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Game of Thrones 2.01 The North Remembers
I love the episode title "The North Remembers," it's a fine one for the opener of Clash of Kings. Err, I mean, Game of Thrones Season 2. I mean it, though, titling in general can be a frustrating endeavor but I can't help but think that coming up with Game of Thrones episode titles must be fun.
Where to begin? Oh, we have HBO now! And the S1 box set, so I can do a longer meta post about the adaptation of A Game of Thrones to S1 of GoT if I get up the gumption and the motivation. And I have a fever, which I also had while watching the season premiere, so my memory might be... febrile.
To review, spoilers for Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire.
- Everyone. Talks. To. Everyone. On this show. About anything. Anything. People are always willing to exposit. It doesn't matter what about. It doesn't matter if they shouldn't actually know about it at all. Or if it's deeply personal to them. Or compromising. Or if everyone knows about it and they're rehashing it for no reason. If the audience needs to know it, they'll talk about it. I'm starting to think this is the single biggest weakness of Game of Thrones, period.
- Sansa! Rescuing Ser Dontos, too, and Sandor is helping -- the TV characterization is unusually kind to Sandor in general. This is one of many scenes in which Sansa is smart and Joffrey is so fucking dumb. Dontos isn't quite as I pictured him, but I think I like this version better, actually. Tyrion!! I dunno what I think about the decision to open in King's Landing altogether, but I get why you'd want to open on Tyrion, because Tyrion. Hey, guys, remember why you're watching this show?
- The way they characterize Shae on the show -- and all of the prostitutes, to be honest -- seems kind of unrealistic and insulting to the situation of sex workers in this kind of culture and context? GoT would have us believe every prostitute on the show is a cocky, sassy woman who gets away with sassing her customers left and right and being a cynical jaded Fallen Woman left, right, and center. That's, like, every unsympathetic caricature of a prostitute combined. You didn't get the impression Ros remotely had to suck up to Theon last season either, which was stupid and wouldn't have been true.
- The killing of all the Baratheon bastards. I kind of get why they might've included it -- to show, not tell that Gendry's in danger and his master didn't send him away because he got sick of him -- but it was sort of over-the-top and made me think of the murder of the Jedi in Revenge of the Sith, especially since there seemed to be about as many Baratheon bastards as there were Jedi. I dunno if I believe that Petyr Baelish would've let a Baratheon bastard under his care get killed like that -- his brothel being invaded by the City Watch would do such terrible things for his reputation.
- For that matter, Petyr making the gaffe he did with Cersei seemed a little OOC too, but it seems like GoT Petyr is a bit more hammy and theatrical than book Petyr. I get the need for that too, given TV.
- But I think they could probably pull off a less hammy/theatrical tone in general for the show if they were willing to take it more seriously a la one of their non-historical dramas rather than ham it up (and bloodify and sex it up) like one of their costume dramas. TV marketing pressures can be so bad for story.
- Cersei in this episode came off more Cersei than she did last season, though they still seem to be shying away from how much she hates (not resents-in-a-familial-way or is-suspicious-of, hates) Tyrion, which could get to be a problem. She was also a little too powerless over Joffrey a little too fast; I buy that scene happening between them, but not at the very beginning of Joffrey's reign.
- Stannis! Davos! Melisandre! The former two are, of course, kind of old, but overall I like them so far. Davos is the right kind of gruff and understated, Melisandre is a charismatic John the Revelator, and of course awkward Stannis is so awkward. His scene "correcting" the letter about the Baratheon children was adorable.
- Scruffy Jaime continued to be so easy on the eyes that I had to get myself an icon.
- He really likes flirting with the Stark family. This would be a lot awkwarder if Robb were his book age.
- Oooooh, grown-up Grey Wind.
- I can never look at a Dany scene these days without getting annoyed with how they characterized and designed the Dothraki and Vaes Dothrak and the khalasar in general on the show, but w/e, they're headed for Qarth soon enough.
- I'm not gonna lie, I'm both amused and disturbed by how they managed to make disgusting incest-rapist-breeder Craster sort of hilarious. I'm not sure why they chose to give the man a perverse kind of charm, but they did. Sorry, Kit Harington.
