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The Last of Us (HBO) is Almost Here

Jan14

Tomorrow (2/15/23) is the official debut of The Last of Us show and this previous Monday I was honored to attend the official premiere and have the opportunity to watch the first episode.

I’m not going to spoil anything, but I just wanted to say that what I saw was pretty darn awesome — flawless really. Not that I’m unbiased, but the tone was a pitch-perfect match to the games. And, hey, the music was the same — which is incredibly important in forging an emotional tie in for fans. Sure there are little changes to suit the medium, and the casting (which is great) means that the characters look a bit different than the in-game models, but the essential DNA of the story appears fully intact. That’s, I’m sure, a testament to the intense role that Neil Druckmann had in the show and to the first-rate HBO team. Craig Mazin has a great track record (I loved Chernobyl) and is a master of slow burn horror.

Neil and I at the premiere.

In any case, I can’t wait to see the rest of the show as both reviewers and my ND friends who have seen it indicate only gets better after the first episode.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Games, Television

Tagged as: Craig Mazin, HBO, Neil Druckmann, The Last of Us

Game of Thrones 1-7 Rewatch

Mar20

I just finished my full binge rewatch of all seven existing seasons of Game of Thrones — in preparation, of course, for the April debut of the final season. I wanted to offer some thoughts on the show as a whole, instead of the detailed episode by episode analysis I usually do. Bear in mind that I’ve watched many of these episodes 6-8 times (particularly the first 2-3 seasons) and read the books 3 times. However, it’s been 3 or 4 years since I did a big watch on the show, maybe a bit more, so it wasn’t too fresh (a good thing). Seasons 6 and 7 I only watched once previously when they were released (with maybe an episode or two watched twice).

I’ll just make a series of observations based on this watch. It took me about 4 weeks to view all 67 episodes (Feb 13 – Mar 18, 2019). There were a couple big binges in there, particularly season 7 which was all one day.

It’s hard to say if GOT or Buffy the Vampire Slayer is now my favorite television show of all time. Let’s just call them tied. Clearly GOT is far less dated but 7 full watches later Buffy is still a work of art. The slot just below them goes to Madmen.
You can really feel the budget ratchet up, particularly starting with season 4. Big events in season 1 and 2, namely the large scale battles, feel skimpy by the standards we have grown accustomed to. For example, Tyrion’s season 1 battle and the Battle of the Whispering Wood and even the season 2 Battle of Blackwater Bay. Large scale (CG) troop action is avoided for cost reasons. In the first few seasons some FX shots look a bit fake whereas they are seamless from season 4 on. An example would be Dany and her dragons at the end of season 1 or her “destruction” of the House of the Undying in season 2.
GRRM’s general pattern of oscillating the fortunes of each character in a slightly random sinusoidal pattern is more evident (and just as brilliant) when taken in bulk. Take a major character like Tyrion. His fortunes rise, hit setbacks, rise, then fall, then rise, then fall. Each of these individual notes (given the number of characters) combines in an orchestra like effect to form the whole.
He also really knows how to put characters to the test with really tough choices. They are often really really difficult. From Jaime’s simple choice in episode 1 to be caught with Cersei or push Bran out the window to Theon’s torturous decision as to whether to stay at Winterfell and die vs crawl home a coward. Each major character is confronted again and again with these breaking points.
As with the books, Season 1 still has the most dramatic and complex narrative. Really A Game of Thrones is a near perfect novel. GRRM’s ability to introduce such a vast range of characters, detailed world, and tell such a complex story is brilliant. Dany’s narrative in S1 / AGOT mirrors the whole season and is perfect rise and fall and rebirth.
Season 2 and to a slightly lessor extent 3 suffer the most relative to the books. A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords are nearly as good as A Game of Thrones and yet much larger. Compressing these two chunks of the narrative into one season each, when it probably needed 2.5-3 total makes season 2 in particular feel rushed. Watching it as a binge it’s less noticeable, but there is a lot of good stuff touched on, but not fully realized.
If seasons 1-3 are probably slightly inferior to the books, seasons 4-6 generally handle the material from A Feast of Crows and A Dance of Dragons better than the source novels. Both these novels suffer from terrible editing of the different narrative streams and the addition of useless and boring POV characters like Damphair and the forgotten extra heirs (2 sets?) who travel to Dany and get torched. Yes, the show’s Dorne narrative is weak, but at least it’s pretty short and gives Jaime and Bronn some banter.
Season 7 was better on this rewatch and felt a bit less rushed.
- Still there were some stupid decisions like the whole idiot plan to grab a live wight (losing the dragon).
- Also the narrative attempt to “fool” us with regard to Sansa and Arya’s relationship felt forced and an unusual distortion of the usually straightforward (show) POV.
- The season is nearly one continuous set of character reunions / dramatic first meetings (heroes and villains alike). But they nearly all work — even the “band of brothers” north of the wall.
The binge watching helps to smooth over the uneven episode presence of different characters. For example, Dany often disappears for an episode or two, particularly in season 2 or 3. Watched week to week this is very noticeable but all together not a big deal.
GOT has a tremendous number of characters and we can break them into a few tiers: A level (book POV characters like Dany, Jon, Tyrion, Arya, Sansa, Ned, Theon, Cersei, Davos, Jamie etc), B level (extremely important non POV characters like the Hound, Drogo, Littlefinger, Varys, Jorah, Ygritte, Tywin, the Red Lady), C level (memorable minor characters like Ser Roderick, Jaqen H’ghar, Gendry, the Sand Snakes, etc), and D level bit players. The books have vastly more C and D level characters. The show generally merges and minimizes many of the D level characters and promotes nearly everyone in the C and B level upward.
- Even the A characters have their narratives smoothed out. Due to a combination of Martin’s heavy POV style and his terrible breakdown for books 4 and 5 (discussed a bit here) the “pacing” of the individual character narratives is much better in the show. A perfect example would be Theon. He’s more or less always present in the show, even if his role in the first half of season 1 is minor. In the books, after his capture by Ramsay, he just vanishes for several books, then reappears in a narrative trick much later. The reconstruction of the Reek narrative over seasons 3 and 4 bridges this and keeps him relevant.
- B level characters of high importance like the Hound, Littlefinger, Varys, Jorah, Bronn etc get a huge promotion and much more development than in the books where the gap between POV and not POV is tremendous. A role for them is often found in parts of the story where Martin left them out.
- The ability of actors to add depth even during short performances (for example, Syrio Forel — but there are many others) breaths life into some of the C level characters. Others are are merged or given more involved stories like Gendry.
- Some of the irrelevant D level characters like those in the one off POV prologues lose out — but this is a wise choice.
Occasional weird recasting:
- The Mountain (3 actors!) is poorly handled (in season 2). Actors 1 and 3 are more or less interchangeable, but the decision to go with a tall skinny guy for season 2 sucks and would almost certainly make novice viewers not even realize this incarnation of the character is the same person.
- The Dario recasting is odd too, although I like the second Dario better.
Bran ages the most poorly of all the characters. He just looks (and once he’s the raven) acts so different. I know this later is on purpose, but you do feel like you’ve lost him.
It’s amazing how much emotional impact some characters that have very little overall time in the narrative have, for example Ned, Robert, Oberyn, and even Viserys.
Because I watch a TON of British period television, I constantly notice how GOT uses nearly every common BBC actor. Even minor little ones. And of course the batch overlap with certain shows like Rome (Mance, Ellaria Sand, Tobias Menzies), Skins (Gendry, Gilly), Iron Fist (Loras, Nym) and I’m sure more.
There are a couple of oddball castings/performances:
- Mace Tyrell is so broad and comic
- The Sand Snakes are so lame, particularly Obara. And I love Jessica Henwick in the Iron Fist — but she’s lame here. Speaking of, early (more swishy) Loras and Danny Rand are barely recognizable as the same actor.
The “sexposition” ratchets down after the first few seasons, although there is still some tendency to throw in gratuitous nudity even in later seasons. By gratuitous, I’m not talking about the love scenes, but for example, in the Season 6, the theatrical troupe is half naked back stage (and a bit on stage). Not that I mind, but in a mixed gender setting this would never happen in the middle ages — East or West. Perhaps among slaves in the ancient world.
Because Croatia (namely Dubrovnik and Split and environs) feature so prominently as filming locations, all/most of the cities have a seaside that looks a bit Adriatic. Or Irish (like in the case of Pyke). Or Spanish (Dragonstone, Dorne). This leads Kings Landing, Bravos, and Meereen to have some considerable overlap in visual style, particularly with the coastal view, general terrain, and grey stone streets. If they had shot Meereen in the middle east or something this could have been avoided, but the show has a lot of filming locations as it is.
GOT borrows liberally from all across history. A bit of history’s great hits. George R. R. Martin does it in the books and the show does it even more (as it continues the trend on a visual and stylistic level). The series is rife with out of time historical borrows/allusions. Below are a few ancient references repurposed into this largely medieval setting:
- Arya’s presenting Frey with the pie containing his sons’ is reminiscent of Herodotus describing the Persian king Cambyses as serving his enemies their dead children.
- The Titan of Bravos is borrowed from the Colossus of Rhodes.
- The architectural style of Old Town’s Citadel is copied directly from the Lighthouse of Alexandria (a second wonder of the Ancient World).
- As many of the scenes were filmed in the Palace of Diocletian, they have a Roman feel. As does the Dragonpit which is obviously old Roman construction because of the telltale Roman brickwork (looking it up, it’s a Roman amphitheater in Seville).
- Slavers bay feels vaguely Babylonian — the harpies subbing in for winged bulls and the like.
- The Dothraki are of course an amalgamation of steppe people like the Mongols and Huns. There have been steppe cavarly armies sense early antiquity and they posed a constant threat to city people until the invention of small (gunpowder) arms. At least one of the Dothraki “flavor” conversations is borrowed from Gibbon’s description of statements allegedly made by Atilla.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Throne, George R. R. Martin, got, HBO, Narrative structure, Television

Game of Thrones – Episode 57

Jun07

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 57 – June 5, 2016

Title: The Broken Man

Summary: Lots of great character development

ANY CHARACTER HERE

NOTE: SERIOUS SPOILER WARNING. This review/discussion contains tons of spoilers about the episode and even ones crossing over from the books. It’s really my free-for-all musing given all the information at my disposal.

Plot threads are unraveled and discussed one by one.

The Hound – Guess what, or favorite Clegane is back! Turns out like so many GOT characters when Arya left him to die… the Hound only “mostly” died. The mysterious Septon Ray (name changed from the books where he was Septon Meribald) found him where Arya left him and nursed him back to health. The Septon is played by vetran British actor Ian McShane, who was so awesome as Swearengen in Dead Wood (and countless other roles).

This thread is broken into several segments, but essentially Seption Ray runs a kind of refuge commune of various regular folks made homeless by the war. He inspires them to live well (he does wear a Septon’s star) and works alongside them as they build a tower, prepare food, cut wood etc. He’s a humble guy and keeps engaging the Hound in conversation. They’re both amusing. Ray: “What kind of big f**ker was man enough to take you down?” Hound: “a woman.” It’s also clear even from the beginning that Sandor is changed man, less angry than before. Septon Ray talks of his past as a warrior and his transformation into a holy man. One could parallel this with the High Septon’s story but overall Ray is certainly less manipulative and fanatical. During one of these speeches three men from the Brotherhood arrive on horseback. They ask for money, food, etc but are nicely turned away. The Hound is touched by Ray’s sentiments, but speculates that they should be prepared to fight.

Chopping wood for 2 and a half years

Next time we see him he is cutting wood off by himself when he hears screaming. He returns to camp to find every soul shot through with arrows. The Septon dangles from his tower by a noose, even his star having been taken. The Hound grabs up an axe, set back on the warrior’s path.

While I’ve always liked the Hound (not as a person, but as a character), and I enjoyed McShane’s Ray, I was not totally satisfied with the handling of the group’s demise. It looked as if a magical force swept in, shot everyone, and vanished. Stuff was still laying about, and it takes some “dedication” to kill everyone. Even the Mongol Horde missed stragglers (and sent back a special party to mop them up). This sort of atrocity certainly wouldn’t be in character with Dondarian’s Brotherhood, but more work of the ilk that clustered around the older, bigger, meaner Clegane (aka Fraken-Gregor before Quburn got to play with him).

It should be noted that this whole segment is so much clearer (as usual) in the show than in the books where it’s told from the POV of Brienne, who doesn’t know the Hound. In fact, the written interaction is mostly between her and the septon and the presence of the Hound is only inferred, and the septon technically says he is dead. But he may be speaking metaphorically, implying that the hound changed — which given what the show is doing is presumably the case.

Alas poor Ray, I knew him well

Margaery & Olena – The younger Tyrell is back hanging with the High Sparrow in his chapel. She is reading from one of the seven holy books, and quotes from the “The Mother.” If, as suspect, she’s acting, she’s doing a great job of it. She discusses her “new self’s” views of her “old self” in a very convincing way. The Sparrow inquires about her sex life, mentioning that she and the king haven’t “been together” — despite having been together. He encourages her to do her duty, as the king must have an heir. Certainly, medieval royalty were pragmatic about this, but it felt slightly forced. He also implies that Marg’s grandmother, the Queen of Thorns, had better watch out.

Later, Marg is back in the Red Keep with her Grandmother and under the watchful eye of Septa Unella. Olena is furious at her granddaughter’s pious stance and wants the septa gone — clearly they haven’t been alone. Marg sticks to the holy program, responding to Olena’s suggestion that she return to Highgarden that her grandmother should do the same. Then Marg slips her a note.

I knew it!

Oleana, never a dunce, instantly changes her tune. Outside, she opens the note which is revealed to be merely the Highgarden rose. Still, this is proof that Marg still sides with her house.

Later, Cersei and Franken-Gregor visit Olena, who is packing to return to Highgarden, finally having gotten the message to move out of the Sparrow’s reach and leave the scheming to her protege. They have an amusing exchange where Cersei, continuing to be subdued after her walk of shame, argues for an alliance. Olena blames her for the mess, which Cersei, in a bit ofrelatively new self awareness, agrees. But Olena reminds her that they have both lost, and that Cersei is without any support. Her uncle forsakes her, her son has gone to the Sparrow, and her brother is off fighting.

Jaime – and his Lannister army arrive at a Riverrun which due to budget, has grown more elaborate and picturesque since we last saw it way back in season 3. And Bronn is with him to continue their bromance. Jaime “convinces” Bronn that he should take over command of the siege and play his right hand man — since he’s short in the hand department. The Frey army investing the castle is as lame as the Freys themselves. The hooded creeps are taunting the Blackfish (who watches from the battlements) with his nephew, the hapless Lord Edmure. Threatening to kill him if the gates aren’t opened. The Blackfish isn’t about to flop.

So when the Frey’s back down on their threat, Jaime approaches them and takes command by one part royal order and nine parts confidence. He orders them to have Edmure bathed and fed. His putting the smack on the Freys is quite amusing. They don’t put up much of a fight.

Don’t mess with us Freys!

The same can’t be said of the Blackfish. Jaime goes to the castle gates alone and unarmed and treats with him. Kingslayer and Blackfish. They take the measure of each other, and the Blackfish is not impressed. Jaime offers terms (letting the Tully men go free if they surrender) and the Blackfish states that he was born in the castle, and he’s prepared to die in it. The walls are high, the fortress well provisioned, and the commander is seasoned. This won’t be a quick siege and Jaime knows it.

These are fun scenes, even if Bronn is merely amusing and not in prime form. But the Jaime / Blackfish interactions are great as is him putting the Frey’s in their place.

Kingslayer vs. Blackfish

Theon – and his sister Yarra party in Volantis, allowing us to again check out the cool shop-covered bridge and the whore houses. And while the Theon of old was a big brothel lover, alas, the newly trimmed version isn’t so keen on the carnal affairs. Which can’t be said of the enthusiastically lesbian Yarra — apparently instact Greyjoys are a lusty sort. But for all her bravado, Yarra is fairly sympathetic to Theon’s plight, in her Ironborn way. Still, as she puts it, if he’s so far gone he ain’t coming back he might as well end it all. Euron (sounds like urine) is hunting them, and they’re going to sail all the way to Meeren to ask Dany for help talking the Iron Islands back (little do they know she’s out horseback — I mean dragonback — riding). This tough love works on Theon, and he nods, on his way back from the reeky depths.

Runs in the family

Jon, Sansa, Davos – are trying to get the north back together. First step is to convince the Wildlings to join them in this fight. Here Jon does pretty well, making a big speech about the Wildlings being toast if they don’t knock Ramsay out. Tormund acts as backup singer and Wun Wun the giant chimes in by saying “Snow!” Victory one.

Wun Wun steals the scene again

Next up is Bear Island, which is a cool spot with icy waterfalls. There Jorah’s cousin-he-never-met, the 10 year-old niece of the Old Bear (the Lord Commander before Jon) is the lady. At first, the going is tough convincing her (and her Maester). Despite centuries of loyalty to the starks, She isn’t buying Jon. Nor Sansa. Then Davos pops in with a “I grew up in a shack” story and wins her over. Of course she only has 62 men, but she’s so cute she’s become an instant internet sensation — sort of like the Tormund/Brienne forbidden love.

Too cute to rule!

Stop three is Lord Glover. He listens to them, and might even have a grain of sympathy for the old days, but he’s still a big no despite the trio’s efforts. Robb did them no favors with the way he screwed up, ruined everything over a foreign girl, and then left them to the Bolton’s tender mercies. Now fear of flaying and keeps them in the Ramsay camp.

And speaking of camps, the meager forces of Snow, Start, and Seaworth make camp at that exact unlucky spot where Stannis was blizzarded in, then “forced” to burn his daughter at the stake. A grim locale. Sansa wants to gather more men, even though they have tried and failed at all reasonable options. Jon thinks they need to win with what they have. But Sansa secretly writes a letter (presumably to Littlefinger) and signs it with her direwolf sigil.

game-of-thrones-season-6-the-broken-man-image-6-600x399

Sansa, Snow, and Seaworth

Arya – Finally back to our favorite little Stark. She’s got a new outfit and hairstyle more in her traditional “hanging out at the Red Keep with her Dancing Master” style. Confident and bold, she strides up to some Westerosi ship captains and buys a cabin with stolen coin, then heads up to a bridge to take in a gorgeous view of Bravos and the Titan (the giant statue). Worth noting that this episode has been full of great views. Anyway, an old lady approaches, and we know what’s coming, it’s the Waif wearing a mask, and she stabs Arya 5-6 times nastily in the belly (shades of that other Stark, Robb’s wife). Arya, still being Arya, knocks herself free and over the side of the bridge to disappear into the lagoon and a pool of bloody water.

Thinking herself the Titan

Shortly after, she pops up somewhere nearby, swimming in pain, climbs out and staggers through the market clutching her bloody guts.

I was loving this whole sequence until her post-stabbing athletics. I have to imagine that a half dozen long bladed stabs to the intestines and then a bath in bacteria laden waters is pretty much a certain date to meet the real master of the House of Black and White. So, unless she gets some magical intervention next week, I’m having a hard time imagining my suspension of disbelief will hold. The walking at all after such a stabbing already has it strained to the breaking point. But we shall see.

Can we say sepsis?

Episode Body Count: Septon Ray and his whole crew. Arya’s guts.

Overall, a quieter episode than most, but with a lot of good character development. Really Arya’s encounter was the only major on screen action, but the show doesn’t need constant action for good drama. Containing only 4 major threads, this week moved those stories forward in a meaty way. They are deliberately merging more characters. And this trend will continue next week as Brienne seems to be hopping from the Jon thread to the Jaime thread — and it will be great to see them back together again.

Also thematically, the Broken Man is apt. We have the Hound and then Jon’s party, full of broken men. Jaime and Blackfish both. Or at least damaged. Hell, Edmure too. Theon is pretty much the definition and even Cersei and Marg have been “broken” (or bent) in their own ways.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 57, Game of Thrones, got, HBO, Season 6, Season 6 - Episode 7

Game of Thrones – Episode 56

Jun01

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 56 – May 29, 2016

Title: Blood of my Blood

Summary: Great stuff, slightly rushed execution

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Plot threads are unraveled and discussed one by one.

Bran – and Meera flee desperately through the snow, picking up where they left off last week. Bran is still in his trace and we are treated to a rapid-fire montage of visions. Mostly bits of White Walker footage from previous battles (like Hardholme) and stressful highlights (like Ned Snark’s final moments) but also a touch of new footage including the mad king screaming “burn them all” and some Wildfire explosions (is Wildfire a key to fighting the undead horde?). Back in the real world, given storm and terrain, Meera is having a tough time with the sled. Bran wakes, but the zombies are coming out of the woods. Just as things look bleakest, with the dead about to strike, a horseman with a fiery censor/thurible appears and makes short work of the shambling nightmares. At last, the long awaited appearance of Coldhands!

The long lost uncle (mostly)

Later, this mystery figure (who in the books helped out Sam and Gilly in the North and later Bran before he got to the tree), is beheading a rabbit — yuck (tie in with Sam and Gilly dialog). But he soon reveals himself to be Benjen Stark — achem, a little worse for the wear. Seems he was stabbed by a White Walker at some point, but was saved when the Children of the Forest used an obsidian dagger (shoved in his heart) to turn him into some kind of “good white walker.” He has apparently worked for the Raven since. The details of his transformation are unclear, presumably some similar magic to that which Leaf used to make the original White Walker. We fans have long suspected that Coldhands was Ben, and now it’s confirmed.

