Game of Thrones: Second Sons

GAME OF THRONES: 3.08 “Second Sons”

Game of Thrones this week was a tightly focused episode. Aside from the opening scene with Arya and the Hound, and the exciting and heroic closing scene with Sam and Gilly, all the action took place in three locations; Dragonstone, King’s Landing, and outside of the walls of Yunkai. Don’t get me wrong, I love this show and episodes that are packed full of more scenes and characters are often very good, but I think this show particularly excels when it has a chance to slow down and focus on only a handful of storylines at once (see last year’s Blackwater, still possibly the best episode of the series so far.) So the added focus helped here, particularly since the acting in the three stories they focused on was so strong.

First, to Dragonstone, where Gendry is inspected by Stannis, before being carried away to a well appointed room full of fine clothes and food. Melisandre explains that she must keep  the boy calm before his “sacrifice,” but something about this plan bothers Stannis enough to drive him down into the dungeon to attempt to justify his decision to Davos, his living yet imprisoned conscience. It’s a great scene, with Stannis wavering back and forth between what he knows is right and his desire for the power and influence that Melisandre continues to promise him. Davos respectfully but forcefully exposes Stannis’s feeble justifications and forces the King to view Gendry as a boy, as his nephew, rather than a strategic piece of equipment that can be sacrificed for some indeterminate advantage in war. It appears that Davos partially wins out, saving Gendry from a sacrificial death, at least for now, though Melisandre insists that she draw some of the boy’s “royal” blood for a demonstration of the Red God’s power. Since there don’t seem to be any syringes in Westeros, she uses leeches, placing one of them in a particularly sensitive spot. After the bugs have drank their fill, Stannis casts them into an open fire, intoning the name of each usurper king (Joffrey, Robb, and Balon Greyjoy) as the blood-engorged leeches pop and sizzle.

Meanwhile, in King’s Landing, we’re invited to one of the most awkward weddings ever. Neither the bride, Sansa, nor the groom, Tyrion, want to marry each other, and the paltry number of guests gathered to witness the ceremony don’t appear too excited to be there either. Joffrey continues to display his cruelty and sadism, first by humiliating Tyrion by taking away his stepstool and thereby making it impossible to complete the wedding ritual of laying his cloak over his wife’s shoulders. The poor man is forced to ask Sansa to kneel instead. Later, Joffrey promises to rape Sansa later in the evening. When he tries to draw the rest of the wedding guests into what would have been a very humiliating bedding ceremony, a drunken Tyrion threatens to cut off his royal member. Joffrey sputters in comical rage, though Tywin diffuses the situation by explaining that Tyrion was drunk and only joking. Forced to play along to save face, Tyrion keeps swilling wine, while telling guests the story of that one time he threw up on a prostitute in the middle of the act. Later, when Tyrion and Sansa are alone in their chambers, he drunkenly explains that despite the fact that his father ordered him to impregnate her as soon as possible, he won’t sleep with his new wife until she wants him to. “What if I never want you to?” she asks. “Then my watch begins,” says Tyrion, echoing the oath of the Night’s Watch before passing out on the nearest couch. It’s a great extended scene, managing to show Tyrion’s hurt and pain through his drunken haze, as well as Sansa’s tense, unwelcome sense of duty followed by her relief at escaping that duty.

Further east, with her army camped outside of Yunkai, Dany meets with the three sellsword captains, whose mercenary companies were recently hired by the city and could prove decisive in the final battle. They’re unmoved by her offer of more gold to switch sides, but as they leave her tent, she shares a long, knowing look with the youngest (and best looking) of the three. He returns that evening, delivering Dany the heads of his former partners, and pledging his soldiers to the beautiful young Queen’s cause. Dany keeps up her display of regal power while in his presence (especially impressive given her lack of clothes as she rises from her bathtub in the beginning of the scene) you can tell that she’s intrigued by the attention this cocky, good looking soldier has given her. Drogo’s been gone for a long time, so maybe it’s time for Dany to find a new companion. Romance may have to wait, though; she still has a city to conquer.

