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How would you rate episode 203?  

451 members have voted

  1. 1. What's your rating from 1-10, with 10 being the highest/best

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      1
    • 2
      2
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      3
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      1
    • 5
      5
    • 6
      18
    • 7
      36
    • 8
      107
    • 9
      178
    • 10
      100


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Loved it. The scenes in Pyke were excellent, and Theon burning his letter to Robb (knowing what is to come) nearly broke my heart.

Gwendoline Christie as Brienne was brilliant. Is she that big in RL, or did they employ the same SFX as used for the direwolves?

Is anyone else underwhelmed by Aidan Gillen's portrayal of Littlefinger? He seems to be struggling somewhat, his accent changing from week to week. Whenever he appears, his performance jars me out of the story. Which is strange, since everything else I've seen him in, he's been magnificent.

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I thought all the scenes with Renly were a bit off. Especially Loras acting like a whiny bitch when Cat arrived. Where the hell did that come from? I never pictured Loras like that.

I think he was just pissed off because he had just been defeated (by a woman, no less) and probably had to take it out on somebody.

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The sadistic part, certainly, but we never see how his sexual life would play out (although I'm guessing he wouldn't make it to a list of "top 100 lovers of all time").

I wanna point out that I'm not complaining at the change, they could pull it off very well (and probably will, knowing Jack Gleeson's talents), just saying that it is indeed a derivation from the novels.

Personally I think completely original scenes should focus on giving information that is internal monologue in the books or giving information from scenes that are just too expensive to film on a TV show. Give the watcher information that the book reader gets because he knows the PoV character's thoughts.

Adding scenes of Joffrey's sex life doesn't really do that. We already know that he is a monster, and we don't need to invent new scenes to make that apparent. Now if there was unlimited screen time then this would be trivial, but the fact is that they often cover a chapter or more of content in several minutes, so screen time is at a premium. There are so many awesome scenes to pick from that are already written in the book, that are left out due to lack of time, that it becomes disappointing when they write their own scene that does not remotely reflect anything that happened in the book. The original scene may be, on it's own merits, acted and directed fine, but it really needs to be better than scenes they cut from the book for me to consider it a great addition. Or it needs to give the viewer important information that the book reader got thru other means. Unfortunately quite a few of the original scenes directly contradict the information that the book reader gets.

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Is anyone else underwhelmed by Aidan Gillen's portrayal of Littlefinger? He seems to be struggling somewhat, his accent changing from week to week. Whenever he appears, his performance jars me out of the story. Which is strange, since everything else I've seen him in, he's been magnificent.

I think it is the writing more than his acting. They have made him a blunt, micro-managing pimp rather than a subtle threat and master mind behind the scenes. Likewise with Shae, I don't think it is the actress' fault so much as the writing. NO actress can "act" like she is loving towards Tyrion or seductive if the majority of her lines are her complaining, attacking him for some imagined wrong, or otherwise acting like a bitch.

To me Littlefinger should have been written much like Ben Linus in LOST when we first meet him, or Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects. While certainly suspicious, at worst they appear to be minor pawns of the real players. Only much later do we realize

he is really the leader of the Others/Keyser Söze

. The TV version of Littlefinger however appears to spend most of his time personally micro-managing his brothel and losing all of the art of subtlety. Not the actor's fault though.

Edited by Tadco26
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Gwendoline Christie as Brienne was brilliant. Is she that big in RL, or did they employ the same SFX as used for the direwolves?

No, there was no composition used, just a bit of forced perspective. Ms Christie is 6′3″, and probably a couple of more inches in armour. For comparison, Stephen Fry is 6′5″. I don’t know how tall Michelle Fairley is, but when you see her with Richard Madden, you can see that the lad is taller than she is. So Christie is likely much taller than Fairley.

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...Likewise with Shae, I don't think it is the actress' fault so much as the writing. NO actress can "act" like she is loving towards Tyrion or seductive if the majority of her lines are her complaining, attacking him for some imagined wrong, or otherwise acting like a bitch.

I think the writers are trying too hard to show us that This Woman Cannot Be Trusted.

It's very easy to imagine TV Shae

betraying Tyrion in the way she did, whereas in the book she was kinda sweet, making the events of Tyrion's trial all the more shocking.

.

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I think the writers are trying too hard to show us that This Woman Cannot Be Trusted.

It's very easy to imagine TV Shae

betraying Tyrion in the way she did, whereas in the book she was kinda sweet, making the events of Tyrion's trial all the more shocking.

.

Exactly, and the problem I have with this is why would Tyrion feel any need to keep her around in the first place? Ros is much more like book Shae. They just haven't convinced me that there is any reason Tyrion would want Shae around for anything other than sex, which he could get from any other whore in King's Landing without the trouble.

In fact if they had made the actress who plays Ros, be Shae from the start up in Winterfell it would have been a big change from the book, but it would have been more believeable that Tyrion would have fallen for her considering their chemistry seemed better. Then have the Shae actress play the foreign high dollar whore from Littlefinger's brothel, and both characters might have been improved.

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I think some people may be missing the point with Shae, imho....we're not supposed to like her.

And we have to put the books, while certainly important, on the shelf for this discussion.

She's a whore - greedy, self-interested and manipulative - who may have taken more away from Tyrion's confession about Tysha in season one than we did. We sympathize with Tyrion, she's sees weakness that can be exploited for gold.

We know her future from the books, so I don't see her character being that far from the "essence" of what's printed on the page. They have less time to work with, character building must be economic, showing the audience who these people are because we may not see them again for three episodes.

I admit, the accent is cumbersome, but you have season four to look forward to.

