Crap, stuck in a hotel tonight, but walk in and get the hopes up when I see the widescreen in the room...and then the inevitable letdown when of course all they have is analog cable to display on it.

Guess I'll have to catch it on the DVR in a few days. Ta-ta!

This is terrifying and makes me thankful for Emilia Clarke (although I do wish they'd gone in a more silver direction with the hair):

The show has been over for an hour, i'm surprised this isn't on page 6 yet

RIP Lady. Joffrey is such a shit.

They tested purple contact lenses for the actors playing the Targaryens but they hurt their eyes too much. I assume that digitally colouring their irises (like they did in the Children of Dune miniseries) would have been too time consuming and costly so they just dropped that trait altogether.

Glad they included Summer killing the would-be assassin.

Great episode, love Tyrion and hate Cersi - great casting on both.


How about people not ask questions that could be spoilers and then people could not violate dvdtalk policy and revert to name calling when someone is a smartass.

Wow man, it was a joke. Relax.

You're right. This forum clearly doesn't accept any level of sarcasm in any form. Sorry, forgot where I was.

MOD NOTE:

John Slider, name-calling is against forum rules. Please do not use that language to refer to another poster.

And to re-iterate for everyone, spoilers from books should be tagged as spoilers. Extensive discussion of the books should be taken to the Book forum. Please reserve the episode threads for discussion of the TV show. Brief differences are fine to discuss but future plot points and spoilers should be spoiler-tagged. Please see the sticky about adding spoiler tags if you need help doing so.

Thanks!

EW's James Hibberd with another entertaining episode recap. Choice quotes and observations:

Tonight's episode as good or better than Ep. 1. This has become our most-anticipated show of the year. We were afraid to have high expectations so as not to be disappointed...but we're hooked so far.

Superb job by everyone involved...writers, director, actors, costumers, cinematographers, set designers, crew, animal trainers, CGI artists, and everyone else involved. The child actors are particularly good, as this casting area is often a killer for otherwise fine productions. High marks go to the hairdressers & makeup artists for hitting the mark (lots of the minor characters, such as The Hound, blacksmith, etc. are poster material for fantasy or medieval epics).

I'm now wanting to read the books. The political rivalries, stalwart (but flawed) heroes, hissable villains, loyal retainers, attention to detail in creating a believable fantasy world, and intriguing plot developments remind me of the Dune universe (well, the original novel, at least). So far we are interested in all of the characters & haven't found any moments that lagged. The highest compliment we can give is that we're sorry when the episode ends & immediately look forward to the next installment.

Episode was awesome. They are perfectly capturing the feeling of the books. I love how many little details they are putting in that could be left out like Dany's handmaids saying "it is known", and taking huge chunks of dialogue staight from the books. Tyrion was awesome today,,,has there ever been a better role for a dwarf in movie or TV?

yeah really. Granted everything Peter Dinkige does is great

EW has another story about how some folks may be giving up on the show after the second episode because of the ending:

It's funny that people apparently weren't upset by the bloody corpse of the also-innocent young child that was shown just a couple of minutes before the scene in question. Never fails to amaze me how much some people overreact to animal death in fiction.

And maybe people who are so upset over this should go ahead and tune out at this point, because (minor spoiler)

Loved it..! I hope they can keep going like this.
(Im one of those guys that read the books and quietly chuckle when i hear the complaints)

People giving up on the show because of the death at the end of Ep. 2?

The intense reaction caused by the scene (which was tastefully done by having the death offscreen, probably increasing its effectiveness) is EXACTLY the reason why they should KEEP watching. Their reaction proves that the show is achieving the desired effect in the audience. Didn't like the villains when they shoved a child out of the tower window? Well, now you've got a real reason to get your hate on.

It's understandable that certain movie/tv/literary scenes may shock, disgust, or upset their intended audience. That's what makes those scenes necessary & memorable. If you're not emotionally invested in the characters, why bother watching from week to week? In this case, the audience got to share the rage & helplessness felt by Ned & his girls (typical sterling job by Bean displaying a tenderness in the death scene). It's the kind of scene that sets the "A" series apart from the standard, run-of-the-mill fare.

As mentioned by other posters, if murder of a child, copious blood spilled in the assassination attempt, and semi-rape of a new "bride" in earlier scenes aren't enough to turn viewers away, it's hard to see why this scene alone would be the last straw. Perhaps they should read the "No ___ were injured...etc." disclaimers in the end credits for reassurance.

Or maybe the more sensitive viewers might turn to more family-friendly fare such as "Spartacus".

I don't think this is a spoiler, but:

I absolutely love the book series and have read them several times, and I was extremely disappointed with the pilot. I hated the Tyrion brothel scene, the Dany wedding night, the horrible pacing, the wooden line delivery in some of the key scenes, the cheesy Dothraki wedding, the lack of direwolves, and on and on. THIS episode was badass. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season. So glad they fixed some of their early problems!

Add my wife to the list of people turned off by the ending. I think I can get her back...she had a similar reaction to "that episode" of Futurama.

It seems that there is a lot of symbolism going on with the dire wolves.

We have seen Arya and Bran's wolves protecting them. Sansa lied to the King in order to cover for Joffrey and ended up losing her wolf in the process. Makes me think some bad things will be happening to her...

You are right, Joffy looks about 12-14 and Rob looks about 16-17.

At least they did it off-screen.

Obvious Sarcasim is Obvious.

lol Yup, that was great seeing Summer tearing that guy up