Rate 6x05

I guess D&D were right when they said that this season might be their best season yet. 

I was going to vote 9 but decided it really does deserve a 10 for the entire episode as a whole - evaluating all scenes equally.

Did a re-watch before voting. I thought I'd fast forward bits but didn't - it was that good.

Cried again when Dany and Jorah parted. Emilia freaking knocked it out of the ballpark with that scene, seriously. She's matured a ton. She even looked and sounded older. I think that's definitely intentional after her second re-birth by fire.

Every scene this episode was very good. Same way I felt about Episode 2.

This was another insane rollercoaster of emotions. I had a hard time thinking straight after the ending. I was in shock about Hodor.

As others have said, my only minor negative was Euron. He did not command the audience the same way Yara and Theon did. His speech came across arrogant and mean-spirited. Even admitting to killing Balon which is pretty brutal, seemed petty and lame. I think they were trying for something more Ramsay-like there, but it didn't work the way Iwan does it for me.

BUT - even with that minor bit, the overall atmosphere and action/music of the kingsmoot and the drowning scene and Theon/Yara stealing the ships was fantastic so I can't fault the entire sequence of scenes only on the Euron disappointment. Still a solid story for the Ironborn overall.

Arya - I'm torn here. I know things are going to soon get more exciting for her but I think they dragged out the drama with the waif a little long. The fight choreography and subsequent mystery of the new 'target' and scene with Jaqen saved it from being boring though.

Meereen has gotten better and better after starting out rather boring. Kinvara on the scene and her excellent interaction with Varys was so well done I already like her a lot. Varys reaction was priceless.

As for all of the visions and Bran ... well I'm not even going to go into detail as it would fill up pages. Everyone else has already articulated it well and we're all together in feeling completely shocked and heartbroken to find out exactly how and why Hodor became Hodor. I never had a clue and George knew all these years... all the Hodor jokes ... he knew it would come back to collectively smack the entire fan-verse in the face. Now we feel like a massive collection of assholes for joking about Hodor.

A 10, or close enough (9.5) that it's a 10 anyway. What a beast of an episode. Interconnecting the tragedies of past and future like no other episode had done before. Definitely an "all-timer" for me.

Hold the door 

And goodbye, Max. I got shivers in your final scene 

10. I've said everything in the Leaks thread, so I won't bother rewriting it here.

Kingsmoot wasn't as cool as in the books, Hodor's death was really sad. I'm not sure how I feel about the WW reveal, but I'm glad the story is finally telling something about them.

First 10 since Olly's death! A 9 was quite tempting, but the negatives weren't exactly negative, more "meh"

The Positives
-Every performance was fantastic
-That play was great, looking forward to more!
-Looking around maps! I expect maps to be looked at in every episode until the battle! Maybe we'll get a new champion map-watcher like Stannis and Robb. Anyway, I love all the strategising scenes and having so many characters in the same room together was really quite exciting
-The Blackfish shall return! Hoorah!
-The Kingsmoot post-drowning. The music and the juxtaposition of running away and the coronation was incredible and redeemed the prior scene.
-Jorah's farewell was one of the best Dany scenes I've seen. Sometimes the quieter moments can easily outdo the big, large "badass" moments. I just want to see Jorah again before the season is over!
-Kinvara was excellent - I hope this isn't her only appearance this season
-Every vision was amazing.
-He held that goddamn door I feel like that's been building up since season 1, and boy did that mystery pay off.

The Mehs
-Braavosi fight club? If they assassinate through poison is all the hand-to-hand Batman-style punching really necessary? Oh well, I get that it's probably just trying to establish a rivalry between Arya and the Waif but it still feels a little weird this way.
-Summer turned into Ghost? That fur was incredibly white (I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel with these problems )

-The Kingsmoot Pre-drowning. Maybe it's the lack of "other candidates" but the whole scene just felt awfully empty and quiet. Pilou's acting was alright I thought, he just lacked any real standout moments or lines. In all honesty the guy who challenged Yara before Theon spoke left more of an impact on me than Euron did. And there was something about the line "Let's murder them" which seemed really off. Maybe too on-the-nose, too obvious for my liking. I was reminded of Tyrion's "Let's go kill them" at the Blackwater, but that was more effective that this one because there was a bigger, stronger speech beforehand. Euron didn't have that.

All in all though, the rest of this episode was outstanding and it still deserves a 10!

wtf just happened

I've said this like 3 times already...but i was absolutely devastated. We lost Hodor, Bloodraven and Summer. WHYYYYYY
I guess i'll start with the Bran cave stuff. Lordy that was good stuff. Loved his visions, finally seeing how the WW were created and hey! Westeros wasn't always cold at the top there. Very, very interesting. I had previously played with the thought that the COTF created the WW to defeat the First Men but then realised they created a monster they couldn't defeat, like many others had. The scene was so intense, i loved the acting from everyone, Meera and the COTF especially. Fuck the music was 'chilling' . I was a little sad that they got rid of all the COTF now, and summer like WTF, why so soon, especially just after shaggydog I actually screamed "NOOOOOO". Not happy Jan. Hold the door RIP Wylis. Oh man i can't believe people were actually right about that its not funny

