This might have been the best episode of the season, even though Jon getting the Lord Commander title and cutting Slint's head is definitely the highlight of the season for me.
I know people are a bit aggravated that it's not as crazy as it was in season 4, but I am willing wait until the end of the season before freaking out. There are four storylines that better fucking get some sort of conclusion by the end of the season, or several scenes that could have been cut to fit these should have been. As long as these stories have some sort of conclusion, I am more than happy presuming execution is done well in the next three episodes. That's four big stories for three episodes. If one or two for some reason get pushed to season 6, I am going to lose my shit along as 60% of GoT GAF for spending time on other scenes that I enjoy but are nowhere near as important as these.
- Lannisters vs Tyrells vs Faith Army, who dies and who controls the power by the end of the season.
- Danny's storyline with the Harpies. Who is behind the Harpies and their fate being met.
- Jon's storyline. What I mean by this is we better have him get the Wildlings (if they are alive) and the story shows him at Winterfell with them, or them running from White Walkers or them concluding a fight against White Walkers.
- The war at Winterfell. Who reigns supreme by the end of it, be it Boltons, Stark, Littlefinger or Baratheon.
Now my predictions for them:
- At least one of the two Tyrell siblings will die, possibly both. My guess is Laures will for certain. Maybe a fight to the death with Frankenmountain. Cersei will be imprisoned or something bad will happen to her (not death) but her children will all die. Faith people to probably kill poor Tommen.
- Tyrion will use his wits and he will be the one to find out who the leader of the Harpies is. Because of this, Danny will realize that he is a good advisory to have especially since she's fucking shit at making decisions excluding war strategy.
- He goes at the other side of the wall. Finds Wildlings. White Walkers attack, Bran might help out in case Jon needs it (I know he's not supposed to be in S5). My guess is they run away from them, and White Walkers go towards the wall. This will convince the Wildlings that ran away with Jon to STFU and follow his lead for next season when they reach the wall. I expect these events to happen at episode 10. Sam gave him the weapon which means they have to show up and WW always show up one episode per season.
- Hard to predict the War at Winterfell. Can't predict most of it, so I'll go with what I want. Sansa kills Roose, gives him a "Lannisters send their regards", "The North remembers" line before she offs him. Ramsay is either killed by Reek or skinned except for his face by the time Stannis comes. If Sansa does this before Stannis comes, he thanks the red witch for her 'help' since they just walk in. Or nothing happens to his daughter going against the red witches plans, and fights the Boltons severely hurting his army, Sansa comes from the back with other Northerners and either Littlefinger kills him, or Brienne does.
My biggest problem this season is actually the way the story is being hinted at. Not sure if it's a combination of two scenarios, one being us starting to finally read GRIMM's writing style, but I have been able to guess too many situations in how they play out which doesn't happen. I feel like the show writers are turning this show into typical tv series in terms of non-subtle foreshadowing. Just a fucking shit job from the double Ds, get your act together ffs.
The other problem I have is budget. I totally forgot about Jon's wolf Ghost. Why is he a three second CGI moment? They got even more money than last year so fucking spend it. Inexcusable when I get the feeling they're saving money at some points. Regardless of these two issues, this season is still shaping up very well but will be decided post episode 10 of just how good it is. Danny is the most interesting she's been since season 1 and the North has been the most interesting in any season we have had so far in the show. The only weak storyline this season is Dorne, and I feel once again the double Ds doing a terrible job. I don't think it's the acting (so far) from the SSSnakes, just terrible writing and direction even though that last scene with the youngest one..
