BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S3E05: Married...With "Children"

As if inspired by last week's scorched-earth conclusion, this week's episode gets wild right from the start. In the first 15 minutes we get death, resurrection, Ygritte's tits, and a grisly view of Jamie's stump. That's what I'm talking about, y'all! Welcome back to fuckin' Westeros!

The Hound is given his day in court, which as we learned back in season 1, usually just consists of a fight to the death. Yes, it is imperfect, but think how much citizens of Westeros save on legal fees! And despite Beric Dondarrion's dick move of setting his sword on fire (that's just so tacky, Beric) the Hound manages to cut him practically in half and wins his freedom. But he leaves pretty spooked, as Beric Notdeadagain rises to his feet a few minutes later, doing his signature little side-nod and smirk--the universal signal for "THAT SHIT JUST HAPPENED." 

Later, Gendry concludes that the Brotherhood is sufficiently badass for his badass self to join, and Arya, soon to be ransomed back to her mother and Robb, feels abandoned yet again. I feel for you Arya, and I hope that we get to see Gendry in future episodes, but dude has a point. I mean, if you get cut in half, the Brotherhood has a dude who can fix you! You gotta get with that program if they'll let you, that's just obvious.

Up above the wall, Ygritte playfully grabs Jon's sword (not one for subtle gestures, that girl) and he chases her into a wet cave (yeah, the symbolism here is pretty stark) where they finally get their fuck on. I was weirdly happy for Jon Snow. Get some, my brother! Show her how they do it Southern style!

Jamie and Brienne are delivered to Roose Bolton, who shows disdain for the handmade necklace his men have given Jamie (heh) but needlessly fucks with our boy only moments later, letting him believe briefly that Stannis successfully took King's Landing while he was captive. Seriously, what was that shit? Last week Mad Men made a 30 Rock reference--is Game Of Thrones doing Arrested Development now?

Meanwhile, everybody in Robb's camp apparently spent last week getting sexy makeovers. What up, Robb, with that open collar! Looking good, man. What up, Lady Cat, with your hair all down? Grief agrees with you, my lady. Looking significantly less sexy is Lord Karstark, the one who has had a murderboner for like two straight seasons now. When he and his compatriots kill two Lannister children Robb is holding captive at Riverrun, Robb executes him, despite the (correct, as it turns out) council from his wife and advisors that to do so will cost him the rest of the Karstark bannermen. Like father, like son, generally unwilling to play the game. The stubborn apple doesn't fall far from the stubborn tree--and why would it? But later, Robb is seized with inspiration. He'll make up with Walder Frey (one of like a dozen people he has grievously offended so far) and attack the Lannister HQ, Casterly Rock. Well, that's as good a plan as any, I guess!

In King's Landing, everybody hears about the Tyrell plan to wed Sansa to Knight One Direction like, right away (I kinda felt bad for Loras--his sexy new boyfriend is a spy!). And if you were throwing up your hands at all the sixth-amendment-shattering battles to the death earlier in this episode, it must really grind your gears to realize that whoever breaks Sansa's hymen first gets to control Winterfell. And thus The Race To Fuck Sansa begins! Tywin orders Tyrion to marry her instead, a plan that Cercei (and Zac, morbidly) finds delightful. But who will marry Loras?! Turns out ol Tywin has a plan for that too! Batter up, Queen Eyebrow!

The weirdest scenes of this episode give us a glimpse into Stannis's domestic life. It's weird. Like, even weirder than you probably guessed. His wife and deformed daughter (I don't get it--was like, Stannis's grandfather a gargoyle?) live in a creepy tower with the bodies of his miscarried sons in pickle jars. It's some Mütter Museum shit.

Mrs. Stannis tells him that she knows he banged the Red Lady, and she thinks it is just great (she's a big time Holy R'hllor, as it happens). I want to see these scenes with like, a sitcom laugh track. Anyway, his daughter starts sneaking down to the dungeon to hang out with John Swanson, and Stannis goes to his garage to work on his Mustang or something.

Blogging Game Of Thrones, S3E04: Illest Motherfucker Alive

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BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S3E03: Hand To God

First of all, I want to give a hand to The Hold Steady--their rendition of "The Bear And The Maiden Fair" closes out this episode with a blast of bravado, bringing Game Of Thrones to Mad Men-like levels of swagger. This show knows how good it is, and that is always an exhilarating thing to watch. This is some DONDA shit, and I love it.

