Review: HBO’s Game of Thrones, Episode 10 – ‘Fire and Blood’

The Game of Thrones finale picks up right after last week’s shocking conclusion of Ned Stark losing his head and Arya holding close to Yoren afterwards. Yoren then takes Arya and cuts her hair to make her look like a boy as they intend to head North. The rest of the Starks soon find out one after another of Ned’s execution. Robb takes out his frustration on a tree until his mother consoles and eerily promises that once they get back Sansa and Arya that they will kill them all.

Afterwards the Northmen have a meeting trying to determine whether to recognize Lord Renly or Lord Stannis as king until Greatjon Umber has an epiphany: make Robb the King of the North and rule themselves which the rest of the Northmen quickly join in on. Catelyn pays a visit to Jaime Lannister afterward, smashing him in the face with a rock after he inquires if she is there to bed him due to the loss of her husband. Catelyn thinks better of it, knowing they need Jaime alive in order to get her daughters back.

Lord Tywin in the meanwhile is infuriated that his better son has been captured, and he shockingly speaks with Tyrion in private to appoint as Hand of The King to Joffrey in his stead while he deals with the River Lords and Robb Stark. He does however tell Tyrion not to bring the ‘whore’ Shae with him to King’s Landing but Tyrion loving his good father so much decides to disregard that memo.

Joffrey on the other hand is having his sadistic fun at King’s Landing, forcing the singer who was on the road with Tyrion and Catelyn to play a song poking fun at King Robert in front of the assembled court. He commands the singer to choose between his fingers or his tongue before leaving the throne room for the day. The singer inadvertently chooses his tongue and we are treated to a zoomed out Ser Ilyn Payne removing the tongue with pliers and a hot dagger. Joffrey then further slides into asshole mode by showing Sansa her father’s head on a spike upon the battlements and having one of his Kingsguard’s slap her for talking back. He is a very manly king I gotta tell ya.

There was also a very interesting scene with Grand Maester Pycelle going on about how many Kings he has served over the years to the whore he just finished with, then after she leaves he stands up like a spring chicken stretching. Then after getting dressed he resumes his stooped and elderly demeanor as he exits the room. This old fart isn’t all he seems to be.

Arya ends up leaving King’s Landing with Yoren, heading North to the Wall in the company of a bunch of dungeon recruits. Before she leaves she has a run in with Robert’s bastard Gendry when he helps her further dissuade two bullies who wanted her sword Needle.

Jon Snow also finds out about his father’s death in King’s Landing, and even after Maester Aemon’s pep talk he makes the decision to abandon his post with the Night’s Watch and join up with Robb to avenge Ned. As he and Ghost race through the forest in the night he is followed by Sam, Pip and Grenn and they remind him of his vows and he returns to Castle Black with them. Lord Commander Mormont even lets him know that he tried to run off, but forgives him his temporary insanity and tells him that he will be coming with him and many other brothers to go beyond the Wall to find his uncle Benjen dead or alive. Mormont is sick and tired of waiting for anything to come and attack them so he becomes a little proactive. Too bad we won’t get to see anymore of the Night’s Watch until next season. DAMN!

Now let’s get to the biggest part of the episode. Last week the sorceress Miri Maz Duur was supposed to bring Drogo back with the offering of the life of another. It turns out that Dany gets Drogo back, but at the cost of her unborn son. And even worse, Drogo may still be alive but he is a husk of a person who just stares off into the distance. Miri let’s Dany know that Khal Drogo should not have razed her village to the ground and that now her son will not become the Stallion who mounts the world and cannot cause death and destruction like her village suffered. Harsh world I suppose.

Dany realizes as she lays with Drogo that he is beyond help and she smothers him with a pillow and prepares his body and the supposedly fossilized dragon eggs to be burned. Dany also throws Miri into the package of to be burned items and Miri declares she will not hear her screams. She was wrong as the funeral pyre is lit and Miri cooks for a bit before succumbing to the screams. Dany then walks through the fire unfazed towards Drogo and the eggs as the scene then cuts to the next morning. Jorah walks towards the ashes of the pyre, and everyone beholds Dany rising up unburned and holding three baby dragons who will come to be known as Rhaegal (Green and bronze), Viserion (Cream and Gold) and Drogon (Black and Red) who gave tiny but ear-piercing roars to end the episode as the remaining khalasar knelt before her. The whole scene gave me goosebumps and could not have been done better. I was a little wary of what the dragons would look like but they were very well done and a true testament to the quality of this show.

I give the episode a four out of five bears because the ending with the dragons was one of the best scenes of the whole series and there was plenty of great set up for the next season. It was heart breaking to see the various reactions to Ned’s death and you can’t help but want to strangle Joff for his treatment of Sansa.

