#mild complaining

With the prospect of season 5 filming beginning so soon, I've been thinking a lot about season 4 lately. I felt like rambling out some of my thoughts on here.

First, perhaps an unpopular opinion (?) but I love season 4. Sure, it has its flaws, but to me, the good far outweighs the bad. For one thing, I personally don't mind Gabriel's death. It's not what I would have chosen myself if I were writing the finale, and I think it could have benefited from a 3-5 episode arc rather than being squeezed into two already very busy episodes, but I appreciate a lot of what came with it and the potential it provides for season 5. Rafa's acting in the finale was incredible and the aftermath of Gabriel dying resulted in one of my top 10 Tarlos scenes of all time (the scene of them deciding to postpone the wedding at the beginning of 4x18) and one of my top 10 non-Tarlos scenes of all time (the Owen and Carlos scene). Season 4 also gave us the incredible soulmates scene, Lou II, lots of other excellent Tarlos scenes/episodes (4x02, 4x04, 4x08, 4x12, 4x16-18), some new love interests I really liked (Asha, Joe, and Trevor...NOT Kendra), a true showcase of Rafa's talent as an actor along with (finally!) the screen time he deserves, a Marjan storyline that wasn't perfect but had a lot of good stuff to enjoy, and a mention of the Tarlos wedding in every single episode. I enjoyed watching every episode (with the possible exception of 4x03...but even there I can find things to enjoy).

As far as the whole Iris/secret marriage storyline goes, yeah, it's not great. But I can still find a lot to appreciate within it. I love Iris, I love her friendship with Carlos (Rafa and Lyndsy sold me on their friendship with a single hospital scene in 4x03!), and I think it added fascinating elements to Carlos' backstory...like the fact that he was so lost and upset after his family's reaction to his coming out that he married a woman to try to be the man he believed they wanted and needed him to be. For the parts I don't like as much and that--let's face it, don't make much sense--I'm able to look past them or make up head canons to explain them away. (And the talented fic writers of this fandom have done a great service to help that process along...there are many great ones, but particular shout out to Where All This Love Comes From @carlos-in-glasses, which managed to make better sense of Carlos' backstory than I ever imagined possible...if you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do so ASAP). I certainly don't blame anyone who can't do this...that storyline was a mess, I can't deny that! But for me, there's enough to appreciate that it doesn't mess with my enjoyment of the season.

Aside from the secret marriage thing, I think the worst storyline of the season was the Owen/FBI storyline. The sad thing is that this one could have been ok had it been executed better. The biggest issues here were (1) too much Owen off on his own time, which is never good--Owen is at his best when he's in storylines with the other main characters--and (2) they completely failed to stick the landing. BADLY. If you're going to do a white supremacist storyline, you need to commit! Instead, they tried to throw in so many twists that they ended up trying to make us feel sympathy for and see the white supremacist gang members as victims. Yeah, not going to work for me when, in a previous episode, you told us they were literal Nazis! But ultimately I don't really care all that much about a solo Owen storyline to begin with, so it didn't affect my enjoyment of the season as a whole.

All of that said, the thing that irritated me the most about season 4 was the 8 week deadline for the wedding. The ridiculous Lone Star timeline has always been a bit of a thorn in my side, but it really got out of hand in season 4. What bothers me most is the fact that the whole 8 weeks thing is both so completely ridiculous and so completely unnecessary! It is clearly there only to slightly raise the stakes for the first few episodes of the season. It's "Oh no, they have to get married in 8 weeks, which means Carlos has to hurry up and get divorced from Iris to make the deadline, only now Iris has gone missing and she hasn't signed the divorce papers yet so they won't be able to get married!" The exact same thing could have been accomplished with an even slightly more realistic deadline--say 4 months. A 4 month deadline would have still been an incredibly short amount of time to plan a wedding and it would have still required urgency in the divorce process. And yeah, 4 months would have still been a bit unbelievable, but it would have been the ordinary tv show timeline kind of unbelievable, and it would have fit far better with the other markers of time in season 4, like the fact that it's explicitly stated that it's January in the beginning of the season and May at the end.

To make matters worse, the urgency for Iris to sign the papers--once again, the whole reason for the 8 week deadline-- isn't really even addressed after 4x02 because once Iris goes missing, her safety is the main concern. Then, once they wrap that storyline up, it is literally never mentioned again. I spent the entire season waiting for it to become an issue, but it never does. The writers essentially forget about it and spend the entire rest of the season providing dates and stating that amounts of time have passed that add up to way more than 8 weeks. It's just so RIDICULOUS and it means NOTHING!

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Maybe it’s because they are being so silent about r+l=j and white walker related stuff? I feel like these two things should really start driving the plot forward.

But Bran has had like 5 minutes of screentime, so no new white walker revelations there and that whole “we really need dragonglass” obsession is kinda getting boring. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to reveal anything about Jons birth to Sansa or Arya anytime soon neither.

I would have totally accepted if Tyrion and Jons entire cliff-interaction happened off screen, with Tyrion just showing up to tell Dany about the dragonglass out of nowhere. I really hope the whole conversation about Jon being a “northern fool” pays off somehow. Either by him causing his own downfall by making the same mistakes as Robb or Ned (falling for a foreign woman + trusting Cersei), being tempted by it and resisting because he learned his lesson, or doing that glorious double-agent stuff some people speculate about - acting like a “northern fool”, but fooling everyone else instead. 

Even if that scene was meant to pave the road for a positive romantic / sexual / platonic / familial / political / whatever relationship between Jon and Dany, it’s very sloppy writing. They should form a bond through their own actions, not through Tyrion playing wing-man, telling each of them how great the other person is. If that was the only purpose of that scene I am going to scream. 

