[Book Spoilers] season 2 grade

[King Cheops]

A+. I'm glad for the changes they made since it means I'm not automatically spoiled as a book reader.

[The Second Hand]

Right now, this show isn't compelling. It's a mess of well-acted scenes, sub-par writing, and beautiful set design.

[turdle]

When we consider that Robb is getting more screen time than he had in the books, the King's Landing players get their own scenes, and Jaime's early Storm of Swords story is moved into the end of this season, we're getting on average 5 minutes of each POV per episode. It's simply not enough time to do the stories as much justice as the books do them. This is only going to get worse, I fear, as more characters become more important and the story continues to branch out, that this cluttered, "bullet point" style story might get even worse.

i think they should have spilled some of acok into season 3 instead of spilling asos into season 2. perhaps actually take the time to set up bran and rickons deaths and end the season with that as the cliff hanger.

[Gaius Martell]

i think they should have spilled some of acok into season 3 instead of spilling asos into season 2. perhaps actually take the time to set up bran and rickons deaths and end the season with that as the cliff hanger.

I don't think that that is a good either/ or. ASoS has the most action of any of the books in the series, and 10 hours is not enough time to reasonably get through it all and not feel rushed.

[turdle]

I don't think that that is a good either/ or. ASoS has the most action of any of the books in the series, and 10 hours is not enough time to reasonably get through it all and not feel rushed.

they don't have to keep to the "book per season" style at all. they've already said they're going to break book 3 into multiple seasons anyway. they could have had the first two episodes of season 3 be the end of acok, and the rest of season 3 and all of season 4 be the rest of asos. or if that's not enough, have the start of season 5 also be asos.

[Lebronn Jaime]

C. True Blood levels of tripe. The scene where Jon Snow can't bring himself to kill Ygritte, but decides to *record scratch* chase her down when she tries to run will stick with me for a long time. And not in a good way.

[turdle]

C. True Blood levels of tripe. The scene where Jon Snow can't bring himself to kill Ygritte, but decides to *record scratch* chase her down when she tries to run will stick with me for a long time. And not in a good way.

yeah, what exactly did he think, had they caught back up with them, that qhorin was going to say? because i feel like if he had, qhorin would say, "ok, well now chop her head off. that was the whole point. that's what you were doing in the first place and nothings changed so... go ahead."

[Gaius Martell]

they don't have to keep to the "book per season" style at all. they've already said they're going to break book 3 into multiple seasons anyway. they could have had the first two episodes of season 3 be the end of acok, and the rest of season 3 and all of season 4 be the rest of asos. or if that's not enough, have the start of season 5 also be asos.

And they probably should have saved some of A Clash of Kings for season 3, as well. More than "Introduce the Reeds, 'Arstan,' Ramsay, and so on." Some plot moves forward, like moving Jaime forward, are important for behind-the-scenes, contractual reasons, and worked well with the story. They certainly could have saved some of the more rushed things, like Arya's story in general and Jon's story with Qhorin as well as Ygritte, for season three and woven it with the ASoS stuff as well. But looking forward, the only viable way to do these books is to SLOW DOWN or everything will not only feel rushed, but confusing.

[Leuf]

Oh, I don't know exactly where I would put it as a grade, B I suppose. As someone else said, the acting gets an A and the story get a D. The first 8 episodes are a disjointed mess of great individual scenes.

I think much of the problems with this season can be traced back to the removal of Riverrun and Storm's End. I don't object to these things being changed just because they are changed, but look at the ripple effect caused by it.

Storm's End: Renly gets his entire force moved from Bitterbridge to an ambiguous location in the Stormlands. Renly doesn't cut off the food supply coming from the Reach to KL, until magically in the riot episode the people are starving even though they weren't. This also causes Renly to never divide his forces, which then makes it really confusing just how the Tyrells ended up with an army to help the Lannisters. The scenes involving the shadow baby get juggled out of order which ruins Renly's death scene. After Renly dies, Stannis has nothing to do without Storm's End to take, and thus drops off the screen for a couple of episodes. One side of your epic battle shouldn't be off screen for multiple episodes.

