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Game of Thrones – Episode 36

May11

Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 36 – May 11, 2014

Title: The Laws of Gods and Men

Summary: Good stuff

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Joff’s death set it up, but the next big event is finally here: the trial of Tyrion Lannister. Poor Ty.

Anyway, as usual, I’ll break down the threads into their sub plots for discussion.

Davos & Stannis – Have made the journey across the narrow sea to Bravos. This isn’t in the books as far as I can remember, and it’s our first (but not last) glimpse of the city. And it’s certainly a small glimpse as we see them sailing in, under a giant colossus that was clearly borrowed from the Colossus of Rhodes. Other than that, we see the inside of the bank. The Iron Bank officer sure is insightful, and Stannis isn’t getting anywhere. Davos gives a speech and we don’t know exactly how it goes except…

He shows up at the bathhouse and throws his friend Salladhor Saan a bunch of money to sail with him.

Bank employes have gone downhill since the Middle Ages

Yara & Theon – Yara sails on her mission to save Theon, and she reads the letter from Ramsay to motivate her troops while we intercut with Ramsay and his murderous bedwarmer. The Iron Born storm the Dreadfort and locate Theon (aka Reek) in the kennels. But Reek isn’t Theon and he’s terrified to go with Yara. A blood streaked and crazy Ramsay confronts them, battle ensues, but Reek is so much Ramsay’s creature that Yara flees, claiming her brother is dead.

After, Ramsay has another creepy scene with Reek where he gives him a bath as a reward and tells him he’ll need him to pretend to be Theon to take Moat Caitlin. Creepy. What’s up with the bathing?

I couldn’t resist a shot of the Titan of Bravos

Dany – A Shepherd’s boy in North Ireland (I mean Meereen) has his goats barbecued for dragon food. The father appears before Dany in her throne room with the bones and is given money. A young noble asks to bury his crucified father. Dany agrees and finds there are 212 more cases — ah, being a real ruler is hard work — no wonder Robert and Joff hated small council meetings!

A cozy throne room

Oberyn – Joins the small council with his amusing know-it-all attitude. Mace (Marg’s father) is, as his mother Olena has said, not the brightest bulb. They discuss the house and Dany back in Meereen.

Oberyn and Varys talk in front of the Iron Throne (does Varys meet anywhere else?). Both are perceptive. I’m not sure what to make of Varys’ claim to be free of desire.

Tyrion – Then the meat of the episode, perhaps 25+ minutes. Jaime visits Tyrion in jail, but manacles him and takes him to the throne room and trial. Tommen names the judges and leaves. What follows is a litany of inconclusive but damning evidence. Kings Guards, Pycell, Cersei herself — all paint a story of his culpability.

And this one too, particularly the chair in the middle

During a break Jaime takes Tywin aside and pleads for Tyrion. They strike a deal: Tywin will send Tyrion to the wall and Jaime will throw away his cloak and become heir again.

But back at Trial the crown calls Shae (obviously not across the narrow sea). She paints a terrible picture, claiming to know of his whole plot with Sansa (of course not the case). She even confesses to be his whore, telling their intimate secrets. It really is heart wrenching. Tyrion, taking a play from his own hand back in the Eerie during season 1, “confesses” (not as humorously) to being a dwarf, and on trial for it. He pulls out the emotion. Then demands trial by combat. All eyes (or at least the camera’s) are on Jaime.

Sucks to be the dwarf

A great episode, particularly the second half. The first covers most of the bits and pieces left out of last week, but the second focuses on Tyrion, and as we all know, that means good times — well, perhaps not for the Imp — but certainly for us loyal watchers of this brilliant combination of character and actor brought to life.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official Inside the Episode:

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, Episode 36, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Season 4, Season 4 Episode 6, Tyrion

Game of Thrones – Episode 33

Apr20

Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 33 – April 20, 2014

Title: Breaker of Chains

Summary: Good stuff

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Last week left us on the edge of our seats, either saddened at the loss of our favorite villain, or cackling in glee. Unlike the previous three seasons where the show really takes a while to get going, this time around we almost opened with huge events. Now let’s see how the pieces sort out. This is episode that covers a lot of threads, and none in great depth.