And--not suggest anything too meta, but--that awareness of greatness is trickling down into a few characters as well. In Riverrun, where Robb, Cat, and a few significant-seeming relatives thereof are gathered to give Cat's dad a viking funeral, Robb is in full effect. He's chuckling at Ugly Ryan Reynolds, who can't shoot a fire arrow straight, and then he's laying down the law to the same jabroni (I think he's Cat's brother), who presumes to know more about military strategy than Robb. You don't doubt the Young Wolf, Ugly Ryan Reynolds! He's the motherfucking King In The North!

In Astapor, Dany is finding it hard to be humble as well. While Last Of The Mohicans and new staffer Ser Barista Selfie banter to and fro about whether or not it is wise to buy a slave army (standing at opposite shoulders, angel-and-demon style), our girl D is calm as hell and barely listening. She goes to the head slaveseller Dennis Feinstein and makes a baller offer: one of her dragons for 10,000 or so Unsullied eunuch soldiers. Her advisors predictably lose their shit, and she tells them to shut the fuck up. Trust Khaleesi, y'all. That's all I'm gonna say. Trust Khaleesi.

And in this episode's third swaggerific sequence, Tyrion hooks up his squire Podrick with three whores and a bag of gold as a reward for saving his life last season. When Podrick returns from the brothel with the gold sack undrained, Tyrion and Bronn are hysterically forced to confront the revelation that Podrick is apparently an expert lover. Prostitutes literally won't take his money! Podrick Payne: Fuck Jedi. (House Payne: Winter Is Cumming) "We're going to need details," Tyrion says, pulling up a chair.

Other big stuff: Tywin appoints Tyrion as the new Master Of Coin, because Littlefinger is leaving town to propose marriage to Cat's crazy sister Lysa. Good luck with that shit, Littlefinger.

Whether this has any impact on his promises to rescue Sansa remains to be seen. Anyway, Tyrion's new gig supplies the episode's nebulous topical touchstone: the economy, stupid! Tyrion explains the nature of foreign debt to Bronn--it's bad, see. A little reductive, but maybe I'm wrong to be looking for serious policy discussions in Game of Thrones.

Above the wall, Jon Snow and a few others get a special mission from Mance Rayder: climb the wall. Oh, sure thing, Mance! It's only 700 feet of sheer ice, I'll just shimmy right the fuck up! Somewhere else above the wall, the surviving members of the Night's Watch return to Daughter Fucker's house. And guess who is giving birth when they get there? Cassie from Skins! Yay! Congrats, Cassie! It's a boy! Oh, shit. That's not good. (P.S. Between this show and the movie Friends With Kids, this is the second time in as many days that I have been confronted with baby penises on my TV screen. Enough is enough! And was Cassie's anguished braying tough to listen to or what? From the other room my wife asked me if something was wrong with our cat. I was wearing headphones.)

So: any theories on what the deal is with Theon? Has he time-jumped or something? This week, he is freed from his torture rack by a mysterious young man who reminds him that winter is coming. Is that Future-Rickon or Future-Brann helping him out, mayhaps? Or is that totally insane? I suspect it is, but--and I don't think it is a spoiler to say this--I am well beyond what will be the end of Season 3 in A Storm Of Swords, and none of this Theon shit is in there at all. I am as in the dark as the rest of you.

Not much else to note about this episode. It had a lot of comedic business in there! Also, I was weirdly moved watching Gendry say goodbye to Hot Pie. What a great scene! Joe Dempsie is wonderful. This series better end with Gendry somehow ending up King (Jesus, don't tell me in the comments if that really happens at some point. I'm finishing up ASOS right now and ALL BETS ARE THE FUCK OFF). Oh yeah. One more thing:

Sorry, I couldn't help tipping my hand (a few times) last week. So, what happens is, Jamie and Brienne are captives to some weirdos vaguely associated with the North (it's hard to suss out exactly which new characters are on which side, because none of them are really on ANYBODY's side--a point that I think is not sufficiently driven home by the show just yet) and Jamie makes one of his trademark rhetorical plays for freedom. And just when it seems like he's talked his way out of his chains, Django-style, some asshole chops off his hand. Holy shit! It is wonderfully sudden and suitably gross. (I bet that hand-chopping dude is kicking himself for having such a lame line when he did it, though. "PERHAPS THIS WILL HELP YOU REMEMBER!" -Why would that help him remember? Remember what? I guess I shouldn't expect a lot of coherence from a guy who cuts off hands.) I don't know how to feel about it, though. In some weird way I am sympathetic to Jamie. He's such a fuckwad, but he's a charming fuckwad, you know? And by now he's OUR fuckwad. Maybe the missing hand will make him more endearing. Especially if he replaces it with a hook!

