While this was mostly the Cersei episode of Game of Thrones, I think this was also an episode that began to show some of the cracks in the foundations of the George R.R. Martin source material. After the hub bub over last week's reveal of who the Night King or something along those lines was, it began to be clear that the showrunners were going to have to extend out beyond Martin's material, or shift certain portions to keep it interesting. But now the real question is, can they?
I asked last week whether or not Dany was taking all of her slaves with her, and more importantly, what they were eating? I'm hoping she didn't capture a bunch of those Thrain type guys, or she'll be shocked to discover they've been eating her slaves. However, we got our answer this week when Dany was told that the people in Yunkai and Slaver's Bay in general had retaken the cities and were in need of help. When Dany that took the Unsullied and her dragon's were flying about making flambe of everything in sight, it felt inevitable that she'd retake King's Landing with her army in a matter of months. It now feels clear that we'll get to watch her retreading her steps in Slavery's Bay until the show accidentally ends with her sitting by the sea listening to Dario Naharis play his lute. As a plot point, I'd be fine with Dany reshaping her destiny and keeping it on this side of the Narrow Sea. It would be quite a gesture, to rule these people and do it well. Except, it's a fantasy series, not real life, and we desire convergences. People had warned me that her plot grinds to a halt and watching her retake cities without much intrigue is evidence that it was no lie.
The second plot that felt a bit rushed, or thrown together, was at Crastor's rape Keep. There, Game of Thrones pulled a classic later season Downtown Abbey move by introducing a villain, the knife fighter from the bottoms, only to have him killed roughly fifteen minutes later. I understand that it gave the scene more gravitas when he suddenly developed a sword mouth. (Note: Obviously Jaime needs to have his hand refashioned into a sword, but imagine if you also had a sword mouth? You could go around stabbing people with your face. I suppose the problem would be properly lodging the sword there without removing portions of your brain. Still, sword mouth).
The Locke sub plot also came to a quick end when Bran launched himself into Hodor to do some murdering. And while I was happy to see Locke go since he cut off Jaime's hand, it was kind of a strange way for him to die. What would all this have looked like if the Knight's Watch had just been gunning for our original villain, the man who stabbed Mormont in the back? How much would have been lost? I suppose it was a detour for the Bran sub plot, which also apparently drags, but the whole scene felt cinematic, which is to say, rushed. Let's throw all these things together and see what happens as opposed to playing the long game. The long game is what made the scene at the Red Wedding so sad and believable. I worry that as we move beyond the book the show will be more concerned with cinematic conventions, which are more interested in sword mouth than in the long game.
Also, does anyone see a spin off show about Crastor's wives in the offing? What are these ladies going to do North of the wall sans housing? It felt like one of those moments when she said, "Burn it. Burn it all to the ground!" where maybe one of the other women could have said, "Yes, burn it all! But maybe keep a few beds and the kitchen." As it is, apparently they are going to wander around amongst the White Walkers and hope for the best. We'll see you in blue eyes ladies.
Though I've predicted that Sansa eventually ends up married to Ramsey Bolton, it's nice that she's getting a stopover in the Eyre to spend some quality time with her aunt Lysa and her breast feeding 12 year old cousin. Which, oh by the way, speaking of playing the long game, it was fascinating to hear that Lysa was responsible for killing her husband and setting the events that lead to the downfall of the Stark house in motion. Littlefinger has been pulling strings like a spider for far longer than we ever knew. I've still got my money on him to end up as one of the last villains alive.
Aunt Lysa, no fool, rightly understands that her husband's interest in Sansa may be more than ornamental, and though I look forward to more seasons of Sansa being powerless and stupid, I'm still ready for that Ramsey and Sansa wedding, where no one dies, but we're all just as sad as if they had.
I thought Arya Stark would have morphed into a death machine by now, training with the face changing man from Davos, but she's still just clumsily reminding herself of all the people she needs to kill, even when they're already dead, Joffrey, or currently keeping her alive, The Hound. As it is, she's stuck on the Robb Stark path, which ends up with a wolf's head sewn on top of your body. Maybe she's looking forward to that, otherwise, it might be time to start listening to the lessons her new Maester, The Hound, is teaching her.
