Missed last week’s episode, so I just saw both that and the latest tonight. Apparently I’m way behind the curve here, but that scene with Sansa and Littlefinger in the crypt is the first time that I put together the whole “hey, maybe Jon is Lyanna’s kid, not Eddards” thing. Not enough reading of the Internet (and that’s a good thing), but I finally caught on. The kiss and the “I’ll be a married woman” line also made me wonder if maybe they’ve gotten past first base. If he’d gotten her pregnant, maybe this gambit with marrying her to a Bolton makes a little more sense from his perspective. Best case Stannis takes the north and he comes back to marry Sansa, with a hold on both the North and the Eyrie. If Stannis fails, then they fall back on her getting married and finding a way to take out the Boltons without worrying about her carrying a Bolton child. It works without her being pregnant, but not quite as smoothly. Leaving to go south is a gamble to be sure, but if he knows something to cause the Lannisters grief (like, oh I don’t know, maybe proof of incest…do we really think he didn’t know?) and can get into a position to either blackmail them or use it to buy favor with their enemies, he’s sitting in an awfully good spot in all areas. All of this requires quite a bit of imagination, I grant you, but the multi-level intrigue and high-stakes gambling is in character for Littlefinger and his actions make more sense than they did two weeks ago.
I thought the bit with Theon/Reek and Sansa in the kennel and at dinner was pretty well done. Ramsey being an ass was nicely in character; it’s not wise to be physically sadistic so he’s working Sansa over mentally. Nice that they reminded us of the existence of Bran and Rickon, even though we’re not getting anything in their storyline this season. Then the bit where Roose puts Ramsey in his place with the “oh she’s pregnant” bit worked nicely as well, although that sure feels like a mistake by Roose unless he just wants Ramsey to be plotting to kill off ol’ Walda. Maybe he does, as was mentioned above.
The Sand Snakes feel like an add-on, thrown in to make the Jamie-Bronn thing more interesting. I did read the books (though it’s been long enough that I remember broad strokes rather than details), but if I hadn’t then I’d be wondering why they exist in the story at all. Horrible job at introducing them and the acting doesn’t impress, at least not yet. They’ll have to do something awfully cool in the second half of the season to be worth the screen time.
The Sons of the Harpy/Unsullied fight scene started off pretty bad, given that the Unsullied looked like rank amateurs when they’re supposed to be super-top-flight soldiers and all. Once it was down to just Grey Worm, then it made more sense, and Ser Berristan dying made sense to me as he was old, ill-equipped, and badly outnumbered. The thing between GW and Missandei is just awful…having them be friends would be fine but they keep throwing this sexual tension in that makes no sense whatsoever. I was actually hoping he’d die mainly so they’d stop it, but no such luck.
Disappointed in the lack of Arya, but at least we saw some dragons. The meal-of-roasted-master scene for Dany’s captive two worked well, I thought. And having Drogon fly above Jorah and Tyrion was pretty cool. Speaking of whom, I was mildly surprised they didn’t end the episode at the Tyrion drag-down, seemed like exactly the kind of cliff-hanger these shows love. Sick Jorah didn’t have the same punch.
Glad to see they have Stannis on the move, and Jon doing something more than sitting around Castle Black. I liked the scene where Jon turned down Melisandre, especially the know-nothing line at the end. Nice to see there’s someone in this epic that is willing to turn down sex when it’s a really bad idea. The Stannis-and-daughter scene was a nice humanizing touch for him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s setup for a choice between his daughter and sacrificing her in some way for victory. On Jon’s end, they did a pretty good job of showing how unpopular it is to be bringing in the wildlings, and set up the potential for all sorts of infighting once they get south of the wall.
Most of the King’s Landing stuff felt pretty boring, just setup for the inevitable explosion between the Tyrell and Lannister camps. The maneuvers by Cersei (get rid of Mace Tyrell on the mission to the bank, piss off Margary via the arrest of Lorras) were interesting and all, but it all just begs for the other shoe to drop. Unlike some I didn’t mind too much that the Sparrows focused on the homosexual relationships, because they’ve already established that it’s a major taboo, enough that even the high-born had to at least pretend to hide it until very recently. It makes perfect sense that a hard-line religious organization that finds itself suddenly with power and the support of the rulers would crack down hard on that particular depravity. They’d probably have a pretty poor opinion of incest, too, if someone happened to bring it to their attention. Don’t have to read any books to see that coming.