Sansa – Joff leers at us in death, blood seeping from his nose. Cersei screams accusations at Tyrion and Sansa is pulled away from the wedding by Ser Dontos. Last week, it wasn’t even until the second viewing that I noticed this significant little bit. As Tywin orders the city on lockdown, Dontos rushes her away, into the streets, through Dubrovnik (achem, Kings Landing) to the port and a waiting row boat. Then, covered by a convenient and sudden fog, out to a ship and up to… Littlefinger. You kinda had to know that where Kings Landing assassination is concerned, LF is likely to be involved. Poor Dontos earns a crossbow in the heart for his troubles and Sansa a lecture on the reality of her position. Poor girl. She just can’t help but be the pawn.

Even her funeral wear sports cleavage

Marg and Olena – chat in their favorite botanical garden. Olena tries to put a good spin on it — well she ought to, as she certainly had some hand in it. I liked the humanness that Marg displays here. Sometimes she comes off as cold and manipulative, but I don’t really think that’s (entirely) her.

Cersei – Attends the body of Joffery in the sept, laid out much as Lord Arryn was with the weird eye stones. Tywin, ever the opportunist, uses the chance to give Tommen (looking a lot older) a rather truth but manipulative lecture on the nature of kingship. As grandfather and the new boy king leave, Jaime enters and comforts his sister. They kiss, she pushes him away (after a bit), and he grows angry and takes her (only partially against her will) right there. Rather unsavory business, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

The family that sleeps together stays together

Arya and the Hound – There seems to be a pissing theme this week, as the hound is watering the plants while she dines on radishes. Apparently, he’s heard of the Second Sons (led by the late Meero). A farmer and his daughter show up and Arya charms them and earns them a meal. It’s quite amusing to see the hound in a domestic situation, as he certainly isn’t big on the blessing before the meal. But the man offers him a job and he takes it — but next up he’s robbing them of their silver and dragging a furious Arya out of there. He may not be deliberately cruel, but apparently his code is “flexible.”

Code Smode

Sam and Gilly – After a quick survey of the sordid men in black, we’re treated to another of those charming Sam and Gilly scenes. Their “courtship” is kinda cute, as they clearly both have a thing for each other, but are unable to really get down to business. Sam decides that leaving her in the castle with a hundred former rapers is a bad idea so smuggles her out to Mole Town to live with some whores in a total sh**thole. I think she knows he means well, but sigh…

Davos and Stannis – have out the only conversation they ever seem to have, where Davos cautions against anything having to do with the Red Lady and Stannis argues he has no choice. Davos then visits Stannis’ daughter (the one with the grayscale face) and while taking in a reading lesson comes upon an idea. Somehow he plans to use the iron bank to try to help Stannis.

Certainly fun to watch this fellow

Oberyn – is back in the brothel (lots of them this week) getting it on with Ellaria Sand and several whores of both sexes. He amuses us with a speech on bisexuality. Really, the writing of GOT has a slightly Shakespearean quality, as characters love a good soliloquy. This amusement is interrupted by Tywin, who sure knows how to turn a bad situation to his advantage. He skillfully feels out Oberyn as he recruits him as a judge in Tyrion’s trial and as a small council member.

Tyrion – is visited in prison by his squire Pod. The poor guys is rather likeable and Tyrion, despite his captivity (again) is in fine form as usual. They exchange facts and set the stage for his coming trial. Damned by Cersei, his wife missing, three judges in Tywin’s pocket. It doesn’t look good. He does right by Pod, continuing to make him the most likable of Lannisters.

Ygrite – and the wildlings raid a village up by the wall. The poor villagers don’t have a chance. She shoots a bunch. Giantsbane slices. And the Thenns prepare to roast up a few for supper.

John – When word of the attach reaches Castle Black, John and the other senior Crows aren’t fooled into attacking. They are too few men. But when his friends return from Crasters, revealing that some of the rebel Crows are holed up there and will betray their weakness to Mance and the Wildings, they may have to move to action.

Tastes like chicken

Dany – Approaches Meeren by way of the Dalmatian coast. She parks her big CG army in from of the lovely big CG city (nice pyramids and love that harpy gate). And here comes more pissing. The city sends out a champion and we’re treated to the cock-cam view of him pissing at Dany’s army. Dario gets the honor of fighting, and pulls a Bronn by stabbing the horsing and beheading the rider. Dany then gives a surprisingly effective speech to the slaves, made all the more so by being in Valyrian. This technique of using the subtitled foreign tongue is highly effective. It almost brought a tear to my eye. If it’d been in English the speech would have been cheesy. Of and the music helped. Liked the catapults and the barrels smashing against those walls of Dubrovnik.

