HBO's Game of Thrones: Season 2 (1 Viewer)

[Quentin]

It's no surprise to me that I struggle with some things others consider good (great?) entertainment. Fight Club, Leaving Las Vegas, and even House initially turned me off. But in those cases, I eventually got past the challenges and grew to appreciate them.
GoT is undoubtedly one of my 2 favorite new shows (Homeland being the other), but that scene with Joffrey and Tyrion's gift whores? I'm still digesting it. There are things we see in entertainment that are supposed to make us uncomfortable. I can still vividly remember Kunte Kinte ("Roots") being whipped because he wouldn't say his newly given name Toby. But as uncomfortable as it made me, it's an accurate depiction of the type of thing the story covered. GoT isn't historical, but GRRM is creating a world and in the world he has created, these types of things occur. Still, it crossed some internal line for me where I can say, "Man, that was brual! [Thumbs up!]" to "I don't think my life is any better for having seen that."
This isn't a negative review of the show or the episode. What happened with Joffrey fit, but I could go my whole life never seeing anything like that again. After all, the audience already gets that he's scum. Is one of the running elements of the show going to be to show what new and "interesting" sadistic things he can come up with next? I'm hoping not. There are ways to show he's cruel without swimming in scenes of torture against women -- and especially a little girl (I don't think Sansa is even supposed to have bled yet).

I can't disagree. I think it's a case of the writing team reading the Joffrey moments and just revelling in how much of a prick he is. But, the scene DOES push the envelope - too much for my tastes as well. You've established Joffrey is both a prick AND a sadist with ordering his guard to beat Sansa (and then Tyrion's reaction/objection). I get showing a scene that illustrates that Tyrion's gift idea backfires - but it didn't need to be this brutal OR this long. Honestly, "hit her"...and maybe even "harder" and/or "with this" followed by a frightened reaction from Ros is all we needed.

 

[Quentin]

OK, as a non-book reader, who follows the TV show pretty closely, I got confused here.  Who (on the TV show) are Roose, Jeyne, Asha and Yara?

Yara is Asha - she is Asha in the books, Yara in the TV show. She is the sister of Theon and daughter to Balon Greyjoy.
Jeyne is Jeyne Westerling in the book. A daughter of a Knight whose castle was taken by Robb. She has been changed for the show into Talisa - the healer girl who Robb met at the beginning of last episode. No idea why.
Roose is Roose Bolton - the guy who was riding next to Robb. He is an evil knight/lord who will become a more major player later.

 

[Quentin]

I shouldn't say evil. Roose is weird. His son (to be intro'd later) is downright evil.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Originally Posted by Quentin /t/318405/hbos-game-of-thrones-season-2/60#post_3919620
Yara is Asha - she is Asha in the books, Yara in the TV show. She is the sister of Theon and daughter to Balon Greyjoy.
Jeyne is Jeyne Westerling in the book. A daughter of a Knight whose castle was taken by Robb. She has been changed for the show into Talisa - the healer girl who Robb met at the beginning of last episode. No idea why.
Roose is Roose Bolton - the guy who was riding next to Robb. He is an evil knight/lord who will become a more major player later.

Thank you. I know exactly who those people are in the show (based on your descriptions, not the names.) That clears things up for me.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I sort of wish there was a "Pop-up Video" version of this show, just so I'd become more familiar with the names (and background) of all of these characters.

 

[Quentin]

Buy the blu-ray, Patrick. Your wish has come true!

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Originally Posted by Quentin /t/318405/hbos-game-of-thrones-season-2/60#post_3919615
I can't disagree. I think it's a case of the writing team reading the Joffrey moments and just revelling in how much of a prick he is. But, the scene DOES push the envelope - too much for my tastes as well. You've established Joffrey is both a prick AND a sadist with ordering his guard to beat Sansa (and then Tyrion's reaction/objection). I get showing a scene that illustrates that Tyrion's gift idea backfires - but it didn't need to be this brutal OR this long. Honestly, "hit her"...and maybe even "harder" and/or "with this" followed by a frightened reaction from Ros is all we needed.

Ironically enough, that scene did not push the envelope as far as I thought it was going to. When Joffrey gave Ros the Baratheon scepter and told her to use it on the other girl, I thought that she was going to do umm... *something else* with it, instead of just use it ilke the belt.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Buy the blu-ray, Patrick. Your wish has come true!

Hmm... that's good to know, though I don't know if I'll ever spare the time to re-watch episodes once they are on blu-ray (as I'll be moving on to the newer shows, etc. when the blu-ray shows up a year later). But thanks for the pointer.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Ironically enough, that scene did not push the envelope as far as I thought it was going to.  When Joffrey gave Ros the Baratheon scepter and told her to use it on the other girl, I thought that she was going to do umm... *something else* with it, instead of just use it ilke the belt. 

How certain are you that she didn't use it in a penetrative manner?

