How’s everyone doing tonight? I trust you all had a pleasant and respectful Memorial Day. Those of you living in America, at any rate. The rest of you, who cares?

Let’s get to it.

Game of Thrones, Season 2 Episode 9
“Blackwater”

This was the one we were waiting for. They’d been building up to this episode all season long, and delivered in a huge way. This was about as epic as an hour of television’s ever going to get. I was riveted.

I love the way this episode had such a slow burn to the massive events you know are coming. The sense of impending doom touches every scene, and it’s fascinating to see how the different characters respond. I thought we’d be treated to non-stop action this week, but there was quite a lot of buildup as the various players girded themselves for the climactic scenes.

Out at sea, Davos and his annoying holy-roller son Matthos talk about the weather. Davos is nervous about the tide, but God-boy Matthos assures him that their victory is God’s will. Because it’s that easy. I’m sure that your boundless faith will be rewarded, Matty. You should buy some lottery tickets or something.

Tyrion is in his refractory period with Shae, and you can tell he’s not feeling too happy about the assload of ships that are approaching. Shae wonders how he can be so nervous, but Tyrion knows that Stannis will kill every Lannister he gets his hands on. And I’m thinking “how can anyone want to kill Tyrion??” but you realize he can’t escape the curse of his last name. He’s the only non-asshole in the family, but nobody seems to notice. Even the ingrate citizens of King’s Landing hate him.

Cersei is pounding flagons of wine in Maegor’s Holdfast, resplendent in a golden bustier ensemble. She’s got all the noblewomen holed up with her as they hide out from the marauding hordes of Stannis. She’s in full-on drunken bitchface mode, and teases Sansa about being on the rag.

Cut to an invented scene in a tavern. Bronn is showing off his singing chops, regaling us with an a capella version of “The Rains of Castamere.” Talk about your eerie foreshadowing. That’s one of the cruelest, creepiest songs ever. So nice to see it used in the show. I’m wary of too many sings being used, as I don’t want this to turn into boring Tolkien shit, but they’ve been used very sparingly so far. Sparingly and effectively.

The Hound shows up and starts picking a fight with Bronn. I don’t know what he’s so mad about. Maybe he just needs to kill something. Don’t fret, Sandor, there’ll be plenty of killing to go around soon enough. That would be a good fight to watch, though. The Hound’s big, but he’s not slow. And he’s not overly armored. Bronn’s quicker than just about everyone. I’d pay to see that battle.

Bronn also gets the second-best line of the night, when he promises that jizz-faced prostitute she’ll have his nose all the way up her ass later that night. They can invent scenes like this all they want. More Bronn is always a good thing.

Varys and Tyrion have another one of their catty scenes together, as Varys shows all the interesting escape tunnels under the city. Tyrion makes a condescending joke about Varys’ interest in young boys, which was a good line but felt unfair. Varys is asexual. As in, he literally has no junk to speak of. He’d have just as little luck with boys as he would with girls.

Neither man seems to have much use for weddings.

In the great hall, Joffrey shows up in his battle armor, and no one’s impressed. He’s also given his sword a cornball name (Hearteater) and makes Sansa kiss it. That girl sure plays the meek weakling well. I can’t wait to see her get some spine. She does get in a couple good digs at Joffrey, as she slyly mocks him for not leading the vanguard into battle. Watch it, Sansa. Joffrey’s going to have Ser Mandon tan your hide for that.

Cersei’s really holding court now. She’s in her cups, and lectures Sansa about using her vagine as a weapon. She can’t stand Sansa’s goody-goody routine, and it’s certainly hard to argue with that. Spooky Ser Ilyn lurks in the background, as Cersei’s insurance policy. Insurance against what? Against being captured alive. He’s there to execute everyone before Stannis’ troops can have a rape-a-thon. Cersei really does think of everything.

The bells start chiming, which freaks everybody out. Davos tells his guys to start drumming in response, and it makes for a nice mash-up.

Then we see Bronn climbing a hilltop somewhere far from the city limits. He has a special role to play, and it involves flaming arrows. Anyone who complains that Bronn’s role was different in the books must think it was really interesting that he spent the whole battle in a winch tower.

And then this happens.

