The whole thing from the moment they return to Castle Black at the end was dreadful. The way Davos, a down-to-Earth, sensible man, visits the Red Woman and asks about resurrection without any mention of it at all beforehand - totally out of character. No thought given to the consequences, or even how the simple "thieves and farm hands" of the Night's Watch might react to a resurrected Lord Commander. Prior to that scene, Tormund was suggesting building a pyre (a sensible reaction), but then normally sensible Davos is asking about the most unnatural thing imaginable as though he wanted her to replace a light bulb.
The scene was nothing but the clunkiest bit of exposition to finally make happen what everyone knew would happen anyway - and then the way the actual resurrection was done was ridiculously cliched. From the "oh no, it's failed!" moment to the shot of him gasping for breath - so staggeringly unoriginal, so visually and dramatically obvious for a show that normally has interesting takes on events. It really did seem to me like the whole thing was intended to generate headlines between seasons, and they thought "now we're into season 6, we've got five minutes to kill in episode 2, we'd better quickly bring him back to life.".
I've argued this opinion elsewhere, and people have justified resurrection on the basis that it's in the books (apparently), or that there is precedent mentioned from a non-major character earlier in the series. But when you bring back a major character, you cheapen every major dramatic death of a major character up to this point.
I've watched a lot of TV shows, and have never seen a scene so cynical, lazy and obvious as this one. As I mentioned last year, the showrunners know they can get away with it because the character involved is so inexplicably popular - so it was widely described as an incredible scene and a punch-the-air moment. Horrid.
The scene was nothing but the clunkiest bit of exposition to finally make happen what everyone knew would happen anyway - and then the way the actual resurrection was done was ridiculously cliched. From the "oh no, it's failed!" moment to the shot of him gasping for breath - so staggeringly unoriginal, so visually and dramatically obvious for a show that normally has interesting takes on events. It really did seem to me like the whole thing was intended to generate headlines between seasons, and they thought "now we're into season 6, we've got five minutes to kill in episode 2, we'd better quickly bring him back to life.".
I've argued this opinion elsewhere, and people have justified resurrection on the basis that it's in the books (apparently), or that there is precedent mentioned from a non-major character earlier in the series. But when you bring back a major character, you cheapen every major dramatic death of a major character up to this point.
I've watched a lot of TV shows, and have never seen a scene so cynical, lazy and obvious as this one. As I mentioned last year, the showrunners know they can get away with it because the character involved is so inexplicably popular - so it was widely described as an incredible scene and a punch-the-air moment. Horrid.
Rant over
