Previously: We had a hard time deciding who was the bigger psychopath as the mystery bastard tortured Theon, Littlefinger gave Ros to Joffrey, and Joffrey killed Ros for sport. Also, Jon Snow and his Wildling peeps scaled The Wall and that was pretty cray too.
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The Bear and the Maiden Fair
Lorraine: I gloated during my last episode about how I always get the fun credits. I should’ve learned from Buffy villains and kept the gloating to a minimum: King’s Landing, Harrenhal, Riverrun, Ring of Fire Winterfell, The Wall, and across the Shivering Sea toYunkai.
Jon Snow and his ice-wall-climbing pack of Wildlings are walking along on the green side of the Wall. Which is confusing, because his time spent training at the Wall was always very snowy and miserable. Also, there are a lot more Wildlings than I initially thought there were. They only showed us Ginger NotMance (Tormund Giantsbane), Wildling Warg, Ygritte and Jon. But, okay. There’s a whole pack of them.
Sweeney: Jon Snow has been hanging out in a miserable frozen wasteland for so long that it was a little jarring to see him in such a lovely springy looking area. I wanted to be all, “Look at you, Jon Snow, moving up in the world!” But then I remembered his dubious company who keep reminding him how willing to kill him they are, so there’s that.
Lor: …but when he falls down dead, it’ll be on grass!#brightside
Ygritte asks how far they are and Jon guesses about a week. They stop for Ygritte to fiddle with her shoe and to make fun of Westeros’s roads and bannermen and war drumming. I’m only slightly amused when she says “drums” because it sounds like “drooms” in her accent. She says that when Mance is ready to attack, there won’t be any drooms. Jon’s all, “no. He’s just going to light a GIANT FIRE.” Ygritte predictably assumes that Jon Snow knows nothing. Can you tell that Ygritte is wearing on me?
Sweeney: I don’t know, I feel for her a bit. She’s not my favorite, but she’s also scared. She’s in love with Jon and she sees what a giant complication that is for her. I view all of this nonsense as her acting out, largely due to that fear. I’m not saying I don’t find it a tad grating, but I haven’t given up on her yet.
Lor: Fair.
The Wildling Warg comes over and Jon is quick to remember that this bitch cut him loose while they were climbing the wall. Wildling Warg says he cut Ygritte loose too, but she isn’t belly-aching about it because she knows things. Jon Snow, we were very recently reminded, knows nothing. The Wildling Warg talks deep stuff about men being loyal when it suits them, or killing when it suits them. Then he shows his jealous, hatin’ side when he says Snow will never be able to hold onto Ygritte. Clearly, the Wildling Warg wasn’t around the 87 times Ygritte was all, “REMEMBER THAT THING YOU DID? WITH YOUR TONGUE?”
Sweeney: Word. That thing Jon Snow can do with his tongue will keep forever.
Lor: Robb Stark’s Camp of Winning Battles But Losing Wars. Lady Talisa is drying Robb off with a towel, which is pretty sweet but kind of a pansy thing to be doing in front of your war bros. One of these war bros complains about all the rain, in case we didn’t pick up on Robb being soaked and the thunder sound effects. Lord Frey is waiting for their arrival but they are being delayed by the rain. Lady Catelyn Stark worries that Frey won’t take kindly to waiting, but Robb pooh-pooh’s this because clearly he has a death wish.
Robb thinks that Frey should be stoked about getting one of his lowly daughters married to Edmure Tully, though Cat wisely points out that Frey wanted a king and he’s getting a consolation prize. That’s too much truth and good sense for one day for Robb, so he dismisses everyone and gets to kissing Talisa. Cat looks at him like, “enjoy those kisses, you fucking idiot.” Word.
We cut to Robb and Talisa in bed looking very satisfied, and spent. We also see their bums. Just, for those of you tracking that sort of thing. Talisa is suddenly inspired to write a letter to her mom which is kind of weird, but okay. Robb wonders if Momma-lisa knows her daughter is a queen. Not yet, is the answer, and that will be the first of many surprises. That’s the moment I went, “SHE’S PREGNANT!” Robb doesn’t speak I-missed-my-period-ese though, and just promises to visit Volantis one day with Talisa. Then she up and tells him that she’s pregnant and he’s kind of taken aback but assures her that he’s happy and that he loves her. He abandons war tactics and king duties for more lady kissing.
Lor: I’m glad that Sweeney and I have most definitely decided he’s going to die. I’d add a “if he doesn’t” disclaimer here, but I’m feeling really good about this guess. Now his wife is pregnant and he made a vague, “one day I will!” promise in this scene. DEATH. Interesting to note, that this baby will be the true heir in the North and not Sansa.
