BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E10: True North

Well, my swords-and-sandals-loving friends, my brothers and sisters of the Sunday Night's Watch--we have come again to that fork in the road, that boat leaving the harbor, that Gendry in the waters. All men must die, and all seasons of Game Of Thrones must end. (In Braavosi, that phrase is pronounced "Julianna Margulies"). So how did it all go down? Was that the best episode of Game Of Thrones of all time? Did you yelp with glee like I did when Brienne crested the hill and came face to face with Arya?

I was surprised that last week’s episode was not the end of Jon Snow’s story for this season. I mean, he crossed a threshold into pure white! That usually doesn’t mean, “See you next week immediately following this moment” but that’s what we got. But in the end, I was pleased. Our boy J has a tense but complicated meeting with Mance Rayder (whose name looks to me like a Decepticon every time I write it out), who reminds us (after last week’s rather black-and-white tale of Night’s Watch heroism) that he isn’t really a villain. He’s trying to protect his people from the true enemy: the ice zombies, the ice babies, and the pirates of the Caribbean cursed by the black pearl. Of course, Jon Snow is there on a heartbroken suicide mission, not for reasonable diplomacy. And just when shit’s about to go down, the weirdest fucking thing in the world happens: Stannis shows up! I mean, technically we knew Stannis was coming, he’s been saying so since the end of last season. But it’s still really weird to see him there. Really, really weird.

The state of Dany’s union is as weak as it has ever been, and an old former slave shows up to tell her that “for those too old to change, there is only fear,” which feels a little like the showrunners giving Barack Obama a hug over the airwaves. She ends up permitting what amounts basically to sharecropping jobs in Mereen, a compromise that Ser Barista observes will probably be the start of a very long backslide ("No doy"-Dany). And as if Our Lady D wasn’t like a modern, compromised politician enough already, she then has to fire her closest advisors--her dragons--after one of them makes an (understandable) gaffe by cooking and eating a small child. Look, that’s governance! It happens! But the media won’t let you get away with it these days. So she locks them in a dungeon, tears streaming down her face. I don’t like leaving Dany in such a bad place. At least let her fuck Daario one more time before we break for the year, right? I only want to see Dany’s face smeared with either the blood or ash or jizz of triumph, and nothing else.

Back above the wall, Bran and his crew journey from a headshop sweatshirt to Carcosa itself after a prolonged battle with some gnarly skeletons which results in the death of Jojen Reed. Jojen seemed to always know he wasn’t going to survive this journey, which makes you wonder what else he knew, and what will happen to Bran under the tutelage of the Giving Tree. But we don’t get much on that front. Just some creepy ass kids throwing weird exploding snowballs like some kind of Donkey Kong shit. It’s cool, though. Shoutout to Ray Harryhausen.

Arya sails away with the episode, of course. See, Brienne and Podrick are on their way to the Vale when they run into our girl A, doing tai-chi on top of a hill. It’s wildly fun to see these characters, who we’ve known for years, finally start to meet each other. Can you believe it took this long? When you think about who could meet who next, don’t the possibilities thrill you? Isn’t it weird how exciting something as simple as that could be? (What kind of withholding mind-game are these fuckers playing on us?) After recognizing something kindred in Arya, Brienne states her mission and asks Arya to come with her. But The Hound is distrustful of her Lannister weaponry, and Arya is dubious as to what being rescued would even mean at this point. So Brienne and The Hound get down to a-fightin’,and it’s a wild, crotch-kicking affair. In the end, Brienne knocks the Hound off a cliff, but is evaded by Arya. Later, Arya finds the Hound dying, and rather cruelly denies him the mercy of a quick death. Is this the end of the storied Clegane family? Or will Maester Demento succeed in turning The Mountain into some kind of Frankenstein? Tune in next year to find out (or not)!

And then, oh my god, and then: it finally happens. Arya finds a ship bound for Braavos, presents her coin to the captain, and says the magic words. The look on his face when she says it—man! That’s another moment we’ve been waiting for so long that I almost forgot we were waiting. Arya rides off, away from the continental clusterfuck she’s been trapped on for years, and it’s a beautiful note to end on.