Overall, this is some great stuff and more of the rapid-fire reveals, particularly with regard to the Walker/Raven/Children mythology so long on slow IV drip. Ben didn’t look all that “transformed” and I would have preferred he appear more “wraith-like” or at least they showed his black hands. An elk/reindeer as opposed to a horse would have been cool too. The show is slightly uneven in how it embraces the high fantasy elements. Certainly they do, and in increasingly large measure, but it doesn’t play them to the LOTR max (and I mean good LOTR, not the Hobbit).

Does he look dead enough?

Gilly & Sam – Ride in a very fancy carriage through the southlands as they approach his ancestral estate of Horn Hill. They talk of trees (being green and different down south). Sam is a nervous talker and funny as usual. “A person just doesn’t feel welcome after that [being told to go to the wall or die]”. They inform the audience that Sam didn’t tell his family she was a Wildling (just a Northerner) in his letters and that his father hates Wildlings. Eventually they approach the house, which seen in the background is a giant complex I’m convinced was inspired (architecturally) by either the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi or by the older examples of Roman villas (put through a “medieval filter”).

Horn Hill on the show

The real life Basilica of St Francis, begun in 1228AD. Coincidence?

A typical large scale Roman villa, certainly an influence on the later Basilica

A typical large Roman villa built over a 1000 years before the Basilica, but both are Italian

Either way, Horn Hills looks imposing. Inside we meet Sam’s mother and sister and baby Sam is introduced as his son. Later, Gilly is amusingly awkward in a fancy dress. She looks quite different without that greasy/stringy hair, but she’s always been a cute girl (under the dirt). Sam’s dad is at dinner. I thought he might end up being Ian McShane, who is supposed to join the cast for one episode, but no, he’s dour and underplayed. There is hunting talk and the father is on Sam’s case from the first instant and Sam just shrinks into his chair. It’s tough to watch because Sam is such a sympathetic character and he has come such a long way over the years — but clearly not with regard to his father. This I can believe because it’s easy to retreat to old behaviors (good or bad) when seeing important people in your life you haven’t in a long time. Much like how you can hang with old college buddies decades later and it feels like “no time has passed” in certain regards. Anyway, the dad “points out” Heartsbane, their family Valyrian steel blade. Gilly can’t help but defend Sam and taunts the father with her Wildling origin (as a side note she mentioned rabbit hunting which is deliberately paired with Coldhand’s rabbit butchering above). Sam’s dad calls her a whore and demands that while she and the baby can stay, Sam has to go at first light. Sam just takes it all. But later, after talking to Gilly, and even though she forgives him, he comes back and grabs her to leave — stealing Heartsbane on his way out!

It’s good to see him getting his backbone back, even if he just took the verbal assault, and even if he does it on the sly. I liked these scenes, but my biggest problem was how black and white “nasty” Sam’s father was without any nuance or complexity.

Not the most relaxing family dinner

Arya – is back at the theatre in Bravos, watching another political drama, I guess a sequel to last week’s. This time it’s the Purple Wedding and the death of Joffrey. She enjoys getting to see him get his just desserts. It’s clear that as the Cersei actress (Arya’s target) says her lines that the younger one playing Sansa covets the part. Next, Arya sneaks back stage and puts her poison in the lady’s rum. On her way out she runs into her target. The actress is actually quite friendly and assumes Arya is a wannabe actress. So when the actress settles down to drink her rum Arya can’t bring herself to let it happen knocks the glass from her hands. I could tell this was coming as the writers weren’t about to make Arya into a soulless killer. But it’s still a big decision for her. She runs to her rocks and digs out needle (presumably to run away from the House of Black & White).

Later, the Waif reports to Jaqen H’ghar. She’s always had it out for Arya, but Jaqen is bummed. Still, he tells the Waif to kill her (but make it quick). So Arya is “free”, but a wanted woman. Like many of this week’s scenes I thought this was good stuff but a touch rushed. And while Arya will soon be on her way “back” (presumably to join one of the other threads of the story) it doesn’t feel to me that she has learned enough skills. She has better emotional control. She is better with the quarterstaff. But she hasn’t learned any secret Death God magics. Or maybe in the confrontation coming up (with the Waif and maybe Jaqen) she will steal some masks or mask magic. We shall see.

Hope we’ve seen the last of silly hair

Walder Frey – For the first time since season 4 we return to the loathsome Walder Frey. This segment serves mostly as exposition as he’s dressing down some of his indistinguishable hooded sons about having lost Riverrun to the Blackfish. Walder orders them in no uncertain terms to take back the castle — although easier said than done for a bunch of lackluster men against a seasoned commander like the Blackfish. Having sufficiently cowed his underlings he trots out a barefoot and bedraggled Edmure Tully (Cat’s brother and the Blackfish’s nephew) so they have some added leverage against the Blackfish. This is no surprise to me, as I knew they had him in custody. It makes sense to have held onto him because he was never a practical threat, but might prove a useful tool.

3 years of gruel in the tower room!

Tommen – is talking to the High Sparrow again, about Margaery in particular. This week the king is allowed to see her. Cleaned up, in her homespun robe, she looks younger. And she sure talks the penitent talk. Hard to tell if she’s become a convert or is playing along. Last week, she seemed in full charge of her facilities, so I have to wonder. They talk about Loras and she draws the convo back to the Sparrow.

Jaime – supervises the arrival of the Tyrell army, nominally under the command of the ridiculously armored Mace Tyrell — who gives a rather lame speech. They march on up to the Sept where the Sparrow has Marg out on the steps. Even the Queen of Thornes is there (in her armored coach). Jaime rides up the steps and confronts the Sparrow, demanding that there shall be no walk of atonement. The Sparrow pulls out his trump card and trots out a pet Tommen, superficially yielding on the walk issue, but showing his domination of the king. He announces a new union between church and crown (including both king and queen). Olenna is the only one seemingly aware that he “won”.

I wanted to see the walk!

Back in the throne room, Jaime strips off his Kingsguard armor in echo of the similar action by Barristan Selmy at the end of season 1. I think he was more fired than quit. He is being stripped of his command but sent with Lannister forces to deal with the Blackfish at Riverrun. Basically this is getting him back on track with the books.

Later, he’s furious when talking to Cersei. He wants to launch an all out attack on the Sept and knock out the High Sparrow. But this time she’s the one arguing for restraint. She isn’t worried about her upcoming trial because she can force it to “trial by combat” and have Franken-Gregor mow through whoever. They kiss passionately and reaffirm their Lannister Twin Pact.

Jaime fills out a uniform well

Dany – marches through the desert with her army, talking about how many ships they will need to bring the hordes to Westeros. Suddenly, she spots a dust devil and her spider senses tingle. She makes the rather silly looking gang of Dothraki wait while she runs around the corner. I do have to note that the whole Dothraki look is just a little over the top and always looks silly in a group. Khal Drogo himself looked great, totally badass, but the gang of them just don’t pull off the rough warrior ethos. Maybe it’s because the extras they drum up aren’t really nomadic horse warriors. Plus it doesn’t help that when we see them close up, it’s only a few guys.

Anyway, after Dany runs around the corner she reappears a minute later on top of Drogon (who has been eating WELL since we last saw him) and lands in front of her “horde”. Here, she proceeds to give another of her excellent foreign language motivational speeches, this time in Dothraki and with parallel lines to the awesome oath Khal Drogo gave before the Mother of Mountains in season 1.

The speech itself I liked, but I somehow thought they could have come up with some better way for her to hook up with Drogon than to “feel” he was hiding around the corner. Plus the cheering horde had that silly Dothraki extra look.

Episode body count: Zombies, Arya’s career as an Faceless Man, and Jaime’s pride.

Overall, a good episode with a lot of stuff happening, mostly dealing with the threads that were not addressed last week. My issue, as I’ve said above, is that these events felt like good moves from a plotting department but weren’t entirely fleshed out in execution. I wonder how much this has to do with the shift of the “scene writing” from GRRM to D&B. The former is a master of wrapping up his plot turns in the context of great scenes. Examples would be things like the Red Wedding or even a simpler scene like where Cat captures Tyrion in that inn in season 1 or where Ned ends up stabbed in the leg by Jaime. At the plotting level we have the turnabouts, but GRRM really sells the moment. By contrast, turning the corner and just finding Drogon isn’t a sexy way to get them back together — even though their reunion is a desirable thing.

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Personality of a lobster

By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 55

May23

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 55 – May 22, 2016

Title: The Door

Summary: The Hodor thing alone makes this the best episode this season so far

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Plot threads are unraveled and discussed one by one.

The Wall – These “multiple combined character threads” are often good, and certainly true of the new Jon/Sansa/Brienne/Davos/Red Lady plot line. This week, we open with Sansa sewing, playing direct homage to our first shot of her way way back in Episode 1 (no Jar Jar, not that episode 1). But season 6 Sansa receives a note, signed with Littlefinger’s distinct bird sigil. She asks the locals how far Mole’s Town is, and then goes there to meet him with Brienne as backup. Now, as to how Littlefinger teleported himself and his army from the Vale all the way north is anyone’s guess. We don’t see the “knights of the vale” anyway, as the production is saving money for the big zombie attack later in the episode.

But back to the Sansa/Littlefinger face off. Not only is she a lifetime older than that “silly girl” sewing at Winterfell, but her year with Ramsay has taught her a lesson or two. Her back and forth with Littlefinger is biting and she sums it up with “If you didn’t know [about Ramsay], you’re an idiot. If you did know, you’re my enemy.” It’s always hard to know much about Littlefinger’s except that he’s always out for himself (and that he’s always well pressed even after galloping breakneck across the country). Still, if I had to guess, he suspected about Ramsay, but decided to throw the dice anyway. He apologizes as usual, not the first time we’ve seen him making hollow apologies. Not even the first time to a Stark lady. Sansa really delivers with her speech, hinting at the horrors Ramsay inflicted on her. Really, given how bad he’s been on screen, we can only guess what nastiness he was up to when the cameras weren’t rolling. Sansa turns down Littlefinger’s offer of help and sends him packing, but he does throw her an informational tidbit by letting her know the Blackfish has formed an army and retaken Riverrun. And for good measure Littlefinger tries to throw sow some discord with Jon Snow.

Master and Student

Back in castle black, the whole gang sits down for a pow wow. Tormund seems distracted giving Brienne the most amusing leers while the rest of them try to figure out where they can drum up enough troops to take out Ramsay. They discuss the various houses and their loyalties. The Umbers obviously are a poor choice. Manderly might be a likely candidate since it’s mentioned and features in the books (Davos goes there). Sansa mentions the Tully army, but pointedly lies about how she knows about the Blackfish (saying she heard it at Winterfell).

Sansa later orders Brienne to the Riverlands to seek her uncle. I guess we know where Jaime is going next too — that’ll be cool. And Brienne takes Sansa to task for lying about where she found out. Brienne isn’t much of a talker, but she is a keen observer. I like her Jon Snow comment, “a bit brooding perhaps.” Lol.

Later Jon, Sansa, Davos, Mel, Tormund etc. prepare to leave. Sansa has a new Direwolf dress she has sown herself and gives Jon a wolf pelt cloak like Ned once wore. We might be gaining in wolf outfits, but we’re certainly losing on the actual wolf front :-(. Jon and Edd exchange bro hugs and the party rolls through the Caste Black gates. Those bleak portals have seen plenty of comings and goings.

She is just SO his taste

Arya – spars again with the Waif. Is that all she’s going to do this season? Anyway, again the Waif beats her up, even when she fights unarmed against the Arya’s staff. Again the Waif taunts her, in this case “You’ll never be one of us, Lady Stark.” But as usual, Jaqen H’ghar is more generous. He walks her around the giant columned “face room” and gives a vague backstory about the faceless men having founded Bravos then hands Arya another of those vials that spells the someone’s doom. In this case an actress named Lady Crane.

Hate the hair A

Cut to Arya with her ugly “tied up” hairdo watching a play that spoofs the basic elements of Season 1, namely the death of Robert and execution of her father. Interesting her different reactions to different elements, particularly the uncomfortably dumb Ned Stark (but his rhymes are funny). The play feels medieval enough with the fake “guts,” the dwarf etc. Except for the nudity. They didn’t even have female players until well into the modern era. And the distorted outside political interpretation is interesting, because you can imagine that easily, a spoof based more on the official “story” and less on all the real details. Political reporting wasn’t exactly accurate in this “period”. But back in the dressing room, where Arya spies on her mark, we are treated to both some male and female nudity — and the funny differences between the actors with and without their wigs.

Back at the House of Black & White Arya presents her killer plan to Jaqen, but her tone implies some hesitation about the justice of such an act. Apparently Faceless men aren’t really supposed to care.

Yara / Theon – Are gathered at the Kingsmoot, where apparently Ironborn elect their new king. He got a haircut and his old Kraken outfit back, so he looks more like Theon than we’ve seen in some time. There is still a haunted look to him and I really have to give Alfie Allen kudos for his subtle excellence in this rather complex role. Also apparently (or hopefully) only nobles attend the Kingsmoot because there don’t seem to be a great many Ironborn, perhaps 40. But on the bright side, they did choose a rather lovely, if austere, stretch of the Irish coast for their summit.

Yara steps up and makes her claim. She doesn’t have the greatest plan: build a great fleet. And then what? And there is some considerable foot dragging on account of her being a woman. Where are her die hard men now? Did they all die trying to rescue Theon? But when the time comes, Theon mans up and supports her — well eunuch ups anyway.

Moot point

But then steps in Euron.

He’s not really charismatic on screen, although he does have a much clearer plan: build a big fleet AND then take it to Daenerys, marry her, and bring all her troops across. Much clearer too than in the books. He doesn’t have the Dragon Horn, which is kinda a shame because I love a good magic horn that can burn your lungs out. Still, horn or no, Euron easily wins over the “crowd” then we are treated to a strange intercut between his “coronation” (by drowning in salt water) and Yara/Theon tucking tail toward their boats. Good thing too, because King Euron’s first mission to is to find them and kill them. But looking out over the water they have sailed off with the fleet, which actually seems like about 75 ships. I guess each of those 40 guys is sailing two.

Euron isn’t phased, he orders “everyone” to get building ships. Really, I haven’t seen a lot of trees on the Iron Islands. Or a lot of people.

It’s worth noting that while broadly similar to the books, the written version is more complex with point of views from Aeron (the long haired priest) and an extra brother, Victarion, who is sent with the horn to go retrieve Dany’s dragons. The show plot is at least more obvious and now actually makes clear the whole purpose for the Ironborne, which is to provide Dany a mechanism to get her Unsullied and Dothraki across the narrow sea!

If only we knew what Dorne was for!

Joffrey got the pointy throne AND the good crown?

Dany – gazes out over a very attractive CGI view of Vaes Dothrak. Dario and Jorah are there, but this segment is all about her oldest protector. She tells him she has banished him twice, he has returned twice, but yet saved her life. Clearly she still has a soft spot for him (as most of us viewers probably do). He shows her his nasty arm, admits he loves her, then turns to leave. But she will not dismiss him, instead ordering him to “go find a cure” and meet her in Westeros. He and his horse and her and her army both ride off in different directions in front of the giant horse statues — which are really cool but a little big on the construction effort for Dothraki.

Dig my dermatitis?

Tyrion – pow wows with Varys and crew and they discuss how violence is at a relative low since Ty’s 7 year plan with the masters. So far so good, but Tyrion has even more plans at diplomacy and lets in a High Priestess of the Lord of Light for an audience. She wears the same chocker as Melisandre. Wonder if she’s also an old crone? Anyway, an interesting dual verbal duel ensues in which Varys criticizes the priestess, she freaks him out with her magical knowledge, and Tyrion tries to make peace between all. Essentially it’s well done, evoking Vary’s creepy story about the sorcerer, his burning balls, and the freaky voice in the flame. One of the few things that we’ve ever seen shut the eunuch up.

New priestess in town

Bran – has three segments, but the first opens in the tree cave (again!) and then instantly shifts to a location somewhere in the north (i.e. Northern Ireland). There is a giant Weirwood surrounded by standing stones. Children of the Forest cavort about in what initially seems pastural — until we see a human trussed up and a Child shoves an obsidian blade into his heart — then his eyes go blue. So another huge reveal: the Children made the White Walkers (via sacrifice magic) in order to protect their land against mankind! And it looks like they may be immortal because it looks like the exact SAME children as now, 40,000 years later.

Watching the big stab

Later, Bran is in the cave with summer, Hodor, and Meera. The 3 eyed raven dude is asleep in his tree, so Bran crawls for a bone-like root and decides to take a trip of his own. Things like that never go well. And in fact, he ends up at the same Weirwood with standing stones, which we can now see is arranged in that eerie spiral pattern the Walkers consider excellent for corpse-art. But the landscape is covered in ice and snow and Bran is witness to a horde of CGI zombies. I’m guessing this is present day, at Walker HQ. Bran wanders through the decaying crowd for some time, showing off the awesome visual effects. But eventually gets to the Night’s King and his White Walker goons on corpse-horseback. Like 20 year-old Ned the other week, they seem aware of him and the King grabs Bran’s arm, waking him up — to find his arm is marked with ice. Uh oh! Told you it wouldn’t go well. The raven is now also awake and informs him it’s time Bran must “become [the raven]” but he isn’t ready. His goof, it seems, has informed the Night’s King as to his whereabouts, summoned the big bad, and will allow him inside the sanctuary of the tree cave. Big uh, oh.

Don’t dream of White Walkers

So the Raven tosses Bran into another vision, again back at Winterfell where Ned is about to pack off for the Vale. Young Hodor is there. Meanwhile, back in the cave, Meera and Hodor are packing, then she has a bad feeling and runs to the door to find the army of the dead approaching. Out stroll the White Walkers and the Night’s King sends a ground shock tremor at them. She rushes back to try and wake Bran, yelling at Hodor to prepare the sled.

Meanwhile the children fireball the rushing army of the dead (using some sort of “forest grenade”). Then they raise a wall of flame which scares the dead, but the White Walkers just sort of wave an arm and walk through, allowing them to enter the cave. In season 4, the dead couldn’t at all, but apparently Bran’s f**kup has brought down the walls. The dead swarm the tree hill in CGI glory and start burrowing into the cave from above.

Forest Grenades for the lose!

Inside, Hodor and Meera have Bran in the sled, but he’s still stuck in his dream version of 40 year ago Winterfell. Zombies break in. Meera and Summer dispatch the first ones, but in come the White Walkers spelling even further trouble. Meera hurls an obsidian spear at one and kills it, making her the third person (after Sam and Jon to do so), and why she doesn’t just use a bunch of those to kill all of them is anybody’s guess, but the zombies start to pile up and she retreats with Bran. Summer plunges into a big group of the dead and is overwhelmed and seemingly killed (a little unclear). Big bummer, since I love the direwolves and that leaves only Ghost and possibly Nymeria hiding in the Riverlands .Meera has been shouting at Bran and her voice is starting to penetrate into his vision. In order to get really moving down the tunnel she yells at him to Warg (mentally control) Hodor and he does, which results in BOTH real world Hodor and vision world young Hodor going all white eyed. As adult Hodor and Meera pull Bran down a giant root corridor toward the “back door” the dead swarm the tunnel in monster (haha) numbers. The Children of the Forest stand suicidally against them with their grenades and knives.

The Night’s King reaches the Raven (who obviously isn’t going anywhere) and whacks him with his big scimitar causing the Raven to disintegrate from Bran’s vision using a cool effect. Leaf, the only Child with a name, holds off the big rush of zombies by literally “jumping on the [forest] grenade,” allowing Bran and crew to push through the back door. She yells to Hodor to “hold the door.” He does, holding it (fatally) against the assault of hundreds of zombies. But this sentiment literally echoes across the connection between him and Bran and between young and old Hodor sending the young one into a fugue state in which he cries out “hold the door. hold the door. hold door. hold door. hodor. hodor.” And as such, the moment of his own death and sacrifice is looped back over 40 years to become his very nature and his fate as a one world half idiot! Wow!

Hold the door. Hold door. Hodor!

This twist was both emotionally wrenching and incredibly clever on GRRM’s part (the producers admit it’s a book detail). Hodor, if you remember, is a season / book one character, and that means that in the early mid nineties GRRM had the idea to create this character who’s very fate (not yet even published 20+ years later) defined his nature. Sure he didn’t need to know WHICH door Hodor would hold, but he had the idea he’d go out holding SOME door. Very cool thread left into to pull much later.

It’s also worth noting that these scenes, like with the fireball scenes at the end of season 4 and the giant Hardholme fight have a bit of a different feel from most of the rest of the series as they ratchet up the fantasy level to a higher level. Not that this is bad, certainly not by my taste, but some less fantasy minded viewers might feel differently.

Episode body count: Summer, Hodor, 3 eyed Raven, apparently all the remaining Children of the Forest, one Walker, lots of zombies, and Yara’s bid for the Salt Throne.

So overall, probably the best episode of the season so far. Again this is one of those episode that concentrates on a few overlapping threads, making it feel more coherent and less jumpy than some. The Wall, Bran, and to a lessor extent the Kingsmoot dominate.