He won the pissing contest

Overall, not a big centerpiece episode, but an enjoyable one nonetheless. Things are in motion again after last week stirred up the pot.

Note: piss count was 3 tonight.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside the episode:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Song of Ice Fire, Episode 33, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters, Season 4, Season 4 Episode 3, Television, Tyrion, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 29

Jun02

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 29 – June 2, 2013

Title: The Rains of Castamere

Summary: Darkness descends

ANY CHARACTER HERE

As much as this season is about marriage and The Rains of Castamere centers on the second of three weddings, the episode is more about the breaking of oaths than the keeping of them. The sundering of possibilities than the forming of them. This is a dark dark segment, probably the darkest yet.

Like last week, the writers have narrowed the narrative focus. We have only three major threads here. One is a bit more of Dany in Yunkai, another one of a Storm of Swords more complex segments (the near meeting of Sam, Bran, and Jon) and the last being the Red Wedding. Structurally the writers cut more rapidly back and forth between these segments than usual. This becomes particularly necessary as the threads overlap and cross, something that while rare in the series, gives this segment of the novel tremendous tension.

Dany – Daario’s addition to Dany’s inner circle only makes things even more complex. Jorah, who once had the queen all to himself is pulled in various directions by the men around her. He Daario, and Grey Worm go to open the gates of the city. This segment is by far the weakest. The battle is not only skipped, which we have sadly come to expect, but the little bits we get are unclear at best. The three go in, have a bit of a fight, are ambushed, and then are somehow back at Dany’s camp. I’m just confused. The whole thing felt small and squeezed for time. Dany waiting for Daario felt forced.

Didn’t do it for me this week

Sam & Gilly – approach the wall. Their excellent chemistry continues as he info dumps (letting us know there is way under the wall) and she is so impressed she calls him a “wizard,” which is a delightful reference back to season 1. But where is Cold Hands?

Bran – and crew approach the windmill that Jon saw two episodes ago. A storm is coming and they take shelter.

Jon – along with the wildlings, approaches a horse breeder who works for the Night’s Watch. His loyalty is again put to the test. He warns the man and stops Ygritte from shooting him. But when the wildlings catch up with him outside Bran’s windmill he’s assigned to kill the guy — a task for which he’s a notorious failure. Ygritte cuts short the argument by choosing sides and Jon, but as he fights the wildlings she is neutralized by Tormund. Jon gets the drop on Orel and gives the man what he deserves, but not before his consciousness slips into his Eagle and he attacks Jon with this second body. Despite the Warg explanations offered by Jojen below, I wonder how well non-readers will understand this.

We won’t miss this fellow

But most central to this whole scene, and most thematic to the episode is the play out of loyalties between Jon and Ygritte. Is she siding with him? Where do her loyalties lie? I choose to believe with them as a unit. But Jon doesn’t just chose her, he chooses the Watch too. Her expression as she watches him ride off is sad indeed.

Bran – employs his special Warg powers first to silence Hodor and then to jump into Summer and Shaggy Dog below, helping Jon out with his fight. When he returns to himself he decides to send Rickon away with Osha for his own safety. Here he also saw Jon below, and I can’t remember if that happened exactly in the books. Reading, there was always this intense desire to see the family members reunite, and it is here in ASOS that they come the closest, with heart rending consequences. It should be noted that Jojen isn’t so much a character but a mouth piece to explain what’s going on with Bran (somewhat). Also, after being pretty much entirely lame this season, the moment with Osha as she takes on Rickon is actually fairly touching. Her character this season has bugged me, as she was great last year, and it’s nice to see her slightly redeemed.

Arya – also nearly intertwines here. As she approaches the Twins the back and forth between her and the Hound is great fun. Neither totally has the upper hand. The pig parts (pig knuckles – ick) are an amusing touch as they spar. In many ways they see sides of each other that few do.

