The North Remembers

"The North Remembers" is the second season premiere episode of HBO's fantasy television series Game of Thrones. First aired on April 1, 2012, it was written by the show creators and executive producers David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and directed by returning director Alan Taylor.

With a war on the horizon, the Seven Kingdoms are witnessing an ever-growing clash of kings. The boy king Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) sits on the Iron Throne guided by cruelty and deceit, while his honorable counterpart Robb Stark (Richard Madden) of the North heads south to avenge his father's death. Meanwhile, the late king Robert Baratheon's estranged brother Stannis (Stephen Dillane) emerges as yet another claimant to the throne. A frantic search for King Robert's bastard sons ensues, while the Queen sets to find the missing Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) in order to retrieve her lover and brother Jaime, now a captive to the Starks. The title refers to Robb Stark vowing revenge against the Lannisters for his father's murder.

In the United States, "The North Remembers" achieved a viewership of 3.86 million in its initial broadcast. The episode introduced a number of new cast members, including Stephen Dillane's Stannis Baratheon, Carice van Houten's Melisandre and Liam Cunningham as "the onion knight" Davos Seaworth. It also featured a number of new locations, both fictional and real, most notably the city of Dubrovnik, Croatia, which served as the capital city of King's Landing. It received a great amount of critical praise, with critics noting Tyrion Lannister's development as a key player as a highlight of the episode and welcoming the new set of characters, which they saw as a great addition. The episode went on to win an American Society of Cinematographers for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in One-Hour Episodic Television Series.