I'm not entirely sure where they could've even stretched the budget but HBO 100% need to just give them more money. They won't make HotD the biggest show ever like GoT was by cutting the episode count, having 2 years between seasons and having the finale be a wet noodle
I would say yes, but I think the season suffered due to filming during the writer's strike more than anything else. There was no way we would ever get 2 more episodes because they weren't allowed to make script changes 😭
@@heddofeddo I had not thought about the strike having an effect due to the show not being made in the USA, and did not use union employees. But I could see it having some effect.
I really doubt budget was the issue here... I don´t mind cutting budget heavy stuff like battle of the burning mill, sacking Duskendale or Aemond burning down that castle/town in this episode. I really liked all the different dragons but again, don´t know how budget heavy this CGI is. You guys had the best and most concise coverage of the show I´ve seen so you earned my sub.
Finally someone actually acknowledging the fucking horrendous writing choices rather than just the finale not felling like one. This episode was by far the worst in the show, mainly because most characters were written to be completly different versions of themselves and yeah nothing actually happened to tie everything this season promised. Alicent Hightower may she rest in peace, gone but never forgotten.
true plus: it seemed they planned a ten episode season but were forced to condense it into 8 episodes with not much time to do so that s ANOTHER reason, why much feels forced and unbalanced
The greens have the best character arcs because Condal isn't afraid of showing/exploring their flaws since he dislikes them. The "villains" in his story end up being more compelling because we see them TALK about family trauma, fears, resentments i.e Aegon & Larys / Alicent & Gwayne / Aemond & The brothel madam. Rhaenyra and Jace fighting over the dragon seeds when he said "did you think i'd have dark hair" was one of the BEST scenes because it was an honest conversation that needed to happen. They are constantly cutting away from dramatic moments with the blacks like the fall out from Rhaenys' death and Corlys saying "it should have been you", Someone bringing up Leanor finally, Hugh's daughter dying. Rhaenyra's characterization is so empty and they have butchered Alicent.
I think it isn't true at all... Larys had one sentence telling us about his past life and that's all 💀 They only showed Aegon's personality because he was one of the mains this season.
Tom Glynn-Carney did a great job as Aegon this season. Even the little details, like how he expressed severe pain, showed that he put a lot of work into getting his performance as realistic as possible.
With the celebrity cameos, it really is feeling like season 7/8 of Game of Thrones again. GRRM got duped again, no wonder he with seething on his blog.
I love the people on Twitter clapping along to Rhaenyra physically assaulting Bartimos because he dared be honest with her and calling his character a misogynist. What's the cultural take away here? That if a man doesn't go along with you it's ok to smack him one because your confusing his questioning for sexism? What a toxic message.
I don’t think he was necessarily being ‘sexist’ but to have a lord walk up to his monarch and essentially say ‘I told you so’, probably wouldn’t go down well with any king or ruler… I wouldn’t like to think what Bobby b or any of the other Targ kings would have done to him for public insubordination.
@@ChileHT Because "he told her so", and so did all her councilors. Meanwhile she has done absolutely nothing except giving the only source of power of the Targaryens to random commoners.
Oh it's not a gender thing at all imo, it's that he's speaking to his reagent like an uncle who's had too much to drink. The reagent in question, unfortunately, has no idea how to handle disrespect well (unlike Reynis) and lashes out like a brat. She is right on one thing above all: her father did not prepare her for rule, spoiled her bc he felt bad about her mom dying, and now she has to pick up where his weak rule left off, in war time no less. Despite the blacks having more dragons, I don't think they inspire the realm's confidence.
I liked it because he forgot himself in a medieval society. And speaking not just to his liegelord, but the Targaryen monarch of the Seven Kingdoms? He's lucky it was just a slap. And I've been dying for them to portray Rhaenyra being an arrogant sow. So I loved it.
You don't understand guys , Helaena not being mad with Daemon is destiny, Bloodraven was warging everyone in the room, blood, cheese, Helaena, Jahaerys, Jahaera, the dog and rat number 3 watching in the corner of the room, it was necessary because if they kill Aegon's son then Aegon have to kill every ratcatcher in the city so Otto (warged by bloodraven) can bring 150 cats to the red keep so Syrio Forel (warged by Bloodraven) can tell Arya that she have to train catching the cats so she can kill the night king, see? Without blood & cheese incident you can't defeat the long (short) GOT NIGHT.
The writers strike is why they ended in a montage instead of all the action played out. They should have left the characters book accurate, Rheanyra and Allicent were both bloodthirsty tyrannys, not helpless chicks who didn't want war
This whole season has been a mash-up of: Home Alone villains- The Wet Bandits (Blood & Cheese) What’s new Scooby Doo (Daemon @ HHall) The Lion King (Rook’s Rest) Sister Act (Rhae goes to KL) National Lampoon’s Dragonstone Vacation (Dragonseed Feast) How *not* to Train Your Dragon ft. Rhaena Alicent Hightower as Lady MacBeth Montages galore And best of all, the missing in action support cast: Otto Hightower Daeron Targaryen Cregan Stark And others…
What's worse is the little bit of flaws that they do give her is portrayed as something good. 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️ Literal virtue signalling in the show. I hate the writers for that. She's a total Mary Sue.
Speaking of half measures. Wouldn't it have been interesting if they didn't telegraph who the dragon riders would be. What if we followed one of the the smallfolk and learned back story like the others, and they were annihilated in the Red Sowing. I could feel Ulf and Hugh's plot armor an inch thick. I honestly hoped that Raena would be eaten by sheep stealer. Something, anything to make me care what happens in the show.
Aemond burning Sharp Point was the most horrendous character assassination we've seen so far in this show. In my opinion, it's worse than Rhaenys bursting out of the dragon pit in S1E9. He was a tragic, relatable young man who has a monumental inferiority complex born from going from the target of an entire family's worth of bullying to the most powerful dragon rider on the planet. He lost his eye for it and his own father protected the ones who did it. He was never a monster, he just had a massive chip on his shoulder and a lot of unavenged trauma. His worst deeds are killing Luke, which was an accident caused by his reckless endangerment, and burning Aegon, his idiot, grapist, ratcatcher killing bully of a brother. Then, this episode, he had to flee for once and so he MURDERS THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE WITH STONE MELTING DRAGON FLAME. Where the fuck did this come from? Aemond is not a monster and he shouldn't be cruel to the people. At most he's just indifferent to them, all his beef is with his family. I can't believe the writers did this.
