‘Game of Thrones’ season 3, premiere review: Dany’s army; Stannis’ shame
Typically when a show enters its third season, this is right around the time it stops becoming “cool” to most of the hipster TV viewers out there. Therefore, you could say that “Game of Thrones” is in danger. However, it’s hard to really feel that concerned at all after watching another excellent season premiere. It was stirring, gorgeous, well-acted as always, and created enough of a hook to keep us interested moving forward. The most amazing part of all this? That it accomplished all of this without necessarily having some huge shocker, unless you consider Daenerys’ surprising guest at the end to be just that.
Dany’s story clearly has the makings already of the most intriguing of the entire season, mostly because we are really going to be watching a women start with nothing and hope to become a superpower. She already has the dragons, but they can only do so much at their current age and size. She instead needs people to fight her battles, and this is where the Unsullied comes into play. Is a band of slave warriors ideal? No, but this really is all she has to work with, and she will have to set some ethics aside if she is to get what he wants.
As with the show, there is quite a bit to bounce around between here, and even though we had no Arya or Jaime Lannister at all in the premiere, it was darn entertaining nonetheless.
Jon Snow – He’s now met the King Beyond the Wall in Mance Rayder, and seemingly gained his favor thanks to his declaration that he wants to side with the people who are truly out to fight for the good in Westeros, and not to keep the White Walkers a secret. Speaking of the Walkers, Samwell seems completely shell-shocked by what he saw.
Robb Stark – Did Jon’s half-brother really just imprison his own mother? It seems to be so, with the reason being that she is responsible now for Jaime being on the loose. Seeing the remains of Winterfell is a sad thing indeed, especially since Bran has also taken off north and Theon has been captured.
Tyrion – Now that he is stripped of all that matters to him, he is still desperate to cling to something. Sadly, Tywin has no interest in helping the man out, which is a reminder in the worst way as to why Peter Dinklage’s character, despite being a terrible scoundrel, is someone we still want to root for.
The other Lannisters – You can really tie Cersei into Joffrey’s story at this point, since she is largely just subservient to him not. Who knew that we would see a somewhat-softer side to the king? Margaery is like the Westeros Kate Middleton, and she’s doing some brilliant PR for the family right now in winning the common people back over. It’s a different way to go back things, and while we have a hard time imagining that Joffrey can be redeemed, she may bring a different side out of the bratty king this year.
Stannis – Davos returned to the “true kind” this week, only to be later jailed after Melisandre basically referred to him as a heretic. We don’t have any clue where this story leads, since for now it is really just a sadsick and a power-hungry crazy sorceress hanging out and destroying everyone who was once an ally.
While this premiere will not go down in the top 5 greatest episodes ever, it was not really meant to. Rather, it was a premiere, designed largely to set the stage for what we know will be a thrilling nine episodes to come.
What is your take on “Game of Thrones” this week? If you want to watch some new videos to further your premiere experience, you can do so over here.
Photo: HBO