Riverrun: The show has to be incredibly vague about what Robb is doing in the early part of the season. Cat has to be able to get back to Robb since she has no where else to go. Consequently we get no sense of wtf Robb is actually doing. He's just off somewhere fighting random Lannisters that have no bearing on the story, so he just becomes irrelevant. Robb has to cart Jaime around with him, and without Cat's home castle to escape from his escape becomes somewhat of a mess. Without Riverrun to stop him, Tywin just has to sit at Harrenhal the whole time. This causes all kinds of problems. Tywin/Arya, which was one of the strong points of the season, has to drag on for too long and then end without any satisfaction. Tywin has to leave for KL at the last minute for no other reason than to fake out the audience.

I can understand why they had to cut Riverrun from this season. If you have Riverrun you have to cast the Tullys, and there's already too many new characters this season. I get why they had to do it, and I think they compensated for it as best they could. Storm's End on the other hand... the story never goes inside the castle. It's just a damn matte painting. It's one of those things that superficially sounds smart to cut. If we get rid of it then we only have one shadow baby, it'll save us lots of time and exposition. But it didn't save any time, it just caused scenes to be shuffled around for less effect and then Stannis to have nothing to do.

Then we have the lack of build up to the KL riot and Blackwater. I think often in adaptations TPTB identify the most difficult parts of the story and put a huge amount of energy into making those things work (in this case Dany's arc), and then they somewhat take for granted the best parts of the story. I think these guys were so amped up for Blackwater that they forgot to amp the audience up for it. They just took for granted that the audience would be amped up too and totally dropped the ball working towards it in the early part of the season. A lot of this again has to do with both Robb and Renly just fucking around in tents all season without acting like any threat to KL. But they never have the Lannisters in KL actually worried about being attacked in the first half of the season. I am totally okay with the chain not being in the battle, but if you take the preparations of the chain out then you have to replace that with something that shows Tyrion getting the city ready over the course of the season. You can't have him suddenly realize the city might be attacked halfway through. If the characters aren't worried about an attack then the audience won't be either. The choice of having Joffrey threatening the whores in private with the crossbow rather than showing him actually shooting peasants who are at his gates demanding food just highlights the messed up priorities of TPTB this season.

With all of that said, I think the show juggled Dany and Jon's story arcs pretty well. I know that not everyone is happy with them, but consider Dany's story in the book, which goes something like this: Sit on ass in Red Waste. Sit on ass in Vaes Tolorro. Sit on ass in Qarth being a tourist attraction. OMG HOTU! HOLY SHIT! Selmy. I was pleasantly surprised they made it work as well as they did, after stumbling at the gates of Qarth pretty badly. It gives me hope they can make her story work going forward. I was upset they killed Irri, but if you can surprise and upset a bookreader with a death I call that a win.

The ending.. well in a perfect world I would have preferred to see it just end with the 3 horn blasts. However I don't think we're going to actually see the battle in s3 ep1. I think Sam will probably just come in after it is over. They aren't going to blow the budget in the first episode. So doing it this way gives us some real picture of the scope of what happens, since it's a lot cheaper to have a couple WW's just basically sitting on a horse and some extras walking than a big fight sequence. Also it's kind of a nice parallel to the end of last season, which ended with the NW riding out in force beyond the Wall. This season ends with the WW's riding out in force to meet them.

[The Halfhand]

In my opinion, there were 2 things the writers of the show did wrong this season. I don't want to go in depth, though.

1) House of the Undying. It seems obvious that the prophecies in the books are crucial to the plot of the story...why would D&D scrap these? And is it just me, or did the "Dracarys" part seem kind of cheesy? In the books it seemed way more badass and incinerating.

2) Arya's storyline. The Tywin-Arya dynamic was really good, but when I realized they weren't going to show her loss of innocence, I kind of got really upset. Arya's third name trick and her kills while escaping were huge to her story in the arc. Again...why would D&D just gut this out??

