It’s a new year, and a new season for our Game of Thrones rewatch project, The Wars to Come. We now enter Season 4, or what we used to think of as “the last of the good ones” before the quality from showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss (D&D) took a nosedive. Will we still feel this way? Is it possible that Season 4 is mildly better at first, as Bo had suggested in our Season 3 podcast? Kylie, Julia, Katie, and Jess are ready to investigate the case with the opener, “Two Swords.”
Episode Recap
Jon survived his run-in with arrows! However, it’s hardly a Swiss picnic for him at Castle Black. Sam tells him of Robb’s death, and then Jon has to go before Thorne, Slynt, and Maester Aemon to try and defend his actions. It’s clear that Thorne and Slynt want him to be executed as a traitor, but Aemon seems to understand what happened, and tells Jon that he is free to go about his duties.
Ygritte’s party, meanwhile, meets up with a ferocious Wildling clan called the Thenns south of The Wall. Tormund and Ygritte are clearly uncomfortable with their cannibalism, though Tormund also has reason to doubt Ygritte; she lets it slip that Jon is still alive, and he realizes it’s because she let him get away.
Down in the riverlands, Sandor tells Arya that his new plan is to sell her to her Aunt Lysa. On their way, they come across an inn, and Arya recognizes Polliver among the few Lannister guards—the man who killed Lommy and stole Needle when she was taken to Harrenhal. They head inside where the Hound is quickly recognized. Polliver tries to make small-talk with the Hound, while his companions harass the innkeeper’s daughter who they plan to rape, but when it’s clear that Sandor is not on their side, a fight breaks out. Arya helps the Hound by killing a guard, before stealing back Needle from Polliver—and cruelly executing him the same way he did Lommy. They leave, Arya now with a horse of her own to ride.
Across the narrow sea, Dany and her party approach Meereen, now with the newly freed slaves of Yunkaii following as well. Daario tells her that she needs to learn the land before she can rule the people. As they approach, they find a corpse of a young girl strung up, a slave collar around her neck. Jorah informs Dany that there’s a dead child on every mile marker to Meereen. When he offers to have men ride ahead to bury them first, Dany refuses, saying that she wants to look at every child’s face they come across.
Finally, in King’s Landing, everyone adjusts to the changed dynamic in the war. Tywin has Ice melted into two Valyrian steel swords, one of which he gives to Jaime. He tells Jaime that he wants him to leave the Kingsguard to inherit Casterly Rock, but Jaime refuses out of some semblance of duty. Tywin lets him keep one of the new swords, saying, “a one-handed man with no family needs all the help he can get.”
Tyrion, Pod, and Bronn wait for the arrival of the Dornish Prince Doran, who is meant to attend the wedding. However, the Dornish party that arrives informs them it’s the younger brother, Prince Oberyn, who will be coming, and that he already is inside the city. This prince and his paramour Ellaria are at Littlefinger’s brothel, where they are about to have a foursome until Oberyn overhears another patron singing “Rains of Castamere.” A fight ensues and Oberyn stabs his wrist just as Tyrion walks in. Outside the brothel, Oberyn reminds Tyrion that Gregor Clegane raped and murdered his sister, and killed his niece and nephew too, and that Gregor takes orders from Tywin. He’s come to King’s Landing for justice revenge.
Sansa is still not doing well after the news of her mother and Robb, and will not eat, even at Shae and Tyrion’s behest. She goes to the Godswood to be alone, though Dontos Hollard—the drunken knight she saved before—finds her. He tells her that he’s indebted to her, and hands her a necklace that had belonged to his mother, asking if she’d wear it for him.
Shae tries to have sex with Tyrion while Sansa is still away, but Tyrion refuses. He seems to be struggling with their relationship. Another maid overhears their quarrel.
Meanwhile, Cersei gives Jaime a golden hand to cover his stump. He tries to have sex with her, but she refuses, saying Jaime was away for “too long.” The maid then interrupts them to tell Cersei of what she heard.
Later, Jaime discusses planned security for the royal wedding with Joffrey in the White Sword Tower. Joffrey pays little attention, and then flips through the White Book that details the good deeds of Kingsguard members. He makes fun of Jaime for not having anything on his page. Afterwards, Jaime and Brienne discuss what to do about Sansa. Jaime points out that there’s nowhere for them to take her, and there’s nowhere she’d be safer, though it’s clear Brienne disapproves.