With the Wildlings, Ginger NotMance is randomly giving Jon sex advice and it’s something about slick seals and spearing pigs. I’ll let you all fill in/remember the rest. Wildling Warg walks along with Ygritte and tells her that she should be with one of her own. He promises that he would treat her well if she was his girl. She’s stunned silent so he asks if she loves Jon Snow. She nods her head yes and Wildling Warg thinks it’s just ’cause he’s pretty and has pretty hair. UM. DUH. What, no, sorry?
Wildling Warg says Ygritte won’t love him so much when she finds out what he is.
Sweeney: But he’ll still have his pretty hair. And his tongue.
Lor: I wonder what he is though! Or maybe this is like a “what he is” in a deep, character level way. That’d be boring. I’m crossing my fingers for “also a warg.”
Sansa Stark’s voice takes us from Ygritte’s shocked face to King’s Landing, where she’s telling Margaery Tyrel that all she wanted while in Winterfell was to escape to King’s Landing. She calls herself a stupid a little girl, with stupid dreams, who never learns. I’m pretty sure we’ve said that about Sansa a time or 20, but hearing her realize it is pretty heartbreaking.
Margaery tells Sansa that she remembers the first time she saw her in the throne room, looking for all the world like she had to marry the tremdodouche that had recently killed her father. Margaery says that she and Grandma Flowerboss want her to be happy, and this will mean making the best of her circumstances.
Margaery tries to help Sansa see the bright side: Tyrion has never mistreated her and he’s far from the worst Lannister. Sansa realizes the mistake she’s made by being EW LANNISTERS ARE THE WORST while speaking with Margaery who is going to marry the worst of the worst. Margaery says it’s no sweat because one day her son will be king, and sons learn from their mothers. She fully intends on teaching her future son to be a flowerboss. She further bright sides that Sansa’s future son might be the Lord of Casterly Rock and the North. That’s a pretty good bright side, except that suddenly it dawns on Sansa that “sons” means “sex.” She’s wigged, though she isn’t afraid of the pain of the first time after what she’s suffered with Joffrey (aw).
Margaery asks what the problem is since Tyrion is pretty cute and Sansa gives her a hilarious SRSLY? look. He’s a dwarf. Margaery tells her that women all like different things. “Most women don’t know what they like until they’ve tried it. Sadly so many of us get to try so little before we’re old and gray.” Margaery has heard good things about Tyrion’s experience and reassures Sansa. Our little, innocent dove wonders if Margaery’s mother taught her all these things. After a beat and an understated SRSLY? of her own, Margaery takes Sansa’s arm and says, “LOL. Sure she did.”
Lor: Tyrion Lannister sits with Bronn the sellsword and pop-star extraordinaire. Tyrion is protesting the marriage also, on the grounds of Sansa being a (tall) child. He’s bedded young women, but not this young. Bronn is his usual brash self when he tells Tyrion to get over it, impregnate Sansa, keep Shae as a side piece, and one day rule the North in the name of his future son. Plus, Bronn adds, Sansa is hot and Tyrion totally wants to sleep with her. Tyrion doesn’t confirm or deny this, but does tell Bronn to stop putting evil notions in his head.
Tywin Lannister enters the throne room where Joffrey is perched on the throne of discomfort. There is a joke here about him being a giant prick. I think I just made it. Joffrey asks Tywin for a report from the small council meetings. Tywin points out that he’s of course welcome to attend those meetings, but Joffrey claims to have more important things to do like, I don’t know, killing whores. Joffrey asks why the small council meetings are being held in the Tower of the Hand and not in the small council room. Tywin makes me respect his work ethic when he’s all, “walking takes time.” Work ethic that doubles as laziness is my actual favorite. (S: +1, and 1430 for both you and Tywin.)
Joffrey turns it around and notes that if he wanted to attend a meeting, now he’d have to climb stairs up to the tower! Tywin glares at him so amazingly, I totally forget that I hate him for a second. Tywin climbs the few steps up to the throne and Joffrey visibly slinks back. Tywin says they could arrange to have Joffrey carried.
Across the sea, Daenerys has reached the city of Yunkai, so at least the credits told the truth on that front. Ser Jorah is advising against taking the city, as the walls are strong and war is bad and stuff. Really, it doesn’t matter what Jorah says because Dany always does the exact opposite of what he advises. He should really catch on and proceed accordingly. Besides, Yunkai has slaves, and Dany will not stand for that. It’s awkward that she’s telling her NO SLAVES stance to Jorah, considering what got him across the sea in the first place. Dany sends Grey Worm off with instructions to send men to the city gate and accept surrender or promise destruction.
