Game of Thrones Review by John Keegan

Game of Thrones 5.05: Kill the Boy

Game of Thrones 5.05: Kill the Boy

Written By:
Bryan Cogman
Directed By:
Jeremy Podeswa



After building up quite the momentum in the previous installment, this episode felt like a concerted effort to channel the monotony and grind that much of the fourth and fifth volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire represents.  It was so slow and methodical that I found myself cringing at the realization that the same writer/director duo is responsible for the next episode. 








Things start off well, though with Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, finally living up to her name.  I thought it was sweet how her dragons managed to share!  It certainly put Hizdahr zo Loraq in his place, which is a bit of a change from the source material.  And yet, after that, there wasn’t much to write home about, because Dany decided that the best thing to do would be to re-open the fighting pits and marry Hizdahr.  Granted, it jumps a good bit down the narrative stretch, and gives hope that some of the more interesting events will kick into gear this season, but this pacing all but eliminates the possibility that the Meereen situation will be resolved any time soon.  Look for that in Season 6, I suppose.



One might have suspected more would be happening up at the Wall.  Alas, much time is spent, but not much more than Jon throwing his weight around a bit (“killing the boy to unleash the man”) and the writers changing up a few rather important items.  Jon’s idea of gathering an army of Wildlings is far from popular, but he has a damned good point.  The trouble is that he’s terrible at explaining his own logic or, more importantly, first convincing key allies so they openly endorse his plans.  Jon may have some aborning leadership qualities, but he’s still taking too much on his own shoulders.








Stannis has meanwhile elected to start his match on Winterfell, which includes his wife, daughter, and oddly enough, Melisandre.  I won’t even mince words on this note; this is a major divergence from the source material, and it will be curious how the writers choose to handle things that are very likely to happen towards the end of the season if she’s not around.  Granted, I’m exposing one of my own assumptions about where the story was meant to go in the books, so there may be a pre-planned solution to this looming problem that I am missing but the show’s writers already have in motion.



It’s worth noting, however, that the concerns over winter have been reinforced enough that even the presence of snow flurries is enough to concern me for the welfare of the Baratheon army.  The Boltons are already planning a defense of Winterfell, and with Ramsey at the helm, it’s either going to be the worst defense in Westerosian history, or one of the most terrifying and bloody routs of an invading army imaginable.  If the winter snows come early, that could easily tip the tide in the favor of the Boltons.  (Check out several examples from the American Revolution and the War of 1812, in terms of weather-related reversals of fortune.)








Speaking of Ramsey, he had plenty of long, tortuous scenes to offer the audience in this episode.  As much as I personally enjoyed seeing that much of Myranda, there were plenty of other things that might have been covered in the same amount of screen time.  And the scene at the dinner table with Sansa and Reek was just plain ugly.  Fine, we get it; Ramsey operates out of a severe lack of sanity and confidence in his station.  And it wasn’t going to be long before Sansa was going to be introduced to his particular brand of “love”, so if this is the first taste, I’m not sure I want to see what comes next.



It actually brings up a point that has been disappointing me this season.  While Sansa made a point of electing to become Littlefinger’s acolyte, she’s been rather slow on the uptake in terms of demonstrating a similar level of flexibility and intrigue.  I don’t want to see her simply fall prey to Ramsey and retread her reactions to Joffrey’s cruelties from all the way back in the second season, when she was still too naïve to know better.  She needs to be far less passive, or at the very least, show the audience that she is more actively playing a role to some long-term strategy.  The writers are letting me down when it comes to giving Sansa the level of agency her turnabout at the end of last season suggested.








So much time is spent on these plot threads that it felt like the episode would just crawl its way to the end credits.  It managed not to do that, but only in the space of a few minutes worth of action.  After so much foreshadowing about the “stone men” of Old Valyria, sure enough, Jorah’s gambit of avoiding trouble by sailing through the ruins went predictably wrong.  And this is another example of where the streamlining process of the adaptation meant that something terrible has befallen a beloved supporting character.



To say that this is a major rewriting of events from the source material is an understatement.  Jorah and Tyrion are amongst many others when they are attacked by the “stone men”, and the location is nothing like the ruins of Valyria described in the novels.  (There is a distinct lack of fire in the show’s version, for example.)  In the source material, Jorah is not the one infected by greyscale.  On the other hand, it has long been my theory that Jorah was never meant to see the end of the tale, and that he would sacrifice himself for Dany’s sake at some point in the future.  Having him infected with greyscale gives him a reason, beyond his obsession with Dany, to indulge in a little nihilism.  It’s also possible that all those reminders about a cure for greyscale will come into the story via Jorah.  








I don’t necessarily mind these changes, as it is clear that the writers don’t want to add too many new characters and understand that keeping new plot elements to existing characters will keep the scope manageable.  On the other hand, one has to wonder how much of the material devoted to Jorah and Tyrion’s journey will actually make it on screen.  I’m not expecting much at this point.

Our Grade:
B-
The Good:
  • Dany’s plot thread is moving right along, which is nice
  • Having read the books is becoming less and less a factor in knowing where the show will go
The Bad:
  • The pacing of this episode was so slow that I wondered if anything would happen at all
  • Sansa needs to be less passive and fast

John Keegan aka "criticalmyth", is one of the hosts of the "Critical Myth" podcast heard here on VOG Network's radio feed Monday, Wednesday & Friday. You can follow him on twitter at @criticalmyth

Game of Thrones by - 5/11/2015 1:23 PM338 views

Your Responses

Flaco_Jones
Flaco_Jones
CONCURRING OPINION

Grade: B+
While I had a lot of the same feelings you did as I watched, I liked it a bit more. The ending was great, and maybe having no prior knowledge of the books is a good thing. I do have a feeling all the talk of the cure for greyscale means this isn't necessarily a death sentence, but it also does seem like Jorah is reaching an end to his usefulness for the writers. I'm still intrigued by the story at the wall, but this season is really testing me. Feels like Season 1 pacing again.

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