To me, any online scoring that is sourced from online voting, it's immediately out the window because of trolls, like this situation for example. But even critic scoring, especially Rotten Tomatoes, the way things are weighted and summarized just do way too poor of a job construing anything. I really just don't like rating systems for art anyways, so it's a personal thing for me.
I was actually going to mention earlier that every person I know in real life who is obsessed with the show and who has been blowing up my FB for a decade (complete with memes mocking those who don’t watch the show) has had a super negative and vocal response to this one. Even people who I’ve seen defend the current season hardcore. Something about it just managed to make tons of people mad for tons of different reasons.
The only hate I've seen for any of these recent episodes is just on stuff like reddit or here or the typical troll people. Everyone I know in real life is absolutely loving these episodes, minus a few nitpicky moments.
I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss all the criticism as trolling. There have been a ton of really thoughtful posts and comments about why this episode let fans down. I even saw someone who put a ton of work into figuring out how the response to this one differed based on IMDB ratings, and it wasn’t from being brigaded or anything like that. It just seemed to tap into something in a way that discouraged a bunch of people who watch it for different reasons.
I'm not dismissing all criticism and am glad to read it for stuff I both like and dislike, but when I see brigading ratings on IMDB and the like for stuff like this or The Last Jedi, Captain Marvel, etc... it really sours my whole view of a system that I already don't like in the first place.
Love this. I’m so glad it’s not being swept under the rug or being forgotten in light of coffee cups or magic arrows.
Maybe I'm just projecting my own feelings about it, but I think it's possible to love these episodes while also having so many people dislike them. I say this because I think this season, especially this past episode, felt more like a Summer Blockbuster popcorn movie than a well written TV drama. It's still entertaining as hell! We're getting all these big moments and reveals and it's awesome! Just like a summer blockbuster movie. However, part of what made this show GOAT material in 1-6 was all the little moments and dialogue and plot points and etc. This season has definitely been super rushed, way more so than last season even, and it's taking away from all the stuff that made the show great early on. It's still fun to watch, it's still bringing a resolution to the story, so that's good...but it all just feels so rushed. These 4 episodes, but especially last week, really are showing how the show could have used two full seasons to end it instead of two shortened ones. I do want to add that I think this is a problem that a LOT of big stories encounter, where towards the end things start to wrap up and it happens kinda quickly and you're like wait what huh?....but I think it's especially easy to see with this show because of how great it did all the different plot threads in the first 4-6 seasons (Season 5 is obviously somewhat the exception there between Dorne and such), and it's def obvious how much better the show would have been in the endgame seasons of it if they had just stuck with what Martin had in the books instead of eliminating/changing entire storylines.
It being rated the second worst episode of the show overall is a stretch I think. An overreaction as a result of it being the third to last episode. There's plenty of episodes I disliked at the time they aired way more than this one.
Like, how much better would this Dany turn be/feel if we had an extra season of her getting frustrated/thwarted/etc by Westerosi politics and dealing with the Aegon reveal? etc
I do not need another season. I definitely have fatigue. Just get it over and done with and give us a good conclusion.
It will be very interesting to see how things shake out after the finale ends. Some of these could go down even further if they don’t resolve it well, or they could be redeemed a bit if the payoff works.
The answer wouldn't be too add another season though. They could have done a better job in the middle seasons of progressing story lines instead of having them meander along for 10 episodes.
All the talk of episode rankings lately made me go look at Dexter on IMDB. It has mostly 8s and 9s until the last season, then it just takes a giant dive into the 7s and the finale has a 4.8. It’s pretty hysterical to see the general fan hatred in such a succinct little picture.
Generally, that's how I feel too. Like they have spent 6 or 7 seasons building up the characters and progressing their development only to try quickly zig-zagging back and forth right at the end to create unnecessary conflict and contradictions. There are way too many examples to sort through, but the article posted earlier about The Night King's smirk and how it sort of undermined the bigger picture summed it up pretty well: the show has recently picked up a habit of sacrificing overarching themes or character developments in favor of short-term "exciting" or dramatic moments. I would say, in general, it's why the show still feels exciting in the moment but overall leaves me feeling underwhelmed and kind of confused on the direction (I still enjoy it but it's just not what I thought it would be after the first six seasons, I guess). Like Sansa, for example, has been shown (from the beginning) to be smart enough to learn to play the game/survive as well as strong enough to endure all of the horrific shit that has happened to her. Yet in this episode it's like she accredited her longevity and strength to Littlefinger and Ramsay and what they did to her. It's stupid and not at all where that character has been heading. As if they gave it no long-term thought at all and just decided "Hey, that's something shocking for her to say in the moment. Let's do that".
I think the scene with Sansa is even worse than simply going for shock value. It seemed like a calculated middle finger to all the people who criticized that plot when it happened. It was trash.