EDIT: ...forgot to grade it.... I'd give it a solid B.

[House Balstroko]

I'd give it a B+, with the first season being an A.

My biggest complaint was with the Whole Daenerys story line. Her arc was an utter mess.

Arya's scenes were well acted and enjoyable, but her character didn't undergo any kind of evolution like in the book. I wanted to see Arya at least kill the guard at the end, so as to setup her path for the future.

Jon Snow's change is strange but it works in the end.

[AeonFrog]

C-, way too many unnecessary deviations from the source material. Everything about this season seemed thrown together at the last minute.

[Papa Manderly's Meat Pie]

I would give this season a solid B. I would give season 1 an A+. (and that is not revisionist history for me, I always thought season 1 was awesome, but I do agree the tone for season 1 on these forums would not lead you to believe that so many would grade it an A)

Why a B? Because it was above average, but not great. Here is what led me to that conclusion:

Great, and I do mean great, storytelling at times. Great acting at ALL times.

However, that was undercut significantly by some bad storytelling.

Jon's story was significantly mishandled. I don't have a problem with giving Jon more time with Ygritte. I actually liked those scenes and was fine with them. However, I feel like Jon's fight with Qhorin came out of the blue, and it seems less believable that the Wildlings would accept Jon snow as a turncloak. I'm not saying it has to be just like the books, but I do think they needed to give him some more cover and they needed to establish the fight with the Halfhand a tad more. Furthermore, I found Jon to be significantly stunted in his character growth compared to season 1 and to the books. He seemed to regress back into emo-Jon, which I thought had been pretty much slain at the end of Season 1. Character regression is a negative in my eyes if it has no cause to happen within the story. Also, the stay at Craster's Keep took way to0 much time. The story stalled at that point. Overall, I give this story arc a C+. The plus is because Ygritte is awesome (even if she is too pretty by book standards, I would definitely not want to change the actress for the world).

Dany's story was fumbled at points, but overall I felt it was actually an improvement over the books. Actually, I should say that I feel like there is not enough of her in Clash to warrant her own storyline on a TV show, so all the machinations in Qarth were interesting and ultimately necessary. However, there were some plot-holes. When she arrives outside Qarth, she has maybe 20 Dothraki left in her "horde". After Xaxos/Pyat/Dorreah steal the dragons she appears to be left with only 1 Dothraki (and I'm not even sure who it is). Then, after freeing her dragons and locking Xaxos in the vault, she suddenly has at least 15 dothraki again, running around stealing things. I know that is minor, but that is a plothole that detracts from the "willing suspension of disbelief" that could easily been avoided. I also feel like Dorreah/Xaxos came out of left field and was not organic from the story as told to that point. It made no sense. I don't have a problem with the HOTU at all, though. Those scenes were beautiful, and if they didn't think they could show those prophecies without giving too much away then I will have to defer to them on that. However, you still needed the House of the Undying because you still needed something interesting for Dany to do. Also, I like how Dany is presented with a temptation (Drogo) to just stay at the HOTU and let them use her as Pyat wanted to. In the end, her storyline showed substantial and organic character growth, with very minor plotholes, so I would give it an A-/B+ grade.

Winterfell was a perfect adaptation. It managed to help the TV show by cutting characters (that, in retrospect, did not need to be in this season) while maintaining integrity with the original story. Luwin's advice to Theon and Theon's speech to Luwin and then speech to his men were brilliant. Theon and Yara (the name change from Asha was unnecesssary and I am using that to downgrade it a bit) had a great dynamic. All in all this is what you want from an adaptation. A+.

Robb/Cat/Talisa. Mixed feelings. I do not feel that it is somehow vital to Robb's character that he only sleeps with Jeyne/Talisa after hearing about Bran and Rickon's death. That makes little to no sense to me, especially since we really have no idea what motivated Robb because the entire relationship occurred off-page. However, this could have long term implications if Jeyne's mom really was betraying Robb by forcing Jeyne to consume anti-fertility drugs (whatever it was). However, this could be a tacit admission that the Jeyne Westerling that Jaimie meets is a plant as some have theorized. I thought the love-story worked at times but at other times it was very cliche. That's probably because they were making it up insted of adapting, and it shows. The exclusion of Riverun, while apparantly a necessity for budget reasons, really screwed up this arc and while it wasn't a trainwreck, it was far from perfect. I'll give it a C.

