As much as I enjoyed the first half of this season, I admit there were flaws in the execution of its approach to storytelling, but perhaps for the sake of the admiration I have for the show and the love of its characters I mostly overlooked them. Now, whether it’s because I’m actually taking the time to think more critically (because of the reviewing mindset) or because this episode was more egregious I can’t help but be annoyed by this show’s pace and more specifically its overly expositional narrative style.
This felt like reading a single chapter of a book (or light novel given the source material) and obviously depending on what happens in the chapter that can be a middling experience. Despite being a slightly longer 28 minute of run-time, this episode was just four overly long conversations between two people each time with only a single scene in between that offered anything substantially interesting or revelatory. As much as I admire this show’s (presumed) faithfulness to the source material and putting everything from the page onto screen there was no need for this to be so drawn out.
Maybe this won’t be as much of an issue for those binge-watching the series, after all a long “chapter” of talking and little else amidst the rest of the “book” that comprises this series might be easier to overlook. But for the first time in the 39 episodes that have come so far I was bored and there’s no reason for a series with a history of high stakes, narrative depth and wealth of character to suffer due to such a glut of material and lack of judicious cutting of the proverbial fat.
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