Davos and God-boy get blown up real good. Stannis’ fleet is decimated. They’re left with a bunch of rowboats, which they use to storm the beach at Normandy. It’s going to be hand-to-hand combat from here on in, with Stannis leading the way. That’s another excellent deviation from the novels. Stannis just sat on his boat the whole time in the book. Not so in this show.

This Stannis is a leader and a man of action. He’s never going to be confused with Joffrey, who hides behind his mother at the earliest opportunity.

Stannis doesn’t hide. He does this.

Things eventually get so dire that Tyrion himself has to lead the vanguard. You know it’s bad when the half-man gets his hands dirty, but it had to happen. Joffrey was hiding. The Hound got scared of the fire and ran away. Someone had to rally the troops. Who better than everyone’s favorite?

With the best line of the night by far, “Those are brave men knocking on our door. Let’s go kill them!”

Tyrion’s so much fun to root for, you almost forget that the Lannisters are the ones you want to lose. And then Ser Mandon had to go and cut Tyrion down with his sword. Thanks, Ser Mandon. At least he then got a spear through the face from Tyrion’s squire Podrick.

Anyway, the Lannisters do end up winning. Grandpa Lannister shows up at the last, allied with the Tyrells. Those social-climbing bastards. Loras dresses in Renly’s armor and spooks half of Stannis’ army into surrendering, and after that it’s mostly bookkeeping. You really shouldn’t have pissed him off, Stannis. You drove him right into Tywin’s camp. Tyrells and Lannisters together now. Who knows what perfidy they’re capable of.

This was simply a great episode, the culmination of two seasons worth of story. This was redemption for all those slow exposition scenes and all the boring crap in the whorehouse. Along with the penultimate episode from last season (“Baelor”), this is what good TV is all about. Now I’m sad we only have one more to go.

Any complaints I may have had (and there were some) were forgotten quickly; and vanished completely after my second viewing. If you find that you still have grumblings, forward them to George R.R. himself. Not that he’d listen, since he wrote the script for this one.

One more week and it all wraps up, as much as anything in this labyrinthine saga ever wraps up. Sorry, no Xaro Zohan Ducksauce this week. We’ll probably get lots of him next time around.

Special thanks to the irreplaceable warmingglow for their excellent gifs.

And now, a song!

Sorry for the delay, I was stretched a bit thin yesterday evening.

Game of Thrones, Season 2 Episode 8
“The Prince of Winterfell”

Well, the season’s practically over now. Rats. Let’s see what they made for us this time. We’ll be getting a more thoughtful, talky, cerebral episode than usual. Knowing what next week brings, this is clearly the calm before the storm.

Just briefly, can we talk about all the cunts in this episode? I’m not talking about characters, either. I’m talking about the number of times the word “cunt” is used as an epithet. The writers obviously felt like having some fun with their HBO status, and decided to see how many they could squeeze into one episode. I found it mildly annoying after the first couple time. Gratuitous swearing always feels clumsy to me.

We start off in Winterfell, where Theon and the Mole of Destiny are just barely holding it together. He’s managed to kill all the ravens that Maester Luwin tried sending off, so the deaths of Bran and Rickon are not yet common knowdledge. Maybe you should have thought of that ahead of time, mole-y.

Theon’s been waiting for his sister Asha/Yara to show up with a garrison, so they can actually hold the castle. She shows up with some men who’d maybe make a decent starting five in the NBA, but not the army he was hoping for. Yara makes a good point, that Winterfell really isn’t the kind of property the Ironborn usually go for, and they’d always be surrounded by their enemies. Again, Theon wasn’t thinking. I never really realized how his capture of Winterfell was such a blatant attempt to prove he didn’t like the Starks anymore. It seems clear now.

They also have a weird scene where Yara actually seems to care about Theon. I have to wonder what she sees in him. Theon left when he was still a boy, and the next time they met he was a complete doofus.

North of the Wall, Jon Snow’s goose is cooked. The Wildlings have shown up and proven that he knows nothing. And hey, Qhorin Halfhand is there! Not that you’d know his name, or why he’s called the Halfhand. but still.

I weep, and my tears turn to icicles on my perfect cheeks.