@@sugarcombfilms3467 Dan here, having not read the book the most interesting thing they could've done would be to have him be pretty good at king'in because he was well read and studied
@@burgunbeerd It would've also added to the theme of the show, which is that an entire system of government should not boil down to whichever noble has the oldest penis. Aemond would be a fantastic king but he's sidelined because he's a second son. Unfortunately, it looks like the show runners are mainly focused on just the patriarchal themes and instead of making Aemond sympathetic like Rhaenyra and Alicent they make him evil and impulsive because he's not a woman.
@@sugarcombfilms3467they also totally character assissinated aegon. He wasn't a rapist, a philander, yes but not a rapist. He's really just the first born male caught up in a mess because his daddy decided to give it to his favorite for no good reason.
@@kedrprao My complaint is not that Aemond did something evil my complaint is that it made no fucking sense. Burning Aegon was evil, but it made sense. Killing Luke was evil, but it made sense. Daemon orchestrating Blood and Cheese was evil, but it made sense.
About the Alyn and Addam thing.. If Corlys openly claims either, Rhanerya 3rd son Joeffery will have a challenge to his claim on Driftmark. Its not as easy, politically, as you make it sound. Addam now has bonus points as a dragonrider Edit @ 29:00.. ohhh the downward spiral would be quite nice, and its book accurate 👍🏻
Well, technically there is a difference between admitting someone is your bastard and LEGITIMIZING them, which - if I remember correctly- only the King/Queen can do. Think back to Ramsay Bolton. His father always acknowledged him as his son, but it was only after he was legitimized that he was no longer a Snow but a Bolton and could inherit titles, hold land etc.
I agree with almost everything you guys have said in this video. the Cole scene my thought was that something was cut. same when Alisent is at dragon stone. I love the show, however this episode had me leaving like wait, thats it?? the end montage was great. the music was on point for that one. As the sun set I thought wow, this season was a lot of nothing. very little happened. it felt well stretched out. I dont think 2 more episodes would have helped. this season could have been told faster. more condensed so as to have an actual battle to end the season. Keep it up guys! love your work.
This episode is also a great example of how to do DEI. the show made zero noise about the trans actor. they were just an actor. and treated as just that. Compared to Doctor Who, this was subtle and well done. just saying this is what good DEI looks like.
@heavysetmedia1904 yeah I (Dan) didn't even know until Steven mentioned it. Then I had vague memories of everyone on the internet yelling about it like 2 months ago
@@burgunbeerd I know of 2 other shows that have done it as well. in Fallout. and The wheel of time both have trans actors. actually I think they may be the same actor in both of those shows.
The Queens keep switching personalities. First Alicent say "it's too late" and Rae wants peace... now Alicent wants peace but for Rae it's too late. I'm looking forward for the next conversation when Rae wears green, Alicent rides a Dragon, and Aemond bites his fingers or something.
On one of their tent pole shows no less. That's like... having a pizza stand next to the football stadium, and only closing on days when there's a game. What part of jet plane-sized T-rexes are they not liking??
The feel of the whole show reminds me of a song that's been looped right at the build-up, so there's never the satisfaction of a beat drop. Visually blue-balled in perpetuity
I rated this episode as 4/10... two main reasons being that it was a joke of a finale and the scene with Alicent and Rae. Other than that, I really liked seeing the Tyland in Lys arc, I had no problem with Gwayne lashing out at Cole (they made him noticing enough and then the sniffing that hanky was the last straw) One other negative is Rhaena in the mountains arc... don´t give a single fuck it is too boring and they erased Nettles. Harrenhall scenes were ok, the same with Aemond and Helena´s scenes. My favourite is what they´ve done with Aegon and Larys, the former one being my favourite character. Every scene with Jace is also a banger and the less of Mysaria the better.
Mysaria had the ability to be another Littlefinger\Varys but again, no writing, no development, no demonstration of inside knowledge\skill…….. just perfunctory lines “wars aren’t just won on the battlefield,” in place of real charter.
I agree so much with Dan that Season 1 should have been 2/3 seasons. Spent that entire season thinking "this is going too fast," and I had the assumption that whole season that they were already locked in for 3 seasons. Why would you rush through that much stuff when you know you have 3 seasons? Found out during this season that they weren't actually assured multiple seasons, but that doesn't really help it not feel rushed. And that all bleeds into why this episode doesn't work. They spent 10 hours rushing us past 20 years of character development to dump us into the slowest month of these characters lives that happens to coincide the death of 1 dragon. Ryan needs to figure out a pace that gets him through the rest of the story on budget and stick with it, 'cause I'd expect this is going to look like a S7-8 fumbling to some viewers and they will be done with the franchise. It may only be Ryan's first "strike," but it's the third for franchise assuming you give them a pass on S5 & S6.
The pirates scene was such a filler. Like who are these people, where were they when they were mentioned before in the season, where were they when they battled Corlys, and why the fuck would you gender flip the character if youre not gonna do anything interesting with it, was it just because they wanted to cast a youtuber? I love Abigail i felt she did great in her scenes, but what the fuck was the point? So she could ask the man she literally JUST MET to have his babies?? Thats nonsense lmao, the whole scene felt VERY Ed Sheeran in GoT coded.
I think they tried to make us biased toward Team Black but inadvertently made us root for Team Green. Rhaenyra is really not a good queen if you step back and think about her and what makes a good ruler.
@aileenpi73 The Greens have an experienced council of people who have over 10 yrs with Viserys. Rhaenyra's council is mostly inexperienced (except for Corlys and Daemon) and a good chunk of them are teenagers. Rhaenyra barelt listens to her council too. The Greens have Alicent and the Hightowers who place duty over all (of course they have their faults, they gray characters). GRRM says a great ruler doesn't want to rule and doesn't have entitlement. Rhaenyra wants the crown be cause she feels entitled to it. The shoe stuck the while prince that was promised BS in there to to make us root for her to think there's a much more important reason to root for her. Just a few thoughts while I'm cooking dinner
Pretty sure this season was written to be 10 episodes. There were leaks about a year ago that the season ends with the battle of the gullet, and that absolutely feels like where this season was going to. Allegedly, Hbo forced them to cut 2 episodes.
The second season's only accomplishment was making me unabashedly Team Green. Fire cannot kill a dragon, all hail King Aegon, second of his name, the Realm's Delight.