Game of Thrones: The Bear and the Maiden Fair

GAME OF THRONES 3.07: The Bear and the Maiden Fair

This week, I’ll start at the end because the final sequence of The Bear and the Maiden Fair was fantastic. It’s really amazing how the creators and writers of this show have managed to transform Jaime from a despicable, oathbreaking, incestuous monster who throws a little boy out of a window, to an honorable man who selflessly risks his life in order to save a friend. He lost a hand but apparently gained a conscience in the process. The look of culpability on his face when Qyburn told him that the Bolton’s rejected Brienne’s ransom offer because they were holding out for sapphires was priceless. He realizes that the good intentioned lie he told to save her from being raped has backfired and Brienne will suffer the brutal consequences. The scene with Jaime and Brienne trying to climb out of the bear pit was just as thrilling as the dangerous Wall climbing sequence from the previous episode. In fact, it may have been more thrilling because WOW, that bear looked real, angry, and scary. I’m sure they used a real animal instead of some CGI creation, because it really showed. Its roars and angry paw stomping really carried a sense brute animal power; I’m not sure how the actors managed to even finish the scene, because I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that thing. It was terrifying! But Jaime, Brienne and the bear wind up alive at the end (though the bear did get a crossbow bolt in the back), and now Westeros’ odd couple will continue on towards King’s Landing.

Speaking of King’s Landing, everything about the scene between Tywin and Joffrey was fantastic, from the initial distance between the two in the cold empty throne room, to Joffrey’s early attempt to establish his kingly dominance over his grandfather, to Tywin’s slow, deliberate march across the throne room that brought him towering over his seated grandson, to Tywin’s cold, disdainful “we could arrange to have you carried” comment. It was all just great, and it illustrates that the power in Westeros is still held by the Hand of the King rather than the King himself. Though, perhaps that won’t last for long? This was Joffrey’s first attempt to assert himself in front of his formidable grandfather and it failed, but he tried, and that suggests he may try again, perhaps with greater success in the future. If there’s one thing that Joffrey can’t stand, it’s not getting what he wants.

We saw another impressive display of power in Dany’s army camp a continent away. The sight of her eight thousand, identically outfitted warriors, standing motionless along the roadside is really impressive, and I’m sure it was arranged to inspire a sense of awe and terror in Yunkai’s ambassador. Dany swatted the ambassador’s bribes and threats away with equal disdain, all while reclining on her royal chair and looking impressive, regal, and powerful; like a true Queen, or dare I say Empress. Her transformation from a weak-willed, bullied young girl to a powerful, (compassionate when necessary), fearless ice queen has been fun to watch and just as impressive as Jaime’s evolution.

Elsewhere in Westeros, we have a lot of “pieces” moving into position. Before traveling to his uncle’s wedding at the Twins, Robb learns that his foreign queen is pregnant. Jon and the other wildings continue moving through the north, hoping to capture Castle Black from behind and by surprise. Along the way, Ygritte gapes at a crumbled old windmill as if it were a castle, suggesting that perhaps these uncultured folks from beyond the wall don’t quite understand what they’ll be up against when the battle begins, regardless of how short-handed the Night’s Watch might be. In a visually stunning scene, showing off shipwrecks that were the aftermath of last season’s Battle of Blackwater, Melisandre sails Gendry towards Stannins, while revealing the identity of his true father along the way. Bran and his ragged party continue heading towards the Wall, while somewhere else (who knows where?), in the only storyline that I really wish the writers would just forget and resolve off-screen, Theon continues to be brutally tortured. With three episodes left in the season, I’d expect to see some of these different stories begin colliding very soon.