Somewhere between there and King’s Landing, we find Robb on his medical supply run. You might remember Lady Mary Sue of Volantis ran out of bone-saws, so they had to make a trek to the Crag for leeches and tourniquets. Robb shares the story of his arranged marriage to one of the numberless Frey clan. Remember that story from last year, when they had to cross the Bridge and the only way to make it happen was for Cat to arrange a marriage for Robb to one of old Walder Frey’s brood? It’s OK if you forgot.

Anyway, that’s why Robb is so down in the dumps. He’s got an itch for the sassy foreign lady, but HONOR DEMANDS.

I’m sure he’ll keep to that promise. He’s his father’s son, after all.

There’s also a short, yet nifty, scene between Brienne and Jaime. They bicker like the leads in a rom-com, and Jaime calls her a lesbian. I think he just can’t understand a lady who’s not on his jock. Brienne never takes off her armor, even when they’re rowing in a very tiny boat. They’re on the run from the Starks and Karstarks, because Catelyn decided to send the Kingslayer back home in exchange for Sansa and Arya. Which is impossible; Arya is nowhere to be found.

Arya’s back at Harrenhal, of course. The dread, dreary Harrenhal has been made a bit brighter of late, what with all the Lannister men croaking left and right. I still think it’s bizarre that Tywin just started hanging his own men indiscriminately like that. It’s very un-him. He has no compunctions about killing, but wasteful killing like this is strange. I guess that’s what happens when you have Tywin filling in for Roose Bolton for so much of the story.

Arya finally realizes, too late, that she should have used her third deathwish on Tywin. There he goes, riding off into the sunset. Dumb kid. I know the verbal sparring matches were fun, but it would have been a good idea to get Grandpa Lannister out of the picture.

In Tyrion’s office we see him poring over a bunch of boring history books. Bronn’s there, too, so this is automatically a great scene. Bronn refuses to wear a gold cloak, even though he’s the head of the gold cloaks. He says capes get in the way, which just means he’s heard the Isadora Duncan story, too.

I like how even Tyrion isn’t immune from the grammar police on this show. Leave it to that prat Varys to be a stickler for bizarre pronunciations. Pasty, bald, slobbery, and a grammar martinet? He never gets less creepy.

“It’s pronounced exactly how it’s spelled – Archmaester Ch’Vyalthan”

North of the Wall, but in a different place, we catch up with Sam and Dolorous Edd digging latrines. In the process they find a wicked cool stash of Dragonglass arrowheads and stuff. This feels like something that could come in useful later. Very D+D of you, TV people.

Back with Arya, and she’s all mad because Jaqen missed his shot at killing Tywin. Sorry, this one’s on you, Arya. It’s your own damn fault for thinking Tywin was so avuncular. Those narrow eyes of his should have told you something. That, and the mass hangings in the square. But then she uses a clever ploy to get Jaqen to help her escape. The fact that Jaqen would actually kill his own self if you told him to means he’s taken the “most stubborn man in Westeros” crown from Stannis.

Kill yourself or help me escape. It’s a tough choice.

In King’s Landing, Cersei’s actually smiling for a change. She looks so nice when she smiles, instead of that sour lemon-face she’s always sporting. Why is she smiling? Because she thinks she’s found Tyrion’s side piece, and has the woman tortured. Tyrion is stricken by this information, only to learn that it’s not Shae who’s been getting the five-fingers-meet-the-face treatment from Ser Meryn, but Ros. You remember Ros, everyone’s least-favorite exposition device? I admit her omnipresence can be annoying, but I’m beginning to see the value in having her around as a fill-in character. It’s either that or introduce a whole new character just for one scene, so she can be beaten and tortured. That seems unnecessary.

Robb and Mary Sue then have a long discussion about her backstory. This is the first scene between these two that didn’t feel like bonus material from the Director’s Cut of You’ve Got Mail. It’s actually really good. I’ve never understood why he was attracted to Talisa before (other than the obvious), but it would be next-to-impossible to resist her after hearing the story of how her brother almost drowned. That’s just unfair.

Showing your bosoms on TV is no way to uphold the Chaplin legacy.

I still don’t know what her deal is, and why she’s so enamored of Robb when she seems to have no respect for what he does. Again, maybe it’s just the obvious “he’s really hunky” thing. Anyway, they bump uglies. Very unladylike of her, but at least their scenes worked for once.

