The Grisly Touch

HBO has a quota to meet in every one-hour episode of the acclaimed fantasy series Game of Thrones. A spilling of guts, a well-lit sex scene, a bare breast here or there, and a few cuss words thrown into the dialogue - there, done.

Despite being what some might call gratuitous, explicit and downright shocking, the series has a touch of humanity aside from the macarbre. Not since Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings have I been so enthralled by a screen adaptation of a fantasy novel. Maybe it's all the girl power. First Arwen escapes the Black Riders in Fellowship, and now, for the first time in television history, mail-order bride Daenerys Targaryen eats the heart of a stallion all on her own. Fierce.