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S3E2: Love And Warg

Game Of Thrones gets topical! As if there weren't enough reasons to hate King Ladyboy--this week we learn he also wants to ban homosexual acts like some kind of two bit South Dakota state legislator. Of course, he's talking about it while stroking his crossbow and talking to Marge, she of the freaky-deaky incest threeway floated last season, so take that whole scene however you will. Gay rights come up again later, when Jamie tells Brienne he knew about Renly's DL situation and was cool with it. Hey, well, hands off to you, Jamie. You're a stand-up guy. On this one issue, anyway. 

Anyway last time I peacefully accepted that we'd have to endure a bit of shifting around before the parts really got moving--such is life in Westeros. But I didn't think we'd have to deal with a whole 'nother HOUR of shufflin' this week! Will somebody just get to killing somebody else already? I mean, SHIT. Even god damned Theon is still alive, so technically we're at -2 for this season. There wasn't even any nudity in this episode. WHAT GIVES? Can we get some (lack of a) civilization, here?

Dany and her slaves and Jon Swanson and his morals are all absent from this episode, but at least we check in with Bran, Arya, and the armformentioned Jamie. All of them are still wandering the woods with their respective friends/guards from last season, and this week all of them are captured or otherwise overtaken by people we've never seen before. Poor Lil' Katniss--out of the frying pan and into the oven and out of the oven and into the blender and out of the blender and onto the hotplate, am I right? She's really getting Drunk Kitchened something fierce. This new batch of people she'll escape from sooner or later are the Brotherhood--the ones O'Brien was so desperately seeking by way of rat-bucket torture back in Harrenhall (a few dozen Arya-captors ago). They actually seem like OK dudes, especially the Jeff Daniels-looking motherfucker, Thoros of Myr. But when one of them captures The Hound and he informs them she's Arya Stark, well, that's a game changer, ladies!

Meanwhile Bran et al. are set upon in the woods by Shane Bogwin and his sister, a couple of mystical weirdos who apparently have the power to incept Bran and who want to help him realize the extent of his powers (his "dark magic dreams," as Osha calls them). Yep, Bran is changing, and I'm not just referring to the fact that AWWWW SOMEBODY'S VOICE DROPPED! Welcome to manhood, Bonus Jonas! Getting the birds and bees talk from Hodor is gonna be pretty rough, huh?

Jamie and Brienne also get captured, by that weasel-looking British character actor, you know the one. No, not that one. Not that one. Not that one, but he's in this episode too. Not that one. Yeah, that guy! He captures them, but I'm sure he'll unhand them sooner or later. 

What else? Tyrion and Lisbeth Salander bicker cutely. Somebody's kidnapped Theon and are torturing him, and somebody else says he'll save him (his whole story is so hopelessly vague that I don't even care). Cat Stark's father dies, and she and Robb set out for his funeral. Cat tells Robb's wife a story about the time she wished Jon Snow would die and he almost did and she felt really shitty about it, but then went back on her promise to the gods that if they spared him, she'd treat him like a son. Yikes. Up north of the wall, Jon Snow and Mance Rayder have a conversation to remind viewers that his name is Mance Rayder and that they are north of the wall.

The key scene of this episode is a conversation that takes place between Sansa and Lady Olenna, the truth-spittin' matriarch of the Loras family. She and Marge get Sansa to give them the dirt about what a sadistic fuck Joffrey is, but hearing it seems to upset neither of them. Sansa is bewildered, Zac is intrigued. (I will say though--this scene in the book had me cackling with joy at Lady Olenna's crotchety truth bombs, and here I was a little underwhelmed. Maybe it's because I was picturing Lady Olenna as this lady.) 

BLOGGING GAMES OF THRONES, S3E1: Paint A Vulgar Picture

Hey gang! Welcome back to Westeros, where the slots are loose, the women are friendly, and--just a stone's throw away, down at the docks in Astapor--somebody is usually stabbing a baby! I'm your host, Zachary Little, and here's where our players are at in this third inning of America's new pastime,  Throne Gaming.

We pick up above the wall, where we last saw an army of abominable skeletor-type motherfuckers descending upon poor Samwise Gangrene. Lucky for him, he somehow managed to escape, and here is reunited with the surviving members of the Night's Watch. They're looking worse for wear, though not necessarily more than usual. Jon Snow's second surrogate father, Old Beardo, immediately berates Samwise for failing to send warning messages back home. Well, if we're being honest, I'm not really sure anybody in Westeros would have given a shit. Undead armies are like Climate Change to Westerosi politicos--they won't believe in it until it literally kills them personally.

