You have got to be shitting me. This show is full of naked women, and for once we see one or two male butts and you complaint? In an episode that showed no less than two naked women (Brienne and Ygritte)?

If anything this show doesn't have nearly enough decent male nudity.

I think I did the right thing by choosing to watch this season before reading the book. I finally got hold of them (quite difficult to do here but I had luck and I'm very happy) and read the first two, then decided to wait for this season to end before starting the third book.

Let me get back a little bit in the TV show though. I liked the Varys scene where he showed the captured sorcerer who cut him. As I understood, it doesn't happen at all in the books, but it made Varys' character more... dangerous, just like the books. He did a lot of things in the books that would suggest he's actually using some sort of magic. The way he changes his appearance, how he walks etc. were not shown in the TV show. He just seems to have lot of spies and that's it. Now at least we know he's got things to hide.

Not much else to add. The last three episodes were great, despites some flaws, and I hope they keep it up that way.

I think I probably agree. I'm actually intrigued to see what Jaime's packing, not out of some sort of personal insecurity (he is, after all, rather impossibly handsome) as much as sheer curiosity.

I did get my Ygritte scene, though, so I'm happy. I agree with everyone about the lack of build-up (never wanting to leave this cave? That escalated rather quickly) but Ygritte is too cute for me to care. Damn HBO know what they're doing.

Good episode. I thought Robb' execution scene was very powerful. When he clenched his fist I could really feel the teeth grinding.
Also liked how they're creating this subtle tension between Mormont and Barristan before the 'reveal'. The series is totally back on track.

Speaking of the preserved fetuses, (ugh, I really disliked that pointless development, but...) what are we supposed to assume they are?

Are they simply Selyse's stillborn children (the "sons" she could never give Stannis)? Or are they some physical by-product of Melisandre's shadow babies?

Despite it being probably the stupidest part of last night's episode, I'm curious what people thought they were meant to represent? I assumed they were the byproduct of Mel's magic.

Seemed pretty obvious to me that they were Selyse's stillborn sons...? She calls them "my sweet boys," and says their names, then talks about how Melisandre gave Stannis a son while she gave him nothing. I'm not sure how you got anything else out of that.

I probably wasn't paying much attention to the actual dialogue at that point and was instead busy trying to figure out why Game of Thrones went all Walking Dead on us. I didn't even catch her naming the boys' names, just heard "Melisandre gave you a son" as they were panning over the jars.

I see a lot of talk about Selyse's stillborns, but what do you guys think about the daughter with the deformity?

She's a sweet girl with a heart of gold, but seemingly lonely and tragic. She was just laying there in a room by herself and was so excited to reconnect with some middle-aged smuggler. Sucks that she has such shitty parents too (Selyse saw her as a distraction. Stannis tries but he's ultimately socially incompetent).

ASOS spoilers

Yeah, great parenting there, Stannis. "Where's my only friend?" "He's a traitor and rotting in a cell!"

But yeah, I'm quite satisfied with the casting choice for Shireen; she seems very sweet.

Yeah bit of a dick move on Stannis' behalf really.

Finally we get a good fight scene.

Great episode overall, even if some of Tyrion's segments were kind of on the dull side and...yeah, the Ygritte/Jon thing. That was just a little...weird. But eh, they're horny teenagers, stands to reason. I really liked the scene between Jon and Tormund/Orell, particularly because halfway through I realized Orell was Gareth from The Office . Fucking great job of non-typecasting they did there.

Stannis' home life sure seems surreal. What the fuck, man... that guy better have a serious man cave to drink in when the time is needful.

Just realized that we didn't see one jot of either Shae, Ros, or Bran in this episode, and I didn't miss any of them. Though I am looking forward to seeing where Bran's story goes, his little vision quest thingies have just been pretty ineffectual and dull recently.