The mud wrestling was just straight up filler because they had nothing else. Also these e-celebs like PhilosophyTube being astro turfed into film & TV really comes off as a desperate "How do you do, fellow kids?" move
Aemond will be seen again or atleast his skeleton will, so Helena is wrong about that prediction. Unless that skeleton isnt actually Aemond, it wouldn't surprise me if they decide to change the outcome of the battleabove the gods eye. I could see them subverting expectations by having Aemond survive and not Daemon. There's a popular fan theory in fire and blood that daemon didn't die, due his body never being found. What if the body of who they think is aemond is actually daemon instead.
HBO is the one that demanded 8 episodes. The Discovery merger is cocking things up for HBO original IPs. Ryan wanted 10 episodes, this decision was not his own, he let us know that at the beginning of this season. HBO was not willing to put the money up for his vision. I can guarantee his original script had this ending on Battle of the Gullet and HBO refused to pay for it this season. And I'm pretty sure the conversation between Rhaenyra and Alicent was meant to take place after that battle. I'm sure HBO now is aware of their mistakes, because when hardcore fans heard Ryan very sneakily exposing HBO, I could hear the clicking of 100,00 keyboards letting their discontent known.
@@jessjess23brooks89 So now is that they have the nerve to be conversative about budgets? When Game of Thrones was being burned to the ground with their money as fuel they seemed unwilling to stop the two imbeciles responsible.
This season started so well & then proceeds to sputter across the finish line. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, 2 strikes, audience is wet💦 Cut to black when the ball & bat is about to connect. 🤯
What a shite finale to a blah season, way too much wrong with the writing for me to continue to love this show, I’ll now be watching it like an arsonist watches his fires
There was 2 scenes in the teaser trailer we didn’t see , one scene is baela on her dragon screaming and the other scene is with raenary on her dragon bout to fight someone.
I think the Tyland scenes should have been saved for next season episode 1 The Raina scenes should have all been last episode (7) while we just see her THIS episode 8 ON the dragon in the final montage
I can't wait for Nettles, Morning, and Aegon the younger to escape on Stormcloud. I sure hope Rhaena Targaryen doesn't come along an ruin absolutely everything that I'm hyper invested in......
It is confirmed that the season was cut from 10 episodes to 8? I was a big Lost fan back in the day, writer's strikes, order cuts, these are all things that impact the quality of the final product. I'm not ready to ditch the show or call it Gambo season 8.
Half doing is called inconsistencies in bad writing. Anyone with sense knows this "bullying" was standard kid stuff. Does not justify Aemond having this much anger. Sara and crew are morons
I think you need to rewatch the scene where Allicent goads Aegon to ride his dragon into battle. She eviscerates him and makes him feel worthless and pathetic such that he can either resign himself to irrelevance in the corner or act - she has already made the decision to sacrifice Aegon before he mounts Sunfire
I don't like it when they try to cram new or boring characters down our throat like the Sir Hugh waste of time. Contrast that with how they slowly developed Alys Rivers or Larys and especially Helaena
Like how we spent 10 minutes on a weird admiral that we’d never heard of and couldn’t care less about. I didn’t need to see Tyland mud wrestle or hear about him impregnating some dude’s wives. Save it for next season if it must be there.
I figure the time required to get from dragon-stone to kings landing is definitely accounted for. They certainly have characters go back and forth a lot. Assuming Dragon Stone is 280 mile from Kings Landing. I’d guess the dragons can fly at average 60mph so it’s a 4 hour ride & a Sailing ships with favorable winds or ores can make 12 mph so it would take a day to make the journey one way.
It's clearly budget. Like the 8 episodes that we got were insanely expensive, and if HBO are putting money in.. they want 4 seasons at least. I'd rather this pacing than GoT seasons 5-8. One more action scene would of been nice though.. but episode 7 was far more dragon CGI than most of GoT put together, it was highly impressive. And think of all the battles GoT didn't show us in seasons 1-3.. most were off screen.
@@durrangodsgrief6503Exactly! I'll take more episodes of GRRM shows over another terrible season of true detective. They don't have the catalog of running quality shows they once did. Hotd isn't perfect, but it's the best thing I've seen on HBO since the final season of succession.
@burgunbeerd Indeed. But we will see what Daemon's part is the story truely is. Did we ever learn the name of the Night King? It was interesting they gave him long hair. Perhaps, Daemon or Aemond.
I think as an episode it's completely fine it just has the burden of being the last episode for 2 years and it didnt really wrap anything up or start anything new it simply did what every other episode this season has done. Still the best show out atm though
I am really enjoying the video so far but if i might add some constructive criticism. For me personally the camera perspective shifts are coming way too often and feel exhausting over time.
Only thing I disagree with… Rhaenyra couldn’t have just shown up to Harenhall and gotten Daemon to bend the knee earlier. She couldn’t take Jace. She had to take Adam or another new dragon rider to display her newfound power advantage with 3 additional dragons with common folk.
I honestly really enjoyed the show, BUT I’m also giving it grace because the strikes and the unexpectedly shortened season (it was supposed to be 10 episodes) likely contributed to many of the issues. If such issues persist in the next season, I will reevaluate this season. That said, the show looks gorgeous. You can see how passionate the artists working on the show are. And the acting is superb.
All the greens should be doing is manufacturing scorpions. I mean crazy scorpions. One scorpion for every 3 infantry man or sailor or marine. The greens still possess the most castles. Right ???? When the dragons fly close they get sprayed. Problem solved.
Not sure if anyone heard, but there was a huge writers strike in the middle of filming. That causes a lot of issues during filling rewrites... So maybe think about what was happening irl causing something like this. Or I'm wrong and gonna be very disappointed.
It would be so much better, I would not be highly annoyed, if they didn't keep shoehorning in modern "progressive" ideology into every single ambiguous aspect of the story. Everyone knows what I'm talking about. It's so insufferable.
With all the omitted book characters, plots, lore and everything that we're about to get in Winds Of Winter, there's categorically no way that HBO will allow GOT Season 8 to be the end of the story.
sara hess should be fired. get a dude. a good one to write. Geeta should direct dramas and not anything thrones related. give her to disney for fucks sake
Producers should know when you introduce something there needs to be a reason for it or why introduce it? In GrrM vlogs, he writes about how producers take books and think they can make them better by doing things differently which is never the case. People loved his books for the story, plot and characters and i hear alot of material has changed. Like did they really say Sunfyre is dead? Did we know that?
