‘Game Of Thrones’ May Face Backlash After Bringing Back Its Most Polarizing Director For Two Episodes

After a period of mystery and intrigue, we finally have a list of which directors are directing which episodes of Game of Thrones‘ shortened seventh season. As usual, we have the excellent news site Watchers On The Wall to thank for this information. They didn’t wait for HBO to announce this but rather pieced things together detective style, and here’s the line-up they discovered:

Episode 1: Jeremy Podeswa

Episode 2: Mark Mylod

Episode 3: Mark Mylod

Episode 4: Matt Shakman

Episode 5: Matt Shakman

Episode 6: Alan Taylor

Episode 7: Jeremy Podeswa

Podeswa is a veteran Game of Thrones director who handled the highly anticipated first two episodes of season six. Matt Shakman is a newcomer to the show who is best known for directing 39 episodes of Always Sunny In Philadelphia (so we can’t wait to see ‘The Gang Invades Westeros’).

In addition to his six previous Game of Thrones episodes which span all the way back to the start of the show, Alan Taylor also directed Thor: The Dark World, Terminator: Genisys, and a bunch of other quality television like Mad Men, The Sopranos, and Rome. He gets to direct the typically bloody penultimate episode of season seven, which is good because he handled the ends of season one and two with serious style and gravitas.

Then we come to Mark Mylod, the most controversial director of the bunch. There was a whole big campaign on Reddit entitled “HBO Please do not let Mark Mylod direct another episode” that garnered over 3500 upvotes and 1300 comments, largely due to Mylod’s directing of the season six Arya episodes. Points of contention amongst fans of the show included the stabbing fake-out, the over the top chase scene, and the long drawn out shot Arya falling down stairs with oranges for some reason.

Does Mylod deserve the criticism he’s gotten for directing four of the lowest ranking Game of Thrones episodes in the history of the show Or is this just the manifestation of fan rage unfairly pointed at the guy who ended up handling a slow season for one of the show’s most popular characters He’ll have a chance to prove himself and set the tone early on for season seven as he directs episodes two and three.

And if he doesn’t work out, maybe that’ll make some room for a female director, finally