Daenrys is briefly reunited with Drogon during the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
Daenrys is briefly reunited with Drogon during the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
Six Game of Thrones fans share their thoughts on season five's second episode, House Of Black And White (warning: this story contains spoilers).
A quick decap-recap
"How many dwarfs are there?" asked Tyrion about evil sister Cersei's putting out the word she wanted his head on a plate. Um, seven? Cersei's bounty hunters had found one and brought his cranium back for inspection. "It's not him." said Cersei. Whoever it was, he didn't look Happy (or Bashful, or Sneezy ...). But was the first of three beheadings in this otherwise slow surprise-free second episode, others being a Meereen chap who Daenerys felt she had to make an example of, and a pigeon that a hungry Arya Stark knocked off on the streets of Bravos. That's it for the decap-recap.
Yes, Brienne of Tarth finally encountered Sansa Stark, one of the many she had sworn to protect. It didn't go well. Yes, Drogon the free dragon paid his mum a visit. He then flew off. Yes, Jon Snow was elected head prefect or something at Castle Black. Huzzah! And we got to meet the chair-bound Prince Doran Martell, brother of the late Oberyn Martell, in the pleasant royal gardens of Dorne as well as his bodyguard Areo Hotah whose very big axe suggests he doubles as the palace's tree maintenance man.
But all-in-all, another fairly pedestrian instalment this, one that plot advancement wise, didn't get us much further than last week's season opener. They had better cut down on the early season padding soon. Or heads will roll. - Russell Baillie (latter day convert to the show, hasn't read the books)
Episode two and I'm beginning to think this season needs to be made up of two-hour episodes to move the plot further on. Each character and location's storylines are moving at a snail's pace, but it's still a treat to be seeing the snippets of exciting events to come. Tonight's visit from Drogon was the highlight of the episode without a doubt. His grinning jaw was surprisingly friendly, and put a similar-sized grin on my face after a reasonably dry and slow episode. Since Brienne's liaisons with Jamie have ended her character has steadily grown more tiresome. Podrick's clown routine and Brienne's exhausting earnestness make me wary. I know Chris will disagree, but I'm starting to think she's a bit of a bore. She's always going on about the Stark girls, even when they clearly want nothing to do with her. Sansa told her where to go tonight, saying she saw Brienne bow to the King (Joffrey, RIP) and that she wanted nothing to do with her. Brienne told her sometimes people don't have a choice, which Sansa swiftly replied: "Sometimes we do." While Lord Baelish, aka Littlefinger, is not a man to be trusted, I do think the pair of them could be an influencing force as the season develops. It seems like the place to be is Bravos. Plenty of pigeon and fish for all. Everyone's got a nice tan and Arya has reunited with one of my favourite characters of the whole show: Jaqen H'qhar, the faceless man. Let's hope the next episode picks up the pace, and we'll finally find out where Sansa and Lord Baelish are going to make their next move. -Sophie Ryan (hasn't read the books, but reckons Sansa's going to dominate this season)
Bronn takes a relaxing walk with his partner in last night's episode of Game of Thrones.
Everybody wants to rule the world
The world of Game of Thrones is a place where the wrong people are usually in charge and have all the power. There have been some notable exceptions, but most rulers in Westeros and Essos are insanely selfish or selfishly insane, sparking misery and mass murder through their actions. While the worst king of them all choked to death on his own villainy last season, there are still plenty of total a***holes in positions of power throughout the land. Even rulers with nothing but good intentions - such as Daenerys - end up with the population hissing and throwing stones at her. So it's actually a relief that the men of the Night's Watch have chosen a leader who can actually lead, one who can bury his own selfish desires for the greater good. Jon Snow didn't get elected the new Lord Commander because he's got terrific hair - although that probably helped - he was chosen because, as Sam so eloquently explained, he's the best man for the job, and offers more than the usual cycles of petty vengeance or personal vindication. It's about time, and the best place for it to happen. After all, when you've got a horde of dead men and ice creatures plodding towards you, none of that other crap matters. - Robert Smith (has read every book, watched every episode, owns several T-shirts, and spends too much time wondering what really happened at Summerhall)
Explaining the buddy system
Cersei gets a present in the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
Game of Thrones
isn't about power, greed or the impractical nature of honour amongst chaos, it's about friendship. Here's by buddy power rankings.
1. Jaime and Bronn: There is no possible way this Dorne roadtrip plotline can go wrong. There will be more one-liners and action scenes than Fast and the Furious 8, Iron Man 4 and Joe Dirt 2 combined. Here's your spinoff series, HBO.
