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Game of Thrones - Season 2 - George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire - Sundays on HBO

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Really disappointing ending minus the last scene and the maid of Tarth.

Theon's scenes were great up until the point where Cleftjaw fucking stabbed Luwin out of nowhere soley for the purpose of shocking the viewer. They shouldn't have shown it and had him clearly explain it was the bastard Bolton who killed him and sacked Winterfell when the boys found him. Jon's scene were alright, but didn't make it clear why they were fighting nor that he killed Halfhand for any reason beyond him being called a bastard.

Dany's and Rob's scenes were terrible, Varys was great in his scene with Ros but it was pointless. I can't even remember anything else despite just watching it, the whole thing was such a step down from Blackwater and I feel most of my issues with the changes weren't with budgetary constraints but with the writing.
 
No Mads Mikkelsen for Mance Rayder, he just got cast in Hannibal:
http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/06/04/cast-hannibal/

tumblr_m2mt3x0x651rso9kjo3_500.jpg

:(
 
I was re-watching season one... I've never read the books, so the following could already be disproved in any number of ways. If so, just play along! Humor me, lol.

Spoilered for theories about future events:

I just realized: Jon Snow is most definitely NOT Eddard Stark's son. The conversation with the King about their youthful sexual escapades sealed it. Nobody, not even his best friend, ever saw him do anything. I was thinking, why would a man so honorable in every way cheat on his wife like that? He wouldn't. He's so honorable that he is definitely capable of taking the shame for someone else. Probably someone close to him. I'd bet Jon Snow has some claim to the Iron throne by his birthright, and by the end of the series, will be a very important character.

OR, he could be dead by the first episode of the next season. lol, who knows~!


C'mon now, THAT wasn't in the show.
 

Creamium

shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
While I get the impression that most book readers here start to dislike the show more and more, I still love it. Even more than ever after this ep. Seems like a lot of people care deeply about all these changes, but at the end of the day all I see is an incredibly entertaining tv show. Blackwater was a really strong ep, but this one even topped it for me.

Qhorin though... don't really like how that was handled. As in : don't know if that scene delivered the correct message to viewers.

Great finale though. That final scene was amazing. The wait will be agonizing for the tv only folk.
 
Lol, I realize I posted in the wrong thread... there are 3 of them! I meant to post in the no book spoiler thread. Sorry guys!

I didn't really get spoiled, because I have no idea what you are talking about, lol.
 
I feel sorry for non-book readers and they really should be discouraged from coming into this thread and the one like it next year for their own good because of people like that.

Now go back and fix your post further.

The rest of my post contained no spoilers (and even then my first one only contained incorrectly labelled ones). Unless you thought the ironmen would be unharmed after sacking Winterfell as long as they handed Theon over?
 

Nlroh

Member
While I get the impression that most book readers here start to dislike the show more and more, I still love it. Even more than ever after this ep. Seems like a lot of people care deeply about all these changes, but at the end of the day all I see is an incredibly entertaining tv show. Blackwater was a really strong ep, but this one even topped it for me.

Qhorin though... don't really like how that was handled. As in : don't know if that scene delivered the correct message to viewers.

Great finale though. That final scene was amazing. The wait will be agonizing for the tv only folk.

Everyone is complaining about the changes from the book, but you have to accept this is still completely entertaining tv. Some episodes from this season weren't as strong as the first one. It has flaws like every other tv show, but I don't see a point comparing it to the books. Tv is a completely different medium and changes have to be done, some of them were good, others not so much.
 

Kuroyume

Banned
Really disappointing ending minus the last scene and the maid of Tarth.

Theon's scenes were great up until the point where Cleftjaw fucking stabbed Luwin out of nowhere soley for the purpose of shocking the viewer. They shouldn't have shown it and had him clearly explain it was the bastard Bolton who killed him and sacked Winterfell when the boys found him.

Cleftjaw is really one of the lamest changes from the books. I don't see any reason why they couldn't have Reek in there instead. Not to mention the Cleftjaw in the show is so damn lame compared to the guy in the book... Who wasn't anything special to begin with anyway.
 
Really disappointing ending minus the last scene and the maid of Tarth.

Theon's scenes were great up until the point where Cleftjaw fucking stabbed Luwin out of nowhere soley for the purpose of shocking the viewer. They shouldn't have shown it and had him clearly explain it was the bastard Bolton who killed him and sacked Winterfell when the boys found him. Jon's scene were alright, but didn't make it clear why they were fighting nor that he killed Halfhand for any reason beyond him being called a bastard.

