Game of Thrones: The North Remembers

So over the past couple days, I marathoned the hell out of Game of Thrones, desperately trying to catch up in time for the premiere.  Mission accomplished.

So here's my review of the long-awaited Season 2 premiere of Game of Thrones!

To the disappointment of everyone including and most especially me, little King Joffrey is still alive.  I was sort of hoping that someone would have managed to kill him during the hiatus, just so I wouldn't have to look at him anymore.  Ugh, why do the things I want never come to pass?

Luckily Tyrion is back in King's Landing to serve as the new Hand and more importantly, to make all of his relations look like morons.  This pleases me in an almost unseemly manner.  Meanwhile, Robb Stark (who has taken several levels in badass over the past few episodes) has been winning the war and still has Jaime Lannister tied up in the little pen.  More awesomeness.

But this is no longer a game of two players, if it ever was.  Now they've also got to worry about King Robert's charismatic younger brother Renly, who has apparently been very busy winning hearts and building an army.  King Robert's other younger brother Stannis, who is a serious little warrior and apparently seems to have recently found religion, is looking to take the throne as well.  And then you've also got Daenerys Targaryen, the old king's daughter, who was dragons.  Dragons.  I am so excited that there are dragons now!  So we've got a lot of people looking for the same throne, and I believe things could start to get messy.

Meanwhile, Jon and Co are out north of the wall trying to track down his uncle and figure out what the H-E-double hockey sticks is with the zombie white walker things.  They stop for the night at an incestuous polygamy compound in Utah.  No, actually, unscratch that.  That's exactly what I mean.  It pretty much is a polygamy compound, just not in Utah.  I think.  Unsettling father/husband warns all the Watchmen that they better not lay a finger on his daughters/wives if they know what's good for them.  Don't think that's going to be too much of an issue.

Also, the whole "the Queen screws her brother" thing is becoming rapidly less of a secret, and the King's guards have been ordered to go out and hunt down all of King Robert's bastard children.  Even the little babies.

Random Musings:

• Why are so many people on this show attracted to their own family members?  One might seem like a coincidence, but this is a full-on pattern.  Forget, "Winter is Coming"...I think "Incest is the Best" might be a more fitting slogan.

• As much as I thought Sansa was a silly little girl last season and she annoyed me, I like that she's learning to fight smaller battles and manipulate Goffrey in her own way.  Of course I would rather see her mouth off to him for my own amusement, but she's be dead by now if she did that, so I can hardly blame her for trying to keep a low profile.