Ironborn 'kingsmoot' was a fucking let down. So what? they introduce Euron and now he's going to build ships just to be introduced next season again...i don't think we'll be seeing him again. I felt like admitting he killed his own brother wouldn't have gone as well as that. I mean the Ironborn are scumbags but they are loyal at least. Where was Euron's people? where was the atmosphere? They should have built up Euron more as a competitor. I mean his first scene on the bridge was fantastic, i think his performance here was more due to bad dialogue than the actor. So now Yara and Theon are heading for Daenerys i kinda don't like it
I did like Theon sticking up for Yara, my girl Yara has it so hard. But to be fair she was kind of shit when talking to the crowd 

Sansa and LF scene...Look i'm proud of you Sansa for sticking up for yourself. But why weren't you smarter? Take LF, keep your enemies closer, haven't you learnt by now? Why didn't you kill LF and those loyal to him when the time was right, you could have easily persuaded Sweetrobin to gather the Vale in your support and then you would have marched the North with an army ALREADY behind you. Silly, silly decision for her to even go to Mole's Town by herself and not inform Jon. Then later she's trying to lecture Davos on the infamous loyalty of the North. Take a seat gurl. I did love the scene with Sansa and Jon where we got to see him smile when she handed him the Stark fur cloak. And Tormund looking at Brienne I love it soo much. But Sansa sending Brienne away...still i don't see the point of it really. The blackfish, did he ever meet Brienne, how can he trust this random woman with a lannister sword? Really. Just a way to get Brienne and Pod where they need to be i don't quite buy the reasoning behind it.

Dany scene was so freaking emotional, i think it was my favourite scene of the episode Emilia was great and looked beautiful especially the emotion she portrayed through the eyes. And Iain Glenn of course is awesome as usual. I knew this was coming, i mean Dany has always loved Jorah (even if not romantically) and would forgive him at some point. I really like Dany's new dothraki costume as well Sigh but Dany there's only one cure for Greyscale 
Mereen was okay...Varys was THE BEST part of that scene. I think this was a very smart idea on the writers part. Varys hates anything to do with magic so it would make sense to question the new Red Priestess and have a certain dislike of her to say the least. But i think the new girl on pyramid did pretty well, she has that mysterious melisandre-asshai thing going for her. 

Arya's scenes were fantastic, as always Maisie you darling. I loved seeing her laugh at the start of the play it quickly turned but i, again, loved the emotion you could see behind the eyes she was trying to contain. The play was pretty entertaining, i thought it could have used more music but overall pretty funny. We got a girl with the best boobs i've ever seen and some testes action and Essie Davis was GREAT. So was Jaquen and my girl the waif. Tom W was fantastic, i mean he always is but he got some pretty good dialogue this episode and i was pleased.

If Ghost dies next episode i'm going to be pissed. 

The good does not eliminate the bad unfortunately, but still a 9/10. I would have given it an 8 but the ending scene was just too good. Even though i hated some of the decisions

9.

Very good episode overall, but the Waif/Arya repetitiveness is getting on my nerves.

I gave it my first 10. It was the best of the season so far in a season that may end up being the best one yet.

Once again, it was an incredibly emotional and sad one instead of a triumphant one. I guess I got spoiled having a couple of wins in a row. What show do I think I'm watching!?!

We got amazing acting from Sophie again. And I appreciated the way they handled her confrontation with LF. She didn't shy away from her victimization, but she also still had enough backbone to face him. "I can still feel what he did in my body, standing here right now." Oh, poor Sansa. I'm confused but intrigued about her not telling Jon about LF. I wonder how much of that story she has already told him. I imagined the scene we didn't see at the Wall where she tells him about the marriages she was forced into and he tells her about getting murdered and reincarnated would be like the scene in Jaws where they compare scars. Yay, Brienne heading to Blackfish!

The waif hates Arya because she comes from nobility, it seems. Makes sense. Does NotJaqan trust Arya? It seems like they know she'll fail. They obviously sent her to see the play to test whether she still has Arya Stark feelings, and she obviously does. She basically had to relive Ned's execution from the same vantage where she first witnessed it. It's morbid that both she and Sansa have relived that moment via farce. The play itself was really well done. I wonder if Arya will believe their version of events, that Tyrion was responsible for what happened to Sansa. I wonder if she'll seek revenge on him. Maisie's acting continues to be phenomenal.

We finally get some clear peen, and it's on the Joffrey actor and has warts.

The scene of the Children of the Forest creating the white walkers blew my ass away. Didn't see that coming. That first man looked like a Stark to me. Who do you think it was? Does his identity matter?

I quite liked the Kingsmoot and Euron's arrival. I didn't find him distractingly bad, as some seemed to. Yara getting screwed by that patriarchy big time, eh? The only things I would have liked to see improved upon were his drowning and awakening...they didn't do anything? He just woke up? Lame. And I thought he probably should have been cruder and ruder about Dany. I don't really want to hear that shit, but he is Ironborn after all.

Dany wears black now. Jorah needs to find a cure and return to her. Yes!!

I'm glad to see that Tyrion knows his little win isn't enough. Kinvara is fucking scary. How does she know all of that? What does she look like without her necklace?

Oh, Bran, why couldn't you have gone back to the Tower of Joy? Brynden seemed to know this was going to happen, don't you think?

I was just celebrating Meera the Slayer when Summer ran into the pack of zombies. Trauma. Leaf sacrificed herself while being stabbed and ripped violently. Trauma. Hodor held the door. Fuck me.

You want a good 10, but you need the bad box of tissues.

I'm sorry.