Adam Levine quits Maroon 5 for Game of Thrones (parody):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rapo0h-RDnk#!
Damn funny.
— Alan
Holy Shit, the finale was better than I’d hoped for.
Good way to end it in terms of dramatic effect for viewers, but stupid to have the Others come within 10’ of Sam like that and not kill him. Which is pretty typical of the show this season, reaching for maximum impact without little to no regard for character motivation or consistency, or even at times logic.
GRRM has got to be sitting there going, “umm, more characters you’re killing that I’m not done with yet?!!” Poor Roxanne Mckee, you never got enough screen time.
Doreah dies early in Book 2. It’s Irri who’s still around in the books.
I do think it’s partly budgetary, trying to squeeze down the # of characters, even minor ones, because they’re adding a ton of people next year.
Also, I’m okay with the Other and Sam so close. Basically the same situation that happened to Will in the first episode. For some reason, the Others spared him. Sam’s basically a craven coward and the Other can’t even be bothered with him.
Ah, that’s right. Damn minor characters.
Also, I’m okay with the Other and Sam so close. Basically the same situation that happened to Will in the first episode. For some reason, the Others spared him. Sam’s basically a craven coward and the Other can’t even be bothered with him.
But it’s not the same situation. With Will there’s a chance they didn’t know he was there in the tree compared to staring right at Sam. Makes no sense at all for creatures that hate the living to not slay him on sight.
Edit: Don’t get me started on Jon, Dany, or Theon. Completely destroyed the complexity of the Winterfell situation, which was a huge cliffhanger for readers back in the late 90s. Was Ramsay acting on his own or under orders from his father, you didn’t know and it was a nice bit of tension for Robb’s situation. Instead we get another cheesy knocked out scene to avoid filming a complex scene. Hell, it could’ve shown Theon agreeing to let the northmen inside and have them turn on him instead of his own men.
The Jon-Qhorin scene didn’t work at all, period. And arguably the most important chapter in the 2nd book was reduced to a guest appearance by Jason Momoa and some cheesy dragon spitting. Good grief.
EW has some news on Season 3.
D&D re-upped their contracts for two more years.
Still filming in NI, Croatia, and Iceland, but they may add a 4th country to that list.
I do expect Season 3 to slow down a bit, since it’s more or less half of a book. Plus, there are a craptop more characters to juggle.
I thought it was great. I knew the House of the Undying prophecy stuff was going to be kind of cheesy and truncated because there was no way to show what was in the book. Sam being ten feet away from the Other didn’t bother me either thanks to the general badassness of the scene. I thought they’d already blown their budget with Blackwater so it was a nice surprise to get The Walking Dead at the end.
Also, my wife thought the scene with Tyrion and Shae was very sweet and touching.
Watch it again. Will is on his knees. The Others slice off Gareth’s head and toss it at Will, who’s sobbing. Fade to black, and roll intro.
Also, Alfie Allen is fucking acting his socks off. The entire scene with the horn blowing in the background was hilarious. Theon is totally messed up, and he conveys that beautifully. Alfie’s sister needs to write a new song apologizing about what she said about him after this.
House of the Undying would have been pretty hard to do on-screen.
And yeah, the Walkers spared Will obviously, and Sam is pretty much in the same position.
The horn sounded way too much like the 13th Warrior. In fact I think it probably was.
The other stuff worked for what it was, but yeah wish it could have been more than that. Qhorin-Jon obviously wasn’t going to be any more in-depth. I think the Ramsay situation was probably a little too complex.
— Alan
Vesper
4131
So what are we to assume happend at Winterfell? The Iron Islanders torched the place and ran? What about the army surrounding? I was annoyed that they went from knocking Theon out to burning Winterfell with no transition. I know how it’s supposed to work in the books, but since I didn’t see any Ramsay or Reek, I have no idea what they were going for here.
Short answer: That’s a mystery for you to mull over until next season.
Long, spoilery answer…
The Iron Men went home. Ramsay Bolton and his 500 men sacked the place. But odds are, they also killed the Iron Men, so they could put the blame on them.
Yeah… the Winterfell situation will be a cliffhanger they’ll resolve at the beginning of season 3. All in all, I think they did an elegant job tidying things up. The episode introduced a number of new stories for next season but it still managed to provide closure for this one.
On the ten scale… this one gets a ten.
rowe33
4134
Now that was an f’ing good finale…damn, if only last week could’ve been as good. Not a wasted scene in the whole episode.
Brienne-Jamie: Wow, so well done. Quick, brutal violence without being Spartacastic…see, it can be done! And they show how loyal Brienne is to one person and one person only, not to a House or a King, etc. Also it’s good to see a bit of shit on the Stark name too since every House has its filth and scum in this world, with no true good or evil side.
Theon: Kicked some major ass this episode, damn…you can completely see how unnerved and backed into a corner he feels. The horn blower bit was excellent too. And a great speech though I’m not a fan of leaving the sack up in the air.
Arya-Jaqen: Great scene overall and I’m glad they had the face change as it seems pivotal to me in showing a Faceless Man’s capabilities.
Dany: Thought this was really well done until the tiny dragonlings somehow torch the warlock with their little blasts. I really liked the Drogo scene also.