You know, it's going to be a little awkward if they're going to have to juggle the actors that play Arya and Bran getting visibly older as the seasons go by. Their looks have already changed noticeably (even though, what, maybe a year has supposedly passed in story time?), and I'm not sure how many years the books are supposed to cover, but it might get pretty bizarre toward the end, I'm guessing.

Also recently occurred to me that the guy who plays Baelish is kind of a...not so good actor. I saw him here first, then when I watched The Wire, where he played Mayor Carcetti, I started to see how stilted and unconvincing his delivery can be at times, and when I came back to his Littlefinger performance it started to really stand out. He really lays that speech stylistic on thick, almost to caricaturish levels, meanwhile doing very little in the way of other sorts of work.

Now that I think of it, I wish that even just once we could see him or Varys taking messages from or dispatching or somehow interacting with one of their many spies, even if only in extremely brief, implied ways... we're meant to believe that they have these incredible networks of minions but never really have anything to base the belief on other than mere claims. It'd be way more interesting/tense/exciting to occasionally get these furtive, subtle moments that would evoke a hidden world of espionage instead of just taking their word for it.

I found Gillen's performance in Season 2 hysterical. Like the convos with Tyrion, he throws everything we know about pronounciation out of the window, he puts emphasis on very weird places, and I know other people have noticed it as well.
I get a feeling that he's a world class troll that's infiltrated GoT and is now wreaking subtle havoc through his character.

Man, he's great.

That was supposed to be a joke, ironic that we finally got an episode where there was more male nudity than female one. I don't know if I'm just unfunny or it was lost in translation as a joke.


If anything this show has too much nudity, most of it it's just pointless and non effective.

I liked this episode, even though it was a little less action-packed than the last one. I agree that the Jon/Ygritte love scene felt really rushed and random, but that's about my only complaint.


And some Jaime ballsack action, don't forget.

This killed me...

Hahaha!

Warning: what has been seen cannot be unseen. Click at your own risk.

A Lannister always pays his debts.

Oh my god. Theon's scene is so good. Joffrey ain't got shit on Theon's captor. Also, thank the Stranger for answering our prayers regarding Ros.

Overall, a decent episode with standout scenes.

Haha! Yeah, that was my first thought, too.

I really like where they're going with Gendry, it's a clear deviation from the book but yeah, no one really cared about Edric Storm and we all like Gendry. The scene between Thoros of Myr and Melisandre was cool and interesting. I enjoyed this episode a lot and along with the 2 previous ones, they're really on the good track and I can't wait for episode 9!!!!!!!!!

Weekly review time! Good episode, not great. The good parts were spectacular, but they were few and far between.

The great:

As usual, Theon's scene was great. That whole torture scene "reeked" of sociopathic depravity and hopeless desperation. As I mentioned in a spoiler tag last week, I loved the line "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." But really, the thick desperate tension in that scene was powerful, and both actors had top notch performances. I liked the bit with Ygritte and Jon, where she told him she had him all figured out from the start and that his loyalty should only be to her. Without going into any spoilers, it was a slight change from the book which I think will enhance some of the things to come. The climb up the wall itself was pretty damn epic. Sansa and Loras's conversation in the garden was wonderfully awkward, really driving home how naive she actually is. And the ending was damn good. That view was a pretty damn good piece of work. This has to be my favorite Varys/Littlefinger scene so far. The way they play off each other in the show is awesome. Of course, I liked them in the books just as much, but here they are more like true adversaries, whereas in the book they were both high level players with differing, yet conflicting goals. Littlefinger's "climb" speech was very powerful, and oh yeah... NO MORE ROS!!! Happy Cinco De Mayo everyone!!