The title is pretty obvious and apropos. We won’t forget The Door any faster than the Red Wedding.

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Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

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By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 54

May16

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 54 – May 15, 2016

Title: Book of the Stranger

Summary: Dany is back!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Plot threads are unraveled and discussed one by one.

The Wall – Focus pulls from Longclaw (Jon’s sword) to Edd who watches while while Jon packs. Horns blow to announce an arrival and the the big wooden gates swing open for Sansa, Brienne, and Pod. It’s been so long since any Starks actually met that I was at first sure this was one of those “tricks” like in Silence of the Lambs where they were entering a different gate. But no, they actually made it to Castle Black before Jon left — well not before he died and was reborn.

I must mention that Tormund Giantsbane gives Brienne the same kind of stare that a high school boy might reserve for Jessica Alba.

They make them that big?

Jon stumbles out and down and they are drawn into a big bold Stark hug. It is, as D&B note in the “inside the episode” such an emotional and interesting moment in part because they weren’t even close as children. Sansa espoused mostly disdain for Jon. Now, after what they’ve gone through all that doesn’t matter and the common parentage and background is so much more precious. So soon, they’re sipping soup and kidding about Old Nan’s kidney pie and how much of a brat Sansa was. Jon forgives her and declares that he’ll stick with her now. She drives right into what they must do: take back Winterfell from the monstrous Ramsay. She even suggests using the Wildlings. Jon though is tired of fighting. He’s been fighting nonstop for years and he lost — and died. Sansa says she’ll do it with or without him.

Meanwhile, Davos and the Red Lady are talking. She says she’ll do whatever Jon commands because he is the new promised one. Davos quips about Stannis. Brienne marches right up and announces that Stannis got his ass kicked and confessed to killing Renly before she executed him — then walks away from the stunned pair.

Later a messenger with Ramsay’s grotesque banners shows up at Castle Black. A black brother brings his letter in where all the principles including Jon and Sansa are eating some really disgusting looking hunks of meat. Jon reads the letter which is some seriously arrogant and taunting shit from Ramsay about having Rickon and planning to rape and kill all of them. Sansa puts two and two together and guesses that Ramsay killed Roose. She is even more determined to get revenge and take Winterfell back. They ask Tormund how many men he has: 2000 to Ramsay’s 5000. So she suggests they recruit from the northern houses. Jon reluctantly agrees to the plan.

Stark reunion at last!

The Vale – Westeros’ lamest lord, Robin Arryn, is practicing his archery in his ridiculous dress outfit. He hasn’t gotten any better since season 4 or whenever it was we last saw him. Littlefinger, evidently freshly return, rides up in a late Roman-style coach. Robin runs to him and Littlefinger gives him a falcon as a present. Lord Royce, having heard about Sansa and Ramsay, tries to give Littlefinger a hard time but the master politician turns the tables on him instantly and almost has Robin ready to toss him from the moon door. But that isn’t really what Littlefinger wants, instead he manipulates Robin into raising the knights of the Vale to head north toward Winterfell (nominally to kick Ramsay’s ass, but with LF we never know what the real agenda is).

Makes Lord Fauntleroy look like a stud

Tyrion – That same antique looking boat from Dubrovnik sales up to Meereen. It’s the slave masters from the other cities and it’s clear from the hard comments from Missandei and Grey Worm that they aren’t a fan of negotiating. But Tyrion meets with them anyway, cutting through the BS to suggest a proposal where they “phase out” slavery over 7 years. He leaves them to think about it with some free prostitutes.

The former slave leaders of new Meereen aren’t thrilled, and ambush our favorite Lannister leaving the conference. When they question his authority, Missandei and Grey Worm back him up. But when alone they aren’t happy about it. This occurs while walking down the stairs of Meereen with some great shots of the towers behind them too. Tyrion puts it rationally: if war and slavery are both evil, he can’t eliminate both right away.

Still drinking

Margaery – is in her cell when the annoying nun drags her, filthy and barefoot, to the High Septon’s chapel. She can barely handle the bright light. The Sparrow launches into his usual style of questioning by asking her where she would like to go: back to her family. But this, he says, leads to the folly of wealth. He then goes on about his own background as a high end cobbler and how at a banquet he was hosting he had an epiphany about the futility of worldly pursuits. But Marg shows that she is far from broken by calling him out as having borrowed elements of this story from the Book of the Stranger (the Westeros bible). The Septon shrugs it off and has her thrown in with her brother.

Loras isn’t doing nearly as well. She tells him to stay strong and reveals her grasp on the situation.

Tyrell women definitely wear the pants

Cersei – visits Tommen and finds Pycelle working his lame routine on the impressionable young king. She tosses him out — and he shuffles away, making me think of the strange little scene where he did his happy dance after sleeping with Ros — but he does get in a gloaty glance at the Queen Mother. Tommen reveals he has been talking to the High Sparrow and tells Cersei some secret.

Which turns out to be the plan to have Margaery do the walk of shame, because Cersei brings it to the Small Council (with Jaime but not Franken-Gregor) and tries to use this fact to get the Tyrells and her uncle to work with her. They all agree the Queen can’t do the sexy walk through town. Jaime suggests bringing in the Tyrell armies to grab her and kill/capture the Sparrow. Kevan worries about civil war, but seems to agree.

Game-of-Thrones-S6-Ep4-Book-of-the-Stranger-Diana-Rigg-as-Olenna-Tyrell-and-Ian-Gelder-as-Kevan-Lannister

The Queen of Thorns hasn’t been fun since Tywin bit the big one

Theon – Sales home to Pyke, which always looks cool from the water. There he finds his sister sitting in his father’s chair. Yara, still looking bloated, is not exactly excited to see him after her failed rescue in season 4. He apologizes and cries. Says he doesn’t want to be king and offers to help her get the throne.

No sausages here

Ramsay – Is enjoying an apple in his rooms when he has Osha brought to him, and asks her about her involvement with House Stark. Osha again (like with Theon) pretends to have been a slave, claiming she carried around Rickon to find a buyer for him. She also (like Theon) tries her femine wiles on him, but it was only a ruse to get him distracted and kill him with a nearby knife. As Osha mounts him, Ramsay reveals that Theon had told him how she helped the Stark boys escape. Osha grabs for the knife, but Ramsay pulls out his secret blade and stabs her in the neck. Osha falls to the floor and bleeds to death as Ramsay wipes the blade and returns to peeling his apple with the very same knife used to kill her.

If he had a mustache, he’d be twirling it

Jorah and Dario – Are sneaking around above Vaes Dothrak. Dario teases him mercilessly about sleeping with Dany, which is amusing enough, but a bit forced. Jorah sticks to business, telling Dario (and the audience) that she must be in the temple. He makes them hide their weapons since those are forbidden below (a rule that earned Viserys the golden crown). Dario flaunts his naked lady dagger and Jorah is ridiculously sloppy with his shirt and reveals his greyscale.

When night comes they continue their sneaking, this time in the camp city below. In the background are the usual Dothraki antics (drinking, sex, etc). The less-than-stealthy duo runs into two Dothraki. Dario takes his out fairly quickly but Jorah gets his ass handed to him, which is odd considering he was still a potent warrior not long ago at arena fight (must be the greyscale). Dario has to save him with his contraband naked-lady knife and then cover up the murder wound by bashing the corpses head in.

Useless duo

Dany – is hanging out with the crones. The high priestess is sympathetic and seems to genuinely want her to get voted into their club. Dany makes friends with a very young ex-Khaleesi and they go out to “make water” and just happen to wander into Jorah and Dario — well be grabbed by. Dany protects the girl from them and says she has a better plan than trying to make an escape.

They should have bought her flowers

So later, the whole gaggle of Khals are arguing first about the girl who Dario killed, then bring in Dany for interrogation. They talk about her like property but in true Dany style she takes over the conversation and calls them petty little men who don’t have the vision that she or Drogo did. She recalls her heart eating and the Drogo’s vows in this very room. They laugh this off and threaten to gang rape her, but then she grabs the braziers, which don’t burn her, and sprays the fire around setting the whole wood and grass structure on fire. But of course she doesn’t burn, for “fire cannot hurt a true dragon.” Jorah and Dario have conveniently barred the doors too.

Referencing season 1, she emerges naked and unburnt from the pillar of fire. A crowd of Dothraki (plus Dario and Jorah) kneel before her. Old Dany is back (for now). She always has the best episode finishes.

This scene and its interesting tactic confirms my feeling that Dany is generally immune to fire. This was shown at least three times in season 1 (hot tub, burning eggs, and when she walked into Drogo’s pyre) and again in season 2 when she was unburnt by the dragon fire. Sort of an interesting super power because it’s purely defensive, but it does allow interesting tactics like burning down the building you are in.

Also notable that Emilia Clarke did not use a body double for this scene despite some claims on the internet that she would not do any further nudity.

Girl on Fire!

So overall, probably the second best episode of the 4 so far. This is one of those episode that concentrates on a few overlapping threads, making it feel more coherent and less jumpy than some. The Wall, Kings Landing, and Dany dominate. But this also may reflect that the plots are beginning to merge as we wind slowly toward our conclusion.

Thematically too, there seems to be an issue of who is the used and who is the user. Sansa is in the seemingly weak position, yet she convinces Jon to join her quest. Dany is a plaintiff to the court of the Khals, yet kills them and takes their army! Who is in control between the Sparrow and Marg? Is Cersei using the king? The Small Council? or vince versa?

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My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Book of the Stranger, Episode 54, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Season 6, Season 6 Episode 4

Game of Thrones – Episode 53

May09

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 53 – May 8, 2016

Title: Oathbreaker

Summary: Decent transitional episode

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Plot threads are unraveled and discussed one by one.

Jon – As usual, the episode opens where it left off. In this case, with Jon Snow’s resurrection — or more accurately Davos watching it. Somehow he knew to come back to the room so he could check out Jon in his third week straight naked on the table. As Ghost and Davos watch, he sits up, then stumbles off the table, only to be caught by Davos. The Red Lady also returns (did someone send out a memo?). Much like with The Body, one of the best episodes of Buffy, up to this point, there has been little/no dialog, which is about the only way something like this can avoid being cheesy. But the director pulls it off. Then Melisandre starts asking Jon about the afterlife, so Davos politely kicks her out and continues the interrogation, with a touch more tact. I was waiting for Jon to seem “changed”, but while he is shocked, he seems Jon-like enough. Interesting realizations, as he says “I did what I thought was right and I got murdered for it.” He isn’t the first person this happened to, but the whole coming back and getting someone’s perspective on it is a “rarity.”

Do zombies get goosebumps?

Next a (newly dressed) Jon walks outside to greet the assembled Night’s Watch, who all must have gotten that memo. Tormund greets him warmly (I guess former enemies make the best friends), and then Edd.

Much later in the episode (at the end), Edd leads Jon out to the courtyard again where the four traitors are lined up on the gallows. Unlike Caesar’s assassins, they didn’t have time to go raise an army. Jon asks them for their last words and Thorne proves he’s still a principled prick. I do think the guy was fairly sincere, if a “tad” colored by his dislike for Lord Snow. Olly just gives Jon the usual stink eye — so Jon uses Longclaw to whack the rope and lets them dance at the hangman’s ball. Good riddance to both Thorne and Olly — particularly the later, as he did kill Ygritte!! Interestingly Jon does not “use the words” (i.e. “in the name of… I sentence you to die”).

Dance a jig at the Hangman’s Ball

After, he gives his Lord Commander’s cloak to Edd, announces his “Watch has Ended” and walks off.

And if you take the Night’s Watch oath literally, “Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death,” Jon isn’t even an oathbreaker.

Sam & Gilly – At long last we return to the show’s only genuinely romantic couple. Although not so romantic this week as their ship is tossing in a storm and Sam is puking into a bucket — multiple times. Gilly, however, seems in great spirits. The dialog is mostly expository, reminding us that they head for Old Town, and why Sam wanted her and the baby to come. Apparently no women are allowed at the citadel, so he wants to drop her off at his family estates. I suspect drama ensues. Meanwhile, their exchange, in which Sam explains his motivations and how much he cares for Gilly is quite tender. I particularly like how he admits he doesn’t “really” care for people in general. It’s just so Sam.

Cute and gross at the same time

Bran – is dreaming again. Non book readers will take a minute to know who’s in this scene but I knew the second I saw the Tower of Joy. Young Ned, who apparently didn’t change his haircut in 20 years, pulls up with Howland Reed and some men to confront Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning and Gerold Hightower. For those of you who don’t know, both were part of the Mad King’s Kingsguard and tasked by Rhaegar to guard “something” (aka someone, aka Lyanna Stark) in the tower. The story was we know it is that Eddard Stark defeated Dayne during the rebellion. Anyway, Hightower dies fast enough but Dayne makes devastating use of his double sword skillz to take out most of the group and disarm Ned. Only when a wounded Reed stabs him in the back of the neck is victory assured. Ned, peeved not to have won in a fair fight, finishes Dayne off out of mercy and heads toward the tower. Interesting parallel with Ned’s season 1 fight with Jaime. Also fascinating, Bran calls out after his father and Ned seems to respond. Then Max von Raven warps them back to the present, much to Bran’s chagrin. So is it possible Ned heard Bran? What does that even mean with a vision of the past? The Raven brushes it off and scolds Bran, telling him he must learn — apparently in a cryptic, episode by episode manner.

A great scene. Even young Ned is still Ned, although possessing only a shadow of Sean Bean’s gravitas. And the dual wielding sword fight was badass. Of course we really want to find out what the deal with Lyanna is.

It takes a steady hand to fight with two…

Dany – Is marched back to Vaes Dothrak amidst a horde many times the CGI size of the season 1 horde. After a brief convo with the new Khal, she’s shoved into the crone’s hut to confront her “peers.” The old lady priestess, who looks a touch like the witch from season 1, is actually fairly sensitive about informing Dany of her predicament. Seems hanging out with the old ladies is about the best she can hope for, since she didn’t come right away after Drogo died, the Khalasar needs to vote on her fate.

We need a good rescue or some dragon on horde action soon. Dany’s thread is dragging. There isn’t much drama because we “know” she will get out of this by Dragon or Knight (or both).

Varys and Ty – An overheated Master Spider uses his “charm” to interrogate the prostitute who murdered a bunch of Dany’s men for the Sons of the Harpies. He exercises trademark style to carrot and stick her in an efficient way, getting his answers (off screen).

Meanwhile, Ty, Mis and Grey Worm have a very odd conversation in which Tyrion attempts desperately to get the slightest entertainment value out of their presence — apparently he fails. But Varys returns with the news that the masters of the cities Dany took in season 3 and lost again have been funding the rebellion in Meereen. Mis thinks they only understand violence while Tyrion advocates some kind of message/lesson.

Menopause lasts forever

Qyburn – is hanging out with a bunch of Vary’s former young spies. It’s an odd scene, and I don’t totally understand how some candy bribes are going to get excellent intelligence out of them. Jaime, Cersei, and Franken-Gregor stomp in and Cersei demands he use his “little birds” to ferret out every secret in the kingdom. Best part here is Franken-Gregor.

Small Council – Pycelle, Kevan, Mace Tyrell, and the Queen of Thornes are pow-wowing, perhaps about to take a crack at figuring out how to get Margaery back. Jaime, Cersei, and Franken-Gregor enter again. Jaime wants his seat on the Small Council back. The Tyrell/old Lannister alliance marches out and leaves them the room. About all we learn is that they know about the coup back in Dorne.

Franken-Gregor steals the scene everytime

Tommen – goes and pays the High Sparrow a visit, with guards. He’s developing at least a small sack so now wants his mother to be able to see his sister’s grave. The Septon has his reasons why that can’t be so, but they disarm by sending their respective soldiers off. The Sparrow then uses his charisma to really work Tommen. He’s perfectly reasonable, yet unyielding. Tommen has a hard time arguing and is drawn into his point of view — to what degree and end we don’t know.

Tete de tete

Arya – is back in the house of black and white experiencing a training montage. In this series of shots she is alternately beaten with a stick by the Waif and questioned about her past. She channels Jaqen H’ghar to speak about herself in the third person and explain how she got here. Like all good montages, she improves from shot to shot until she is finally able to parry the Waif’s blows. Jaqen H’ghar shows up and offers her a tasty drink from the temple pools. The statue of the Old Gods looks on and she — knowing it could be fatal — takes a swig and gets her sight back.

Certainly this sequence was the best of the three, as something actually happened. Now a serious initiate, and possibly having (mostly) left Arya behind to become “no one”, we’ll have to see what kind of murderous mischief she gets up to in future episodes.

Ramsay – A carriage with the Umber sigils approaches Winterfell. Ramsay and Karstark entertain a young lord Umber. The guy isn’t buying Ramsay’s “My poor dad died of poison” story, but doesn’t care. He has that amusingly frank GOT tone as he refuses to swear to Ramsay — for what good would it do — they’re already both Oathbreakers. He has a gift, Osha (long time no see) and a MUCH bigger Rickon. It would be hard to tell if he’s even the same actor, but I think he is. Oh, and sadly, a hot dog on a stick in the form of the Direwolf Shaggydog’s head. Sigh. So many bastards in this show. Now only Ghost, Summer, and Arya’s forgotten wolf are left.

Umbers bite!

So Overall, a good episode, not as great as last week’s, but better than the first. Typically in GOT, after one of those bigger pivot episodes (like Home) there is one more about positioning, and this is it. We got medium focus on a medium number of threads. Sansa, Pyke, Littlefinger etc are all missing, although the scenes let us know they are returning next week.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 53, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, got, HBO, Oathbreaker, Season 6, Season 6 Episode 3

Game of Thrones – Episode 52

May02

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 52 – May 1, 2016

Title: Home

Summary: Jon Snow is mostly dead

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Plot threads are unraveled and discussed one by one.

Bran – sleeps under the Green Man / 3 eyed raven’s tree, both white eyed. We then flashback / raven dream to the Winterfell courtyard and the much anticipated “young Ned” sequences. Seems Bran and the raven can ghost in on these memory visions. Ned and Brandon and Benjen are sparring, and Lyanna Stark rides in. I always thought of her as a younger sister, but here she is a few years older than Ned. Hard to tell which one Ned is too, I had always assumed Benjen was the youngest, and Brandon was obviously older. Hodor is there too, as a giant boy named Willas who actually talks, and Old Nan isn’t quite so old. Wonder how he got “Hodorized”?

Bran is then yanked out of his vision by the crow, and like a drug addict is kinda pissed. A child of the forest is hanging out but Hodor carries Bran outside to find Meera taking in the icy scenery. She’s clearly bored with this whole vision quest, but Bran tells her war is coming (not winter, that’s already here in Iceland?) and the child of the forest warns her that he will need her when he leaves this place. Clearly from the dialog Bran has been spending beaucoup time holed up in the cave.

But did we mention how much older he looks? Season 4 Bran was already rocking the pubs but now he’s barely recognizable. Plus he got a haircut at the the raven tree salon. Meera looks older too, and so do a number of cast members.

Lyanna Stark!

Cersei Jaime – Some tavern in King’s Landing where some idiot is talking shit about Cersei. Did this guy just arrive from across the Narrow Sea yesterday? Miss out on what happens to people who mock the Lannisters? Like that tongueless bard! Sure enough, later he’s taking a leak in a deserted alley when Franken-Gregor, alerted by his anti-Cersei evil magic senses, bashes his head in. Almost comic relief in the casual way he uses his physical power.

Cersei is in her room, which seems like her full time job lately, when Franken-Gregor returns, bloody gauntlet and all (nice touch). They head out to Myrcella’s funeral only to be stopped by Tommen’s guards who insist she can’t leave the keep. She backs down but Franken-Gregor is probably upset he didn’t get to mash in their brains too.

Then Jaime and Tommen are in the sept with Myrcella’s body, funny glass eyes and all. Jaime supports Cersei in their discussion, urging Tommen to visit his mother. Tommen is feeling impotent and doesn’t even want to face her. The High Septon strolls in and Tommen in a rare fit of assertion asks to see his wife. He’s refused, but kudos for trying. After he leaves, Jaime and the Sparrow face off. Jaime contemplates just killing him, but a goon squad of sparrows show up, possibly including even his lame cousin. Jaime also looks much older, and while this segment is slightly stilted, he still has a trademark line in “the gods won’t mind, they’ve spilled more blood than all of us combined.”

Next, Cersei is taking in the gorgeous view of Dubrovnik when Tommen finally shows up. He apologizes and of course she forgives him — he is, after all, her only remaining child and we all know the Queen-mother loves her kids.

All in the family

Tyrion – is doing what he does best, drinking and knowing things (and making excellent quips). This is in the company of Misandei, and the 2 men, no balls team of Grey Worm and Varys. There are, of course, eunuch jokes, but for whatever reason Varys has nothing amusing to say this week. We learn offhand that the other Slaver’s Bay cities (taken in season 3) have fallen (again) to the Masters. Boy, GRRM (and D&B) have done their best to stall Dany’s plot line. Tyrion, however, going into new territory is all up on his dragon research and knows that dragons don’t do well chained up in the basement, they aren’t even eating.

