srijeda, 30. svibnja 2012.

Game of Thrones S02E04 Overview


The first scene takes place at the battlefield  where Robb Stark has just defeated Stafford Lannister's army. I wouldn't mind if they had actually shown the battle.
However, they skipped it and we only see the aftermath – Robb's army is walking through the field full of corpses and wounded soldiers.
Robb's attention is caught by an unknown attractive woman who's sewing off some poor soldier's foot to save his life. The two of them have a short conversation and we get a feeling that they'll get to know each other better in the following episodes.

We're back to King's Landing in the next scene.  Joffrey is unhappy about losing a battle to Robb Stark once more, so he decides  to take it out on Sansa and have hear beaten  and humiliated in front of the whole court.  I found this scene excellent. All the actors were great and Jack Gleeson was awesome as ever with those icy eyes, sadistic expressions and egocentric demeanor.



Anyway, things aren't looking too good for Sansa there, but when it really looks like it's going to get tough, Tyrion marches in, stops the beating and saves Sansa. Tyrion and Bronn have a conversation about Joffrey's behavior afterwards. Bronn describes Joffrey's problem with an honest statement „There's no cure for being a cunt.“, but Tyrion disagrees on that one and decides to be optimistic and cheer Joffrey up by sending him two whores as a nameday present.

Consequently, the next scene goes  on in Joffrey's chamber. He goes in and finds the whores. It immediately becomes clear that he's not interested in them and obviously not very enthusiastic about the whole idea. Knowing Joffrey,  I knew he wouldn't just let this one slide and I wondered what kind of sadistic shit he was going to do now. With regards to this, a certain scene unfolds which was later much discussed and criticized by a lot of viewers as an unnecessary and too cruel display of Joffrey's sadism. Don't take my word for it, but I believe some viewers who had read the books said that this scene wasn't in the book.
I personally didn't find the scene that disturbing. I must admit I did get used to Joffrey's cruelty by now, so when watching this scene and anticipating, I pretty much thought something much worse was going to happen than what actually did.

Baelish visits Catelyn Stark at Renly's camp and tries to convince her to trade Jamie Lannister for Sansa and Arya. Catelyn seems unwilling at first, but she gets emotional when she sees Ned Stark's body in the coffin, which Baelish had brought her as a gift.
Moving on to the next scene. Arya, Gendry and the rest of the group are taken to some sort of  fort for war prisoners. They are held inside dirty, damp ruins together with other prisoners and every day one of the prisoners gets chosen and tortured by the keepers.


We get back to Renly who meets with Stannis the day before their battle. Stannis is very confident about the outcome of the battle and asks Renly to surrender, but Renly makes fun of him and refuses.
The Dothraki are still starving in the desert. They come to the gates of the city of Quarth which is ruled by a council of thirteen men and Daenerys asks The Thirteen who stand before the closed gate to let her and her people in. The Thirteen refuse at first, but one of them stands up for Daenerys and makes them change their mind.

Back at prisoners' fort, Gendry gets chosen to be tortured. Tywin Lannister appears with his men, stops the torture just in time to save Gendry from painful death and takes all the young prisoners to his fort as his new workers/slaves.
Lancel Lannister comes to Tyrion's chambers to deliver a message from Cersei. Tyrion tells Lancel how he knows about him and Cersei having sex, threatens him to tell Joffrey about it and blackmails him to spy on Cersei.


Lancel was so convincing when he begged Tyrion for mercy and sucked up to him, the actor looked so very natural in this scene, he did a great job  and it was such an entertainment to watch. I just have to love this character and it was one of my favorite scenes in this episode.

Following Stannis's orders, Seaworth escorts Melisandre to a sea cave at night. Just as I started to wonder what they were doing in that cave, Melisandre was suddenly naked with a 9 months belly and I was like why the hell is she naked and how did her baby grow so fast. Then, just like that, she sits on the floor and starts having a baby. The labor lasts about 30 seconds and when it comes out out it's not even a baby, it's a shadow in a shape of a human – my bad for the spoiler if you haven't seen this episode yet.

Overall I found the episode pretty interesting, with more real plot and better than the previous three.



petak, 4. svibnja 2012.

