Game of Thrones 2.01, "the North Remembers"

The all-new Westeros superstar political tag-team.

“Death is so boring, especially now with so much excitement in the world.” – Tyrion Lannister

Bran: "Heard some men talking about the comet. They say it's an omen. They say it means Robb will win

a great victory in the south."

Osha: "Did they? I heard some other fools say it's Lannister red. Means the Lannisters will rule all seven kingdoms before long. Heard a stableboy say it's the color of blood to mark the death of your father. The stars don't fall for men. The red comet means one thing, boy...dragons."

You know, maybe this wasn’t a great idea. Reviewing a Game of Thrones premiere is like reviewing an immaculately shot picture of your future meal in the menu of a fancy restaurant. The lighting’s well placed, and you can see how the food will look and likely taste, but it’s still ultimately a preview amid table setting. The sheer size of the show (and presumably, its source material) is so massive that it can be difficult to get a read on what's going on in this world. But to an extent, that actually makes it perfect, because the broken, often paralleled, frequently beautiful, and at its best exhilarating elements of "the North Remembers" actually match the show incredibly well.

So we start out at a presumably fairly short period of time after the end of last season. Most of the episode’s focus – befitting it’s place as the closest thing the show has to an epicenter – is at the Westeros capitol of King’s Landing, where the new King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) seems poised to run the city into the ground with his violent, hedonistic demands. We won’t get a wider view of the city until later in the season, but what we actually see – the repeated shots of the woman cleaning up blood from his public duels, his attempted execution of the drunk Ser Dontas, and by the episode’s end, the mass murder of the various bastards a potential claim on the throne by an unknown party (although strongly implied to be either Joffrey or his mother Cersei (Lena Headey)) – show how bad things have gotten for the city. It helps that his betrothed, the perennially angst-ridden Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) is our POV character in this scene. Sansa was a very difficult character in the first season, generally entitled and whiny, but her desperation at her confinement, as well as her attempts to control or manipulate her awful fiancé, make her significantly more exciting to watch. Having a POV character from such an awful position also helps make the current political situation even more confining and scary.

Putting Joffrey on the Iron Throne was probably among the best ideas that “A Song of Fire and Ice” writer George R. R. Martin had, even discounting how it essentially starts the actual war that the entire show is currently based around. One of the common tropes of the series is how a well-structured plan or system will never account for a figure that refuses the morals or standards agreed upon, which came to a head at the end of last season when Joffrey went against the plans and assumptions of the King’s Landing government and had de facto protagonist Ned Stark executed. He’s among the most extreme and rightly despised characters in the show, and forcing him in the center of the political universe means that everyone in the city, and all the characters that orbit him, are suddenly in immediate danger both direct (his bloodlust is just starting up, with no apparent upper limit) and indirect (he starts the episode with one rival king, and ends with another). And, since he starts the war, he inadvertently – and to his discomfort – leads to the other most exciting change in the status quo with (twice) uncle Tyrion stepping in as interim Hand of the King.

I imagine that it was likely always the plan for creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to replace Sean Bean with Peter Dinklage as the first credited actor in the credits – Tyrion is the closest thing viewers have to both a permanent POV character and, as of now, is in the epicenter of the show’s action – but even without his Best Supporting Actor Emmy nod in a fantastic cast, Dinklage (an incredibly charismatic alumnus of the Station Agent, as well as Tiptoes, unfortunately) would almost definitely have been the show’s MVP. Sticking one of the show’s craftiest characters into the place where he can match wits with the previously unchallenged leaders of the Seven Kingdoms is a great move, and in working to organize the premiere, the episode gives him three meaty scenes, far more than most of the rest of the cast. His quick chat with Joffrey – in which he mocks his ability to rule and shows actual compassion to Sansa – is the most we’ve ever seen the boy-king challenged since he was attacked by a direwolf pup in the second episode, and his immediate disruption of the small council meeting shows how this extremely manipulate cabal could be, if not totally upended, at least temporarily disturbed.