Jon-Qhorin: Bleh, didn’t like how this played out at all. I thought it was a terrible choice to have Qhorin disarmed and then have Jon bury his sword in him. It didn’t really show that Jon was doing it due to his duty to the Night Watch…felt more like he was doing it because he was pissy about the ‘whore mother/traitor father’ taunts. I think it needed to happen more fluidly as part of the combat exchange but oh well. The rest of the episode makes up for it.
Final scene: Great!! The Other considered Sam a fly on the wall, a bug not worth disrupting their march to step on.
Can’t wait for season 3 though damn, it’s a long ways off.
rowe33
4135
No kidding, he did an awesome job. I imagine he’s going to make me feel even more sympathetic towards Reek than I felt in the book, despite all the crap he’s done.
I have a feeling non-readers are going to be completely confused about this. Did the 20 men somehow sack Winterfell and sneak out? If not, then why would the 500 Stark men pillage the castle? Seems like it’ll be very confusing when it didn’t have to be. I hope they do a good job of explaining it all at the start of season 3 for those who don’t know what happened.
Haha, that’s awesome. Thanks.
Scrax
4137
While I did enjoy a lot of the events already mentioned, I was more distracted by the things they didn’t do well.
1.The whole Winterfell thing was definately anti-climatic. The two non-book readers that watched it with me were very confused as to what happened.
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(Spoilers) I’m disappointed that they didn’t show more in the House of the Undying. I guess I understand it, but I really was looking forward to the whole “wolf head sewed onto the body of a man at a banquet” foreshadowing event. That always stuck out at me in the book.
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The who dracqueris (sp) event was anti-climatic as well. Her expression (which was great) didn’t really fit the scene. She should have gone dracqueris…Dracqueris…DRACQUERIS!, or something with the flamethrowers at the end… The scene just didn’t have enough power or emotion for me…just felt flat.
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I agree with the guy above that the Jon/Qhorin turncloak event wasn’t very clear as well. Jon just looked like an angry brat again. The non-book readers were again, confused as to what actually happened.
Rowe, I know you’re a fan of the show, but you don’t need to point out everything that you think is a logical inaccuracy. A lot of the time it’s actually you just not thinking about it very hard.
It’s fire, Rowe. Ever been camping? A small fire with a lot of heat will cook your frankfurters just as quick as a bonfire.
That was the point. I guess they tricked you as well as the Wildlings.
I laughed out loud at the Adam Levine thing. Thanks for linking that Alan. =)
Great finale last night. Loved the final scenes with Arya and then Sam. That last shot is simply awesome.
On the other hand, I too was disappointed with how they handled some of the plot. I didn’t really have a problem with the Tower of the Undying as they can only do so much on a TV budget, even an HBO one. On the other hand, are we really supposed to believe that the entire tower and magic cult in Quarth was just the one guy? In the books he’s more the mouthpiece for the Undying, a council of mages who Dany eventually burns via the dragons. It seemed silly to have her kill one guy and walk away. I was glad they kept the Drogo scene though, as that shows Dany’s character development better than anything else they could have done.
Theon is fantastic. Despite the changes to his character, Alfie Allen has really sold it. My wife is a non-reader and she was horribly confused by how it went from Theon’s men turning on him to Winterfell being sacked and burned when supposedly Robb’s men were sieging the castle. Hopefully they cover that in Season Three, but it’s going to be difficult to transition Theon’s captivity since there was no “Reek” in Winterfell with him.
Loved Arya’s conversation with Jaqen and his transformation. They’ve done a great job making Arya and Tyrion into everyone’s favorite characters just like in the books. The Sam thing was a stretch, but the payoff was the amazing mounted white walker reveal and end shot so I’ll give it a pass. I hope they budget for a nice battle on the Fist of the First Men to open next season.
40+ weeks until Season Three, this time with no new book released in the interim. I am more than a little depressed today. =(
I actually liked the new Theon thread. Rather than being brashly hopeful waiting for Reek/Ramsey to come save him, he was cornered and betrayed. His rant to the Maester was excellent TV and really great acting. I think his earlier downfall lets them do more with his (slow) redemption. We’ll see.
It’s interesting – we haven’t seen Jamie really get under Brienne’s skin yet like he did in the books. In the text it is pretty obvious that she’s more than a little bit naive and Jamie runs verbal rings around her; eventually coming to admire her honesty and heart. On the show she seems much more worldly and competent. Her quick guile and easy manner when coming up with the off-the-cuff story to feed to the three northmen was something that the book-Brienne probably couldn’t have done; everyone everywhere always saw through her obvious lies.
I don’t dislike the TV version of their Odd Couple. It’s just… not what I had expected. It’ll be interesting to see how her character develops.
I would have appreciated a little more weirdness. I understand how nearly impossible it would have been to do the book version of the visions, but I would have appreciated the prophesy at a minimum. I did like Dany disappearing around the curve of the tower.
My wife really liked the Momoa cameo, but I didn’t think it added much.
I wasn’t too worried by the dragons as mini-flamethrowers since that bit was in the book as similar damage done by a lone dragon. I thought the CGI in that scene was pretty badly done. I was a little annoyed by the chains vaporizing for no good reason. Having Pyat Pree do a villainous monolog explaining his dastardly plan was a bit much too, though it did tie the return of magic to the dragons, which was probably necessary.
Great episode overall. LOTS of stuff going on it in. Liked the Tyrion scenes a lot. Thought that the Robb marriage thing was more interesting than the off-screen romance of the book, and his conversation with Cat was a good summary of the ones in the books. Was pretty underwhelmed by the Wildling/Jon stuff.
