Valar Morghulis

This episodes is a mix of tying up loose ends and building up suspense for next season. By the way, look out for Daenery's vision, as this will be a scene to remember several seasons later.

I don't know what the disapproving reviewers were watching but it must not have been this, or they just wouldn't know good TV if it smacked them in the face... with a hammer...

This is another wonderful season ending, leaving me wanting for more, the graphics are spectacular, on par with any major Hollywood Blockbuster. The scrip is superb, after each sequence and scene change I wanted to go back and find out what happens next, but would as quickly become immersed in what was happening now. The acting is wonderful as ever, each character makes you hate them, love them, feel sympathy as the director chooses. The Mise-en-scene is also excellent, everything from the decor to the costumes, lighting and so on make you believe this world is there and these events are unfolding before your eyes. And the cliff-hanger I feel is more interesting than last seasons, we are getting closer to the really big events! I want the third season now! But I guess reading the books will have to do.

I was beginning to feel that somehow the Season 2 of Game of Thrones may not be able to live up to the expectations of the viewers, partly because of a couple of weak episodes in later half of the series and due to lack of the awe-factor which TV viewers had experienced during magnificent events of Season 1. But the Blackwater episode more than made-up for those inadequacies and Valar Morghulis brought about a thrilling conclusion to a very solid season.

This episode is specially remarkable given the fact that many plot arcs depicted here are distinctly different than the books and yet somehow, despite being a loyal book reader, I felt that those changes have made the story lines even more interesting. There are subtle hints which give a glimpse of what is about to come in this epic saga, which all culminate into a spectacular climax (that is all I can do not to give away any spoilers).

I really don't know how anyone can stop themselves from picking up the 3rd book of the series after watching this episode.

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.

This is Game of Thrones, always setting high standards..and after a jaw-breaking episode of last week, this week's episode provided enough spine chilling scenes to fill our appetite... Season Finale which actually gathered 4.2 Million Viewers on its initial airing broke another record as its now 2nd most watched TV show on HBO ever.. The only thing bad about GoT is, that it has 10 episodes a year, i would prefer a regular 13 episodes a year.. now we have to wait another 10 months probably, for Season 3...its a good idea to start reading the books in the hiatus... and one last thing " Winter is Coming ".. it may come earlier than anyone thinks as we saw a sign of it in the Finale