Poor Arya, so close, and yet so far

Robb – reconnects with his mother as they plot their assault on Casterly Rock. Then riding out, wolf in the lead, they approach the Twins for the wedding (a second near convergence). Deviating from the books, he brings his wife to the wedding. This initial meeting, and the wedding in general, is handled excellently. They break bread and salt, which viewers might not totally get, but initiating traditional guest rights. Robb apologizes and old Frey is highly amusing as he introduces his daughters and teases Robb. In a bit of foreshadowing, he uses the phrase “the wine will run red.”

A little shot of the Starks camped outside the Frey castles, along with the establishing shot during Arya’s segment, clue us in that Robb is inside with less than his full force. The wedding itself is touching. Edmure gets a decent looking bride and he does a good job wearing his emotions on his face. I like the repeated and reinforced cloaking ceremony and the vows to the seven.

An ill-starred glare

The celebration is fairly nicely handled, feeling decent in scale considering. It’s full of telling little bits like Bolton refusing to drink and the amusing speech by Frey about “every sword needing a sheath.” The writers take one last opportunity for some genuine warmth between Robb and his bride, which makes what is to come all the more tragic.

Why Cat doesn’t figure it out as soon as The Rains of Castamere begin to play, I don’t know, but things go south very very quickly. The tragic action is split in two parts by Arya’s segment, which I felt diminished the emotional impact. Probably they did this to end where they did, but it might have been better cut a different way.

Do you trust this face?

Arya – approaches the castle, her cautious optimism at seeing the Stark men quickly shattered by violence and then the sad sad slaughter of Grey Wind (I feel worse about the wolves than many of the human loses). For a second time, the Hound grabs her and carries her away.

Robb & Cat – The whole existence of Talisa was a considerable deviation from the books, and it comes to an end here. In season 2, I wasn’t her biggest fan, but some of the recent scenes between her and Robb have built up character not present in the novels and I was deeply saddened to see her go, hoping she, like her doppelgänger Jeyne Westerling, would survive the wedding. Alas, it was not to be, and the manner of her death, and that of her child, felt like a stab to the gut. Sorry, couldn’t resist, but seriously, as a husband and father, her end was pretty awful.

The play out in the end between Robb, Cat, and Frey — and of course Bolton, was well handled. Her desperation is apparent, she will do anything to try to save her son. Michelle puts in some fine acting. But it is not to be.

The writers chose to end with the stabbing and double throat cutting, which has a certain visceral power, but perhaps at the cost of the signature imagery of the “double wolf’s head.” Or perhaps we’ll get that next week.

More than in the book, I’m going to miss them.

Overall, this was a dark and powerful episode, in which the Jon/Bran and Robb/Cat segments were largely successful particularly the Red Wedding. Dany’s was just lame, but you can’t win everything and the sacking of Yunkai was hardly the most important moment of her journey. All this leaves me speculating about what might fit into our one remaining episode.

Certainly NOT the siege of Castle Black. Possibly not even our third wedding (Joff’s). It might feel odd to start season 4 with that, but from the trailer it seems that episode 30 will be concerned mostly with the consequences of episode 29. How far will we get on the Jon/Ygritte storyline? Hard to say. I register my prediction that episode 30 ends with Beric Dondarian finding Cat’s body. It seems in keeping. It’s very clear that season 4 will start to deviate hugely from the chronology laid out by Martin — although this can’t help but be a good thing as he botched the flow pretty bad in books 4 and 5.

Absent this week were Jaime, Theon, all of King’s Landing, and Dragonstone.

Another excellent analysis of this episode.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

And below, some inside the episodes from HBO:

By: agavin
Comments (5)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, Dany, episode 29, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Peter Dinklage, Season 3, season 3 episode 29, Tyrion, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 21

Mar31

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 21 – March 31, 2013

Title: Valar Dohaeris

Summary: Excellent start

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Right off the bat you can feel a difference in pacing. Season 2 suffered from the crunch required to compress a gigantic book into 10 hours, and given that A Clash of Kings is even longer, the decision to split book 3 into two seasons is clearly a smart one. Valar Dohaeris has some leisure to establish (in many cases reestablish) the situations for its gigantic cast. This episode doesn’t even try to handle all of them, leaving Jamie/Brienne, Arya, Bran, and Theon for episode 22.

