With the passing of Breaking Bad and Mad Men and Homeland’s nosedive, HBO’s Game of Thrones is as close as America has to consensus television. Adapted from George R.R. Martin’s popular A Song of Fire and Ice book series by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Game of Thrones has racked up Emmy’s and Golden Globes, as well as awards that matter, such as the Peabody and Hugo Awards.

To commemorate the end of Season 4, Jeff (of Slazenger1) and I break down the good, the better, and the occasionally bad of Game of Thrones’ fourth season, which premiered on April 6, 2014 and ended on June 15, 2014.

As per the usual, SPOILERS ABOUND. Also, people die. If that’s a spoiler to you, you have no business clicking on a Game of Thrones link. There are, however, NO BOOK SPOILERS beyond what Season 4 of the show covers.

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Patches: We both liked Season 4. A lot. And it makes sense given the show hitting its stride and that it was able to draw upon what, in my opinion, was the best book in A Song of Fire and Ice for source material. That’s not to say it was perfect, however. We’ve talked about the good. Now it’s time for the bad. Did anything miss or just not quite work out as GoT intended?

Jeff: Any discussion of something that didn’t work in season 4 has to begin with the rape of Cersei in episode 3, “Breaker of Chains.” Forget the incest angle, we’re past that. Forget that it took place pretty much on top of their dead son. I’m also going to set aside the debate over the ethics of depictions of rape on television (and in this show), something that a lot of people spilled ink about when the episode first aired. The more minor problem I want to bring up is the complete destruction of Jaime Lannister’s redemption arc. They spent an entire season laying low and successfully rehabilitating this awful character only to undo all of it with this one nonsensical action. It’s not like Jaime is all of a sudden the worst again, but whatever identity he had is called into question. I will say that complex shades of gray (no, not that Shades of Gray) are perfect for this Ned Stark-less world, but this character turn just seems wrong. Oh, and the creative team never meant for the scene to be viewed as a rape anyway, so we’re back to the status quo, I guess?

At the risk of preemptively derailing any discussion of the Jaime troubles, Continue reading →