Aside from the mysterious comet that everyone appears to see, the through line in “the North Remembers” is in examining the nature of power, as well as the differing attitudes of the people who use it. The biggest new power player, and probably the most direct example of this is Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), Joffrey’s legal uncle and substantial military leader, now beginning the first stages of open rebellion and deeply entrenched in a new fanatical religion. While we get enjoyable moments to emphasize his prickly, largely joyless nature – he refuses the “harmless courtesy” of having his dead brother described as “beloved” in his mass letter – the powers and evangelizing of his red priestess Melisandre (Carice van Houten) are clearly the most exciting here. The show has generally been fairly oblique about religion, with the politics and social mores much more of a concern, but with magic finally having been (re-) introduced into the universe, it makes sense to focus some of it on a new and apparently fanatical faith. Like the way that Joffrey just upsets the very foundations and traditions that the Seven Kingdoms are based upon, the powers and demands of the Lord of Light – nullifying poison and the desecration of the previous gods, respectively – are extreme, and it implies an immediate threat to most of the sides in the war.

While Stannis is an immediately gripping character – more than a little due to the performances of Dillane and Liam Cunningham as advisor Davos Seaworth – we don’t really get that much about the world or Stannis’ goals from the scene, which eventually comes to be part of the problem. I assume that in A Clash of Kings, the Joffrey-Stannis part of the “War of Five Kings” is the primary focus, but over the season that inherently has to be split along several narrative lines it feels quite a bit less important than it should. Stannis ends up spending far too much of the season either out of the action or somewhat less developed as a character than he should be, and paired with a multiplicity of other plotlines – many of which feature older characters in far different and exciting places than last time around – his scenes don’t end up with as much of the power as they should. I don’t want to imply that his plotline didn’t work – there are multiple times this season where he would get a compelling scene or moment – but otherwise he would feel too uninvolved in the plot, which made the war feel less urgent or important.

At the same time, we also get a new entrant in the series’ “most despicable bastard” contest with the newest character in Jon Snow’s story (which is finally starting to turn interesting as he and the celibate Night’s Watch move to the totally unknown north), Craster. Even for a show that started with a child being pushed off a tower and featured a man getting his tongue ripped out through his throat, the idea that the harsh climate beyond the Wall could allow a man to just live unchallenged with his terrified army of daughter-wives is clearly an massive moral slight, but even more than Joffrey (whose position is secured through legal rights currently being challenged, traditions, and financial and military strength), he’s able to get away with it simply because there’s no one else there to actually challenge him. You get the distinct impression that he’s chosen this awful life just for that fact, where he’s nothing outside his keep but everything inside it. Commander Mormont’s (James Cosmo) line to Jon about a good leader having to be able to follow clearly has value beyond his situation – people like Joffrey and Craster are almost always the ones unable or unwilling to ever serve – but the scenes here are much more about showing the grim necessities of politics in the most intolerable of places.

Less interesting in “the North Rembembesr” are some of the other returning players. Robb Stark (Richard Madden), now running his northern army roughshod over Lannister territory while holding Joffrey’s incestuous father-uncle Jamie (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) hostage, still hasn’t made a particularly strong impression (partially because his most important contribution to the war, his constant victories, aren’t seen due to issues of time and budgeting). There’s important stuff that comes up obliquely here (namely his dangerous level of overconfidence), but it’s mostly used to delegate Michelle Fairley’s fantastic Catelyn Stark to exposition duties. His brother Bran, now in charge of Winterfell, basically exists to link some of the plots and show a leader struggling to adjust to his responsibilities. And exiled princess Daenerys Targaryan (Emilia Clarke) and her new baby dragons – last season’s exciting cliffhanger – trudge through the deserts of the neighboring continent of Essos.

Dany is a difficult character at this point in the show. She’s clearly important for the long game of the story, but like Stannis, is trapped between parts of the plot that are ready for her. The show needs to be able to keep all of these different plates spinning, and it can’t really cut her character out too much (although maybe losing her for a couple episodes each season until she is more connected to the situation in Westeros would work okay), so just as we don’t really get a strong impression on her current journey here beyond how unceasing it is, Clarke and Iain Glen as advisor Jorah Mormont end up feeling kind of wasted this season. The first and third gave Dany multiple different angles to play, but for this season her plotline would sometimes read like a laundry list of criticisms at the show at its weakest: ponderous, meandering, and generally uninteresting.

And while Game of Thrones Season 2 would be significantly better than its predecessor in virtually every other way, that kind of ended up being a little problematic when interconnected as a season. As ten individual episodes, these were generally fantastic, fast, intense, and much more capable of making the episodes feel connected thematically than their first season counterparts. But as a season, a few too many scenes felt like they were there to keep everything moving at the same time instead of there to tell a compelling story; Season 1, by contrast, had a much less expansive view but also felt like a much more complete story (or section of a story, as is the case). The war with Stannis in particular felt somewhat truncated until its climax at the breathtaking Battle of Blackwater. Additionally, while the new positions for the characters are interesting, they sadly don't seem to spend quite as much time outside their comfort zones as before. Fortunately, the writers seem to have learned more than a little from this; after a slightly slow opening, I found Season 3 to generally be the both worlds, taking the stronger episodes of Season 2, having its characters connect in unexpected ways, and telling them in a way that felt much more congruous.

