Game Of Thrones: The Prince Of Winterfell Review

The Game reaches its most dangerous twist yet...
Week by week, we've been building towards the battle of Blackwater and it seems it's now on the brink of occurrence now that Game Of Thrones' Season Two Sky Atlantic re-run has reached its third-last episode. The premise for this eight instalment focused mainly on the lines of battle being drawn, but there were certainly a few interesting developments.

Firstly, there was the plight of the Lannisters over at King's Landing. It seems that their kingdom will fall under siege from Stannis Baratheon next week, yet here there was more at stake. Tyrion's worry that Joffrey would not fight to rally the morale of troops felt realistic and heartfelt thanks to the superb work of Peter Dinklage, with Cersei once again offering swift and honest justifications for her eighteen-year old son not stepping out onto the field of war. With Tywin himself appearing just as angered at Joffrey's refusal to fight as his dwarf successor, it'll be intriguing to see how the Lannister arc develops in the final two weeks of this season.

Aside from that central strand of the narrative, there were a number of other storylines at hand. These included a brief glimpse into Jon Snow's capture in the North and his journey to meet the King of the North, along with Arya failing to act in time to stop Tywin yet still managing an escape. Given that earlier instalments of Season Two were rather light on plot developments, it was a great surprise to see such major steps forward, even if the biggest changes are presumably yet to come in the remaining adventures.

The main weakness this week was undoubtedly the Greyjoy strand of the narrative. Despite the episode's title being dedicated to Theon, there was little in the way of focus on his character's strife to keep control of his new kingdom, a real shame given that more focus was provided to the rather obvious survival of Bran as a result. Ah well- Game Of Thrones: The Prince Of Winterfell was still a fun eighth entry in the second season, and with any luck Sky Atlantic's re-run will culminate in a spectacular way in the next fortnight...
4/5