At Harrenhal, Arya and her pals are waiting at the gate. Jaqen said he’d help them escape, but he’s nowhere to be found. Arya works up the nerve to walk toward the guards, only to discover they’re all dead from Jaqen’s Disease. Dead as Dillinger, and propped up on spears. The gate is completely unguarded, so she and Gendry and Hot Pie hit the road.

A brief sojourn back to Book vs. TV here – I didn’t like how easy this escape was for them. In the novel Arya actually killed the first guard herself, distracting the man and slitting his throat. It’s the first true coldblooded murder in her life (the stable boy was an accident), and it’s the beginning of her descent into some very dark places.

Here, with Jaqen doing all the killing –even though it’s at Arya’s command– it feels too detached. They’re going to have to make her into a ninja assassin at some point, might as well start now.

Out on the water somewhere is a crucial exchange between Stannis and Davos. The two reminisce about the previous war, and how Davos got his nickname “the Onion Knight.” It’s good stuff, and you can see why they admire and respect one another. Neither one of them wants this battle, but they have to do it. Stannis, always confident and thinking ahead, names Davos as his King’s Hand. Just the pesky matter of the Battle of Blackwater to do first.

Bros before Hos, always

On dry land, Tyrion and Varys have another clever discussion about life and Joffrey’s idiocy. They drop like the 5th C-bomb of the episode, and I realize the writers are jerking our chains now.

Speaking of chains, it doesn’t appear that Tyrion’s chain is going to be in the show. I’m fairly certain it didn’t make the cut, and I’m sorely disappointed. It would have been such a great moment and visual, and I just don’t see how it would have broken the budget. Maybe I’m wrong, but there’s been no setup for it at all. I’d love to be wrong.

Dany only has one scene, and she’s slightly less whiny here than she has been. Jorah says he’s found a ship, but Dany won’t leave without her dragons. That means she has to confront the singer of Midnight Oil at the House of the Rising Sun, and soon. Jorah looks worried, and makes puppydog face at her. Come on, Dany, what are you waiting for? Jorah would do anything for you! You can’t keep spending time with Warren Sapp, that guy’s no good for you.

Ser Not-Appearing-In-This-Episode

I don’t think they’ll be able to do the House of the Undying stuff next episode, so that means it’ll be featured prominently in the finale. Will Strong Belwas and Arstan also make an appearance? I sure would like that.

The episode closes back in Winterfell, where Maester Luwin discovers the not-so secret truth of Bran and Rickon’s survival. This was maybe the dumbest scene the show’s ever done. First, Luwin overhears Theon and Dagmer talking about how they paid off the farmer to keep his mouth shut. Like they would just talk about that in the open.

Then he sees Osha sneaking around. This is the same Osha who killed one of the Ironborn last episode, and who betrayed Theon by escaping. They would have been lookout for her, and Winterfell isn’t that big a place. I sincerely doubt she’d just be milling around the square, stealing food supplies and sneaking off to the crypts, with no one noticing. Just dumb storytelling, and pointless.

I also think they could have drawn out this information over a couple of episodes. Saved it for the finale. But hey, at least those adorable tykes aren’t dead. It was different adorable tykes who got killed and burned-up by Theon. That miserable fucker.

Oh, yeah. Oderus Urungus made an appearance.

I’m 43 billion years old!

Next week is going to be something to behold. I think we can count on that.

How did you cunts like it?

Good evening, friends. It’s time for our weekly Game of Thrones discussion group. I hope you’re hunkered down with the adult beverage of your choice.

Last night’s episode was entitled “The Ghost of Harrenhal.” Those of us who’ve read the novels knew exactly what lay in store, and we couldn’t wait to see the strange-talking Jaqen H’Ghar start offing Lannisters.

Now as I said last week, we don’t want to get too bogged-down in compare/contrasts with the source material. If you really wanted to catalog all of the changes, for good or bad, you’d go crazy. A little of this comparison is necessary, however. Especially since this second season is a much looser adaptation than the first season was.