She later visits Olenna and Margaery, who are trying to figure out jewelry for the royal wedding. Margaery makes it clear to her grandmother that she does not like Joffrey, though Olenna warns her to be careful. They are both pleased to see Brienne, and Brienne tells Margaery the truth of Renly’s death: that it was a shadow with the face of Stannis. She vows to avenge their king, but Margaery cautions her that Joffrey is their king now.
Will the wedding live up to the hype? Will the Thenns feast on anyone else? We’ll find out next week, but first, let’s discuss what we just watched.
Initial, quick reaction
Kylie: Season 3 was a lot worse than I remember it, so when Bo mentioned on our podcast that Season 4 might be better overall at first, I instantly believed it. This episode though was an odd experience for me. I think it was potentially better in quality, but I found myself rolling my eyes so much. Even the stuff that worked was quickly overshadowed by what didn’t work, and by the knowledge of what everything was going to lead to throughout this season and series (Dornish portrayals, for instance). I remember watching this the first time, finally with knowledge of all the books, and being so excited for what was set up. Watching this, I felt drained by the end of it.
Julia: All my close friends, Kylie included, will attest to the fact that I was hype to start season 4. (“The Dornish are coming, the Dornish are coming!”) But now that I’ve actually watched it, man was this episode a slog. It wasn’t boring exactly, but it took me forever. Maybe because the Showberyn brothel scene fill me will so much shame that I kept pausing it to stalk about the room, exhaling huffily. I recognize that my emotional attachment to this fictional principality is not healthy, but it’s not going to change at this point.
Lord Blackmont, man.
Katie: You know, I’m not sure that there was anything as egregiously bad as there was back in 3×10, but this episode seemed filled with wasted potential and a bad tendency to meander. There were moments I enjoyed, but there were so many more bad moments that take on an ominous air knowing that they are the shape of things to come. I’m bored by Dany’s scenes even under the best of circumstances but when we have NewDaario saying “I’d rather have no brain and two balls” as if it were the most clever thing in the world, I just feel… tired? Defeated? Knowing that’s essentially the writer’s room thesis statement going forward really casts a pall over everything else.
Jess: I was almost anticipating worse at first, just because I just have it in my head that season 4 is the tipping point into the egregiously bad that is season 5 and beyond, so when we had that cold open that’s done pretty well I felt pleasantly surprised. However, I think just like when there were even more positives on the first two seasons of rewatch, it almost makes all the nonsense harder to swallow. It’s the frustration that to a base level they either understand some themes of the source material and just don’t even care about them, or they occasionally just hit on one by accident without meaning to. Either way, the episode did start to slog towards the end and I felt myself literally recoil whenever we started the taste of the Pornish and the massive fuck you to Jaime and Sansa’s arc.
Highlights/lowlights
Kylie: I’ve got a lot of competition in my mind for the lowlight, but I’m truthfully drawing a little bit of a blank for what worked best. Oberyn’s introduction was such a mixed bag for me, knowing the hypersexualization of the Dornish on this show and how he’s going to spend his entire season living in a brothel. Though it was a mini-highlight to see Ellaria again, and an Ellaria who was actually not super into slaughtering all Lannisters on sight.
I guess the scene that worked best was the one between Jaime and Tywin, which is not exactly a shock given it was mostly from Jaime VII in A Storm of Swords. I did also like Oberyn’s monologue about Elia to Tyrion, even if a good deal of that sequence bothered me.
For lowlight, I’m going to settle on the final sequence with Arya, though the Shae/Tyrion scene gives it a nice run for its money. (Also Lord Blackmont or the cannibal Thenns.) It’s not just the chicken joke, or the background rape threat—frankly, it wasn’t exactly far from the books in tone there or anything. It’s more that the sum total of the scene was overly long, unnecessarily violent, and clearly done so in a way that we were meant to cheer on Arya. I found it tiring and gross to watch, and it’s a case where that visceral experience is winning out over my intellectual discontent with other aspects of the episode.
Also make note: this was D&D’s first attempt to adapt some of the Mercy sample chapter. Remember when Martin released it right before this airing because he was worried the dialogue didn’t work in that context?
Julia: Remeber when GRRM had f-cks to give about the show?
I think the cold open is by far the most effective scene in the episode. The music is as wonderful as ever, and I’m all about Tywin’s tiny little smile at the end of it. It’s almost like something the real Tywin would do.
I agree that the lowlight contenders are a crowded field indeed. I’d like to add the scene where Jaime (who I think is now officially Larry) is talking himself out of all responsibility for Sansa, even though earlier in the episode we sat through a scene that was about him being sad about his shit-for-honor.