So our favorite little person (with an abnormally taciturn Varys in tow), heads down into the cellar of Diocletian’s — I mean Dany’s, Palace. We already saw last year how fond this duo is of roasted human, so it is only the confidence that they didn’t intend to write Tyrion (yet) that we can stomach his tip toe out into the dark. Despite a few snarls, the dragons are remarkable receptive to his jokes. But how he is tall enough to pull off their collars is a bit of a mystery. In any case, the fact that the second dragon leans down to be freed does show that reptilian brains don’t have to be all about the base functions. He kids with Varys about the danger on the way out and I’m not even sure why, as the whole escapade went rather swimmingly considered.

In summary, a short but good segment because Tyrion delivers in classic form. We aren’t really this far with him in the books, but he is far less broody about his “role” in the deaths of Tywin and Shae in the show than in the novels. In fact, so far this season he seems to be enjoying himself.

Don’t eat the help!

Arya – is still begging in the alley when the Waif shows up again to give her a beating. It hardly goes any better than last time but at least she gives it the good Stark try. Speaking of, the Waif keeps asking her the now slightly tiresome question of who she is. Then so does a Jaqen H’ghar when he pops into view (or not if you’re Arya). He tempts her with this same question too, three times in fact, but her answers earn her a trip back to (presumably) the House of Black and White.

This segment, like last week, was too short to gain proper Arya momentum. They are probably fine in the context of watching the episodes back to back in a marathon, or even 2-3 a night, but once a week, serve as more of a tease than anything.

Where is my seeing eye wolf?

Ramsay – reports to Roose about the failure of his “best men.” (Where is Locke when you need him? That guy knew how to get some wet work done the “right” way.) Ramsay proposes an all out attack on castle black. Roose is more cautious, and cognizant of the political ramifications. But then we learn that Lady Walder has given birth to a son — uh oh. Ramsay gives his dad a congratulatory hug that has a real point to it — point of his dagger (conveniently tucked across the small of his back). Didn’t see that coming! Although it’s plenty Ramsay and symbolic payback for the very similar stab in the gut that Roose delivered to Robb Stark long ago. Nicely played too as Ramsay doesn’t look him in the eye.

Next up, a messy cleanup to some loose ends. Ramsay brings Lady Walder and her baby to the kennels and lets the dogs out. First off, Lady Walder is pretty spry for having given birth 5 minutes ago, and she displays a well composed mixture of terror and bravery. Shocking as it was, I wasn’t in love with the way Ramsay was written this week. Sure he’s a monster, but the tense relationship with his father has always added a great deal of depth to his monstrosity. His genuine surprise/pride when he is naturalized was really a great scene. Pulling Roose out of the equation just leaves him a loose canon. And he has no regard for Roose’s complex wave of alliances.

Cooche cooche coo!

Sansa – is (winter) camping in the woods with Brienne, Pod, and Theon. But this is mostly a talk scene where Brienne tells Sansa what she knows of Arya (from their brief visit on the way to the Eerie) and when Brienne asks her about Winterfell the silence says more than the words. Then she thanks Theon, and he is very emotional about his (many) bad choices and his lackluster character. Seems though, with the protecting duties handed over to Brienne he’s off “home” to Pyke. Speaking of…

Greyjoys – Yarra and Balon are talking in the Kraken room. Yarra is looking A LOT older too. She’s gone cold on the war but Dad is still ready to die. Which is funny given that the Red Lady cursed him to expire way back in season 3 and he’s the only leech left standing. He storms out to the suitably storm rope bridge between buildings. We know that won’t end well. Sure enough, a hooded figure, presumably his brother Euron, meets him there. He’s the younger brother, and seemingly a much younger one at that. Euron makes a bunch of grand proclamations about being the Drowned God and/or the Storm and throws Balon off the bridge. I guess the leech worked after all, we just had to wait awhile on it. Really the whole Greyjoy story is delayed. In the books it’s in parallel to the Dorne story, but they have been sequenced here. So far this one looks better as the Sand Snakes were awful.

At Balon’s funeral, clearly Yarra and others don’t know who did it, although she swears vengeance. The priest is Aeron Damphair, another of her uncles, but clearly his role here is much diminished from the books (where I hated him). We learn that there is a Kingsmoot and that the next king must be elected.

There can be only one!

Castle Black – Thorne still wants in. The guys inside draw their swords. Thorne’s dude uses a big hammer to smash at the door — then deus ex machina style, the giant Wun Wun smashes the main gate letting in Edd, Tormund, and the whole Wildling crew. They make short work of the surprised traitors (and what about the neutral Night’s Watch guys?). Anyway the giant does a nice smash on one trigger happy fellow, and unfortunately leaves Thorne and the even more despicable Olly alive to be dragged off to the dungeons. After, Edd and Giantsbane visit the corpse of Jon Snow.

Then Davos goes to see the Red Lady, who is still moping about in self pity, but has at least put her glamour back on. Uncharacteristically, Davos pitches Mel on using her magic to bring back Jon. This is a bit out of character, as he’s 1) a magic hater 2) not a Red Lady fan 3) doesn’t have too much obvious reason to be SO extreme for Jon, despite having liked him. Still, he sells it hard and well and makes some good jokes about his change of heart.

Mel gives it a good try, washing the body, cleaning the nasty stabs, the hair. She burns some hair, but seemingly that isn’t as good as leeches. Ghost spends the time chilling below Jon’s table. He is too cute. I want a white wolf. Next Mel lays on hands, tries some Valaryan, and even a simple “please.” None of this seems to work so Tormund, then Edd, then Davos all leave and, surprise…

Ghost notices something strange and Jon Snow opens his eyes.

I have to say I saw that coming. I predicted it would be the Red Lady’s magic too from way back when because it was setup so heavily and the only thing that made sense. And despite all the “protestations” from the cast and crew they just had to bring Jon back for all the work they spent (scriptwise) last season setting up R+L=J to make any sense. They only have so many minutes and they kept shoving in hints. If he was really dead, instead of “mostly dead” it wouldn’t have been worth the time.

blue balls

So Overall, a great episode, with some really big turns and good moments: Jon’s return, giant slapping, head bashing, Bolton stabbing, Greyjoy tossing, and dragon baiting. I still want to see what is up with the show’s only current romantic couple, Sam and Gilly.

Again, I can’t believe we have to wait another week!

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

It’s alive!

By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 51

Apr25

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 51 – April 24, 2016

Title: The Red Woman

Summary: Lots of threads

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Plot threads are unraveled and discussed one by one.

Jon / Castle Black – As we closed with Jon’s body, so we open. Sigh. The camera pans across the wall and Castle Black to the scene of the crime. Ghost is howling plaintively in the background. Davos is the first to spot the corpse and rushes to the scene, followed by Dolorous Edd and all of Jon’s remaining friends — how it is that they were all waiting around the corner? They carry his body inside and Edd closes his eyes. Davos asks about ghost. Then a knock at the door, and the Red Lady Melisandre shows. Given the episode title and her presumed skillz at resurrection a big tease. But Mel is so depressed she almost looks like a different actress. First Stannis then Jon. Things haven’t gone well with her vision prophesied royal bloods. She mumbles something about having seen him (Jon) in the flames fighting at Winterfell.

Next, Alliser Thorne sits in the main hall and tries to spin his treachery. He takes full on credit and goes for a half-assed Julius Caesar style pitch mostly focused on Jon’s terrible direction of leadership and his helping the Wildlings. I think this could have been better. Brutus, Cassius and all had a better argument (even though I’m a huge Caesar fan). They made the reasonable (to Romans) pitch about Caesar having taken too much power (kingship) unto himself. In the political context of the Roman Republic which like America valued the balance of power, and with the historic founding story involving the overthrow of Tarquin as example, they had some decent spin. Alliser Thorne not so much. But he does sound like he believes what he says, and I’ve always thought the show (and the actor) has done a good job humanizing his role.

Back in the impromptu Jon Snow memorial chamber, Ghost licks his hand. The gang there talks about how they are going to get revenge, and out of this alive. Some want to just attack. Davos argues they need to appeal for help to the outside (presumably he’s talking about the Wildlings and/or the Red Lady).

Later in the episode Thorne comes to their door and demands their surrender by nightfall, but offers them free passage. Inside, they know he likely will kill them. Davos reiterates that the Red Woman is their only chance.

However, she is moping in her room in what is clearly a crisis of faith. She glances at the flame and her reflection in the (crappy) mirror. Then undresses. Again?!? I even commented out loud, because she’s always getting her clothes off. But then she takes off her necklace and is revealed to be an ancient crone. Interesting. Is this merely a glamour curtesy of the Lord of Light? Or does she feel young normally? Uh, and incidentally, the full body shot was kinda extreme.

Anyway, but ending the show on this note the writers drag out the question of Jon Snow and his resumed undeadly return. It was too much to hope they’d get right into it.

Ramsay / Winterfell – With Joffery dead, Ramsay is easily everyone’s favorite villain on the show. Really, he does a fabulous job. Here he is delivering the eulogy over Myranda’s body, or at least musing about her in the presence of Maester Wolkan. There is some depth to him and you can see who he liked the hot-but-evil bitch. Textbook touch when he orders her body fed to the dogs.

Next, he has to take some more abuse from his ice cold father (no wonder he’s a whack-job). Roose congratulates him for his battlefield victory but berates him about loosing Sansa, who we (the audience) are reminded (again) is the key to holding the north. We learn that Ramsay has hunting parties out looking for her. No duh! Why isn’t he on the trail himself?

Sansa / Theon – I guess because of what is about to happen. Sansa and Theon run through the forest — perhaps even the very same set (I mean forest) that we saw way way back in the Season 1 Episode 1 intro. Theon is pretty nimble too for someone without most of his toes because he’s doing the leading. He even forces Sansa across a freezing river to “loose the trail” (hounds are barking in the distance). They make it across, but are in serious danger of dying of hyperthermia and have to take a break under a tree to freeze to death.

The hunters draw close. Theon valiantly runs out and pretends she is dead, but the ruse lasts for all of 2 seconds before the hounds find Sansa, who isn’t doing much more than cowering and shivering. All looks grim until…

Brienne / Pod – ride in for the rescue. An oddball helter-skelter fight scene too as Brienne initially does well, then is knocked from her horse and barely — with the help of Theon and Pod — manages to do in all the Bolton soldiers. Sansa, again, cowers under the tree. After, Brienne kneels before Sansa and again offers her services. This time a grateful, less “innocent”, Sansa takes her up on the offer. The exchange of vows worked nicely, even more underscored by Sansa’s marginal memory of the oath.

Cersei / Jaime – Cersei chills in her room, still reeling from her “confession” as Jaime’s ship sails into the Dubrovnik — I mean King’s Landing — harbor. She rushes down all excited to catch sight of her brother on the launch with a gold draped corpse — uh oh. The actual bad news and Cersei’s reaction is skipped, cutting to the twins on a balcony talking about death, their dead mother, the witch’s prophecy and all that. Jaime doubles down as usual saying “Fuck everyone who isn’t us” and this time Cersei needs him again enough to hold him close.

Margarey – Is still cooped up barefoot and dirty in her cell. An annoying Septa reads scripture to her and demands confession. The High Septon swaps in to try good cop. Marg still isn’t ready to yield and asks after Loras, but we don’t learn anything.

Dorne – Price Doran is limping along with Ellaria Sand and they exchange what seems to be pleasantries about his and his brother’s personalities. But Tyene Sand (Bronn’s “girl”) stabs Hotah in the back and Ellaria takes out her pseudo-brother-in-law. It’s all too sad and still fairly cheesy.

Then back on the Dornish boat the young price, Doran’s son Trystane is ambushed by his cousins the Sand girls. They make short and gruesome work of him. I guess Dorne is in full revolt.

Tyrion and Varys – walk the streets of Meereen exchanging their usual jokes. There is a whole thing where Tyrion tries to give a beggar girl some money and she thinks he wants to eat her baby (his Valyrian being bad). It doesn’t really work too well. They wander past a Red Priest giving a sermon. Not clear what that’s about. Then they see a bunch of people running and follow the trouble upstream to find the ships burning in the harbor. I guess Dany won’t be sailing anytime soon when she returns.

Jorah and Daario – a exploring Northern Ireland in search of Dany and the show reminds us gratuitously of Jorah’s grayscale by having him take a peek. No surprise, it’s bigger. They find charred ram, clearly Drogon’s leavings and then Dany’s ring. Not totally sure how they manage to do that other than it being on the one untrodden spot where she was standing — and magically figures out that the horde has her.

Dany – Is being marched along with lots of other slaves in this new Khalasar. We find out Khal Moro is in charge and Dany listens to the Dothraki discuss the many ways in which they plan to “have” her (in Dothraki). Their arrival at the Khal is heralded by one of the most amusing bits of the episode, where the Khal and his bloodriders debate “the 5 best things in life,” in which, according to the Khal, “seeing a woman naked for the first time” outweighs “slaying another warrior.”

Dany pulls out her rusty Dothraki and lists her titles, but the Khal isn’t impressed until he learns she’s a Khal’s widow. Off she must go then to Vaes Dothrak to live with the crones. Maybe not the greatest, but buys her more time than “entertaining” the soldiers would have.

Arya – is not only still wearing uncomfortable white contact lenses, but is begging in the street. The Waif creeps up on her and beats her with a staff for a while. Clearly, in future episodes, Arya needs to listen to the Force and hone her blind-girl fighting skills!

Overall, it’s great to have the show back but this is one of those episodes that has so much scene setting, and so many story threads that no one really gets that much time to move the plot. That being said, it’s not all just establishing position because a whole lot of stuff happens. As usual in this show everyone’s position is shifting rapidly and isn’t always what it seems. GRRM (and D&B) love to each plot line to alternate highs and lows. Although frankly, there are plenty of lows right now.

I can’t believe we have to wait another week!

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Season 6, Season 6 Episode 1

Game of Thrones – Season 6 Trailer

Mar09

The first Season 6 Trailer is here!

This finally shows a bunch of new clips – set to weird contemporary music – and reveals a taste of pretty much everyone’s thread. Major bits include:

Jon Snow’s body (duh).

Jaime apologizing to Cersei (also duh)

Jorah chasing after Dany (even more duh)

Melisandre sounding like a broken woman (surprise!)

Dany in chains with the horde (we knew that).

Cersei with a typical fun one liner (“I chose violence”)

Theon and Sansa alive.

The return of the Iron Islands.

The return of (all grown up) Bran — and more White Walkers.

Arya jumping off a building.

Davos’ closes it out over Jon Snow’s dead body…

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Tagged as: A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO

Game of Thrones Season 6 Teaser

Dec03

The first Season 6 teaser is here!

Doesn’t really show anything new, in that it’s all clips from Seasons 1-5 wrapped up in Bran’s ability to see the past (and presumably the future). Like the poster (below), it certainly implies that Jon Snow is important — and therefore presumably will return in some fashion. The R+L=J theory and the shear number of hints about it in the writing leads me to believe there is no way he’s just plain dead. That would leave too many dangling threads. My money is on the Red Lady bringing him back.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones Season 6, HBO, Teaser

Game of Thrones – Episode 50

Jun19

MelisandreShow: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 50 – June 14, 2015

Title: Mother’s Mercy

Summary: Grim but great

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Stannis – We start our series of thread wrap ups with Mr. Grim and and Grammar, Stannis. Things are thawing at Camp Snowbound, and Melisandre claims success in her murderous spells, but Stannis isn’t showing her any love. Still, he is a man on a mission and commands they march. But some officer informs him half the men have deserted and taken the horses with them. Another comes and leads him to the forest where they find his wife, the unlikeable Lady Selyse, who has hung herself. Obviously she isn’t as good at compartmentalization. He cuts her down but Melisandre is somehow realizing that she either misread the Lord of Light, or his divine brightness urgently wants her elsewhere, as she hops on a horse and gets out of town fast.

Later, Stannis’ ragtag remainder of an army marches up toward Winterfell. I guess it was right over the ridge as they supposedly had no food or horses. This is intercut rapidly with Brienne and Sansa’s threads, but I’ll leave the Love Luckless Stark’s for a second. But Pod notices the Stannis forces and runs to tell Brienne. They gather weapons.

Stannis orders up a siege, but he gets instead a big cavalry charge from the Boltons (presumably under the command of Ramsay). The horsemen surround and outflank his meager forces in a nice CGI maneuver and we are left with a few quick shots of this horrendous defeat. Oh, and in case we had any doubts that Ramsay was a sadistic scum, we see him torturing a few helpless Baratheon soldiers.

Stannis is fight off a few Bolton troops in the forest. He’s tough, so he kills them, but he takes a bad wound to the leg and slumps against a tree. Out of nowhere Brienne appears. Ready for revenge at last. She accuses him of using blood magic to kill his brother Renly, and Stannis, ever in character, admits it. Really this is just sad sad for Stannis. He’s made the most horrible sacrifice ever for what he wants, and it’s proved to be worse than useless. He’s done. When Brienne sentences him to death he almost welcomes it with another typical droll Stannis one-liner, “Go do you duty.” She swings the sword, but we are left without seeing the death itself. It’s enough to make us wonder.

This is all slightly advanced of the completely unclear bit in ADWD. Consistent though, even though Brienne has no part in the book version of those events. And it’s so grim and dark. Bad choices. And what the hell was the Red Lady’s game? Did she read things wrong? Or is this how she wanted to to play out?

Sansa – meanwhile has used the corkscrew (barrel tap or whatever) she snagged during Ramsay’s walk of horrors to pry open her door while Evil Bastard (literally) is away playing hide the sword in the back with Stannis. She sneaks all over the castle, avoiding looking anyone in the eye, takes note of the Broken Tower and climbs. But she runs afoul of Myranda, Reek, and a bad case of bow-pointed-at-face. Myranda is psyched, to get a little revenge in before taking her back to her room, and somehow this pushes Theon over the edge where watching Sansa get wife-raped does not. He knocks Myranda’s bow aside and tosses her down into the courtyard. She isn’t as lucky as Bran and there is a distinctly satisfying smack as she hits the pavement. He hauls Sansa up onto the battlements and they are confronted with a 50 foot drop to some snow below. The pair is desperate enough to leap for it. We can presume that because Theon and Jeyne Poole made it out in the books, so do they.

Arya – We watch Meryn Trant get ready for another evening of brothel fun. This time he has three young girls and a stick to hit them with. Not only does he hit women. Not only is he a total jerk. Not only does he like little girls, but he wants to hit them too. This is about 3 extra reasons to kill him off. The last girl doesn’t scream when hit, and when we see her face it’s not Arya. Trant punches her in the gut and she changes into Arya Faceless Man style and goes all Hannibal Lector on him. She stabs him in the eyes and jumps all over him. Not only is it pretty crazy but it does make sense as a way for a smallish woman to take down a big warrior like Trant. She torments him for a bit and tells his who she is, calling him no one. This of course isn’t by accident as clearly she isn’t no one herself, but still Arya Stark. Then, unlike with Oberyn and the Mountain, his luck is up and she slits his throat.

Back in the basement of the House of Black & White she slips the girl’s mask back on the rack. Jaqen and the waif are there, however. Uh oh, caught unmasked. Jaqen tells her that she killed the wrong man and that the Faceless God demands a death, threatens her with the poison, then takes it himself and dies. She crouches down and rips off his mask to find a pile of other faces, and finally her own. They the waif changes her face into Jaqen and continues chastising her. Arya’s sight melts away and she is left blind — and more or less where she is at the end of A Feast of Crows. We have reordered slightly but this is all consistent enough with her isolated storyline.

All and all an excellent sequence, and while dark, at least not as bleak as some of the other threads. The magic of the Faceless Men is a little confusing. Did Jaqen put the wait up to playing him for a bit? Is he a spirit that may possess any of them? How did Arya’s face, symbolic as it was, end up on the bottom of the face pile? She after all isn’t dead and didn’t pass through the mask masking process.

Jaime – is getting ready to depart for Kings Landing with Trystane and Princess Myrcella (way too many M girls: Melisandre, Missandei, Myrcella, Myranda, Margaery!). For some reason the whole gang is there, including Doran, Hotah, Ellaria, and the sand snakes. Ellaria gives the Princess a big smooch on the lips and they get on the boat. Then in a cabin below decks Jaime has a nice bonding scene with his daughter where he awkwardly tries to admit she is his daughter, but she already knows. It really is very well played on both sides and you feel for him finally connecting to his children he’s had to ignore… then it all goes bad and her nose starts to bleed and she slumps into his arms.

Back on the docks Ellaria, nose also bleeding, is swigging some of Tyrene’s antidote. So the whole bit with Bronn and the poison now makes some sense, as it existed only to explain the whole poison/antidote thing. No wonder it felt strange. And all in all a very sad tragic thread in the middle of a sad tragic episode. Myrcella, although we didn’t know her well, was so sunny that it’s all the more depressing.

Tyrion and crew – hang out in the throne room (boy do they love that set). We have to wonder who mopped up the Harpies too. This scene is a bit of a throw-a-way as Grey Worm comes in and they all haggle about who will go after Dany and who will stay. In the end, it’s decided that Jorah & Dario go, and Ty, Grey Worm, and Missandei will stay and “rule.” There is a great line from Dario though, calling Grey Worm the “toughest man with no balls he’s ever known.”

After, Tyrion surveys the city and Varys teleports in behind him. Obviously he offered sexual favors to the guards. They have a typical fun exchange in which it’s agreed that Varys will lend his little birds to the cause of ruling Meereen. Clearly Ty and Varys are taking over for Barristan’s boring chapters in ADWD (while Dany is away).