Game Of Thrones S02E03 Overview

This episode is somewhat more interesting than the previous two, although there's hardly any action going on.
Jon Snow and The Night's Watch get kicked out of Craster's place because Jon Snow followed Craster and found out that he gives his newborn sons to White Walkers as sacrifice. We get an update on Renly, who apparently considers himself the new king and plans to take King's Landing. He and his rather large army are located in tents on a shore. We get a short action scene watching Loras and Brienne fight in the arena. Renly gets a new member in his King's Guard and we find out that Natalie Dormer has joined the cast as Renly's new wife, self-proclaimed queen and Loras's sister, Marjorie of the House Tyrell. Renly gets an unexpected visit from Catelyn Stark who wants him to join the Starks in the war, since the Lannisters are their mutual enemy.


The following scene takes place at Iron Islands. Balon Greyjoy plans to take over the North while the Starks are away fighting the Lannisters, and we see Greyjoys' final preparations before Yara and Theon Greyjoy head out to war, plus some bickery occurs between Theon and Balon Greyjoy. We find out that Theon still has some deep issues about being given away to the Starks as a child by his father, which somewhat explains why he's become such a narcissistic douchebag later on and almost makes me sympathize with him.

Back at King's Landing, Tyrion has a new scheme going on. He plans to marry princess Myrcella off behind Cersei's back and he wants Pycelle, Varys and Littlefinger to take part in his plan.
Moving on to the next scene, we get some mild gay action (I believe this is the first one this season) with Renly and Loras. 


Renly is horny as usual but Loras is still bitchy about losing a fight to a girl and isn't in the right mood for it, so he leaves. Renly gets drunk and his self-proclaimed queen Natalie Dormer comes into his room and flashes him, but Renly hates it, being gay and all. The discomfort and irritation in his face when Natalie tried to touch him and make out with him was so genuine, I couldn't help but wonder if the actor wasn't gay in real life.

Cersei finds out about Tyrion's scheme and the two of them get into a fight. Tyrion discovers that Pycelle was the one who leaked this piece of news to Cersei and that he has been Cersei's spy for quite some time. Pycelle gets thrown into a cell for this, after which we get a glimpse of a meaningful philosophical conversation between Tyrion and Varys.


The last scene of the episode takes place at Arya's traveling group at night. While everyone else is sleeping, Yoren shares some of his own painful experiences with Arya in an attempt to help her deal with all the pain she's been going through since her father's death. They are interrupted by Joffrey's armed soldiers who have returned looking for Robert Baratheon's bastard son. Yoren refuses to cooperate with them, so they kill him and pretty much everyone else . Only a small group of men and boys is left, including Arya and Gendry.

srijeda, 11. travnja 2012.

Game of Thrones S02E02 Overview

Much like in the previous episode, there isn't much real plot going on in this one either. I'd say that the first two episodes of this season were primarily made to introduce new characters and find out about their plans and intentions.
Season 1 was mainly about the Starks, the Lannisters, the Night's Watch and the Dothraki, and I found all of them very intriguing and fun to watch.
Some things changed though, and this is unfortunately no longer the case anymore. In second season all of them lose a large part of their screen time due to some new characters which I don't even like, and some supporting characters that only had a couple of short scenes in the first season, but now seem to get more scenes than the Dothraki and Starks. The scenes with Stannis and his army are omg so boring. What else? Oh, right, the brothel. Is the brothel really that relevant to the plot? I'd rather watch an additional scene with any of the Starks than those boring soft porn scenes.

In this episode we see more of Arya, who travels with Yoren and the others that are heading to the Wall.
At Night's Watch, Jon Snow is determined to stay out of trouble, but trouble seems to find it's way to him. Kit Harrington did a great job portraying this brave and idealistic young man who has a lot of good qualities and always tries to do his best with what he's got, but never looks truly happy.


Back at King's Landing, Varys (played by Conleth Hill) finds out about Tyrion's (Peter Dinklage) new companion and makes a smooth attempt to blackmail him. I personally found the scene with those two brilliant actors to be the best moment of the episode.
Another interesting scene takes place in Littlefinger's brothel. In the first season Ros was portrayed primarily as an intelligent and calculated prostitute who would do anything for money, but in this episode she shows her soft side for the first time. It kind of reminds you she's only human, even though she always looks so tough on the outside. I found this scene an excellent choice for further development of this character. It looks like Ros is going to get more screen time this season, which I'm happy about because she's kind of starting to grow on me.


