Game of Thrones - "The Rains of Castermere" (Rifftrax)

Episode Year:  2013
Genre:  Soap opera, fantasy
Director:  David Nutter
Starring:  A bunch of people that died...spoiler alert
Rifftrax Year:  2017
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Episode

Previously on Game of Thrones...stuff happened.  I don't know what, because I don't watch this show.

I'd like to preface this by saying most of this is just me spitballing, because I had the grim realization while watching this of "Oh crap, I have to talk about a serialized episode without proper context, so now I'm really fucked."  Oh well.

But, it's another happy-go-lucky episode of Game of Thrones!  But this one had less nudity and less Peter Dinklage, so I didn't care for it.

"But moron-with-a-blog," I hear you saying, "You skipped ahead a bunch of episodes and ruined one of the biggest surprise endings of the series!"

Like, motherfucker, the internet long since ruined this ending for everyone who will ever attempt to watch Game of Thrones.  There is not a single person alive who hasn't heard of the fucking Red Wedding.  Even if I had attempted a proper watch of the series, I had already known this moment was coming.  Thank you very much, social media!

One thing that I will concede is that I have no clue who any of these characters are nor do I have any sort of attachment to them, which is a result of having skipped ahead.  BUT, I must admit that after watching the first season of Game of Thrones I couldn't tell you any of the characters' names nor did I have any sort of attachment to them either.  I recognized Emilia Clarke here in a relatively small role, playing Dragon Lady With a Funny Name.  I also recognized a couple of Harry Potter actors who weren't in that first season either.

The primary storyline of this episode has to do with a wedding at one of the fantasy towns of the series.  Most of the episode builds up to a wedding between two characters, but in the finale, the ceremony sees the father of the bride betrays a group of invited guests and just has his guards kill everyone.

The question is that now that I've seen the most notorious episode of Game of Thrones, am I more interested in the series?  Not really.  I found the Red Wedding pretty hilarious, honestly, what with the random stabbity-stabbity-stab-stab-stab of just everyone in sight.  Then it ends with a dramatic "FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION" pleading by wife of now-dead-Sean Bean (SEE, I KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT THE SERIES), an ac-TING moment of a wail of sorrow, then she slits some pre-teen girl's throat because "Why not?" just as some dude just casually strolls up behind her and slits her throat too.  Maybe if I actually gave a damn this scene would play out stronger, but just the DRAMA of it was so overdone that I just found it amusing.

But please, don't take this as an actual opinion of merit on the episode.  I've already gone on record stating that I don't care for the series, nor did I give this episode a genuine shot, because I didn't care.  If I ever watch it properly in context of the series, I'll amend a real review at the bottom.  Just please, don't hurt me.

::GOT fan sneaks up on blogger, slits his throat::

The Trax

"Remember when this series was fun?"
"No."
"Me neither."

I'll admit that I preferred the previous riff of "Winter is Coming" over "The Rains of Castermere."  It's strange to just jump over an entire section of a story as the riffers hit the ground running.  People who are invested in Game of Thrones lore may get a lot out of the experience, as the episode presumes familiarity with events of the previous seasons.  It's not a whole lot of fun trying to keep in pace with where we're at.

"Not a Game of Thrones superfan, are you Mike?"
"I can hold my own!  That's Percy Jackson right there, right?"

Luckily the riffing doesn't quite rely on a knowledge of Game of Thrones's story to get through.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill mostly just throw jokes at it, possibly out of fear of losing Rifftrax fans who aren't familiar with the series.  The only issue is that the riff lacks a certain intimacy.  That may sound dumb in concept, but it always feels as if they're keeping the episode at arms length and not really going for the gold.  If they could dig in some deeper cuts, this could be a bit funnier.

"Anybody who caters a wedding has probably dreamed of this."

When the Red Wedding occurs, the riffs start flying.  The unabridged, kinetic violence of the episode gives the room some energy, and they're the biggest laughs of the episode.  Of course, that might be bias from myself since I'm not emotionally connected to the show.  If you have that emotional connection, you may be desiring Mike, Kevin, and Bill to shut up and show some goddamn respect for the fallen.  But taking the visuals of the sequence and the jokes of the trax, I can assure you that it's A-game we're seeing.

But it's that pesky issue of being a random episode of a serialized show that always feels like is holding this Rifftrax back.  It can be lukewarm at times, but I laughed.  A piece of me suspects this won't be the final Game of Thrones riff either.  When you consider just how many people hated the recently aired series finale, I theorize that our boys at Rifftrax will propose a riff of it as a stretch goal in next year's Kickstarter.  Given the laughs I did get from riffing Game of Thrones so far, I'd welcome it with open arms.

Good