Dany – speaking of the great Queen, she’s hanging out in North Ireland with Drogon who is doing his best to rest up on a bed of bones on top of a cliff. She tries for awhile to roust him and get back in the saddle but he’s having none of it, so she sets off to find some food. Interestingly, the show decided to keep her clothes on (in the books Drogon roasts them off her back). Anyway, somehow she climbs down the steepest cliffs ever and reaches the valley where she meets, one, three, then about a thousand Dothraki. They swirl about her in a CGI horde better looking than the season 1 horde ever was. She drops a ring as a breadcrumb (presumably Jorah/Dario will find it next year) and is surrounded. Second monarch to be surrounded by cavalry this episode alone!

Cersei – kneels before the High Sparrow/Septon to confess her crimes in the big scene we’ve all been waiting all season for. She actually isn’t very contrite or convincing and only confesses to boinking Lancel’s skinny ass — with excuses all the way. She blames the incest “lie” on Stannis, which the Septon seems not to mind (the maybe late king is after all a Lord of Light worshipping infidel). Perhaps the Septon is a fairly political after all. He tells Cersei they’ll sort it out during her “trial” but she can visit with her son back at home after her “penance.” So here comes the real work for Lena, as she is stripped naked (body double) and has her head shaved. Outside, in front of the Sept, she is made to walk naked through the entire city to the Red Keep. Some Sparrows keep the ugly (literally and figuratively) crowd at bay, the annoying nun chants “shame shame” over again. They trudge through Dubrovnik, particularly spending a lot of time in that stair lined square right inside the uphill gate. It’s a hard walk and the show lingers on it. We have a lot of fake Lena full frontal (and back frontal) and she is pelted with dung and rotten food. Lena nails it. Cersei’s resolve slowly melts and crumbles until she nearly breaks and runs into the keep.

There, she meets the hard faces of uncle Kevan, Pycelle, etc. But Qyburn is there on her side. Not only does he have a blanket for her, but he has another gift: Mecha-Greggor or Franken-Greggor, or Ser Robert the Strong: the enormous silent (I like the vow of silence), rotting eyed, Kingsguard version of Greggor. Cersei gets that old nasty gleam back in her eye.

Given that the show has no access to Cersei’s inner monologue, this scene was extremely well done. As good as I could imagine.

Jon – has a final powwow with Sam, giving us a quick recap of the disaster from 2 weeks ago (Hard Home). He makes sure to point out that Longclaw is Valayrian steel, but that this still probably won’t be enough. Sam asks to be sent with Gilly and her baby to Old Town to study and be a Maester, skipping Bravos clearly, but getting him back on track with the books and setting us up for some Tarly action next season. I know that line about Old Town in the middle of the season meant something. And Sam’s reasons for leaving make sense enough (for him). Their chemistry is great as always, probably mostly because of Sam’s likability and acting chops. Jon knows they “did it” and they make some jokes about it. Like the Davos/Shireen convo this is setup as a sad farewell. Next, Sam and Gilly ride out of the gates because GOT loves to show people come and go — really people do it so much they kinda need too.

Much later, Davos shows up to pleads for help for the now probably dead Stannis. And after him the Red Lady shows too, which is all too convenient and Davos asks after the Queen and Princess. The silence he receives isn’t encouraging. We have to continue to wonder, what is her game? Why is she here? Is she on hand to raise someone who might soon be dead?

Speaking of which, Jon is having a hard time concentrating on his letters when Olly enters with news that Benjen Stark might still be alive. Sneaky, and very sneaky of the show to tease Benjen in the “previously on.” Straightforward guy that he is, Jon charges out Ned Stark style and runs into a crowd and Throne’s knife in his gut. They each say “For the Watch” as they stab him, Julius Caesar style. Olly puts the final blade in his heart. Sigh.

No sign of Ghost at all, not since he saved Sam and Gilly, so I think the Warging is off the table.

The Melisandre does the Dondarian on him option is still very much on the table. The producers and actor have gone to great lengths to declare him dead and gone. But the R+L=J breadcrumbs strewn liberally through this season seem really important. It just wouldn’t be like George (and even more so of D&B) to set that up for no purpose. So I have hope.

All in all, a awesome TV, but so dark. Hands down the darkest hour of GOT yet, even worse in some ways than the Red Wedding. The bodycount was high: Jon (probably), Stannis (maybe), Selyse (2 inches taller), Myrcella (likely), Myranda, Trant (good riddance), and the Waif. Even worse are the unsettled endings:

Jon probably dead, wall has exactly 1 friendly face: Edd
Stannis probably dead
Margaery, not even mentioned
Sansa/Reek in a snow drift
Myrcella poisoned, war with Dorne up in the air
Dany circled by hostile Dothraki
Cersei/Kings Landing balance of power
Bran, playing the tree
Rickon AWOL
Ramsay still alive!

So bleak it left me with that catharsis. But it was so well executed, and it’s rare that TV works this many emotional ups and downs. Sigh, the 9 month wait will be tough.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside the episode videos:

By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 49

Jun12

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 49 – June 7, 2015

Title: The Dance of Dragons

Summary: Wow: sad and exhilarating

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Jon – crunches southward toward the Black Gate, a ragtag group of Wildlings (and the giant) in tow. When he reaches the wall, he looks on, worried that Thorne won’t even open. And Ser Glower looks down from above and considers it. Not really that large a group considering the masses we saw last week — all of whom are now doing the zombie shuffle. Anyway, Throne relents and orders the gate opened. As the crew marches through into castle black, Olly gives Jon that total stink eye look and privately considers sneaking off to sharpen his dagger. Thorne just issues some dry comment, “You have a good heart Jon Snow, but someday it will get us all killed.” Sam for his part is happy to see Jon, but Jon unloads on him with a weight heavier than his hair: feeling depressed that he failed to save all of them. Sam points out the bright side. Oh, and watching the giant climb out of the tunnel and tower over everyone is awesome.

Everyone loves you Jon, you are totally misreading Olly’s stinkeye

Jaime – visits with Prince Doran in some Moorish palace. As dull as the Dorne thread is, it does have good sets. The whole noble crew is there: Ellariah Sand, Trystane, and Myrcella. Hotah looms over them. Doran, ever reasonable, asks why he “invaded” and didn’t just come and visit. He explains about the threatening message and Doran gives Ellariah a dark-eyed look. But he doesn’t want war so he drinks to Tommen, but Ellariah pours hers on the floor. Doran ignores it and suggests that Trystane and Myrcella go back to King’s Landing, but that young Trystane take Oberyn’s spot on the Small Council — essentially backing out of Dorne fast. Ellariah trades insults and Doran warns her that she walks on thin ice. Jaime is very thankful and asks about Bronn. Trystane says the sellsword can go free, but with one condition.

So speaking of our amusing mercenary, he’s watching the Sand Snakes play some kind of ridiculous slapping version of patty cake that devolves into a cat fight. Then Hotah comes to drag him upstairs and he gets one final chance to tell Tyrene she is the hottest babe in the world. Upstairs in the throne room he is set free, but discovers that “the condition” is that Hotah elbows him across the jaw hard (paying back Trystane). Well, Bronn’s probably had worse.

Later, Doran tells Ellariah that her rebellion is over and that she must swear allegiance or die. She wrestles with it, then kneels and swears. You have to wonder if she is sincere, and so perhaps does Doran because he tells her that he believes in second chances, but not thirds. Next, she goes and visits Jaime in a rather odd scene in which she is quiet cordial, although there is a line of hardness under it. She tells him she knows all about the incest, but emphasizes that “we don’t chose whom we love” thread that resonates with Jaime. He of course neither confirms nor denies the charges. Ellariah goes on to say that Myrcella, and perhaps he, had nothing to do with Oberyn’s death. I’m not thinking she’s let that one go entirely.

One big happy family

Arya – The most deadly Stark cruises the harbor with her oyster cart gunning for the thin man. As luck would have it, he orders up some oysters, but before Arya can slip him the special vinegar he gaze is distracted by a Lannister sail in the harbor and by Mac Tyrell and more importantly, Meryn Trant disembarking. Mace continues his brand of broad comedy as he is met by a representative of the Iron Bank. Which leads me to wonder why they do meet him instead of treating him to a few hours in the lobby like Stannis. Anyway, Arya totally ignores the thin man and sucks after Meryn (and Mace). They go visit the bank. She watches and waits. When they come out, Mace continues his comedy routine with a silly song. Arya follows Meryn into the evening as he seeks out a brothel. She follows him inside, hawking her wares. GOT sure loves a brothel scene, although this one has no nudity. Meryn is set up not only as the Sansa-beating thug from earlier seasons, but as a pedophile and all around ass. he bags on the Tyrells, he won’t treat his men. He keeps demanding younger and younger girls until the nervous madame drags one in from the kitchen or wherever. He even asks for a new one for the next night, setting up Arya with both motive and means to take him out. Alas, that waits for next week as she retreats to the House of Black & White where she lies to Jaqen about the status of her thin man assignment. He presumably sees through this, as he is the guy who always knows when a girl is lying, but we’ll have to wait to see what happens.

Why is no one surrounded by Arya Stark’s things?

Stannis – The Red Lady Melisandre looks over the snowy camp as tents burst into flame. Burning men and horses run from the conflagration. Ramsay of course, which is confirmed in the morning as Davos reports the damage. 20 men (sound familiar) have snuck in, torched the food and horses. Now they are in a really serious pickle.

Later, Stannis examines his game board. The king orders Davos back to castle black to secure more supplies. Total setup to leave him alone with his “difficult decision” visa via Shireen. Davos might know something is up, but it’s hard to tell. he protests (as usual) but is overruled. He walks past the men (in bad shape) to visit Shireen, in what is a touching little scene. They discuss the book she is reading, A Dance of Dragons! He gives her a carved wooden stag (the one he was working on an episode or two ago) and promises her to make it a pair. They have nice chemistry as usual.

Yeah, yeah, get all sappy before you throw the match on the pyre

Next Stannis visits her too. She is reading the same book and they have an oblique exchange (at least for her). Essentially, he is seeking her permission for serving her up to his destiny and she provides it, without knowing what it is she is supporting. Kind of sad really. He even apologizes, of course she has no idea what for until guards grab her outside and drag her to the handy dandy stake and Melisandre’s not so tender mercies. She screams and swerves. Wisely the camera leaves her at this point focusing on Stannis and his wife. At first lady Stannis is all gung ho burn the girl, but once the screaming starts she breaks and runs for Shireen only to be stopped in the snow. The screams amplify and it’s really tough to watch as they go on and on and the camera focuses on Stannis’ grim and determined face. Yeah, we had almost started to like him, but alas, there is no coming back from this bit of nastiness.

GRRM seems to have confirmed that Shireen’s terrible death happens (or will happen) in the books too, but there as there is only Davos’ point of view, and I can’t even remember if he was there, it likely doesn’t hold the same emotional impact, particularly given how much the show has invested in making her a likely character.

Not the face you want to see as your last

Not the face you want to see when getting dragged to a stake

Dany – Straight into the giant fighting pit, which is a serious upgrade from the “baby pit” of two weeks ago. In fact, it looks pretty much like a giant bull fighting ring in Seville. I wonder why. Oh, and crossed with the Colosseum in Rome as it has the big awnings (seen in Gladiator). But for TV this looks great. Arguably better than the aforementioned Russel Crowe movie. Lots of CGI and real crowds. Dany has a big box with Tyrion, Dario, and Missandei. Hizdahr (her annoying betrothed) is late, which is suspicious. Hiss for Hizdahr.

Best CGI on TV

The MC comes out, announces the first pair, a big man and a quick man, and Dany is forced to clap them into action after the traditional salute. She clearly isn’t a fan and neither is Tyrion. Anyway, this first fight is background color to the conversation. Dario and Hizdahr take the pro side of the argument, but they use it to measure up their manhoods. But like every line of dialog in this show (which is carefully written and edited) they all have their purposes. In this case putting Tyrion and Dany on the side that moderns identify as “good” and showing that Hizdahr is an old fashioned ass. But the truth is there is also a complex and morally ambiguous point here in historical context. When is violence necessary? Do means justify the ends?

Good thing this marriage will never be consumated

Someone die. 5-6 more gladiators come out and swear. One is Jorah.

We knew this was coming, but it’s a morally complex issue for Dany, personal this time and not so abstract. She could stop the fight. And she cares for Jorah, but she has exiled him twice and he keeps coming back. Anyway, he takes a beating but keeps winning. Then at the end, he chucks a spear apparently right at Dany, but no, it’s a Son of the Harpy. And there are more, dozens, maybe hundreds all over the arena. They start slaughtering the populace (not sure why) and gunning for Dany. Dario tries to protect her, and grey worm, and Jorah climbs up and helps save her, winning a hand grasp and redemption (is he contagious?). Tyrion is nearly killed. Mis and Dany escape with the men and he follows. Hizdahr takes a knife in the gut. They set him up as maybe a Harpy. They set him up as a jerk. No wonder he gets stabbed (and maybe killed).

Uh, oh!

The Dany group tries to run one way, but more Harpies pour in, then are encircled in the center of the arena. This part looks great and is well done. The Harpies are a bit timid, and while they outnumber the royalists they are poorly armed. Dario, Jorah, Grey Worm, and various Unsullied killed lots of them as they press in, and it’s a slow thing, but the outcome is clear, certainly to Dnay and Tyrion. She takes Missandei’s hand and closes her eyes. Then with a reptilian screen and a burst of flame Drogon appears out of nowhere (summoned by her stress?). He looks awesome as he circles the arena and lands. He then bites, shreds, and fireballs Harpies. Drogon himself looks great, but his flaming is a little staid and he only hits a few at once. This scene, like last week’s zombie attack, is as good as any ever shot for TV, but it still doesn’t have the budget per minute of a big feature film. It would have been cooler if Drogon circled again and fricasseed hige swathes of Harpies. Bit it’s still great. They start pelting him with spears and piss him off. Dany yanks one out and he howls at her, but then recognizes her and turns soft. She climbs up his back (which looks a little) fake and yells “fly” in Valayrian. He builds up speed and the two of them take to the air, leaving slack jawed Tyrion, Jorah, Dario, etc starring.

A face only a mother could love!

A few effects flaws aside this scene brought geeky tears to my eyes, even on the second watch. It was both epic and had the proper emotional effect. Check it out yourself if you haven’t:

All in all, a solidly awesome episode. We have Arya. We have emotional awfulness in the north. The Dorne bit was as good as the Dorne bits have been (which isn’t so great). And most importantly we had pure combat and dragon awesomeness at the end.

Hard to say if this was even better than Hard Home!

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside the episode videos:

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Throne, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones (TV series), George R. R. Martin, HBO, List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters

Game of Thrones – Episode 48

Jun01

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 48 – May 31, 2015

Title: Hardhome

Summary: Zombie attack!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Dany – entertains Ty and Jorah in you guessed it, her favorite, the throne room. And thus begins some first rate work by the ever excellent Mr. Dinklage. Dany is trying to tease out this new opportunity. A chance to string up an enemy? Or, as he offers, a new advisor to fill the roll vacated by Barristan and Jorah (even if he is in the room). Having perked up from his post murder funk, launches into an enthusiastic self sell. Dany puts him in the difficult spot of advising on what to do with Jorah (right in front of him) and Ty, using that perceptivity he (and the writers) are well known for, does what he does best, telling the truth as he sees it. He sings Jorah’s praises at the same time convincing Dany that she out to exile the poor guy again. So for a second time the (newly) old bear is given the boot and stuck back on the original GRRM track. He notes his grayscaled arm, decides he has little to lose, and marches right over to the gladiator boss to sell himself as the new great pit champion. Why he thinks showing off in the arena will win Dany back is anyone’s guess, or maybe he just hopes to die fighting where he can make her feel guilty.

Tyrion-and-Daenerys-in-her-throne-room-Official-HBO

Back in the lego throne room

Meanwhile, Ty and Dany sup in her second favorite set, the bedroom. Ty, long deprived of his favorite beverage pounds back the wine They bond over they’re shared shitty fathers. Tyrion does an amazing job with his little speeches and comes off perceptive as usual. Dany feels a bit more like the innocent girl. He talks about the different houses, weighing this one and that for what advantage it might yield her, and she retorts with her “I’m not going to stop the wheel, I’m going to break it” line that we’ve heard 1000 times on the previews. Interesting how these quotes are almost always in a slightly different context in the show itself. But Ty does his job and she takes him on as advisor, although not without getting a good joke in (about his drinking).

This dining scene was one of those awesome typically GOT banter scenes that rocked, much like Ty and Varys, or Olena and Tywin, etc.

This is the nicest chair Ty has sat on since Joff’s wedding night

Arya – is in the House of Black & White practicing her lies. Jaqen watches, switch in hand, ready to whack her at the slightest crack in her story. She imagines “Lanna” (Cat of the Canals in the books) as an orphan girl selling oysters and the like. The way in which Arya’s story segues into the visual coverage of her new roll though felt a bit odd for GOT. Was the first clip on the streets something that happened — flashbacks being very rare in the show — or her imagination of how it might happen. This POV inconsistency jolted me out of the moment, as much as I enjoyed seeing “Lanna” in her new outfit and hair. Her smile even seemed like a different girls, coming more freely then Arya’s mischievous smirk. Anyway, Jaqen steers her to the fish market and to what appears to be a cold-hearted naval insurance salesman with a taste for oysters. She is told to further investigate and given a Nameless God special brew for the guy. The jealously angle with the blonde initiate comes up again as she complains to Jaqen that Arya isn’t ready.

In not entirely clear on the role of the temple here — other than in setting up this guy’s death, which is obvious. Did one of his wronged customers pay them to knock him off? Is it an assassination business? Or is there a justice component? But regardless, even at 2-3 minutes, this was a fun little bit of Arya time.

There is a girl under there!

Cersei – Is not loving the dungeon time. The obnoxious Septa Unella has a simple but effective torture method of holding out water and demanding she confess. Loving Cersei getting a taste of the bad life. Eventually, Qyburn is admitted as a guest. We haven’t seen him in a while but he remains the only one strongly in the ex-queen’s camp and proceeds to info dump the goings on in King’s Landing so we can save the minutes and the money for the big zombie battle to come. Apparently Tommen is sulking in his room and not eating and Pycelle has summoned Kevan back from Casterly Rock to serve as hand of the king. Qyburn hints that Cersei should consider confessing to buy her freedom. He for one agrees with Karl Marx, faith is the death of reason. Cersei, however, hasn’t hit rock bottom yet.

Then Septa Unella gets back to withholding water again and she slips a few notches down. Her pride holds while the giant woman stays in the room, but she isn’t too proud afterward to lick the water from the filthy floor.

I still am not totally sold on this takeover by the faith of the normal apparatus of power. Yes, this kind of thing has happened historically, but it requires a complex infiltration of the fanatical in said power structure. The normal mode of this is that established rulers would surrender individuals at the second tier of power to the church in order to appease the fanatics and avoid excommunication and other political/social nastiness that the church hierarchy threatened. I can’t think of a scenario where (two) reigning queen(s) were imprisoned against the wishes of the king. But there are limits to showing this kind of religious fear in a the context of a show, particularly one with other focuses.

Not the Ritz

Sam and Gilly – continue to bond as works some salve onto his wounds. He asks how she is after their bone in encounter, and while she deflects his question, it’s a sweet evasion. Then Olly interrupts to help remind the viewers as to the purpose of Jon’s mission and the fact that he hates the wildlings because they ate his parents. Sam does a good job with the defense and I can’t tell if Olly has turned the corner or is being set up as a major ringleader in the et tu brute action that is to come.

Sansa – puts the emotional/verbal flaying knife to Theon next time he brings her dinner. She asks him why he did it, and she lays into him. Reek, for his part has sufficient self-loathing, and lays it bare, which lets him slip out the important little fact that the boys he burned weren’t actually Bran and Rickon. Uh, oh, bad Ramsay wouldn’t like Sansa knowing that little factoid.

But the Boltons – are busy downstairs plotting their defenses against Stannis’ invasion. He has cavalry, but they have tall walls. Ramsay isn’t one for sitting around waiting and suggests that if dad gives him 20 good men he might take the fight to the enemy (and leave a Feast for the Crows in an obvious book nod).

Guilt trip!

Jon – finally heads to Hardhome. I like that instead of making this a “Hardhome” only episode (like Blackwater or The Watchers on the Wall), the battle is essentially the second half. Anyway, Jon, Tormund, Edd, etc row into Hardhome. In the background is an armada of CGI ships and their destination is a giant glacier-front resort. The show pulls out the big bucks from the get go and really shows off the scope both in terms of extras and the vast CGI host.

One way boat trip?

The Wildlings for their part look on grimly as the party disembarks and the Lord of Bones marches up to provide a bit of opposition to the idea of getting together for a friendly chitchat. Tormund reacts to this, and importantly a personal insult, by literally beating the life out of the man. This serves the dual purpose of moving them along to their goal and of putting the Lord of Bones right back where GRRM had him (in the grave). Now some might say this is gratuitous writing, but really it isn’t so off from medieval Danish warrior code (aka Viking).