The only reason people aren’t saying this is bad is because relative to other tv seasons it is good. But the problem is that everything is bad right now. I mean the first season of this was nothing great, but was fine. This one, though. This was very bad. And it took two years. And only 8 episodes. Ryan Condal doesn’t know what he’s doing. The characters are flat. The storylines are meandering. The overall arch is basically pointless. And again, somehow again, they’ve managed to ignore the book which is a road map. Why? Why do they keep doing this? The books even give them massive leeway in how they paint the characters and basically multiple paths of how they can proceed. Initially I did blame Sarah Hesse for the mess of episode 9 last season. But it’s become clear now that Condal just has no plan and a bunch of writers doing whatever they want. Ultimately: the characters are basically two dimensional and the dialogue is tonally flat. I also think there is serious problems with some of the acting as well, actually. And all of that Lohar stuff. I mean my god. ‘Obviously we’re two white dudes talking about how women are presented’. Whut
my take on season 2, episode 8 finale. As an ASOIAF fan, I have collected all the books, waiting for the WINDS OF WINTER! If you read between the lines. The FINALE EPISODE is saying "FUCK YOU D&D of GAME OF THRONES for destroying the ASOIAF universe!" WHY? 1. The House of the Dragon has the correct interpretation of PROPHECY. 2. TYROSH, the TRIARCHY, has blue hair! 3. The DRAGONS have personalities. 4. AND I WANT YOU TO WATCH AGAIN THE EPISODE 8. SO MANY THINGS THAT SAID "FUCK YOU GOT FOR DESTROYING ASOIAF UNIVERSE!"
Omg it is starting to frustrate me, Abigail Thorne is a youtuber, yes, but she is also a professional actress and is working as an actor all her adult life soooo yeah, saying that this role is played by youtuber is like looking for some drama for me.
This show is lacking feelings. How do you get attached to anyone or the plot that never moves. I was devastated when certain people were going to die or died in GoT. How do we know who is honorable in this show? They hardly show anyone for any length of time. We know because of books or by watching GoT. This show is all over the place. I feel like i have adhd episodes and have to keep snapping my rubber band to keep my focus on it….
That writer Sara is horrendous. I don’t like her writing choices. They butchered both Rhaenyra and Allicents characters arcs. I’m so pissed. Not bc we didn’t get more battles but bc every episode felt like a repeat of itself we
I think that will backfire on them. I’m not sure I care to bother with season 3 after how they dragged out season 2 without any closure at all, and I’m probably not the only one.
Would you sacrifice some of the budget overall to get 2 more episodes?
Subscribing is a great way to help us out and would be very much appreciated
I'm not entirely sure where they could've even stretched the budget but HBO 100% need to just give them more money. They won't make HotD the biggest show ever like GoT was by cutting the episode count, having 2 years between seasons and having the finale be a wet noodle
I would say yes, but I think the season suffered due to filming during the writer's strike more than anything else. There was no way we would ever get 2 more episodes because they weren't allowed to make script changes 😭
@@heddofeddo I had not thought about the strike having an effect due to the show not being made in the USA, and did not use union employees. But I could see it having some effect.
I really doubt budget was the issue here... I don´t mind cutting budget heavy stuff like battle of the burning mill, sacking Duskendale or Aemond burning down that castle/town in this episode. I really liked all the different dragons but again, don´t know how budget heavy this CGI is.
You guys had the best and most concise coverage of the show I´ve seen so you earned my sub.
This show season 2 is what we are going to use in our class as a direct example business model for corporation money laundering
More like "The Finale that Never Was"
🎯 💯
🤣
OH SHIT LMAO
The war that never was
excellent comment
🎉😂
Finally someone actually acknowledging the fucking horrendous writing choices rather than just the finale not felling like one. This episode was by far the worst in the show, mainly because most characters were written to be completly different versions of themselves and yeah nothing actually happened to tie everything this season promised. Alicent Hightower may she rest in peace, gone but never forgotten.
The issue is all of the directors have different views of the characters, so the characters end up changing episode to episode.
true plus:
it seemed they planned a ten episode season but were forced to condense it into 8 episodes with not much time to do so
that s ANOTHER reason, why much feels forced and unbalanced
@@D_AdrianTime isn't an excuse... They had 2 years while tv shows should come out within a year.
@@Hear.myvoice
I hear your voice...and no, it s no excuse...and there is none...hbo are pros
was merely adding info.
so, you right 100 per cent
The Queens can teleport now. I fucking hate those scenes.
girl traveled like 30 miles by boat after fucking off to the kingswood for awhile
Well to be fair, queens do have the most maneuverability on the board out of any other piece 😂
Just like in chess! Symbolism 🎉😊😅
Alicent agreeing to let Rhanerya kill Aegon. Lord, Sara Hess needs to resign! What an idiot 😅
And people say "But he is a rapist"... Omg what kind of lunatic morons 💀
The greens have the best character arcs because Condal isn't afraid of showing/exploring their flaws since he dislikes them. The "villains" in his story end up being more compelling because we see them TALK about family trauma, fears, resentments i.e Aegon & Larys / Alicent & Gwayne / Aemond & The brothel madam. Rhaenyra and Jace fighting over the dragon seeds when he said "did you think i'd have dark hair" was one of the BEST scenes because it was an honest conversation that needed to happen. They are constantly cutting away from dramatic moments with the blacks like the fall out from Rhaenys' death and Corlys saying "it should have been you", Someone bringing up Leanor finally, Hugh's daughter dying. Rhaenyra's characterization is so empty and they have butchered Alicent.
What the f are u saying the greens weren't spared. And same for the blacks. They're writing FanFiction at this point.
I think it isn't true at all... Larys had one sentence telling us about his past life and that's all 💀
They only showed Aegon's personality because he was one of the mains this season.
Tom Glynn-Carney did a great job as Aegon this season. Even the little details, like how he expressed severe pain, showed that he put a lot of work into getting his performance as realistic as possible.
This season has never made this more apparent: the characters can only be as smart as the people writing them.
With the celebrity cameos, it really is feeling like season 7/8 of Game of Thrones again.
GRRM got duped again, no wonder he with seething on his blog.
What? Don’t you like having a characters opening line be a nonsensical reference to the actors friggin TH-cam channel?