I can’t wait by the way and Spring 2012 is gonna be a loooong wait. So let me know what you thought of the episode because I was digging it and have very high hopes for season 2 which follows book 2: A Clash of Kings. I can’t imagine many viewers feel too bad that the people of Westeros will soon be roasting in dragon fire.

A Game of Thrones – Top Ten Kills of Season One

I love Game of Thrones. It has a great story, awesome actors along with the characters they play, and the set pieces and production value on the show are staggering. But if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, and talk about some of the more primitive likings of the show, then look no further than the gory, and most times inventive ways of people getting killed. From beheadings to burnings, and bludgeoning to maulings, Game of Thrones has a pretty impressive list of ways certain characters died a horrible death. Some made us cry, but the majority of them made us go –“AWWW SWEET!” So without further adieu let’s take a look at the top ten…

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HBO Planning 6 Seasons of American Gods

With the success of Game of Thrones on HBO, and The Walking Dead on AMC, it was really only a matter of time for the studios to start looking at other literary adaptations to bring to the small screen. A Powers pilot is underway, and we all know of the failed attempt to bring Wonder Woman to TV, not to mention a dozen others in development.

Enter Neil Gaiman. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard his name in connection with a proposed TV project, as his fan favorite Vertigo series The Sandman has long been in rumored development. That however, is not what we are here to talk about.

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A Very GB Father’s Day: Our Favorite TV Dads!

Here at Grizzly Bomb we wanted to do a little something for Father’s Day, and we’ve decided to share our favorite TV Dads, and what makes them great.

Brian Kronner – Dan Conner

TV Dads

Can you get more of a All-American Man’s Man of a father than Dan Conner? For more than 200 episodes John Goodman portrayed the father of 3 and husband to a wife, that at times was completely insufferable. This beer-swilling, football watching, handyman was more than just a comedic opposite to Roseanne, but the emotional anchor that grounded the show in reality. You know, at least until they won to lotto and killed him off and all. But he wasn’t the pansy-ass modern dads we see now, where every episode ends with him talking things out and teaching a valuable life lesson. Sure, we got that stuff too, but Dan also yelled and disciplined his kids. He fought with his wife and worked on his car. They went through the recession in the 80’s with the rest of us, and Dan even had to deal with real world problems. But he so passionately felt for, and defended his kids, he just felt real to me. And I grew up watching him. They say that The Godfather is the dream of the Mafia, while Goodfellas is the truer representation. So for me, if Ward Clever was the dream, Dan Conner was the truth.

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Percy Jackson Back For More…

Hey everyone! Percy Jackson is having another movie! This is so awesome because the Lightning Thief was so darn good! Hello? Anyone still listening? Probably not. I doubt that even Percy Jackson fans care about the latest on the movie adaptations of their beloved book series. Not to mention Fox studio’s intentions to rush the film out for a 2012 release, this movie has bad written all over it. Check out a little more info from IGN below:

Well, we’re getting a Percy Jackson sequel, like it or not. The Los Angeles Times reports that Fox 2000 has “exercised the option” on star Logan Lerman — in other words, he’s coming back for the sequel whether he likes it or not too. And director Thor Freudenthal (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) has been hired to replace the first film’s Chris Columbus.

Hopefully Logan Lerman isn’t going to half ass it because he has no choice in the matter but honestly, in the age of sequels not happening because of lackluster first round box office outings, I can’t figure out why this one is happening. The first film grossed 88 million domestically with a budget of 95 million. That spells flop to me. But worldwide it had a gross of 226 million bucks so maybe they’re depending on the foreign market. To me the film was just “ok”, it didn’t really move or wow me in any way and it definitely was not the next Harry Potter. My 54 year old dad actually liked it better than me, which I still can’t figure out to this day. He simply states “that he has better movie taste than Doc Kronner and myself.” I hate to break it to him on this father’s day weekend that he is mistaken, but he probably won’t care since there is another Percy Jackson movie coming out.

The movie will not only follow the second book of the Jackson series, ‘Sea of Monsters’, but it is said to borrow elements from the other books as well. Purists of the series better prepare their diapers for this one.

New Red Band Trailer – Conan The Barbarian

So we’ve already had a teaser and a trailer, as well as a slew of posters for the new Conan the Barbarian, coming out this August. But we had not yet gotten a Red Band Trailer to show us all of the violent glory this flick is all about. Luckily we now have one to show you.

Looks excellent to me. I’m not looking for some deep movie about a barbarian’s feelings and how life gets him down. I want to see Conan fighting monsters, killing people and getting the gal! By the looks of this trailer that is what we’re gonna get!