Speaking of Vikings, the big wooden building the pow wow moves into looks right off the set of that other less fantastical show. Inside are the “elders” including show invention “Karsi”, tough Wildling woman, a big Thenn, the remaining giant, and the like. Jon intros himself and like Tyrion early does a sales pitch. For Jon, he does a pretty good job of it. He and Tormund tag team back and forth selling the move south of the wall as the Wildling’s only chance at survival and the rest of humanities best bet at defeating the dead. Jon hands them over the dragon glass daggers from last week as a gift and confesses to killing Mance. At first this goes over badly, but Tormund leaps in with a save. Eventually, the woman comes over to their side, then the giant, leaving only the Thenn to balk. Well, apparently Karsi “fucking hates Thenns” too.

Kick ass and die

So about half the Wildlings load up on the army of CGI boats and start off for the bigger CGI boats in the distance. Karsi has a couple little girls that she packs off too, laying on the emotional baggage (uh oh for her).

Then the dogs start barking. If you’re living in a movie/show/book with monsters, get really worried when the dogs start barking.

A storm, or an avalanche, or who knows what form of white graphics is boiling over the far glaciers and pouring toward them. People start to rush the boats, the big Thenn slams the stockade gates shut, locking out hundreds of Wildlings who scream and cry then suddenly vanish. He peers through into the storm to be shocked by — surprise! — the undead! And so begins TV’s most epic zombie attack. Frantically, zombies hurl themselves at, through, over, and under the walls. Jon, Torund, the Thenn, Karsi, etc all hustle to the fight.

Wights-and-White-Walkers-coming-Official-HBO

Here come the dead!

What ensures is quite the epic battle, if a tad divorced from the political maneuvering that often dominates the show. World War Z combined with Dead Alive! Inside the Viking hut the giant and Edd fight another wave that pours through the ceiling. The shots of the giant pulling the skeletons off himself and stomping them, then bursting through the walls and stomping some more are totally awesome. Karsi slays, slays, then is finally confronted with a wall of the creepiest kid zombies ever, they overwhelm her physically and emotionally.

Super creep!

Up on the ridge line above stand the White Walkers on their dread steeds (my WOW Warlock has one of these!)

The Thenn and Jon go back into the hut after the dragon glass, but a White Walker joins the fray. After a bit of valiant effort, the Thenn crosses weapons with the creature and has his shattered by the cold, then is speared himself. Thus the principal that White Walker weapons can freeze and shatter normal ones is established. Jon looses his own sword, Longclaw, and spends a bunch of time dodging and bending away from the walker. Finally he grabs back his sword and blocks a blow — but it doesn’t freeze! As we know from the “previously on”, Longclaw is Valayrian steel. Apparently good stuff to have when fighting White Walkers because Jon slashes into the monster and HE shatters. So now in the show, two things do that, obsidian and Valayrian steel. I doubt that will be the case in the books, but who knows? (GRRM)

The Night’s King (that Walker with the icicle crowns on his head) glowers down at Jon and calls forth his signature move. A new army of zombies pours over the cliffs like water (or WWZ) to fall still below, then rise again. Very effective both for the Walkers and as a theatrical move. They just swarm the camp and anyone not on a boat heads toward one at full speed or ends up hacked, bitten, or clawed to death. The giant grabs up a huge burning pole and plays zombie cricket. Then covered in the creatures wades into the bay, which is a pretty great shot. Jon, Tormund and Edd manage to get on the last boat (good) thing and row out into the water. Seems zombies and Walkers aren’t much for swimming, but the Night’s King strolls out onto the docks, raises his hands, and in terrifying silence raises all the dead.

The series ultimate villain?

All in all, a pretty awesome episode. We have Arya, Cersei getting the shaft, Tyrion at his best, and then the ultimate TV zombie fest. Sure, the giant scale of the attack distances it a bit from the more intimate creepy of a scene like the one where Sam killed the Walker. That big action scene operates on a different vibe than the more personal or political scenes. Still, it’s an element that has always been a part of the show, all the way back to the very first scene of episode 1.

One of the most exciting hours this year!

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or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside the episode videos:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 48, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, George RR Martin, Hardhome, HBO, Jon Snow, Season 5, Season 5 Episode 8, TV review

Game of Thrones – Episode 47

May25

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 47 – May 24, 2015

Title: The Gift

Summary: In motion

ANY CHARACTER HERE

First off, I wanted to put forth my perspective on the flack that’s been flying around the internet with regard to the demon in the room at the end of last week’s episode: namely, Sansa’s rape. Regardless as to whether it was a necessary plot point or not, the objections to this scene feel to me like a bunch of pseudo-feminist posturing. True: rape is a horrible thing. But when you place this particular event in the context of the show’s characters and narrative it’s also a complex thing — and besides, why can’t shows show horrible things? GOT doesn’t try to paint the act as a righteous one! First of all, Sansa CHOSE to be in this situation. Now, that doesn’t mean she deserves it, but she chose to go North with Littlefinger. She chose again (and the show paused on that choice) to say the words when marrying Ramsay. She knew full well that she was absolutely definitely certainly without a doubt going to have to sleep with the foul creep that night. She didn’t know she’d have an audience, but she chose to take one for team Stark for her own (more sympathetic) purposes. Second, and in the context of the “historical/cultural” period, there is no such thing as rape inside the confines of a marriage bed. This is incredibly important. I’m not defending this, but it was (and still is) a pervasive way of thinking. In the late middle ages (and that includes Westeros) there really wasn’t any other way of thinking to be had. Marriage was an economic transaction and women and their sexual availability were on the balance sheet. Period. Pointing that out, in contrast to our more “enlightened” modern perspective, is interesting and useful. Everyone should know where we have come from and how far we still have to go. Anyway, I don’t think anyone is confused about the fact that Ramsay is a sadistic, evil, bastard in both the literal and figurative sense. That’s why he’s a VILLAIN. We all hope Sansa gets him up on that red cross herself.

The Wall – GOT sure loves a good departure scene. Jon packs up his men and horses, and trots Tormund out. Thorne and Oly give him the stink eye. Jon, plays the adult and even gives Thorne command. His one fan is Sam, who gives him a jiggly hug and some obsidian daggers (could come in handy if things get creepy).

Even when leaving, Jon gets in a good brood

Meanwhile, Maester Aemon is lying on his death. Sam and Gilly attend, and he compares Gilly’s baby to Egg (who grew up to be the mad king Aegon — get it). Gilly knows he is dying but Sam lingers on a long river in Egypt. But he fades anyway. This might be Westeros’ first natural death. Some have been deserves, some sudden, some slow, many violet, but I can’t remember one from old age or natural disease. Anyway, Sam delivers the eulogy, which is well handled, and the crowd lights him up. How come he burns? Are all dragons immune to fire? Or just Dany? Or only when alive? Afterward, Thorne makes sure to remind Sam that he’s a bit short on friends. We book readers all know where this thread is going.

Next, Gilly is doing laundry when a couple (drunk?) black-shirts wander in and start up that lecherous prelude to bad stuff routine. Sam appears with a sword but is easily disarmed and takes a vicious kicking for it. The redouble their efforts to compromise Gilly’s virtual and Sam stands to courageously defend her (with what? he had a sword and that didn’t work for him). But Ghost materializes and chases the scum away. Nice to see Ghost but we have to wonder why he didn’t go with Jon. Also, for that matter, now that Jon is Lord Commander why haven’t we seen more of Ghost? Why doesn’t he have a nice wolf-bed in the Lord Commander’s office?

Sam finally gets lucky

Anyway, Gilly cleans up Sam later in his chambers. Their chemistry is good. They both don’t want the other to come to any harm. Gilly knows he means it and kisses him. Which leads to a highly clothed sex scene as she clambers on top of him for a little ride. I think she might find it a little suffocating the other way around. But truth is, in its way, this is a tender little scene. They really are alone. With Jon, Aemon, and their better friends gone, Sam is left with the thugs — and Gilly. But he’s going to have a hard time protecting her from the scum, so I wonder if they will head out to Old Town.

Stannis – Is taking his sweet time crossing from the Wall to Winterfell, and is now stuck in the snowstorm. Things are cold and grim — horses are dying. Davos councils retreat, but Stannis won’t have it. The Red Lady suggests she can fix the problem and ensure his victory if he just serves up Shireen as a nice BBQ. Stannis is not happy with that choice.

How many times can they argue

Dorne – Are somewhat pointless Southern episode continues with Jaime “imprisoned” in a fine room in the Watergardens. Hotah brings in his daughter/niece so she can prove to him that she really doesn’t want a rescue. The girl does a pretty good job of it and it’s a bit of a shock to poor Jaime, who had hoped to do the “right thing” by her. Now she’s all grown up and a petulant teen who he truly “doesn’t know.”

Not the reunion he was looking for

Bronn has less appealing accommodations down in the dungeons, but he does have a trio of attractive neighbors in the Sand Snakes, who he delights with his musical talents. One of them (I don’t bother keeping them straight), but the prettiest of the bunch, oddly decides to give him a through the bars lap dance. Why, I really have no idea. When he rises, it’s clear that the little dagger slice we saw last week — and in the previews — meant he was poisoned. And she tells him point blank. And gives him the antidote. All without him having to do anything or say very much. Why? Why poison him then cure him? Is he cured? Hmmm. Like many interactions that are written without much source material from GRRM it feels a bit hollow.

Dany – is getting on her own sexy time with Dario. In fact, this episode has a lot of that, with various levels of gentleness. Their in bed chemistry is fine, but he doesn’t actually do much from a plot perspective, just continue to offer hawkish suggestions like “round up all the masters and slaughter them.” Dany isn’t up for that style of ruling. Dario is also, not in the least surprisingly, jealous of Hizdahr zo Loraq (shades of Myranda, but different). Dany assures him she’ll keep putting out.

Meanwhile, both themes continue on when she accompanies Hizdahr to a trashy looking “lesser pit” to witness some good old gladiator action. More on this in a second, but let’s just say Dany isn’t a fan.

What’s with the white this season?

Jorah and Tyrion – are marched in chains to some slave auction in front of a lovely CGI background. Jorah is bid up for a high price, and when it looks to Tyrion like he’ll be left behind, he does what he does best, and talks. He does manage to win himself a (cheaper) buyout and head on with — but learns his place with a bit of a slap. Not sure I totally bought this sequence, but okay.

Next, in the fighting pits, Jorah is arming up and we learn that leading up to the Superbowl, men fight in the playoffs at lesser pits for a spot in the big event — or die. Reminded me of Spartacus. Some other guys are chosen and have a bit of a lame fight in front of Dany (above). Jorah, down in the dugout, hears them calling her name and rushes out with a helmet over his head. He makes short work of the whole lot of them while Tyrion desperately tries to get out of his chains. A mystery guy helps him by chopping them in half. Why? There seems to be a bunch of why in this episode. Anyway, he runs out too just as Jorah is pulling of his helmet to show himself to Dany. That’s quite the surprise (gift) and she isn’t pleased, but he offers up Tyrion, he is all for some gift wrapping (as opposed to chains). He tells her his name…

This is all much faster than in the books, and further along too because Tyrion and Jorah really miss her as she “takes off” at the end of ADWD. That part is good as the miss was very frustrating. But I would have liked to see Tyrion in the dwarf troop! I guess we will have to wait until next week to find out how this plays out.

Dynamic Duo

Winterfell – Theon brings a tray to Sansa’s room, unlocking the door (i.e. she’s locked inside). He finds her crying in her bed. She gets up and she’s tear stained and her arms are all bruised. Apparently, Ramsay has been abusing her by night and locking her up by day. A sad sight actually 🙁 I’m still a little confused why she isn’t trying to get more a handle on Whack-a-doodle’s twisted psyche, but it sure is a raw deal anywhichway. Sansa asks Theon to light a candle for her in the broken tower. She begs him, reminding him of who is was. It seems she reaches him a bit. Next he is out in the courtyard, looking at the tower. He heads that way… to Ramsay. This is one of those classic TV/movie fake outs like with the door to Buffalo Bill’s house in The Silence of the Lambs.

So this brings us to Sansa being brought to Ramsay on the wall of Winterfell. He does his usual pretend nice while the snow pours down on them. She does grab a corkscrew. He blabbers on for her and the audience’s benefit about the storm, about Stannis, about Jon as Lord Commander. Now she starts in a bit on his weaknesses by reminding him about his pregnant mother-in-law — which does bug him, but it isn’t enough because he’s all excited to show him his latest project: the nice old lady who was on her side, all flayed up. This is rather grisly (as it usually is with Ramsay). Sansa now REALLY understands what a pickle she is in with Lord Nut-job. Makes Joff look like a kitten. But while I do understand that Theon spilled the beans, I don’t understand how that lead to the lady. Sansa never mentioned the lady. She either should have, or Ramsay should have said: “I did a little digging around the castle” or whatever. Like many other bits in this episode, a little off in the writing.

This state of affairs is quite grim, and we can only hope that Brienne and/or Stannis busts in and Ramsay gets what he deserves — preferably from Sansa’s hand. She needs to take more agency though.

Not the husband she was looking for

Olenna – not one to rest while her grandchildren are in prison, stomps into the Sept looking for the High Sparrow. She finds him quick, swabbing the floors. She pretends she doesn’t recognize him and then offers him gold. This is confusing. She’s no dunce, and while I can readily buy that Cersei doesn’t recognize his fanaticism, she should. He gives her more blah blah about everyone being judged under the Seven. She threatens the food. He threatens her soul. She stomps out and gets a note from someone…

Presumably… Littlefinger, who she next visits in his ruined brothel. She tries to use her leverage on him for Joff’s murder, and he offers information, apparently “another boy” just like he gave Cersei. This is all a little loose but I have to assume that means that he told Olyvar to spin his tale for the High Septon, which explains why he looked so un-tortured. I still don’t buy it totally. It also presumably means that he is telling Olenna about Lancel, which I also have problems with, but more on that in a second.

Plots with the best of them

Cersei – is “consoling” her son about his missing wife. This is yet more of what she’s done a lot of this season, playing the calm innocent while plotting up a storm. It’s just more boring than her confrontations of prior seasons with Tyrion, her father, Ned or Robert. Tommen has grown, he’s taller than her. And he’s in quite a frustrated uproar about his lack of power with regard to freeing his wife. Now what happened to the military forces he commands? I’ve read quite my share of military history, and while the church often gave monarchs a lot of trouble they rarely managed to imprison them. It feels a touch light. “Innocent cersei” offers to talk to the Sparrow on Marg’s behalf. Right.

All this playing the innocent is growing old

So she hikes on down to the Sept and pays a visit to Marg in her dungeon. Not the loveliest conditions, as the girl is chained barefoot in a filthy pit. Worse by far than even Bronn’s cell. No naked ladies either. Cersei continues her acting — which is boring, I liked her

better with venom — but Marg is not fooled, nearly spits at her.

After, Cersei stops by the Septon in some stony chapel. He announces that Loras and Marg will be tried separately by seven septons (including him). He then launches into a long diatribe about his philosophy of simplicity by using the metaphor of the gilded church and the simple chapel. This part I actually liked a lot and I felt consistent with religious reformer. There is a consistent pattern where religion becomes entrenched with the establishment and power structure and new more “minimalist” sects urge reform. Martin Luther was one such. Jesus preaching against the temple establishment another. It’s a prevalent but important duality in religious thinking.

Just because he has no shoes doesn’t mean he can’t kick your ass

But then the Septon brings out the real surprise. He trots out Lancel, clearly he knows (presumably as agency of Olenna/Littlefinger) about at least her incest with Lancel himself, maybe the poisoning of the king, and possibly (but less likely) about the whole Jaime/Cersei thing. Uh oh for momma queen. She is grabbed by nuns and dragged off — threats or no — to her own homey little cell. This overall miscalculation I buy. She is so cynical and manipulating that she was unable to see the Septon for what he was all along — true to his word. (clip below)

All in all an episode with a lot going on, but with serious flaws. The Dorne part was a little better, Tyrion good as always, Gilly/Sam pretty good, Winterfell excellent, and Cersei’s stuff half decent. But I had all these “why” problems. There were just a whole bunch of happenings that felt more like D&B needed the characters to do something more than their motivations warranted, or just connective arcs they wanted to draw but didn’t have enough space to make entirely clear.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

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or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO inside the episodes:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 47, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Jon Snow, Season 5, Season 5 Episode 7, The Gift

Game of Thrones – Episode 46

May17

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 46 – May 17, 2015

Title: Unbowed Unbent Unbroken

Summary: Mostly great

ANY CHARACTER HERE

First off, this week I was watching the titles and realized that the little symbols next to the cast names are the houses. How I never noticed that before I will never know, having watched every episode 2-4 times. Goes to show. There are even made up symbols of the writers and producers.

Arya – We open we house fave in the house (of Black and White). She’s washing a body, but we presume some time has gone by because Arya looks different. Her hair is longer, more girlish, she wears new clothes (after years!). She wonders what they do with the bodies, a thought conveyed by images (the slightly ajar door). When she goes for it, the door is slammed shut by the blonde acolyte. They argue, Arya is impatient. She asks how the other girl got here, and she tells a story of having poisoned her stepmother. But is it true?

Next, Arya is awoken in the middle of the night by Jaqen H’ghar and questioned. Who is she? She tells her story with carefully inserted lies. At each lie, he knows and whips her. But when she gets to the Hound, she lies to herself. Thinks she hated him. An interesting and painful testing.

Later, she is scrubbing the floors upstairs again and a man brings in a sick little girl. He has been trying to heal her, but she suffers continually. Arya goes and tells her a convincing story of how she was healed and serves her the water. Dr. Kevorkian junior. Jaqen having looked on, continues to spy on her while she then cleans the body downstairs. He leaves the door to the next level open and Arya follows him down the same flight of stairs as above to the next giant chamber, this one held up by enormous columns filled with death masks (presumably of everyone serviced by the house). It has me wondering, when Jaqen collected deaths outside on his travels, do those faces end up there. Also gives meaning to the term “many faced god.” NOTE: according to GRRM these are actually the skinned literal faces of the dead, and they magically pull them over their own — I guess they carry around a pouch of “options”.

A boy very much likes Jaqen, and particularly when he intones,”A girl is not ready to become no one, but she is ready to become someone else.”

Overall, an effective and slightly creepy yet serious advancement of Arya’s story. I have to assume next week she’ll be out selling seafood and presumably murdering Meryn Trant.

A girl has leveled up

Jorah and Tyrion – Are washing up waterside. They haven’t come to any villages yet and Ty complains about his diet of berries (and presumably lack of wine). Jorah apparently never asked why Ty is here, but they get into it and the sordid tale of Patercide and Tywin sleeping with Shae is slipped out. Ty mentions that at least Jorah had a good dad (because he new him), and then Jorah learns that dad is dead (Ty didn’t know he didn’t know). What he get here is one superlative bit of speechless acting on the part of Jorah, who’s look says it all. Some nice moments between the two.

Hard not to like this bromance

Later, as they saunter past some lovely Croatian cliffs, they discuss belief and Jorah confesses to also being a non-believer until he say Dragon’s born in flame. He doesn’t get into his super crush on Dany, but who blames him. They discuss the Targaryens until Jorah notices that same ship (the one pictured below with me — it’s a rental in Dubrovnik). Pirates instantly ambush them.

Jorah and Ty aren’t the only one to spot that pirate ship

Poor Jorah seems to take the brunt of the interrogation, as these Summer Islanders use his face as a punching bag. But he at least will fetch a press. The conclude Ty is only good for his “special parts,” but in typical Tyrion fashion he uses his best asset (his tongue) and talks his way into slavery instead — even upgrading it to sell Jorah as a fearsome warrior fit for the fighting pits of Meeren. Classy escort right to where they are going.

Littlefinger – Enters Kings Landing only to be confronted by brother Lancel and schooled on the new boring no-fun order of things. Which does ellicit the awesome, “We both peddle fantasies, Brother Lancel.” But by the time he reaches Cersei he is well informed as usual on the whole situation. They trade barbs about incest and lady Lysa, but then get to the point. Cersei wants to know if he will fight for “the king” and he tells her what she wants to hear — then “spills the beans” about Sansa and the Boltons, leaving out only his own role. She goes ballistic and after he suggests various solutions he knows full well she doesn’t have the power to use (like Uncle Kevan or Jamie) he suggests his knights of the vale can pick up the pieces — if he is named Warden of the North. Of course he also probably has in mind picking up Sansa too. But clearly Littlefinger always serves only Littlefinger, and his naked ambition is there for us to see.

Dr. Evil is back!

Tyrells – Nice view of Dubrovnik/Kings Landing as Lady Olenna’s coach (which is one of those old, almost Roman style wheelhouses) rolls up. The Queen of Thorns wastes no time catching up with Margaery and the Loras situation. Thinking she has things in hand she braces Cersei. Things don’t go as smoothly or as amusingly as they did with Tywin. This season the dour Cersei hasn’t been a very amusing foil. She just blames things on the Faith, trying to play it down as a minor inquest. Olenna, oddly enough, is stymied. Where is the master manipulator that took out the diabolical Joffrey?

Game-of-Thrones-Preview-Unbowed-Unbent-Unbroken-VIDEO

The queen of thorns isn’t prickly enough this episode

Later, we are in the inquest itself, with the High Septon/Sparrow interrogating the chief Tyrell Pillowbiter (Olenna’s words, not mine — at least she didn’t call him a feather spitter). Everyone important is there, including Tommen and Queen Marg. Loras denies the charges. The queen is called and denied the charges (and I know where this is going), oh Cersei you dog you. Then they roll in Olyvar or whatever Littlefinger’s brothel manager’s name is and he contradicts both their stories — with the Dorne-shaped birthmark as evidence. Marg is arrested for lying to the church.

