Game of Thrones S08E03

regularly scheduled art reviews are on hold because all the exhibitions in Liverpool are too boring or problematiq at the moment and I don’t want to give them the airtime, even if it’s to air them. So let’s talk Game of Thrones S08E03 instead and how it made me feel like I was having an hour and a half long panic attack but I ?loved it? i really did.

I’ve spoken a lot about how I like what I need. Whether it’s from art, YouTube or video games, i want the energy that thing is bringing to the table to slot into my life-mood perfectly like a big jigsaw piece or a nice ghost. It’s so basic but it’s on my mind a lot, because it’s honest to consider how much value i get from something changes depending on where my head’s at, naturally. A friend told me recently about an episode of Nathan Barley where visitors to a restaurant could sit down, give their thumbprint, and the chef would serve them exactly what their bodies needed in terms of nutrients. its the sci-fi future Goop is probably engineering, I presume, from its willy wonka name and Gwyneth Paltrow’s class aesthetic too. And i’ll defend eating whatever the fuck you want to the grave but i wouldn’t mind a process like that when it comes to culture - I’m v happy for the algorithm to know me inside out if i can sit down with dinner and be shown the perfect accompaniment for my modest koka noodles and been-in-the-fridge-for-half-an-hour can of coke. Give me today’s culture soulmate please, I gotta eat before these go cold.

And so, to give u the temperature of my life right now: I’m pretty, er, highly strung at the moment. i’m juggling two jobs and travelling to different places every week, and one job fills my weekdays and the other my weekends / uncleanly overlapping / climbing on top of one another. i’m being pulled in seven directions and never quite giving any of the things in front of me as much attention as i would like to. these are long days, and as much as i enjoy being exercised by my critic/curator career, it isn’t half making relaxing difficult. I used to listen to ambient music and play taptapfish to really blank and un-think; i used to watch Chef’s Table too but I haven’t watched the last 2 seasons bc im living too fast for that slow low aperture editing. In this ffw state I’m opting instead for the club/gym music that i imagine can only be made by people who live in new york. Gravitated to horror films for the first time in my life and holding my hands to my face in shock so often that I directly blame consensual fear for the amount of spots I’m getting this year. I’m also regularly up past midnight fighting divine beasts on Zelda just completely wide awake in bed; having moths surprise me in the few inches between my face and the nintendo switch screen. Never been the type of person who needs to have a bath and read a soft book 2 unwind for sleep, I go from a full engine to zero pretty quickly (which is probably why I sleep-talk so much).

So with allllll of this in mind, I’d like to state that the latest episode of Game of Thrones got me, the fuck, off. I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said by one million tweets, just that it did everything I needed it to do to me. Been so satisfying watching something over the course of 8 literal years and feeling that much pay-off. Like, I was doing GCSEs when this started; I was wearing shorts with tights in the summer AND winter. Time has gladly PASSED. Ep3 wasn’t the climax of the entire narrative but it tied up a major tangent alongside the political and eponymous actual game of thrones, which I guess is how they’ll be spending the remaining 3 episodes before it truly comes to an end. And I enjoyyyyyyed it. I’ve never physically shaken from watching something but my hands were really going, i hadter hold them down. Suspense, horror and action rolled into one messy night - and it was layered like <emotional horror> because of those 8 years getting to know the characters and jus wanting them to pull it off against the odds. The initial Dothraki disappearing in the dark, the World War Z-like bodies spilling like fluid up the castle walls, the absolute knackered-ness of the characters and the Night King’s hands around Arya’s throat all felt like endings. What could they even try next, u kno? I know they’ll try something and inevitably get their win, but that high turnover of endings and new hope was what kept me so involved - felt neatly layered in the almost video game structuring of level 1, level 2, level 3, the boss. We know they’re gonna kill the baddy and tbh I’m fine with knowing football’s coming home because I will always let myself get sucked into a bumpy ride until we get there. suspend some cynicism for the sake of really enjoying myself, just a careful amount. truly the grand national of TV episodes - at the end I sat with my family and recalled who died and who survived like they go through the horses when it’s all over. Morbid, ofc. And while I mostly loved the way it played out (arya my fave, the music, Melisandre’s brown-green-blue eye game changer line, and the big big scale of it all), more people should have died !!!! I thought Game of Thrones was all about committing to that and not playing it too safe with their main stars, bc there really is so much catharsis in letting a character’s story come to an end. But it was defffooooo time for Jaime and Brienne to go, and they should have fucked Sam off too. i need the writers to make good use of these three over the last few episodes or it’s gonna be a waste of what could have been some well timed emotion. Cause who honestly gave two shits about jorah mormont?? wet flannel of a man.

As soon as I finished watching I asked zarina and my boyf what they thought because they’d seen the episode before me and they BOTH said ‘it was good but it was too dark.’ so did many people online. Maybe it just matters more to me (NOTHING BUT THE BEST FOR MY EYES) but i made sure to watch it on the biggest tv in the family with bose surround sound and all the curtains closed. And so the darkness of the episode was just a necessary part of the tension for me, to get that sense of being surrounded and overwhelmed not just as a character but a viewer too;; it wasn’t a problem at all. i never really thought about it until this point but it must be mad for the producers and cameralads to film something so dark but high quality and then realise half their audience watched it on 13” laptop screens and couldn’t even see what was going on. I’m a bit devoed for them. the finish on a mega production like this is part of it after all. 1080p or nothing. v scared and nervous for the final episodes. my cousin thinks Cersei is going to become the Night Queen; i think Arya is pregnant with Gendry’s baby but i also don’t know where I’m going with that idea; sansa is growing on me so i hope she becomes queen tbh; Zarina thinks Jon is gonna go and Cersei will end up on top; fully can’t remember if those cool spanish sisters are dead or still in prison but i hope they escape!; and my sister thinks daenerys is going to go the same way as her dad, and Jon’s gonna have to put an end to it. Idk and I don’t know what will feel best or make most sense!! but it’s quite fun guessing as long as you don’t actually hit the mark and it’s still a surprise. Like, Bran wasn’t the Night King after that long and convincing conspiracy, and i’m glad because we needed something totally leftwing to push this episode over the edge - and that idea was so visible it couldn’t have remained a twist. but we shall see. I’m going to need some more involved and high stakes TV to replace GOT come the 20th so watch me get into 24 hours in A&E, old episodes of Fear Factor, or you know, the news. otherwiseeeee, where am i gonna get the adrenaline i need to relax??