Hand of the Kingslayer

double post

8 Ramsay continues to make skin crawl as he flays it. Lady Olena and the high sparrow scene was great. The meeting of Tyrion and Daenerys felt like a triumph. I just hope seeing it in the show doesn't ruin its impact in the books. if it happens of course. (obviously it will) "Egg, I dreamed that I was old" There's plenty to nitpick, but i'll save that for the other thread. Save to say, The Dorne scenes still seem to serve no purpose, but they've got to be building to something, right? If nothing else at least Bronn survives, and we got to hear Jerome Flynn's finish his beautiful rendition of "the Dornishman's Wife" It's no "up on the roof", but, i'll take it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5V8ecsrxeY

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but it's quite long thread. So Mel leaves Dragonstone. Where is she going? Well from what we know from the earlier trailers for season 3, it's seems there is a point where she meets up with Thoros and the Brotherhood. They never meet up in books, but red priest/priestess, maybe in this world, Mel and Thoros are old pals. or: Maybe this world contains no Edric Storm. There was no siege at storm's end, and he's not going to just pop up at Dragonstone unexplained. Mel still needs king's blood. Stannis is too weak. Joffery had all of Robert's bastards killed, so who else has it? As far as we know, there is only one of Robert's bastards who is still alive. I wonder who he's rolling with these days.......

All in all, a great episode. The introduction of the Reeds felt a bit out of the blue/unexplained compared to the books, but i'm glad they're finally a part of the series. Is it just me or does the cgi of the direwolves look much better this season than last? it feels a bit weird to see Theon again so soon after having to wait until ADwD in the books, but his scenes were excellent, and i'm glad they included it as Alfie Allen has been incredible as Theon so far. Everyone seems to hate the Jon/Cat story, but I though it was kind of a refreshing add to Catelyn's character. I agree it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to book Cat, but i don;t think it takes anything away from TV Cat. Paul Kaye as Thoros seems like a great addition so far. I always felt Thoros was a bit underused in the books and combining his character with Tom Seven Strings, and a bit of Lem seems to makes sense. I really hope we get a lot more of the QOT in future episodes. Her scene with Sansa and Margarey seemed almost too short. Tyrion/Shae scene was pretty awful. The only reason i can imagine it was even in the episode would be to maybe foreshadow some of shae's jealousy as a potential plot point to try and better explain some up her upcoming decisions. Also, like most everyone else on this forum, I am not a huge fan of Talisa. Maybe we're not supposed to like her, but i kind of hate that i'm forced to agree with Rickard Karstark at all. Finally, the fight scene. I keep reading about how people thought it was lame, and how they should have had fast paced lightsaber choerography, which is just silly. it was paced fairly slowly which i really liked and i thought a the choreography was pretty well done given the situation. i do wish they would have played up the fact that Jamie was the superior swordsman, and only lost due to being manacled/malnourished etc. In any case, I'm looking forward to episode 3