I was not a big fan of this whole sequence. Being a student of church/religious history I think they could have handled it better. First of all, at the very least Olyvar shouldn’t have looked so spiffy and happy to spill the beans. In those real situations, a witness like him was dragged in from a filthy prison and a bit of hard handling from the rack. This would have lent more weight to it, been more plausible. I thought this was effective in the Tudors when Marg’s (did I say that, I meant Anne Boleyn) was put on trial for infidelity. The musician’s “confession” (pulled out of him on the rack) was used as creepy evidence there. Even at his execution he couldn’t walk, joints pulled out of the sockets you know. Plus, GOT never sells the full religious take over of Kings Landing effectively — although I admit it would be a costly and difficult thing to sell in a short amount of screen time.

Uh oh, pillowbiting AND purgery

Dorne – Finally, after a couple bits of foreplay we get to the main event in Dorne, but the foreplay was pretty rushed and so is the coupling. First, Doran Jr (Trystane) and Myrcella are having a heart to heart. He wants to ask his father about marrying her right away. She asks him if it’s because they are betrothed and he kisses her all hot and heavy — apparently they are supposed to be a love match. They are a cute couple if nothing else.

Nell-Tiger-Free_Toby-Sebastian-photo-Macall-B.-Polay-HBO

The cute couple

Doran and Hotah look on, and Doran tells Hotah to watch out for them, all too timely given the events that are coming. Why they call his guandao-like thing an axe is beyond me.

Meanwhile, Jaime and Bronn, dressed as Dornish warriors are riding all hot and heavy up to the Watergardens. Their jokes are good as usual. Jaime: “I like to improvise” Bronn: “That explains the golden hand.”

Seems the triple timing thing is dead on. Ellaria Sand is with the Sand Snakes in the basement swearing some battle oaths. The snakes then sneak out into the Gardens and this is intercut with Jaime/Bronn in the very same gardens — obviously Andalusia. Jaime catches up with Myrcella and Trystane considering if they want to sneak from first to second base and he tries to get her to come with. He’s surprised when she isn’t interested and things go sideways as Bronn knocks out the Prince and the Sand Snakes whip into the scene.

The ensuing 3 on 2 whip/sword/knife/spear fight is okay, but feels a bit unrealistic. Why doesn’t Bronn just slice that whip? In any case, one snake almost gets away with Myrcella only to have Hotah show up and arrest everyone. Even Ellaria, as we see a half scene later.

I wasn’t thrilled with this whole sequence either, and it and the Kings Landing stuff is definitely the weakest in the episode. Drone, despite the marketing build up, hasn’t turned out to be that exciting. It wasn’t in the books either, but I was hoping that Jaime and Bronn would spice it up.

Don’t mess with the big guy

Winterfell – brings us to new fave Sansa in her room. Myranda comes to “draw her bath,” supposedly sent by Ramsay, but it doesn’t really seem that way. While washing out Sansa’s dark hair die for her wedding night she gets all psycho (no wonder she and Ramsay are so close) and talks about Ramsay’s other girlfriends and their sad ends. Sansa isn’t fooled by all this, and taking a page from Tyrion/Littlefinger turns it around asking how long she (Myranda) has been in love with Ramsay. She puts on a good show, and after the other girl leaves lets it all out in private.

And she does look splendid in her white wedding dress with furry shoulders when Theon/Reek (actually cleaned up for a change) comes to get her. She shows him no kindness but follows him out to the Godswood. This is a smaller, northern wedding, more like Robb’s. It looks lovely though in the snow with the lanterns. Theon announces her and Roose Ramsay, and they exchange words. Theon even names himself, in which it’s not totally sure if that was planned/allowed. Sansa hesitates to “take her groom” but eventually does.

The bridal chamber is nicely decked in candles and furs. Let’s hope it wasn’t by Myranda or there might be some dog shit in the bed. Ramsay gets all creepy as usual. First he talks about being honest with each other, grills her on her virginity, then orders Theon to stay and watch (which is borrowed from, but much milder than in the books). Next he orders her to strip, and Sansa plays along. It would also be in character for her to stick up for herself a little more here, but she submits pretty meekly. But still, here she is knowingly taking one for team Stark (on which she thinks she is the only player). It’s pretty sad and hard to listen too as Ramsay just takes her. Everyone else is pretty much crying.

Man three is not the charmer

All in all a great episode, but not entirely perfect. The Arya, Jorah/Ty, and Sansa sections (which make up 2/3) are great. Kings Landing was so-so. I had higher hopes for the return of the Queen (of Thorns). Dorne was a decided disappointment and the Wall and Dany had the week off. I do want to see what Sansa is going to do in her new situation and how the whole Stannis army thing shakes out!

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By: agavin
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Game of Thrones – Episode 45

May10

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 45 – May 10, 2015

Title: Kill the Boy

Summary: Awesome episode

ANY CHARACTER HERE

First off, this is one of those medium focus episodes, which are my favorites. By medium I mean that it covers a limited number of threads, but not just one (like Blackwater). I like these episodes that have some different threads to cut between, but enough time to lavish on more detail. Those that cover more than 3-4 threads tend to feel rushed.

Dany – Because we ended with Dany, we might as well start with her as the episode does. Or to be specific, with Missandei watching over an recovering Gray Worm — he breathes, so as we suspected, he is alive. Not so much luck for Barristan who is lying in state in the pyramid with Dany and Dario looking on. Hizdahr zo Loraq approaches. Dario suggests they retreat to the pyramid and lay waste to the rest of the city. Dany is the retreat type and has her men round up the leaders of all the noble families — including Hizdahr.

Down in the basement (of Diocletian’s Palace), she has the unsullied drive the nobles toward the two dragons that wait in the dark. One is push forward, roasted, torn in half, and makes a nice two course reptilian feast. Dany is in her “calm, cold, and pensive” mode, which I quite like, and she lets the others off easier with a bit of incarceration.

Three days later, Gray Worm wakes up, and Missandei is still there. He learns about Barristan and announces to her that he failed his comrade. Of course, being in love with him, and him being totally outnumbered and having survived, she isn’t in the slightest bit mad at him. He admits that he was ashamed that at the last minute he was afraid — of not seeing her again. She kisses him, thinking fondly of the smooth patch between his legs.

Curtain call for one of these two

But as this is a good day for Missandei, she next visits with Dany who seeks her advice. Dany is open and receptive, and Miss tactfully points out that Dany sometimes takes her advisor’s council, and sometimes has to do it her own way. Which is quite apropos as Dany has another of her unorthodox solutions in mind. She heads down to Hizdahr’s cell and tells him she will reopen the pits and — this is way more exciting — marry him. Of course, in true GOT fashion she makes a nice joke of it. He, for his part, having assumed he was about to die is only concerned with cleaning up his linen tighty whities.

I might as well discuss here the elephant in the room. In the books, Barristan continues on living, has his own POV chapters in fact. And here the producers have decided to snip him out of the story. His thread was pretty boring in ADWD anyway, and this episode’s Dany section is the best she has been in a long long time, so power to them.

Jon and the Wall – Sam is reading about Dany (apropos) to Aemon, and he is bothered by his last living relative being out there alone in Meereen. Jon comes in to speak to the Maester, announcing he needs advice on something crucial. Aemon, ever wise and ever cheeky (he is a 100 year old Targaryen Maester with cold bones) tells him to do what he thinks best. But more poetically, like “kill the boy and let the man be born.”

100 year old man in the cold

So Jon has a little chat with Tormund where he asks him to go fetch all the Freefolk and bring them back to be let through the wall to settle. He makes a pretty convincing argument. Hey, who wants to end up as body part art? But even unchained, Tormund wants Jon to go with him to Hardhome. Jon promisses to talk to Stannis about borrowing the fleet.

Now, Jon has the unenviable job of telling his men — who of course think he is crazy. Befriend the enemy? I love how Stannis corrects one mans bad grammar too. The whole “we have to live with them or fight them as part of the army of the dead” makes reasonable sense, but it’s hard for people to give up on their hate. This is personalized in the form of Oly, the kid who killed Ygritte (grrr) and lost his family to the Thenns. Since Oly is Jon’s steward, he get a glimpse into his hatred.

Gilly and Sam talk about the library and we have more nice bonding between the two of them. Sam points out that the Citadel has the largest library, and we are given a hint of its role training Maesters, which might mean that Sam, Gilly, and Aemon are headed that way after-all. Plus Gilly’s insecurity and Sam’s kind handling of it are quite nice. Stannis comes in and asks about the White Walkers and how Sam killed them, concluding that Sam should keep reading. This nicely shows Stannis’ pragmatic side.

We will miss them at the wall — oh, and can we say GRAYSCALE?

Then the king goes to talk to Davos to tell him its time they marched and he’s taking the queen and princess, so we cut to the next morning as they saddle up. Sam and Gilly watch and Davos chats with Shireen while the queen frowns (she doesn’t do much of anything else). Stannis and Jon have a few moments of mutual respect and wish each other well, then Red Lady in tow, a nice big column of CGI forces marches out.

Winterfell – Pod and Brienne spy on the castle from a nearby inn. Pod halfheartedly tries to convince her to turn aside, but Brienne is determined to support Sansa. A servant comes in and she questions him about the Starks, taking the risk of asking him to get Sansa a message. This is characteristic of her, like when she mentioned her mission to Hotpie.

Exciting things are afoot

Next, Ramsay admires his whore Myranda by the window. She’s quite thin, pretty, and very naked. The girl has some guts, as she expected to marry Ramsay before the whole Bolton thing and says as much. Ramsay is interestingly honest when he says “I meant it, but then I was a Snow and now I’m a Bolton.” Plus, she’s the Kennel Master’s daughter. He warns her about her jealousy and she has the good sense not to push it so far she ends up minus a few attractive body parts. He takes her by the window.

Sansa is in her room when a servant enters and passes her what might sort of be Brienne’s message — at least she is supposed to light a candle in the broken tower if she needs help. She wanders out into the yard and checks it out, it’s the tower where Bran fell, just with more snow. Myranda approaches. She’s clever and has a pair on her (more than Reek anyway) in that she plays nice, apologizes for Cat’s death, and takes Sansa to see a “surprise” in the kennels. At the end. Sansa, against possible better judgement walks past the snarling beasts to find Reek/Theon at the end. She recognizes him and he only says, “you shouldn’t be here.”

Later, Reek is serving Ramsay when he clearly has something to say. It takes a moment and then he is out with the Sansa bit. Ramsay toys with him for a moment and forgives him.

Most awkward dinner EVER!

This brings us to one of the oddest great scenes in GOT history. The Bolton/Stark dinner theater. Ramsay pours Sansa some wine, and his fat Stepmother’s. There is a comment about how it must be strange for Sansa, and she comments back that the place is home, only the people are strange. Reek comes in to serve and Ramsay plays the whole thing off as punishment for his “murder” of Bran and Rickon, even makes Reek apologize. This is one weird dinner. When it can’t get any weirder, he even suggests Reek give away the bride. Ramsay is a brilliant actor, but the character and the actor playing the character. Bolton however isn’t so amused and pulls the rug out from under his son by noting that his fat wife is pregnant — perhaps with another son.

Father/son bonding, Bolton style

In private, the two Bolton’s spar. Ramsay “wonders” how dad could “find it” on a girl that fat and Bolton is just straight up displeased with him. But he tells a grim Bolton-style story of how he killed the miller and raped the miller’s wife, then she showed up with the baby — only to comment on how he recognized the boy as his son — as he does now. Well, sure is true, Ramsay sure has a lot of the dad in him. Then Bolton, no dummy talks about Stannis and their defense of the north and Ramsay rises to the occasional again to offer his help.

Tyrion, thou are’t so amusing

Tyrion and Jorah – sail along in amusing contrast. “Long sullen silences and the occasional punch in the face: the Mormont Way.” Haha. Ty thinks better of it and apologizes — and asks for wine. But Jorah is more concerned looking ahead, and so Ty turns to see the myst (seems appropriate to spell it that way) and… dum dum… the ruins of Old Valyria, which is clearly the fantasy stand in for the Roman Empire. Apparently Jorah thinks this will make an excellent shortcut. It does look pretty, with giant Vietnamese/Cambodian style ruins, aqueducts, jungle, and mist (I meant myst). This is an awesome scene, gorgeous and moody with Ty reciting a poem telling of the Doom and Jorah finishing it. A nice bonding moment for two men who actually have a bit in common. Then Drogon flaps on by overhead taking it up to the next level. The camera lingers on him, and his appearance means different things for the two men. He’s huge, and perhaps reminds Jorah of all he has lost. And for Ty, well, he maybe didn’t even totally believe in dragons.

Too cool for school

Then a handful of stonemen hop on into the boat. I knew there was way too much setup about stonemen, grayscale, and them being sent to Old Valyria to be a coincidence. Nice fight really, with the added zombie-style need to avoid touching them. Then Ty goes into the water, bound.

He wakes with Jorah on the beach. They seem to have lost their boat. No matter, too resourceful men like them can surely steal another one. But Jorah secretly checks his wrist and we see he’s sporting a small patch of grayscale. uh oh!

Kill the boy!

All in all, a fabulous episode. Even without Arya for the second week in a row, all four threads were fabulous. The lackluster Dany storyline got a much needed stab in the gut and the ho hum north a bit of chilly change. But the Winterfell and Tyrion/Jorah threads were as good as it gets for this show — which is pretty darn good. Those whack job family moments in Winterfell, wow, and Old Valyria with Drogon flying overhead. What more could a fantasy junky want?

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or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

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Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

Official HBO inside the episode:

By: agavin
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Tagged as: a game of thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, Episode 45, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones (TV series), George R. R. Martin, HBO, Kill the Boy, List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters, Season 5 Episode 5, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 44

May01

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 44 – May 3, 2015

Title: The Sons of the Harpy

Summary: Solid transitional episode

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Last week was a great episode and so this one has big footsteps to follow in.

Tyrion – Jorah steals a boat by clobbering a fisherman and tossing the half man in like a sack of potatoes. Later, they are sailing along, and a gagged Tyrion makes annoying noises until Jorah the rags out of his mouth. Even gagged Tyrion is funny. And amusing as always, ungagged Tyrion complains that he “can’t sleep without wine.” Tyrion is at first under the impression that Jorah is taking her back to Cersei, but realizing they are going the wrong way, clues in that by “queen” she meant Dany. Tyrion then shows off his wit by observing nuances of Jorah’s outfit, figuring out who he is and his motivations to a tee. He’s so delightfully annoying that Jorah knocks him into unconsciousness.

Not too tight!

Jaime and Bronn – are also sailing, but on a much larger ship. They pass a green island which a sailor identifies as the Sapphire Isle, a nod to his use of said location in season 3 to help Brienne avoid a rape. Bronn quizzes Jaime on why they are taking a merchant vessel. On his “niece” (Bronn being quite suspicious about the royal parentage). There is some character development as they discuss how they’d like to die, with Bronn opting to die old and rich and surrounded by kids and Jaime in the “arms of the woman he loves.” Well, that isn’t going so well.

As they row ashore Bronn is also concerned that the captain knew who they are, and as it turns out after a slithering breakfast the next morning a foursome of Dornish soldiers show up. They try to talk their way past but they need to do what they do best — or at least Bronn does best, as Jaime barely managed to handle one of the raiders, and that one with a clever move involving his golden hand. It’s a solid fight livened up by some trademark dialog.

One, if he’s slow

Sand Snakes – Episode 4 of the season, and finally we meet the infamous “sand snakes” (Oberyn’s daughters). Ellaria Sand is visiting the trio of snake-clad brunettes. I loved her last season, but this is the second time this season she’s all venom (haha). I don’t love the casting for the Sand Snakes. They come off as goofy and trying to hard to be woman warriors (unlike many of the others on the show, like Brienne or Yara). They do have that previously mentioned ship captain buried in the sand up to his neck, head covered in scorpions (ick!). They know all about Jaime’s arrival and have plenty of reason to speculate on why. Ellaria, continuing as the hawk wants to start a war by killing Princess Marcella — and certainly doesn’t want her erstwhile father/uncle interfering. The snakes are up for some violence.

Girly girls playing at being warriors

Cersei – is meeting with the smaller council. Mace announces that the iron bank has placed a margin call on a tenth of their debt. Cersei wants to send him to Bravos with (uh oh) Ser Meryn Trant. Probably mostly to get him out of the way and weaken Margaery’s power base. Although maybe he’ll have a run in with “nobody” — or they just want to use their cool Iron Bank set again. Pycelle then even jokes about the smaller council.

Next, the dowager queen entertains the High Sparrow, who apparently got mysteriously promoted to High Septon, something which was clear in the books but unclear here. At least the old one seems to have survived — in the black cells. His birdiness doesn’t drink wine. In a crazy bid presumably to control him through favors (although this is very unclear in the show) she offers to revive the Knights Militant, the special Templar-like military order of the church. And she refers to someone living in particularly gross sin…

Next, Sparrows smash beer kegs and break wine bottles. They storm around town busting up all the fun stuff. I’ve never been a big fan of these type “mob” scenes without a main actor on screen. These are intercut with Lancel getting a new “wheel of the seven” sigil carved in his forehead with a knife. I can still hardly recognize him. Then the Sparrows are raiding Littlefinger’s ever popular brothel — which gets pretty boy Olyvar beaten up. Some gay guy is pulled out and killed. Then Lancel storms in on Loras Tyrell (not in the brothel) and arrests him.

Uh, Marg dear, can I at least get a little...

Uh, Marg, can I at least get a little…

Margaery storms into Tommen furious about her brother and demands the king get him free. A confused Tommen goes to Cersei who is all plausible deniability, but she does send him to the High Sparrow. Alas, our wimpy kid king is stymied by the guards on the steps to the Sept. Seems the High Sparrow is praying and he doesn’t want to use violence to bust in. He slinks away. I know he’s just a boy, but he could have offered to join the Sparrow in prayer, or to wait. Instead, momma’s boy that he is, he creeps back to Marg. She scolds him and gives him the cold shoulder, saying she needs to be with her family. Poor boy, he’s going to get blue balls.

Sansa – Our time in the (non wall) north is much reduced this week with just a single scene with Sansa in the Winterfell Crypt. She stands in the very spot used for Episode 1 lighting candles to her late aunt. Littlefinger joins her for some manipulations. He talks of Lyanna and the tourney at Harrenhal where Rhaegar Targareyn chose her over his wife — leading of course to Ned and Robert’s rebellion and the whole (previous) civil war. We are reminded that he kidnapped and raped her after, which leads me to wondering if they are doing longterm setup for Jon Snow’s parentage (NOTE: highly speculative spoiler thought). As much reminding the viewer as Sansa, Littlefinger tells her that he is off to Kingslanding to play Cersei’s lapdog but that Stannis is on his way with an army — and that he will likely name her Wardeness of the North if he gets the chance. Sansa is concerned what she does if that doesn’t happen, and ever pragmatic, warns her she must win over Ramsay. That could be more difficult than either of them realize (woof woof!). This leads me to wondering how much Littlefinger really knows about Ramsay — and I’m inclined to believe this is one of the rare cases where he is under-informed (as he himself said last episode). Dark Sansa herself seems resigned and ready for the task. Oh, and Peter can’t leave without giving her another wee kiss. I do suspect that he actually has some feelings for her — or what passes for feelings where Littlefinger is concerned.

Loving Dark Sansa

Jon/Stannis the wall – King and Queen stick-in-the-mud are watching Jon Snow in the fighting yard. The queen continues to bash her own daughter but the Red Lady approaches and praises the girl. Melisandre and Stannis remind us that they’re heading to Wintefell soon — and the Lady asks if she’s going this time (which she is). Lady might be creepy, but she is a good luck charm.

In his office, Jon is signing papers with Sam. Requests for more men to local lords — including Roose Bolton. Jon pauses, but eventually signs it, as he is resigned to his path as a man of the Night’s Watch. Then Sam and the Red Lady swap places and she wastes no time telling him she wants him to come south with her and popping her breasts out of her dress. She’s obviously sniffing out his kingly blood (another hint like above with the Rhaegar stories) and horning in on his powerful seed. This isn’t the first time (remember Stannis and Gendry?). Clearly she’d love to work some mojo. Jon resists heroically, although he does cop a feel. He admits he still loves Ygritte. And even more on the way out she says “you know nothing Jon Snow.” Sigh. Where’s the alternate reality porn episode with Jon and Ygritte stuck in the cave?

Than we have a peculiar little scene where Shireen pops in on her father (people are forever entering the room in this show) and asks if he is ashamed of her. He tells a little story which proves clearly otherwise, which is a rare warm and touchy moment for someone described as having all the personality of a lobster.

Surprisingly, Shireen brings out the best in King Lobster

Dany – finishes out the episode. This is at least the second time the title has nothing to do with the internal balance. The queen and Barristan hang out on the balcony of her pyramid. The view is great but he’s grown kinda tedious. He tells her about Rhaegar (second Rhaegar story of the episode, and we have to wonder why). In this story we learn that the late prince liked to sing for change in the streets of king’s landing. Meanwhile, Dario comes to get her, as the Meerenish nobles are downstairs in the throne room. That noble son, Hisgar or whoever is pleading again to let the fighting pits be opened.

