BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES S2E3: The Bachelor And The Bride

I forgot to mention that at the end of the last episode, Jon Snow discovered that Daughter Fucker was discarding his sons in the woods, letting the Predator monster or whatever else is out there take them for a snack or maybe a fuel source. Which means that two episodes in a row now have ended with child murder! (“HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW?”-George R.R. Martin, while crip-walking.) And yet the politics are maybe not as transgressive and fun as we (meaning “I”) might like. We see a post-partum Cassie from Skins walking around in this episode, unharmed and shucking corn, so clearly the Sanctity of Life was her primary concern when she appealed to Samwise Gangrene about her bouncing baby boy. Also, I mean: all of the baby-killing has been done so far by our villains. Maybe I’m being oversensitive, it being so close to an election and all, but just once I’d like to see a good guy terminate a pregnancy/infancy, just to even the playing field a little.

The only thing we get approaching that is the talk Jon Snow gets from his boss after the spy shit he pulled on Daughter Fucker gets The Night’s Watchmen ejected from their quarters (Christ, that sentence is probably pretty hard to follow if you’re not actually watching this show). See, Bossman knew about the child-sacrifice and allowed it to continue, because Daughter Fucker was an ally the Night’s Watch needed above the wall. Jon Snow apologizes, seeing the realpolitik big picture at once. IS THAT SO HARD, REPUBLICANS? I’m digging my own child-grave here, I know. Child Murder is not the same as Abortion, so I shouldn’t even engage with this as an allegory. But still!

Back in Winterfell, Bonus Jonas dreams of wandering around in the body of a dire wolf. He asks his old servant/pal (let’s call him Alfred) if there’s any way the dream could be indicating something true, but Alfred tells him that all the animorphs are dead now.  :( :( :(

Elsewhere, it turns out Renly has set up a nice little kingdom for the forest hipsters in his command. Westeros’s own Brooklyn! I mean, seriously y’all, in the space of ten minutes he makes a woman one of his knights and then almost has a threesome with a brother and sister! Very NYT style section. (He married One Direction’s sister, who is cool with all the gay stuff and just wants a potential King’s potential heir in her womb. Cool sister!) Then Cat Stark comes to visit, and Renly seems open to the prospect of teaming up. And yet, he turns down the brother/sister combo. Huh.

Theon Greyjoy is still visiting home, which is always a bad idea. You Can’t Go Home Again, Or Your Dad Will Pull Some Power Trip Shit On You And Your Sister Will Let You Finger Her is one of Thomas Wolfe’s best books for a reason, y’all. But anyway, it sounds like he is going rogue on Robb Stark. BOOOOO! What about all that stirring O Captain My Northern Captain shit? Don’t forget where you came from, Theon! I mean, not originally, but where you came from right after that!

In the Capitol, Tyrion—the best part about this show thirteen episodes running (I mean, the dragons were a potential challenger for a while there but now they’re all dead in the desert with Dany. Presumably, I mean—she doesn’t turn up in this episode at all)—executes a pretty hilarious plan to root out whoever is feeding the Queen information. He tells Little Finger, Baldy McNodick, and Weirdo Old Beardo about his plans to marry off Cersei’s youngest daughter. Thing is, he tells each of them a different prospective husband. So when Cersei busts down his door, livid that her daughter might be married off to some jabroni for political reasons, the same way she was as a young girl (in a bracingly brutal human moment. Cersei is terrified that her daughter would be consigned to her fate and puts aside all artifice to put a stop to it), Beardo is outed as the Queen's informant. So Tyrion cuts off his beard and ships him off to a dungeon. YOU GO TYRION. YOU GET YOURS, MAN. (This episode needs more Lisbeth and Bro, though.)

Okay, so the meme needs a little work

Somebody associated with Stannis’s camp gets himself baptized in the name of one of the competing sets of Gods currently waging a proxy war in Westeros. I don’t really know what the point of this scene or what the deal is with the gods in general  is, but can I gripe about something for a sec? Two times so far this summer, I have been swimming in a lake and looked over to see somebody getting baptized down the beach a ways. How fucking rude is that? I mean, give a guy the common courtesy--some of us don’t want to be getting that secondhand baptism, you know? At least I can take comfort in the fact that the double baptism probably cancelled itself out. Makes sense, right? I mean, makes about as much sense as baptism, right?

Finally, because it wouldn’t be an episode of Game Of Thrones without a kid getting murdered, the King’s Bastard Hunting Party returns to Lil’ Katniss (fine, Arya’s) chain gang. The guy who has been protecting her since Ned’s death dies fighting them off (but not before telling her a long story about the meaninglessness and attendant rage that comes with revenge—the most stirring and dark detail of which is that this guy couldn’t remember his brother’s face nearly so well as the face of the man who killed him) but thanks to a mix-up involving Gendry’s (Chris from Skins’s) horned-helmet, Arya manages to convince the attackers that they’ve already killed King Meatsauce’s bastard. Baller move, Arya!