Game of Thrones: Episode 2 – The Lost Lords wastes absolutely no time reintroducing you to the unenviable plight of House Forrester of Ironrath. With their army completely destroyed at the Twins at the beginning of Iron From Ice, they were already vulnerable. What’s worse, the treacherous House Bolton (and the opportunistic lickspittles of rival House Whitehill) have taken young Ryon Forrester hostage and stationed a host of Whitehill soldiers in Ironrath. Regardless of your actions at the end of Episode 1, young Lord Ethan Forrester was brutally murdered by Ramsay, the bastard son of newly-minted Warden of the North, Roose Bolton. The situation is dire, and drastic times call for drastic measures.

Amazingly, Lady Forrester’s brother Malcolm has not only reached Essos, but he’s already located the exiled Asher Forrester in Yunkai. It seems as though Daenerys Targaryen’s brutal emancipation of Slaver’s Bay has opened the door for several well-paying bounties. And Asher is more than man enough to raise a little hell, especially with his sellsword friend, Beskha. Without spoiling anything, I’m going to say that I’m counting on Asher to be a crowd favorite; his scenes are easily the best.

The Lost Lords features a surprise playable character, which I will not discuss until the next episode review. It’s quite a shock, and unlike most of those delivered by the series, it’s a welcome one.

Poor Gared Tuttle. In classic series fashion, he has gone from standing on top of the world to near rock bottom. Not five minutes after his liege Gregor Forrester quietly divulged his plan to promote the young lad, the entire Forrester host was ambushed and destroyed by the forces of the treacherous House Frey. Then, his return to Ironrath was eventful for all the wrong reasons: the discovery of his humble family’s murder at the hands of Whitehill soldiers developed into an encounter that ended with bloodshed. The potential fallout of this action being as massive as it was, Gared had no choice but to venture to Castle Black and join the Night’s Watch.

Gared’s story this episode is a bit too familiar. A naïve young man comes to the country’s last line of defense, which is populated mainly by criminals. A motley crew of jerks spends all their screen time making trouble for each other, and all the while, I was kind of tiredly nodding at the screen, hoping they’d just become friends already and start talking about things that matter. And at the end, you’re treated to an interaction with Jon Snow. It’s a good sequence, made better by the fact that the game doesn’t make a huge deal out of it.

If I didn’t have direct control over Mira Forrester’s actions, I would still probably be able to describe her as Season 5 Sansa Stark. She may be far newer to King’s Landing than King Joffrey’s former betrothed, but she doesn’t seem to be anything like the deluded little woman child Sansa was in A Game of Thrones. She’s observant, careful, and strategically meek. At least, she is in my game.

Mira’s role in The Lost Lords is designed specifically to make you feel like you’re being pulled in multiple directions at once. She is torn between familial duty and her responsibility to the Crown. She cannot please everyone, and remember this series: most people are incapable of pleasing in any way that doesn’t involve whores. Mira’s tale finishes with an electrifying cliffhanger, and I’m extremely excited to see where she goes.

So yes, the latest installment of Telltale’s adaptation is great, but not without one pretty big caveat. There exists an extremely common save bug that disregards all the choices you made in Episode 1 – Iron From Ice. I didn’t feel the effects too keenly, as most of the choices I made happen to coincide with the game’s "default" storyline. But with a series this dependent on continuity in its storyline, it’s very much a dealbreaker until it gets fixed.

In the end, Game of Thrones: Episode 2 – The Lost Lords is another table-setter episode. There’s always a period of slow burn leading up to the climax of each installment. This is true of both the book series and the television adaptation, and it seems to be very much the case with this game. I’m completely invested in this cast of characters; I feel an impending sense of doom as well as an intense desire to see certain characters put in the ground, in classic George R. R. Martin fashion. I would say that’s an indication of the developer’s success.