Cut to a bunch of masked Sons of the Harpy killing what are probably Second Sons. Then Unsullied trotting through halls (in Split Croatia). These Unsullied sure do a lot of jogging. They are ambushed and one is revealed to be Grey Worm. He fights well but is outnumbered. Barristan, who happened to be on a convenient walk (setup before), runs into the fray at the sound of trouble. In the end, he and Gray Worm take out a huge mass of Harpies, but are badly wounded in the process.

I’m just not feeling it with these Dany scenes this season — but they had the same effect when I was reading ADWD, so not so surprising.

The view was the best part

All in all, a very solid episode. Not as exciting as last week, and with less threads, but it had some good stuff. Too little Tyrion, but what we got was good. Too many crowd scenes (Sparrows, Harpies, Unsullied) but we did get some great Jaime/Bronn banter and fighting. I was a little disappointed in the Sand Snakes — too cheesy, but Sansa’s “dark territory” story line continues to be highly intriguing.

The show is really upping the visual ante too. Nearly every locale, window, and hill shot gets some giant combined real and CGI view and they look totally gorgeous.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official inside videos for the episode:

By: agavin
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Tagged as: A Feast for Crows, a game of thrones, Game of Throne, Game of Thrones (TV series), George R. R. Martin, HBO, Jon Snow, List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters

Game of Thrones – Episode 43

Apr26

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 43 – April 26, 2015

Title: The High Sparrow

Summary: New Territory!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

I did not love The House of Black and White last week. I mean, it was fine and all — it was Game of Thrones — but that being considered it was a lackluster episode. This week makes me think that they don’t choose the names because of the focus of the show, but more for what the introduce.

Arya – Even though I expected some meat on Arya’s story last week (because of the title), it seems to fall in this episode. We pick up with her inside the House of Black and White, a creepy dark space decorated with every image of the divine. She sweeps. She carries water. In the background Jaqen offers a man a bowl of “water”. Arya is frustrated with the drudgery (which evidently has been days) and confronts Jaqen — only to get a cryptic “all men must learn to serve” (in Valyrian too). She wonders which god and reminded that there is “only one true god” (we’ve heard that before!) and omits the “and his name is death.” Sure enough, the guy who drank the water lies dead on the floor and is carried off by silent acolytes.

A man must…

Later Arya is pondering her coin when a blonde female acolyte enters and questions who she is. Arya, having learned her lesson goes with the ever popular “no one” answer, but is beaten for her trouble. They get into a fight and Jaqen materializes to stop it. The other girl was apparently trying to play “the game of faces” (which is presumably where she “becomes” someone else for a while) but Jaqen questions Arya, saying that if she is “no one,” why is “no one” surrounded by Arya Stark’s things? Arya gets the hint and goes out to the lagoon to throw away her famed stinky clothes that have miraculously survived 4 years hard use. She chucks her money and even the coin too, but can’t quite manage to throw away needle, instead burying it under a pile of rocks in the jetty (which looks to be part of the harbor of some Croatian village). After, she is back in the House and Jaqen leads her to the basement where she learns to undress and bath a corpse that has recently drunk from the poisoned water.

This was all good stuff, with a nice creepy feel and some good does of Jaqen. The issue of Arya abandoning her things (and presumably her grudges) brings us to a theme that runs through this episode (and GOT in general). “To Revenge or not to Revenge.”

Jon – Has taken up his position as Lord Commander and made Olly his steward. Stannis with Davos in tow (as usual) come for a visit. The “One True King of Westeros” wants to know if he has decided on the whole becoming Jon Stark business. Jon has desires, revenge (theme), and all that on one side and loyalty and duty (to the Night’s Watch) on the other. Having built up his honor now as a brother, having paid for it at the cost of Ygritte and her love, and his friends, he’s going to side with his oath. Stannis gives him a hard time, but being the inflexible twit that he is, probably admires Jon. I’m not a huge Stannis fan, but these interactions at the wall are far better than him lurking about in Dragonstone. Stannis also mentions that he plans to march on Winterfell and the Boltons and Davos tries to get Jon to pitch in (even thought the watch is technically neutral).

Later, Jon is presiding over the mess. Sam tells us that Maester Aemon is sick (setup) and Jon drums up some humor by appointing a latrine captain, then Thorne (in his side) as chief ranger. When he commands the odious Slynt to take some men and go restore Grayguard, a ruined castle on the wall, Slynt refuses. And refuses again and insults Jon and his authority. Taking a page from the Ned/Robb playbook Jon calls for his sword and has the men drag Slynt outside to the block. Once there Slynt begs for his life and mercy. For a moment it looks like Jon might yield, but off comes the ugly head. Good riddance.

Nope, won’t miss him

Margaery and Cersei – Another gorgeous aerial shot of Kings Landing shows off the budget. It looks less and less like Dubrovnik by the episode. Liters containing Cersei and Margarey roll through the streets, but the people call Marg’s name (making Cersei scowl). We roll up to the Sept of Baellor (also looking better than ever) and apparently it’s time for Margarey’s third wedding. Let’s home 3 is the charm. This seems to be the only happy wedding in Westeros history too, as the episode slams from the kiss right to the bedroom. Tommen is getting lucky at a seriously young age! How old is he? In the books he’s like 8 or 9, but maybe 15 or so here. Lucky guy as Marg is a dish. He certainly thinks so because she wraps him about her cute little finger. Their pillow talk is very nicely handled. Marg is both artfully manipulative and clearly enjoying herself as well. I’m not sure that even a kid his age would be dense enough to fall for her heavy handed manipulations as she simultaneously flatters Cersei and implies that she over mother’s him — but he eats it up.

So next up Tom not so subtly tries to suggest to his mother that she might be happier in Casterly Rock. Which leads to Cersei storming back to Margaery, but the old queen is playing it close to her vest in a controlled manner. She talks nice to Marg as the younger girl not so subtly reminds her that she is a dowager now. You can feel the anger seething under her skin.

Gasp, a drama free wedding!

Later the High Septon (which we clearly saw marring Marg and Tom) is at Littlefinger’s whorehouse picking from various naked versions of the seven when the sparrows (including unrecognizable Lancel) storm in and haul him out naked into the street. It’s painful to watch as the fat pale dude is whipped through the streets.

Once dressed again (thank the seven), he loses no time in protesting to the small council. Which generates an amusing line when he tries to address Qyburn who says of his name “doesn’t matter.” But Cersei and the crew (other than the lecherous Pycelle) take him to task for getting into trouble anyway.

Jonathan-Pryce-as-the-High-Sparrow_-photo-Macall-B.-Polay_HBO

Mild but not meek

Cersei, the disgusting Meryn Trant in tow, decides to size up this new faction by visiting the “High Sparrow” in his lair (which is a poor house). The barefoot man, played by veteran character actor, Jonathan Pryce (Keira Knightley’s dad in Pirates!), does a good job of playing the role as ultra humble. Cersei must be up to something in her “plot against Marg” as she plays along.

The doctor’s laboratory!

Finally, she visits Qyburn in his lab. The place is delightfully Frankenstein, and the ex-Maester is in the process of doing in a rat. In the background is a big body under a sheet. Presumably the mountain. Cersei has him send a letter to Littlefinger. After she leaves the body gets to twitching. Kitsch, but fun.

The Boltons – Ride into a Winterfell that is under heavy reconstruction. Ravens in cages are been brought in, and Reek can be seen pathetically mucking out the yard. As part of the classic Bolton decoration a set of flayed bodies are hauled up on ropes, including a woman. Ramsay and Roose dine together, with Reek serving. Ramsay reveals that he flayed some Northern lord who wouldn’t pay his taxes and Roose suggests that given the size of the north, and their loss of Tywin’s support (due to his death), they really ought to adopt a somewhat more congenial style. To that effect, he has arranged a marriage for the new heir.

Sansa and Littlefinger – As they look down on yet another big vista, this time Moat Cailin. Seems they are heading north (as I suspected). This is all new territory. Littlefinger says they are going home and Sansa instantly puts two and two together about the marriage proposal and realizes it’s her. She is appalled at the idea of the Boltons (who did, after all, murder Robb and Cat). But Peter is ultra slick this time, saying he won’t force her, but she should consider taking charge of her fate and getting her revenge on her terms (revenge theme again). Sansa thinks for the moment, steels herself and agrees. This is a defining moment for her as a character, really taking charge (somewhat, for she is still a pawn of LF) and is very well handled.

Heading in new directions

Brienne and Pod – Look on. Brienne doesn’t need to follow, she knows where they are going and plans to sneak on by. She and Pod share some good bonding by the fire, exchanging more of their backgrounds and origin stories. Pod explains how he was sent to Tyrion and she explains how she met Renly and why she loved him (because he was always kind to her). Pod expresses his admiration and Brienne volunteers to start teaching him combat. Brienne comments that there is “nothing more hateful than failing to proect the one you love” and we know she’s thinking of her revenge on Stannis (the show even transitions over to him) so this counts as more revenge theme!

But in my threaded narrative, back to Sansa and Littlefinger and the Boltons – Sansa arrives in Winterfell. Home at last, but oh how things have changed. The Boltons have spruced things up for their guests. The flayed corpses are gone (but the hooks remain). Roose, Ramsay, and Roose’s fat frey wife are all lined up to welcome them. Sansa plays along as she is introduced to Ramsay. Behind them Ramsay’s mistresses look on. When she’s shown to her room the serving lady lets her know “the north remembers.”

A charming family

As she wanders around the castle, Reek keeps a secretive eye on her. We are in entirely new territory here and I can only speculate on how the threads the show is setting up will combine with the action in ADOD in this new alternative version. Clearly Stannis is on the way, as is Brienne. Clearly Theon/Reek will have some role to play in the chaos that will ensue. I suspect he’ll have some kind of partial redemption. Although who knows? GRRM and D&D might kill him (or anyone) off. This all must be tough on Sansa, but she has really come a long way and play along admirably.

Ramsay too is playing a role, because we know what kind of a whackjob he is. He tells Littlefinger he “will never hurt her.” And that’s in his nature? Roose joins them and Peter assures the elder Bolton she is a virgin. The pragmatic Roose couldn’t care less about that. He’s interested in Littlefinger’s plans and why after getting so much support from the Lannisters he’s turning against them now (and he doesn’t know the 90% of it!). As usual, LF’s true motives are fairly inscrutable. I can’t help but think he wants to sow even more chaos in the north and somehow pick up the pieces. But he suggests the Eerie and the North team up again. That message comes from Cersei and Roose has read it — he’s not a terribly trusting soul, as he wants to read it.

Tyrion and Varys – roll their giant wheel house up to Volantis and we are treated to even more giant panning city shots. This season is going nuts with these gorgeous views of Martin’s world. Volantis seems to include a giant bridge like the Ponte Vecchio with shops and buildings piled on top. This was actually a frequent site in early modernity (15-18th centuries). Paris and London both had them. The shot that rolls up over it is amazing. Tyrion, bored out of his gourd in the carriage, and sporting his new hood and beard look, drags a reluctant Varys out in search of a brothel. The presence of slaves is observed, and even Robb Stark’s late wife commented on it back in season 2-3. Here they apparently tattoo slaves with a descriptive mark, like a shovel for ditch diggers. They run into an Asian priestess of the Lord of Light on their way. She babbles about “the night is dark and full of terrors” and the like. She refers to “stone men” and Tyrion comments on this, drawing the connection to gray scale (Shireen’s disease, which was introduced last episode). Yep, they didn’t cut that!

Conleth-Hill-as-Varys-and-Peter-Dinklage-as-Tyrion-Lannister-_-photo-Helen-Sloan_HBO33

Hoodie time!

Ty does manage to find a whore house — of course, this is GOT and there are two in this episode alone! But unknownst to Tyrion and knownst to us, Jorah is lurking around — very drunk. There is even a whore dressed as Dany in blue and with a white wig. Tyrion talks to a lonely lady of the night and does a good job overcoming her initial skepticism of him, but when she goes to take him back to her room he can’t do it. This does incite some funny lines like “no one is more surprised. What am I going to do with all my free time?” So he wanders out to piss out the window (he loves a good vertical piss). Jorah sneaks up behind him with a rope, lassoes him and drags him off “for the queen.” This is an apparent acceleration of events in the books. Given the probable absence of some of the other (Dornish) traveling parties in ADOD it makes some sense. I’m sure they will run into a bit of trouble on their way to Meereen. Plus, this is now Tyrion’s second dwarfnapping!

Never too much Margaery

All in all, a great episode. Compared to last week in particular, a ton of stuff happened in this episode. Just look how long the description above is. We pushed into exciting new territory with the Sansa/Bolton thread. For the first time ever I’m really wondering what is going to happen. And while we didn’t have any Dany or Jamie (Not so sad to skip a week on Dany’s slightly anoying Meereen plot), the remaining threads felt quite substantial: Arya, Sansa/Bolton, and Cersei/Marg. Even the wall had a bit of a shocker. All great stuff.

The show is really upping the visual ante too. Nearly every locale gets some giant combined real and CGI view and they look totally gorgeous.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

HBO’s official videos for the episode:

By: agavin
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Posted in: Television

Tagged as: Arya, Episode 43, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones (TV series), George R. R. Martin, HBO, List of A Song of Ice and Fire characters, Season 5 Episode 3, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 42

Apr19

Show: Game of Thrones

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: Episode 42 – April 19, 2015

Title: The House of Black and White

Summary: A connector episode

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Last week we were off to a great start for season 5, and I approached this week with a sense of excitement, particularly as the title promised some good Arya time.

Arya – So, like the episode, we can start with everyone’s favorite killer Stark. She enters through the legs of the Titan of Bravos into some quite epic shots of the city. Not only does it look like Venice, it had me wondering if it was actually filmed there. But I suspect this is a collage of various Croatian towns, particularly given all that grey Croatian limestone in evidence. But there are cool canals and a whole host of wide views to show of the show’s ever increasing budget. A far cry from Season 1’s fairly tight control of the camera. The captain of her ship rows her straight up to the House of Black and White, a massive thing with yin-yang doors. I loved the way it sits right on the quay like The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore (one of Palladio’s gorgeous constructions). A few knocks draws out a grim faced, dark skinned monk who rejects her inquiry after Jaqen H’ghar. Rebuked Arya waits for at least a day and a night and another day, through rain and shine, reciting her death list. And while some of us may wonder why no one enters or leaves the house during this time, eventually she tosses her coin into the water and heads off.

Much later in the episode, we find her hunting pigeons, a return to her old ways from Flea Bottom. This time she skewers one effortlessly. A girl walks by with the costume we know she will later assume and she is set upon by a trio of thugs, but her calm stance and embrace of death scare the off. The monk watches and she follows him back to the House of Black and White — where he transforms into Jaqen. Now in the books Jaqen doesn’t make a reappearance, but I’m happy to see him because he was a fabulous character, and in the context of TV it makes sense to reuse rather than introduce when you can. His line is perfect, “I am no one, and that is who you must become.”

Now, while I liked the look of Bravos and Jaqen’s reappearance, I can’t help but feel “cheated” by the small dash of Arya we received in this titular episode. As they have for some time they are likely to stretch her story out in small chunks through the season.

Brienne and Pod – Dine at another of those typical Irish Pub Inns. The pretty bar maid clearly notices Pod, a nod to his “special talents.” And what a coincidence, Littlefinger and Sansa are at the same place! Pod recognizes both of them and Brienne, in typical straight up fashion, confronts them and offers her service to Sansa. Sansa, having continued to study Littlefinger’s modus operandi is cautious. Peter tries to undermine Brienne’s “qualifications” and it becomes clear to her that she not only isn’t going to win Sansa over but is in danger herself, so she flees, knocking aside Littlefinger’s guards. I loved her calm attempt to disrupt and free the horses as she and Pod flee the inn. We get a brief horse chase where Brienne’s riding skills are shown off as she ditches her pursuit. Brienne circles to look for Pod. Who, however, manages to lead most of the guards off one way and then loses his own horse in the river. A guard nearly cuts him down but Brienne sweeps in and takes out a pair of them. She then orders Pod up. Pod suggests that maybe her quest is over, but Brienne has set aside her melancholy and is determined to follow Sansa.

At the Wall – Shireen is teaching Gilly to read while Sam does his own research. This is a nice repurposing of a likable character and provides opportunity to explain Grayscale (the weird disease that Shireen has) a bit more. Apparently Gilly had two sisters with it and it took over their whole body and made them like animals. This is clearly a setup for what Tyrion will encounter. Her mother then chases out Sam and Gilly and warns her against the Wildlings. There is absolutely zero to like about Lady Selyse.

Meanwhile, Stannis takes Jon to task for making him look like a fool, but uncharacteristically, is pretty lenient because he really wants Jon to kneel and become Jon Stark so he can rule the north for Stannis. But as Jon later explains to Sam, he can’t break his vows. As Davos setup before it’s election time and Ser Allister Thorne (aka Thorne in Jon’s backside) is the lead contender. Maester Aemon calls for candidates and speeches and Slynt speaks for Thorne while someone else speaks for the Commander of the Shadow Tower (total filler). Sam steps up to speak eloquently for Jon, proposing him and making a good case while slamming Slynt (we all love to had that loser). The vote results in a tie, which the Maester breaks in favor of Jon with his own vote. Nicely done.

Jaime (and Bronn) – is summoned by Cersei to examine a cobra-shaped “letter” with Marcella’s pendant in it. Cersei is just all rage, almost spitting as she talks. Jaime offers to “make it right” by going down to Dorne and getting Marcella. Again as alterations from the books, this follows the essential line (Cersei’s attempt to “rescue” Marcella) while at the same time giving existing characters more to do. Characters like…

Bronn who is playing finance to his ugly bride-to-be Lollys in front of a large and lovely CGI manor. He plays her well (as she isn’t the brightest) and alludes to the mortality of Lollys’ annoying older sister. But Jaime is there waiting for him with a document breaking off his marriage and a request/order that Bronn “tag along” with him to Dorne in exchange for the BBD. I’m glad to see Bronn included, as in the books he disappears and he is far too witty a character to lose.

Dorne – In what is clearly Southern Spain, the Prince of Dorne sits VERY stiffly on his ebony and ivory throne. Ellaria Sand bursts in (past huge guard, Areo Hotah) to take the role of Arianne (deleted daughter) in arguing for vengeance against the Lannisters for Oberyn’s untimely head smushing. This is pretty cut and dry 2 point argument with Ellaria playing the hawk and Doran forced to take the side of caution, for he has to balance the well being of his kingdom. Like Cersei, Ellaria is almost foaming at the mouth. The gardens (and we do catch a glimpse or two of Marcella) are lovely and formal.

Tyion and Varys – Ride in a very large carriage and exchange their usual witty dialog. This is a total filler scene, and brief at that, merely informing us they are under way and headed toward Volantis. There are some good jokes though, like Tyrion’s liquid diet and “best part of her for the best part of me” (you had to be there). Tyrion continues to wallow, musing about Shae and the fact that he wouldn’t leave because of his zeal for the “game.” In one of those typical GOT transitions they mention that Cersei has offered a Lordship for his head…

Cersei – Gets a present of a dwarf head (kinda sad), but alas, it is the wrong little person. Qyburn however is happy to take it for his experiments. They then head into the ever Smaller Council. Kevan has joined, along with the buffoons Mace Tyrell and Pycelle. Unlike the other 3, however, Kevan isn’t going to curry favor with Cersei and expects to be asked directly by the king for his service. He tells Cersei point blank that she has no power (certainly true in name). She certainly isn’t used to being questioned like that by anyone other than her father.

Dany – Has a long and drawn out Meereen storyline. Following up on the Sons of the Harpy killing an Unsullied last episode, Dario leads Grey Worm and some Unsullied to a house that seems empty, but then with the usual Dario panache he stabs the wall and finds a traitor. Dany hears out her council on the matter. Many advise executing him, but she goes with Barristan’s measured opinion to give him a trial. However, the young freed slave busts into the guy’s cell and kills him (publicly).

Sigh. We’ve seen this before, and in this very show. It’s the same dilemma that Robb Stark faced in mid Season 3 when he executed Karstark for killing the boys. And Dany has essentially the same “fair” solution, to execute (literally) justice in an impartial manner. But this earns her no friends. The freed slaves riot and threaten her. I loved the way the Unsullied covered her in an umbrella of shields and we get some more nice wide shots of the CGI composite that turns part of Dubrovnik? into Meereen (might be some other spot in Croatia, they film in Split too).

Dejected at this political blunder, she goes back to her apartment and balcony to find a giant Drogon lurking on the roof. When she reaches out to his glorious reptilian CGI-ness, he flies off, leaving her to feel abandoned.

All in all, not the greatest episode. Mostly connector stuff, and too little of Arya, Tyrion, and other favorites. Not too much happens, and what does is in the more boring storylines like Dany stuck-forever-in-Meeren Targaryen. The Brienne/Pos/Sansa stuff was fine, as was what little Arya we did get. I’m sure the episode will be “fine” taken in the context of the whole season, particularly when I go to rewatch it all together, but right now it’s just setting up for better. However, the episode does LOOK great, with lots and lots of big wide shots of the world — and Drogon.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

Some of HBO’s inside the episode clips: