Valar Morghulis

This was a great finale, that demens your attention from beginning to end!

So many great moments in this episode, which manages to both conclude and set up the things to come in an amazing and stunning way!

What sticks with me in this episode. Is the stuff with Danerys! We both se what can be a potential future, as well as what could have been the future! At the same time it shows us things she desires, and she has to choose what matters the most.. the things she sees or her Dragons! She is forced to let it go, to keep what she loves and wants, the most!

The visuals and cinematogrophy is qlso absolutely breathtaking at some parts! It barely feels like a TV show, just like the phenomenal previous episode!

OH and the ladt scene.. damn! Perhaps one of the best finale scenes in a season, along with season 1 and 6.

There are quite a number of surprises and one cannot imagine a more ominous final scene than the one here.

As I have said before, I am not a particular fan of swords and sorcery style stories, full of long names and even longer genealogy charts to help you keep track of who is who; it isn't a genre that ever has me searching for more even if I have enjoyed it in some instances. That said, I am a fan of well told stories that engage me and surprise me in equal measure, and it is for this reason that I came to the second season of Game of Thrones and is also the reason why I will feel every month until I get to watch the third season and continue all these stories.

With the first season I felt it took me a minute or two to get into the tone of the show and also understand the basic characters enough to be able to get caught up in what was happening; with the second I had no such time and I was keen to get back into the battle as various armies marched across the land while small threats build overseas and political betrayal is embedded in every conversation of those seeking power for themselves. The war means that the second season has a much larger and perhaps simpler agenda but at the same time there are plenty of smaller moments and manoeuvring of characters that I continued to find as enjoyable as I did unpredictable. Not having read the book and being keen to avoid spoilers, all the various twists and turns of the plot was news to me, whether it be the turn of the war or the specifics of an individual character, and each story arch held me easily with no one thread being of more interest than another. The only obvious downside of having so much to squeeze in is that occasionally there are gaps in threads that are just left to save time – this is best seen in the final episode where several characters go from one situation to a different location without it really being clear how they did this. I imagine this "squeeze" effect is much harder for those coming from the books to the show.

That said, the season is impressive in how well it does this with relatively little time on each thread. Every second and every line of dialogue is important and are therefore mostly used very well to deliver character, motivation and also plot. The cast respond to this well and even the smaller characters are played in such a way that you are interested in them, which helps the nature of the telling where one cannot be sure who will live and who will die considering that characters who appear to be "main" can quickly be dispatched and forgotten within a few episodes if the plot turns in that direction. Generally I was impressed a lot more this season as characters grew and developed. Dinklage continues to give a great performance and is my favourite in terms of colour, although only marginally more than Gleeson, who delivers a monstrous c*** who is as arrogant as he is ill-suited for this role as King. Headey has grown on me more this season, as has Coleraine-girl Fairley. Likewise Allen, Harington, Gillen, Madden, Glen, Clarke and others all do strong work across their characters – too many to mention in fact, it is a real boon of the show that there are so many characters and yet I am interested in all of them and all of their threads.

The production looks great as well. I'm sure those who know the books inside out will complain about the presentation of some of the larger battles but for me nothing here felt limited by budget – it all felt like they did it that way because this was the way that worked best. Costumes, sets and locations all continue to be great and I got a nice kick out of this season being the first time I recognised somewhere they had used (Pyke being the nearby Ballintoy harbour in Northern Ireland). The gore and the nudity are excessive but they work because they fit with the excessive and colourful nature of the telling and the grand, gaudy sweep of the bloody tales.

Season 2 of this show doesn't disappoint. It delivers an engaging overall story with loads of threads and seeds for future threads and does it in a way that makes it all look easy. So much going on could easily have seen the show have weaker threads that annoy for taking up time but this doesn't happen and even though some characters and threads have lesser time, I was interested in all of them and in their threads. Not knowing the books really helps as well since no character are pushed to the fore or seem immune to the bloody and cruel twists of fate that are common here. Great show – a year will be a very long wait for the third season.

What a masterful bit of writing. I am in awe of writers who can keep such a ship afloat. What do they do? First, they develop fascinating, multi-dimensional characters. Next, with all the different kingdoms somehow engaged, they create a balancing act that is believable and carefully crafted within the world Martin gave to us. Thirdly, the dialogue is excellently crafted, with wit on the one hand and mayhem on the other. We have the beauty of a series where the bad guys often get away with things, where retribution doesn't always work. Where people die, even though they seem to be principles in the show. I cannot wait to see how things play out in Season 3.

I couldn't see anyway that Season 2 was going to live up to the 1st Season, for me, Season 1 was faultless. Game Of Thrones: Season 2 did a solid job in continuing the fantasy epic, it built on the characters very well, moved along at a pleasant pace and stayed true to its roots with its impeccable dialogue and story-telling.

As a whole, the season is quite slowly paced, dedicating much more time to character building. The introduction of new characters is always a tricky task, especially introducing several in a short space of time. Within the first 3 episodes we are shown 6 or 7 new characters, many of which go on to have very important roles in the up and coming seasons. Existing characters which got little screen time in season 1 are also given larger roles whilst also focusing heavily on the already established characters from the previous series. Tyrion is featured heavily in this season building on his likable reputation even more while other characters are given more screen time and you really start to despise them. John Snow, Arya, Theon and Joffrey all especially stand out for me with solid performances and important story lines. A TV show has never had the ability to make me dislike certain people as much as Game of Thrones and Season 2 goes a long way to making this happen. Even the small-time characters which have little screen time have a remarkable knack of being interesting and intriguing – nobody feels out of place or unnecessary.

The production from start to finish looks great, the sets, CGI, costumes and locations are all perfect again. Watching this show in HD with a decent surround sound system is quite the experience! Season 2 is gruesome and explicitly violent, contains strong nudity, strong language and delves deeper into the fantasy realms than its previous series. It isn't as strong as season 1 but it is a strong second season, offering everything that you would want. The story is told perfectly and the introduction of many more characters is implemented faultlessly.

The pacing is spot on and scenarios start to unravel very nicely, tension is built and many questions are left unanswered – making you want to keep on watching! Daenerys scenes can get a little tiring and repetitive but this part of the show is very important for future episodes and when looking back, the character development you see of her is very significant.Season 2 ends on a strong note, exploding in episode 9. Previous episodes build up to this perfectly and the climax doesn't disappoint. With an estimated budget of $8,000,000 for episode 9, it shows off its power with an incredible battle scene, you forget that you are watching a TV drama, with a budget like that, it's an easy mistake. Episode 10, gets back to normal and ends the season on a strong note, a real cliff-hanger, giving you a small taste of what is to come!

My only real negative from the whole season was the Daenerys storyline, I felt that it started to drag a little towards the end and the climax felt a little flat. However as I said before, looking back on this storyline, you really get to see significant progression in her character which is very important for future seasons.

Overall, Season 2 is weaker than Season 1 but that was hardly a surprise for me as the first Season is one of the strongest I have ever seen out of any TV show. Season 2 does however build characters very strongly with many characters stepping up with much more screen time and fascinating stories. It includes various, very strong plots and answers questions from the previous season, contains some very solid stories and leaves key questions unanswered for future episodes.

Season ratings so far: Season 1 – 10/10. Season 2 – 9/10.