TV Review - Game of Thrones Season 4 “Two swords”

After the intense and shocking conclusion to season 3 I was eagerly anticipating season 4, and after an incredibly long wait here we are. Game of Thrones FINALLY came back on our screens on 06/04/2014 (07/04/2014 UK) and it got off to very well put together intro with an orchestral version of Rains of Castamere, as Tywin Lannister melts down Ned Stark’s HUGE broadsword, making two swords giving one sword to Jamie Lannister.

As someone who hasn’t read the books, I was curious as to how the show would deal with such huge character losses from season 3, as the entire show will shift dynamics and tone in the sense that there is no war, (as far as anyone can tell) there are no Stark’s actively seeking to topple the Lannisters. This season looks to set up a new discernible direction dealing with the remaining and new characters individual journeys.

Jamie is back home with his family, but now he only has one hand and his father doesn’t believe he can still be the warrior he once was, he wants Jamie to lord over Casterly Rock, however Jamie wants to stay as part of the King’s Guard, against the demands of his father. We also see Jamie reunited with Cersei (or so we thought) she doesn’t seem to have time for him now because as she exclaims to him “you took too long” he got himself captured, he started a war and then took too long to escape and come back to her, Now Jamie has fallen from his father’s graces for ing the King’s Guard, (which he only ed to be close to Cersei) to protect the King, his own secret son who also has little faith in Jamie’s abilities, and has ive aggressive digs at Jamie’s lack of accomplishments and ambition, it’s interesting to see Joffrey being a bit of a d*** to someone in the family other than Tyrion, interesting because surely he knows deep down Jamie is his father.

Don’t be fooled to thinking King’s Landing is calm, as we are introduced to Prince Oberyn from the southern realm of Dorne, a man who seems to lust and loathe in equal capacities, he is greeted by Tyrian after a Lannister altercation where he divulges his haltered for Lannisters, especially for Tywin Lannister for ordering the mountain to butcher his sister and her children (I’m assuming her children, well child now is Deanerys) some time ago, and he wants revenge.

We see Deanerys with her dragons (amazing shot) who are much larger and snap at their mother when it comes to their food, Jorah mentions that they are dragons and can never be tamed, which is odd since she is the mother of dragons after all. It will be interesting to see what her journey will be this season, I was confused as to who Daario was, in season 3 he had long hair and brought Deanerys the heads of his compatriots, I am glad they had made her seem a lot less submissive and girly towards him than we had in season 3.
We see Jon Snow return to the watch, it’s hard to tell where his story is going to take us after his time with the wildlings, and it seems he is fine to just go back with the watch, we see him deal with the news of his half brothers death. Meanwhile Arya and The Hound steal the episode for me, she has been a meandering kid who people want to “not die” so far, but in this episode I felt her character dynamic alter in a great way, after some witty back and forth between Arya and The Mountain, eventually end up in a pub which again after some amusing dialogue ends in a fight with them versus 5 guys, one of with is a Polliver, the guy who killed Arya’s friend Lommy “what the f**** a Lommy” and stole her sword needle, Arya gets her revenge and kills Polliver the same way he killed her friend, and the scene is great as it shows that Arya’s list isn’t just a list she’s willing to take action against people on (even though he wasn’t on it)

Some little bits:

Joffrey’s awful statue standing triumphantly with his crossbow
Jaime gets a gaudy, golden hand. So perfect.
Brienne tries to remind Jaime of his oath to Catelyn regarding the Stark girls.
Cersei’s now using Qyburn, the ex-Maester found at Harrenhal last season.
Shae is jealous of the relationship between Tyrian and his wife Sansa
The wildlings up with a cannibalistic clan called the Thenn

Overall I feel it was an extremely strong start to the season, seeing what some characters have planned for the season, I am pleased they addressed through Cersei that “everything has changed” I found that to be crucial to this episode and was well pointed out, also to see the struggles of people like Jamie, Brienne and Tyrian. I didn’t like the “recaps” from Cersei to Jamie and from Tyrian to Shae I just found it a little pointless and unnecessary, even Cersei saying to Jamie “what’s happened” we know what has and I feel she was saying it a little too much for our benefit rather than their characters. However I feel Cersei and Tyrian had a very strong episode, I feel they did well including as many characters as they did in the premiere and it didn’t seem cluttered, I believe as viewers we will need to acclimate ourselves with all of the changes of characters and plot direction but once we do we’ll enjoy it as we always have.