I don’t think I’m alone in saying that, even though I’ve never been into the fantasy genre, I really enjoy Game of Thrones. And I’ve enjoyed this season better than the last, proving that there is life after killing off your main character before the first season is even over. The production value is like watching a movie, and at no time has that been more apparent than in tonight’s episode, where Stannis invaded King’s Landing and got smacked with some night-is-dark-and-full-of-terrors napalm.
A few observations…
- WHY didn’t Stannis’ Demon Baby swoop in and kill Joffrey like it did Renly??
- Hell is, apparently, being stuck in a siege with Cersei and a bottle of wine
- Your wet-work guy will apparently only put up with being called “Dog” in a snarling tone so many times before he bails in the middle of a battle
- After all this time GoT can come up with new dwarf jokes: In this one, Joffrey snarls about cutting Tyrion in half, prompting the quipmeister to quip, “That would make me a quarter man.”
- Dwarves apparently have low-angle tactical advantages on the battlefield
- Tyrion was one pint of blue facepaint away from giving a Braveheart rallying speech there
- Varys was this close to telling his how-I-became-a-eunuch story. I hope nobody missed it.
I was kind of hoping that it would be Rob Stark to be the surprise invader on the invaders, but when we last left him he was a little busy with the woman who amputates legs. It was a nice twist to see Tywin ride in, but he needs to knock his snooty little grandson off the Iron Throne pronto.
The teaser for the season finale showed Sansa talking with Lord Baelish, so here’s hoping that The Hound didn’t smuggle her out of the palace and into the whorehouse. We also see that Daenerys will take some concrete step toward getting her dragons back (will they grow up already?), and Arya hooks up again with her death genie, “The Man” Jaqen, so we get to close out the season with some more awesome conversation in the third-person.