Dany's and Rob's scenes were terrible, Varys was great in his scene with Ros but it was pointless. I can't even remember anything else despite just watching it, the whole thing was such a step down from Blackwater and I feel most of my issues with the changes weren't with budgetary constraints but with the writing.

Pretty much. I knew there would be a big step down from Blackwater, but I didn't expect it to be so anti climatic and sloppy. Even a lot of new viewers seem disappointed with the episode outside of the last scene. As I said earlier, it felt like this episode was where the various changes came back to bite them in the ass. Dany was basically put in a holding pattern...for that? Jon and the Halfhand's epic attempt to survive while being hunted was cut so he could walk around with Ygritte, get captured, and then kill the Halfhand? Robb was given multiple scenes talking to Talisa and doing almost nothing king/war related, then marries her as the climax of his story?

It just doesn't compare to the ending of the first season
 

Apath

Member
So why did the warlock die from the dragons breathing fire, yet was unable to be killed just a couple episodes earlier?
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
To put this in perspective.. 30 Rock and Parks and Rec pull these kinds of numbers on NBC and this is over double what Mad Men and Breaking Bad do on a regular basis. TV viewership numbers make me sad (outside of GoT which is doing amazingly for a show on HBO!). :(

Not everyone has cable and of those, a small fraction has HBO. That spin puts less perspective on it than just looking at a raw number. Ratings are relative, BB and MM aren't failed shows.
 

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
The rest of my post contained no spoilers (and even then my first one only contained incorrectly labelled ones). Unless you thought the ironmen would be unharmed after sacking Winterfell as long as they handed Theon over?
Just proves you don't understand the point of the rules in this thread.

please spoiler tag any plot points that haven't aired yet on HBO and label what book you're discussing. This includes book spoilers as well as promos and teasers that HBO has released for upcoming episodes.

[ACoK]
it was the bastard Bolton who killed him and sacked Winterfell when the boys found him.

That should have been tagged since it wasn't shown in the show. Yeah book readers know what happened but non-readers don't and as long as they're allowed to participate in this thread (and I'm pushing for them not to be next year for their own good) stuff like that (and other things recently posted by other people) shouldn't be posted in the open.
 

Seguin

Banned
Wow, season 2 ended up being so much worse than season 1. It needed to be like a 20 episode run to be anywhere close to the books, too much important things dropped and changed.
 

ronito

Member
man, haters haters everywhere.

I liked it. I loved the badass other on the horse last night it was damned perfect, the malice and hatred on his face was awesome.

I will admit Peter Dinklage didn't do as good as job as last season.
And I with the way Xaro went last night they undid any good that came from the change they made. (ADwD spoiler)
Now who will give the red glove? The only point in making Xaro the king of Qarth was to make his threat carry more weight. Now that he's dead all that was undone

And there was that episode that was an entire miss (was it 7 or 8?)

Nevertheless, still better than I could've reasonably hoped any production company to put on and still the most compelling TV I've seen this year.
 
Wow, season 2 ended up being so much worse than season 1. It needed to be like a 20 episode run to be anywhere close to the books, too much important things dropped and changed.

Yeah, Season 2 was a real disappointment outside of the Blackwater. I'm not even sure why they made these changes to the Winterfell story now.

Up until the finale I thought they were just doing it to hold it off until Season 3(
so that Theon and Bran would have more to do in that season
), but then they just rushed through it with a disappointing end.

The frustrating aspect of the season was that it just felt like too many changes were completely pointless and altered the story for the worst. I really hope Season 3 manages to get things back on track.
 

Solo

Member
Loved the finale. As expected, after the focus Blackwater episode, this one went back to jumping all over the place. However, I felt that it was done much more successfully in the finale than in most of the season. I really loved the Theon scene with Luwin and his subsequent speech with the Greyjoy/Ironborn theme playing over top of it. The House of the Undying was great. Really liked the aesthetic of the snow on the iron throne and it was cool to see Drogo again, and lthough Pyat Pree's downfall was pretty ho-hum, I loved the visual of the handmaiden and the richest man in Qarth being locked in the empty bank vault. And the stuff beyond the Wall really sets up S3 nicely. Very cool final shot with the White Walkers.

Overall I absolutely loved S2 and felt almost every episode in it was better than almost every episode in S1. It did have a lull in the middle, but I felt the first few and then especially the final two episodes more than made up for that. For S3, I would like to see the writing team learn from Blackwater and give us more episodes tightly focused on a small group of characters and less episodes cramming 10 different storylines into them. April 2013 is going to be a looooooooooong wait.
 

frequency

Member
I liked this episode. I liked Dany this episode. I liked Sam this episode. I liked Luwin this episode. I liked everything.

