Game of Thrones
HBO’s Game of Thrones: episode recaps, reviews, analysis, and roundtable discussions.
It’s hard to get invested in a storyline in which he will always prevail until he doesn’t.
Also: nobody should be excited for the High Sparrow’s rise to power.
Every so often, bad things happen to bad people on this show. Treasure those moments.
Which two characters met for the first time?
The series is collapsing plot lines from the books left and right. It’s mostly working.
That might be the main lesson of this latest Arya storyline.
That’s part of why the King’s Landing storyline is still the best thing on the show.
It feels like everyone involved is trying like hell to top the Red Wedding — and falling short.
In narrative terms, “everything is terrible” is just as boring and predictable as “everything is awesome.”
The Sand Snakes seem to have been conjured up as a pastiche of girl power tropes.
“Gratuitous rape scene disgusting and unacceptable.”
It’s important to understand what the series was going for; I’m not sure I do.
The disturbing final scene was indeed in the books, but it involved a different character.
Another Game of Thrones wedding, another unhappy ending.
The show’s trend toward clearer “good guys against bad guys” conflicts is potentially worrisome.
The home of the Starks could be the location for season five’s knock-down drag-out.
In defense of the show’s red priestess, who gets a bad rap.
Dany wants to heal the wounds of Meereen, and Jon Snow wants to end the distrust between the wildlings and the Night’s Watch.
Enter Stone Men.
“Kill the Boy” marked the halfway point of the season, and it set some big developments into motion.
Some changes are minor. Other plot lines are reshaped nearly beyond recognition.
As viewers, we love the show’s violence, but it’s subtly blinding us to the story’s underlying message: war is terrible, and all of this is pointless.
Turning her into an antagonist could be a delightfully cruel twist.
Follow the Kingsroad south from Winterfell to King’s Landing, like Ned Stark did.
The series’ orphans are learning to strike out on their own.
The show’s answer makes less sense than the books’ answer.
Jon Snow is not Ned Stark’s son.
Season five of Game of Thrones kicks into high gear in its fourth episode.
There were some big shockers in this episode for book readers.
Cersei knows how to consolidate power. Can either younger woman learn to do so in time?
They’re not dead yet, which is a big advantage on this show.
How the series uses decapitations to draw links between characters, past and present.
She’s fighting her battles the only way she knows how, and that deserves recognition.
The moments everyone will be talking about.
You can see the weight of the conflict reflected in the characters.
One storyline looks like the biggest divergence the show has ever attempted.
Just look at the point-of-view characters from the books who are still around to see what we mean.
It’s a show about the end of one system and the invention of a new one.
The show understands that vengeance is destructive — but also hard to deny when people want it badly enough.
Now that the show has moved out of the premiere, it begins to kick off some of the major undertones of season 5.