Got S5 E2 "The House of Black & White"

In "The House of Black and White", Arya arrives in Braavos. Pod and Brienne run into trouble on the road. Cersei fears for her daughter’s safety in Dorne as Ellaria Sand seeks revenge for Oberyn’s death. Stannis tempts Jon.

I'm so excited for this episode!

Me too, what did you think of the first episode?

Now the deviations from the book begin. I wanted to see Sam politic to get Jon as LC, but I liked his cut downs to Janos Slynt. I hope Jaime doesn't die going to Dorne, I guess that means no Lady Stoneheart.I do like him going with Bronn though.  I have a feeling Sansa is going to be the Fake Arya from the books, going to marry Ramsey Snow, Hopefully she leads the Northern Conspiracy to take down the Boltons. Pretty good episode overall, and Jaqen H’ghar is back, another deviation, but I am ok with that one.

Last week, Game of Thrones scored the highest ratings of its lifespan with “The Wars to Come,” the show’s fifth season premiere. With the second episode, “The House of Black and White,” things have taken a dip. While the premiere was watched by around 8 million people, “Black and White” pulled in only 6.8 million, managing a rating of 3.6 among adults 18-49.

Of course, the numbers for “Black and White” are still tremendous, and were more than enough to make Game of Thrones the most successful cable show this past Sunday. Coverage of the NBA playoffs came in second, with The Real Housewives of Atlanta taking the bronze. Fun fact: three of the spots in the top 10 were taken up by reruns of The Big Bang Theory on TBS. There’s just no stopping that show.

On the broadcast side of things, “The House of Black and White” had to fight against the American Country Music Awards, which posted huge numbers over on CBS this year.

Generally speaking, it’s normal for things to level off after the premiere. The second episode always sees a drop in ratings, although this is the biggest drop yet. It’s unknown whether the widespread leak of the first four episodes is partially to blame for that dip, but it’ll be interesting to see if the numbers jump back up come episode 5. Even so, “Black and White” got higher ratings than any other second episode of any season of the show, so I’d say HBO can mark this down in the “win” column.

Ez wrote:

Now the deviations from the book begin. I wanted to see Sam politic to get Jon as LC, but I liked his cut downs to Janos Slynt. I hope Jaime doesn't die going to Dorne, I guess that means no Lady Stoneheart.I do like him going with Bronn though.  I have a feeling Sansa is going to be the Fake Arya from the books, going to marry Ramsey Snow, Hopefully she leads the Northern Conspiracy to take down the Boltons. Pretty good episode overall, and Jaqen H’ghar is back, another deviation, but I am ok with that one.

I also like that he's going with Bronn. What did book Jamie do? I really don't remember.

He goes to the Riverlands to end the siege on Riverrun, Brienne is intercepted by Lady Stoneheart, and commanded to bring Jaime to her for execution, that is basically where his story ends. Aerys Oakheart is the Kingsguard who is Dorne, he gets killed trying to raise up Myrcella as Queen.

Ez wrote:

He goes to the Riverlands to end the siege on Riverrun, Brienne is intercepted by Lady Stoneheart, and commanded to bring Jaime to her for execution, that is basically where his story ends. Aerys Oakheart is the Kingsguard who is Dorne, he gets killed trying to raise up Myrcella as Queen.

Ahhhh, now I remember. Thanks!

I really want to re-read the series.

I am in the middle of a re-read right now, about half way through a Feast of Crows