The Dothraki scenes are not all that interesting for the first two episodes of this season, while in the first season I found them the most interesting part of the show. The Khalasar looks rather pathetic now as Drogo, Rakharo, Qotho and Mago are gone. Most of the other members of the tribe are gone too, it seems. Daenerys is left with Jorah Mormont and a small group of loyal Dothraki people.
Rakharo dies in this episode as suspected, which is a shame. He was one of my favorite characters. I believe he was originally meant to live much longer in the show and was also supposed to be one of the main Dothraki characters in Season 2, but the actor obviously couldn't be on the set due to some other obligations, so they had to kill him off Game of Thrones style.

I have to comment on Melisandre. I don't think Carice van Houten is a bad actress, but I don't find her convincing at all in this particular role. Apparently this character is supposed to be all mysterious, but I think the actress (or the producers) overdid it to the point that Melisandre looks as if she can't decide if she wants to be good or bad.


She has the perfect physical appearance for the role, but I think her interpretation lacks emotions and passion. Most of the time she has this strange poker face on, that sort of reminds me of my own poker face when I slack off at work. You get the impression that Melisandre's mind is somewhere else and she doesn't even care what's going on around her.
I really hope I'll grow to like this character as the show progresses.

Oh btw., that scene on the horse with Theon Greyjoy and the girl couldn't have been more disgusting. Well, at least you think it can't be any nastier than it is, but wait until you find out who the girl really is. The actress seems to be the right choice for this role. Yara (she's called Asha in the books) is obviously supposed to be very tomboyish, and I think the actress does a fine job at that.

This episode is generally filled with awkward sex scenes that are probably meant to compensate for the obvious lack of action.
Sometimes I wonder whether the choice of certain actors in this show was primarily based on their willingness to show their assets on TV. I can only wonder who else we are going to see naked throughout season 2.

subota, 7. travnja 2012.

Game of Thrones S02E01 Overview

It's all about Game of Thrones these days. I'm not ashamed to admit I felt empty inside after having seen the final episode of the first season. Not so much because of Ned Stark's death but rather because of knowing I'll have to wait almost a year until Season 2 is aired. But here it is...Season 2 of the best TV show ever is finally here.

Jon Snow and the rest of the Night's Watch head north, beyond the wall, where they meet up with some old leader of a tribe. The guy is some sort of freak who marries his young daughters and has kids with them. He becomes paranoid as soon as he notices Jon's good looks and warns him to stay away from his daughters. Jon has this look in his eyes and I have a strong feeling that some shit is gonna go down here, probably in the next episode or so.

The Dothraki are walking through something that seems to be an endless desert. They're hungry and exhausted, so Khaleesi sends her three bloodriders, Kovarro, Aggo and Rakharo to ride in three different directions and find out what lies beyond the desert.
There's some speculation about Rakharo being killed off in the next episode. It's a highly probable turn of events, as Elyes Gabel, the actor who plays Rakharo, was cast in World War Z which was filmed at the same time as Season 2 of Game of Thrones. I was actually surprised to see this character appear at all in Season 2.


Some people are already pissed about Rakharo's death being implied in the trailer for episode 2, especially since he was meant to live much longer according to the books. In my opinion, Rakharo is too cool a character to be killed off that early in the show, but to be honest I really don't know how Gabel could have been able to shoot two shows in two different countries at the same time.

Cersei and Littlefinger have a little chat at King's Landing. She teases him about his unreturned love for Ned Stark's wife whatshername (I forgot some stuff since I saw Season 1), and he responds by throwing a painful comeback line at her, which is going to cost him a lot more than he thought.


For one short moment I actually thought he might die in a certain scene, but then I mentally bitchslapped myself and got a grip. Littlefinger has a lot more scheming to do before he dies, cause anything else would be just silly.
Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) is an amazing actress. Everything from her posture to her eyes and facial expressions adds to the credibility of her character and makes Cersei so convincing.

And let's not forget Jack Gleeson. He's really outstanding in his portrayal of Joffrey. We all love to hate him. Those sadistic faces he makes are just priceless. I look forward to seing more of him in Season 2.