Friday, April 6, 2012

Game Of Thrones S2E1, S2E2, Mad Men S5E2

Lena Headey's good but Peter Dinklage steals the show as usual
It's been 12 years since I read A Clash of Kings which is the second book in George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire sequence. I have only vague memories of that novel but Game of Thrones S2E1 surprisingly brought a lot of those memories from the depths of goodness knows where. The episode begins in the aftermath of Eddard Stark's death as various houses jockey for power in Westeros. The episode nicely captured many of the diverse strands of the novel and brought us up to date with the characters from Game of Thrones. As usual Peter Dinklage stole every scene he was in and in fact, if you'll notice, he's been given top billing. From what I remember of Clash we get to know even more characters than were in GOT and the civil war on Westeros becomes even more complicated. I don't know how the TV series is going to cope with all this without shortchanging some of the actors or compressing some of action.  
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Anyway S2E1 was all about scene setting and recapitulation and it did it pretty well. We got some nice Northern Irish landscapes in S2E1: several different Ulster forests, a piece of beach that looked a bit like Whitepark Bay and snowy volcanic vistas that definitely were not Ireland and must have been Iceland. E2 established a few more characters and laid the seeds for a bit of a story that I do remember about Greyjoy. It was nice to see Richard O'Brien popping up as Greyjoy's dad. Plenty of T&A in episode 2 for the pervy TV reviewers complaining about the lack of it in E1. Good use of British regional accents too in these episodes: as well as Yorkshire we got Geordieland, Welsh, Scottish, mild Ulster and soft Irish, as well as Peter Dinklage's dodgy home counties voice.  
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Not much happened in the two episodes but the strands of future conflict were definitely laid. GOT S2E1 B+ S2E2 B
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Regarding Mad Men E2, like the blogger in the New York Times, I too was surprised to see them go the Frasier route with January Jones's pregnancy. We already had someone close to Don die of cancer so it would have been bathos to give Betty cancer too. There was therefore zero dramatic tension and the lameness of the storyline readily became apparent. I have a feeling that the writers on Mad Men dislike January Jones as a person so they've been thinking up ways to humiliate the character. Maybe. Mad Men S5 E2 C-

18 comments:

Frankie said...

I watched a couple of S1 episodes of Game of Thrones and I didn't like it. The little girl and the wolves were the only good characters. The women are all whores and the men are all grizzly and ugly (I guess that explains the whores) Anyway each to their own in light enertainment and all.

adrian mckinty said...

Frankie

Some people just dont like fantasy. I'm ok with that. GOT is probably about as good as fantasy can get and I do like it. So far anyway. My experience is of getting lost in the later books and eventually giving up the series so I'm curious as to how the TV will handle the increasingly complex storylines.

Frankie said...

I'm told the books are very good. If they just upped the male totty and less boobies I might like it.

John McFetridge said...

I'm glad that Mad Men is going to try and deal with the fact that Don and the rest of the advertising world is falling out of step with the rest of the world. Megan calling Don square was kind of funny.

So, I'm curious to see where they go from here, but yeah, the episode wasn't very good.

adrian mckinty said...

Frankie

I liked the first few books but then I grew weary of all the additional characters and the long drawn out nature of the beast. It would have been better as a quartet.

adrian mckinty said...

John

Even Peggy is kind of square and the new copywriter is more like a beatnik than a hippy.

Matt said...

It's funny how it works. Some folks were reluctant to try Game of Thrones, but I found far more people unwilling to try Friday Night Lights. High school football in Texas - a death sentence. I guess people thought every episode would be dedicated to Sarah Palin or something.

As for HBO, they're in my bad books for cancelling Luck, and will be for some time. The show was just becoming great...

John McFetridge said...

I liked Friday Night Lights for a few years but I couldn't stick with it till the end.

Unlike the Blue Jays today, hanging in there till the 16th inning and finally winning the longest opening day game ever

seana said...

EArlier in the show, one of my sisters would always get mad at the way Betty was made out to be such a villain. And I was sort of puzzled by the idea that Betty getting fat after three children in the suburbs was a fate worse than death. Literally, as it turned out. Her husband still loves her, even Don apparently still cares about her, so what is the big problem? She even got to eat two sundaes because her daughter wasn't hungry. My mom had three daughters but I bet that never happened to her even once.

seana said...

And speaking of The Cold, Cold Ground, a couple of my friends are doing a house exchange up in Fairbanks Alaska and guess who they just met up there?

adrian mckinty said...

Matt

If Ricky Gervais had been the star of Luck instead of Dustin Hoffman HBO would have run it for 100 years.

adrian mckinty said...

Seana

Thats too funny. Tom Waits does look like Tom Waits though, there's no denying it.

adrian mckinty said...

John

The pity about the Blue Jays is that they are maybe the sixth or seventh best team in all of baseball, but unfortunately the other five are all in the American League so they probably wont make the playoffs. I wouldnt mind seeing the AL East go Yankees, Blue Jays, Rays, Red Sox, Orioles.

seana said...

That's because Tom Waits IS Tom Waits.

My guess is that these are the kindest, most benign stalkers he'll ever have to contend with. Plus, they did teach him a trick or two about the Aurora Borealis.

Although it's clear that the favorite was the weather girl.

Sorry about that, Tom.

StevieD said...

I've gotta think that Blue Jays are closer than 6th or 7th best this year. They've got some swagger they haven't had since the world series years and seem to believe in themselves.

adrian mckinty said...

Seana

Although sometimes I get him confused with Ron Perlman.

adrian mckinty said...

Stevie

If Toronto were in the NL I think they could win the Pennant this year. I'm not that impressed with Philadelphia or Atlanta.

seana said...

I agree on the Ron Perlman similarities. Perlman actually has a great voice, though they are very different. So I suppose the voice would be the test.