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Comments
I recall Varys going into hiding somewhere and emerging with his little birdies to shank some dude in a tower before poofing again...
I might be remembering wrong though.
The main reason is that it felt like there was a lot less characterisation, and a lot more nods to big events - the Purple Wedding, Wall battle, Tywin's death, the Mountain and Viper fight. While some like the Purple Wedding and Mountain and Viper fight were done well, it felt like the others were not all pulled off as well as those events demanded. So the focus on events didn't quite match the trade-off for characterisation.
Nonetheless:
1. The starting scene where Ice was melted down.
This wasn't in the book, if I'm not wrong, but it was done so brilliantly. The significance of melting down the Stark family blade. How one blade was made into two (worse, one and a half) blades. The Stark theme (Goodbye Brother) playing as it was done. I felt that the scene captured very well the slap to the face of Lannister to Stark, and it was done with the symbolism of family blades. Huge kudos here. It was one of the most memorable scenes for me this season.
2. Arya and the Hound
I liked how they humanised the Hound. I liked the greyness to the Hound's character in the show - that he's not a originally bad man, but a product of horrible circumstance. So, when Arya left the Hound to die in the show, it felt much colder than in the book. Especially since he was close to begging her for death near the end, even trying to push her buttons by half-heartedly pretending to have relished the death of the butcher's boy. I don't think George R.R. Martin humanised him quite as much in the book.
Which brings me to the next point - I thought the showmakers skipped out a pretty important scene from the book for Arya - eating worms. Eating worms to me symbolised her hardening and turning cold. From a little highborn girl growing up with all the comforts of Winterfell, that act, to me, was a reflection of someone who's stopped caring.
Without that scene, her leaving the Hound to die in the show was a bit jarring.
2. Charles Dance
This was perfect casting, and I am ever in awe of how Charles Dance plays Tywin Lannister so brilliantly.
3. Daenerys
I felt like this season, Daenerys scenes were put in for the sake of it. She remains to me an incredibly lame character, and it felt like her scenes this season were a fan service, rather than adding much to the storyline.
4. Jaime and Cersei in the Sept
I know the fan contentions to the rape scene in the Sept, but I bought it. I thought it properly added a deeper dimension to Jaime's character. It made sense to me.
In many cases, rape can be an act of sexual perversion. But it can also be a product of lust and helplessness and hate mingling into one - think of how people have rape fantasies for people who have power over them - bosses, teachers, mothers(?). It is not so much about sex as it is about power and taking power.
Consistently in the show as well as in the book, we know that Jaime loves Cersei, but he hates this and hates her, on some level too - she is a hateful, evil woman. Yet, he is bound to her because he loves her.
The rape made sense to me because it was a natural way in which he reacted to that helplessness, to try and take the power back from her. Because that's the actual underlying dynamic - she has the power, not him.
5. Mountain and Viper fight scene
This was very well done. I enjoyed the death scene at the end because it put right in our faces the brutality of the monster that is the Mountain. However, the brutality would have been better brought across if the showmakers had properly humanised Elia and her children (as they did in the book). She was supposed to be quite sad and frail, and her children were innocents. In the show, however, she was just a name. I thought this was a huge pity because the significance of the fight scene and Oberyn's pursuit of vengeance/justice would have been made more poignant.
6. Oberyn Martell
I could be alone in this, but I didn't like the casting for Oberyn Martell. Maybe I have too high an expectation in my mind for how the character should be played.
I get that he should have an accent, but the way Pascal played him, there was something lacking in the way he spoke. Nearly like he talked too much, or that he didn't have enough gravitas. To my mind, Oberyn was an incredible badass, not particularly a smartass. I can't quite pinpoint if it's because he spoke too much, or spoke too fast, but what I had in mind was that he was a far more serious character that chose his words properly and had each one weighted with meaning.
What DID come across, however, was his obsession with vengeance for his sister. This was done nicely enough, and it came across well.
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