One of the biggest issues that crops up with a show like this is a thing called adaptation decay. It’s unavoidable, and it’s mostly OK. While I firmly maintain the need for pragmatic adaptation at times, sometimes changes are made for reasons that no one can explain. It’s one thing for the occasional name change, or switching scenes around in the timeline. That stuff doesn’t really bother me. TV is different than the written word, and changes must be made. Could you imagine if they spent as much time on clothing and food in the TV show as they do in the books? You’d want to kill yourself.

But when changes are made for no good goddamn reason at all, and they expressly hurt the narrative, and they change the specific reactions of specific characters, then I have to SMH. Such was the case with last night’s show.

So we have the death of Renly Baratheon in the first scene, murdered by Stannis’ Smoke Monster. This was really the first time in this show that I felt they blew it. For me, this was one of the most eagerly-anticipated scenes. I couldn’t wait to see that terrible, horrific scene brought to life. It’s not that the show did a terrible job, but they changed it so much as to remove much of the impact. Maybe it doesn’t matter for the TV viewers, but it mattered to me.

In the novel, Renly is killed while Brienne is armoring him for the upcoming battle. The shadow creature enters the tent and slices Renly’s throat, cutting right through his armored neckpiece. There’s something so chilling about this inhuman monster cutting through the armor, and slicing his throat. Bleeding to death in that way is so gruesome, and I feel that showing Renly’s reaction as he saw his life slipping away would have been much more effective. Instead, in the episode he’s not armored, and the shadow stabs him through the heart. Death is instantaneous. We don’t get to the see the stunned realization in the eyes of this man who thought he had it all figured out. He’s just stabbed, then dead. Brutal, yes. Sad, yes. Just not nearly as effective.

The second big change is the reaction of Ser Loras. In the book, when he finds out that Renly’s been murdered, Loras flies into a grief-stricken rage. He lashes out and kills two of Renly’s guardsmen, feeling that they didn’t protect him sufficiently. Not that this is the whole reason. He’s not in his right mind when he kills Sers Robar and Emmon. It’s the first truly clear indication in the book that Loras and Renly were in love. I know that the show has made their relationship much more explicit, but the changes in this scene were a disaster.

Loras doesn’t react much at all. He’s just… sad. He just stares at Renly’s corpse and cries. The grief’s still there, but the rage isn’t. The events of this night are supposed to haunt Loras for the rest of his days; not just because he lost his true love, but because his subsequent actions were so shameful. Loras feels the greatest remorse for killing his brothers-in-arms, yet that scene is nowhere to be found in this episode.

Instead we just get this.

What a terrible omission. I hold out hope that we will still find out that Loras did in fact kill those two men, and is haunted by it, but we just didn’t see it. A flashback will do nicely.

All of the scenes with Stannis and Davos rocked. I wonder if viewers are really getting the full dose of Davos’ steady coolness. The explanation behind his severed fingers and all that is pretty hard to pick up on, and it’s such a great story.

Tyrion and Bronn in the Pyromancer’s Guild? Awesome. Those two could have their own show. That Battle of Blackwater should really be something else. I hope they keep the giant chain for that. It’s going to be explosive as all get-out.

Then there’s the action across the Narrow Sea, with Dany and her gang in Qarth. Here’s a perfect example of condensation and distillation done right. The writers have changed plenty of this stuff, but I don’t really care. To be truthful, a lot of Dany’s story blurs together after a while- especially when she starts traveling from one peculiar, foreign, vaguely Mesopotamian city to another. Can anyone among you really differentiate between her adventures in Qarth and her adventures in Astapor, or Yunkai, or Meereen? I sure as hell can’t.

Condense away, as far as I’m concerned. It doesn’t start getting good until Arstan and Strong Belwas show up, and she buys the Unsullied. That’s when Dany starts doing real hardcore “mother of Dragons”-type stuff.

Arya’s story in Harrenhal is likewise changed and streamlined. It’s still a miserable place to be, but not so godawful dreary. Nothing is lost in the translation, unless you’re really bothered by the fact that she asks Jaqen to kill the Tickler instead of Chiswick. I can’t understand why you would be.

Plus the scene of Arya staring down Tywin and telling him that “anyone can be killed” kicked so much ass.

ANYONE.

Jon and the Night’s Watch traipsing around North of the Wall is another section of the book that felt like it lasted forever. There’s only so much you can read about characters freezing and starving. That stuff has been whittled down considerably, though we still get a few good images of Emo Jon Snow.

