Got S8 E4 For The Small Council

Published May 1, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey Guys,

I want to preface this email first by saying that I absolutely loved the episode and was at the edge of my seat with anticipation and suspense and thrill. The following gripes I have don’t necessarily impact my overall satisfaction with episode 4, just some things that they could have done or could have done better and I’m presenting them in no particular order.

1. Theons Death – I like the redemption arc of Theon coming full circle to defend and ultimately sacrifice himself for the family that raised him and whom he later betrayed. We all knew Theon would die at the hands of the Night King in his final scene, however, the whole rushing in from what appeared to be the length of a football field away with your spear outstretched and absolutely no tactical plan at all is so cliche. I didn’t need to see any sort of lengthy battle between Theon and the Night King but the writers could have had Theon try to actually engage the Night King in combat. One or two swing and misses or swing and blocks against a supremely confident Night King and then his ultimate sacrifice would have been so much less “script writing 101.” His type of death is the equivalent of a slow clap or walking away casually from an explosion as it erupts behind you.

2. Jon vs Viserion – When Viserion has Jon pinned behind the rock and outgunned, Jon finally stands up seemingly frustrated and desperate and simply grunts at Viserion in defiance with his hands at his side balled into fists. What the shit? What exactly was that supposed to do? Luckily for him in this very moment Arya has reached the Night King and killed him with her fancy dagger work thus destroying Viserion before Jon could be eviscerated by him. Not the greatest of tactics Jon. His grunting did seem to bewilder Viserion for a moment though. Maybe for a second they both recognized something deeper in each other. Maybe it was that Dany had both ridden them at some point and they realized they were actually Eskimo brothers.

3. The Night King vs Jon – This is an obvious one because IT NEVER HAPPENED! The Night King didn’t even so much as remove his sword from his sheath during the entire battle. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t recall the Night King ever engaging in hand to hand combat throughout the entire series. This was our chance to see the strength of the Night King and some nifty swordplay and we were denied it. Don’t get me wrong, I love how Arya slipped in and killed the Night King. I was completely surprised by this and before she did her clever dagger drop, I thought she was a goner. However, I think it was a huge mistake not to write in a battle between Jon and the Night King given they have encountered each other the most throughout the series and are essentially the two generals on the field of battle. Could have easily happened when Jon saw the Night King on the battlefield and they could have engaged each other in hand to hand combat. After a couple minutes of an intense battle or hell, even a few short moments of an intense battle but an overmatched Jon, Bran could have warged at that moment so that the Night King would know his location, the Night King knocks Jon back, Jons hurt and the Night King raises the dead to deal with Jon while he leaves to pursue Bran now that he knows his location. I know Bran has warged before this moment and that’s where the Night King was heading but a simple edit job could have placed the warg at this moment and fixed that. Done and done. Instead, the Night King rides a dragon, stands around stoic and we never see him use his sword once.

4. The Darkness – The first few minutes I realized how dark the episode was and guess what I did, I went to the settings on my tv and raised the brightness level a touch. Problem solved! I changed the picture quality, raised my brightness a tad and all was well. All these people complaining about how dark the picture was need to read their tv manual so they can adjust to their liking. That’s like getting a new phone and the ringer is set on low initially. Uh do you just leave it like that? No! You adjust it for god sake. Reading peoples gripes about the darkness of the screen reminded me of Dante from Clerks when he said “I’m not the type of person who will disrupt things just so I can shit comfortably.” Come on people. Please. Do yourself a favor and shit comfortably before you shit on the work of a talented bunch of people.

Those are all my gripes of the episodes, at least the ones that stood out most to me. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the episode and as always, I very much appreciate you fellas and your podcast.

Sincerely,

Frank of House Navarro

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