“You love your children. It’s your one redeeming quality… that and your cheekbones.” – Tyrion on Game of Thrones
Well, I may be a day late and dollar short, but this week’s review is finally here. I’m starting to think that I may be biting off more than I can chew with trying to do this weekly, but I’m going to keep going as long as I can. (There’s possibly a dick joke in that sentence, but that’s up to you, not me and my dirty mind). Anyway, I made it before the new week’s shows started (or close enough), so I’m going to count this as a win.
Also, let’s talk about grades for a second. It’s been suggested that I should grade the episodes each week. Now, that does have some appeal to me because it’s a far more concrete way for you, the reader, to understand how I felt about an episode. But then again… Grades are so highly subjective. You can like something, or not like it, but to attach a concrete value seems a little arbitrary to me. I think grading a television show is sort of akin to when my sophomore English teacher tried to grade our poetry and gave me an 85 on a sonnet. An 85?!? It was a f-king sonnet!! I worked really hard on it; it followed the rules; you may not have liked it but how dare you say it wasn’t “poetic” enough!! But… um… I digress… If I’m going to grade things, you have understand that there’s a scale for each show. A “B” for Mad Men is greatly different from a “B” for Castle. Every grade is going to be curved to the best episode of that specific series. Therefore, for this post only, I’m going to give my example of an “A” grade for each show, just so you know where I’m coming from.
Game of Thrones
Before I start to review the second season premiere of Game of Thrones, I have a confession to make. While I am an avid (rabid?) fan of The Lord of the Rings, and while I love television shows with their own mythology, especially science fiction/fantasy, I’m not the biggest fan of Game of Thrones. I know I should be. I work in a bookstore, and I’m constantly aware of how much people love the books. People I trust implicitly love them. But every time I start the first book, I never get very far. And every time I sit down to watch the show, I enjoy myself, but I’m left… wanting. There’s a spark that I feel is missing. Yes, it looks beautiful and it’s well acted, but I’m not deeply invested in the story or the characters. At least not yet. That said, there has only been one season, and probably, I would have said the same thing about Buffy or Parks and Rec after just season one. “Yeah, it’s nice, but I don’t know, I don’t feel like I need to rush home to watch it every week.” With both of those shows, a little perseverance paid off in droves, so I’m going into season two with an open mind. Maybe the show will convince me of its worth. Or maybe I’ll drop it after a few more episodes, like I did with the painfully ponderous Boardwalk Empire. (Ugh, that show was the worst!) I will admit that the season opener showed a lot of promise. In fact, I found it more watchable than the bulk of last season’s episodes. So, already, we’re off to a good start. There was a lot of set up going on here, but still, the writers made time for character moments that I really liked. In the set-up department, let’s go place by place, just the like the opening credits, which are admittedly the coolest credits going on TV right now. At King’s Landing, we reestablish that Joffrey is on the throne (for now) and he is enjoying his new power by having games, just like his father. Sansa Stark is still at King’s Landing, too, under the watchful eye of her future husband, but she’s learning how to manipulate her position. And Cersei is there too, trying to control her son while hiding the fact that her son is also her nephew. (Ooh, incest!) Finally, Tyrion, my personal favorite, arrives back to King’s Landing to act as hand of the king, just as his father instructed him to do; however, he did sneak his lover into the city, so we the viewers can still have nakedness and snarky commentary on her part. Elsewhere in the kingdom’s, Robb Stark still has Jaime Lannister as a captive, and he’s been winning battles against the Lannister family. On this front, there is a lot of talk about battle plans, and power struggles (which I sort of buzzed in and out on), but the crux is that the Starks need more men, so they are thinking about appealing to Balon Greyjoy, who was a sworn enemy, but now might become an allie. On the other side of the power struggle, there is also Stannis Baratheon, the old king’s brother, who also (rightly) believes he has a claim on the throne. He has fallen under the influence of Melissandre, a pagan priestess, who, I imagine, will be a key player in the season to come. Then we have the two on the periphery. Up in the north, Jon Snow has travelled above the wall, and he’s about to get in trouble with the family that has taken his party in. And in the far south, Daenerys is in trouble; she’s stuck in the desert with three dragons and no one to help her. Oh, and then there is Arya Stark, the land’s littlest fugitive, who everyone assumes is still alive and in King’s Landing (even if Cersei can’t find her), but really she’s on her way to the wall with the rightful heir to the throne, King Robert’s bastard son, aka Chris from series 1 and 2 from Skins. Man, I’m tired just from writing all that down. But it did play out pretty well during the episode. The strength of this series is its ability to explain complex information without confusing the viewer too much. Each place has such a distinct feel to it that I find it easy to follow (For the layman, they did also have place titles on this episode, unlike last season). The comet connecting each storyline was also a really nice touch, which I imagine was an element from the books. It worked very well as a transitional piece and it tethered the disparate plots together better than I felt they were last season.I also really liked how this episode made time for the characters, instead of being bogged down by the politics of everything. We get a power hungry Joffrey moment when he tries to kill on of the knights for arriving late to the games. We also get a nice Sansa moment, when she is able to manipulate Joffrey not to kill the knight, by appealing to his sense of vanity. And in the north, we get great indignation from Jon Snow at the thought of the Wildling, Craster, marrying his daughters. In my mind, Jon is clearly the moral compass of the show, just like his father was before him, and I like that right away, they establish his strict sense of honor and integrity. And then there is Tyrion, who was on fire this episode. He has so many character moments, I can’t even count, but I loved when he came up against his sister. I’m very excited to see him more this season as a person of influence, rather than a relegated imp like last season.
My only arguments with this episode were the politics, which I understand can’t be avoided, but still, I find them wearing. Really, every time I see a scene with a bunch of old men sitting around the table, my eyes start to glaze over. Also, the end was a little over the top symbolically for me. Killing the male children of King’s Landing was way, way too biblical for my liking. But then again, fantasy is never a genre for subtlety, and it did make for good scenes and a nice contrast for the last shot of Gendry and Arya on their way to the wall. So I won’t let it detract too much from my opinion.
All in all, it was a good episode. I’m going fresh into this season, and I have decent hopes that it will be a good one. Only time will tell, though, so stay tuned.
Grade: B+ (A = “Baelor”)
Up Next: The Greendale Civil War
Mary the TV Maven 