Game of Thrones Episode 2.09: “Blackwater”

[chavalah.livejournal.com]

This episode will not only be remembered by most “Game of Thrones” fans as the best of the season, but also by many mainstream critics as one of the best television hours of the year. With a large part of the budget dropping here and this screenplay written by none other than ASOIAF author George R. R. Martin, we get a bloody battle worthy of any movie screen. We also get a streamlined story, focusing solely on Stannis’s arrival at King’s Landing and the characters around that (was amusing to see the scant credits stretched over the long opening sequence. :P)

As a Sansa fan, this was really her time to shine and gain more screen time and complexity than she has all season. Sadly, due to the omission of much of her overall story arc, some parts of this episode felt disjointed to me, but most was a more-than-welcome look into the life of this character, played beautifully by Sophie Turner. Of course, it would not do well not to pay due to all the major actors, perhaps most especially Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion as brave, cunning, but increasingly over his head on the battlefield, and Lena Headey, who mastered Cersei’s descent into drunken cynicism and a shockingly lethal attempt to save her son from harm.

Other nitpicks with the episode are few and far in between, certainly not taking away from my overall enjoyment at the conclusion of season two’s major driving action.

( Episode Summary and Spoilers )