How would you rate episode 402?

[scotcat]

8/10 from me. It wasn't perfect, but still a good cut above the majority of what's on TV at the moment.

Jack Gleeson has done an excellent job - I've always said its harder to play a villain than a hero - as Joffrey and, as much as I'm glad to see Joffrey meet his maker, I'm sorry to see him go.

[User inactive]

I have it a 9

[Ser Lawrence]

Gave it a 9. It did not give me chills like Dany taking the unsullied, or the RW, but it was pretty damn good.

Stannis stuff, less so, but the TV show can't be an unabridged reading of the novels.

I liked the totally offensive War of the Five Kings rather than the Little-Person-Joust. I've been to weddings where someone thinks something is funny when it is not even remotely appropriate or in keeping with decorum. Plus, it gave the 'readers' something new and semi-unexpected.

Bran stuff seemed more for readers than "unsullied" watchers. I could watch Bronn and Jamie spar for half the episode. Fun. Sorry for the actor who played the King's Justice. Better this than a re-cast due to illness.

It's fun to be here at work listening to "unsullied" speculating as to who did what and how, and where did Shae go.

Still love the show (especially the music). I'll go pretty much wherever they want to take me, unless it gets too ridiculous.

[Daenerys Must Die]

Another 8 for me - the bookends stood out most to me in Roose/Ramsay's interactions and the execution of the actual meat & potatoes of the wedding.. the in between was touch and go.

Stannis stuff was as I expected.. I understand why they stuck the sacrifice into this episode but I'm not sure that angle is overly important or even sticks with the average viewer..

The episode felt a lot better upon viewing it a second time - similar to the Red Weddding it's one of those things where you're anticipating a moment at the very end so I didn't immerse myself in the rest of the episode as much as usual in my initial view.

Also forgot the mention - Bran's scene - really loved it especially the set of the weirwood which was beautiful.. I'm guessing it's safe to assume the dragon he saw over KL was in the past not in the future (not to say it won't happen in the future) but it's meant to be ambiguous.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Daenerys Must Die

[Widows_Blood]

I blame GRRM for Stannis story on the Show not D&D. Coming into season 3 I really dreaded the entire Dragonstone arc. I mean in the books we get nothing but Davos in prison for a few chapters than a few post prison chapters and then basically nothing until the end of ASoS. There's really not a ton of material to adapt; hence trying to create some drama in Dragonstone with Stannis becoming overly reliant on Melissandre. I don't get the furor here, I really don't. Stannis clearly isn't enjoying burning the Florents, but is putting up with Melissandre because he feels her powers is his only hope towards winning the throne. He has no army, navy or support at this moment. He's relying on Mel because its all he has. It's painfully obvious that Stannis will move more towards Davos once his storyline starts to get some forward momentum. I think when Stannis gets to the wall we will start to see more of his book persona. Of course in the meantime I will amuse myself with the consistent cries of character assassination from the usual reactionaries on this forum.

[The hairy bear]

Another 8 here. Very good, but not excepcional. They could have done more with the Stannis's scenes, Bran's dream, and Cersei's confrontation with Brienne and Pycelle.

[DolorousKim]

I rated this a solid 8. To me, it was just a shade less enjoyable than last week's episode, but still a consistently engaging and entertaining foray into the saga. Also, as a book reader, it's quite possible that I have some unrealistically high expectations that the "big event" episodes can't usually live up to when compared with the literary unfolding of events. The lone exception to this in my mind is the "Blackwater" episode, which might possibly have been even stronger than what was portrayed in the book.

That being said, there were some highlights that jumped out at me in this episode:

• Tyrion and Jaime dining scene - I really enjoy whenever Peter Dinklage and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau get to play off each other. Tyrion is the only person that Jaime feels he can confide in, and I like the little brother bolstering bigger brother interplay here. Tyrion and Jaime's good qualities never shine better than when they are consoling each other.
  
• Bronn and Jaime sparring - More Bronn is always a good thing in my books, and I love the nonchalant and effortless way that he gets under Jaime's skin. Sir Bronn truly gives no f***'s as to who he pisses off. Jerome Flynn seems like he's having a ball playing the swaggering sellsword.
  
• Oberyn/Ellaria vs. Tywin/Cersei - House Martell comes off with the win in this smoking little tete a tete. The great casting for the roles of the Red Viper and his paramour points to the many great things yet to come in this season.
  
