What Do We Say to the God of Death?
I have come to find recently that the quality of a show can be judged based on whether or not I have ever seen it. Some of the shows I hear the most about the quality of – your Walking Dead, your Breaking Bad, your Mad Mens – I have either never seen an episode or maybe only one or two. But if I had never seen these TV shows how could I review them? And if I hadn’t reviewed them, how would you all know if you like it or not?! I have an obligation here. I need to either let you people know if you can continue to love a show or if you need to burn your BluRays. The first TV show I decided to take on was a show called Game of Thrones: Season 1, based on a series of novels by George R. R. Martin, and starring Sean Bean, Michelle Fairley, Richard Madden, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Art Parkinson, Kit Harington, Alfie Allen, Mark Addy, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage, Jack Gleeson, Rory McCann, Aiden Gillen, Conleth Hill, Harry Lloyd, Emilia Clarke, Jason Momoa, and Iain Glen.
The Lord of Winterfell, Eddard “Ned” Stark (Sean Bean), is asked by his friend and king, Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy), to become his chief advisor. Ned takes his daughters Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Arya (Maisie Williams), where Sansa is to marry the prince Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson), son of the Queen Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey). Ned’s wife, Catelyn (Michelle Fairley), stays home with Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), who is in a coma after he was pushed from a window by Cersei’s brother, Ser Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), after he saw Cersei and Jaime having sex. Incest-style! Icky… Across the Narrow Sea, Viserys Targaryen (Harry Lloyd) sells his sister, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) to the leader of the Dothraki warrior tribe, Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), in hopes that the Dothraki will deliver him back to the throne he believes is his by right. It may actually be his by right for all I know, because lots of people claim the throne belongs to them and it’s hard to keep up.
As it turns out, I was indeed and inexplicably avoiding the best shows on television. This is a great show, and one that’s right up my alley. I love the swords and sorcery, dungeon and dragons stuff. That shit makes me wet. You know what else does it for me? Naked ladies. This show’s got it all! I liked this show so much that I bombed through the first two seasons as quickly as I could, watching during all of my free time. Of course there was stuff that bugged me, but it seemed all intentional. For instance, I don’t like when shows don’t work out exactly as I’d like them to for the people I like. Of course, the show would be over pretty quickly if Ned and the Daenerys got married and lived happily ever after as king and queen in the first season. The same goes for my strong desire to see Joffrey get what’s coming to him shortly after I first saw him. He’s a driving force in the second season as well, but I still don’t think I’ve seen him get the comeuppance that he needs. I also thought I was going to call some bullshit on the show when they suggested that Tyrion Lannister was the one that put the hit on Bran and sent the assassin using a knife that could so easily be tracked back to him, but the show was aware of that and Tyrion had been set up. You win this round, Game of Thrones. I still feel safe calling bullshit on the guy in the Night’s Watch for saying that Jon Snow was only fit to clean the armory because he was also pretty good at beating the shit out of all of his other trainees single handedly. The only real problem I’ve had with the story is that I got attached to Syrio Forel, the sword instructor for Arya, because we don’t know what happened to him. Of course, with how well this story’s been written so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was intentional too.
There’s not a whole lot to say about the production value of this show. It’s fantastic. Quite frankly, I’d call it impressive. This is movie quality work going on in this TV show. I remember a time when you could clearly tell the difference between TV and movies, but now it’s really blurred, especially when it comes to TV on HBO and channels of the like. You get fantastic blood and guts in equal measure to some nice titties. I cannot complain.
All of the performances are excellent in this show. Sean Bean tears it up, even though his character’s name doesn’t seem to fit in the medieval setting. Granted, his name is actually Eddard, but everyone calls him Ned. Ned Stark seems like the first pass at naming Iron Man. I was also a big fan of his daughters. Sansa because she’s hot and Arya because of potential for future hotness. Maisie Williams is far too young for hotness now, but she supplants it with tons of Moxie and I love her for it. And Sophie Turner does a great job as Sansa, but I kept hating her for her behavior. Even though I love animals, she deserved to get her dog killed for lying to the king and letting her sister get in trouble. I just don’t understand her motivations. That little shit Joffrey doesn’t deserve any kind of affection, even if you’re betrothed to him. Is it just because he was in some of the Nolan Batman movies? Look, I love him for that too, but the amount of asshole he is in this show overrides that. I found myself having trouble for the first part of this season understanding why people liked Daenerys Targaryen. Emilia Clarke does a great job at it, and is hotter than all get out, but I didn’t see anything special about her character at first. It wasn’t until about halfway through the season that I started seeing what everyone was going on about. That’s when she started getting badass. When she gets her three new pets, I was cemented in a little more. I also really dug Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo. He was badass. But, again, nothing good ever happens to the people I like. I also understood pretty quickly why people talked up Peter Dinklage. He was really the only likeable Lannister.
Definitely happy I started getting into Game of Thrones, and happy that I work with someone nice enough to be able to supply me with the first season like my friend Ashley. And I’m also resentful for that douchebag roommate that forgot to bring his copy home with him so I could’ve gotten started early. But I’ll probably have to resend that statement because he has season two. Ah, I’m just kidding. I already watched it all. This show has a great, intricate story with lots of badasslery and intrigue, and enough tits and blood to go around, and an all-around great cast to realize it all with. Season one is a must watch, and season two is even better, and you can check that review out whenever I get around to writing it. Game of Thrones Season One gets “I’m good at killing fat boys. I like killing fat boys” out of “Winter is coming.”
WATCH REVIEWS HERE! YouTube OTHER JOKES HERE! Twitter BE A FAN HERE! Facebook If you like these reviews so much, spread the word. Keep me motivated! Also, if you like them so much, why don’t you marry them?!
Robert Reviews Stuff 