The bad:
Kinda didn't like how the first scene with Sam and Gilly went. I was expecting SOMETHING to happen (book readers will know what I'm talking about) but nope, nothing. Just some awkward singing. I really hope this part doesn't get cut. Now, I really didn't like the Mel/Thoros part. I knew it was coming, and I knew the necessity of it, but I still didn't like the way it played out. I suppose using Gendry is the best way to maintain continuity without adding too many characters (although I kinda liked the idea of using the baby jars from last week). But that wasn't what it was. It was actually a very minor quibble. When Mel greets Thoros, they exchange "Valar Morghulis, Valar Dohaeris." Fair enough, but Arya was STANDING RIGHT THERE. Up until this point she only knows this as "Jaqen's secret code" or something like that. She doesn't even question hearing it now? And on top of that, they really are making the Stannis/Melisandre team out to be villains. One thing that caught my attention though was Mel's prophecy for Arya. Book readers may recognize what she was talking about, but what really caught my attention was "we'll meet again." Now I know this entire section was never in the book, but I also know that D&D pretty much know all the juicy details in upcoming books. Is this possibly foreshadowing of things to come?

The average:
Everything else really. I liked the episode. The scene with the Freys and the dinner with Roose, Brienne, and Jaime were all pretty cool, but they didn't really jump out at me. All in all, a decent episode to move things forward, but still not as good as previous episodes.

Is it weird that I was absurdly satisfied to see Lame Lothar? I thought it was a nice touch in terms of attention to details...

The Theon torture scene made me uncomfortable but it was very well done. Though there wasn't much dialogue during the climb, I enjoyed that bit too. I wonder how the dynamics within that group will change because that Wog looks scheming in a way or at least he's got them shifty eyes. Overall, a good build-up episode and I look forward to the next week's show.

Nice post, Messiah. I can second most of those notions for sure. Like for many others, the standout scene of this episode for me was the torturing of Theon. It was definitely done right in that you could feel the despair, the psychological terror and how fucked up the whole setting was from either point of view. Heck, I don't even like Theon as a character, but it's hard not to feel bad for him in these circumstances. I also liked the scene with Jaime and Littlefinger's lil monologue about chaos, whilst other scenes were looping at the background. All in all, a good episode for sure.

This was somewhat mediocre episode. It was worse than previous, but still not bad, I liked guy torturing Theon more than his book version. Just a question for booksters:

On the topic of Ros:

EDIT: Damn, the mods are fast here. Less than a minute after I discovered how big the pictured I posted I actually was and it was already edited.

Tonigt's episode was constantly dipping from pretty good to great. As good as it was though, the preview at the end had mewanting moore cause it looks like shit goes down.

No post from Messiah yet? Another good episode (albeit a buildup episode) from the GoT stable. I am really curious to see where the whole Greyjoy's torture is going. There were few notable moments in the episode like Arya getting caught by the Hound. Remains to be seen what happens now. Also, I feel Dany is coming off as staunch/ruthless as she plots to attack that city even though they offered her ships and gold. Is there something good that'll come out of this? The last bit of the episode was also interesting, where Jaime comes to Brienne's rescue. Next week's episode will definitely be interesting.

Tonight's episode was written by GRRM. Not very eventful (at a political level, anyway) but it had a lot of needed character development. Got the HARs and sex jokes from Tormund Giantsbane that everyone's been waiting for. Jaime doesn't resort to violence for once. Shae is a bitch. Amazing scene with Tywin making Joffrey his bitch. Good stuff.

All books spoiler/theory + Show spoiler based on scene show in trailer

Tonight's episode was a bit of a let down to be honest. It was good, don't get me wrong, but compared to Martin's other spectacular episodes (The Pointy End and Blackwater) this one kind of fell flat. It begins to set things up for the finale quite well, and manages to provide some good character development, but I suppose I expected more. Rather, maybe I just wish they gave Martin a more pivotal episode to write instead of a transition episode. Still, it had its moments.