Loved the epsiode. A solid 8. With what i know is coming, numbers 9 and 10 aren't going to be given away so early in the season.

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I really loved how they handled everything in this episode save Shae who is progressively getting closer to my last nerve.I gave this one a 9 only because there is room for improvement.

I really think they should've waited to make Shae Sansa's hand maiden after the riot in KL and I think Shae shouldn't be so outwardly conniving.

The hole Theon story arc is being handled extremely well and I can't wait to see his fate play out further. I think Ayra's story is being handled rather deftly as well. I really don't mind that her chapters are being condensed the way they are it all makes perfect sense how they've left out unnecessary settings in order to save time and no doubt money.

I love the woman they got to play Brienne she's not all cartoon ugly like GRRM had me picturing her.I also like the girl they have playing Margaery, I think the writers have done a great job showing how calculating she can be something that will be very important later on. I agree with a lot of people on this thread about Renly, he's way too subdued, but

He shouldn't be around too much longer so no use crying about him.

I'm glad we got a break from Dany's story, her part I feel doesn't get to be real interesting until the end of ACOK. I'm intensely happy there was no Ros scene in this episode, I think this will be a continuing trend as things start to get more serious.

Tyrion's scenes continue to achieve greatness worthy of the character every one loves in the books. The way he ferrets out the person he can't trust in the council was brilliantly done and easily my favorite part of the episode, second only to Yoren's death scene. I feel like the show is finally getting back on track especially after the last two episodes which were less than stellar. I like how the whole Craster cliffhanger was wrapped up very quickly. I still don't understand why it had to happen, my only conclusion was that the writers wanted to give The Night's Watch a reason to leave with haste ( as if you'd need a reason to leave Craster's in the first place). Personally I'd rather fight the others than stay with that asshole for any amount of time.

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This episode was top-notch!

I can't complain about a single scene.

Gave it a 9 though, 'cause I'm saving the 10 for the Battle of Blackwater :)

I've noticed that is the first episode from the second season, which isn't directed by Alan Taylor.

I have the feeling, that the first two episodes were more about the appearance of the show, than the actual content (for example the wide shots of the desert and the North and the approaching of Grey Wind towards Jaime in espisode 1). Everything was beautifully directed and every scene was carefully arranged. But the actual meaning was kind of torn by the various plots.

However in the third episode, we see no significant director skills, but here is no distraction from the content. There aren't so many plots, the story is easy to follow and there are no unnecessary scenes.

I personally love the approaches of both directors simply, because at the beginning of the season I was pleased to see some cinematographic scenes of very high quality, but now it is time for the story to move forward and I think everything works for the best so far.

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This episode was top-notch!

I can't complain about a single scene.

Gave it a 9 though, 'cause I'm saving the 10 for the Battle of Blackwater :)

I've noticed that is the first episode from the second season, which isn't directed by Alan Taylor.

I have the feeling, that the first two episodes were more about the appearance of the show, than the actual content (for example the wide shots of the desert and the North and the approaching of Grey Wind towards Jaime in espisode 1). Everything was beautifully directed and every scene was carefully arranged. But the actual meaning was kind of torn by the various plots.

However in the third episode, we see no significant director skills, but here is no distraction from the content. There aren't so many plots, the story is easy to follow and there are no unnecessary scenes.

I personally love the approaches of both directors simply, because at the beginning of the season I was pleased to see some cinematographic scenes of very high quality, but now it is time for the story to move forward and I think everything works for the best so far.

Eh. I thought the directing of the Tyrion + Pycelle/Varys/LF scene was great. As was how they shot Theon burning the letter and then his baptism.

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Number 1 reason I think this episode is the best so far: No wasted f#*king scenes. I mean I don't recall there being so many sex scenes in the book just for the sake of a sex scene. The first two episodes were plagued by this horny need to have the brothel featured. Littlefinger's conversation with Ros (A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME and NOT EVEN IN THE BOOK!) This episode, the only sex scenes were with Renly (to remind of his homosexual relationship with Loras...is that in the book, I can't remember) and to bring that question of Margarey's viginity that is a big deal in later books ;)

My tip to the producers, directors, creators of this show. Stick to the books...don't add in extra sex scenes just for the sake of sex scenes...The show could have absolutely ZERO sex and would still be great. Stick with Martin's sex scenes and you will be golden, since those actually move the plot forward in some way!

I gave this episode a 8/10. We finally got some real action. I LOVED Tyrion's scene with Pyrcell, Littlefinger, and Varys...at first when Varys popped up I thought Tyrion got caught in the act, but then I remembered that Tyrion was throwing different stories out to the untrusted others to catch the leak. Loved Pyrcell getting grabbed up, just like in the book...except we didn't see him piss himself, haha.

Isn't it a little early in the story for Shae to be Sansa's handmaid? Wasn't she a handmaid for some other noble first? And live in her own secret mansion and have that singer that Tyrion eventually had turned into stew? I suppose they have to condense...and all those things are not ABSOLUTELY necessary to move the story along...as long as eventually Shae's identity is discovered, etc, etc.

This episode showed the potential and brought back memories of the first season! 8/10...remember less sex is better (if we wanted porn, we would just watch porn).

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loved the episode. They finally introduced the world to My Girl, Brienne of Tarth.

She's mine, don't even look at her!

I'm not liking Shae. She's not a bitchy, feisty type. Maybe with other people, but with Tyrion, she is warm, accepting, and dare I say submissive? Not the 2012 "You Go Girl" that they are making her.

Oh, and Ros wasn't in this, but she has got to go.

Epic win, Brienne, epic fail, Shae.

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