I love the people on Twitter clapping along to Rhaenyra physically assaulting Bartimos because he dared be honest with her and calling his character a misogynist. What's the cultural take away here? That if a man doesn't go along with you it's ok to smack him one because your confusing his questioning for sexism? What a toxic message.
I don’t think he was necessarily being ‘sexist’ but to have a lord walk up to his monarch and essentially say ‘I told you so’, probably wouldn’t go down well with any king or ruler… I wouldn’t like to think what Bobby b or any of the other Targ kings would have done to him for public insubordination.
@@ChileHT Because "he told her so", and so did all her councilors. Meanwhile she has done absolutely nothing except giving the only source of power of the Targaryens to random commoners.
Oh it's not a gender thing at all imo, it's that he's speaking to his reagent like an uncle who's had too much to drink. The reagent in question, unfortunately, has no idea how to handle disrespect well (unlike Reynis) and lashes out like a brat. She is right on one thing above all: her father did not prepare her for rule, spoiled her bc he felt bad about her mom dying, and now she has to pick up where his weak rule left off, in war time no less. Despite the blacks having more dragons, I don't think they inspire the realm's confidence.
I liked it because he forgot himself in a medieval society. And speaking not just to his liegelord, but the Targaryen monarch of the Seven Kingdoms? He's lucky it was just a slap. And I've been dying for them to portray Rhaenyra being an arrogant sow. So I loved it.
I love how Rhys Ifans is listed in the opening credits and what we get of Otto is that shot
lol I know they Otto-baited us 😮
I subbed hbo max due to him.
Don’t use him for 6 episodes. Wtf
@@genericsavingssure, they should write their screenplay to cater to your weird subscription reason
@@JoylevinsteinNo, they should write him because he is the one goes to the triarchy in the book 🫠
HBO needs to give this show a BUDGET. It’s the most promising show on TV even with a meh finale.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 most promising? The Boys shits on this crap 😂
You don't understand guys , Helaena not being mad with Daemon is destiny, Bloodraven was warging everyone in the room, blood, cheese, Helaena, Jahaerys, Jahaera, the dog and rat number 3 watching in the corner of the room, it was necessary because if they kill Aegon's son then Aegon have to kill every ratcatcher in the city so Otto (warged by bloodraven) can bring 150 cats to the red keep so Syrio Forel (warged by Bloodraven) can tell Arya that she have to train catching the cats so she can kill the night king, see? Without blood & cheese incident you can't defeat the long (short) GOT NIGHT.
The Long Game That Was Promised.
Isn't she a princess, why's she alone searching for a dragon... make it make sense.
Yeah like when she ran off the road, and literally nobody noticed... where's the princess?
The writers strike is why they ended in a montage instead of all the action played out. They should have left the characters book accurate, Rheanyra and Allicent were both bloodthirsty tyrannys, not helpless chicks who didn't want war
Yeah...
This whole season has been a mash-up of:
Home Alone villains- The Wet Bandits (Blood & Cheese)
What’s new Scooby Doo (Daemon @ HHall)
The Lion King (Rook’s Rest)
Sister Act (Rhae goes to KL)
National Lampoon’s Dragonstone Vacation (Dragonseed Feast)
How *not* to Train Your Dragon ft. Rhaena
Alicent Hightower as Lady MacBeth
Montages galore
And best of all, the missing in action support cast:
Otto Hightower
Daeron Targaryen
Cregan Stark
And others…
Blood and cheese was so bad! They murdered a baby and i felt nothing. That's bad writing
Rhaenyra is not allowed to be a character with flaws and consequences
What's worse is the little bit of flaws that they do give her is portrayed as something good. 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️ Literal virtue signalling in the show. I hate the writers for that. She's a total Mary Sue.
She’s not even allowed to be a character who makes decisions. “No decisions or actions = no consequences.”
Speaking of half measures. Wouldn't it have been interesting if they didn't telegraph who the dragon riders would be. What if we followed one of the the smallfolk and learned back story like the others, and they were annihilated in the Red Sowing. I could feel Ulf and Hugh's plot armor an inch thick. I honestly hoped that Raena would be eaten by sheep stealer. Something, anything to make me care what happens in the show.
"Where's the rest?" 🤣🤣🤣sums it up..😂
Literally everything I was thinking after the episode lol. Entire season felt like a trailer for S3 by the end.
Not the entire season, just the last 4 episodes
Aemond burning Sharp Point was the most horrendous character assassination we've seen so far in this show. In my opinion, it's worse than Rhaenys bursting out of the dragon pit in S1E9.
He was a tragic, relatable young man who has a monumental inferiority complex born from going from the target of an entire family's worth of bullying to the most powerful dragon rider on the planet. He lost his eye for it and his own father protected the ones who did it. He was never a monster, he just had a massive chip on his shoulder and a lot of unavenged trauma. His worst deeds are killing Luke, which was an accident caused by his reckless endangerment, and burning Aegon, his idiot, grapist, ratcatcher killing bully of a brother.
Then, this episode, he had to flee for once and so he MURDERS THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE WITH STONE MELTING DRAGON FLAME. Where the fuck did this come from? Aemond is not a monster and he shouldn't be cruel to the people. At most he's just indifferent to them, all his beef is with his family. I can't believe the writers did this.
@@sugarcombfilms3467 Dan here, having not read the book the most interesting thing they could've done would be to have him be pretty good at king'in because he was well read and studied
@@burgunbeerd It would've also added to the theme of the show, which is that an entire system of government should not boil down to whichever noble has the oldest penis. Aemond would be a fantastic king but he's sidelined because he's a second son. Unfortunately, it looks like the show runners are mainly focused on just the patriarchal themes and instead of making Aemond sympathetic like Rhaenyra and Alicent they make him evil and impulsive because he's not a woman.
@@sugarcombfilms3467they also totally character assissinated aegon. He wasn't a rapist, a philander, yes but not a rapist. He's really just the first born male caught up in a mess because his daddy decided to give it to his favorite for no good reason.
that was nothing. aemond later burns ton of villages in riverlands
@@kedrprao My complaint is not that Aemond did something evil my complaint is that it made no fucking sense. Burning Aegon was evil, but it made sense. Killing Luke was evil, but it made sense. Daemon orchestrating Blood and Cheese was evil, but it made sense.