 

Game of Thrones: The Climb

GAME OF THRONES: 3.06 “The Climb”

In the most obvious sense, the title of last night’s Game of Thrones episode refers to John, Ygritte, and the other wildings icy ascent up the sheer face of the Wall. Split up over a couple of scenes, the climb was a thrilling bit of TV, especially when a crack sheared off a piece of the wall and sent many of the other climbers falling to their deaths. Right after the disaster, with Ygritte dangling precariously from her tethering rope, one of the other wildings (the one who controls the eagle, Orell I think) tries to cut Jon and Ygritte loose, lest they both drag him down off the wall as well. After a lot of swinging and grasping, Jon manages to save the day and anchor himself and Ygritte to another part of the wall right as Orell cuts their rope loose. They arrive at the top of the wall, exhausted, gasping, yet stunned by the beauty of the frozen north on one side, and the green bounty of the south on the other. In a rare, uplifting moment for the series, they share a kiss, framed by a beautiful, sunny Westeros spread out beneath them.

Of course, Westeros may look great and beautiful from so high above, but down below in the muck of King’s Landing, things are different. Here, the climb is less of a physical action than a state of mind; Littlefinger explains that chaos is a ladder, and the cunning person uses it to climb to power at the very top. Some people get stepped on during that climb, like Ros for example, who was brutally butchered by the sociopathic Joffrey and his crossbow best friend. Sansa gets stepped on too, as she watches Littlefinger sail away out of the bay without her, realizing that her dream of marrying Loras has vanished as well; she’ll be stuck with Tyrion. Even Tyrion and Cersei are stepped on, to some degree, shackled into political marriages that they want nothing to do with because of the jockeying for position of those a few rungs up the ladder (namely, Tywin and Lady Olenna, who had a fantastic and hilarious scene together this week. Watching those two canny operators probe each other for weakness was wonderful). Even King Robb is subject to the whims of others; he has to agree to the Frey’s terms, issue a humiliating apology in person, and force his uncle into a marriage he doesn’t want, all to pay for his dishonesty.

A few brief points:

• We didn’t get to see too much of Jaime and Brienne in this episode, but their awkward dinner around the table with Roose Bolton was fun to watch. Between Brienne stuffed into a frilly pink dress that she clearly hated and Jaime struggling to cut his dinner with one hand (only to be helped by Brienne more out of frustration than sympathy, I think), the scene was full of unintentional comedy.In a very interesting twist, the Brotherhood sells off Gendry to Melisandre because she needs his royal blood. I guess the Brotherhood can talk all they want about being a group of men united to protect the commoners, but when they needed gold, they were able to sell out one of their own without too much regret. They have to climb that ladder too, and gold helps you move past each rung a little faster.
• I also liked that this episode touched on the religious aspects of Westeros a bit more. Sam sings some kind of religious themed lullaby to Gilly’s son, while we get to see two very different approaches to the same god (Thoros and Melisandre). I liked how Melisandre seemed shocked both by Thoros’s power of resurrection, and Beric’s declaration that there is no next world. In the past, she’s been presented as some kind of all knowing oracle, but here we get a glimpse that she might not be privileged to as much information as we think.
  
• In a structural sense, the title of this episode could also refer to the arc of the season. Like the first two, it seems like we’re gearing up towards a wild ride in the last few episodes. In this one, we’ve climbed up to the top and are about to drop down the other side as everything probably goes to hell all at once.

Hannibal: Entrée

HANNIBAL: 1.06 “Entreé”

This week’s Hannibal is appropriately titled, isn’t it? The “serial killer of the week” side-dishes we’ve been getting over the last few episodes have been delicious, for sure, but they’ve lacked a certain heft. Before tonight, you could almost be excused if you briefly forgot how dangerous and sociopathic the good doctor truly is. This episode, in contrast, is weighty main course. In flashbacks, we actually see Hannibal attack Jack’s protegee (who bears a remarkable resemblance to a young Clarice Starling; could that be what draws Jack to her in the future?) and later we hear her terrified voice on a recording and see a dismembered piece of her body as a reminder of her eventual grisly fate. The episode begins a mental hospital, where a patient (and former doctor) fakes an ailment, and then swiftly butchers a helpless nurse in the style of the famous, and still at large, serial killer The Chesapeake Ripper. After being recaptured, the inmate that he’s the Ripper, but Jack and Will know better. They plant a fake story in Freddie’s online tabloid that suggests the Ripper is indeed in custody. They don’t believe the story, of course, but they think that this provocation will force the real Ripper to come out of wherever he’s hiding and show himself.