Brienns/Jaimie. This was handled well and was a good decision to add in some of their journey to keep Jaimie relevant to the viewers. Jaimie killing his cousin was a bit much, but I don't think it was some basic betrayal of his character from the books. However, it really would have made more sense for him to have Alton fake it so they could escape together. Otherwise, both Brienne and Jaimie were developed perfectly. Solid A.

Renly. I think in retrospect it was a mistake to merge the shadow-babies, but I can't fault them for making that decision to begin with. They tried it one way and whether it worked or not is a matter of opinion, but I don't think it means they made an obviously wrong decision. Furthermore, they played up the love between Renly and Loras, so that any fears that Loras would just be seen as manipulative like he was in season 1 were laid to rest. Would have been nice to see him in his armor at one point though to make Renly's Ghost more poignant. B+.

Stannis/Davos/Malisandre. This storyline wobbled quite a bit early on, and the shadowbaby scene just felt ridiculous. However, it built on itself all season long and by the end of the season it was very compelling (although I still don't like the Meilisadre actress). If not for the early stumbles and th silly birthing scene, this would be an A+, but I'm giving it an A-.

King's Landing. A lot to digest here, so I will skim over it quite a bit. Most everything was handled excellently. I don't think the riot was that confusing as everyone I talked to said they had been wondering how long the people would stand for Joffrey as king. Plus they set up the popular discontent with the preacher who called Tyrion a demon monkey and all the talk amongst the small council about how they didn't have enough food and they were having trouble keeping order with the influx of refuges. I have always thought that Cersei is a much more multi-dimensional character in the show than in the books and therefore I don't have any problem with her changes. I thought Joffrey's whore abusing scene was important in his character development, because it establsihed that Joffrey was not just mindlessly cruel but he is actually maliciously and calculatingly cruel. The only glimpse of this we get in the books is when we find out it was him that ordered the assassination on Bran. So, I like it because it clarifies his character. The Tyrion-Shae dynamic for me was pretty much non-existent through the first half of the season, so I was glad they laid the emotion on thick at the end there. That needs to be emphasized for the end of Storm to have the impact that it does in the books. The only thing I would have added to this more Cersei complaing that Tywin is marching back at her request to defend the city. Overall, an A-.

Littlefinger. Almost nonexistent this season, and when around he was a whirlwind of plotholes. So, he brought Cat Ned's bones and... she just left them there when they fled Renly's camp? It was a poignant scene, but ultimately didn't make any sense. And then he somehow manages to teleport to Harranhal from one Episode to the next? And then it takes him the rest of the season to show up again and arrive at King's Landing? And did he notice Arya or not? However, his interaction with Sansas was a saving grace, and his scene with arya was also great if nonsensical. So, it only gets a C-. It's hard to grade something when there isn't a lot there to grade.

Arya/Harrenhal/Jaqen. I feel this suffered from too much of a good thing. Arya and Tywin are so awesome together, that it feels like they changed a lot just to get more of these scenes. All of these scenes were fantastic, by the way. Dance IS Tywin Lannister, and Maise IS Arya. However, Arya's character arc has been completely altered. Or, if it isn't, then her character will just suddenly change for no reason. So, I give it an A+ for the actual scenes in this arc, but an F for the impact on the storyline. I guess if I had to merge them I would give it an overall D grade.

The White Walkers. I loved the White Walkers. Very realistic looking and they had an ephemeral, other-world look to them. Those blue eyes were haunting. However, I really hate Sam just sitting there as a zombie army amasses around him and the White Walkers just not caring about him. Doesn't make any sense. Also, although realistic, I didn't like how the three horn blasts were so close together. I imagined them being deeper and mor edrawn out. That isn't really important though. Also, the attack should ahve been at night. That is kind of important for White Walkers. Great looks with fundamental flaws gets you a C.