THANK YOU. No one else has acknowledged Aegon can insta heal like Arya.
I have a soft spot for Aegon so i was happy to see him healing. Them Sara decided he had to lose his cock. So annoying Sara. She needs fired
About the Alyn and Addam thing..
If Corlys openly claims either, Rhanerya 3rd son Joeffery will have a challenge to his claim on Driftmark. Its not as easy, politically, as you make it sound.
Addam now has bonus points as a
dragonrider
Edit @ 29:00.. ohhh the downward spiral would be quite nice, and its book accurate 👍🏻
Well, technically there is a difference between admitting someone is your bastard and LEGITIMIZING them, which - if I remember correctly- only the King/Queen can do.
Think back to Ramsay Bolton. His father always acknowledged him as his son, but it was only after he was legitimized that he was no longer a Snow but a Bolton and could inherit titles, hold land etc.
@@rootsofsilver I just think Rhaenrya would go shifty eyes and paranoid if Corlys had bastards 🤷🏻♂️
This was a season 3 trailer… I am so not gonna watch HOTD season 3 🙄
I really thought the vision at Harrenhal was not necessary to be honest. Not a callback to GOT is needed.
I agree with almost everything you guys have said in this video. the Cole scene my thought was that something was cut. same when Alisent is at dragon stone. I love the show, however this episode had me leaving like wait, thats it?? the end montage was great. the music was on point for that one. As the sun set I thought wow, this season was a lot of nothing. very little happened. it felt well stretched out. I dont think 2 more episodes would have helped. this season could have been told faster. more condensed so as to have an actual battle to end the season. Keep it up guys! love your work.
This episode is also a great example of how to do DEI. the show made zero noise about the trans actor. they were just an actor. and treated as just that. Compared to Doctor Who, this was subtle and well done. just saying this is what good DEI looks like.
@heavysetmedia1904 yeah I (Dan) didn't even know until Steven mentioned it. Then I had vague memories of everyone on the internet yelling about it like 2 months ago
@@burgunbeerd I know of 2 other shows that have done it as well. in Fallout. and The wheel of time both have trans actors. actually I think they may be the same actor in both of those shows.
Daemon had 3 hairstyles last season
The Queens keep switching personalities. First Alicent say "it's too late" and Rae wants peace... now Alicent wants peace but for Rae it's too late. I'm looking forward for the next conversation when Rae wears green, Alicent rides a Dragon, and Aemond bites his fingers or something.
oh yes, lemme grab a drink and snack
When it cut to credits at the end that was legitimately SO funny
I would love A Song of Ice and Fire animation adoption. A faithful one
100% this. No limitations of IRL sets and effects, full colourful pomp, pageantry and grandeur. Less penis jokes.
This was for sure just a 73 minute trailer for season 3.
They show being able to see Dragonstone from Kings landing and it looks like its 10 minutes or so away.
I heard that they did write 10 episodes but HBO cut their budget so they could only afford 8.
😬
On one of their tent pole shows no less. That's like... having a pizza stand next to the football stadium, and only closing on days when there's a game. What part of jet plane-sized T-rexes are they not liking??
The feel of the whole show reminds me of a song that's been looped right at the build-up, so there's never the satisfaction of a beat drop. Visually blue-balled in perpetuity
It also seems like an album with only 2 good songs on it
So happy I discovered this channel. Banger video.
I rated this episode as 4/10... two main reasons being that it was a joke of a finale and the scene with Alicent and Rae.
Other than that, I really liked seeing the Tyland in Lys arc, I had no problem with Gwayne lashing out at Cole (they made him noticing enough and then the sniffing that hanky was the last straw)
One other negative is Rhaena in the mountains arc... don´t give a single fuck it is too boring and they erased Nettles.
Harrenhall scenes were ok, the same with Aemond and Helena´s scenes.
My favourite is what they´ve done with Aegon and Larys, the former one being my favourite character.
Every scene with Jace is also a banger and the less of Mysaria the better.
Mysaria had the ability to be another Littlefinger\Varys but again, no writing, no development, no demonstration of inside knowledge\skill…….. just perfunctory lines “wars aren’t just won on the battlefield,” in place of real charter.
I agree so much with Dan that Season 1 should have been 2/3 seasons. Spent that entire season thinking "this is going too fast," and I had the assumption that whole season that they were already locked in for 3 seasons. Why would you rush through that much stuff when you know you have 3 seasons? Found out during this season that they weren't actually assured multiple seasons, but that doesn't really help it not feel rushed. And that all bleeds into why this episode doesn't work. They spent 10 hours rushing us past 20 years of character development to dump us into the slowest month of these characters lives that happens to coincide the death of 1 dragon.
Ryan needs to figure out a pace that gets him through the rest of the story on budget and stick with it, 'cause I'd expect this is going to look like a S7-8 fumbling to some viewers and they will be done with the franchise. It may only be Ryan's first "strike," but it's the third for franchise assuming you give them a pass on S5 & S6.
The pirates scene was such a filler. Like who are these people, where were they when they were mentioned before in the season, where were they when they battled Corlys, and why the fuck would you gender flip the character if youre not gonna do anything interesting with it, was it just because they wanted to cast a youtuber? I love Abigail i felt she did great in her scenes, but what the fuck was the point? So she could ask the man she literally JUST MET to have his babies?? Thats nonsense lmao, the whole scene felt VERY Ed Sheeran in GoT coded.
Can’t believe you guys didn’t mention when Alfred Broom heard the whispers in the wind saying LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE
@@Gojeto346 incredible hahaha
@@burgunbeerd i hate when channels do it but I find it fun when you guys pull it outta nowhere as a part of the thing you’re watching lol, good fun!
We try our best haha. This episodes one got a bit lost cause so much to talk about!
I think they tried to make us biased toward Team Black but inadvertently made us root for Team Green.
Rhaenyra is really not a good queen if you step back and think about her and what makes a good ruler.
How are the alternatives any better?
@aileenpi73
The Greens have an experienced council of people who have over 10 yrs with Viserys. Rhaenyra's council is mostly inexperienced (except for Corlys and Daemon) and a good chunk of them are teenagers. Rhaenyra barelt listens to her council too. The Greens have Alicent and the Hightowers who place duty over all (of course they have their faults, they gray characters). GRRM says a great ruler doesn't want to rule and doesn't have entitlement. Rhaenyra wants the crown be cause she feels entitled to it. The shoe stuck the while prince that was promised BS in there to to make us root for her to think there's a much more important reason to root for her.