2. Tyrion and Varys: I'm pretty sure they're just going talk about their feelings and I have no issue with that all at.
2b: Hodor and Bran: Okay I just wanted to remind people that Hodor is the greatest and it's a travesty we won't see him this season. Also Bran's a little needy.
3. Brienne and Pod: Come on! You can cut the romantic tension with a Valyrian greatsword.
5. Arya and Jaqen: Early days but has a real Miyagi-Danielsan vibe. Pretty sure Arya is thinking bigger than the All-Valley Tournament though. Better not include a montage.
6. Little Finger and Sansa: The Stark girl plays a good Thelma to Lord Baelish's Louise. Feel both are using each other though. Interesting to see how it plays out - hopefully not like a Nabokov novel.
7. Cersei and wine: Cersei really needs a friend. The wife of Stannis, Lady Selyse seems equally cold maybe they could become good drinking buddies.
8. Daenerys and Drogon: Always tough when a kid grows up, moves out of the house then just drops in whenever they want.
9. Stannis and Davos: 'Dude you cut off my fingers'. Probably not best buds just yet.
10. Ramsay and Theon: Every friendship has difficult patches but possibly not ones where castrations are involved. Hard to move past that.
-Cameron McMillan (a Thrones trainspotter who can always be relied upon for up-to-date statistics and random factoids)
Got your road trip mixtape ready?
Brienne gets into the swing of things in the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
No cars. No planes. No trains. No scooters. No segways. No skateboards. No super yachts with multiple swimming pools and a deep sea viewing deck to watch the fishies. If you want to travel anywhere in Westeros, it takes a long, long time. And there's a lot of travelling going on at the moment. Like Tyrion, who's stuck inside a slightly-bigger-yet-no-less-confining box as episode one, with only the ponderous, pontificating Varys and an endless supply of alcohol for company. Didn't anyone think to pack Monopoly: Westeros Edition?
Then there's Jamie Lanister, who's in the planning stages for a clandestine trip to save his daughter Myrcella from a fate worse than the Red Viper's. He's enlisted Bronn by promising him a castle and a better looking woman (so romantic), packed a six month supply of wooden hand oil, and made a mixtape full of his '80s favourites, like Dire Straits, Mr Big and Extreme. Just seems like his kind of thing.
Finally, soldier-babe Brienne is on the road with her lumbering sidekick Pod on a personal, probably useless quest to save the Stark sisters - and she's looking to cut the dead weight. That sword through the neck of Littlefinger's horsey henchman was surely a warning to the cowering Pod: man up, or get kicked to the curb. Hey, Brienne, if that happens, I'll be a worthy replacement. I'll bring some roast pigeons. We can play Eye Spy. It'll be fun. -Chris Schulz (only watches Game of Thrones for scenes involving the amazing Gwendoline Christie, aka Brienne of Tarth, aka the greatest woman on Earth)
Pace yourselves, people
A grizzly murder! High-speed horse chases! Beheadings! An election! Oh, wait ... that's not terribly exciting, um ... Let's get back on track ... Dragons! Yeah! Dragons! For an episode that had so much going on, episode two strangely felt like it didn't. I hate to say it but it was a little underwhelming and, looking at the above checklist, it really shouldn't have been. With all that stuff going on it should have been a stone cold classic.
Instead, the best I can say is that it was a necessary piece of storytelling. It juggled a decent whack of moving parts and got a lot of people moving to the places and into the situations that are clearly going to lead to entertainingly explosive events a little further down the road.
The main problem, I think, was haste. Game of Thrones has always moved at a brisk pace but this episode just rocketed by to the detriment of that gawd awful, nail biting tension that the show does so well. Consider how much time, patience and energy was spent last season building up The Mountain as being one of the most dreadfully abominable and fearsome people in the whole of Westeros.
By the time he finally lumbered on-screen his mere presence was enough to see you fleeing the room in terror. Contrast that with last week's introduction of the mysterious, murderous, masked terrorist group Sons of Harpy. Sold as some kind of enigmatic society rebelling against Daenerys rule with the ability to fatally strike out at will they looked like becoming major players this season.
Nup. The opening credits had barely ended before the Queen's guardsman Daario had tracked one down, finding him cowering behind a fake wall in an empty house. Sure, that event led to Danerys having all kinds of crowd control problems in Meereen a little later on, but it still felt like the mystery was solved too fast. Gizzus enough time to start fearing those Harpy buggers will ya!?
There's a fine line between rushing and dragging. There's clearly a lot of story to tell and only limited time to do so. In the race to get through it all I sincerely hope things slow down a little next week. -Karl Puschmann (Has all the books on his iPad but always seems to end up playing Hearthstone instead of reading them)
