10 Most Memorable TV Drama Moments Of The 2010s
2. The Red Wedding - Game Of Thrones (2013)
Though hardly the first shocking scene from a show that routinely aimed to stun and surprise, when it came to “breaking the internet”, as Game of Thrones was wont to do, this was inarguably the granddaddy of them all.
With Eddard Stark having been relieved of his head in the show’s debut season, it fell to newly crowned King in the North Robb Stark to take on the role of the gallant hero, leading the foremost House of “good guys” from that moment on. With the support of legions of fans, Robb was surely destined to avenge his father’s death and take a sword to the horrible, wormy face of the despicable King Joffrey… right?
Showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, taking their cue from story mastermind George RR Martin, had very different ideas.
The “baddies” had had their moment in snipping poor Ned’s neck, but their comeuppance was still, sadly, pretty far off. Instead, “The Rains of Castamere” saw Robb Stark, his mother Catelyn, his direwolf, and his entire army soundly slaughtered at that most perilously merry of all social gatherings… a wedding.
Even if viewers had learned their lesson from Ned Stark’s untimely execution in the first season that this wasn’t a story that veered in traditional directions, only the most desolately pessimistic (or those who had read the books) were expecting a brutal turn like this.