“It’s so cold up here. As frigid as me cold, cold heart. So black. So senseless. I cry now.”

Another way I feel that this show has improved on the source material is in its treatment of Theon. He was such an enigma in the books. He literally went from being just this guy who hung out with the Starks to the biggest traitorous scumbag in the world. You get almost no explanation for any of it. Just one day he’s good, the next day he’s… well I’ll leave some of that for those of you who haven’t read the books. But you can see where it’s heading, I’m sure.

Anyway, it’s much better on the show. I do think they’re overdoing it a little bit with the way none of the Iron Islanders respect Theon, but it’s still making for some interesting TV. He’s a complete character now, though a twat to be sure.

FUCK YOU THEON YOU FUCKING FUCK

And finally, this scene between Brienne and Catelyn was fantastic. Seriously, both these ladies did Emmy-quality work here. It was momentous, poignant, and heartfelt. To see these two very different women forming such a strong bond was very moving. They even talked about stuff like “a woman’s strength” and it didn’t sound dumb and touchy-feely. Really touching; even moreso if you know what happens between them in the future.

So, what did you guys think? Did I miss anything?

Hi everybody, how are you all doing? I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, but am only just now getting around to it.

What am I talking about?

I’m talking about Bronc Drywall’s Game of Thrones Discussion Group, that’s what.

I think it’s just as well that we waited until episode 4, since the first couple of episodes were a little underwhelming. But the series has now kicked it into high gear, and they’re firing on all cylinders. Apologies for two car metaphors in a row.

I trust that you all have the decency and good taste to watch this show, so let’s get cracking.

There won’t be too many rules to this. Try to avoid spoilers if you can. We can compare and contrast the show with the books, but at some point you have to realize they’re different animals. So far, for me, the only complaints I have about the show are exceedingly minor nitpicks. Yes, they changed Asha Greyjoy’s name to Yara. I wasn’t crazy about the change, but they had good reason. There was already an Osha, and HBO didn’t want to confuse viewers. At some point we’re going to have to remember hundreds of names, and there are a lot of repeats. The occasional change isn’t going to kill anybody. Yes, Stannis and Tywin are supposed to be bald. Yes, Tyrion is supposed to be ugly. And yes, Walder Frey is supposed to be 100 years old instead of just sorta-old. None of these changes detract from the show or the characters, so let’s not obsess overmuch.

I’ve read all of these books (except for the 5th one) at least twice, so I have a pretty good familiarity with the sources.

Here’s some quick observations:

Joffrey. In the novels he’s consistently described as beautiful, a handsome golden-haired King. This serves as such a stark contrast to his sadistic true nature, and it’s chilling. In the series he’s played by an actor –Jack Gleeson– who is already, let’s be honest, pretty weird-looking. I think it makes him much less scary that way. If he was a total dreamboat yet also way psycho, that would be better than weird-looking and psycho. Think Patrick Bateman.

The physical relationship between Stannis and Melisandre. I realize this was broadly hinted at in the books, but it was never confirmed. I would have preferred the implication over seeing actual evidence. There’s already a bit too much sex in this show, I don’t need to see the least-sexy storyline imaginable brought to life before my eyes. Hinting at it would have sufficed; we don’t need to see them banging on the table in the War Room.

Direwolves. The CGI for these has been… not terrible. Not great, either. The wolves actually look fine, but they’re not composited well with the existing footage. This was always going to be the biggest FX hurdle to overcome, even moreso than the dragons. The dragons look perfectly fine. The wolves, not so fine.

All of the whorehouse scenes with Littlefinger are annoying and superfluous. It’s understandable that some of them may seem necessary for the purposes of exposition, but there’ve been too many of them. In the books, Littlefinger functions so well as a character because you never realize just how corrupt and calculating he is (not until book 4, at any rate). They shouldn’t show so much of him behind the scenes, and certainly not behaving in such menacing fashion. I always thought he was supposed to be almost foppish.

Peter Dinklage’s accent. It just never gets any better, does it? It’s such a shame. He’s so awesome in so many ways, but the accent just eludes him. In the name of all that’s holy, can we please get him a better dialect coach for season 3?

I miss Ned. Of course, that’s not going to change.

I’d like to hear what you guys think.