“Thrones” Vs. “Downton”: Which Dame Wins?
Season 3 of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” has brought in a slew of new faces to enrich its latest season. But one particular newbie, Lady Olenna Tyrell (née Redwyne) of Highgarden, who appears as King Joffrey’s bride-to-be’s grandmother (played to perfection by Dame Diana Rigg) has some folks scratching their heads: Haven’t they seen this character before? The white-haired woman with a wicked wit — who rarely holds her tongue — shares an uncanny resemblance to another one of television’s great grandmothers: “Downton Abbey”’s eternally disapproving Dowager Countess Violet Crawley (Dame Maggie Smith). But the idea that Lady Olenna spars in the same class as the Dowager is absurd. Could Bobby Jindal beat Barack Obama?
