GAME OF THRONES - TV GUIDE: Matt's TV Week in Review - June 3, 2011
Jun 3, 2011
by Matt Roush
A quick rundown of highs and lows from the first week of what's going to be a busy summer season.
TV didn't even take Memorial Day weekend off — to the delight of fans of Sunday's two top cable dramas. High point of the week: HBO's Game of Thrones, which has been pretty magnificent from the start and is truly hitting its stride now. Good news for the loyal viewer and fan of epic fantasy, but bad news for noble Ned Stark, who loses his patron when Fat King Robert is gutted by a boar ("murdered by a pig," he scoffs, although suspicion is now falling on the squire who ladled him with booze on the hunt). Poor solemn Ned isn't much of one for bluffing against his dastardly enemies, especially the evil Queen Cersei, who lays out the series' theme (and title) as she warns him, "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."
Ned's high road appears to be the road to ruin, as he defies the ascension to the Iron Throne of Bratty Prince Joffrey, the spoiled spawn of Lannister twin-cest between Cersei and Jaime. Named Lord Regent and Protector of the Realm at Robert's deathbed, Ned maneuvers to bring Robert's brother Stannis to rule as the "rightful heir," but he refuses to play dirty by striking first against the wicked Lannisters: "I will not dishonor Robert's last hours by shedding blood in his halls and dragging frightened children from their beds." Oh, Ned, WHY NOT?? Anyone else in the corrupt corridors of King's Landing would.
So as he confronts the Queen and her icky Princeling on the throne, believing he has the City Watch at his back, Ned is betrayed, his own men slaughtered as Littlefinger (whore-master and keeper of the coin) holds a knife to his throat, cackling, "I did warn you not to trust me."
The only thing missing in this terrific episode was our favorite Imp, Tyrion. But as a consolation, we meet his dad, the fearsome Lannister patriarch Tywin (a taut Charles Dance), who in the mesmerizing opening scene schools the dashing Jaime while skinning a stag in full camera view. (This is not a show for the squeamish.) Point made: The Lannisters are butchers. Worse news for the Starks.
Meanwhile, Ned's bastard son Jon Snow learns to his chagrin as he takes his Night's Watch vows that he's been assigned as a steward, not a ranger. But he'll be tending the Lord Commander, so at least he'll be close to the seat of power when the time comes. What Jon really wants to do is ride beyond the Wall and find what happened to his missing Uncle Benjen. One grisly clue as he takes his vows before a ghostly tree that looks as if it's weeping blood: Ned's wolf emerges carrying a severed hand in his mouth. (As the captured wild woman tells her hosts at Riverfell, "There's things that sleep in the day and hunt at night" beyond the Wall. Creepy.) And in the land of the Dothraki, when an assassination attempt against Daenerys involving tainted wine is thwarted, warrior husband Drogo vows to cross the sea and claim the throne for his pregnant Dragon Queen: "I will kill the men in iron suits and tear down their stone houses," he howls. So much conflict, so much territory to cover in the next three episodes...
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