If I had to choose the point where my spirits were the lowest, it would have to be the second half of the brothel scene, where Showberyn says “you Lannisters suck because you think you’re better than everyone!” Like, really? That’s the best you can do? You’re one of the most well-educated men in Westeros and that’s the best shit-talk you can come up with? I was just so disappointed.
Katie: I quite enjoyed the cold open as well, and I think it’s telling that it’s a scene where they let the visuals do the storytelling for them. For my lowlight I’ll pick the Cannibal Thenns, both because it’s a bad scene and kind of the antithesis of that open. There’s zero faith in the audience. Rather than giving some clear, simple shorthand about who these dudes are, we get an interminable scene where they monologue about how they are bad men, accompanied by an endless, obvious, dumb cannibal reveal. The scene drags on forever, topped by “you really ought… to try… CROW” as if it were this shocking, clever revelation. It’s poorly employed shock value, dragged out at the expense of any real narrative development.
I’ll also second Kylie’s highlight of the Tywin/Jaime scene. They both felt… like… people? Interacting with another person? It was a nice surprise and relief, that resulted in the my bar being far too high for the rest of the episode.
Jess: Definitely agree with the Tywin/Jaime scene as a highlight. Even if it felt lacking just because of its placement in the story/the weird shifting around of Jaime’s narrative. The Joffrey/Jaime White Book scene was also a highlight for me. It felt like a pretty decent and natural way to externalize Jaime’s internal thoughts about honor and his own legacy. If only that went somewhere and we didn’t have him shoving that same book off the table to fuck Cersei at the other end of this season. I truly don’t understand what they were trying to do with Jaime this entire season or any of the following. They tease at that book arc so often but always immediately backtrack on it.
For a lowlight there are quite a few. Pedro Pascal is so good as Oberyn it really hurts to even think about his intro scene as one, but just the overall writing and context of throwing him into a brothel as well as the weird bestiality jokes enraged me. I will say the dynamic between him and Ellaria was so refreshing. I would 100% agree it’s pretty great to see her as an actual character and not a mustache twirling villain. I think I’ll second Katie’s overall lowlight with the Thenns. It’s just writing at its laziest and there’s only more to come.
Also just the overall discarding of Sansa’s story is a lowlight and is especially felt in the episode that leads up to the purple wedding, but that’s pretty much too far gone at this point. But to see a random Dontos and be reminded of how much of her story is done to her and how little agency she ever has is just further proof on a never ending list that they do not care about Sansa Stark.
Quality of writing
Julia: The final scene with Arya and Sandor is a perfect example of that awkwardness that sometimes takes over the dialogue. It was just so inorganic.
Katie: D&D have this truly horrible habit of pacing scenes to highlight a line of dialogue that they think is terribly clever. It feels as if there’s an implicit “wait for it…” and “wasn’t that great?” built into scenes like the Cannibal Thenns, Daario and Grey Worm’s sword-off, and pretty much anytime Olenna talks. I’m biased by this point, but I’ve also become convinced that instead of telling a story D&D’s priority is to pat themselves on the back for how great they’re doing throughout their own script.
Kylie: The Cannibal Thenns should be taught in every screenwriting class as an example of what not to do. That was just…awful.
Katie, I think you’re right that they’re well into a self-congratulatory mode. Olenna’s scripting is the prime example of that, really, where it’s just “look how FUNNY she is!” She’s tossing jewelry into shrubbery and insulting members of her own house, but sure, that landed.
I also was a bit annoyed that Sansa told Tyrion she doesn’t pray and wants to be left alone. It’s not just that it ignores the whole thing about Sansa’s character (flying under the radar with a mask of courtesy and never confiding in her gaolers), but it was also hideously obvious. This episode is a great look at how D&D value the intellect of their watchers.
Jess: This episode had moments where clearly if they really try they can write (Tywin/Jaime scene) but so many more moments where there were kernels of something somewhere that they never really uncover. The Arya/Sandor scene is definitely a good example, Julia. It feels like writing. It was also SO LONG. Not to mention their continual, problematically positive framing of violence.
Kylie: I’m still a little confused why they thought the chicken lines were so amazing that they were worth referencing seasons later. It’s…humor?
Julia: Also a hilarious leitmotif? Eunuchs. Did you know the Unsullied are eunuchs? They have no balls. Gosh, I’d rather have no brain.
What. Who approved that line?
