Game Of Thrones Season 2 | featured news

Throughout the latter half of Game of Thrones Season 2, we kept hearing one name over and over again -- Mance Rayder. As the leader of an army of Wildlings, “The King Beyond The Wall” loomed large over the show’s adventures in the icy north, even though the audience never got to see his face. Audiences have been speculating on who might get to play the storied leader ever since the show was announced and now, according to EW, we’ve finally got an answer – Ciarán Hinds.

Sunday’s second-season finale of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” clocked 4.2 million viewers at 9 p.m.  – 1.2 million ahead of the first-season finale crowd of 3 mil. At 4.2 million, the “GoT” episode’s 9 p.m. telecast was on par in the hour with ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition” (4.3 million), CBS’s “The Good Wife” rerun (4.6 million), and ahead of Fox’s repeats of “Family Guy” and “American Dad” (3.6 million), while running behind NBC’s “Miss USA Pageant (5.8 million).

HBO's season 2 of 'Game of Thrones' ends on an uncertain note, tying up some loose ends while cutting open new wounds. But has the show strayed too far from the books? Will the next season bring the story closer to the original?