My only complaints are:
1) Not enough Jon. We needed waaaaay more Jon and less Rob and maybe slightly less Dany.
2) The Others look way more... monstrous than I imagined. But this is a minor thing. I always imagined them to basically look like albino elves.
3) The snow at the house of the undying in the throne room looked soooooo fake.


And yes, I said I liked Dany this episode. I hated her throughout season 1 and season 2 and I hated her in the books. But I liked her here. When she's not screaming at people at people and yelling about dragons all the time, she seems to be pretty good. For once, she finally took action and did something rather than yelling about doing something. We finally see her dragons being capable and we finally see her being capable. This needed to happen way sooner in the season. I'm going into the next one with her character on my "good side" now.

Jon/Qhorin was too short. I would imagine a regular viewer would be confused why Jon killed him. There needed to be way more time devoted to Jon and his growth. The show would be 500% greater if we just had more Jon.

I haven't read the thread for a while and I don't know what other people thought of the episode. I cried a couple times throughout. Seeing Tyrion start to cry really got to me. Luwin at the tree too. This was my favourite one this season. A lot happened and it was a nice cliffhanger ending to the season.


Summary: Game of Thrones needs more Jon.
 

TCRS

Banned
Just watched the last episode. Shame they didn't show all visions, but still brilliant episode. Dat white walker.
 

Solo

Member
Really hope they up the budget again. Another $10M-$15M would go a long way. With those ratings and the inevitable home video sales, I think its quite justifiable.
 

ronito

Member
Really hope they up the budget again. Another $10M-$15M would go a long way. With those ratings and the inevitable home video sales, I think its quite justifiable.

Yes, but why pay $10-million more for something you can get for $10 million less?
I'm betting HBO will keep the budget the same or minorly scale it forward or back. Honestly at this point they're going to view it as a plateau anyone who wants to watch the show is already tuning in.
 

Solo

Member
Yes, but why pay $10-million more for something you can get for $10 million less?
I'm betting HBO will keep the budget the same or minorly scale it forward or back. Honestly at this point they're going to view it as a plateau anyone who wants to watch the show is already tuning in.

You can't call it a plateau though until the number stops going up. The finale had the highest ratings ever. Yet I guarantee you that next season's premiere destroys that record. The show will indeed plateau eventually (and fall off, too), but we're not there yet, I don't think. Yes, the ratings were mostly steady throughout the season, but now new people have 10 months to discover the show.

If this finale hit 4 million viewers, the premiere will likely easily hit 5 million.
 
Really hope they up the budget again. Another $10M-$15M would go a long way. With those ratings and the inevitable home video sales, I think its quite justifiable.

Yes, but why pay $10-million more for something you can get for $10 million less?
I'm betting HBO will keep the budget the same or minorly scale it forward or back. Honestly at this point they're going to view it as a plateau anyone who wants to watch the show is already tuning in.

HBO is kind of different when it comes to money. If you can show them why you need an increase in budget, you'll most likely get it.
 

ronito

Member
You can't call it a plateau though until the number stops going up. The finale had the highest ratings ever. Yet I guarantee you that next season's premiere destroys that record. The show will indeed plateau eventually (and fall off, too), but we're not there yet, I don't think. Yes, the ratings were mostly steady throughout the season, but now new people have 10 months to discover the show.

If this finale hit 4 million viewers, the premiere will likely easily hit 5 million.

Have the #s already been posted?
 
Have the #s already been posted?
- EW.com: 'Game of Thrones' finale breaks ratings record
HBO’s Game of Thrones reached a new all-time high in the ratings Sunday night.

The second season finale was seen by 4.2 million viewers — the first time the show has cracked four million viewers for a first-run airing. The news is particularly welcome after the previous week’s penultimate Battle of the Blackwater episode actually dipped in the overnight Nielsens. These finale numbers confirm our assumption the Blackwater decline was merely due to the Memorial Day weekend holiday.

Thrones was remarkably stable this season, hovering around 3.7 million viewers for premiere episodes and averaging more than 10 million viewers across all repeats and viewing platforms.
There's more discussion on the previous page.
 
Sorry if this was answered already, but what scenes from the ending where from book 3?

I finished book 2 and I don't recall the White Walkers or Marriage(or even a love interest for Rob).

Nor do I recall the dragons killing anyone.

Unless my memory is just that bad.
 
Sorry if this was answered already, but what scenes from the ending where from book 3?

I finished book 2 and I don't recall the White Walkers or Marriage(or even a love interest for Rob).

Nor do I recall the dragons killing anyone.

Unless my memory is just that bad.

The Other stuff is from the ASOS prologue pretty much. The dragons don't kill anyone but they did burn down the HOTU in the novel. And yea, the marriage is another thing from the third book
 
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