Episode 9 is the super budget blowout, all those minutes spent in Harrenhal are redeemed in a properly huge battle.
There's a terrible tendency for deja vu. Jamie frees himself by psychopathically killing his cousin, only to be recaptured in the next scene, only to be "freed" in the next scene.
The Stark brother's return to Winterfell feels like it is a metaphor for wider issues in the structure of the story.
Thank god Jon Snow has been captured now we don't have to put up with terrible northern dirty talk any more
It seems that every major Stark retinue seems to need to contain the fat boy comic relief.
I imagine Arya's period in service as a cupbearer is probably really great and tense in the books but there isn't enough time here to generate suspense.
Ohai! Rob Stark I remember you!
I love the styling and sets for Qarth but again the story is so divided into little infrequent parts that its hard to get really into.
I love the way that Natalie Tena uses movement as Osha but the character is really crappy. Her dialogue is all enigmatic nonsense and what did seducing Theon have to do with murdering her way out of the castle?
Theon shares with his father the ability to make incredibly poor strategic decisions in favour of ill-omened narcissism.
One of the problems with Game of Thrones is despite the abundance of female characters it is quite rapey. This time Sansa, instead of getting to make a break for freedom like her sister, ends up facing a gang rape and has to be rescued by a man.
As the show now feels so rushed there was no real sense that that she wasn't going to be rescued. So it felt like titillation: watch the teenager come to the verge of being raped.
What were those two dire wolves doing when men were attacking the castle?
Iceland looks completely amazing in all the scenes north of the Wall.
"Hey Jon, we know you're a tortured, moral kind of guy so we're going to go stand at the bottom of this hill while you execute this beautiful woman."
"Why would you do that guys?"
"You know, plot."
The appearance of the shadow demon assassin felt the wrong side of fantasy for me.
"Now, Arya, if this confrontation between myself and this whole troop of soldiers goes wrong, you should run away right?"
"I think we both know that that isn't going to be possible for reasons of plot"
Okay Brienne is pretty cool, how tall is Gwendoline Christie? I thought for a while that they were maybe doing Hobbit style forced perspective.
That said her dialogue is back to Season One's standard of clunking planks of wood smashing into the ground.
I was feeling sympathy for Renly's dilemma but it turns out that the Tyrell's are massively open-minded about sexual orientation (or potentially all gay to the last housecarl).
It's like a sexually liberal War of the Roses with Monty Python peasantry.
Okay by episode three there are officially so many storylines in play that I feel like I watching some weird sketch show.
We pick up a storyline and I'm like oh yeah, these people are in the show too.
So are we thinking that Jon Snow, with that lovely black hair, is actually a Baratheon?
John Bradley has actually managed to sell Sam to me. The pathos, understanding, empathy, morality, comedy and cowardice are now in a configuration when I am intrigued.
The character's still a bit crappy though, it still feels like poor man's Samwise Gamgee.
I was wondering how the old man managed to survive beyond the wall with scores of women when everyone else had fled.
I'm still not clear on where they get their food though.
Bran holding court is a reminder of the insanity of feudalism and the hereditary principle. Adult leaders of their community begging an eight-year old for help.
I have no idea whose head is in the saddlebag. I mean come on, this show has hundreds of characters.
It's probably better online because then when you've lost the plot you can start flicking back through the previous episodes.
Hmmm, Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey really sell their conflicted sibling relationship to me. The delightfully spiteful point scoring in episode two could of been overwrought but instead it felt genuinely wounding.
Already clear themes of incestuous sister love and baby murder.
I like the comet as a way of stitching together the action in the first episode.
Season 2 and everything seems slightly better: the music is fuller, the wigs more natural and either the writers have stopped writing dialogue so wooden you could whittle it or the actors have gotten better at delivering it (it's the latter).