Maureen Ryan
TV critic,
The Huffington Post Posted: 03/28/2012 8:16 am
"Game of Thrones" (9 p.m. E.T. Sunday, HBO) is back, and it's better than ever.
The first half of "Game of Thrones'" debut season wasn't a particularly graceful experience. There's no doubt that the team adapting George R.R. Martin's compelling novels about knights, dragons and a land convulsed by rebellion faced an incredibly difficult challenge in boiling down a 700-page novel into 10 hours of television.
Despite a first-rate cast and palpably respectful intentions, the first few hours of Season 1 contained quite a few rough spots, awkward transitions and clunky passages. It's gratifying to be able to say that the first four hours of Season 2 of "Game of Thrones" are far more elegant and engaging.
It helps that most of the characters are already established, but there's more to it than that; the confidence and dexterity that were on display in the second half of Season 1 are even more in evidence in Season 2. The show occasionally felt weighted down by expectations in its first season, but it demonstrates a lighter touch this year; there's a particularly amusing sequence in Episode 3 involving Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) that is both dramatically effective and comedically pleasing.
It's a sign of the show's maturation that it can have a little fun with its narrative style even as it continues to take the characters and their ever more complicated world seriously.
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-ryan/game-of-thrones-season-2-review_b_1382586.html
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