A caravan carrying a shifty eyed, important looking person flanked by drums, slaves and soldiers arrives before Dany, who is in one sweet looking tent. Like, a tent bigger than my room and also awesome because it has dragons. Shifty Eyes (S: Popular nickname on GoT; people need to keep those eyes less shifty) is announced by the Pretty Translator, but when he gets too close to Dany’s fantastic couch, one of the dragons is all, “HIISSSS BITCH. BACK UP.” Pretty Translator takes this as her cue to announce Daenerys of House Targaryen, Radda, Radda, Radda AND MOTHER OF DRAGONS. (That was the Cliff Notes version.) Dany smirks as she invites Shifty Eyes to sit. He says that Yunkai is ancient and they will put up a fight if that’s what Dany desires. She hilariously takes a piece of meat and feeds it to her dragons who flap about in Shifty Eyes’s face.
Shifty Eyes says that Dany promised him safe return, and so she did, but her dragons didn’t make promises and they don’t take kindly to people threatening their mother. Shifty Eyes tries to grab his gold back, but the dragons are all over that too. Dany says it’s her gold now and then kicks him out of her Head Bitch in Tent. Dany sends Jorah to find out who Yunkai is allied with.
In King’s Landing, Tyrion is giving Shae some gold chains but she isn’t impressed. She wants him to run away with her, but he can’t. He feels bound by duty, or at least he calls it duty, to stay and marry Sansa as his father wishes. He promises to keep Shae around, but she isn’t having it. She doesn’t want to have his bastard children. She thinks that when Tyrion gets tired of her, he’ll leave and she will be nothing.
Aboard the SS Batshit, Creepy Red (Melisandre) is telling Gendry about the wildfire that took out Stannis’s troops. They are back at King’s Landing. Creepy Red asks Gendry about his father. She asks if he never wondered about his strength and talent for fighting. He insists that he’s lowborn; his mother was a tavern wench. Creepy Red says her mother was a slave, and so was she, until the Lord of Light found her and asked if she wanted to use her vagina for evil. She reveals to Gendry that he is the bastard of Robert Baratheon, and that’s why the Goldcloaks were after him. There is powers in king’s blood, she creepies, while giving him her best, “I’m gonna use you to make dementor babies so hard.” smile. I’m guessing about the last part.
Sweeney: This is the best and most accurate summary of this scene. You are a champion of the internet.
Lor: Woohoo! I’ll remember that when it’s time to recap Theon’s scene. -_-
Beric Dondarrion invites Arya Stark to join him by the fire. She’s ignoring him, though, on account of how he sold Gendry. He says he didn’t like giving up the only piece of eye candy over at this section of the storyline, but Arya says he still did it anyways. Beric tries to blame it on the Red God, but Arya gives zeros fucks because that isn’t her one, true god. Beric asks who is and she offers, “death.” She’s tiny, but sucks to be you if you are on her shit list.
A Brotherhood Bro comes in and announces that there is a Lannister raiding party about two days south of them. They all mobilize which pisses Arya off further because they promised to take her to Robb at Riverrun. Beric swears he will eventually get her home, and basically tells her she knows nothing, and that’s about enough for Arya. She takes off running into the woods. There, she runs straight into The Hound.
Sweeney: YOU FUCKING LET HER GO RIGHT NOW.
Lor: I’m hoping what we saw of him and Sansa comes through with Arya. OR ELSE DEATH FOR HIM TOO.
Jaime Lannister comes to see Brienne still in her fluffy dress. He’s leaving, but Brienne is to stay at Harrenhal with Raping Douche (Locke). Jaime says he owes Brienne a debt, but she will consider it repaid if he keeps his promise to Lady Cat, and returns the Stark girls to their mother. He swears to and Brienne says her goodbye. Jaime looks too choked up to talk.
Outside, Jaime tries to saddle his horse and receives help from Non-Maester, the man who treated his wounds. Bolton reminds Jaime to speak well of him to Tywin, and Jaime parts with a sarcastic message for Robb. Raping Douche taunts him as he leaves, promising to take good care of Brienne after he’s gone.
Theon torture scene. I’m to the point where not only do I not like the torture porn, but it is also going nowhere. UGH. Women let Theon down off his torture crossbeam. They give him water and start flirting with him, trying to get a rise out of him. This is super disturbing. One of the girls undresses the other and she straddles Theon and starts gyrating against him until he starts responding. The other girl gets undressed as well, because they are serious about putting the porn in torture porn. A horn blasts in the background and the women stand back as the Dreadful Bastard appears to be dreadful and threaten Theon’s penis. A few of the bastard’s men corner Theon and we are left to assume that some damage was done to his genitals. We blurry fade out of that scene, though, which means probably more torture next week.
