Seriously badass episode, Blackwater. Expected, but it was still a sight for sore eyes. Good stuff. I think my favorite battle bits - besides all that green - is Stannis seeing a guy right in front of him get mutilated with a rock thrown from the wall.
But now it makes me retroactively dislike 2x8 even more than I did last week, because it really didn’t need to function only as a placeholder episode (to set up the epic 2x9). Don’t get me wrong, I love the things we did get in 2x8, for example, I actually think they’re doing a fantastic job with Theon’s SL thus far - I actually feel more sorry for him from the show than in the books, and I enjoyed that tiny hint of Asha/Yara caring for Theon as a brother - but it was as placeholder of an episode as you can get in GoT.
book spoilers:
[spoiler] Like, I think the sole focus on kings landing in 2x9 was a smart way to go about it, but if they had this in mind, to have this one episode where it is solely about this big buildup of a war, then why the heck would they not shuffle other things around so 2x8 would have its own set of big moments rather than being basically a placeholder where not much happens and things are only heavy handedly hinted at a “will happen later”? Considering the multitude of many many things - and these are the bare bones of the more big item ongoing sls in the books, not some random little bits that they could and most likely would cut for the show - they still need to sort of establish with a lot of their characters before the season ends and with only one more episode to do it, it seems almost idiotic that 2x8 sort of just sailed by not having a whole lot to do. I don’t know. They could be going for a major pile up of big moments in 2x10, and maybe it would work out, but more likely it feels like it is going to be so ridiculously overstuffed and the scenes wouldn’t have any room to breathe in the finale, or they’re shuffled things around so a crap ton of outstanding SLs won’t be dealt with until s3. 2x9 worked marvelously because there was that room to breathe, we have those quiet more intimate moments with only a selected few of the characters involved in the episode, we see their POV and motivations juxtaposed with that bamf of a battle. So retroactively, I feel like they basically wasted that hour of tv in 2x8 that would’ve provided that room to breathe for whatever big scenes we’d get in 2x10. IDK. It’s weird, I love 2x9 and I’m going to watch it again very shortly, lol, but it seriously made me mad about 2x8 now. Dany and the house of the undying would’ve worked in 2x8 (and then 2x10 would be the aftermath of that experience) instead of all that continuous whining about her damn dragons; Or if not that, they could’ve had Qhorin jump start the turncoat plan in 2x8 instead of having some heavy handed scene with Jon where it’s obvious this is going to happen - why not just have it happen right then and there in 2x8? Etc. Pacing issues, damnit. It bugs. [/spoiler]
