Game of Thrones Season 5 Ep 1 (TV Show Review)

The finale of Game of Thrones Season 4 came at the end of a rather troubling season in general, with the writers making some really questionable departures from the source material and the directors being a bit too convinced of their own infallibility with respect to the final product. Still, as such things go, the finale wasn’t all that bad and it ended on a fairly positive note for many of the arcs that it touched, such as where Arya ends up after she disposes off of The Hound and sets out for herself, or even Tyrion killing his father and Shae both, for betraying hmm in the worst ways possible.

And this all brings us to season 5, which began this past Sunday, and generated an immense amount of controversy from the get go, namely that the first four episodes had been leaked together from sources that HBO had sent them to for review purposes. Hardly generates confidence, that. Either way, the season 5 premiere is of the grim and somber variety. Nothing really happens in this episode other than he viewers getting to touch base with some of the storylines and seeing what consequences past events have wrought on the world of Westeros and beyond. The characters are trying to find their feet once again, and moving forward, things should be… interesting.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 9 (TV Show Review)

In one more week, HBO’s smash-hit Game of Thrones will ends its fourth season. As might be expected, the new season has seen the highest viewership numbers of any of the previous seasons, by a considerable margin. As much as the show’s popularity might have increased however, the success only seems to have made some elements of the show worse, while others remain plateaued. No prizes as to what has gotten worse, if you’ve read my reviews. Thankfully, the penultimate episode of the season seems to have escaped that particular disappointing element.

Now, if only things had remained like that. Much as with Season 2’s penultimate episode Blackwater, “The Watchers on The Wall” is an episode focused on a single event: the first battle of the Wall between the armies of Mance Ryder and the Night’s Watch. Start to finish, we see the full cast of the Wall, and that is that, making this episode the one with the shortest primary cast list, for none of the other high and mighty of the show make even a cursory appearance. At first I was all for it, but as the episode dragged on, I got bored and bored, and the ending proved to be unsatisfactory.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 7 (TV Show Review)

With last week’s episode of Game of Thrones season 4 we now begin to move towards the big ending of the season, when all the different plotlines “come together” for some really spectacular stuff and the producers and directors and writers go all-out with what remains of their budget and make the finale something to remember. Till now, the fourth season has been a very mixed bag, but things turned out rather positively last week when we got to see Tyrion being put on trial for a crime that he did not commit, as well as the awesome conclusion. Now, it is time for yet another installment.

Episode 7 is titled “Mockingbird“, which is interesting since, when I asked around a few days ago, I was told that this is the symbol of none other than Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish, one of the most devious and duplicitous characters on the show, and also someone I enjoy watching. He hasn’t done much this season, but this is the one where he too goes all-out in a really, really stunning final five seconds of the show. You really don’t see it coming, because of all the webs he has woven about him. And there are lots of other great moments in the show as well this week, to do with Arya, Tyrion, and Oberyn. Good stuff.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 4 (TV Show Review)

I started off my review last week by talking about the show’s preference for shock and awe with respect to violence against and the sexualisation of women. Game of Thrones does not have a good track record of that at all, and this season has shown that the showrunners are definitely not going to shy away from that. In fact, they are going to double down. This is quite puzzling indeed and one of the reasons why I’m never able to enjoy an episode as much as I want. That was true for this week’s episode as well, and I’m afraid that I don’t see this improving in the near future.

This week’s episode “Oathkeeper” is basically the calm before the storm. It lacks any significant OMFG moments right up until the final seconds and even then it isn’t really enough. Basically many of the different stories are moving forward and we suffer them all in silence. There were some good bits such as the emotional scenes between Brienne and Jamie, and some not-so-good bits such as Daenarys once again basking in the adoration of slaves, playing into the whole “white savour of coloured people” trope. All I felt after the end of the episode was “meh, next”.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 3 (TV Show Review)

Shock and awe has been one of the core methods used by the writers of Game of Thrones since the show began. Of course, the books that the show is based on have plenty of that, but the show has never made an effort to step around them, best as I can tell talking with various people about it since I’ve hardly read any of the books. After all, in the show premiere we had an incest scene and later on in the season we had a character explaining his motives while training two female whores and hardly anything was left to the viewer imagination. Rape, violent murders and more have been a staple of the show and it looks like the new season is proudly continuing that tradition.

In the previous episode that aired last week, King Joffrey Baratheon was poisoned at the moment of his Wedding Feast, thus ending the brief reign of one of the worst Kings that Westeros has seen to date. The dust is still settling after all that and much of the new episode from yesterday hinges upon the fallout of that massive event. “Breaker of Chains” is all about how old traditions are being subverted at every turn and it reminds us as well that the armies of Daenerys Targaryen are continuing their march on Westeros, breaking the literal chains of slavery across the Narrow Sea.

Note: Some spoilers from this episode are mentioned in the review.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 2 (TV Show Review)

 Season 4 of HBO’s television adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s epic (political) fantasy saga A Song of Ice and Fire began on an interesting note. The previous season had ended on a very grim note as yet another player in the War of the Five Kings was brutally murdered, and the reign of his family and its political prospects all came crashing down. Now, the Starks are no more and the Lannisters are preeminent since they have a King on the throne who is about to be married, they have a Master of the Coin and a King’s Hand of the family, and they are about to have their Regent-Queen married off as well to further secure their power. But that’s not all that’s happening in Westeros since there is still Stannis Baratheon and his armies, along with Houses Greyjoy and Bolton, and more players yet in the ultimate game of power.

Where the first episode of the new season was meant to touch base with many of these characters, the second episode this Sunday went further and turned out a pretty damn amazing story that saw an end to a character I’ve long hated. Very cathartic I tell you. At the same time, we finally touch base with what the Boltons are doing following their betrayals last season and what has become of their… prisoner. Plus we see Bran Stark and the Reeds again, in a rather scary sequence altogether. The new episode lacked some excitement in the first half, but the second half was pretty good, if strung out a little.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 1 (TV Show Review)

Three years ago, HBO changed the course of science fiction and fantasy programming with its television adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s first novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, bringing A Game of Thrones to people’s screens. The books had long enjoyed a decent popularity but with the television adaptation, things suddenly kicked into high gear. For a series that had been called unfilmable, HBO seems to have done alright, and now the show is in its fourth season as of this past Sunday evening, bringing the ostensibly second half of the third book to the screen, and it exemplifies both the best and the worst of the show (and the books).

I’ve never read any of the books, nor do I have any inclination to. They are simply too humongous, and when I tried to read the first book, I lost interest somewhere before the half-mark. Plus it takes Martin 4-6 years to write a book, and I just don’t have that kind of patience. So the television show it is, which I’ve been watching since it premiered. The new season and its premiere take us back to Westeros, but a changed Westeros, where the Starks as a family are no more and the Lannisters are ascendant. The deadly dance for ultimate power continues and we touch base with a significant number of characters, to learn what they have been up to, and how they’ve all changed.