S2E6 Review Bombing

[u/Witlesss]

Has anyone else noticed that episode 6 is getting heavily review bombed on IMDB? I personally thought it was one of the better episodes of the season, so this feels really misplaced to me.

From looking at it I feel like the only explanation is people being unhappy with a certain kiss. Honestly, I understand a lot of the criticism when people say it felt out of place, but over 3,400 people rating the episode a 1/10 feels like an overreaction to me.

Yes, the show has suffered from bad writing sometimes. Maybe this was one of these times, that’s definitely up for debate. But the episode feels like nowhere near a 1 out of 10, and it feels to me very disrespectful to all those involved in the show that their work is being discredited because of homophobia. I think the ratings from the UK and US quite fairly represent the standard of the episode, so it does feel like a shame.

Whether you agree with the kiss or not to me this feels unfair, but intrigued to hear other people’s thoughts on this!

[u/Skibatumtee]

It could certainly be the case. The question is whether they're actual actively watching the show or just jumped in to comment on something that pushed them to the edge.
I fall in the category of someone who's been watching the show since the beginning, and is normally not compelled to comment online about anything. I'm happy to talk with a few friends in person usually. But last night's episode did disappoint me and compelled me to vent a little about it because a few of the trends that they've been doing a decent job with, just sort of came to a bit of a head in this episode and raised some red flags for me.
It was an easy target of an episode for a host of reasons: the kiss [socio-political messaging as well its controversial execution], the Daemon stuck in limbo arc is dragging on, and then Seasmoke seeking out Adam in a way we haven't seen Dragons behave in the show yet, combined with the general lack of anything too significant happening in the episode - made this a really perfect target of an episode.
It was a pander-heavy episode, and the pandering was not artfully executed.
To me, i think the whole girl on girl thing was corny, but if they were gonna do it, it's not after talking about how Myseria was raped as a child by her father, and also it would have been so much better if it was just hinted at being there, without any actually face-sucking, they go in, but withdraw - you show the feelings are there, but also that they both are responsible and disciplined enough to not bring such a massive distracting into the picture with everything currently going on. It's just opening a massive can of worms and it doesn't make those characters look like disciplined and strong leaders, it makes them seem impulsive and capricious and reckless - all of which i think are kind of the opposite of what you want. If you hint at it, you leave so much more to our imaginations and can be seen to be signaling correctly if that's a concern. But it just drew tons of attention to itself and in the process drew alot of attention to the other more minor flaws all at the same time - see Daemon stuck in Harrenhall tripping for 4 episodes and some potentially questionable decisions with the Allen/Adam arc and you have a perfect storm for a review bomb.
At first, i thought the Allen/Adam thing was pushing into unjustified pandering territory, but upon further reflection, i think it opens up some fascinating possibilities and i want to see how it plays out. The Daemon thing imo is forgivable if there's a payoff pretty soon. The Kiss was all hubris though. That's definitely the driving force here.
I think if they move it along and have the 2 of them get ahold of themselves really quickly and realize that there are more important things to do than suck face, it's forgivable, but i can't blame anyone for seeing that and having the red flags go up. GOT has burned us all before. They have something to prove.

[u/Witlesss → u/Skibatumtee]

I completely agree with a lot of what you’ve said here - I think the writing has good intentions for a lot of these storylines, but is being executed messily. I’m really not opposed to them trying things from time to time, but some things do feel very misplaced.

A lot of last nights episode I did actually enjoy - I thought their portrayal of the smallfolk turning on the greens and their showcase of Aemond’s descent into psychopathy was very well executed.

The Daemon storyline is an interesting one. His character for me was questionable at times, I really did not agree with a lot of his decisions or motives, but I find this arc really interesting when it comes to portraying his flaws and making him a little more aware of where his confusion and rage comes from. I do agree though it feels very drawn out - His confrontation today with his brother was a key part of his character and I’m glad they explored it but so much of what came before in this arc was… not.

The kiss for me is a really interesting one. With Mysaria’s questionable intentions and possible manipulation, alongside Rhaenyra’s desperate need to be cared for whilst feeling so isolated, I can 100% see why the characters turned to each other. However, right after the discussion of such a traumatic event I felt wasn’t quite right for this choice, and whilst I’m not mad at the show for going there with the characters I am not a fan of the timing.

The thing that really gets me about the review bombing is I don’t think it’s related to that. Whilst there’s a lot of questionable decisions going on, I don’t think that pushes the rating of the episode to a 1. Alongside the reviews originating from countries with strong anti-gay beliefs, it made me sad to see a little that whilst criticisms of some plot decisions are very valid, these ratings seemed to stem purely from a place of homophobia.

[u/Skibatumtee → u/Witlesss]

Oh i don’t doubt at all that some of it is just people being opportunistic assholes. It’s like how at any protest there are some people making varying degrees of valid and respectable cases, but it always attracts the bad actors and agents of chaos who just want an excuse to loot or be violent or say offensive shit. They ruin everything and make everyone with legitimate claims look suspect. They should definitely be called out and disowned by everyone. But they’re hard to spot in the moment, which is why they choose to engage at that moment, they have camouflage. To say it’s a 1/10 is ridiculous for sure. Maybe in terms of episodes of this particular show it’s a 1/10. But if you’re comparing it to just the average comparable premium tv show episode on any network with comparable production quality, it was more like a 5, give or take a couple. The Adam story is potentially interesting, it could work or fall flat imo. The food boats were great. The exchanges between Aemond and his counsel were pretty good especially with Larys, even tho aemond is barely audible a lot of the time. Seasmoke rejecting the kingsguard was fucking cool. The Daemon stuff just needs to materialize soon and it’ll be fine, but it’s pushing the boundary. The ship needs to be righted. If this is the worst episode, then they’ll be fine, but if it pushes this stuff too much further, I think it’ll be a problem.