Julia, Kylie, and Caroline, bringing you the Unabashed Book Snobbery Podcast this season, are joined by Fandomental reviewer Jess, who we hope manages to keep her sanity for 5 more weeks. Just what will go down in Game of Thrones 7×03, “The Queen’s Justice?” Probably whatever Saint Tyrion decides!
If you’d like to play Book Snob BINGO, cards may be found on Kylie’s personal blog here. Otherwise, you can find an archive of our livechat just below our social share buttons at the bottom of this post.
Our Reactions to the Episode
Kylie
What is this war? Who are these characters? I’m so confused. Like…there were scenes that actually had smart moments in them. Legitimately smart. Cheryl telling the Iron Bank that revolutionaries aren’t a good investment? Yes! Jonny getting egg all over his face for ignoring Sansa’s advice and showing up by himself with just Davos? Yes! Sam not randomly graduating Citadel College? Yes! But then…this war doesn’t make the first bit of sense in terms of who’s going where, why anyone is taking anything, why anyone is listening to anything, and why assertions are happening. Gah!
Highlight: I remember liking Mel and Davos’s scene and saying that it worked for me in a void. Varys was appropriately threatening, unlike his kindly Marxist “think of the children” demeanor that we usually see. Mel seemed like she legitimately had grown from the past, but there was that odd foreboding quality that she has. And Conleth Hill and Carice Von Houten know what they’re doing, forreal. Too bad they haven’t been giving anything worthwhile in some time.
I haven’t the foggiest what this means or affects in the larger context of the show, but boy it was fun to hear a conversation that was actually a back-and-forth.
Lowlight: Bran the Emotionless Exposition Bot. You know, I remember Max Von Sydow emoting as Three Eyed Raven. In fact, there was that one scene where he was pretty close to tears for one of those home videos, if I recall correctly. I don’t know why being the Three Eyed Crow means Bran now can’t show any enthusiasm for his family, and prefers to just sit back and coldly/creepily bring up Sansa’s rape.
The scene was kind of helped along by Sansa acting like, you know, a normal person. “What does this actually mean?” “You’re the Lord of Winterfell!” Frankly, I wanted to join her running away from him. But it’s just devastating that this is what they’re conceiving of for his character.
Let’s hope the Northern Lords accept his reasoning for not taking his seat.
Julia
Well, that “fast pace, go-go-go” finally showed up with a vengeance, because man did we go places this episode. Pooh Bear got from Cheryl’s Landing all the way around Weisseroff to Casterly Rock, and Larry got from Cheryl’s bed to Olenna’s sitting room. Honshu would be proud of this public transportation system. Though Weissroff seems to be considerably smaller so…
Highlight: I was oddly satisfied by the last scene of the episode and Larry and Olenna’s conversation. Maybe it’s because Diana Rigg can act and both her and the character’s joy at being free was palpable. But this episode was actually quite good at convincing me that Cheryl is a little terrible, what with the Faullaria torture, so Olenna’s assertions didn’t sound as stupid as they did last season. And she was fucking classy, not going to lie.
Larry, though. I have no fucking clue what this character is. They’ve been seeding him and Cheryl having relationship problems since season 4 and it has yet to happen. This episode he was a true believer in Making Weisseroff Great Again, I think?
Runner up was the bit of the script that were actually funny, like Jonny’s sexy brooding and Deadpan calling Saint Tyrion on his wiseman stuff.
Also Runner up: that scene with Mel and Varys worked for some reason. I don’t really know why though.
Lowlight: Was I the only one massively, hilariously disappointed with Casterly Rock? How is it in any way an impregnable fortress? It was just a generic castle on a cliff. You could scale the walls with ladders for fuck’s sake.
And Cheryl is engaged to a magician who does Bar Mitzvahs and private parties, as far as I can tell.
I have no feeling about Tyene dying, before anyone asks. I have feelings about stuff, but you have to have a character before I care about a character dying.
Caroline
Highlight: My highlight is a very discrete moment of good, humorous writing that worked with both the characters—it was the moment on Dragonstone in the map room between Dany and Tyrion. Tyrion does his “A wise man once said XYZ” thing, and Dany calls him out on it in an actually nuanced way. She first questions what wise man said XYZ, to which Tyrion responds, “…I don’t remember.” Dany then basically accuses Tyrion of pretending his own quotes are old wise men’s quotes, and Tyrion tries to deny it but fails. The moment works because it actually seems like something these characters would say, both Dany realizing Tyrion’s BS and this being the kind of BS Tyrion would try to pass. Overall it was comical, and in isolation it worked. Literally like 5 lines of dialogue worked. #winning
Runner up is any time Ser Davos speaks, because I love his book counterpart and I can at least project that onto the screen. He had some good lines this episode!
Lowlight: I think my primary lowlight was Bran. Everything about his re-introduction to Winterfell was bad. His hyper-blah acting, the fact that he is somehow not the Lord of Winterfell since he’s the three eyed raven (“It’s hard to explain”), and even the logistics of him traveling to Winterfell from the wall. Did Meera drag him? Did Ed not give them a wayn or something? So many questions, and yet I care so little. Brittany tried to act in that scene—and she embodied all of us with her “I don’t know what that means” and her awesome shrug—but it didn’t help. Bran is like your college roommate in freshman year who is always high and wants to watch weird indie movies with you. I just don’t get him, or this plot.
Close runner-up is just the logistics in general of this nightmare. I’m gonna need to print out a map and look this over again. So Fleet1 (Faullaria + Swahbuckling Bisexual) was sailing from Dragonstone to somewhere in the south (??), encountered Evhul Ironborn, and was killed. Somehow Fleet2 (Unsullied + Dothraki) sailed the same way (south to circumnavigate the continent) but did NOT encounter the 1,000 Evhul ships. And then the 1,000 Evhul ships went back to Cheryl’s Landing, then went all the way around to Casterly Rock and got there before Fleet2 (must have gotten there before so they could hide and lay the trap). And in this time Johnny got from Winterfell (which is quite a ways inland) to Dragonstone? I am lost.