In the end, I agree with the posters that are saying this season suffers from compression problems. They really did need to stretch many of these chapters into next season. However, despite the handicaps they were facing trying to fit Clash into 10 episodes, they did a solid job and deserve the solid B grade I handed out at the beginning of this Magnum Opus of mine.

[StannisBarFTW]

I will grade from 2 different angles.

As an Adaption - D

Robb's Arc - We all know where thats gonna end and the reason non-readers will have for the downfall of the starks will be Robb wanted some piece hot piece of ass ( not to mention he got married by the new gods is this true i don't remember).

Jon's Arc- Only bother is the scene where he chases Ygritte and Qhorin deserved more screentime.

Davos - Very confusing thing with the shadows ( why the hell did he need to smuggle melissandre by sea into renly's camp that was wtf moment) they could ve given more depth to all chars involved in this arc.

Daenerys- I was really looking forward to see HoTU on screen and they made such a huge build up for it just too dissapoint big time, not to mention all the unnecessary deaths aswell as she ending the season as a thief and killing Xaro Ramsay style by locking him in a room a let him starve to death ( i cant believe this only shocked me).

KL- Joffrey cruelty and incompetence could ve been shown in other ways aside S&M, the non-readers should ve got more sense that the victory in the blackwater was due to Tyrion efforts, but varys kind of made up for this one in ep10.

Arya- Arya got a freebie this season instaed of getting her assed kicked all time, she gets to be cupbearer and have sassy dialogues with a big lord ( im not complaing with the acting that will be next section), she didnt get to kill no one and Jaqen says she has names she could offer to the RED GOD!!!! wth FM are not about vengence nor do they revere R'hllor.

NW/Sam- Good to see that Edd made it to the show, but one thing really annoys me: Why is Sam always so happy??? The dude its actually happy that he is on the Fist, they made him a merry fat boy, whose in love instaed of the craven he is.

As a TV-Show - B

Not the best thing around but very watchable and enjouyable.

Some dialogues are lame, poorly written sometimes I feel like I´m watching a soap opera and not a drama.

The way they edit the scenes and how everything is rushed, chars sit, talk, leave, go do what they talked about. its not very well narrated.

Acting good but you cant compare it to MadMen, Boardwalk, Breaking Bad or other big TV drama, although some actors ( cercei, petyr, tyrion, arya, tywin etc) are worthy of any shows I meantion the all cast is not the same.

Some continuity mistakes I'll point the one from ep10, Pycelle says he talked with the high septon about the king breaking his vows to sansa. how could that be possible if they killed the High septon 3/4 eps ago in another walking dead style scene.

Ps: I'd rate season 1 as a solid B as an adaption and the same B for the Tv-show althought i think season 1 had better cinematography

[Caligula_K2]

B+ I'd say. First season was a high B+/low A-.

My biggest criticism is that there are too many characters per episode, making many episodes/plotlines feel disjointed. The best episodes of the season (besides the finale, which I thought did a pretty good job wrapping everything up) were 3, 6, and 9- 3 focused on Tyrion in King's Landing, 6 on Theon's capture of Winterfell, and 9 on the Blackwater. If you're going to show a character, make sure you show him or her for more than two minutes- make sure each episode advances a character's plot or character development. Don't show me Dany if she's just going to have a one minute scene in which she claims she's the mother of dragons for the seventeenth time. Episode 8, I remember, was the worst for this.

Other criticisms: Stannis could have been developed better, though I thought the actor did a fantastic job with the role. I really liked that they made more happen in Dany's storyline and added some tension, but there really were too many "I AM THE MOTHER OF DRAGONS!!!" scenes, often turning Dany into a one note character. I also like that they tried to expand the Jeyne Westerling character but she was just a little too bland and dragged down pacing. Robb could have benefited from some late season scenes that didn't involve her. Also not a fan of how they wrapped up the Winterfell plotline, with the castle randomly being burnt with no explanation. Oh well.

