I wonder what the argument against my opinion on the narrative structure of “Game of Thrones” will be this time as last night’s episode, “The Watchers on the Wall“, was the first of this fourth season (that I can remember at least) that didn’t operate in fits and starts over the course of an hour, but instead opted for a central focus.
After all, season have all surrounded the way each episode has sporadically bounced from character-to-character before settling on some big “surprise” moment at the end of each episode, leaving us all in “suspense” as to what will happen in the next episode. Well, how’d that work out for you this time? After all, last we left Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) his head was on the chopping block, a week later and that’s exactly where it remains (just as it has remained virtually this entire season all in the name of “suspense”).
Throughout the season we’ve seen little bits and pieces of redundant narrative building with the Night’s Watch as Jon Snow argues and argues and continues to have insults thrown back in his face as the threat against Castle Black looms. Well, that threat finally arrives and with my wife sitting next to me we both look at each other and say, “Hey, something might actually happen this episode.” And look, something did happen and wow was it a great episode as it didn’t involve having to flash over to King’s Landing or out to Arya and over to Theon and back to Bran, into Cersei’s chambers and finally Tyrion’s jail cell before whisking us off to learn Daenerys is still walking around. Not to forget Sansa and Baelish’s goings on as I get the distinct feeling Arya and The Hound will walk away before Arya can be reunited with her sister. You know, because suspense!
I’m sure some will argue last night’s episode was only exciting because it has been teased all season and, in fact, for most of the third season as well. Considering the tension largely revolved around Snow’s ability to lead and the inevitable confrontation with Ygritte (Rose Leslie), I don’t think the constant back-and-forth bickering between Snow and Alliser Thorne (Owen Teale) added much of anything outside of am inevitable result.
As a matter of fact, as one person pointed out to me on Twitter, if last night’s episode was lacking it was due to the fact we knew so little about pretty much everyone else on The Wall outside of Snow, Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) and Ygritte. So while the blood may be flowing, unless one of those three dies does it really matter? And then would you look what happens, the least important (on a narrative level) of the three is the one that gets it. Speaking of which it would have been nice to see a second reaction shot from Olly (Brenock O’Connor) as Snow comforts Ygritte as she dies.
If we’ve learned anything from this series, the ninth episode in any given season is the one the entire season was building toward so I fully expect next week’s tenth episode and season finale to possibly tie a bow around a couple of minor storylines, but for the most part I expect we’ll be left with numerous possibilities in the air. No problem, I just hope the fifth season can take a lesson from this latest episode.
I’m not saying every single episode has to have one central focus, but let’s do away with these episodes centered on a bunch of “blah, blah, blah” before five minutes of “meaningful” action takes place. It’s okay to remind us of what’s going on elsewhere in Westeros and Essos, but perhaps focus a little more specifically on one or two storylines at once.
As for future episodes, at this point, Tyrion had damn well better die considering how they’ve managed to drag out his sentencing and how ridiculously silly Oberyn’s battle against Ser Gregor Clegane ended up — as if you couldn’t see that coming from a mile away. However, if his death sentence extends into the fifth season we’ve reached a narrative plateau this series seriously needs to overcome.
