Game of Thrones- The North Remembers

What Happened- The show opens with an attempt to recap everything that happened in 2.5 minutes. Yeah right, show. Like anyone who didn’t watch it last season can follow that. King Joffrey is still the worst. He is killing men for insulting him, talking smack to his mom, doing no actual ruling, and keeping Sansa around as arm candy. Everyone in the kingdom knows that Joffrey is really Jaime’s son, but since he has all the power and actually sits on the throne, everyone still accepts that he’s the king. Which is totally ridiculous, since he is the worst. His people should rise up against this twat, stat. They don’t. Instead, the troops go out, on orders, and kill all of King Robert’s bastard children.

Once gets away though. The one with the bull helmet. He is travelling north with Arya, who is still dressed like a boy, hiding from Cersei. Joffrey confronts his mother about his parentage and she smacks him. He threatens to kill her, but gives her another chance to never smack him again, or whatever. Meanwhile, Tyrion shows up on Joffrey’s doorstep to run the kingdom. Tyrion is the new Hand of the King and needs to bring this brat to heel.

Robb Stark is in the North, fighting. He wants the North to be its own kingdom, independent from Lannister control, and Robb has won several battles. Robb wants to trade Jaime for his sisters, but Cersei doesn’t have Arya, and Joffrey would rather have war than his uncle/dad. Robb drags Jaime along with him on his campaign, as a prisoner.  Occasionally, Robb stops by to taunt Jaime and threaten the Kingslayer with his direwolf.

Joffrey and Robb aren’t the only potential kings. Oh no. The second book is called A Clash of Kings because everyone on this show wants to be king. The whole show is called A Game of Thrones for heaven’s sake. So you have a few more to keep track of. Stannis Baratheon is the guy married to the creepy redheaded lady, Melisandre. He is dead King Robert’s brother, and one of his men thought it was folly for him to seek the throne. This guy ends up dead after trying to poison Melisandre. She is clearly a force to be reckoned with.

We hear that Stannis has a brother, Renly, who also wants the throne. The two are on the outs, obviously. Jon Snow is taken by his leader beyond the wall, even more northern than north. There, he meets an old, powerful guy who has as many daughter as he can and then marries them. Then he has more daughters with those daughters, and so on. Yuck. Jon and his boss hear about Mance Rayder, a man who wants to be king of the north. Mance used to guard the wall/do what Jon does, but he defected and got his own army.

We have one more potential ruler, and that is, of course, Daenerys. Her dragons are still small, and she is still walking around with her savage-looking people, looking strong and morose. Back in Winterfell, Bran is ruling in the absence of his brother. We also think that we should mention that there is a red comet in the sky which serves as some sort of omen. The trouble is, no one agrees about what it signifies. We agree with Nymphadora Tonks, who says it means dragons.

Comments- We missed this show a lot more than we thought we would. One of us has read enough of the series to know that this season is going to be better and more eventful than last season. If you loved season one, you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you haven’t gotten into this show, go ahead and pick up the first season or book, then catch up. Don’t start in this season.

We were glad the premiere started with characters we know. If we remember right, the second book started with Stannis Baratheon. Season two kicked things off with Joffrey being a brat, which is probably to lure us in so that we are sure to see him get killed (which he must, for he is Joffrey). This actor is the kid who should have played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, but he was too young.

About 12 minutes into the premiere, we realized that this season is a heck of a lot more fun than last year. It doesn’t drag as much, the quips are funnier, and there is a war going on. This should mean that the action is going to get amped up too. Sansa is already cooler (as is her brother, Robb). Tyrion is still a freaking bad ass and also continues to get laid more than anyone else on this show, weirdly awesomely. We then saw the Starks and Dany.

Dany sends her men out riding in search of nearby towns, since her people and horses are starving. This was a great idea that Dany should have thought of weeks ago. Finally, we are shown the new character, Stannis. From the first lines he speaks, Stannis shows that he doesn’t have the charisma to lead. In this episode, he also shows that he has some honor and smarts. He insisted on keeping Jaime Lannister’s title in his name, because even though Jaime is kind of a dick, he’s still a knight. The smart thing Stannis does is sending the news of Joffrey’s parentage everywhere.

We are seeing more of Jaime than readers of the books would think. That’s a good thing, since he’s one of the best characters in the series. In the second book, he’s pretty sidelined, but the show is careful to keep him around the action. That way, we won’t forget about him. Now, Jaime pushed a child out a window and boned his twin sister. He boned her more than once too. We know viewers of only the show hate him. But we are going to go ahead and spoil this fact (don’t worry, we won’t ever spoil anything shocking or important): He gets better.

Sometimes people realize they suck and try to change. The thing about Jaime is that he’s not a straight bad guy, through and through. He’s complicated, and we think people will end up liking him a little more. This episode should get an A just for letting us watch Joffrey get smacked again. He must be sick of getting slapped, but no one is sick of seeing it. The show ended in an un-fun, morbid way with all the baby killing. Still, it shows that this series is still unafraid to pull punches and show us the story as it is written.

Question: Does anyone need us to do a list with a rundown of all the characters, along with pictures? There are lots of people on this show, and it’s easy to get confused. Also, if anyone requires a recap of season one, let us know and we will do one. 

Episode grade: A-