Just a few thoughts while I'm cooking dinner
@@sadclown444Rhaynera selfishly wants to be the first woman ruler over her baby brother for one reason, "daddy said i could have it!" 😅
Pretty sure this season was written to be 10 episodes. There were leaks about a year ago that the season ends with the battle of the gullet, and that absolutely feels like where this season was going to. Allegedly, Hbo forced them to cut 2 episodes.
The second season's only accomplishment was making me unabashedly Team Green. Fire cannot kill a dragon, all hail King Aegon, second of his name, the Realm's Delight.
Agreed. I'm Aegon's fiercest supporter thanks to season 2. It happened quickly too after 1st episode
Been keen for this one!
Yeah the scattered half hearted touching on things drove me nuuuuts
The mud wrestling was just straight up filler because they had nothing else. Also these e-celebs like PhilosophyTube being astro turfed into film & TV really comes off as a desperate "How do you do, fellow kids?" move
Aemond will be seen again or atleast his skeleton will, so Helena is wrong about that prediction. Unless that skeleton isnt actually Aemond, it wouldn't surprise me if they decide to change the outcome of the battleabove the gods eye. I could see them subverting expectations by having Aemond survive and not Daemon.
There's a popular fan theory in fire and blood that daemon didn't die, due his body never being found. What if the body of who they think is aemond is actually daemon instead.
Why cut the budget when they can just ask HBO for more from their infinite money pit
Pweeeeez daddy aychbeeOh (づ￣ ³￣)づ
HBO is the one that demanded 8 episodes. The Discovery merger is cocking things up for HBO original IPs. Ryan wanted 10 episodes, this decision was not his own, he let us know that at the beginning of this season. HBO was not willing to put the money up for his vision. I can guarantee his original script had this ending on Battle of the Gullet and HBO refused to pay for it this season. And I'm pretty sure the conversation between Rhaenyra and Alicent was meant to take place after that battle.
I'm sure HBO now is aware of their mistakes, because when hardcore fans heard Ryan very sneakily exposing HBO, I could hear the clicking of 100,00 keyboards letting their discontent known.
@@jessjess23brooks89 So now is that they have the nerve to be conversative about budgets? When Game of Thrones was being burned to the ground with their money as fuel they seemed unwilling to stop the two imbeciles responsible.
This season started so well & then proceeds to sputter across the finish line.
Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded,
2 strikes, audience is wet💦
Cut to black when the ball & bat is about to connect. 🤯
What a shite finale to a blah season, way too much wrong with the writing for me to continue to love this show, I’ll now be watching it like an arsonist watches his fires
There was 2 scenes in the teaser trailer we didn’t see , one scene is baela on her dragon screaming and the other scene is with raenary on her dragon bout to fight someone.
I think the Tyland scenes should have been saved for next season episode 1
The Raina scenes should have all been last episode (7) while we just see her THIS episode 8 ON the dragon in the final montage
I can't wait for Nettles, Morning, and Aegon the younger to escape on Stormcloud.
I sure hope Rhaena Targaryen doesn't come along an ruin absolutely everything that I'm hyper invested in......
It is confirmed that the season was cut from 10 episodes to 8? I was a big Lost fan back in the day, writer's strikes, order cuts, these are all things that impact the quality of the final product. I'm not ready to ditch the show or call it Gambo season 8.
the best hotd vids on youtube tbh
Half doing is called inconsistencies in bad writing. Anyone with sense knows this "bullying" was standard kid stuff. Does not justify Aemond having this much anger. Sara and crew are morons
I think you need to rewatch the scene where Allicent goads Aegon to ride his dragon into battle. She eviscerates him and makes him feel worthless and pathetic such that he can either resign himself to irrelevance in the corner or act - she has already made the decision to sacrifice Aegon before he mounts Sunfire
I don't like it when they try to cram new or boring characters down our throat like the Sir Hugh waste of time. Contrast that with how they slowly developed Alys Rivers or Larys and especially Helaena
Like how we spent 10 minutes on a weird admiral that we’d never heard of and couldn’t care less about. I didn’t need to see Tyland mud wrestle or hear about him impregnating some dude’s wives. Save it for next season if it must be there.
Jesse Pinkman: “Yo, where’s the other half?”
stumbled/algorithmed on this channel. subscribed for fellas calling it as it is. Obvious fans, but no fear
Wait the Lannister guy is actually two people ????
Same actor playing twins. They did not make it clear though lol
Kinda interesting how “Thailand” Lannister goes to treat with a ladyboi pirate 👀
I figure the time required to get from dragon-stone to kings landing is definitely accounted for. They certainly have characters go back and forth a lot.
Assuming Dragon Stone is 280 mile from Kings Landing. I’d guess the dragons can fly at average 60mph so it’s a 4 hour ride & a Sailing ships with favorable winds or ores can make 12 mph so it would take a day to make the journey one way.
It's clearly budget. Like the 8 episodes that we got were insanely expensive, and if HBO are putting money in.. they want 4 seasons at least. I'd rather this pacing than GoT seasons 5-8.
One more action scene would of been nice though.. but episode 7 was far more dragon CGI than most of GoT put together, it was highly impressive. And think of all the battles GoT didn't show us in seasons 1-3.. most were off screen.
I'm sorry but budgetary excuses on the most financially successful franchise in HBO history is not acceptable
@@jimjohnson6944 They don't have endless money lol
@@traviscue2099 yet they have enough to burn on shitty shows
@@durrangodsgrief6503Exactly! I'll take more episodes of GRRM shows over another terrible season of true detective. They don't have the catalog of running quality shows they once did. Hotd isn't perfect, but it's the best thing I've seen on HBO since the final season of succession.
Excited for a knight of the seven kingdoms, and hoping they'll develop more shows from the grrmverse
The finale will be at the end of season 4..
Daemon, the Night King.
@@MoncœrCoyoteSmith I'm shocked this is the first time I've seen this hahaha. Back in GoT every new character in a flashback "was the night king"
@burgunbeerd Indeed. But we will see what Daemon's part is the story truely is. Did we ever learn the name of the Night King? It was interesting they gave him long hair. Perhaps, Daemon or Aemond.
@@burgunbeerdI can see Daemond. His bowing to Raenyra is totally out of character. He would have ulterior motives.
