GoT: Se. 7 Ep. 5: Eastwatch; Review
A needed calm down after the dramatics of the episode previous. This after halfway way point sets up some major new forth comings of the season, and is packed with brilliant characterization moments among a rather jumbled episode. (No spoilers)
New pieces to set up large events
This episode, as stated, was a needed come down and calmer one after the staggering episode before it, although this was a strong episode, its structure and amount of information put into it made it a jarring jump around of an episode. This is largely due to the fact that this season only has two episodes left...that is very depressing, so this episode was needed in order to set up the penultimate and finale episodes.
The good
The theme I got from this episode was all about internal conflict and, again, clashes of ideas for what is best. That internal conflict was mostly grounded with Tyrion. His character was clearly conflicted as he walked through the smoldering battlefield of the previous episode and seeing the death and destruction that Drogon and Daenerys had done to his house's army; it was a particularly potent scene. Which then ultimately leads to himself and Varys questioning the motives and ideas of working for Daenerys, due to her ruthlessness. (Which was an epic scene as Drogon was, again, incredible) Also, Daenery's approach to dealing with Westeros is certainly one of thought; is this really better than before? Or is just the Mad King all over again? Primarily due to some of her actions in this episode, again, show her as being too brutal; like Cersei...I guess we will see how this pans out.
Seeing Sansa and Ayra already conflicting with each other is interesting as well, as the majority of people in Winterfell feel as though she [Sansa] should be Queen and leading them, not Snow. Whether or not Sansa does anything will be interesting to see develop, however Littlefinger is becoming, yet again, a snake in the grass and a pain. The last time he was involved with sneaky things involving the Stark's, Ned died. Therefore, I do not like the fact that this is happening again.
The rest of the good;
The double un-expected re-unions of certain characters was great to see, and is nice to see the devotion of one them to the cause that he believed in so strongly in the previous seasons. Tyrion meeting a certain someone in secrecy was excellent, all be it painful, as their relationship seems to have been damaged beyond repair. Seeing Cersei be knocked off her high horse was satisfying as hell. Drogon meeting Snow up close was awesome, and the formation of the new super-group to undertake a certain perilous (and to be honest daft) missions is very cool. Seeing the full scale of the Army of The Dead was daunting, haunting and brilliant, and as always, production and cinematography was pin-point great.
The not so good
The structure was jarring and there was a lot of jumping from set piece to set piece with characters covering huge distances and new ideas in a very short amount of time. I understand why this is happening, and it could have been done and handled worse. It is not a huge problem, but out of all the episodes so far, this is definitely the worst in terms of structure. As well as this, Samwell's scenes dragged a tad. They were needed and highlighted some issues within the citadel and the issue of just discussion over action and helping.
Summary
A strong, but scattered, well-acted and characterization based episode that sets up new big events in motion. The next two episodes are set to be huge; in scale and action I believe. Bring it on.
