It's baaaaaack!
Very solid opening episode, I thought. It's astonishing how they keep ramping up the stakes, and how each season seems bigger and even more visually impressive than the last. It seems like they won't be doing anything else with
Mance and that's probably for the best - I can't imagine the switcheroo they pull in the books working on screen and it's yet another plotline they wouldn't really have time for.
They're obviously going to be doing
a lot of consolidating and cutting to get the plots of books four and five down to something manageable, and I totally get that. For the most part it works, I think. They're obviously fast-forwarding Tyrion's plotline, which is a no-brainer. The teased prospect of him
meeting up with Danaerys really got my girlfriend (a far more casual viewer than me) interested so it makes sense to progress to that as soon as possible to keep up the momentum. I enjoyed books four and five more than most people seemed to, but they do feel like that episode of Itchy and Scratchy where they never make it to the fireworks factory.
A couple of minor quirks - did I imagine it or did
Sansa and Littlefinger ride right past Pod and Brienne? Because if so that's more than a little silly. And I wasn't entirely happy with the way they're playing Stannis and Melisandre so far. I
hope they don't portray them as straight antagonists for Jon Snow, as the tension, then subsequent burgeoning mutual respect between Jon, Stannis and Mel really showed another side to them and made them really likeable figures for the first time - to the point where I was really rooting for Stannis for the first time in the series.Really looking forward to Theon's storyline this season, which for me was the standout of A Dance with Dragons. He's probably my favourite character in the whole series. During Dance it really dawned on me - Theon is ASoIaF's Gollum/Smeagol isn't he?
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