They're trying to breed my guy Tyland like a 🐎
i loved this episode i dont think people would be so upset if the show was bad they wouldnt care they just want more dragons which i get
I think as an episode it's completely fine it just has the burden of being the last episode for 2 years and it didnt really wrap anything up or start anything new it simply did what every other episode this season has done.
Still the best show out atm though
@@burgunbeerd Well it wrapped up Daemons Drug Arc so there is at least that
Comparing Aemond to Dwight in the office 😂😂😂
I am really enjoying the video so far but if i might add some constructive criticism. For me personally the camera perspective shifts are coming way too often and feel exhausting over time.
This video deserves more views for sure
Only thing I disagree with… Rhaenyra couldn’t have just shown up to Harenhall and gotten Daemon to bend the knee earlier. She couldn’t take Jace. She had to take Adam or another new dragon rider to display her newfound power advantage with 3 additional dragons with common folk.
I honestly really enjoyed the show, BUT I’m also giving it grace because the strikes and the unexpectedly shortened season (it was supposed to be 10 episodes) likely contributed to many of the issues. If such issues persist in the next season, I will reevaluate this season.
That said, the show looks gorgeous. You can see how passionate the artists working on the show are. And the acting is superb.
All the greens should be doing is manufacturing scorpions. I mean crazy scorpions. One scorpion for every 3 infantry man or sailor or marine. The greens still possess the most castles. Right ???? When the dragons fly close they get sprayed. Problem solved.
You forgot the stealty fleet
I was trying to think of a Sutekh joke for this, but the finale doesn't even have a spot for that to happen.
Not sure if anyone heard, but there was a huge writers strike in the middle of filming. That causes a lot of issues during filling rewrites... So maybe think about what was happening irl causing something like this. Or I'm wrong and gonna be very disappointed.
I was thinking about something. Do you think Sheepstealer is going to burn Reyna. Injure her.
Thank you
Christan had already left for battle before Aemond told Larys to get Otto so he may not know he's not the hand.
very good point!
It would be so much better, I would not be highly annoyed, if they didn't keep shoehorning in modern "progressive" ideology into every single ambiguous aspect of the story. Everyone knows what I'm talking about. It's so insufferable.
Don't u know dei didn't earn it
Lmfao snowflake
What are you referring to?
With all the omitted book characters, plots, lore and everything that we're about to get in Winds Of Winter, there's categorically no way that HBO will allow GOT Season 8 to be the end of the story.
Veryyyyyy good review!!!
sara hess should be fired. get a dude. a good one to write. Geeta should direct dramas and not anything thrones related. give her to disney for fucks sake
Yes as bad as this is, im suggesting let Andrew Tate write HOD. Lol😅
Producers should know when you introduce something there needs to be a reason for it or why introduce it? In GrrM vlogs, he writes about how producers take books and think they can make them better by doing things differently which is never the case. People loved his books for the story, plot and characters and i hear alot of material has changed. Like did they really say Sunfyre is dead? Did we know that?
The only reason people aren’t saying this is bad is because relative to other tv seasons it is good. But the problem is that everything is bad right now. I mean the first season of this was nothing great, but was fine. This one, though. This was very bad. And it took two years. And only 8 episodes. Ryan Condal doesn’t know what he’s doing. The characters are flat. The storylines are meandering. The overall arch is basically pointless. And again, somehow again, they’ve managed to ignore the book which is a road map. Why? Why do they keep doing this? The books even give them massive leeway in how they paint the characters and basically multiple paths of how they can proceed. Initially I did blame Sarah Hesse for the mess of episode 9 last season. But it’s become clear now that Condal just has no plan and a bunch of writers doing whatever they want.
Ultimately: the characters are basically two dimensional and the dialogue is tonally flat. I also think there is serious problems with some of the acting as well, actually. And all of that Lohar stuff. I mean my god.
‘Obviously we’re two white dudes talking about how women are presented’. Whut
I swear I didn’t know that was a trans person. TV and film are so woke that I think they have never been asleep ever.
Great discussion as always.
my take on season 2, episode 8 finale.
As an ASOIAF fan, I have collected all the books, waiting for the WINDS OF WINTER! If you read between the lines. The FINALE EPISODE is saying "FUCK YOU D&D of GAME OF THRONES for destroying the ASOIAF universe!"
WHY?
1. The House of the Dragon has the correct interpretation of PROPHECY.
2. TYROSH, the TRIARCHY, has blue hair!
3. The DRAGONS have personalities.
4. AND I WANT YOU TO WATCH AGAIN THE EPISODE 8. SO MANY THINGS THAT SAID "FUCK YOU GOT FOR DESTROYING ASOIAF UNIVERSE!"
Be angry at hbo the cut the budget very late in pre production forcing rewrites
No. The writers are to blame. So much nonsense in season 2 could've done it in 8 episodes. Wokeness ruined the story
The build-up to the big fight at the end of the ep was so big, they ran out of runtime and had to move the big fight to next year.
Meh.
*2026
Omg it is starting to frustrate me, Abigail Thorne is a youtuber, yes, but she is also a professional actress and is working as an actor all her adult life soooo yeah, saying that this role is played by youtuber is like looking for some drama for me.
This show is lacking feelings. How do you get attached to anyone or the plot that never moves. I was devastated when certain people were going to die or died in GoT. How do we know who is honorable in this show? They hardly show anyone for any length of time. We know because of books or by watching GoT. This show is all over the place. I feel like i have adhd episodes and have to keep snapping my rubber band to keep my focus on it….
Isn't Bloodraven ancient by the time he kills Daemon II and Daeron II sends him to the wall?
He sure does not look young in the book.
you guys are great
That writer Sara is horrendous. I don’t like her writing choices. They butchered both Rhaenyra and Allicents characters arcs. I’m so pissed. Not bc we didn’t get more battles but bc every episode felt like a repeat of itself we
YOU SHOULD ALL SEE VIKINGS VALHALLA IT IS BETTER IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE
I hate the narrative that there wasn't time. 8 episodes was enough time. They just wasted it all.
Otto is with Laryc 😅😅😅
The dragon through the floor was literally the best scene in season 1 😂
They are obviously stretching this series to milk it for all its worth….
I think that will backfire on them. I’m not sure I care to bother with season 3 after how they dragged out season 2 without any closure at all, and I’m probably not the only one.
Idk. I kind of liked it.