BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E04: One Does Not Simply Ice-Skate Into Ice-Mordor

The episode opens with another crackerjack sequence of Dany dishing out glorious, Tarantino-esque justice. It is an absolute retread of the last six or seven Dany scenes, but this blog has already established that we don't care. Screw it, this can go on forever. KILL THE MASTERS!

Ser Barista Selfie to finally gets a couple of lines in edgewise, asking Dany to consider mercy for the slaveowners. Just like an old white man to call that justice. Luckily, our girl D does NO SUCH THING. STRING 'EM UP!

In King's Landing, Jaime Lannister is still trying to figure out what kind of man he wants to be. Lost in the weeds of Tyrion's pending murder trial, he turns to an easier moral conundrum, dispatching Brienne (and, delightfully, Podrick Payne) to find and protect Sansa Stark. The motif with Jaime fretting about his page in the King's Guard yearbook works better in the novels, just so you know.* I guess because you don't really have to see that big ridiculous golden tome. It's a metaphor overdose. I keep expecting it to start following him around the castle hallways.

(*Also, Jaime's moral arc in the books works better in general, because he doesn't rape anybody.)

Sansa and Littlefinger are on a ship, and Littlefinger's accent seems to be migrating from country to country along with it. Also, he confesses again to killing Joffrey. Was that not clear last week, when he showed Sansa her poison necklace? To be fair, his explanation leaves a lot to be desired. Clarity is a fool's game! Why make sense when you can use all five senses? I don't know what that means, but it sounds like something Littlefinger would say, doesn't it?

At Castle Black, our two current villains, whatever their names are (Richie Aprile and Ralphie Cifaretto?), are frustrated by Jon Snow's popularity among his peers. So they hatch a brilliant plan: they will let him do what he wanted to last week, and that way... maybe he will die. It's not a very good plan. But maybe it is, because fucking Locke is suddenly here. WHAT ON EARTH? How the fuck did he show up so fast? Locke, you may recall, was last seen hanging out with the Boltons. Now he's abruptly joining the Night's Watch, making friends with our man Jon, clearly hatching some kind of scheme. Either that, or he's going to reveal to Jon Snow that he's been lucid dreaming since he got that scar on his face. Abre los ojos, Jon Snow!

Above the wall, the mutineers at Craster's house try to figure out what to do with a newborn baby. Much as this sounds like the start of some very sharp early 90's comedy, it doesn't turn out that way. Young Willem Dafoe sends Dark Timeline Sam into the woods to leave the baby for The Others, and its cries attract Bonus Jonas and his gang of exhausted children. Pretty soon Bran et al. have been captured by Willem Dafoe, which fucking sucks. And then an Ice Zombie picks up the baby, and carries him to ICE MORDOR. HOLY SHIT!

We just leveled-up, crazy-wise. I suppose we were due.

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E03: When The Ship Comes In

There are no good guys in Game Of Thrones. And of course, I’m including Alex Graves, DB Weiss, and David Benioff in that. Because, I mean, like, OH SHIT! Is this show broken? Did they break it? They might have.

If I had to sum this episode up in three words, I think I’d go with A LITTLE MUCH. The editing and in that first scene? A LITTLE MUCH. The Hound slurping his soup? A LITTLE MUCH. (Didn’t it seem cold? Was that Rabbit gazpacho?) Jaime raping Cersei next to Joffrey’s corpse? OK, A LOT MORE THAN A LITTLE MUCH.

I suppose I can understand the justification, in the end, for reminding people that Jaime is not the best dude. He shoved Bonus Jonas out a window, and it wasn’t even that long ago. So, OK, fine, he was drifting a little too close to the “hero” end of the “anti-hero” spectrum, I guess, but in their attempt to pull him back, our showrunners miscalculated like, a lot.* Understand—that scene was not in the books. And in the books, Jaime still has a lot of interesting stuff to do. He doesn’t get murdered in the next episode. But now he kind of has to, right? OK, maybe not, but his road to redemption is suddenly a lot steeper, and for seemingly no good reason. To complicate matters EXTREMELY further, several white men involved in the making of this show aren't so sure it was rape. Want to hear what they have to say about it? WHY WOULD YOU.

