
That was easily the worst "episode 9" of the series. Not terrible but overall it was too inconsistent for me to enjoy. Starting out with the ridiculous first scene: twenty men somehow infiltrating a 6000 man camp and burning every valuable item, including siege weapons? This is a perfect example of plot contrivances being used to force an end result. How do you get Stannis to a point where he's desperate enough to burn his daughter, an act he has outright refused to do while also affirming her position as his heir? Well, you get 20 men to burn all his resources, obviously. Sort of like how they turned elite Unsullied warriors into Storm Troopers earlier this season, or how the "best Ironborn soldiers" wound up running away from dogs last season.
I won't dwell on this (for now), but let's just say I did not like the burning scene. At all.
The Arya stuff was cool, you can tell they're going to basically be doing
TWOW (not really a spoiler for readers)
spoiler (click to show/hide)
the Mercy chapter in episode 10
Got to see more of Mace Tyrell, and perhaps a hint that he isn't the fool he presents himself as. I would have liked a scene between him and the banker.
Dorne continues to be a dumpster fire. They have one shot to fix it next week. We'll see if they do it...
speaking of which
ADWD
spoiler (click to show/hide)
all the talk of the Dance Of Dragons really makes me reconsider the Aegon cut. Might they be setting the stage for it? Is Trystane someone else? I don't know but I'm very curious what they'll do.
Then the Dany stuff. Nope. That felt very Clone Wars-esque to me. A huge spectacle with very little tension. Worse yet, the harpies basically turned the thing into a turn based RPG instead of just slaughtering Dany. Speaking of which, why were the harpies killing former slave owners? Anyway...
I'll forgive the CGI issue of Dany riding on the dragon. It's hard to pull that off. However I can't forgive the generally cheesy way in which the scene was set up, or dues ex dragona way in which he arrived. Just an odd decision, dramatics wise. Not a fan.
also: could have used Barristan there, to give us his badass scene in the pit. But nope...