That screen-time could have been used for way more interesting things. I mean, we could have gotten some unexpected Jon interacts with free-flying dragon moment instead. Imagine Jon standing on that cliff, but instead of Tyrion, Viserion/Rhaegal shows up, lands in front of him, they both stare at each other for a while before the dragon takes off again. Or even better, Tyrion showing up after that, witnessing that little interaction and looking a bit ~suspicious~ at Jon during and after their “I’m an idiot”, “Dany isn’t so bad” conversation.

I just feel like Jons targ-heritage should start to influence the plot soon. Especially now that he is in Dragonstone, face-to-face with the other last living targaryen and we know about his true parentage. I like all the little hints with Jon saying he isn’t a stark and the dragon flying by at the perfect time, I suppose it read the script, but I would want an actual character to hint at it. I want something more tangible. His entire conversation with Dany would have been way more interesting if the audience (especially casual viewers) were more aware of his situation. It would have simply had a bigger emotional impact if we already “knew” or at least strongly suspect that Jon “was born to rule the seven kingdoms” (according to the targ line of succession), that he is “the rightful ruler”. I absolutely loved Jon standing up for the north and telling her how it is, but it would have had more potential. Even Jons death and resurrection is kept a secret, ie hold back from influencing the story, because .... I don’t know. I don’t feel like we have time to set up new mysteries, when there are so many old ones waiting to be lifted.

I really hope that r+l=j will come up in the winterfell-plot somehow, because Littlefinger - without this peculiar information - has kinda stopped being a worthwhile villain. Seriously, Sansa is so done with his shit, neither Bran nor Arya are prone to manipulation, Lord Royce hates him, what vital threat does he pose to the starks if not for some juicy r+l=j info ? And the following implications concerning a certain redheads and northern kings romantic potential) But instead of making some sneaky comments about Jon parleying with the dragon queen, we get a weird metaphysical ... whatever that was. 

Jons true parentage is like the biggest twist off the entire series and having it only impacting the story in the very, very, very last episodes feels … unworthy of it? I’m not even talking about revealing the truth to Jon or another major character, but they should just do ... something ... with it. 

The same thing goes for Bran. Him being the three-eyed raven should really start to be important and crucial to the plot. I am going to assume that it will be very important ~somehow~, but until now he was nothing but a script-page with EXPOSITION written all over it. If he’s going to spend the rest of the season sitting in winterfell, devoid of all emotion, saying ominous shit and doing nothing but figuring out the “big mystery” who Jon’s dad is.... I’ll be really disappointed. I need Bran to be as important as he should be. I need Bran to be more than what he is now. Considering that we are moving towards the series ultimate conclusion, it should happen soon. I’m worried that he will stay in camp easy-exposition, only to ex-machina the shit out of his undefined powers out of nowhere.

Sam’s time at the citadel is similar in this aspect. Like what did he really accomplish there? Finding out that there is dragonglass in dragonstone (duuhhh) and healing Jorah. He is sitting on this huge mountain of fascinating information, the biggest accumulation of knowledge in all of westeros and we do not learn anything new by him being there. Nothing about “blood and fire”, dragons, the long night, the ptwp, azor ahai, the children of the forest, etc.  He could really impact the big war there, but so far he hasn’t. 

I’m rather content with the season so far, yes some of the writing is pretty sloppy, but what else is new. I don’t know, it’s just that the pacing feels ...kinda weird. It feels like there is so much going on, but they are holding back the most vital elements of the story for ... some reason, I suppose. Even Danys invasion feels like it hasn’t even really started yet. I don’t know most of these major plotlines just kinda stand there without having much movement themselves. They threw the tower of joy scene at us in the last finale and haven’t done anything with it. Keep in mind, we are already almost halfway through season 7.   

The only two incidents that seem to really push the “big plot” in any direction are the whole Euron and Cersei situation and Jon meeting Dany. On second viewing even that long anticipated meeting feels a bit drawn-out and under-used, when considering it’s potential. I’m not saying that anything in the first three episodes necessarily falls into the “filler”-category, that’s not it. But there are only 10(!) episodes left. None of this would bother me if the last two seasons weren’t as short, but under these circumstances our major characters feel a bit too .. stationary.  

The one exception would be Cersei, her plot is the only one I would call “dynamic”. It develops from scene to scene, she actively shapes her surroundings and is faced with new challenges or simply different situations almost every time she comes back on screen. Jon, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Dany, Sam, etc. mostly seem to talk about the stuff, they already talked about in the last scene, sometimes with a different character or a tiny bit of new information. Or they talk about things that happened to other characters. Seriously, Cersei already went through an entire arc, while everyone else feels like they are just finished with setting the stage. She is the most interesting, engaging character right now. There, I said it. 

Jon started to actively further the plot by coming to dragonstone, but the Jon’s “big issue” in the second half of episode 3 was literally that he is stuck on Dragonstone and can’t leave. I actually enjoyed his little discussion with Dany very much, them meeting is a crucial step towards the final conclusion , finally coming closer to an answer to the big question behind all this “will they fight or fuck or both or switch between those ...”. But all the tension build in that interaction immediately dissolved when the ended with the half-baked conclusion of him being her prisoner somewhat, but not really. 

This was only supposed to be like one or two paragraphs of mild complaining, but it ended up being way longer, because I just don’t know how to accurately put this into words. So thanks for sticking with me until the end. I’ll say it one more time, Cersei is the only character who seems to actually make both personal and political progress. Maybe they are finally done with putting all the pieces in place and can start with really pushing the story foward, but in that case, maybe cutting the episode number wasn’t such a good idea.