As soon as we see the look on Hannibal’s face as he reads the story on his tablet, we instantly know that Hannibal is the Chesapeake Ripper. In that scene, for just a moment, his face breaks from its calm mask of serenity, and you can his violent rage bubble to the surface. It’s gone very quickly, but I think it’s the first time in the series so far that we’ve seen a true glimpse at the kind of monster that Hannibal really is. Hannibal’s secretive torture of Jack, through the recorded pleas of his former student and the eventual discovery of her severed arm, is Hannibal’s warning shot. Don’t toy with me. I’m smarter than you. I know your weakness.

Overall, a very good episode that advanced the overall plot, and showed us a chilling glimpse of the real Dr. Lechter.

Hannibal: 1.05 “Coquilles”

HANNIBAL: 1.05 “Coquilles”

As you may know, NBC pulled episode 4 of Hannibal in light of the tragic Boston marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt for the suspects (an event that I found a bit too geographically close from comfort, though that’s another story). I can only assume, based on brief plot summaries of that episode (children killing children, or something), that it may have wrapped up the storyline with Hobbes’ daughter. I’ll have to catch up on it sometime soon, but thankfully watching that episode wasn’t necessary to enjoy this one.

We get another serial killer this week, which is starting to worry me a bit. How many crazy, brutal serial killers are there, really? If there were three or four major killers caught by the FBI within a couple of months of each other, the nation would be in a panic. It’s getting a little hard for me to suspend my disbelief; I’d really like to start seeing the show carry the same case or two over more than just one week. That said, this week’s killer and his “design,” as Will would put it, is very gruesome, as he peels back the skin on the back of his victims to form wings. He’s motivated by a sense of religious fervor, plus a terminal brain tumor that causes hallucinations. Aside from the way in which the killer executed his victims, he wasn’t a particularly interesting villain, and mainly just served as a way to amplify both Jack and Will’s personal crises.

Jack’s problem begins with his wife, who we learn has terminal cancer and is afraid to tell her husband. He eventually finds out the truth, and Laurence Fishburne does a great job of showing Jack’s quiet devastation, feeble attempts at putting up a strong exterior, and quiet melancholy.

Will, in the meantime, is breaking down under the strain of all he’s been asked to do lately. He’s not sleeping, and when he is, he sleepwalks and wakes up in strange places. Finally, his hallucinations are intensifying, from the dark deer that he’s been stalking for a few episodes, to a vision of this week’s dead serial killer. Crawling into the minds of these men is seriously destabilizing him and by the end of the episode, it seems like he may be close to giving it up and heading back to teaching.

Finally, the more I watch this show, the more I am enjoying its depiction of Hannibal himself. His odd shaped, heavy lidded face, his indistinct European accent, and the elegance and refinement in which he cloaks himself (from his shirt-vests or perfect Windsor-knotted tie to his decanter of fine wine and the classical music softly piped into his dining room) makes him fascinatingly, attractively interesting and yet utterly sinister at the same time.

Game of Thrones: And Now His Watch Has Ended

GAME OF THRONES: 3.04 “And Now His Watch Has Ended” 

Lots of interesting, exciting things happened on Game of Thrones this week,but I’ll start at the end, with Dany’s brutal, brilliant, and quite literal roasting of the arrogant slaver who thought he could buy a dragon. He didn’t realize, though, that dragons aren’t slaves, and was burned by a well placed gout of flame, while his fellow slavers were skewered upon the spears of the Unsullied slave soldiers that they once owned. Now, along with her dragons and her two old knights, Dany has an army of  8,000 fanatically disciplined warriors ready to follow her commands out of loyalty for granting their freedom. Watching this newly freed army march out of the smoldering gates of Astapor, flanked by three flying dragons, was truly stirring. Dany has come very far since she was a cowering girl sold off by her brother to a ruthless barbarian. She’s one of many living examples of the maxim Varys delivers earlier in the episode; influence does, in fact, grow like a weed.