I considered quoting Jamie and Robb’s “three battles doesn’t make you a conqueror” exchange, or any part of Littlefinger and Cersei’s, but I decided against it because the winners of those exchanges don’t really say anything other than expressing their overconfidence. But I keep coming back to them, because, especially after the third season, the losers of these arguments seem so much more prescient (and, without specific spoilers, have moved to significantly better places). People like Robb or Cersei view themselves as the protagonists of a great heroic or dramatic story, but lack enough (or any) self-awareness to consider how limited their perspective is. The smartest players of the game plan for the long-term, but just as no one has a perfect way to read the comet that links the Seven Kingdoms, even they lack the ability to see the show’s endless machinations.

In a lot of ways, watching Game of Thrones is like watching Community or Hannibal. These shows just shouldn’t work, not really; part of their fun is seeing how well the performers (crew as well as cast) walk it. In some ways, by the end, this season didn’t entirely work as well as maybe it should have. But a season of Game of Thrones that has occasional problems is still a season of Game of Thrones, and many of best parts of the series could still be found here: the complex and detailed view of the world, the fantastic and engaging verbal standoffs, and the slow, constant march through a constantly worsening political mire.

Although some more of the show's characteristic insane violence would have been appreciated here.

Lingering concerns:

• I pretty much always first watch Game of Thrones on HBOGo on my iPad after the episode airs, so that I can watch the various interactive features that explain backstory, remind us of people we haven’t seen for over a season, or show minute details of the production. I declined using it for this episode, though, just to judge it on its own merits.
• Some people have asked me whether Dinklage is so great as Tyrion because the character – a charming, surprisingly moral rogue – lends himself so easily to being well liked (in the same way that Maisie Williams' Arya Stark, while a fantastic character and performance, is much more in line with our modern sensibilities and preferences). While I understand the position, and the Dinklage has played multiple similar roles with aplomb in his career, I really don’t think so. More than a few actors could have done the jokes and glib remarks we love Tyrion for, but in this episode alone, he gets a lot to do – such as his smugness at Cersei’s incompetence, or his only slightly overt concern for Sansa – that he just nails.
• Just as the season expanded massively in size and scope, HBO’s fantastic intro sequence (showing an immaculate portrayal of the world as a massive clockwork mechanism). Along with a more developed Westeros with more defined elevation and forestry, the intro now includes Dragonstone (Stannis’ home base). Later episodes would add even more.
• So George R. R. Martin has talked about how the show’s Iron Throne, which most likely is a product of myth making than an actual throne made out of thousands of swords, is not an accurate translation of the massive, spiky hulk of the books. Honestly, I think that the change works much better, not just because it creates the symbol of mythologized power (and led to a fantastic show-only conversation in the third season), but because in any visual medium that throne would look like something out of Warhammer 40K.
• One of the parallels that we get in this episode is between Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) and one of Craster’s daughters, both of whom desperately try to appease their psychotic mates with parroted niceties. Of the two, Sansa is doing better, not just because she's been able to avoid sexual assault, but because she’s found a way to – at least for the time being – manipulate Joffrey’s ego.
• I suspect that the problem with Robb’s character is less, as some people feel, I think, that he’s a generic heroic lead than the fact that his morals are not really questioned or the fallout of his actions shown. This improves in Season 3, when we can get a better sense of his moral standing and its consequences.
• Cersei and Littlefinger's altercation leads to her using him as her primary information resource, which becomes very important later on.
• I generally like to use one or two pictures, but I really couldn't help myself here; the show's looks so good.
• ADDENDUM: one thing I meant to include, but neglected to, is that we're starting here to see the way that the attitudes of the lowborn are changing with regard to the Westerosi elite, both with Craster's statements towards the Night's Watch and the northern noble's passive-aggressive description of the war.

Next time: like this review, it’s going to take a little longer for me to fully finish my next one. But it will hopefully be worth getting to watch the Stanfield crew engage in some inventive and horrifying housecleaning in the Wire’s “Boys of Summer.”