We begin where we left off, with the decimation of the Black Brothers by the White Walkers (an ironic reversal of color). In somewhat typical budget saving fashion the battle itself is left off screen (sword clanks under black). Sam is our focal point although he doesn’t do much except run through the snow and get rescued by Ghost. This first scene is anticlimactic, turning last season’s big “event” into more of just a reveal (there are lots of White Walkers, uh oh!).

The award winning titles have been updated with a smokey Winterfell and Astapoor (the harpy slave city).

Sticking to the North for the moment, Jon Snow arrives at Mance Rayder’s camp with Ygritte. I do like her, although the way she shuffles on the snow in her heavy boots and parka looks anything but fearsome. Perhaps no one looks fearsome in Eskimo outfits. Perhaps she’s too cute for fearsomeness. In any case, the production takes the time to show off a giant in all its CGI glory, which I’m very happy with. I worried that they might try to play down some of the fantasy elements, particularly as they pick up in intensity in later books, but it seems not. The first meeting with Mance is well handled. I’ve liked Ciaran Hinds since Rome, and the writers hit on the crux of the meeting, with Jon having to convince them why he’s really there. He does.

Our return to Kings Landing fittingly comes down (haha) to Bron in a brothel. GOT loves its whores, and this one is cute, although serving of little purpose. Back in his dungeon of a room, Tyrion contemplates his new scared face. Just as the show didn’t ugly up Peter Dinklage to begin with (he might be height challenged, but he’s a handsome guy), it didn’t dare maim Tyrion like in the book. Just a scar, no missing nose and the like, although when Cersei visits in this scene, she alludes to the missing sniffer. These Tyrion/Cersei scenes are always fun. My favorite line this time is “You’re not half so clever as you think you are” followed by “still, that makes me cleverer than you.” Bron comes to defend Ty, bookending his earlier appearance. Last season they would have cut both bits out of expediency, but this time around they have room for more nuance and secondary characters. The visual scope feels somewhat bigger too, as Bron and Tryion go for a wander on the Dubrovnik (achem, Kings Landing) walls and we get a sense of space. It’s funny too, having been there myself last year, I have a sense of the positioning in the real city.

Turns out Davos survived his encounter with green fire only to be stuck on a rock (I recognize those too, as they’re just North of Dubrovnik, I believe). He’s rescued by Salladhor Saan. More characterization and setting up what’s going on with Stannis at Dragonstone. First time we’ve seen his missing fingers too in a nice artsy shot.

Robb and Bolton show up at Harrenhal after the Mountain has deserted it. This is pure setup, showing the nasty pile of corpses the big guy left behind, Robb with his new wife, and Cat a virtual prisoner of her son. The slight unrest of his men… well, little in a TV show is an accident.

Tyrion goes to visit his father Tywin, having not himself been visited during his presumably lengthy convalescence. Given that Tywin seemed fairly reasonable last season, and Tyrion really did do a pretty decent job (considering) in his defense of the capital, you’d expect him to get a little love — but no, poor Tyrion, and this is one of the many reasons we love him, just never gets the tall straw (see what I did?). Tywin lays it on pretty thick. Poor little guy.

In another scene that expands the visual grandeur Sansa and Shae hang out together at the little harbor near Dubrovnik’s north gate watching the ships sail. Littlefinger comes to work his little plot involving her, with Ros in tow. Parallel conversations between Sansa/Littlefinger and Shae/Ros allow for compact establishment of character. This is substantial compression from the books, but deftly done. And Ros isn’t a real character anyway, but her exchange isn’t bad.

Tyrion may not have gotten any love, but the dragons do. Drogon in particular has a very fun draconic take on fish BBQ. We learn that Dany is headed to Astapoor to get herself an army. A slave army, which she’s not necessarily a fan of.

At Dragonstone, Davos finally shows up and confronts Stannis and Melisandre. I’m no fan of all three of these characters, but Mel does do a good job being fey and spooky, like an evil shadow mom version of Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel.

Joffrey, the king we all love to hate, doesn’t bother to ride a horse, he takes a fancy litter, clutching a handkerchief to his nose (they should have used an orange stuffed with cloves). Margaery, his new finance, has a mosque shaped litter herself, but she isn’t afraid to get out, step through some shit (literally) and work the people. A talent that not only extends to orphans, but to Joff and Cersei as well as we see next scene when she manipulates them all at dinner. I’m liking Natalie Dormer’s take on this character.