Or maybe it grows like a rose, in Olenna and Margaery’s case. Olenna, canny old woman that she is, continues inserting the Tyrell’s into the politics of Kings Landing, and plots with Varys to marry Sansa off to her (gay) grandson Loras in order to keep the “key to the north” in her family’s pocket. Margaery, meanwhile, continues to indulge Joffrey’s sadism, her eyes wide with manufactured awe and interest as they tour the royal crypts and as he recites the various violent and bloody demises of  more ancient sovereigns of Westeros. She’s giving him exactly what he wants and slowly prying him away from the clutches of Cersei just as his mother is trying to resist some of his excesses. Cersei hates this development, presumably about as much as she hates the verbal smackdown Tywin delivers when she appeals that he involve her more in his decision making. He leaves her out, he explains coldly and tersely, not because she is a woman but because she is not as smart as she thinks she is. Tywin’s a hard, unsentimental man, and we’ve seen that he’s unafraid to deflate each one of his children’s egos when they step out of line.

If influence can grow like a weed, though, it can also shrivel up and die if it’s not tended to, as Lord Commander Mormont tragically learns. The Night’s Watch is too full of thieves, rapists, murderers, and men who don’t take their vows seriously. It’s amazing that Mormont’s men kept in line for this line, really, but finally, faced with their own inherent character flaws and compounded by the extreme cold and hunger, they mutiny, kill Mormont and Craster, and rampage through Craster’s ramshackle home in search of the food they’re certain the old man kid from them. It’s sad to see such a noble man go, but he trusted too much in the power of words and oaths, and if viewers have learned anything in almost three and a half seasons in Westeros, it’s that mere oaths mean almost nothing.

Game of Thrones: Walk of Punishment

GAME OF THRONES: 3.03 “Walk of Punishment” 

“Walk of Punishment” had a lot going on. Not only do we meet a few new characters at a new location, but this episode had more action than the previous two, plus a few potential (though thankfully not carried out) rapes, perhaps thrown in to remind us how brutal this violent world can be.

With Robb’s army encamped at Riverrun for his grandfather’s funeral, we get to see the castle that Cat grew up in, and we meet her well-meaning but somewhat oafish brother, Edmure, and her hard yet quietly compassionate uncle Brynden, also known as the Blackfish. In Riverrun, they cast the bodies of their dead warriors out into the river on a boat, then shoot a flaming arrow into the craft to create a floating funeral pyre. Unfortunately, Edmure tries three times to light his father’s boat, but misses with each arrow. It’s an almost humorous introduction to a new character that quickly turns tragic; it shows that Edmure, while he may be well meaning, is a bit of a failure, a judgment that’s only reinforced in the next scene when Robb chews him out for attacking the Mountain’s small army and forcing the them out of the nearby area, rather than leading the group into an ambush that Robb had set in the hopes of finally killing the giant knight. With some of northern lords questioning his leadership, and his impetuous uncle spoiling his strategic plans, the war is not going well for the Starks. It has the potential to turn worse, as we learn later in the episode that the Lannisters are trying marry Littlefinger to Lysa Tully in an attempt to draw her forces onto their side of the war.

Speaking of the Lannisters, the scene in the small council room was incredibly entertaining. Littlefinger and Varys enter, see Tywin seated at the head of the table, with five chairs lined up along the one side of the table to Tywin’s left. They quickly jockey for position in the closest chair to Tywin; Cersei, in an obvious power move, moves her chair over to the opposite side, immediately to her father’s right. Tyrion quietly absorbs this scene before slowly dragging the last chair to the opposite head of the table, as far away from Tywin as possible. I laughed out loud, even though no words were spoken. Anyway, since Littlefinger’s about to leave for the east to woo Lysa, Tyrion is appointed as the kingdom’s treasurer (or did they call him lord of coin?) and charged with the continued funding of the war. To his horror, he learns that the crown is deeply in debt, not only to his own family, but to the Iron Bank of Braavos, an organization that he says will be happy to fund the Lannisters’ enemies if they don’t pay up. While, in the strategic sense, it seems like the Lannisters may have the upper hand in the war, their foreign debts suggest that perhaps they’re standing on shifting sands as well.

