David Andrews Criticism of Sunday's 'Game of Thrones' is Not Wrong

David Andrews at his press availability today, when asked about “The Battle of Winterfell”:

“I don’t know. I mean, it was good, but we’re going to build it up, and it was kind of like driving to work with your windshield frozen. You’re like, ‘Was that a stop sign? Or …?’ I mean, it was good. But I think it got built up a little too much. We believed the hype a little too much there. I like the battles — I guess that’s pretty cool — but you didn’t get to see nothing.

“You’ve got guys getting swarmed, and then all of a sudden, they get out of it scot free? How’d they do that?”

Exactly, Six-Oh. EXACTLY.

I have to say, David Andrews delivers an critique of a high anticipated television event like he delivers a trap block. His assessment is as accurate as his shotgun snaps.

“The Battle of Winterfell” was great drama. The buildup was intense. The tension ratcheted up like the 4th quarter against Kansas City to the 10th power. And then, when the showrunners had us right where they wanted us, they put us  in the dark. I get that they were going for  us having to guess what was going on as much as the characters, with a literal Fog of War. But it’s tele-fricking-vision. Images are kind of why you sit facing the screen. And yet my screen was so badly pixelated and shadowy I’m going to try to rewatch it with the brightness turned up to 11 and hope it works.

Kudos too to Andrews for his take on everyone surviving in an instant like that. I’m all about beloved characters being put into mortal peril with no hope for escape and then finding a way out. All your best drama is like that. But when you go from Danger Level: Maximum and then have it end deus ex machina when Arya presses the White Walker Self-Destruct button conveniently located right on the front of the Night King, you’re doing a disservice to your audience.

I think I speak for David Andrews and I both when I say it was good. But still a missed opportunity to have made one of the great 90 minutes in the history of the medium over two easily correctable lapses in judgment. He just might be the greatest undrafted free agent centers/drama critics the NFL has ever produced.

P.S.