GAME OF THRONES - MADE EVERYBODY SCREAM IN HORROR

TODAY IN TV HISTORY: ‘GAME OF THRONES’ MADE EVERYBODY SCREAM IN HORROR

From: J. Reid

Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.


PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Game of Thrones, “The Rains of Castamere,” Season 3, Episode 9. (Watch on HBO Go or HBO Now.)



WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Over the years, Game of Thrones has staked out territory in the early weeks of summer to have the TV landscape all to itself (having just cleared May sweeps) just in time for the final few episodes of its seasons to freak everybody the hell out. It happened in the first season with the sad estrangement of Ned Stark from his head. And again in the second season with the Battle of Blackwater Bay. But no single Game of Thrones episode has garnered the kind of reaction that “The Rains of Castamere” did two years ago today.

It’s almost not worth going through the plot of The Red Wedding again. If you’re a fan of the show, you know it intimately. If you’re not a fan of the show … you probably still know it intimately. It became an instantly iconic moment of television, although one probably less likely to show up on prestigious clip reels alongside Sam Malone closing up Cheers and Sammy Davis Jr. kissing Archie Bunker on the cheek.



Even more fun to watch in retrospect are the myriad freakout videos — compilations of viewers experiencing the climactic Red Wedding scene in real time, filmed by their sadistic/forward-thinking friends who had read the books and knew what was coming. God bless.

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