My favorite plot of the night revolved around the captured Jaime and Brienne. We see Jaime again sympathizing with her, and warning her that their captors will likely try to rape her when they stop for the night. Don’t fight them, he suggests, or they’ll kill you. Brienne snaps back at him, asking him what he’d do if he were a woman. Jaime says he’d let them kill him, before thanking the gods that he’s a man. Jaime’s prediction proves true; when the group stops for the night, their captors drag Brienne off into the dark to have their way with her. In a true display of nobility, Jaime manages to convince the leader that Brienne is worth more unspoiled, and she’s brought back into the camp unharmed. The success convinces Jaime that he’s much smarter than his captors, and he tries to weasel his way out of his chains. Unfortunately, the man in charge senses the condescension in Jaime’s voice, and teaches him a lesson in privilege and power by chopping his sword hand clean off. It’s a sudden, shocking turn, and in light of his previously noble action, really makes you feel for a character that you’ve long despised.  Jaime’s always defined himself by his fighting ability; now that he’s lost his sword hand, he’ll have to find something else to define him. I’m looking forward to watch that unfold.

HANNIBAL: 1.02 “Amuse-bouche”

HANNIBAL: 1.02 “Amuse-bouche”

One thing that I really liked about the second episode of the most surprising show on TV this year was the continued fall-out from Will’s showdown with last week’s cannibal. The show and its characters don’t gloss over or bury what happened. It’s obviously eating Will up; he spends hours by the wounded Abigail Hobbs’ beside, despite the fact that she is now a suspect; he spends time polishing up his rusty shooting at the gun range; and he returns to Hannibal’s couch for more than just a cursory analysis when it becomes clear to him that his guilt (or his obsession) over his killing of Walter Jacob Hobbes interferes with his ability to understand this week’s serial killer.

Speaking of this week’s killer: Eldon Stammitz, this week’s maniac, is a myconid obsessed pharmacist who’s been burying his victims alive in a nutrient rich soil so their bodies feed the growth of some kind of special mushroom. I’m not sure we get much of a deep understanding of Stammitz’s motivation, other than his obsession with the interconnected nature of fungi, but his methods were tremendously creepy; the neat rows of mounded dirt, sprouting with mushrooms, amid barely visible IV attached hands emerging from the dirt was nightmare fuel. Will eventually takes him down with a non-lethal bullet to the shoulder, but it doesn’t stop him from agonizing over the Hobbes case. He admits to Hannibal later that killing Hobbes felt good, and the look on his face suggests he’s frightened by the admission.

Though the mushroom man case from this week was quickly resolved, it seems clear that the Hobbes/Minnesota Shrike investigation will continue onwards, both for the FBI as they attempt to determine if Hobbes’ daughter was involved in the killings as well, and in Will’s damaged psyche as he tries to come to terms with what he did. I expect this will lead to more couch sessions between Hannibal and Will, which have been really great scenes so far.

I should also mention our new character, muckraking TMZ wannabe, Freddie Lounds, who leaks some compromising information about the mushroom man investigation to the general public and at least, temporarily, allows the killer to escape. She also tries to get more information about Will by taping his therapy session with the good doctor, but Hannibal sees through her lies with ease. Their back and forth in his office was brilliant and full of tension, and for at least fifteen minutes afterwards, I was convinced that Lechter had killed her and served her up to Jack Crawford in the next scene. I guess the loin that Jack ate really was pork, and Freddie lived to stir up more trouble in the future, but I wouldn’t be surprised if pieces of Freddie eventually wind up on Hannibal’s plate.

Game of Thrones Roadmap

Reader Owen tipped us off to Game of Thrones: The King’s Roadmap. It’s an interactive road map for the series that shows, on an episode by episode basis, important locations of Westeros and the events that have happened in each episode. The site is sponsored by DirecTV, but it looks like a useful resource if you need a recap of the events and locations that have been featured in each episode. 

