Liam reviews the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
As many of those of you who browse social media on Sunday
nights know, season six of Game of Thrones (GOT) continues this week with the
sixth episode of the season “Blood of My Blood.” “Blood of my Blood” continues
this season’s winning streak, revealing more information and characters that will
propel the story forward.
Picking up after last week’s tragic and shocking ending,
this week’s episode reveals information about characters we haven’t really seen
this season and allows us to regroup and see where we are going over all for
the rest of the season. This week’s
episode has a lower key focus and pace than last week’s episode. It barely
focuses on the characters that were a major part of the last one. There is no
Jon, Sansa, or Tyrion in this. They aren’t the focus of this episode. There is
barely any Daenerys Targaryen until the last part of the episode, which is one
of the best moments of this season. Instead, this episode mostly focuses on the
characters that haven’t been seen much this season. We get to hangout with Arya
as she continues her quest to avenge her family members. We get to learn more about Sam’s family as
they go and meet them for the first time in the series. We follow Bran as he is
still being chased from the White Walkers. What I liked about this episode as a
whole was that it allowed us to hangout with the characters that have been
relegated to quick glimpses at best. It
is always nice to allow the other actors who usually don’t get a chance to
shine an episode to play to their strengths.
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| Do you know what this look means? |
Performance wise, there are two stand outs this week. Maisie
Williams and John Bradley-West are this week’s most valuable players. Arya has
always been one of my favorite characters and she did a great job dealing with
the conflict this season has for. There are real subtleties in her performance,
especially in the scene with the actress.
This conversation does a great job of feeling natural while still
revealing what makes Arya tick. The rage the mother should feel as Arya notes
in her comment is the rage that is driving her. This is a nice little character
beat for her. It allows us to understand why she is doing what she is doing.
This doesn’t just happen to Arya. Good old Sam Tarly gets
some great scenes in this episode involving reuniting with his family. And like
most Game of Throne’s families, they are assholes. I love when Sam decides to
fuck these people over. He has dealt with enough of their bullshit and the
world’s bullshit. It is great to see him deal with it in a way that feels true
to his character. As I have mentioned in my earlier reviews, this season has
really done a good job of earning these big character moments.
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| This is definitely going to hurt. |
The problems with the episode seem to be the pacing. Despite
being the shortest episode of the season so far, some of the scenes felt like
they were dragging. This felt like a filler or bottle episode that has one
awesome major moment involving Bran and a character that we haven’t seen a
while. Aside from that, this episode was not as compelling as last week. The
drama with the Lannisters is not as interesting as it thinks it is or was in
the earlier seasons. Tommen’s way of dealing with this is definitely going to
blow up in his face. I am looking
forward to that.
That being said this episode had a tough act to follow. Last
week’s episode blew up the internet and for a good reason. It was one of the
best episodes of the show period. This
episode won’t do that. It was a solid episode with some stellar performance
from characters we usually don’t see. I am so
excited to see where next week’s episode takes us and hopefully we can keep up
the quality of this season.
Until next week,
Liam.
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