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Originally Posted by Patrick Sun /t/318405/hbos-game-of-thrones-season-2/60#post_3919917
How certain are you that she didn't use it in a penetrative manner?

Just going by what was shown on-screen. Last shot was of Ros swinging it like a club and hitting her. In fact it would have been much worse if they hadn't shown Ros hitting her with it. Before that shot, I was thinking 'yikes, she's not going to do *that* to her is she?'. Then when she hit her, it lessend the cringeworthy factor, because I thought 'OK, she's just going to hit her with it'.

It's pretty bad though, when getting beat with a blunt object is cause for relief vs. something else.

 

[John_Lee]

It's no surprise to me that I struggle with some things others consider good (great?) entertainment. Fight Club, Leaving Las Vegas, and even House initially turned me off. But in those cases, I eventually got past the challenges and grew to appreciate them.
GoT is undoubtedly one of my 2 favorite new shows (Homeland being the other), but that scene with Joffrey and Tyrion's gift whores? I'm still digesting it. There are things we see in entertainment that are supposed to make us uncomfortable. I can still vividly remember Kunte Kinte ("Roots") being whipped because he wouldn't say his newly given name Toby. But as uncomfortable as it made me, it's an accurate depiction of the type of thing the story covered. GoT isn't historical, but GRRM is creating a world and in the world he has created, these types of things occur. Still, it crossed some internal line for me where I can say, "Man, that was brual! [Thumbs up!]" to "I don't think my life is any better for having seen that."
This isn't a negative review of the show or the episode. What happened with Joffrey fit, but I could go my whole life never seeing anything like that again. After all, the audience already gets that he's scum. Is one of the running elements of the show going to be to show what new and "interesting" sadistic things he can come up with next? I'm hoping not. There are ways to show he's cruel without swimming in scenes of torture against women -- and especially a little girl (I don't think Sansa is even supposed to have bled yet).

don't know your viewing history, but judging from this post, I'd avoid Requiem for a Dream.

 

[Quentin]

don't know your viewing history, but judging from this post, I'd avoid Requiem for a Dream.

lol! important safety tip. thanks, Egon.

 

[joshEH]

Loved the little tricks they pulled with Jaqen. He had his helm when he passed by Arya, but it was sitting on the water-barrel when she got there. Then, at the end, he was eating an apple -- just like The Tickler did when he was torturing people.
Also, because it needs to be said each and every week, Dinklage is continuously incredible, whether he's devastating Lancel with boredom-inducing ease, or sniping with Cersei ("Plotting and scheming are the same thing"), or usurping command of the city's defense.
I may have clapped my hands and squealed like a little girl when he casually mentioned that Joffrey was a lost cause, and he is just trying to make sure that the family outlives him.

 

[Garrett Adams]

Great episode. I particularly enjoyed the scenes between Brienne and Catelyn. Brienne is a Knight to be remembered.

 

[joshEH]

"RICKON SMASH!!!"
Goddamn it, Dany. That amazing speech, and you're still not going to let your bodyguard get his rocks off?! That whole speech was maybe the most romantic thing I've ever heard.
I'm man-crushing on Bronn pretty hard at this point. Between his description of why Wildfire was a bad idea ("See, while you're lobbing stuff at them, they're lobbing stuff at YOU"), and his satisfied response to agreeing to kill Lancel, he was absolutely fantastic last night.
And while it's easy to sing the praises of Dinklage every week, can we talk about how amazing Maisie Williams is? Holding her own with the human charisma-machine that is Charles Dance is no small feat, and she pulled it off in spades.
Gendry had kind of an amazing shirtless scene in this episode. You could see Arya salivating. Five out of five beefcakes from her, for sure. He's full-beef.
Brienne and Cat's Bechdel Test scene was also a highlight for me, and was anyone else really disturbed by Arya's smile in the closing shot? We've come a long way from her being freaked about killing that fatass kid last year.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

In the sense that Arya's a young person who shouldn't have to deal with plotting the death of people, her smile was disturbing. But that's about it. I've no doubt that whoever she chooses to have offed will be quite deserving of the honor. At this point, I had more faith in her moral compass than I ever did her father's. And I may even have more faith in her brains (or at least instincts).

 

[Quentin]

Rickon smash needs to caption a picture of him (or even better...a GIF) smashing the walnuts!

 

[joshEH]

From Rickon Stark's Twitter-feed:

Rickon Stark ‏ @RickonStark
FUCK these nuts. There's no WAY these are organic.
#GameOfThrones #GoT #TheseConditionsAreCOMPLETELYUnacceptable

 

[joshEH]

I can never get enough of people slapping Joffrey. I envision an entire line of people slapping the shit out of him, à la that panicky woman in Airplane!.
R.I.P., Rodrick Cassel and his awesome facial hair.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

I'm pretty pissed that the dragons have been stolen.