Game of Thrones: “Dark Wings, Dark Words”

GAME OF THRONES: 3.02 “Dark Wings, Dark Words”

This particular episode is almost like an extended travelogue of Westeros, as groups of our favorite characters trek across every end of the kingdom. Jon, Ygriette, Mance, and hundreds of sometimes-feuding wildings, held together only because of the existential threat of the white walkers, tromp south towards the Wall. Not far ahead of them, most likely, are the ragged remains of the Night’s Watch headed south, despite Sam’s desire to just lay down and die, to warn those who remain at the Wall of the army of dead that lurk in the snow.

Seeing Arya and her ragged group was a welcome sight, as they wander through the woods and stumble upon (or are stumbled on) by the cheerful rogues of The Brotherhood Without Banners. Arya tries to be fierce in the face of the new comers, but she hasn’t the skill or size to back up her threats. Nevertheless, the Brotherhood seems to view her as a diverting, harmless amusement, fully willing to allow her and her friends to leave after sharing a brief meal; that is, at least, until a captive Sandor the Hound arrives and outs her as a nobleborn Stark. With her value increased exponentially, I doubt Thoros and the others in the Brotherhood will let her go anywhere.

Robb and Catelyn get bad and worse news from Lord Bolton; Cat’s father, Lord of Riverrun, is dead and Winterfell has been burned with no sight of Bran or Rickon anywhere. So, the army marches off to Riverrun, so Cat can attend her father’s funeral, and also so that Robb can link up with his Uncle’s army. Along the way, we can see that despite his impressive military record, some of Robb’s generals seem to be losing confidence in him. Meanwhile, in a great scene, Cat confides in Talisa that she believes all the death and destruction that’s befallen her family is because she once jealously prayed for the death of Jon Snow, so that she would no longer have to be reminded of her husband’s infidelity. It was a sad picture of a woman who has next to nothing left.

Father north, Bran, Rickon, Osha, and Hodor come across the eerie brother and sister team of Jojen and Meera Reed. Jojen seems to have some sort of mystical power, as he appears in one of Bran’s dreams, and he claims he’s been sent to help Bran understand who he is and what he’s capable of.

And of course, we have the Odd Couple, Brienne and Jaime. Their banter as they trudge through the forest is amusing, and while Jaime flings some cutting remarks at Brienne, I think he also feels a bit of sympathy for her doomed love for Renly when he declares, “I don’t blame you. We can’t help who we love.” Brienne can hold her own against the Lannister, both verbally and by force of arms, as we learn when Jaime manages to steal one of her swords and turns it on her. You can see the exhilaration in his face at first; that after so long, he has a sword back in his hand, and he’s ready to deploy the only method he’s ever learned to solve a problem; that is, to chop his way through it. After a great swordfight, Brienne gets the better of him, beating him (and likely his ego) down with sword and fist until he is no longer a threat. And once that happens, a new threat immediately appears, in the form of multiple mounted, Dreadfort knights, looking to take them both captive and possibly bring them back to Robb and his forces.

There’s comparatively little physical movement in King’s Landing, but the Tyrell’s are certainly putting their plots into motion. We are introduced to Olenna, Margaery’s imperious grandmother, who rules her family with a velvet gloved iron fist, and who demands to have her cheese served at her pleasure. Despite her overbearing aristocratic sense of privilege, she gently quizzes Sansa about Joffrey’s behavior. “He’s a monster,” poor, terrified Sansa eventually blurts out. “Pity,” replies Olenna, already adjusting her plans appropriately. We don’t know exactly what she has in store, but we can tell from the superbly creepy, disturbing scene full of between Margaery and Joffrey that the future Queen-to-be, likely acting on her grandmother’s advice, is going to try to pry Joffrey away from Cersei’s influence by appealing to his brutal, sociopathic nature. Whatever it takes, I suppose, to land on the throne.