The road trip of Pod and Brienne is just beginning and already I've enjoyed watching him bumble around on a horse and basically admit to being Tyrion's maid. I don't know if the characters hold as much promise as Jaime or Bron did, but I'm willing to watch them yuk it up around the countryside until they eventually have to murder some people, because GOT.
Though I haven't spoken about it yet, the bulk of the episode is Cersei building her case against Tyrion. I'm not sure what character on television has been as terrifying, sexy, and oddly sympathetic. Her monologue to Margery about Joffry's moral failings was another insight into her unhappiness. Though Margery seems to misunderstand her and almost forsakes the odd olive branch that Cersei extends. Besides which, amongst the current options, Tommen probably is the best king. Now let's all get behind him!
Cersei spends some time buttering up her father, who tries to remind us about the Iron Bank of Bravos. Plot point. I feel like we need a primer. Maybe an extremely long sexposition scene with Tywin and Oberyn where the intricacies of the bank are described alongside Oberyn's love of all things flesh. I have to say it was disconcerting to see him walking in the garden with Cersei and talking of his children as opposed to in the middle of a pile of writhing limbs. On a sad and true note Cersei's response to his line, "We don't hurt little girls where I'm from," was true and sad, "They hurt little girls like that everywhere." There are certainly no promises in Westeros where murders routinely take place at weddings and Oberyn seems to forget this when remembering his beloved Dorne.
Where are we headed now? I don't know. It seems that Tyrion will be on trial. Lysa Aryn will be spending the nights banshee shrieking above Sansa while Dany rules in Slaver's Bay. What's happening with Mance? How bout the Thrain of Thrains? We could maybe use one more red wedding to clear out some characters before the momentum builds again. Instead, it still feels sprawling, and I wonder if that will become a problem, and if we'll have more scenes like that at Crastor's as time goes by. I hope not because the joy of this journey so far is that we're not in a hurry because eventually everyone is going to die anyway. Just listen to how long Arya's list is. Santa Claus, Master Pycell, (maybe the same person), The Hound, Sir Jorah from his stint on Downton Abbey etc. etc.
I asked last week whether or not Dany was taking all of her slaves with her, and more importantly, what they were eating? I'm hoping she didn't capture a bunch of those Thrain type guys, or she'll be shocked to discover they've been eating her slaves. However, we got our answer this week when Dany was told that the people in Yunkai and Slaver's Bay in general had retaken the cities and were in need of help. When Dany that took the Unsullied and her dragon's were flying about making flambe of everything in sight, it felt inevitable that she'd retake King's Landing with her army in a matter of months. It now feels clear that we'll get to watch her retreading her steps in Slavery's Bay until the show accidentally ends with her sitting by the sea listening to Dario Naharis play his lute. As a plot point, I'd be fine with Dany reshaping her destiny and keeping it on this side of the Narrow Sea. It would be quite a gesture, to rule these people and do it well. Except, it's a fantasy series, not real life, and we desire convergences. People had warned me that her plot grinds to a halt and watching her retake cities without much intrigue is evidence that it was no lie.
The second plot that felt a bit rushed, or thrown together, was at Crastor's rape Keep. There, Game of Thrones pulled a classic later season Downtown Abbey move by introducing a villain, the knife fighter from the bottoms, only to have him killed roughly fifteen minutes later. I understand that it gave the scene more gravitas when he suddenly developed a sword mouth. (Note: Obviously Jaime needs to have his hand refashioned into a sword, but imagine if you also had a sword mouth? You could go around stabbing people with your face. I suppose the problem would be properly lodging the sword there without removing portions of your brain. Still, sword mouth).
