In the near-rapiest episode of Game of Thrones yet, several main characters are nearly violated, another has his virginity taken by three grateful hookers, and Hot Pie says farewell with history's first Animal Cracker. Let's dig in.
The opening titles tell us that we will visit Riverrun this week. Sure enough, the episode kicks off with the biggest waste of a canoe I've ever seen: Catelyn's dead father is loaded into a boat, sent down the river, and then lit on fire by flaming arrow - and no, I don't mean Oliver Queen. [rimshot]
Well, it takes four arrows and two men to take care of torching papa, but eventually this guy does the deed:
Apparenly the first guy to attempt the cremation was Robb's uncle, who also blew it when it came to waiting patiently for the Mountain to come to him like Robb (Richard Madden) instructed - instead, Uncle Archer attacked and instead of capturing the Mountain they lost a lot of soldiers and gained a mill. Robb's not happy, and neither is Greybeard Nic Cage here.
Back in the KL, Tywin (Charles Dance) gathers his cabinet, which of course contains the ever-fabulous Varys (Conleth Hill), Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen), some old dude whose name I can't remember, Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), and Cersei (Lena Headey). Cersei starts the first day of school off right by dragging her chair to Tywin's right hand. Tyrion counters this Alpha Mean Girl cafeteria move by dragging his chair to the head of the table.
Cersei then rolls her eyes for about 20 minutes as the men discuss like finance and sh*t - Littlefinger is getting married to an Aryn, and Tyrion is being given the title of Master of Coin. Is that like King of Kong? No, it's basically being named Class Treasurer - better keep close tabs on those prom tickets, Tyrion! Your application to Penn State is riding on this.
We then catch up with Brienne (Gwendolyn Christie) and Jamie (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who are still trying to land a spinoff deal, Laverne & Shirley style: their latest ploy involves being bound, back-to-back, on a horse, while they banter about rape. I smell a lead-in to Go On with Matthew Perry!
Over at whereverthehelltheyare, Arya (Maisie Williams) asks The Hound (Rory McCann) if he can remember the last time he was there, but his captors throw a bag over his head (THANK YOU) and load him onto a cart. Her beardy new friend is being nice to her even though he knows she's a Stark. And before she and Gendry (Joe Dempsie) can hop their horse outta town, Hot Pie (his real name) tells her that he's staying behind to bake bread. He gives her a loaf of sourdough in the shape of a... wolf? She accepts it. As she rides off she bites the head off of it and yells back that it's damn tasty. Was that a bit Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for anyone else's taste? Were Arya and HP more than friends?
Cate (Michelle Fairley) tells her uncle - the guy who torched Papa - that she missed him. His name is apparently Blackfish. She also misses Bran and Rickon. I Rickon she would.
Elsewhere, one of the captured Lannister brats - Martin - asks TalissaMilano (Oona Chaplin) if the rumors are true: Is Robb really a werewolf? AHA! I knew I was onto something!!
She insists, "My husband does not eat children."
North of the Wall, warlord and amateur gay pornstar soundalike Mance Ryder (Ciaran Hinds) finds himself standing in the middle of what appears to be a swastika made of horse parts. Boy, these White Walker dudes are dramatic, no? Not to mention their obvious eye for pattern and color! Jon (Kit Harington) points out that it's all horses and no men, and learns that there were 300 men in that squadron - all of whom have now been turned into undead decorators. Mance tells his beardiest man to take 20 guys and scale the wall, and to take Jon with him, and to throw him off the wall if he doesn't seem to be fully on board.
Meanwhile, the Night's Watch guys stumble their way back to that douchebag Mormon guy's farm - the one who collects daughters and feeds babies to zombies - and Spamwise Tarly (John Bradley) spots Ghost hanging out in the woods. The mean old dude lets them in, but he doesn't seem happy about it. They eat and try to ignore the women watching from the loft as a woman clearly in the agony of childbirth screams in the background - their host grunts, "Women!" and tells someone to shut her up. He also makes a crack at Spamwise's weight, so he barges off into the night, and comes across a woman giving birth to a boy child in a hut. Wait - was that the Gilly chick he was all hung up on? If so, why didn't she register any recognition? Was it the whole "I just squeezed a watermelon through a drinking straw" thing?
Theon (Alfie Allen), meanwhile, is still hanging out at the Black Party, but the kind of cute young guy who unscrewed one of his feet earlier comes to let him down. It's hotter than I think it's supposed to be. He tells Theon to ride east.
At Dragonplace, Stannis (Stephen Dillane) is upset because ToriAmosandre (Carice Van Houten) has to run off to another Lilith Faire and is leaving him all alone with his hundreds of doting subjects. She tells him that he's her king and she'll be back, she just has to take care of something. Really? It's not like she's canceling on him for brunch or something - she's not giving any more information than that? Stannis says he wants Joffrey and Robb dead, and he wants to use her magical ground-fogging ladyparts to do it, but she tells him the tank's low on fog juice and he should just relax.