Still, season one wasn't perfect either as a television show, though probably slightly better. And there were a lot of positives in season 2, from the whole Blackwater episode to Theon's capture of Winterfell to some wonderful scenes with Tyrion, Varys and Bronn and Jon and Ygritte. I loved the pairing of Arya and Tywin and the interaction between her and Jaqen H'Gar. Davos was written and acted very well. Jaime and Brienne have excellent chemistry and I can't wait to see more of them in season 3. So many scenes, character moments and lines of dialogue that I was happy to see on screen. Overall they've done a very good job with this adaptation. Sure, it's not the best television show ever, but I'm not too sure you could make the best television show ever out of these books- especially ACoK, which is in many ways the most difficult to adapt of the first three books. And looking back on this season in a few months, I think I'm much more likely to remember Dinklage's awesome line readings ("those are some brave men at our gates... Let's go kill them!") and Theon's botched killing of Rodrik than I will "I AM THE MOTHER OF DRAGONS!!!" Which is to say that the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. Finally, from the perspective of an adaptation, they really nailed the themes/feel of the books while staying very close to the overall plot and true to who the characters are in the books, which is what matters to me. And for every change that didn't work there were three that did; more importantly, I nearly always understood why the changes had to be made to adapt the show to TV, even when they didn't work, which is important to me.

[Howdyphillip]

The difference is that most of those changes didn't dramatically impact the fifty or so minutes they were contained within. As each episoded progressed this season, we saw the writing become worse and worse, the acting more droll, and truly interesting and fascinating moral issues dropped at the slight of a prostitute's skant chance of nudity. It was hard to watch, whereas most of season one felt like they had made -- at the very least -- an effort to faithfully adapt the series.

This was NOT the story last year. The story was that the show had been ruined because of the changes...That story was led by the loud minority, just as this years reactions of disgust is held by the minority. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the people who watched the show absolutely loved it.

This is not to take away what anyone feels about the show. There are people here that have been fans of these books for over 10 years that have been coming to this sight or it's predecessor to talk about them. We have all earned the right to have an opinion.

[Roose Seal]

They ruined the characters of Renly and Loras by making them gay

Just because you have apparently a problem with gay people doesn't mean everyone is as much of a bigot as you are.

Not to mention the characters are actually gay in the books as well, but nevermind that.

[Dannyisnow]

Season 1 A* . Season 2 B+ for me, I loved it but i spent far to much time considering why certain changes had been made to the plot and trying to justify them , than actually just watching and enjoying the show! I really hope D&B can learn from this season in respect to the reaction from Book readers and stick a bit closer to the books in Season 3 which will should be a far easier task if they are spreading it over 2 seasons ( fingers well and truly crossed ! ).

[Frost_Nocturne]

Oh, I don't know exactly where I would put it as a grade, B I suppose. As someone else said, the acting gets an A and the story get a D. The first 8 episodes are a disjointed mess of great individual scenes.

I think much of the problems with this season can be traced back to the removal of Riverrun and Storm's End. I don't object to these things being changed just because they are changed, but look at the ripple effect caused by it.

Storm's End: Renly gets his entire force moved from Bitterbridge to an ambiguous location in the Stormlands. Renly doesn't cut off the food supply coming from the Reach to KL, until magically in the riot episode the people are starving even though they weren't. This also causes Renly to never divide his forces, which then makes it really confusing just how the Tyrells ended up with an army to help the Lannisters. The scenes involving the shadow baby get juggled out of order which ruins Renly's death scene. After Renly dies, Stannis has nothing to do without Storm's End to take, and thus drops off the screen for a couple of episodes. One side of your epic battle shouldn't be off screen for multiple episodes.