Kylie: Also, “How many Dornishman does it take to f-ck a goat?”. If you thought this was going to be an exploration of in-verse prejudice, you haven’t been paying attention.
Our 8th grade book report (on themes)
Julia: There was a beautiful parallel I found between Oberyn and Sansa, where they both described the gory deaths of family members in detail based on rumors. That’s a theme, right?
There might be something to the title that is more than literal? Tywin has mutilated and torn apart the Seven Kingdoms just like he destroyed Ice and forged it into these two swords that are clearly not its equal. And he gives them to his two “heirs” Jaime and Joffrey, who he doesn’t respect either. Swords that will ultimately contribute nothing at all to the show at large. It kind of highlights the pointlessness of the War of Five Kings.
Katie: Oh wow! Good job, Julia. I feel like you could build a really strong season opener off the first theme that you mentioned. There’s a lot of talk in this episode about the war being over (nearly always accompanied by someone saying it’s not). That seems like a good time for an episode centered on lingering resentments about the past bubbling up to effect the present, even after the “real” war is over. You could have a really thematically tight episode built around that, with Oberyn at the center! But this episode seems to sorta lose that thread by the second half of the episode. Brienne talking about Renly could have fit in (and even Arya and Polliver, I guess), but the episode felt too rambling and stretched out by that point for it to really work.
Kylie: That leaves the Wildling theater out of the theme a bit, but that’s been disconnected for a while. Dany too. But I’m sure not finding anything that really links them.
Jess: Yeah I think that’s the closest we can really get to theme here. There are hints at the repercussions of war and the devastation, along with the people left behind but overall it’s hard to really feel any of this as a strong point when we are supposed to cheer for the stabbing that ends the episode.
Kylie: Maybe “things that go stabby” is a better theme? We have the swords, Oberyn’s dagger, Ygritte’s arrows, Daario and Grey Worm balancing their weapons, Needle…heck even some of that Reach jewelry looked sharp. D&D: decent at motifs, thin on themes.
The Butterfly Effect (cracks in the plaster)
Kylie: I’d argue that the praise D&D already received at this point for “going there” and showing stuff that’s “so messed up” (Theon torture, for instance), is how we arrived at things like the cannibal Thenns. It’s not that there aren’t cannibal wildlings in the books, because we know there are, but why the one tribe they decided to fully characterize was this over-the-top and incredibly different from their book counterparts is not exactly a mystery. What do the Thenns even add to the narrative? That we like Tormund and Ygritte more by extension?
Katie: Honestly, I think they just missed having a Ramsey scene to write? Toss in some cartoonish cannibal villains instead!
Julia: I don’t know, maybe to raise the stakes for the battle for the Wall. We definitely don’t want those guys rampaging through Weisseroff, I guess.
I totally forgot this existed, but they’re trying to set up Shae’s shocking betrayal with Mini-Maid overhearing them arguing and then going to report to Cersei, right? Like, Shae is so mad that Tyrion won’t commit (though she wasn’t interested in a manse and possible secret family last year…) and that Sansa wouldn’t eat her lunch that she’s totally going to throw her under the bus and then fuck Tywin with Cersei’s encouragement, and the viewer should be able to put this all together later based on this one scene? Right?
Katie: Oh, yikes, is that really all there is? That’s… oof. Maybe that’s my lowlight. I’m not sure there’s any real way to make the end of Shae’s storyline make much sense with her show-persona rather than book persona, but… try harder than that?
Julia: Maybe they have another fight next week? I’m not sure.
Jess: Yeah there might be one more fight. Isn’t next week the episode he tries to get her to leave by telling her he could “never love a wh*re”? Don’t quote me on that. But still. It still doesn’t fix the issues with trying to make their love story real while still leaving the same outcomes of a version where their love isn’t.
Kylie: It’s a hot mess, is what it is. But kudos to Mini-Maid for procuring the star witness, I suppose. It’s shocking that she never ended up working for Littlefinger when all was said and done.
Also is this an appropriate place to yell about LORD Blackmont and the dudely dudes of Dorne? I don’t think it’s possible that this detail was just missed, since they went to the trouble of listing out sigils, so was it that D&D felt equal primogeniture would take too long to explain, or be ~unbelievable~ on their dragon show?
Remember adaptation?
Julia: I’m going to let the rest of you all speak to how the Dornish were adapted, because anything I can say will just be incoherent ranting, and no one wants to read that.