The Locke sub plot also came to a quick end when Bran launched himself into Hodor to do some murdering. And while I was happy to see Locke go since he cut off Jaime's hand, it was kind of a strange way for him to die. What would all this have looked like if the Knight's Watch had just been gunning for our original villain, the man who stabbed Mormont in the back? How much would have been lost? I suppose it was a detour for the Bran sub plot, which also apparently drags, but the whole scene felt cinematic, which is to say, rushed. Let's throw all these things together and see what happens as opposed to playing the long game. The long game is what made the scene at the Red Wedding so sad and believable. I worry that as we move beyond the book the show will be more concerned with cinematic conventions, which are more interested in sword mouth than in the long game.
Also, does anyone see a spin off show about Crastor's wives in the offing? What are these ladies going to do North of the wall sans housing? It felt like one of those moments when she said, "Burn it. Burn it all to the ground!" where maybe one of the other women could have said, "Yes, burn it all! But maybe keep a few beds and the kitchen." As it is, apparently they are going to wander around amongst the White Walkers and hope for the best. We'll see you in blue eyes ladies.
Though I've predicted that Sansa eventually ends up married to Ramsey Bolton, it's nice that she's getting a stopover in the Eyre to spend some quality time with her aunt Lysa and her breast feeding 12 year old cousin. Which, oh by the way, speaking of playing the long game, it was fascinating to hear that Lysa was responsible for killing her husband and setting the events that lead to the downfall of the Stark house in motion. Littlefinger has been pulling strings like a spider for far longer than we ever knew. I've still got my money on him to end up as one of the last villains alive.
Aunt Lysa, no fool, rightly understands that her husband's interest in Sansa may be more than ornamental, and though I look forward to more seasons of Sansa being powerless and stupid, I'm still ready for that Ramsey and Sansa wedding, where no one dies, but we're all just as sad as if they had.
I thought Arya Stark would have morphed into a death machine by now, training with the face changing man from Davos, but she's still just clumsily reminding herself of all the people she needs to kill, even when they're already dead, Joffrey, or currently keeping her alive, The Hound. As it is, she's stuck on the Robb Stark path, which ends up with a wolf's head sewn on top of your body. Maybe she's looking forward to that, otherwise, it might be time to start listening to the lessons her new Maester, The Hound, is teaching her.
The road trip of Pod and Brienne is just beginning and already I've enjoyed watching him bumble around on a horse and basically admit to being Tyrion's maid. I don't know if the characters hold as much promise as Jaime or Bron did, but I'm willing to watch them yuk it up around the countryside until they eventually have to murder some people, because GOT.
Though I haven't spoken about it yet, the bulk of the episode is Cersei building her case against Tyrion. I'm not sure what character on television has been as terrifying, sexy, and oddly sympathetic. Her monologue to Margery about Joffry's moral failings was another insight into her unhappiness. Though Margery seems to misunderstand her and almost forsakes the odd olive branch that Cersei extends. Besides which, amongst the current options, Tommen probably is the best king. Now let's all get behind him!
Cersei spends some time buttering up her father, who tries to remind us about the Iron Bank of Bravos. Plot point. I feel like we need a primer. Maybe an extremely long sexposition scene with Tywin and Oberyn where the intricacies of the bank are described alongside Oberyn's love of all things flesh. I have to say it was disconcerting to see him walking in the garden with Cersei and talking of his children as opposed to in the middle of a pile of writhing limbs. On a sad and true note Cersei's response to his line, "We don't hurt little girls where I'm from," was true and sad, "They hurt little girls like that everywhere." There are certainly no promises in Westeros where murders routinely take place at weddings and Oberyn seems to forget this when remembering his beloved Dorne.
Where are we headed now? I don't know. It seems that Tyrion will be on trial. Lysa Aryn will be spending the nights banshee shrieking above Sansa while Dany rules in Slaver's Bay. What's happening with Mance? How bout the Thrain of Thrains? We could maybe use one more red wedding to clear out some characters before the momentum builds again. Instead, it still feels sprawling, and I wonder if that will become a problem, and if we'll have more scenes like that at Crastor's as time goes by. I hope not because the joy of this journey so far is that we're not in a hurry because eventually everyone is going to die anyway. Just listen to how long Arya's list is. Santa Claus, Master Pycell, (maybe the same person), The Hound, Sir Jorah from his stint on Downton Abbey etc. etc.
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