I’ve been summarizing all the other stuff a lot because you probably have already read thirty articles about what happens in King’s Landing. Jaime, fresh from some redemptive consensual incest, abruptly frees Tyrion, who sneaks through the castle to his father’s bedroom, where he finds—seven shit us—Lisbeth Salander! In rage and self-defense, he strangles her to death. And then he sees a crossbow on the wall, and the wheels start turning on my Chekov joke generating machine. But before it even has time to finish calibrating, he’s confronting Tywin in the bathroom, both of them hurling the word “son” back and forth like an exploding Donkey Kong snowball. But since Tyrion is the only one with an actual weapon, he shoots Tywin dead. There's a lot of hand-wringing online about "what this makes Tyrion now" and whether or not we can still root for him and Arya now that they've broken so bad. That is a ridiculous question. If you want straightforward heroism, go watch episode nine again and pretend that's all Game Of Thrones ever had to say. As for me, I'm going to keep hanging out with the kinslayers and sisterfuckers, the ice kings and fire queens, and the children of the sun and the moon and the forest. This has been Game Of Thrones, and I have been Zac Little, and for now my watch has ended. See you next year. For the night is dark, and full of terrors, or like, Halt And Catch Fire, I guess.

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E09: Chaos Is A Ladder, Love Is A Battlefield

What a fantastic episode. From the sweeping, heroic long takes, the dozens of well-earned character moments, and the lasting images rich with metaphorical resonance. And no, I'm not just talking about Jon giving Sam the Birds And Bees talk while walking through the vaginal tunnels of Castle Black. But that was certainly something. So: as many predicted, we are at Castle Black from start to finish. (In honor of the show's meta-gesture, and also because there wasn't much to joke about, today's post is presented as a single, impenetrable block of text.) It’s an echo of the Blackwater Bay episode from season 2, except with like, five million extra dollars this time around. The Wildlings attack from above and below, and the men of the Night’s Watch hold them back at great cost. That’s all that happens! End of episode summary! But let’s talk about some characters. Obviously the most satisfying arc was the arc of that giant’s arrow as it send a random Night’s Watchman into the air (!!!), but there were other satisfying arcs, too. Jon Snow is officially our show’s most obvious and clear hero, now. There was no moral ambiguity or melancholy about him putting that hammer through Styr's head; it was uncut badassery. And now he even has a tragic anchor to his hero’s journey, with Ygritte getting Kenarded right in front of him. But if it wasn’t clear enough, his crossing a threshold into literal pure white at the end should clue you in. Hero status! Meanwhile, Sam is tougher than ever (nerds might say “Stout of heart.” I might steal their lunch money if they did). He is resolute when Gilly tries to Bella Swan him into sitting out the battle, and never wavers in the face of all those gorgeously rendered fire arrows etc. His delightful trash-talk (“Oh, is the battle over? No? I guess you should keep shooting then!”) was undercut a little by the fact that he gets Pip killed, but a guy named Pip is going to get killed every time out no matter what. (I was the most bummed out about Grenn, who nonetheless goes out in probably the most baller way ever on the show. That scene! The reciting of the vows! It was so simple that it shouldn’t have even worked, but it SO DID.) And I love the moment where, triumphant and battle-flushed, Sam finds Slynt hiding in the castle. It would have been funnier if Sam had literally handed him a torch, right? “There can only be one lowlander, and now it is you, my child.” Speaking of Slynt—he and Thorne finally distinguish themselves from each other. They might both be assholes, but one is a distinctly more respectable asshole than the other. Thorne is Bill O’Reilly, and Slynt is Glenn Beck. (Slynt’s Fox Newsiest moment is when he denies the existence of giants while looking directly at them.) After admitting to Jon Snow that he should have listened to him, Thorne makes (arguably too many) motivational speeches to his troops before finally valiantly (probably) dying in a battle against Big Red. When those two faced off, and I knew Thorne was going to bite it, I was honestly a little sad. Respect. There is no death too bloody for that Slynt motherfucker, though. How about that grand long take around the battle? I’m only going to dock it two points because Jon Snow and Big Red both appear to be too obviously waiting for their cues to start moving as the camera pans over to them (Jon Snow almost looks right at the camera, while Big Red is just shuffling in place like a Mortal Kombat character waiting to be selected). But it’s obvious realness still qualifies it to rank OVER the similar, digitally-stitched shot in The Avengers. (So on the overall power rankings, it is second only to True Detective’s still utterly-brain-rattling six minute shot from earlier this year. And before you ask: Gravity disqualified Alfonso Cuaron from the contest forever.) I’m also really happy to see random battle deaths more creative than the usual “back tap” you see in most of Game Of Thrones. (Pour one out for the Wildling who gets stomped by the mammoth. That’s gotta hurt!) And just generally, it was kind of amazing and beautiful to see something so refreshingly straightforward on this show, which so often muddles and twists its own lessons into meaninglessness. This was an episode about duty, and battle, and how people react in the face of adversity, and about the transcendent, all-consuming and all-important power of love. I would imagine that we’re done with the story of the men of the Night’s Watch for this season, if only because I don’t think there’s enough money left in the coffee can to bring in Ciaran Hinds this season. But I can’t wait to see more.

