Spoiler Alert: This is a review of season four, episode five of Game of Thrones. If you haven't watched the show -- or if you're behind -- then there are many spoilers included here. If you read beyond this point it's your fault, not anyone else's. Don't bitch at me.
Now that we've cleared that up:
Last night we officially hit the halfway point for season four, and it's been a pretty wild season four, filled with so much rape that the New York Times actually ran a front page story about all the rape in Game of Thrones. Yes. the New York Times, paper of record in our country, wrote a front page article about all the rapes in a fictional television show. That's how much GoT is at the center of the cultural landscape right now.
With that in mind, we're off.
1. I miss whether or not there's any nudity in this episode.
Why?
Because I'm on the elliptical catching up on "The Americans." I can't apologize, that's how bad asses roll, y'all.
(Seriously, can you think of a less masculine way to work out than the elliptical? And I say this as someone who has been using the elliptical for the past 13 years. What, you think you get a physique like this by accident?)
2. We have a new king crowned.
And try as I might, I can't figure out what his name is. Sure, I could look it up, but you expect me to do research for this column? The new king is kind and as he receives congratulations from his subjects, Margaery stands off to the side waving at him, igniting furious adolescent male sexual fantasies in his kind brain.
Until Cersei walks in and blocks the view.
Setting up what every single one of you thought would be the queen bitchfest between Cersei and Margaery.
3. Except Cersei doesn't go all ice queen bitch on her.
Instead, she confesses that Joffrey was cruel and terrifying and an awful human being who would have made a terrible king. Cersei attributes her love to the one redeeming quality she has had in the first 3.5 seasons of the show, her love for her children, "You never love anything in the world the way you love your first child," she says. Then she continues on her anti-Joffrey monologue, "The things he did shocked me," she says.
The duo decide that Margaery should marry the new king.
Which surprises every single one of you who had assumed it would be a major battle to convince Cersei that Margaery should marry the new king.
It seems that with Joffrey dead, Cersei is now able to release the queen bitch.
4. Tywin Lannister/Nick Saban confesses that the Lannister's have run out of gold. (This is also how I picture Nick Saban convincing Bill Battle that he needs to hire Lane Kiffin).
Uh oh, no gold?
This makes the double Tyrell marital union a necessity. Cersei accepts the lack of gold news with stoicism, but she continues to believe that Tyrion killed Joffrey, setting the scene for a major trial in the final five episodes of the show.
5. Daenerys decides not to attempt to take over the Iron Throne despite the ascension of the young Lannister whose name you and I don't know.
Instead she will remain behind and rule the kingdoms she has conquered as a queen.
That's great and all, but how do they not discuss the power of the dragons when it comes to whether or not she has the manpower to conquer Westeros? In point of order, where the hell are the dragons? She hasn't used them at all for the entire season. In fact, the only time we've seen them is when Daenerys was feeding them. Those dragons have grown a ton, who is the dragon keeper.
Where have they been all season and can we talk more about what would happen if the white walkers turned the dragons to white dragons? (Several of you emailed that the final fight in the show has to be between the dragons -- the fire -- and the white walkers -- the ice. I agree. Which means that there's no way Daenerys is dying.
6. As she's falling asleep Arya names all the people she wants to kill.
She ends the list with, "The Hound."
Later she will attempt to kill him by stabbing him in the stomach with her sword, the needle. Only the hound's wearing armor and knocks her down and mocks the swordsman who taught her how to fight. Regardless, Arya, who has now been on the road for over two entire seasons, is headed for her Aunt Lysa's kingdom, where, guess what, my least favorite character on the show just arrived.
Sansa!
7. Sansa is now in a new place where she has no control over her life.
At least some things never change in Game of Thrones.
Here Sansa is not allowed to be called Sansa, but her psycho aunt Lysa, who continues to breastfeed her 12 year old son Robin, marries Little Finger and confesses that she killed her husband at his request. That murder of the king's hand, John Arryn, led to Eddard Stark receiving the appointment as the next hand, forever altering the power dynamic in the kingdom and resulting in the first of many of the Stark deaths.
This is the first reveal of that fact that I can recall.
Now Little Finger marries Lysa and the two screw loudly all night long. Mercifully, we don't have to watch the two screw, we just have to watch Sansa listen to them screw, which is the perfect role for Sansa, who does nothing ever in the entirety of the show except watch other people screw her while not screwing herself.
Indeed, the latest perfect moment to encapsulate Sansa's role on the show comes when Lysa accuses her of sleeping with Little Finger and all Sansa can say in her defense is that she's a virgin. Of course, she's a virgin, she's never done anything in the history of the show, including have sex. As a result Sansa receives her third potential fiance, Robin, the creepy young adult who still breastfeeds off his mother. (Any doubt Robin is a boob man?)
By the way, in a show that takes creepy to a whole new level, how creepy is Lysa? The creepiest woman on the show by far, right? That entire conversation with Sansa was terrifying. Creepy is much more terrifying to me than just evil. Joffrey was evil, but his evil nature was predictable. Lysa? I have no idea what kind of freaky shit she's going to be into before this show is over.
8. Meanwhile, Cersei goes for a nice walk with Oberyn, who, of course, in the time he's not having orgies or killing men, writes poetry.
Likely about having orgies and killing men.
Cersei continues her comeback role as queen regent you used to hate but now kind of like when she says, "Everywhere in the world they hurt little girls." The New York Times, paper of record in the country, will doubtless put Cersei's words on the front page of the newspaper under this headline, "Westeros Queen Regent responds to fictional rapes."
9. Meanwhile, above the wall....
Bran and his traveling companions can see the future and the past and are just generally the weirdest group of traveling people possible. Consider, the following happens: Bran and Jojen share a mystical vision of a tree, Jojen tells his captors, "I saw you die tonight," which immediately goes down as one of the baddest ass things you could ever say while tied up in a tent in a frozen wasteland while a band of armed men prepare to rape your sister, Bran goes inside Hodor, who turns into a beast, rips free of his chains, and picks up the man kidnapping Bran -- for what reason? -- gruesomely snapping his neck in the process. (This means that guy has a really short starring turn on the show. One episode he's introduced as a good fighter, the next episode he agrees to go to the north, and the next episode Hodor kills him. Hope he didn't buy a new house upon being cast in the show).
(Edit: evidently this guy was in the show before and was sent to find the actual Stark children. This is why you can't trust me to remember all these characters. Anyway, he's dead now, I got that right.)
We learn one very important lesson: you don't want to mess with Bran when he goes inside Hodor's body.
Since Jon Snow has arrived to kill the rest of the night watchmen who have rebelled, you think that at least we'll get a reunion between Jon and Bran, a short moment of happiness in a show that focuses only on death, dismemberment and rape.
But, alas, Jojen says the two can't meet or Bran won't be able to fulfill his destiny of meeting the three-eyed raven and a mystical tree.
10. Meanwhile Jon Snow is fighting the guy who called everyone cunts last episode and that guy's really good with knives.
The guy with knives spits in Jon's face, gaining an advantage that appears to lead to Snow's death. Until one of the women he's been raping for the past month stabs him in the back. As he attempts to kill her for killing him, Snow, from out of nowhere! -- wrestling voice -- stabs the knife guy through the back of the head and out the open mouth with his sword.
Leading to one of the baddest ass death scenes ever, a sword coming out through the open mouth of a guy for the kill shot.
Yay, Jon Snow!
11. The happiest moment of season four arrives!
Jon Snow is reunied with his dire wolf, which has just killed the lone remaining member of the night watchmen's rebellion.
Embrace this moment of brief happiness as best you can, it won't be long until more death and rape arrive.
