{"id":13907,"date":"2014-04-15T23:05:58","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T13:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=13907"},"modified":"2014-06-05T09:43:50","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T23:43:50","slug":"game-of-thrones-season-four-the-lion-and-the-rose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=13907","title":{"rendered":"Game of Thrones – Season Four – “The Lion And The Rose”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tagtelevision\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"gotlionandrose\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Game of Thrones<\/em>
\nSeason 4, Episode 2
\n“The Lion and the Rose”<\/h3>\n

“[Game Of Thrones] has done a reasonable job keeping a sense of progress and purpose to the proceedings and this is reflected in its strong viewership which continues to increase with each season. Part of the show\u2019s notoriety and appeal is that anyone could die at a given moment but having said that, I think the audience has a certain threshold for what they won\u2019t stand for. The two most important narrative strands out of the twenty or so that intertwine in a given season are Arya Stark\u2019s retribution against Joffrey for her father\u2019s death and Daenerys Stormborn\u2019s all conquering dragon army returning to King\u2019s Landing. I haven\u2019t read the books so I don\u2019t know how either story pans out but I think if either story doesn\u2019t reach a satisfactory conclusion, the lion\u2019s share of the show\u2019s viewership would move on, such is the weight of investment in these two characters.”<\/em><\/p>\n

– Game of Thrones, Season 3 Review<\/a>
\nJune 3rd, The FAT Website<\/p><\/blockquote>\nW<\/span>ell we’re about to put that to the test aren’t we?<\/p>\n

Season Four of HBO’s fantasy drama has started off with a bang.\u00a0 After a quiet first episode – the calm before the storm – where everyone in King’s Landing assured one another that war was over, the second episode of the season The Lion and the Rose<\/em> has delivered arguably the biggest death of a character in the show since Ned Stark’s beheading in the first season.\u00a0 A good portion of this hour long episode was dedicated to Joffrey and the malice and cruelty with which he treats his subjects in what turned out to be a final lap of king-sized douchebaggery before the episode ended with his death by poisoned chalice.\u00a0 The ending appears to be the start of a whodunnit.\u00a0 Cersei wails and screams blue murder at Tyrion but we suspect he is innocent.<\/p>\n

The episode delivered the expected reverberations around social media that makes this show the most talked about program on television today.\u00a0 People posted Youtube videos of their reactions, discussed theories on message boards over the identity of the murderer and for those unfortunate enough to cop it, there were plenty of bitter complaints over trolls spoiling what happened before fans had a chance to come home from work and watch it unfold.<\/p>\n

Taken in isolation, The Lion and the Rose <\/em>is an excellent episode that really did a wonderful job in capturing just how brilliant Jack Gleeson is in the role of Joffrey.\u00a0 His petulant tone, his predatory behaviour towards people he has power over and his gloriously smug and punchable face are all facets of what made him compelling viewing.\u00a0 The exchanges between Gleeson and Dinklage (who has also been universally excellent this season) during the wedding reception made for some incredibly tense viewing.<\/p>\n

I can’t lie.\u00a0 I’m a little anxious about the direction the show is headed.\u00a0 I had enjoyed and trusted the journey that George RR Martin and the writing team on the production had lead us down up to this point.\u00a0 The show constantly served up shocks and twists but they didn’t feel needlessly gratuitous and the overarching narrative felt as though it was in steady hands.\u00a0 Now?\u00a0 I’m not so sure.<\/p>\n

\"joffkiss\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Joffrey is one of the biggest villains in television pop culture and he has been killed off in the same fashion as JR Ewing and Mr Burns.\u00a0 It sets up a fresh mystery to solve for the season ahead but it also leaves Arya Stark with very little purpose.\u00a0 And it reveals a lot of her scenes from the past two seasons where she learns courage and swordsmanship to be pointless red herrings; preparations for a chance to kill Joffrey that will never arrive.<\/p>\n

I don’t think I’ve written a review of Game of Thrones<\/em> yet where I haven’t invariable ended up comparing the show to Lost<\/em> and once again I’m compelled to do it.\u00a0 Both shows drew in a huge audience thanks to a memorable cast and a story that had a hook which brought back viewers each week. \u00a0Lost<\/em> was unable to keep most of its audience when it became apparent that the show’s writers were unable to deliver story arcs with satisfactory closure.\u00a0 I’m starting to suspect the same will happen with Game of Thrones<\/em>.\u00a0 There was a time when I assumed that Danaerys would storm Kings Landing with her dragon army and that Jon Snow would lead the Black Watch against the White Walkers but now, who the hell knows?\u00a0 They seem just as likely to die choking on a pretzel.<\/p>\n

I’ll still watch Game of Thrones<\/em> because the characters, by and large, are<\/em> fun to watch.\u00a0 But its a shame that the various story arcs are devolving into an incoherent mess.\u00a0 And the show will be poorer for not having an antagonist with the presence of King Joffrey.\u00a0 I assume that with his promotion from cameo to regular cast member, Ramsay Snow is to assume the mantle of chief villain.\u00a0 He has some big boots to fill if thats the case and so far, I find him more tedious than devious.\u00a0 To be honest, I had to look up Ramsey’s name because I didn’t know what it was.\u00a0 At least with King Joffrey, he was a dick, but he was our<\/em> dick.\u00a0 The guy we loved to hate.<\/p>\n

His smarmy face will be missed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who Shot Mr Burns?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[887,1857,1794],"class_list":["post-13907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-joffrey","tag-tv-guide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13907"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15546,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13907\/revisions\/15546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}