BLOGGING GAME OF THRONES, S4E08: I've Got A Name

There are two songs in Westeros, and they are always competing for the number one slot on the Billboard Two. Sometimes, in darker seasons, "The Rains Of Castamere" holds the top slot. But most of the time, it's "The Bear And The Maiden Fair." Bestiality is just more palatable to most Westerosi than having to contemplate Tywin Lannister's increasingly mottled skin for six and half minutes.

So OK, was that the most delightful episode of Game Of Thrones of all time? Other than the absolutely gut-wrenching, sickening, gory conclusion, I mean? Let's table the skull-crushing for just a moment or two and talk about the good stuff. There was so much to celebrate:

• Grey Worm and Missandei! GREY WORM AND MISSANDEI FOREVER!
• Evil Sansa! EVIL SANSA FOREVER!
• Jaime's coinage of the phrase "Who gives a dusty fuck?"
• Dany failing to understand why anyone would be ashamed of public nudity, as well as the way she wonders aloud whether Grey Worm still at least has his grey worm, if not his grey...balls. Sorry, there's just not a metaphorical other half, there.
• Tyrion's long, Spaulding Gray-like monologue about his mentally disabled cousin. So out of character for this show, and yet so welcome!
• Arya's howl of laughter when she reaches yet another family member just after their death--See, that was the kind of black-comic atmosphere that should have accompanied Lysa's fall last week. Arya just gets it, okay?

At the top of the episode, Ygritte and her gang, never the most inconspicuous of sleeper cells anyway, announce their presence to the Night's Watch by invading a nearby town and severely reducing the world's population of sarcastic prostitutes. Shoutout to that shot of blood raining down through the floorboards. Quentin Tarantino saw that and he was like "Fuck!"

Ramsay Bolton (née Snow) uses Theon as bait to lure a bunch of Ironmen to slaughter and win his daddy another Northern castle. Theon's Stockholm syndrome is pretty bad, but I'm also a little worried about my own, y'all. Iwan Rheon is a very compelling actor, and when his father Michael officially welcomes him to the Bolton family, I was really happy for him! Meanwhile, in Nightvale, Littlefinger and Sansa are amping up the weird, manipulative sexual tension. Who is the dom and who is the sub anymore? Can either of them even tell? Is that what makes it hot for them? What happens is, Sansa saves Littlefinger by unveiling a spectacular gift for doubletalk, telling the elders of The Vale a lot of truth about herself while claiming that Lysa committed suicide. They buy it, and pretty soon she and Petyr and prepping to drag Lil' Tigermilk out into the world, where they can hopefully shove him into a pond or something and be done with it.

Mereenwhile, Missandei and Grey Worm are making a play for Best Couple In Westeros, but coming in close behind them is the spectacular union of Dany and Pure Icy Hatred. Remember how, long ago, Jorah was selling trade secrets to Varys? Remember also how that fact pops up every five or six episodes like the plot equivalent of a snooze button? Well they finally, and for no particular reason, pull the trigger. Dany finds out and banishes Jorah, and even though it's a bummer, it's also kind of rad. Angry Dany is worth celebrating in any and all contexts. Isn't it cool how contained and laser-focused Dany's rage and contempt has become over the years? She's doing some fucking prescription-strength hissing these days. Respect.

Finally, the trial by combat for the head of Tyrion Lannister begins, and ends, and ends very badly. Ricky Martell overplays his hand, and after Inigo Montoya-ing the Mountain almost to death (to the visible delight of Jaime, who needs a better poker face. "Poker? I'm not even related to her!"-Jaime) instead gets his skull gorily crushed. A major character hasn't died that explosively since like, Viserys. And that guy deserved it way more! Pour one out for Ricky Martell tonight, gang. Not so much living la vida loca so much as la vida Lorca. What the hell am I even saying anymore? This has been a long season.