I have an idea! It may sound a bit ridiculous but just hear me out. So winter lasts for eons or whatever. My plan is to dig a hole in my carpet then smash through the concrete, make the hole large enough to fit my entire body then just cover myself with snow. You’re probably thinking why should I do that when I have the greatest script ever made in my grasp and I could possibly die doing this? Firstly and lastly I am extremely bored and the greatest television writer of all time needs something to do to keep his sanity. So the plan is I bury myself in this hole with the script and wait for winter to go away. By the time I get out, summer will be here and I can finally make my dreams come true. The process of getting out of the hole is still a work in progress but I’ll figure it out. So wish me luck beautiful people!

A Passage by The World Acclaimed Author and Bear Grylls’s Enthusiast The Anti Blog Complainer

MORE FILLER

Seasons 3 and 4 adapt A Storm of Swords which is the third book of A Song of Ice and Fire, it’s over a 1000 pages long with about 10 different viewpoint chapters. Season 3 adapts the first 500 odd pages plus The Red Wedding which is about 700 pages in. While Season 4 adapts about the last 300 pages of the novel. It’s not new for TV shows or movies to move things around for their convenience. The only problem with putting a big emphasis on The Red Wedding means some storylines in Season 3 will be stretched to the bone while some storylines in Season 4 will run out of material before the season ends.

My main example for this goes to Arya as she suffered the most in both seasons. I already covered last season so I’m just going to focus on her little road trip with The Hound. I like their father/daughter mentor/protégé relationship but that’s all they do this season. For six episodes they just wander about the countryside becoming friends and the scenarios they get into aren’t that interesting. I would be perfectly fine with this if they appeared in the same amount of episodes as Theon and Ramsay. The only great scenes with them is at the farmhouse where The Hound gives his amazing chicken speech and Arya killing that guy the same way he killed her friend. As fan servicey as The Hound vs Brienne of Tarth is, it was still pretty damn awesome!

JON SNOW should never be in charge of anything because he really isn’t cut out for it. So Jon and the other Night’s Watch Brothers spend the whole season preparing for the big fire that Mance Rayder promised an entire season ago. The good news is they have plenty of time to prepare so that means Jon also has a lot of time to make really stupid decisions.

This first one really perplexes me as in the books they know the Wildlings are charging towards Castle Black so they evacuate everyone in Moles Town to hide on top of The Wall. In this version, Jon just says to his brothers ‘No one is allowed to leave’ which is kind of like ‘Well we defend The Wall from the Wildlings not the Wildlings on the other side of The Wall, sorry that’s your problem’. You could make the argument that this was Alliser Thorne’s idea but Jon has disobeyed him before so what’s stopping him now.

This one is just idiotic! Sam is worried that the only two rapists at Castle Black might hurt Gilly so he sends her and the baby to Moles Town where he knows some dangerous Wildlings are coming to kill everyone! In the next episode it’s revealed that Jon came up with the idea to send Gilly away. So I’m just going to blame Jon for this because I like Sam and Jon should keep his stupid plans to himself.

This next part of getting some payback on the mutineer’s at Craster’s Keep, I really enjoyed. Karl Tanner is a great side antagonist, Bran’s storyline is suddenly more interesting when there is a possibility they could die and the battle is really great. My main problem with this is Jon’s dumbass excuse to go there! Jon tells Thorne that they need to kill or capture these guys as they might potentially tell Mance how many people they have at Castle Black. This excuse is so baffling to me because for one they haven’t been back on The Wall since season 1 so I doubt they be any use and secondly, Jon told Mance himself last season how many bloody men are at Castle Black!! GOD DAMMIT JON!!! I find it funny once Jon comes back, Thorne orders the two main characters to monitor The Wall for two episodes until the plot needs them again. (Same here for this review.)

Daenerys also blundered a bit this season as most of her scenes are very eh. The only good scenes from this season is when Daenerys sees those children crucified and pretty much everything to do with her conquest of Meereen. A few others would be the sexual tension between Missendei and Grey Worm, Jorah being revealed as a traitor and forced into exile and Daenerys being forced to chain up her dragons.

SWEET GOODNESS

Let’s start this off with something I’m sure everyone were happy to see: Joffrey dies! In his last episode he really had to go all out to remind us how much of an infuriating little shit he is by humiliating Tyrion. At least when he finally croaks, it’s super satisfying, though I personally would have loved to see him tear out his own throat like his book counterpart. (I know it’s gruesome but it’s Joffrey we’re talking about!!) The main storyline here is Tyrion being accused of murdering Joffrey and Sansa  escaping  King’s Landing.

I really liked both Tyrion and Sansa’s storylines this season but I’ll start with Sansa as it’s much shorter. This season shows just how big of a mastermind Littlefinger is as it’s revealed he is the main catalyst of the entire series. He was the one to tell Lysa to poison Jon Arryn and write a letter to the Starks to say the Lannisters did it. He was the master planner behind Joffrey’s death and it was his plan to marry Lysa, then kill her and remove her son so he could become Lord of the Vale. This season also finally made me give a damn about Sansa as she brilliantly manipulates the bannermen and perfectly plays the role of the daughter to Westeros’s greatest mastermind.

Tyrion’s King’s Landing storyline finally comes to a conclusion as his ongoing battle with his father and his relationship with Shae finally meets an end. Peter Dinklage probably gives his best performance yet as his speech to Tywin and the people of King’s Landing is fantastic! I also think this is another strong year for Cersei as one of my favourite scenes is when she admits to her father that all her kids are Jaime’s. Even Tywin had a great season and it felt like a fitting end that he died with his pants down.

This season introduces Oberyn Martell, an immediate fan favourite as he makes any boring filler scene much more interesting with his cunning charm. I also appreciate the fact that his fight against The Mountain wasn’t up against a slightly taller man but a freakishly big man. It just made the fight much more tense. There are downsides to this part, most notably anything to do with Jaime. Seriously the guy is so uninteresting since he turned into Mr Good Guy. There is also that controversially debatable rape scene with Cersei which felt more like something the old Jaime would do than the new tame Jaime.

Starting from The Laws of Gods and Men then continuing strong with The Mountain and The Red Viper and then ending it all off with The Children. All of these episodes prove just how much this show has changed since TV budget season 1 days. I’ll jump back to The Wall storyline as of Episode 9 it is when I was on board with Jon and the gang. This is the most impressive battle sequence yet and this episode made me notice just how much better the fight choreography has developed since Season 2. Watchers on the Wall is probably my favourite episode of the season as it delivers on every front. Though the only thing that really bothered me is how they ended the episode. As it ends on Jon leaving Sam in the tunnel to see Mance when I think it should have ended with Stannis riding in and saving the day as it felt more relevant to that episode.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

I still love season 4 as it’s very engaging and entertaining. It’s full of great and memorable moments. You could probably overlook some of the more stupid moments and still enjoy yourself. It also technically looks better than the three previous seasons. I feel comfortable slotting it between 7 or 8 out of 10. Season 4 was my favourite season when I first watched it but now I’m more leaning towards the first two seasons as they were more consistent with how they balanced their storylines.