• Tyrion vs. Joffrey wedding scenes - The malevolence between these two fairly crackles right through the screen without ever being over the top. A fine acting workshop courtesy of Dinklage and Gleeson.
  
• The death of King Joffrey - Massive kudos to Jack Gleeson for making Joffrey such an epically loathsome little shit right up to the end. I'm so going to miss hating on the creepy bugger.....
  

The parts I found kind of meh:

• The Dragonstone scenes - I found them to be underwhelming and a bit forced into this episode, and I'm still not digging Stannis' charaterization in the show. Stephen Dillane and Liam Cunningham's talents are pretty much wasted in this episode. Kerry Ingram is really impressing me as to how good an actress she is, however, so there is that for a bright spot.
  
• Ramsay's "hunt" - Yeah, yeah, we get it, Ramsay is a sadistic prick. I think the Theon torture-porn pretty much drove that point home at ridiculous length last season. I could have done without this scene, even though it wasn't that long, and wasn't as graphic as it could have been.
  

The head-scratching scenes:

• What exactly happened to Shae? Without treading into Spoiler country, I really doubt that she's on a boat to Pentos, so what's up? Why did they make a point of showing Bronn escorting her presumably out of the Red Keep, and why did she slap Bronn when Tyrion sent her away? Something is definitely going on, and I really can't tell what it is......
  

[aFeastForDragons]

I really expected more from the Jamie/Tyrion scene. I've been looking forward to their interaction for a year but Jaimie just sat back and said barely anything. Hopefully we get another few interactions before the "moon boy" interaction.

[rmholt]

9.9 Demerit for Cersei-Brienne. Also a proper Reek wouldn't have turned a hair at mention of Robb.

[Ran]

367 votes in, it's averaging a 8.4. Normalized (top/bottom 5% removed) it's at 8.55.

[Casso, King of the Seals]

10/10.

This was just mind-blowing. I particularly enjoyed the epic ending, the acting was terrific, most of all Lena Heady. The Rains of Castamere played by Sigur Rós during the end-credits was a great choice. The costumes, sets, actors in this episode were great. There wasn't a single bad or unnecessary scene, I think. Alfie Allen is incredible and I like what they are doing with Selyse. Also I am glad that they kept Moat Cailin in the show. The wedding itself was done beautifully - scenes of individual characters were very well-done and I greatly enjoyed the tension between Joffrey and Tyrion, as well as Sansa's unbelievably sad moment (when that slow music started playing and all the people were laughing at the Young Wolf). The death itself was shocking and tense, and what is more - it may be that their decision not to explicitly show the poisoner is rather good for the TV format. Brilliant!

This episode was amazing, I think George R. R. Martin and Alex Graves have done a perfect job. The actors' performances are unrepeatable. This season seems to be the best so far. Even though I pictured the whole wedding differently in my mind while reading it, I think this episode did it justice and we can expect quality for the rest of the season.

Episodes 1 and 2: 7;10/10.

[rainsofcastamere_]

I've been waiting all this time to see that little shit of Joffrey going down and now I'm kind of sad that we're not gonna see anymore of Jack Gleeson's amazing acting. He did a great job with the purple wedding, any scene with him was brilliant. I liked how Sansa was helping Tyrion, and her non-verbal act was nice, as someone mentioned before. That being said, I was sort of disappointed with Lena's scene, I don't know, I guess I expected to be more dramatic, she was all like "Aaaah Tyrion did this, get him" and that was it. Though I liked the rest of her scenes, with Oberyn and Brienne. And damn, I wouldn't complain if we got more Oberyn scenes

Anyway the only thing that bothers me and kind of creeps me out, after this episode, is that Roose Bolton's beard is getting longer and longer... dafuq is that? :laugh:

Also that eyebrow-twitching while talking with Ramsey about Reek was just ridiculous and so not ...Boltonish. I think Mike Mcelhatton can do better than that. But all in all I liked that they put that Bolton father and son conversation, I hope we're gonna see more of that, I almost felt sorry for Ramsey. Almost.