Riverrun: The show has to be incredibly vague about what Robb is doing in the early part of the season. Cat has to be able to get back to Robb since she has no where else to go. Consequently we get no sense of wtf Robb is actually doing. He's just off somewhere fighting random Lannisters that have no bearing on the story, so he just becomes irrelevant. Robb has to cart Jaime around with him, and without Cat's home castle to escape from his escape becomes somewhat of a mess. Without Riverrun to stop him, Tywin just has to sit at Harrenhal the whole time. This causes all kinds of problems. Tywin/Arya, which was one of the strong points of the season, has to drag on for too long and then end without any satisfaction. Tywin has to leave for KL at the last minute for no other reason than to fake out the audience.

I can understand why they had to cut Riverrun from this season. If you have Riverrun you have to cast the Tullys, and there's already too many new characters this season. I get why they had to do it, and I think they compensated for it as best they could. Storm's End on the other hand... the story never goes inside the castle. It's just a damn matte painting. It's one of those things that superficially sounds smart to cut. If we get rid of it then we only have one shadow baby, it'll save us lots of time and exposition. But it didn't save any time, it just caused scenes to be shuffled around for less effect and then Stannis to have nothing to do.

Then we have the lack of build up to the KL riot and Blackwater. I think often in adaptations TPTB identify the most difficult parts of the story and put a huge amount of energy into making those things work (in this case Dany's arc), and then they somewhat take for granted the best parts of the story. I think these guys were so amped up for Blackwater that they forgot to amp the audience up for it. They just took for granted that the audience would be amped up too and totally dropped the ball working towards it in the early part of the season. A lot of this again has to do with both Robb and Renly just fucking around in tents all season without acting like any threat to KL. But they never have the Lannisters in KL actually worried about being attacked in the first half of the season. I am totally okay with the chain not being in the battle, but if you take the preparations of the chain out then you have to replace that with something that shows Tyrion getting the city ready over the course of the season. You can't have him suddenly realize the city might be attacked halfway through. If the characters aren't worried about an attack then the audience won't be either. The choice of having Joffrey threatening the whores in private with the crossbow rather than showing him actually shooting peasants who are at his gates demanding food just highlights the messed up priorities of TPTB this season.

With all of that said, I think the show juggled Dany and Jon's story arcs pretty well. I know that not everyone is happy with them, but consider Dany's story in the book, which goes something like this: Sit on ass in Red Waste. Sit on ass in Vaes Tolorro. Sit on ass in Qarth being a tourist attraction. OMG HOTU! HOLY SHIT! Selmy. I was pleasantly surprised they made it work as well as they did, after stumbling at the gates of Qarth pretty badly. It gives me hope they can make her story work going forward. I was upset they killed Irri, but if you can surprise and upset a bookreader with a death I call that a win.

The ending.. well in a perfect world I would have preferred to see it just end with the 3 horn blasts. However I don't think we're going to actually see the battle in s3 ep1. I think Sam will probably just come in after it is over. They aren't going to blow the budget in the first episode. So doing it this way gives us some real picture of the scope of what happens, since it's a lot cheaper to have a couple WW's just basically sitting on a horse and some extras walking than a big fight sequence. Also it's kind of a nice parallel to the end of last season, which ended with the NW riding out in force beyond the Wall. This season ends with the WW's riding out in force to meet them.

Completely agree with all of this. One of the major missteps of this season, imo, was the lack of specifics regarding the war. When your tagline is "War is coming" and then you don't even explain what the hell Robb is doing the entire season regarding the war he's fighting or where he even is, there is a problem. They promised to give us more Robb screentime this season unlike the book, and it was a waste. A scene that perfectly highlights this issue is the show's version of the Stannis/Renly parley, which comes out of nowhere and includes virtually none of the relevant military details from the book.

I do think they at least built up the riot a bit with LF's line in ep. 1 about the starving peasants and then Tyrion's encounter with the "Demon Monkey" preaching commoner in ep. 5, but mentioning that Renly's army was cutting off their food supply was such a simple thing that they still failed to do. And yes, Tyrion suddenly deciding to read up on siege warfare the episode before Blackwater was far too little, too late.

