After the vitriolic horror of the Red Wedding last week, Game of Thrones finished off its third season by reminding us that while some of its central heroes have been removed from play, the war of the kings is still in full effect, with old and new players alike positioning themselves for the next power play.
Showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss have gone on the record multiple times in the past saying that getting to the third season of Game of Thrones was their primary objective at the show’s outset. More specifically, they had set the singular objective of building towards a single scene in a single episode. That scene played itself out in shocking and gory fashion this week in episode nine, “The Rains of Castamere.”
It’s wedding season in the seven kingdoms as the first of four planned nuptials finally gets underway. Much of this week’s episode, “Second Sons," concerns the union of Sansa and Tyrion, which turns out to be exactly as sad and awkward as you would expect a forced wedding between a middle-aged dwarf and a 14-year-old girl to be.
In "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" it’s couples night in Westeros as we gear up for no less than three weddings. Sadly, it seems that the awards for happiest couple can go to several candidates other than the betrothed.
Last week’s episode ended on a high point for the series, as Daenerys acquired an army of Unsullied and burned Astapor from the inside out with the help of her dragons. This week's episode, appropriately titled "Kissed by Fire," begins with just as much energy and a healthy helping of fire to boot.
Titled “And Now His Watch Is Ended,” the fourth episode of Game of Thrones’ third season is by far the busiest and best episode we’ve seen yet. It could well represent a turning point for the season, which until this point has sort of oozed along in a relatively disjointed fashion.
Viewers attempting to detect any overarching themes or internal consistency in episode three of season three of Game of Thrones, entitled "Walk of Punishment," might be left stumped. Sort of like Jaime Lannister.
In “Dark Winds, Dark Words”, the action is mercifully contained in Westeros. I’ve been critical of the show so far this season for struggling to juggle the myriad plots, characters and locales, but this episode did a relatively strong job of weaving everything together.
In the premiere episode of the third season of Game of Thrones, titled “Valar Dohaeris” (a term that means “all men must serve” in High Valyrian) we’re quickly reminded of the stakes of the game. Reintroducing us to the world of Westeros and its inhabitants, the show continues to bring more to the table than it takes off. But will that leave some viewers confused?
The premiere episode of the third season of Game of Thrones opens way up North of the wall with Samwell Tarly running (not very quickly) away from a Wight attacker. The landscapes are breathtaking, the set pieces are exciting, the costuming is pitch perfect, and the plot lines are consuming. There’s also lots of gratuitous sex scenes and loads of gory, shocking bloodshed. In short, Game of Thrones still excels at what it does well.
Deceptively simple, but effective on the surface, Mama has a lot more depth than one would expect thanks to sharp writing and a great lead performance from Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain. It revives the "creepy child" horror movie from the jaws of tedium.
An almost old fashioned, slick, and sometimes icky thriller, the Norwegian import Headhunters doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's aimed squarely at an appreciative adult audience.
Dork Shelf recently had the chance to speak with Norwegian director Morten Tyldum about his new film Headhunters. He discussed the challenges of making the screen adaptation his own, the logistics of shooting in an outhouse, and his new American sci-fi thriller What Happened To Monday?
The second episode of the Clash of Kings season of Game of Thrones, entitled “The Night Lands,” is extremely well developed, but it’s also the most gratuitously smutty of the four episodes of season two that Dork Shelf has seen. We get lots of Tyrion, we get some fun original scenes, we’re introduced to a colorful pirate in Salladhor Saan and we finally get to glimpse of Pyke and the Iron Islands. With season two, the showrunners continue to demonstrate impressive juggling ability.
The much anticipated second season of HBO’s Game of Thrones debuts this weekend on HBO Canada. We’ve seen the first four episodes of the upcoming season, and there’s a lot that fans of the novels and the series will be happy about for this second go around.
