Why that 'Game of Thrones' cold open was worse than 'Scooby Doo'
Game of Thrones' season opening episodes are almost never regarded as the best of their ilk. From the "Winter is Coming" pilot onwards, they've all suffered the same problem: too much scene-setting and checking in with characters is required for much of interest to actually happen.
This is not necessarily a problem -- we've had some excellent, top-ten worthy Episode 2s spring from the solid foundation of that scene-setting. But you can also see why the showrunners -- and their bosses at HBO -- would be interested in making sure there's as much oomph to a season premiere as possible.
And so we got the cold open to Season 7, Episode One's 'Dragonstone', in which Walder Frey (killed by Arya Stark at the end of Season 6) appears to be toasting the many loyal sons of House Frey for their participation in the Red Wedding. Is this a flashback, we wonder?
But as they start choking from the poison in their wine, Walder pulls his face off. Surprise! It's Arya!
I can understand how this scene works -- if you're a casual fan at a viewing party. Everyone remembers the Red Wedding, right? So what better way to win cheers than to milk that tragedy one more time for a crowd-pleasing moment of revenge? So what if it doesn't make sense?
Many more of us, however, saw this scene and thought of one thing: the unrealistic unmaskings of every episode of Scooby Doo ever.
No less a personage than William Shatner called the scene "slapstick hokey," and continued:
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He wasn't the only one.
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Of course, the in-universe explanation is that Arya learned the craft of using faces of the dead as masks at the House of Black and White on Bravos. We've seen her dramatic mask reveal before, most recently when she posed as one of Walder's serving girls in order to kill him.
But when it comes to suspension of disbelief, there's a whole world of difference between a girl posing as a girl her own age, a girl a man doesn't recognize, and a girl posing as a man significantly taller and older than her -- and somehow dozens of family members fail to notice the deception.
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The show has often danced delicately around the nature of the identity deception used at the House of Black and White. The master of the craft, Jaquen H'gar, was often seen to change faces -- but in a spooky manner that was clearly more about magic than simple cartoon villainy. And never about disguising himself as someone of a significantly different build.
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It is not to take anything away from the excellent performances of David Bradley and Maisie Williams -- both of whom do their best to sell the scene -- to say that you just can't get away with this sort of "a-HA!" moment in 21st century entertainment without provoking unintentional laughter.
It doesn't happen for the same reason that villains in serious dramas no longer twirl mustaches or cackle evilly.
An audience is more sophisticated now. An audience has seen too many cliches.
Specifically, an audience that grew up with this:
Topics Game Of Thrones HBO
Chris is a veteran tech, entertainment and culture journalist, author of 'How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,' and co-host of the Doctor Who podcast 'Pull to Open.' Hailing from the U.K., Chris got his start as a sub editor on national newspapers. He moved to the U.S. in 1996, and became senior news writer for Time.com a year later. In 2000, he was named San Francisco bureau chief for Time magazine. He has served as senior editor for Business 2.0, and West Coast editor for Fortune Small Business and Fast Company. Chris is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a long-time volunteer at 826 Valencia, the nationwide after-school program co-founded by author Dave Eggers. His book on the history of Star Wars is an international bestseller and has been translated into 11 languages.