More battle planning scenes and less pointless nudity, please. They should be catering to the observant viewers who appreciate intelligent television, not the casuals who are in for Spartacus blood and sex.

[Frost_Nocturne]

I would give this season a B as a whole, with season 1 as a strong A. Without Blackwater saving it the season would drop to a C. There were only two other episodes all season that were on-par with the quality of S1, 3 and 5. Bryan Cogman knows what he's doing, unlike D&D who seem to have too little time to give proper focus to characters in their episodes, and like to push the unnecessary nudity.

Overall locations/Arcs ratings:

KL: Mostly faithful to the book, which helped given it was the big focus of the season. A-

Arya: Yoren, Gendry, and Jaqen were all perfect, along with Maisie herself. The battle in ep. 3 was a bit messy but Yoren's performance helped redeem it. The Arya/Tywin scenes were fun, but the problem is that they took away from the cruelty she experienced firsthand during her entire time at Harrenhal in the book, that hardens and embitters her going on. Still sad that Weasel Soup was cut, but a man was pleased with her scene in the finale with Jaqen. B+ needed more screentime.

Robb/Catelyn: D, they took away Cat's agency while making Robb even more of an idiot and a jerk than the book version, while subjecting us to terrible, forced "romantic" scenes without explaining his war campaign in even minor detail. Not to mention the plot hole of giving Catelyn a real reason to release Jaime (better than the book version IMO) and then seemingly hoping everyone would forget about it when Catelyn never explains her reasons to Robb when they're alone. So glad they added Roose Bolton this season though, it made every scene with him in it worth it.

Theon/Winterfell/Bran: B+, Alfie Allen was fantastic, and the scene of Theon taking WF in ep. 6 was one of the best moments of the entire show, but they really fucked up the conclusion to this arc. Otherwise this would be an easy A. Not only is Theon brought low by someone else's plan instead of his own foolishness as in the books (trusting Reek instead of his men betraying him after hearing Robb's offer), but we get no resolution on the Bastard of Bolton or who burned WF. Also, the burning of "Bran and Rickon" could have been handled better to make it more believable, for one by waiting until episode 10 to do the reveal, which gives Luwin's death more meaning as well.

Jon: D- The biggest letdown of the season. They completely butchered Jon's mentor/apt pupil relationship with Qhorin, as well as butchering Qhorin as a character entirely, in favor of pointless scenes of walking around with Ygritte talking about genitals. They made Jon go from naive but full of potential in S1 to a complete idiot in S2.

Dany: C- She really had only two good episodes this season, 5 and 10 (yes the HOTU could have been better, but it worked for a tv audience. The dragons burning Pyat Pree and her locking XXD and Doreah in the vault were a bit cheesy however. The final scene of raiding the palace was a decent finish though). Thankfully those were her major episodes, but the writing and Clarke's acting in almost every other scene was painful to watch. Particularly the gates of Qarth scene in ep. 4. God that was bad. Also, did they really have to kill off Rakharo *and* Irri, the latter not even getting a proper sendoff?

Stannis and co: B-, needed more screentime leading up to Blackwater. Storms end/Cortnay Penrose should not have been cut. Davos and Melisandre are portrayed fantastically, but they really screwed up Stannis' character in the finale with him choking Mel and admitting he knows he murdered his brother.

Jaime/Brienne: Not much to go off of, but what they've done with these characters this season has been reasonable. I will also say Jaime's scenes were the highlight of ep. 7 for me. Great interaction between the characters in the two scenes they've had together, which gives me confidence about next season. A-

Overall, some of this season was poor because they needed more time, other things due to lazy/bad writing (the acting is almost always excellent thankfully), and others due to poor allocation of screentime (please die Ros). It's still better than 95% of television, and was a very enjoyable ride, but overall a bit of a disappointment compared to season 1. Hopefully upon future viewings my opinion will improve as my inner book reader voice/critic cools off. I'm hopeful that splitting SoS into 2 seasons will be give us the focus we need on each character and storyline, and I'm predicting this will turn out to be a very good decision. Just hoping they end with the purple wedding.