Dany arrives at Astapoor in all its CGI grandeur, and from a distance it does look damn good. But close up, it’s probably Dubrovnik again, or perhaps a nearby Croatian city. I guess it could be Morocco. I’m not sure yet, but it sure looked like Croatia. This scene is basically an intro to the slave culture of Astapoor and the concept of the Unsullied. The subtitled back and forth between the translator girl slave and the master was particularly hilarious, and the slave soldiers well enough handled. They probably won’t be able to justice to what is to come because it involves citywide happenings, but we’ll see.

As the “previous scenes” reminded us about season 1’s dismissal of Barristan Selmy. His return involves some interesting adaption from the novels. Martin loves to reintroduce characters by new names and only slowly reveal their identity, which is great fun, but it isn’t really realistic in a TV show where the audience will just recognize the actor. So Barristan’s return is stripped of his extended posing, and the fun but unnecessary character of Strong Belwas seems written out. But I did love the warlock girl with the blue mouth and the bug ball!

All in all, a great start, if not exactly action packed. My concerns from season 1 about visual scope have been addressed as best as possible on TV. This is a grand looking show, probably one of the most impressive productions in the history of the medium. And it looks like they’ll have room in the script to do far more justice this season to Martin’s nuanced character portraits.

Another interesting review of this episode.

Or see my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

Me at Kings Landing

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, Dubrovnik, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Jon Snow, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Natalie Dormer, Season 3, Season 3 episode 1, Tyrion, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 20

Jun03

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 20 – June 3, 2012

Title: Valar Morghulis

Summary: Fantastic Wrapup

ANY CHARACTER HERE

The season finale has a lot of threads to cover, the extra long “previously on” clip covers no less than eleven major plot lines! Amazingly, the episode manages to do a pretty damn good job with them — even when many only get one scene.

We open with Tyrion — well his eye — suffering at the tender ministrations of the less-senile-than-he-seems Maester Pycelle. Ty learns he’s no longer hand, and we see what he does not, his father receiving the honors that Tyrion had a hand (haha) in earning. Then in a magnificent bit of public theater, Joffery casts down Sansa and takes up with Margaery Tyrell. Could the third marriage be the charm? With Joff? This begins a running thread about oaths that flows through the entire episode. For Joff, despite his lip service, oaths mean nothing. I do also have to give credit to the actor who manages to make every line, every gesture thoroughly loathsome.

I can't wait for his wedding

Sansa, freed of her engagement, is confronted by Littlefinger. He claims to be an ally, being the second man to offer her a way north. But does she dare? Personally, I would have gone with the Hound.

And speaking of Littlefinger, Varys visits Ros in the interest of plotting against his rival. It’s not entirely clear what the point of this scene is other than an update on everyone’s least favorite hooker and a restatement of the Varys/Littlefinger hostility. I prefered their “manhood” discussion in episode 10.

Jaime and Brienne only get one scene, but it’s a doozy. After the usual banter they run into a bunch of Stark men who recognize the Kingslayer. She totally kicks ass in her lumbering way. But her choices flow from her own oath: to Cat Stark. Her interpretation is literal in the extreme.

Robb and Cat discuss this very topic. He is in love with the nurse, she warns him of his oath, even invoking Ned and his own literal interpretation of said matters. Robb walks a different road.

Stannis broods with the Red Lady, nursing his pride. He tries to strangle her, but cannot. She shows him the secrets of the flames. We, of course, see only some flicking in his eyeballs. Is this hypnotism, or more? Certainly one of the weaker threads, but it has been all along. I guess Davos’ fate will be left to season 3.

Theon is surrounded and in his room with Luwin. The old man honors his own oath and gives Theon solid advice: run for the Night’s Watch. “You are not the man you are pretending to be, at least not yet.” This is a great exchange. “It’s too late to pretend to be anything else,” Theon answers. Then he gives a really nice speech to his troops — only to have them betray him. Poor Luwin is stabbed.

What is dead will never die!