The highlights of this episode were definitely the Jon Snow scenes for me. They finally captured Jon and Ygritte's relationship on screen the way it was meant to be. Interesting dynamic by making Orell more of a dick than he already was, trying to move in on Ygritte seemingly just because he doesn't like or respect Jon. It wasn't in the book but it was a nice touch and kind of shows a bit more about the Wildling culture. So now they're in the vicinity of Queenscrown along with Bran's party (I think?), but nothing happened. Bran's scene was also kind of useless book wise, but I see they are trying to make Osha more important of a character than she was in the book. Good backstory for her, but again nothing happened. Setup for next episode I suppose. Another great scene tonight was Arya's. I can't say I agree with them making the Brotherhood out to be cutthroat bandits (they ARE, but in the book they're more like Robin Hood types), but the scene was still good. I like that they've been keeping Arya's affinity for "the god of death" consistent. Robb and Talisa had a good scene together. It was nothing to move the plot forward, but it was finally a quiet moment for them to show a bit more of their real character. Despite Robb being a king and a military commander, many are quick to forget that he's a young man (still a teenager in the book) in love, and since he doesn't have POV chapters, we really only get to see his relationship through exposition in the Catelyn chapters. Poor Theon, that's about all I have to say about that, but seeing as how GRRM wrote this one it does shed light on a bit of a later mystery. His scenes are getting a bit repetitive, but I don't really care. Book wise they really don't have much else to do with him at this point. I do like how they show how much the torture and the mind games are taking a toll on him. What some are calling torture porn, I see as a much more psychological thing. His mind and spirit are breaking. He has two beautiful women all over him and all he can think is "where is he?!" And "boy's" entrance with the horn (I hope the other book readers have picked up on that the way I have) and the "terrible timing" line. He's just having the time of his life with poor Theon. Dany's scene in Yunkai was great. They are really showing her come into her own this season, and making up for her weaker episodes last season. Then again, it was another case of just more setup for later episodes. Next week seems like they will focus on her and Yunkai a bit more. The Sansa-Tyrion wedding setup is going about as I thought. I think they are trying to make Shae out to be more of the "hooker with a heart of gold" instead of just a gold digger like in the book. She genuinely seems upset about the whole raw deal. The Margaery-Sansa scene was good, albeit a bit unnecessary. I liked the Bronn-Tyrion scene more. Tywin and Joffrey, now there was one of my other favorite scenes. It was done quite subtly, but it really showed Tywin putting Joffrey in his place. However, how did Joffrey find out about the dragons? Correct me if I'm wrong, but did the small council know about it at this point? I thought that happened in AFFC, but I could be wrong. The scene with Melisandre and Gendry was useful backstory I suppose, but I kind of wish they moved that plot forward a bit. I remember the "integral scene" (which is in the preview for next week's episode) taking place much earlier in the book. I hope they don't end up cramming too much into the last 3 episodes. The Jaime and Brienne scenes were pretty good. I was kind of hoping they would somehow merge Locke and Amory Lorch (book readers will know what I'm referring to) but I suppose that will have to wait. All in all, the key word here is "good." I set my expectations higher for this episode because it was written by Martin, but it was purely a transition episode. Everything was just setting up for what's to come. There really isn't anything wrong with that, this has been a much better season than last, and not every episode can have the huge scenes, I just wish they had Martin dealing with those huge scenes instead of the calm before the storm (of swords). All in all, nothing was really bad about it, but nothing was truly amazing either.

This episode was OK, we saw interesting character development, Tormund finally acted like he would in the books
Now, let's get to spoilers for readers

This. Holy shit did they ever make her into a hate-able character in the show. Thankfully we saw what is likely a bit of foreshadowing in the form of those chains Tyrion gave her. That'll be a sweet scene.

I'm most disappointed by how the writers et al have taken so much of the heart of this story out of it. By changing characters so much they change the reasons we respond to them (edit: along with the reasons they do the things they do), and the books have reasons to care that I actually tend to believe .. or at least which make some sense. The show just comes off as contrived.

Eh? Do you mean Vargo Hoat? Amory Lorch died in the TV show (killed by Jaqen), and he's a Lannister bannerman anyway, he wouldn't be involved in maiming Jaime...