Take a look at the content warnings of the last two episodes. HBO seems to think it was rape, at least!

(*A couple of days ago, I watched an episode of the Sundance series The Writer’s Room, in which Weiss and Benioff talked with Jim Rash about their process. “Huh,” I thought, as I watched it. “These guys seem kind of dumb.” It was worrisome. And then the other shoe very non-consensually dropped.)

UGH. ANYWAY, all hail the new king, Tommen, all wet clay and dimwitted smiles. I’m sure he’ll be fucking great at it. Whatever. Oh--also, Littlefinger is (probably) the one who killed Joffrey, and he has spirited Sansa away to relative safety.

Up north, Samwise Gangrene wonders what to do about Gilly. Being more sensitive to the issues of rape culture than the creators of the show he is on, Old Sam decides that she’d be safer cleaning up jizz at a whorehouse in a town a few miles from the horde of horny men in every dark corner Castle Black. This strikes me as a misguided decision, but again, other people have done worse. Like Alex Graves, DB Weiss, and David Benioff, say.

 

 Meanwhile, Jon Snow argues against going on the offensive against the Wildling army, but is suddenly up in arms when he hears that the former Night’s Watchmen who killed the Lord Commander have gone all Kurtz at Craster’s Keep. Those guys have to be stopped, Jon argues. “How is that different?” asks Wooly Willy. Well, Jon Snow hasn’t banged any of those folks, so he is free to kill them, Wooly! Duh! Also, is this really Jon Snow’s call to make? Who is even in charge ANYWHERE anymore?

 

The most delightful set of scenes comes at Dragonstone, where Davos AKA Jon Swanson is in top (warm, funny) form and Stannis is grumpily but clearly explaining his thought process and difficult political position. These are my favorite scenes, lately. You know, the common talking point among fans is that since the series is called A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, our true heroes are probably Jon Snow and Dany. Ice and Fire. But what if Dany is a fake out? Remember that in early seasons of the show, she was very concerned that she might someday descend into madness. What if she does? Who is going to carry the fire? What if it is…Stannis? What if that dude is actually the hero of this show? Won’t that be kind of…awesome?

Not that I am not still as firmly Team Dany as a person can be. As is her custom, she closes out this episode with another moment of effortless badassery, delivering a speech to the slaves of Mereen that leaves their masters terrified and confused about the state of her soldier's penises. Emilia Clarke has also perfected her bored, sexy, casually fearless stare, and it doesn’t leave her face for ten straight minutes. I know that this is the same old Dany shtick, but it works on me, and I don’t care!

I don't even have to caption her shit anymore! Dany does all the work!

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E02: Just Desserts

Now that was a party, huh?

I think Game Of Thrones should employ occasional title cards, like Parks and Rec does. Because while sometimes you don't need to advertise your title, when it's something like "Flu Season 2" or, in this case, "The Lion And The Rose," you just KNOW that some shit is about to go down.

And down it does go, with blood spurting out of its nose. But let's not eat the pie before the rest of the meal.

Ramsay Snow, that old chestnut, is still hanging out with our old pal Theon--or, most of him. They while away the hours playing the Most Dangerous Game until Roose Bolton rolls into town with his big dumb Frey wife and his creepy eyeballs and his friend Choppy McHandremover. What's the deal with Ramsay's lady friend with the bow and arrow? Dark Timeline Arya, I guess? I like her! Anyway, nothing new about the Boltons--they're still evil as fuck. Moving on!

It seemed like Stannis and company were ready to set sail for the north at the end of last season, but it turns out they're still hanging around on Dragonstone, burning family members and having the most awkward dinner parties in the world. Am I the only one who started to sympathize with Melisandre? She looked SO uncomfortable. I mean I'm still not necessarily Team Mel but I am definitely Team Mrs. Stannis Is A Psychopath. Again, no major movements here.

We don't check in with Mr. Ice or Ms. Fire, but we do pop in on Bran above the wall, where he has a vision that shares a lot of imagery with Dany's acid trip at the end of Season 2. That shot of the Iron Throne with snow falling on it is some striking shit, even if it is very Sucker Punch.