Varys visits Tyrion and delivers news of further humiliations. I swear GRRM looks at every character every chapter and says: “on the way up, take ’em down. On the way down, take ’em up.” The Ty/Varys interaction this season has been great as both actors are spectacular. Shae is next. She removes his bandage. The scar is bad, but nothing like in the book where he has no nose! They couldn’t bring themselves to put Peter Dinklage through that much ugly (and he’s a good looking man anyway, unlike the pre-face-cut novel Tyrion). Shae at least is loyal (so far). Dare I say, honoring her oath? She tries to get him to leave the city with her, but stays when he won’t.

Robb gets married. A nice tiny little ceremony. Oaths oaths oaths. But it is still the second worst thread.

Dany walks through a cool garden to an even cooler tower-like “house of the undying.” She finds a magic entrance. I like these lightly handed mystical moments.

Jorah, don't let her out of your sight!

Arya, having escaped, is found by Jaquen. He tries to draw her to Bravos to train as a Faceless Man. She isn’t ready yet, and still seeks her family. He gives her the coin then as I hoped he might, changes his face. “That man is dead.” Awesome scene.

Osha and the boys emerge to a burnt and destroyed Winterfell. If those wolves are CG, they look pretty darn good. They find a dying Luwin and the old man gets a few final words in. Perhaps not realistic, but he’s been very fine in the role and so they’re well deserved. He sends them to Jon. Bran rolls north in a wheelbarrow!

Dany is back in the House of the Undying. She finds a room of doors and wanders through into a sequence of visions that gave me goosebumps. First the Iron Throne, its hall burnt by dragon fire. Then lured by the sound of dragons, through the door in the wall and into the north. There she finds Drogo’s hut and inside the man himself in a surprise reprise of his role. The Dothraki dialog between them brought tears to my eyes. I always liked the way his rumbly voice read the guttural language. But she is not to succumb to the “last temptation of Danerys Stormborn,” instead returning to the house to find her dragons. All three in fact — for the first time in the entire season. The warlock emerges. He uses the plural, but we only see one — before or now. “With the dragons returned our magic.” It’s nice to hear this reiterated. Makes one wonder. Is this true of the Red Lady as well? Not the White Walkers for sure, they showed up in the pilot before the dragons did. Or do they foreshadow coming of the beasts? Anyway, Dany is not one to take captivity lightly, she lights up the warlock like a bonfire. This scene was cool, but felt light on the effects. I would’ve liked to see the three dragons flying around laying waste to the house and it burning down. Sigh. Budgets.

Finally, we return to Jon Snow in the frozen north. Ygritte is marching behind him whacking him on the head with his own sword. That’s got to hurt both the pride and the noggin. The Halfhand grabs a sword and they fight. He forces Jon’s anger and this time, Jon doesn’t hold back and kills him. I’m not sure I bought this important moment 100%. I did, however, like the look Ygritte gives him as she backs him up and then leads him off to see the valley with the Wildling (CGI) camp. This vista looks fantastic as they just painted in the camp in a real Icelandic valley. It felt massive in scale, in contrast with the lightweight troop of a dozen Wildlings in furs marching around in the snow. The Lord of Bones has no presence.

Somehow the captive is the trustworthy one

Xaro is sleeping with Doreah. I guess that explains her absence. Dany and her dragons march in and steal his medallion/vault key. But the vault contains nothing. She locks him and the slave girl away. These are both changes from the novels, but while I will miss the girl on girl on girl action that is supposed to occur later (unless they bring it back with different girls) the relationship with Xaro makes more sense. In the books I never really understood what Xaro was up to or why Dany did what she did with him. Here she loads up with enough gold to buy a ship and move on.

I expected that to be the end, but we have an even better setup. Sam and the brother’s black are gathering frozen turds by the Fist of the First Men when the horn sounds three times. An army of zombies pass, lead by zombie horse riding White Walkers. That was pretty cool. It also helps to explain, at least to me, the difference between the wraiths (zombies) and the White Walkers (something more, and often mounted). This peculiar distinction has eluded me for five books.

Sigh again. The ten month wait begins. But in the meantime I’m heading myself to King’s Landing this summer. Well, Dubrovnik at least. It looked so good in the show that I booked a vacation there!