Katie: I’ll echo what Kylie said above, it was nice to see a glimmer of an Ellaria who is not just the Personification of Histrionic Revenge. Her desire to keep Oberyn from murdering the first overt Lannisters in King’s Landing is a good moment. But… everything else about their early scenes really does highlight all the problems to come, huh? It’s almost as if you set up an entire culture on the flimsy platform of Foreign, Sexually Aggressive, and Violent and never bother about character development from there, bad storytelling happens!
Julia: So, besides the Pornish, there are two plotlines left that we can say are still more or less faithful. Dany’s story is pretty on track and pretty intact. So is the main plot in King’s Landing. The one specifically that involves the Purple Wedding and the consequences thereof, but the characterization isn’t nearly as faithful as in the Dany plot. I suppose you can make an argument that Arya is still in her book plot, since they are chilling out in the riverlands in both.
Julia: Question. Is anyone else a pedantic enough nerd that when Aemon said he grew up in King’s Landing, you though, “huh, I thought he grew up in Summerhall…”
Katie: I was not, Julia, but I love and admire that pedantry, good job.
Kylie: Is this the best place to talk about Jaime’s characterization on the show, btw? We have the benefit of knowing that Jaime ends Season 4-6 doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down on how into Cersei he is, and how he’s going to step up to be the best dad to her kids he can. Feast-Dance, meanwhile, takes Jaime on a journey that is best characterized as “polar opposite.”
My main question here is: surely they knew Jaime was ending the season banging Cersei in the White Tower. With that, what did they view as being the point of this scene with Tywin? And then, why on earth did they have that scene with Jaime telling Brienne his vow didn’t matter much? If he wanted to stay in the Kingsguard because of some sense of honor and duty over his father’s wishes, shouldn’t that have affected other aspects of his scripting? Isn’t the point that his experiences changed him? Or is him ignoring his vow to Cat just seeding how much he commits to Cersei, and the Oathkeeper conversation was purely incidental?
Jess: Yeah I’d echo everything Kylie says. Especially with a question mark because it is truly a mystery. For some reason, they want to both have scenes about honor, legacy, and self worth and scenes of unhealthy damaging sibling incest. This is the season where his storyline starts to meander, and the further they get into the season, the less they decide they want to adapt his book plotline. It all feels like they had a bunch of storyline ideas written on pieces of paper, threw them up into the air and jumbled them around, then pasted them all back together. Nothing makes sense tangentially.
Carol Watch: who is Cersei this week?
Kylie: God, I can’t even tell you what character this is. Cersei’s writing is so all over the place this season, which is how we get Jaime “forcing himself on her” in two episodes, only for her to double down on how much she loves him and doesn’t care about social backlash to the point that she confronts her dad about it in the finale. This episode isn’t a whole lot better. Jaime is back early, and D&D didn’t want them to have sex until the sept scene presumably, so she’s just…on her period? Hurt that he “left” even though he was quite literally captured and she knew that? Indifferent at his return?
What were the suspicious symptoms that Qyburn helped her with too? What was the point of that?? These two spend the next three seasons being super in love and committed to one another, until Jaime decides he’s not, so it’s not even like sowing the seeds of Cersei keeping stuff from Jaime has a payoff. It really just seemed like she had a gyno appointment she didn’t want to talk about.
Julia: I think the priority in this episode was Jaime and how sad he was and how no one loved him and his mid-life crisis. So, what was important is that she be unreasonably mean to him. Because we all know it’s impossible for writers to track two characters at once.
But hey, her recitation of her troubles was so relatable!
Jess: That conversation with Qyburn was so weird. Do we ever find out what that was? They were definitely going for empathy at times but overall it was not a very strong episode for her when we’re about to go into purple wedding. If anything, we should have had more of a Cersei focus this episode.
Kylie: I’m pretty sure we never find out the results of that. I remember people on westeros.org were all speculating that she had been pregnant via someone she slept with off-scene, and it was seeding Jaime breaking up with her. But then like…the rest of the season happened. Perhaps we’re just supposed to be happy that she found a less creepy gyno; I know there’s some comment about Pycelle regarding that in the next episode.
Exposition Imposition: good or clunky?
Julia: As I mentioned, Sansa and Oberyn both did a great job expositing on how their family members died. Arya reminded us of how Lommy died to season 2, so did Brienne about how Renly died. I suppose the Dornish introduction counts as exposition as well, since we learned so much about those characters and their culture. Ditto for the Thenns. Though maybe that exposition was just too subtle. (I believe the hidden subtext might be that they’re cannibals. It’s hard to tell.)
