Game of Thrones 2x09

On the whole I thought it was a good episode. A bit dark but that's not unusual with battles. I did have trouble making out who was who at times, not sure who attacked Tyrion.

I like to kid myself I know a bit about tactics, so I watch battle scenes analysing who's doing what. And I know he was always gonna lose but as an experienced commander I would have thought that Stannis would have come up with something better than storming a fortress that had never fallen with a ram and some ladders. Where were his catapults? And where was the priestess?

Also not sure what happened to him at the end, was he captured or pulled away by his own men?

Liked the Hound succumbing to his fear and the face off between him and Bronn.

That was one of Cersei's lackeys, can't remember his name at the moment. The same one who was sent to deal with Syrio last year, I think.

I wondered that myself. I don't even remember Stannis going ashore in the books. I guess they felt the need to have a recognisable face in the battle, and have a counterpoint to Joffrey's predictable cowardice, but it didn't really make a lot of sense. The whole river battle was far more involved in the book, too, lots of boats ramming each other etc. Lots more of Davos in the book, which I wanted in the episode, but they took a quicker route out with the wildfire explosion.

A very good question!

It must have been his own men. If it wasn't then they've just totally scuppered a storyline from the later books.

Yeah, they did that well.

I hated that scene. There was no 'previous' between them to account for it. Just didn't work for me.

In general, I liked the episode, but I think what it proved most to me is that when Benioff and Weiss stop doing the writing this show ratchets up several levels. Okay, so that was always going to be the case with this one with GRRM on duty, but I also thought earlier in the season that episodes written by others were noticeably better. The B&W episodes jump around far too much, and theirs have usually been the eps that include the most gratuitous stuff, like last week's sudden discovery of the 'c' word. They're like a couple of adolescents who think these things are grown up, when really it's just them being adolescents. The books are not to blame for this. Someone needs to tell them to stick to producing and leave the writing to others, IMO.

I don't remember any land based battle in the book, but then that's probably cos its easier to film than naval warfare. I thought it was a really good episode on the whole, even though I can't actually figure out what there is left to happen in the final episode.

Yeah, there is a land based battle in the book The Tyrion/Joffrey stuff went as per the episode, and then Tyrion led the charge, and ended up on the river on a sinking boat, where he got half his face chopped off (would've been pretty impressive if they'd done that with make-up!). Then Loras arrived wearing Renly's armour etc.

Next week I expect will be ...

>>> Dany and the House of the Undying and Jon Snow joining the Wildlings <<<

Ah yes.

Tempted to look at what you expect next week but I'll wait.

I think not reading the book recntly has contributed to my enjoyment, otherwise I'd probably complaining a bit more. I've got the next book but haven't read it and I'm torn. Watching the series has definitely stirred my interest again but I don't really want to give myself a reason to moan. And as I'm a moaner I know I would.

And tbh I never even look to see who the writers are, I can't really say there were eps I didn't like, there were certainly bits in certain eps that I think could have been better though.

Well, if you see Benioff and Weiss's names down as writers you know it's going to be patchy

I'd say read the third book then forget the series (tv and books) altogether

I think my general apathy towards this season is because I didn't like the second book so much. The third's a stunner, though.