BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S2E4: I'm Team Renly

There's a telling scene 2/3 of the way through episode four, the evocatively titled "Garden Of Bones." Stannis and Renly (and Cat Stark) meet in a big field (That's a very bizarre human quirk, by the way--the need to meet up in big, blank spaces when discussing important matters. Why do we do that? Conference rooms are the new big open fields. I'm not sure that's an improvement, but it's going to make my staff meeting tomorrow a lot more fun). The brothers bicker, Stannis's fire priestess talks some mystical shit, and Cat tells the brothers she wants to knock their heads together (luv u Cat). Stannis uses his "chosen by the gods, marinated in seven spices" argument to try to get Renly to fight alongside him, and Renly, scoffing at his brother's new religion, puts his faith in the men who fight for him: He asks Stannis if he sees all of his banners in the distance. Stannis asks if he should trust some bolts of cloth to win him power. Renly replies that no, he rather trusts the men who hold those bolts of cloth. And I kind of love that sentiment? Like a lot. It totally won me over to the forest hipster team. I want to watch Renly's convention speech now.

Robb Stark does some admirable shit, too, but he's settling into more of a Julian Castro role. See, at the start of the episode, we see him mount yet another successful attack on Lannister forces. As his men take prisoners, Robb overrules a general who insists on torturing the captured officers for information. Good! Way to be, Robb. Then he gives some tough love and comfort to a Lannister soldier getting his rotting leg sawed off. Yepp, you're a goodd mann indeedd, Robb! But then, while trying to flirt with the nurse who performed the amputation (yo it takes a special kind of dude to watch a girl sawing someone's leg off and then go "How YOU doin?") Robb admits that he has no desire for the Iron Throne and isn't really sure what will happen once he kills Joffrey. "You'd go to war to depose someone with no plan for what comes next?" the nurse asks, incredulous. "But, we'll be greeted as liberators!" Robb sputters.

But seriously, it seems like we're building toward a Robb/Renly partnership (no, not that kind, Renly!) which I think would be for the best. They're both hip, trendy dudes and they both seem to have decent intentions. I'm declaring myself Team Renly. Maybe I'll fly his banner at the top of my Tumblr or something. I'm not sure how well he's going to do against Baby Smoke Monster, but we'll get to that in a second.

In Winterfell, King Ladyboy is getting comfortable letting his freak flag fly around the capitol. Pointing his fucking crossbow at everything that moves, he sadistically and publicly abuses Sansa for her brother's actions. Luckily Tyrion is also now comfortable exercising his power, so he puts a stop to it and admonishes Joffrey in front of everybody. I worry a little about Tyrion, pushing back so hard against Cersei and her son. Stay safe, buddy!

Bro, ever the optimist, suggests that Joffrey simply needs to get laid. CLASSIC BRO MOVE. But when Tyrion sends some nice ladies to the King's chambers, Joffrey commands them to savagely beat each other. Cool sexual fantasy, Joff! It's hard to understand how this guy became such a twisted punk. His mom likes to get fucked by her relatives, but it she likes to get fucked in a relatively normal, emotionally healthy way. And King Meatsauce didn't seem like a terrible dad. He certainly treated HIS prostitutes kindly! He never had the paid birds and royal bees talk with Ladyboy?

Littlefinger shows up at Renly's camp and strikes out all over the place--first he tries to gossip a little with Forest Queen about Renly being on the down low but she knows enough not to tip her hand. Then a conversation with Cat Stark leads her to pull a knife on him. I thought this guy had game? He saves his ace move for the end though, bringing Cat Stark Ned's remains as a gift. I know that sounds really fucked up and morbid, but in Westeros that's a really nice thing to do. "Hey, I brought you a dead body in a trunk." "OH MY GOD THANK YOU!"

Arya and Gendry and their crew end up in some kind of prison town, where lots of Guantanamo Bay shit goes down while interrogators ask them about The Brotherhood, whatever the fuck that is. If you were freaked out by reading the rat/face-cage scene in 1984, you're going to FUCKING HATE this part. YIKES. The rad part comes when we watch Arya put herself to sleep at night my slowly, purposefully reciting her kill list. YEAH! I can't wait for Arya to avenge some motherfuckers (in probably like ten years). Gendry is about to get the ratbucket treatment himself when the most improbably of all rescuers arrives: Tywin Lannister. He identifies Gendry and Arya's gender and takes them both into his command. I mean, I know this is out of one oven and into another oven, but at least this one is still preheating.

The weirdest plotline in this episode concerns Dany's attempt to enter a mysterious city known as Qarth. She and her team show up, a bunch of cartoonish motherfuckers come out and greet them, and the conversation gets strange and tense and Lynchian like right away. Pretty soon a guy (who I SWEAR introduces himself as "[something something] Ducksauce" is cutting his hand and arguing with a guy who looks like a Simpsons caricature of Rush Limbaugh vacationing in Egypt. Rush doesn't want them in, Ducksauce does, and eventually they are granted entry. Last of The Mohicans is like "This feels tonally off from the rest of the show." And Dany is like "I don't know this could be interesting, give it a chance!"

Finally, Tyrion flips Queen Eyebrow's new lover, Cousin Eyebrow, blackmailing him into feeding him information about the Queen. So that's his counterbalance to showing his strength with King Ladyboy. Tyrion's got a lot of upper hands right now, right? Almost too many. It makes me wonder where his blind spot is, and how far he can take this ascension. (If the Romans are any possibly guide, we could be looking at an I, Claudius situation here, with Ladyboy as Caligula and Tyrion as Claudius. There are more than a few parallels!)  I mean, what could stop him now, other than a smoke monster born from Stannis's sperm from the Fire Priestess's belly? Yeah, that happens too.