Seriously. Over that storyline.
Back by the wall, Jon and Ygritte flirt a bit about how she isn’t a swoon-y girl. Jon says one day he’ll take Ygritte to Winterfell, but she thinks one day she’ll take him there, once the Wildlings have reclaimed their land. They didn’t hear me warn about vague, in the future promises, meaning one or both of them will probably die. I hope not Jon. Sorry Ygritte.
Jon gets a serious case of serious face and tells Ygritte the Wildlings won’t win their attack. Six times the Wildlings have attacked the wall and six times they have failed. They are undisciplined and they don’t know how to fight together. If they attack a seventh time, they will all die. Ygritte corrects him: we will all die. She kisses him and says that they are one and they either live or die together. But first, they are going to make out against this rock.
For the record, Rose Leslie looks gorgeous in this episode.
Somewhere between Winterfell and the Wall, Osha is really fidgety over what Jojen has been filling Bran’s head with. Jojen says he isn’t filling Bran’s head with anything. Osha doesn’t want Jojen talking to Bran until they reach Jon Snow and Castle Black. Jojen says they aren’t going to Castle Black because Jon Snow isn’t there. Osha insists that Bran needs to find his family and that all these bad things aren’t happening for some greater purpose. Bran says she doesn’t understand. Osha does understand about north of the wall, though. She had a man there, who disappeared one day and came back to her as a White Walker. It tried to kill her, but she escaped by burning the hut down. She tells them north of the wall is no place for men to be, and she will not help them get past Castle Black.
Sweeney: Having seen it on TV, I agree. The Wildlings climbed an insanely large wall because even they were totes over that shit.
Lor: On the road, Jaime’s arm is being treated by Non-Maester. LOOK AWAY.
Jaime asks him again why he was stripped of his Maester chains and he admits he was performing experiments on dying men. Jaime is a little judgey about this so Non-Maester asks him how many men he’s killed. Countless is the answer they arrive upon. Then, he asks how many men Jaime has saved. He doesn’t expect Jaime to respond with “half a million.”
Sweeney: A whole group of people getting the gold star might be a first!
Lor: EXCEPT NO. BECAUSE THEY ARE SINGING THIS BECAUSE THERE IS A BEAR AND BRIENNE.
Sweeney: OH. No, assholes. NO GOLD STARS FOR YOU.
Lor: They have Brienne in a sunken sort of arena and she’s bloodied and facing a bear with a wooden sword. I’m not sure where they got a bear from, but okay. Also, I should clarify that though we are usually way pro-bear maulings, NO. NOT IN THIS CASE.
Jaime offers the Raping Douche any amount of money to get Brienne out of there, but he tells Jaime that some things are worth more than money. Cutting off Jaime’s hand, for instance, was tons of fun for him, because if you are going to make Jaime Lannister seem redeemable, put him next to THAT guy. Brienne’s wooden sword is smashed by the bear and it starts slapping her around. Jaime jumps down into the arena and I JUST WANT TO SQUISH HIM. Also, Kirsti sent me this gif she found the next day:
Jaime puts himself between Brienne and the bear and things look bleak for a moment, before the Bolton Bro charged with bringing Jaime to King’s Landing shoots the bear. He needs Jaime alive.
Sweeney: I CAN’T EVEN WITH THIS MOMENT. Jaime, incest and pushing little boys out windows without remorse aren’t really things I can forgive and forget, but OH. MY. GOD. All the points for that. 1430, A+, whatever else we have. I’ll even let you have the gold star we refused to give to those other assholes, BECAUSE YOU JUMPED IN FRONT OF A BEAR TO SAVE BRIENNE. Awesome.
Lor: AGREED. I mean, all we have left is the Crack Whore Award for awesome story telling and Sandy Cohen Eyebrows and he can have those too!
Jaime uses his body to give Brienne the boost she needs to climb out. Then she pulls him up, but it’s close call for a second as the bear charges and chomps around his feet. Once they are both safely out, Raping Douche says that Brienne is his and she stays. Jaime basically says that will happen over his dead body, and that he assumes Jaime alive is more important to Lord Bolton than Raping Douche having his bit of fun. Raping Douche relents and Jaime and Brienne walk away from the arena as he snarks an apology for lying about the sapphires. Nice to see that even a missing hand can’t stop his sarcasm.
An instrumental version “The Rains of Castamere” plays over the end credits. A lion still has claws, indeed.
This episode seemed a little slower than the last two, but I cannot believe we only have three episodes left and then we have to wait a year for more. Watching real time is hard, you guys.
Speaking of real time, if you guys aren’t checking in on #gameofsnark you are missing out on some A+ stuff. Here is a very small sampling:
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
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