In King's Landing, where we spend the majority of our time, the long-pending Tyrion/Shae breakup finally happens. It's only grim because Tyrion and Bronn seem so bummed about it. Remember when the three of them had slumber parties during the war? It was a simpler time. Whatever--she had to go. The more significant coupling and uncoupling happens at what will come to be known as The Purple Wedding (I don't really remember why--maybe because that's the color of Joffrey's corpse's face at the end? Sorry, I keep getting ahead of myself!).

Joffrey and Margaery get hitched, and it's as grim and awkward a spectacle as you might imagine, though there are some delightful conversations between Tywin and Lady Olenna as well as Jaime and Loras Tyrell (we finally meet his father in this episode, too--Lorax Tyrell, who speaks for the trees, as you well know). Also, Ricky Martell continues to live la vida loca all around town, and everyone is happier for it.

And then Joffrey finally fucking dies, apparently poisoned at his own wedding feast. I hope you enjoyed it, you blood-thirsty monsters. It was pretty sweet, right? HAHAHAHAWWW YEAH.

Lotta recurring images in this episode which echo each other with no particular thematic significance. Pouring out wine, destroying books. I'm not saying you can't do Wire-style parallelism, but if you are going to bring it, you've got to bring it, you know? Which isn't to say that the last five minutes of this episode are not Zapruder-film-like in their rich potential for dissection, but I will let you all speculate wildly until next week. WHODUNIT? We owe them a beer, obvi.

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E01: You'll Never Believe What This Little Girl Does When She's Reunited With Her Friend's Killer

Welcome back! It's so great to see our friends again in the lovely kingdom of Westeros, right? And everything is the same as it ever was.

Not a lot really happens--what this episode is really about is what's NOT happening. Cersei isn't fucking Jaime, Tyrion isn't fucking Lisbeth Salander, and nobody is daring to fuck with the Hound and Arya. HOW MUCH FUN WAS IT TO WATCH THAT POLLIVER DICKHEAD SIT THERE WITH NO IDEA HE WAS ABOUT TO GET GOT!? Oh man. I'm getting ahead of myself.

We start with Tywin Lannister, gleefully and symbolically melting down Ned Stark's old sword and making two new ones out of it--a phallic imbalance that he's apparently comfortable with. Then we hang out around King's Landing for a while. Tyrion and the Swagger Gang await the arrival of a royal wedding guest, who sends his sexually experimental and aggressively violent weirdo brother in his stead. Tyrion is like, "Oh, cool." Plus, his new wife Sansa won't open her mouth to eat, and his former lover Lisbeth Salander won't close her mouth to have some fucking discretion. There's a lot of bad moons rising around our man T. 

Out in the fields, Dany's dragons fight for their meals, and she prepares to invade yet another slave city. Kudos to the casting department for varying the skin tone among Dany's adoring followers, by the way! I see you, crackers! Good on you! 

The battle for Jaime's soul wages rhetorically and expositorally (that's a word!) throughout this episode. Tywin disparages him, Joffrey mocks him, and Cercei won't even give him like, at least a quick handy. He's been on the road for a long time, sister. Help a brother out. But anyway it's pretty clear that Jaime is a good dude now, but what he's going to do with his good dude-ness is an open question.

Who else is even still alive? Up North, Jon Snow comes clean to the dickish Night's Watch council about all of his sexy sins. Maester Aemon is like, "I'm into it, we're cool." But I take it our boy Jon is going to have some trouble with those other two (you notice that the two asshole Night's Watch guys look like alternate WoolyWilly examples?) in the future.

We're blissfully free of Theon Greyjoy and Stannis Baratheon for the whole hour, and so we end rather spectacularly, with Arya and The Hound very charmingly killing a room full of bad guys. I'd be perfectly happy if these two just wander around bickering and having adventures for a whole season. They will fill the Rust and Marty-sized hole in my heart.

Between The Hound's Wire line and the Pulp Fiction joke in Captain America, it's been a great week for badass intertextuality. 

How psyched are you that we have a whole new season stretching out in front of us? This is so great. I'm happy to be back. Hi!