Kylie: I think the exposition was more good than bad, but where it was clunky, it was a goddamn elephant crashing through a glass floor. Pod listing the sigils was a good touch, and pretty organic in how it came up. The other side of that is pop-up Dontos. But in general there’s not too much to comment out outside of Oberyn’s monologue.
How was the pacing?
Julia: I mean, it probably wouldn’t have taken so long to watch if I could sit through certain scenes without breaking down.
Katie: I think it started out okay? There were… issues with some of the early scenes, but the Tywin/Jaime scene and the Dorne introductions at least move the plot along and set up genuine character motivation and conflict for a new season. Beyond that, though, we tread a lot of water. Jon tells us stuff we already know, and no one actually thinks he’s going to get executed. Arya sees Polliver, says she wants to kill Polliver, then… I dunno, what feels like 45 minutes later kills Polliver. Dany’s early scene with her dragons was interesting and could have been built upon, but instead she just powers up more aloof flirting and generic sadness about slavery. None of them are given anything new or pressing to worry about, and the plot/pacing flounders around them.
Jess: Overall started out okay, but then started to slow down. I second the Arya scene feeling like forever. I might have fallen asleep a little on rewatch and woke back up to it still going on. Why was that scene so long?!
Kylie: You know…dramatic tension or something. I agree with everyone else that its beginning wasn’t bad at all. It’s just that the effective scenes, even in King’s Landing, were front-loaded too. The Tyrell jewelry scene was certainly better than watching the drawn out fight, but it’s certainly where I began looking at the remaining runtime.
Let’s talk about sex, baby
Kylie: Oberyn likes it his way, and Ellaria is bored by timid sex.
Julia: Oberyn was kinda rapey with Olyvar, wasn’t he? No means Yes when you’re a prince, I guess. But can we talk about how Carol had an abortion apparently?
Katie: It was super rapey! Or, at very least, had really gross power dynamics in play for the first introduction of two important characters. Like, I very much want to be on board for a fun bisexual quadrangle! Have fun, guys! But of course they had to put it into a context where the non-Oberyn-and-Ellaria participants… are literally not allowed to say no, and are reminded of that when they attempt to. I dunno, just another example of prioritizing shock value over story and characterization. Instead of actually attempting to introduce these characters in a meaningful way (which could certainly include their sexuality!), there’s a long, long scene that basically conveys “wow, aren’t these new people exotic and sexually aggressive?!” Which… well, we know how this plotline goes.
(I do have to admit laughing at Tyrion walking into the room to Oberyn yanking his knife out of a Lannister wrist, though).
Kylie: I do also raise an eyebrow at D&D’s desperation to adapt Oberyn and Ellaria’s bisexuality so blatantly, early, and often. Actually…I don’t. It’s because they think what makes Dorne unique is fighting and fucking, and even if it’s not so egregious yet, it’s the start of it. However, it’s worth the note that in the books it’s basically only brought up once to Tyrion that Oberyn and Ellaria might want to have a threesome with a blonde chick, and a lot of that was Oberyn doing all he could to freak Tyrion out in the context.
Jess: Oh yeah that Oberyn scene is all kinds of questionable. Why was the non-consensual sex work even thrown in there? We already had five minutes of them picking out a girl to sleep with. At that point if we were trying to show bisexuality in the most hamfisted way possible, why couldn’t it just be a lineup of both male and female sex workers? It is insanely obvious however that they failed to read beyond the skewed perspective Tyrion has of them in the books.
In memoriam…Polliver & co., children on the mile markers to Meereen
Julia: Where’s that chart we made of Arya’s kills adapted?
Kylie: I got you covered:
Worth noting we made that after Season 5, before we got the wonderful Walder Frey murder. The insurance salesman is still kicking, though.
That chopped up Mercy dialogue was pretty bad. I don’t remember it sticking out that much.
Katie: RIP Ice! You were a good sword, don’t listen to Tywin insisting you were “absurdly large.”
Kylie: It’s not like Tywin would understand the military applications of a greatsword or anything.
I thought the children on the way to Meereen were effective, and not lingeringly gratuitous in the way say, Olly’s death ends up being. But “Mhysa” really only made any struggles I’ve had with Dany’s character worse, and I just wish anyone else was the focal point in this theater.
However, we’ll have to wait for the next few weeks for that discomfort to get ratcheted up even more. What did you guys think of “Two Swords”? Are we overstating the Polliver scene? Please let us know in the comments below, and otherwise we wish you good fortune in The Wars to Come.
