but there was no future for them but even her hesitation to put an arrow through his head spoke volumes much less her dying words, a very well done death.

Other than that it was "just" fighting but for some reason it didn't grasp me as much as Blackwater did (maybe because Jon is just not Tyrion who is awesome no matter what he does).

Still a very solid action episode but somehow i don't get these tactics.. if Mance outnumbers them a thousand to one why not rush them full force, tire them out and blow past the wall? The only reason i can imagine is that his numbers are exaggerated too but if not it doesn't make sense (and yeah.. i'm talking about realism in a fantasy show ).

Well.. next week is the season finale and boy can't i wait!

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Pretty good episode overall. Even if the Wall storyline has never been the most interesting, they still did a good job making the battle as dramatic and exciting as possible I thought. With a ton of really cool, badass moments throughout.

And I never thought I'd be rooting for Thorne at any point, but damn, it was cool as hell watching him take on the Wildling leader.

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Speaking of that giant anchor. To history buffs, has anything like that been used in our history in the defense of castles etc?

 

Re: Game of Thrones 4.9 - "The Watchers on the Wall" - Rate and discus

Also after Jon left to go after Manse why not collapse the tunnel as originally suggested. This would buy them a ton of time (to get reinforcements/help) and they would only have to deal with the wall climbers. Even the giants would take a long time to dig through the collapsed tunnel.