Game of Thrones Season II

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Thoroughly enjoyed the second season of Game of Thrones on Canal +.  Fabulous casting, the locations are stunning (Iceland, Malta and Croatia, HBO interactive map here), and much better wigs.

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Five, count ´em five, candidates for King/Queen have stepped up to vie for the Iron throne and things are getting mighty complicated (HBO guide to the houses here).  We´ve got a new witchy priestess hatching supernatural murder, a conniving brother and sister from Highgarden, abducted baby dragons and creepy wizards in Quarth (the-best-city-that-ever-was-or-ever-will-be), a smuggler and his pirate friend, epic battles in Kings Landing and the grand gathering of the wildings and whitewalkers north of the wall, to add to the intrigue, backstabbing, and generally lax morals of the first season.  It´s terrific television.

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It was not all perfect.  They´ve had to make considerable changes to re-format the story for the small screen.  Rambling doesn´t even begin to describe the books, so some editing and compression were inevitable. I thought John Snow´s story line lagged (and his direwolf completely disappeared) and I´m not sure the Robb Stark´s story line with his love interest is working out like they´d hoped.  Yoren was gone entirely too quickly.  I can´t wait for Davos to have more to do and for Joffrey to get what´s coming to him. The CGI of the whitewalkers was a little odd, I think it might have been more effective if we´d not seen them so clearly.    But I was particularly impressed with Theon (terrific work from Alfie Allen) running amok in the north. Arya (Maisie Williams)  has completely won me over and she and Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) were electric in their scenes together.  New cast member Gwendoline Christie playing Brienne of Tarth is pitch perfect.

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And last, but certainly not least, I´d like to introduce my new TV boyfriend - Jaqen H´ghar (Tom Wlaschiha).  He manages to remain mysterious and sexy while referring to himself in the third person.  A woman is impressed - very impressed.  See more of his work here.

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The bad news is we´ll have to wait until spring 2013 for Season Three.  The good news is they start shooting this month.

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There is a lot of speculation about who they´ll cast as Marjorie Tyrell´s (Natalie Dormer) politically saavy, razor-tongued, take-no-prisoners Grandmother Olenna Redwyne (nicknamed ¨The Queen of Thorns¨) in Season Three.  The usual suspects have been suggested, Maggie Smith, etc.  But I think Geraldine McEwan would be perfect - see what I mean? Unfortunately, I think she´s retired now.  Does Helen Mirren do TV anymore?

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And the opening credits  - in Legos!



For political junkies. Someone wants to see Joffrey´s birth certificate.:



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