Off-Topic

The black knight with Arya is pretty badass until he dies.

totally agree about Craster and Melissandre, passable but just not the way I envisioned them.

This is a little far out but Arianne Martell better be a goddess.

I wish they had made Stannis bald.

I felt a few of Tyrion's lines in the small council fell flat...like they were added on a different day or something. The accent was just a bit off or something.

The direwolf scene was a little cheesy. I just hope they make Ghost a little better than that.

Other than that, a good foundation episode for the season. I really liked the hunting of the bastards.

Good call. Might be number one on that list actually.

Brienne has her moments too, especially in Books 3 and 4.

Don't forget HOF Thoros of Myr!

Melissandre wasn't what I was expecting at all. I had her pictured as beautiful in that dark, mysterious, almost scary and intimidating sort of way but she seems pretty plain.

the Brienne casting isn't beastly enough. I understand they didn't want to go to far on t.v. but Brienne really comes off as a beast in the books.

yeah, I agree that's probably the best they could do. I just pictured her as not only big and manly but very ugly.

Meera and Jojen Reed aren't in the story yet are they? I thought there was some feast at Winterfell and that's when they come in.

Until she reaches the temple I think Dany's story is pretty dull. They're going to have to come up with something if they want to keep her on screen all season.

Meera and Jojen will have to come in at some point this season if the show follows the same chronology of book two, don't they escape Winterfell in CoK?

people who reviewed the first four episodes said she is the big loser in terms of screen time. I'm sure it'll pick up some in the second half, but I don't expect to see her often the next few episodes.

I like that they're working in Robb and Jaime already. Hopefully both of them are afforded more screentime this season than they were in the second book.

I'm also hoping we get to see jaime's attempted escape. I thought they missed an opportunity season 1 to show the Jaime/Robb fight which I thought could have been done without much addition to the budget. This season Jaime kills oodles of people escaping before he's finally caught again, and I'd actually like to see him fight well on screen since it hasn't come across as well as it did in the books. IMO Ned would never had lasted 30 seconds versus Jaime if it stuck true to the novels, and they avoided showing the fact that Jaime would have killed Robb after massacring his entire bodyguard were it not for his sword getting stuck, so I'm hoping to see him in that vein this year. It should only add depth to his story after this season going forward. (he's one of my favorite literary characters of all-time if you can't tell)