I think this is by far Drogo's best episode. He may have come into his own last week, but that scene with Mogo had all the latent menace, iron warrior ethics and virile bloodletting I kind of associated with the character in the book.
Besides looking at him seated in glory hand resting on his arakh, I was immediately struck by the thought of what a good Conan the Barbarian he
could make.
Wanted to point that out because while this was a very strong episode for Drogo, it had a lot of great material for a ton of characters, from Barristan to Tyrion. Definitely one of the top tier episodes of this series, even if that's a very competitive arena.
-Yet again, the show surprised me. Wasn't expecting we'd see the scene where Grey Wind (NAME THE DAMN WOLF ALREADY!) bites off Greatjon Umber's fingers. Although not really how I pictured the Greatjon, certainly not with grey hair.
Really? I got the impression Greatjon was a little older than Ned, even, but that's probably just a hunch. I think the series got Greatjon pretty solidly.
Simply incredible. If only Martin had enough time to write all the episodes without slowing down on the books.
The episode certainly had his skill in juggling multiple characters and plot threads. The way he hit the note as to the unfolding news in multiple locations at once was a great start to the episode.
He was also pretty good at picking up details from the books that so far have been largely discarded from the series - like Rickon. I have to admit when he first appeared this episode my reaction was 'Wait, who is this kid?' It was nice for Rickon to get one of his rare moments of clarity from the books into the series, anyway.
And yes, the series hasn't been dealing with the direwolves much and I must admit to not caring a lot. I understand it's hard to shoot with animals and besides the occasional key material - like the death of Lady - the direwolves don't interest me a lot. Yes, they're symbolic of the house, but so was the stag Tywin was gutting last episode. We'll get our symbols, I'm sure.
As far as Bolton goes: We got
Kevan Lannister, for those who didn't notice. People unfamiliar with the books, he was Tywin's lackey in the scene where Tyrion shows up to camp, and also Tywin's brother. As of last week Kevan Lannister was my mental pick for 'character who is sort of relevant to the books but I don't know if the series will bother with him', so that's something.
We even had a brief appearance by Janos Slynt, the commander of the city guard. Throwing in Bolton would pretty much amount to randomly name-dropping somebody in an episode kind of jam-packed with stuff happening. We may as well rattle off the Karstarks and Hornwoods while we're at it.
Best episode yet.