And that shaving thing with Ramsey and Reek was a nice touch

[Shadowflame]

I give it a 7. I think I enjoyed the books so much that the tv show leaves the story lacking. I thought the Roose/Ramsey/Theon scene was really good and I like the Bran flashes when he touched the tree. Jack Gleeson's portrayal of Joffrey is spot on. He will be missed. I like the Fat Walda scene and I like the actor who plays Locke/Vargo Hoat.

[ovis alba]

• What exactly happened to Shae? Without treading into Spoiler country, I really doubt that she's on a boat to Pentos, so what's up? Why did they make a point of showing Bronn escorting her presumably out of the Red Keep, and why did she slap Bronn when Tyrion sent her away? Something is definitely going on, and I really can't tell what it is......

I actually do have a suspicion how i will turn out, but I do have to tread into Spoiler country for it:

As Bronn is a Sellsword after all and basically the only person that can probably pay way better than Tyrion is Tywin, they might have Bronn sell Shae to Tywin so she will testify against Tyrion, making not only Shae but also Bronn betray Tyrion, which would also perfectly explain why Oberyn will be the one fighting for him

Edited April 14, 2014 by ovis alba

[Miss Carnahan]

Gave it a 6. It was marginally better than 401. The stannis scenes were quite boring and useless, to my regret. Didn't like the whole Shae situation. The wedding was good, but could have been better. Of course was the entire experience yet again seen from Tyrion's POV, while the wedding is in fact Sansa's chapter in ASOS. Alas, she only had one line during the entire episode. However, no Dany, so that was good! + The scenes between Joff and Tyrion were super intense. (going to miss Jack and even Joff a lot) Oh, the scene between Ramsay and Roose were quite good as well, with Roose of course being perfectly intimidating (and handsome may I add) again.

[Dildo_Baggins]

6..i expected the wedding to be more epic. Still that last scene made up for it. I kinda felt a little bad for his horrible fate , the way he turned purple and his nose bled.

[The_Crannogman]

There was no coldhands

[Impish]

she has utterly failed to express the panic of a mother losing her child. Denial is the first stage of grief, as Michelle skipped straight to step 4, depression, Lena skipped to step : 2 anger, but nonetheless she failed to express step 1, denial. Making the whole rendition not credible, fake and plastic.

Rubbish.

The Kübler-Ross "Five Stages of Grief" model you're attempting to invoke here, does NOT require all the stages to be present, or even for them to occur in any specific order.

"Elisabeth Kübler-Ross noted that the stages are not meant to be a complete list of all possible emotions that could be felt, and they can occur in any order. Her hypothesis holds that not everyone who experiences a life-threatening or life-altering event feels all five of the responses, due to reactions of personal losses differing between people."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

Insisting that all portrayals of grief must robotically proceed through all five stages in order, to be "credible" is about the most ridiculous criticism I've ever read.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Impish

[jarl the climber]

I gave it an eight. Joffreys death was the highlight of the episode. I think they should have set up the Sansa/Ser Dontos storyline a little bit better. I thought it was odd that Brienne never spoke to Sansa. I would have liked it if we had gotten the reveal about the Valyrian dagger as well. I'd have preferred it if Stannis had killed Lord Florent for the same reason as he did in the book. I liked Oberyns thinly veiled threat to Lord Tywin. I thought Tywin should have called Joffrey out on some of his actions, his staying quiet seemed out of character. In the books, the wedding sort of rehabilatated Renlys image, he was Marges husband, and publicly mocking him would have been beyond the pale. I could nitpick all day long but it was a solid episode overall despite some of the shortcomings.

[kakoserrano]

7

Good things:

- Olenna: This marriage was her show from start to finish and they got it right from top to botton.

- Stannis: I did like his bit and for me he was very unconfortable seeing that burning people crap.

- Bolton: Great actor and good scene, he is the creepy one

- Purple: I really liked the special effects in the death scene. It replaced the book death in a good way.

Bad things:

- Cercei reaction: This almost killed the moment for me. I believe it was important and a turning point to the character to suffer terribly with her son's death, but she just turns from suffering to rage very quickly (bad editing?). Ok, she is bad to the bone, but she loved Jeoff.

- Bran: Hate this Bran shit in the Show and in the books. I really don't care for visions, dreams, warging, all this crap.

- Ramsay: I don't really like the way they are portraing him. He looks like a incapable demented person, not someone that Bolton would put in charge of anything.

That's it, I guess. Sorry for my uninglish.