Overall, a brilliant episode. I was worried that with so many threads each be starved of attention, But the producers saved a good percentage of the budget for these last two episodes. And more importantly the writers managed to draw most of the threads, although not all, to a satisfying conclusion. Still, the biggest flaw this season suffered, and it is a big flaw, is the compression of the large scale novel into only ten hours of programming. While a problem last season, A Game of Thrones is shorter than A Clash of Kings and the compression felt less pronounced. Season 2 did mostly address the problems of visual scope and mystical elements that bothered me in season one, but the new problem is even worse. With twelve episodes they could have mitigated it somewhat, but really the scope of the story needed perhaps sixteen. We can hope that by splitting A Storm of Swords into more than one season this can be overcome.

See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

Boys like a challenge

By: agavin
Comments (10)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, Blackwater, Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 20, Game of Thrones, George R. Martin, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Historical fantasy, House, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Robb, Television, Tyrion, Valar Morghulis, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 13

Apr15

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 13 – April 15, 2012

Title: What is Dead May Never Die

Summary: The wait from week to week is tough

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Intros are over (almost) and things are really starting to rock and roll. What is Dead May Never Die is certainly the best episode yet of the new series. No small part to focusing a little more tightly on a few storylines. Robb, Dany, and Stannis are all missing, but we have lots of Tyrion.

The John Snow thread moves just a tiny bit, with resolving last week’s cliffhanger with John a bit too easily. The writers take a scene to setup Gilly and Sam’s relationship and then move on to Winterfell. Bran explains his peculiar dreams to the Maester. I like that the chains come into it, but I wonder how much new viewers will get of this.

Then we finally come to Renly. Seems he has already married the lovely Margaery Tyrell, played by the Tudor’s Natalie Dormer. She’s well cast, even if a few years too old of the book version of her character. And Briene. Wow, that’s some hulk of a woman. What is she, like seven foot? Perfectly cast too. While short, this tourney looked much less dinky than the season 1 version, mostly due to a single establishing shot. Renly puts on a good show, but literarily and figuratively. But Cat is not so easily fooled.

Then Theon confronts his sister and is schooled by his father. Uh oh, seems he needs to make a choice. Old family or new. Things are never easy!

The middle part of the episode shows Tyrion coming into his own and wrestling with the political forces in the capital. But first Shae is restless and he’s putty in her hands, but back in the palace he’s tough as nails. Cersei tortures Sansa a bit more and she is starting to wonder who she is. But when Shae shows up as her new maid, she isn’t exactly showing her best side. In this way, the episode appears to be about choices. Each character is faced questions of loyalty and role.

And so Tyrion tempts each of the three capital conspirators with a different story. Maester Pycelle, Varys, and Littlefinger. The parallel structure of the scene is quite amusing.

Speaking of choices, Renly is in his tent, first with Loras, and then with his sister. Boy or girl? Pleasure or duty? In the earlier scene’s Natalie’s Margaery was a little flat, but here not only is she gorgeous (and we see plenty of her), but when she exposes her awareness of the situation that scheming little smile is perfect. Interesting that Renly is so torn, finding it so difficult to deliver on the practical realities of his responsibilities.

Tyrion does continue to try and talk some sense into Cersei, but she isn’t listening. Which too, is a choice. And Theon. He finally makes his, and we find him baptized to the Drowned God.

Tyrion continues to play his hand deftly. His ruse has flushed out the spy in the council. But perhaps he knew all along. He makes good with Littlefinger and Varys (more or less) and deals with Pycelle. The old man is so annoying one can’t help but enjoy seeing him get a bit of comeuppance. The writers take the time to remind us that Tyrion has a soft spot for whores. Still, the best is Varys’ little speech about power. I love how the show (and the actor) hand this nuanced character. He was great last season and continues the streak.

Finally, we get to Arya, my other favorite. After building up Yoren a bit, the Lannister forces arrive and he too makes his choice, proving to be quite the badass. “I always hated crossbows.” Poor Arya’s guardians don’t have a very good survival rate. The battle that ensues is both well choreographed, graphic, disturbing, and touching. Lorch’s men don’t quite yet have the nasty nasty feel from the book, but they’re getting started. Poor Lommy. A powerful end.

See my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
Comments (4)

Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Dance with Dragons, Characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, HBO, Historical fantasy, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Natalie Dormer, Roleplaying, Tyrion, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Season 2 Episode 1 Clips

Mar30

HBO has released six 30 second clips from “The North Remembers” which is the first episode of season 2. Spoiler alert! And the show is only 2 days away. Woot! But maybe, like me, you can’t resist.