Over in Slaver's Bay - a charming name for a subdivision or new Orlando shopping district, don't you think? - Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) walks the promenade shops with Ser Jorah (Iain Glen) and Bannister CeleryBarristan Selmy (Ian McElhinny), admiring all the slaves who have been strung up to die for stealing bread or whatever. She offers one of them water and he refuses it. Selmy says that they should leave right away without buying an army, but Ser Jorah says that these slave soldiers totally rock because they have no junk and don't run around raping innocent women like regular soldiers do.
Dany clearly wants this:
But after the scarring nipple slice we were treated to on our last visit, I keep seeing this:
Dany tells the Ben Kingsley lookalike slave owner that she wants to buy them all, and we're back to the awesomely trashy game of telephone involving his quick-witted interpreter. He says, "The slut cannot afford this," but his lady interprets this to, "Maybe you should try it on in another size - these European brands do run small!" Dany wants all 8000 slaves, but he says she can maybe afford a hundred, IF she gives him all her stinky Dothrakis to make into Hamburger Helper. She says that she'll give him a dragon, and she wants his sassy interpreter as a gift. Wait, can you ask for a gift? Dany just invented the Amazon Wish List, y'all.
Dany tells her men not to ever question her authority publicly again, and then gets to know her new BFF - Missandei? She asks why the slave people are so resigned to death, and the woman replies that all men must die. Dany counters, "All men must die - but we are not men."
As Tyrion and his squire, iPod, collect all the ledgers from Littlefinger's quarters, Tyrion notices that iPod can't keep his i's off the ladies. So he buys him three girls to take his virginity. Littlefinger presses Tyrion as to why Cersei would think that Tyrion had a thing going on with Ros, but Tyrion pretends not to know what he's talking about and there's definitely not another totally different chick hiding in his room as we speak or anything, nope. Littlefinger says that numbers are easy but whores are a total pain in the ass, and Bronn calls Littlefinger "Lord Twatbeard," which probably isn't far from the truth.
After a quick look at the books, Tyrion realizes that Littlefinger has been borrowing money that he can't repay - from both the Lannisters and the Bank of Brothers. iPod returns and tells him that the whores had such a good time with him that they gave him Tyrion's money back. Tyrion and Bronn demand to know the details.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Theon gets an arrow shot at him. Men on horseback chase him through the woods, zipping arrows at him all the way, and eventually knock him off his horse via a mace to the face. They pin him down, pull down his pants, and are about to rape him ("I'm going to f*ck you into the dirt!") when nameless cute dungeon guy kills each and every one of them with arrows (the last one at close range). Yeeowch. What is this guy's deal? The kid tells Theon, "You're a long way from home, and winter is coming." I'm officially confused.
At the House Bolton camp, the men drag Brienne off to rape her, and she does not go quietly. To his credit, Jamie talks the leader out of letting his men have their way with Brienne by pointing out that her dad owns a Zales or something and she is worth more "unbesmirched". The guy likes Jamie's choice of words, and Jamie pushes it by saying his dad's rich and his handcuffs hurt. And he's hungry. The guy has the guys unchain Jamie and take him to the fire to eat some partridge, but then changes his mind and sticks his knife in Jamie's eye instead. And before anyone has the change to shout "LOOSE SEAL!", he CUTS OFF JAMIE'S RIGHT HAND.
At the end of the ep we hear a punkish version of the "maid with the honey in her hair" song that the men were singing earlier, and now it's clear that the song is about having sex with a bear.
SCENE
Notably Absent: Joffrey, Marge, Sansa, Olenna, Shae, Bran, Rickon, Osha, YaraSofia
Notably Dead: Cate's dad, a bunch of Theon's pursuers, Jamie's future as a concert pianist
Quote of the Week: It's a pretty horrible thing to say, but "I'm gonna f*ck you into the dirt!" does have a certain poetry to it.
Okay, so I'm actually starting to get a little confused here with all the new characters and houses and such. We've now got all this House Tully drama going on at Riverrun, and the House Bolton stuff with Jamie and Robb, and who the heck are the Bank of Brothers? I think if they're going to start introducing all kinds of new people to keep track of, the least they can do is kill off about half the cast that they already have. And I'm completely clueless as to where Theon is, who is trying to kill him, or what this young kid's deal is.
Showing a glimmer of Jamie's less-jerkwad side by having him save Brienne from a gang raping right before chopping off his hand was cleaver clever. And I'm loving the girl power action down at Slaver's Bay - I loved Missandei from the minute she appeared on screen and can't wait to see what she and Dany get up to. Hey - maybe they can hook up with ToriAmosandre and form a girl group! They'd be like the Westerian answer to the Fanta Girls.
In all, I'd give the ep seven out of ten shampoo bottles:
What'd you guys think?
