Game of Thrones - Episode 3 - "Lord Snow"

The introductions are out of the way, the characters have been moved into position, and now it's time to see how all of the Starks, Snows, and Targargyens adapt to their new lives. Jon has a shaky start, Daenerys takes to the Dothraki like a fish to water, and Ned Stark just can't seem to make friends anywhere.

In these recaps I'm not reviewing the episode as much as offering my impressions as a big fan of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. With that in mind, these discussions will include spoilers aplenty for all published Song of Ice and Fire books. If that's cool with you, click through!

"Lord Snow" was really more of a catch your breath episode than anything else. So not exciting as the first two episodes, but a necessary change of pace. No animal killings, no beheadings, no raunchy sex (we did get some nudity thanks to Littlefinger's fortuitous choice of hiding Cat in a brothel). We did get to just spend time with our characters, and really get to see both Castle Black and King's Landing. We had seen them both briefly in the pilot, but now with our characters out of Winterfell a lot of the action will be at these locales.

I am still enjoying the show, and Maisie Williams IS Arya for me now. While I am really enjoying Jon Snow and Ned, they still don't fit what I pictured in my head, so I'm enjoying the actors but still think of them as actors, not the "real" versions that exist only in my head. Does that make sense? How do the actors fit the versions of the characters you had in your head?

The relationship between Tyrion and Jon is good, although it's developing differently than in the novel it is still believable. I really enjoyed the characters at Castle Black and we are meeting the people who will become very important to Jon for the foreseeable future. He's having a rough time adjusting to the new lifestyle, but with Tyrion's help he's adapting. Daenerys has fully embraced the Dothraki culture, dressing like them and learning their language. And Ned Stark is still just a bull in a china shop. Subtlety is not one of the Stark's traits.

Also in this episode, we see many dialogue heavy scenes that didn't exist in the book. These scenes are what I enjoyed the most out of the episode, bringing some depth to characters using new material. Ned's face-off with Jaime in the throne room, and Robert's conversation with Ser Barristan about their first kills. And the dichotomy of seeing Cersei's chat with Joffrey compared to Ned's chat with Arya was a fun way to see the inherent differences between Lannisters and Starks.

And a few short thoughts:

• Where the hell are the direwolves?? I suppose we didn't need to see Grey Wind or Summer, but there should have been at least one scene with Ghost padding alongside Jon. There was a very short scene last week with Ghost standing near Jon Snow on the way to the Wall, but many people seem to have missed that. I'm wondering of the viewers of the show that haven't read the books even realize that Jon took his wolf with him.
• I think I'm really going to enjoy Aidan Gillen as Littlefinger. He was a great corrupt politician on The Wire, and Littlefinger is even more devious than Tommy Carcetti. I also laughed out loud at the scene where Ned had Littlefinger by the throat... and Cat popped her head over the balcony.
• I didn't mention it above, but I really liked the conversation between Ser Jorah and Rakharo (edit: not Jhogo as I first thought - apparently the writers thought "Jhogo" sounded too much like "Drogo" so switched it). So far I like Ser Jorah a lot more in the show than I ever did in the books.
• And then my favorite part of the episode. Syrio Forel. Sure, he didn't look anything like he was described in the book - but I thought the spirit of the character was intact. I do hope we see a lot more of him during the rest of the season. Syrio is probably my favorite "minor" character in the whole series, definitely in book one. Just so!

Those were my thoughts... what did everyone else think?