- I am apprehensive about their advertised focus on Highgarden.
Overall I thought the ep was all right, but not a lot happened in it. It was a "Meanwhile, In..." episode reminding us where we left off.
Where to begin? Oh, we have HBO now! And the S1 box set, so I can do a longer meta post about the adaptation of A Game of Thrones to S1 of GoT if I get up the gumption and the motivation. And I have a fever, which I also had while watching the season premiere, so my memory might be... febrile.
To review, spoilers for Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire.
- Everyone. Talks. To. Everyone. On this show. About anything. Anything. People are always willing to exposit. It doesn't matter what about. It doesn't matter if they shouldn't actually know about it at all. Or if it's deeply personal to them. Or compromising. Or if everyone knows about it and they're rehashing it for no reason. If the audience needs to know it, they'll talk about it. I'm starting to think this is the single biggest weakness of Game of Thrones, period.
- Sansa! Rescuing Ser Dontos, too, and Sandor is helping -- the TV characterization is unusually kind to Sandor in general. This is one of many scenes in which Sansa is smart and Joffrey is so fucking dumb. Dontos isn't quite as I pictured him, but I think I like this version better, actually. Tyrion!! I dunno what I think about the decision to open in King's Landing altogether, but I get why you'd want to open on Tyrion, because Tyrion. Hey, guys, remember why you're watching this show?
- The way they characterize Shae on the show -- and all of the prostitutes, to be honest -- seems kind of unrealistic and insulting to the situation of sex workers in this kind of culture and context? GoT would have us believe every prostitute on the show is a cocky, sassy woman who gets away with sassing her customers left and right and being a cynical jaded Fallen Woman left, right, and center. That's, like, every unsympathetic caricature of a prostitute combined. You didn't get the impression Ros remotely had to suck up to Theon last season either, which was stupid and wouldn't have been true.
- The killing of all the Baratheon bastards. I kind of get why they might've included it -- to show, not tell that Gendry's in danger and his master didn't send him away because he got sick of him -- but it was sort of over-the-top and made me think of the murder of the Jedi in Revenge of the Sith, especially since there seemed to be about as many Baratheon bastards as there were Jedi. I dunno if I believe that Petyr Baelish would've let a Baratheon bastard under his care get killed like that -- his brothel being invaded by the City Watch would do such terrible things for his reputation.
- For that matter, Petyr making the gaffe he did with Cersei seemed a little OOC too, but it seems like GoT Petyr is a bit more hammy and theatrical than book Petyr. I get the need for that too, given TV.
- But I think they could probably pull off a less hammy/theatrical tone in general for the show if they were willing to take it more seriously a la one of their non-historical dramas rather than ham it up (and bloodify and sex it up) like one of their costume dramas. TV marketing pressures can be so bad for story.
- Cersei in this episode came off more Cersei than she did last season, though they still seem to be shying away from how much she hates (not resents-in-a-familial-way or is-suspicious-of, hates) Tyrion, which could get to be a problem. She was also a little too powerless over Joffrey a little too fast; I buy that scene happening between them, but not at the very beginning of Joffrey's reign.
- Stannis! Davos! Melisandre! The former two are, of course, kind of old, but overall I like them so far. Davos is the right kind of gruff and understated, Melisandre is a charismatic John the Revelator, and of course awkward Stannis is so awkward. His scene "correcting" the letter about the Baratheon children was adorable.
- Scruffy Jaime continued to be so easy on the eyes that I had to get myself an icon.
- He really likes flirting with the Stark family. This would be a lot awkwarder if Robb were his book age.
- Oooooh, grown-up Grey Wind.
- I can never look at a Dany scene these days without getting annoyed with how they characterized and designed the Dothraki and Vaes Dothrak and the khalasar in general on the show, but w/e, they're headed for Qarth soon enough.
- I'm not gonna lie, I'm both amused and disturbed by how they managed to make disgusting incest-rapist-breeder Craster sort of hilarious. I'm not sure why they chose to give the man a perverse kind of charm, but they did. Sorry, Kit Harington.
- I am apprehensive about their advertised focus on Highgarden.
Overall I thought the ep was all right, but not a lot happened in it. It was a "Meanwhile, In..." episode reminding us where we left off.
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