Nonetheless, the remaining Watchmen head south, determined to warn the public about the white walkers which are, I'd have to assume, further south than they are this point anyway. Right? So this might not be the soundest plan.

Further North, Jon Snow, now a sorta-double agent among the Wildlings, meets his third surrogate father, Mance Rayder. He's the King Beyond The Wall, but for a king he's pretty casual--when Jon Snow gets all kneely and worshipful Mance is like, "Bro, chill." But Mance would like to know why Jon went rogue, and Jon gives him an only semi-sensical explanation that involves being mad at Beardo for abiding Daughter Fucker's (remember Daughter Fucker?) child sacrifice. Now, the point of that earlier scene was recognizing the necessity of bargaining in real-world political environments, so I guess that means Jon Snow is a libertarian now. Which is good enough for Mance Rayder, so OK.

Back in the civilized world, Tyrion is admiring his Michael K. Williams-style facial scar in a mirror when Queen (Regent) Eyebrow comes a-knocking. We are reminded of three things: 1. Tyrion is displaced and in disfavor now that his father has finally taken over as Hand of the King 2. Tyrion's wound did not come from a legitimate enemy but rather from a Lannister loyalist, and 3. Tyrion and Cercei like to trade quips. Then Bronn shows up, and you know, is a baller.

And then--guess who is alive? Theon? Nope, probably not! But Ron Swanson's grandfather is! Last we saw him, a boat full of fire-kryptonite was blowing up directly in front of his face, so it's pretty crazy that he managed to survive, but there you are, and there he is! Black Jack Sparrow finds him shortly after we do, picking him up from the comically small island on which he has been stranded. Then he tries to talk him out of returning to Stannis--the would-be king is in a bad mood since his bad defeat, and the Red Lady has gone full Yoko--but Jon Swanson is determined to see his bro again. And guess what? It doesn't go very well. After a half-assed attempt at assassinating Redhead Von Shadowpussy, Jon Swanson finds himself dragged to the dungeons. Oh well!

At the end of season 2, we got a couple of scenes that played like do-overs, like the writers felt like they hadn't drilled something home enough and tried again. Dany had a few speeches where she made identical self-discoveries, etcetera. Here we get another mulligan, when Robb Stark, his men, his new wife, and his mom come upon a Stark fort and find everybody inside dead. This sight apparently reminds Robb that his mother freed Jamie Lannister, and he orders her to a cell. Did you actually like, forget, Robb? We got no scenes with Arya and Gendry for this?

Back in King's Landing, Tyrion talks to his dad, who is, it turns out, a major dick. Remember when he and Arya were having all that cat and mouse fun back in Harrenhall? None of that here. Just unabashed dickishness, nothing more. And speaking of unabashed dicks, Joffrey is mortified when his newly betrothed, Margaery, gets out of her litter in the middle of a dirty street to go visit some orphans. At dinner later, he and his mother are baffled to hear that Marge and her brother One Direction do charity work routinely. "Wait, you help poor people? For WHAT? I mean, they can't give you any money, can they?"-Lannisters

Elsewhere, Dany and her dragons visit a slaveport, which appears to be Ser Jorah's idea. He thinks slavery is like, the coolest thing since sliced bread, but it makes Dany uneasy. Still, she's got no other way to gather an army (does she even have this way? Like, where'd she get money?) so she listens to the sales pitch of guy selling eunuch soldiers called "The Unsullied." Their training regimen, it turns out, basically consists of all the censored scenes from the NIN video for "Closer." And it seems to work; as Offer Shlomi points out, you can chop a nipple off these guys and they don't even flinch. Dany could fuck some shit up in a big way with a few thousand of these guys, which might be interesting. As she walks back to the dock, she survives another murder attempt, this time from a little J-horror girl probably sent from whoever is still alive in Qarth. She is saved by Some Guy, who turns out to be a character we should maybe remember from earlier? He introduces himself like, "Yes, mother of dragons, it is I, Some Guy!" and the music swells like Ohhhh! Some Guy has finally appeared! And the episode ends.

So that's that! No Lil Katniss, nor Bonus Jonas, nor Huck Lannister and Lady Brienne on their raft, nor Meltyface, nor Fucking Theon (RIP?). Not a whole lot happening at all, right now, in fact! But that is how the game is played. You gotta take some time to move the pieces into place before the pieces can have sex with and murder each other. As true in chess as it is in life. See you next week!