Before getting into it, I must specify that this review comes from the point of view of someone who has never read the books upon which the series is based. If you have read the books, please don’t post any spoilers.
Sunday night saw the highly anticipated return of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Given the second season’s tremendous hype leading up to Sunday’s premiere, it would have been easy for fans to be disappointed, but “The North Remembers,” excelled at the level of season one’s best episode.
Like many classic HBO series in the past, but perhaps even more so, Game of Thrones has a massive scope, following many characters around a well-textured world. The Wire had Baltimore, the unfortunately-departed Luck had the Santa Anita Racetrack. But GoT has an expansive world to build here—and much like its opening titles, the show handles its giant world elegantly.
All of the aspects of the show fans loved in Season One are back and in many ways improved-upon. Like much of the first season, “The North Remembers” plays with the theme of shifting power. Robb Stark’s rise in the wake of the death of his father manifests itself in a tense and terrifying conversation with the imprisoned Jamie Lannister. Cersei asserts herself against the self-made whorehouse owner Petyr, responding to his assertion about knowledge being power with the cold “power is power.” Perhaps for now, but something tells me that Cersei’s influence isn’t long for this world. Her power only survives so long as the ever-slappable (and spoilers, he does get slapped again tonight) King Joffrey. Even Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) is making power moves of his own at King’s Landing.
Season two of GoT is shaping up to be a fascinating story of the struggle for power in a vacuum. With so many “kings in each corner,” to borrow a phrase from Miss Stark, serious shifts in power are bound to happen and I, for one, am excited to see it.
I wont spoil anything as a book-reader and diehard fan, but I think some discussion is warranted for the new characters like Melisandre, Davos, Craster – and especially Stannis, who is majorly important as a player for the throne. I see the value in a non-reader review of the show; your views are bound to be different from that of the reader audience; however, I felt this was short and not really a good overview of the show, which did so much to kick off the next wave of events for the series. A good such review I read can be found at winteriscoming.net, and a link is: http://winteriscoming.net/2012/04/episode-11-the-north-remebers-new-viewer-recap/
Game of Thrones is awesome, very true to the books. I love every minute of it. For those that haven’t read the books stick around it gets so much better, you’ll crap your pants halfway through season 3 but I’m not telling why 🙂