we had many intentions of being here with you all last week, but alas, we fell prey to the inevitable throes of toronto maple leafs fandom.
the terrifying lows, the soaring highs, the creamy middles!
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but let us speak no more of that, lest our sportive hearts break yet again. and frankly, after last night's doctor who series seven finale, we don't know how much more we can take.
thankfully, river song has appeared to remind us not to shed any spoilers until after the jump.
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wikipedia's got a nice primer on the previous episode, but for those of you who'd prefer not to click away, here are a few points we enjoyed (or didn't?):
-Sansa Stark's heart-rending innocence: "Did your mother teach you that?" oh, bless! she really believes Margaery is a virgin. that scene was pretty excellent, and made us love Margaery even more than we already did.
-that scene between Joffrey and Tywin was shot and directed beautifully. very powerful to see these characters interact: neither wishes to concede any power, yet both must defer (to some varying degree) to the other.
-Melisandre and Gendry are in Blackwater Bay? that's...different. Seems like she won't be heading directly back to Dragonstone. And she told him about his lineage! What is she planning?
-Orell is boring and typical, and Ygritte dispatches him accordingly. However, the windmill scene was adorable - love to see this character with her defenses dropped, no matter how fleeting!
-Robb Stark and Talisa's butts - simultaneously. ALL the BUTTS. Game of Butts.
-Arya was captured by the Hound! More interactions between them immediately! Please?
-I don't really want to talk about Theon's sexual assault and subsequent castration. Wait, whoops.
-Daenerys is becoming a more impressive leader by the minute, it seems. And the dragons look dooooope.
-The rescue of Brienne by Jaime was by far one of the best parts of this episode - but to be honest, we were pretty uncomfortable with the fact that they used a real bear. This is a show that destroyed whole ecosystems in Malta; I wouldn't imagine that humane treatment of animals is a high priority.
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but enough of that! what's going to happen tonight?
-the episode's title implies it could be heavy on the Tyrion and Bran (plus Rickon, i guess) storylines. are we missing anyone?
-how will this first of many weddings to come play out?
-will today's nudity be gratuitous - and if so, will it be somewhat even-handed?
-will we be beset by yet more torture scenes, likely starring Alfie Allen and his torturer (whom we've mistakenly named many times, not realizing it was meant to be a secret)?
-what's next for Daenerys and her mission to free the slaves of Essos? perhaps...a distraction?
-and what about spoiler? Spoiler spoiler spoiler!
let's hit the jump and see if we can't learn the answer to some of these questions together.
8:00 - hello again, earlybirds!
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8:30 - we hope you're enjoying some sort of libation, should that be your choice! we are partaking in some of david's many teas, james ready, and dead elephant ipa.
9:00 - finally! here we go!
well, after a "previously, on..."
oh, and the credits. which are still amazing.
9:04 - we open with arya, waking up. she picks up a large rock that was in her eyeline, and creeps up to bludgeon the hound.
he mocks her, saying he'll make a deal with her.
"go on, hit me. hit me hard."
cut to them riding on a horse (arya, humiliatingly sidesaddle). the hound offers her some of the apple he's eating, and she obviously declines.
arya tells him he's the worst, and he begs to differ - bringing up his lack of beating and raping young girls as an example. classy! he fleshes this out with plenty of examples for his chivalry where sansa was concerned. arya doesn't quite believe him, but she seems uncertain.
"is that the blackwater?"
"the blackwater? where do you think i'm taking you?"
"back to king's landing...back to joffrey, and the queen."
"fuck joffrey, and fuck the queen."
he explains that this is the red fork, and he's taking her to the Twins (home of the Freys), to sell her back at Edmure's wedding.
9:07 - cut to dany, having a strategy meeting about meeting with the three slave lords, particularly the Titan's Bastard aaaaaaand Daario Naharis (spelling?)!
Prendahl (maybe?) is pretty gross, and sticks closely to his book dialogue, alleging he fucked Dany (or her double) in a pleasure house in Lys.
"she licked my ass like she was born to do it."
9:09 - ooh, Daario! He's not a captain, he's a lieutenant.
I gueeeeesss he's an acceptable replacement for Jaqen H'gar. Wait, i take that back - there's no substitute.
9:25 - back to the wedding of sansa and tyrion.
oh no.
as the "father of the realm," joffrey is the one to give away sansa.
how terrible this is. beautifully shot, with gentle but very sad music. we follow the duo as they walk through the sept, towards the groom.
Joffrey sneers and smirks at tyrion, before leaving - along with the stool that tyrion needs in order to affix the bridal cloak.
he doesn't know what to do, and sansa is also humiliated, refusing to turn. people are laughing. she kneels, and receives the cloak. they are wed.
9:28 - back to dragonstone and gendry.
"i've never seen anything like any of it. not in my life."
he and melisandre bond a bit over their shared experiences of poverty.
he hesitates to take wine from her, and she is "shocked" that he might think she'd try to poison him. she takes a sip from the goblet first - and astute fans will recall how the maester of dragonstone died!
this is unsettling. things are getting far too erotic for comfort! though gendry is pretty ripped. and now she's naked too, and i'm...a little too buzzed to be critical about this.
whoa! did i just see the base of his dick?
this is one of the more explicit scenes they've done, yeah?
on an unrelated note, these actors are really fucking hot.
9:33 - ugh! leeches!
9:38 - loras tries to talk to cersei, who has left in hopes of being alone. he awkwardly begins "my father once told me -"
and she interrupts "nobody cares what your father once told you."
and then she leaves.
9:41 - they arrive at the bedchamber, where tyrion pours more wine. sansa asks him "is that wise, my lord?"
"tyrion. my name is tyrion."
"is that wise, tyrion?"
a pause.
"astoundingly long."
"what?"
"neck. you have one. how old are you now, exactly?"
"fourteen."
nooooooo
"my lord father has commanded me to consummate this marriage."
sansa pours and downs a goblet of wine before mounting the stairs to the bed and removing her clothing.
this is so sad.
she gets to her underdress and tyrion stops her.
"but your father -"
"if my father wants someone to get fucked, i know where he can start!" then more quietly, "i won't share your bed. not until you want me to."
she takes a step towards him.
"what if i never want you to?"
after a moment, tyrion toasts the air.
"and so, my watch begins."
he departs.
shiiiiiiit
9:45 - daario's sneaking in to dany's camp!
9:45 - oh, and dany's being bathed by missandei. that's...fine...it's...i'm going to drink now.
omg misssandei is correcting dany on her dothraki and disrupting her ego! this is wonderful.
oh no! daario has taken missandei by the throat!
"what do you want?"
"you."
he unmasks for dany, telling her not to move, or he'll kill missandei.
she orders him to let missandei go, and he does. she runs to dany's side.
he tells her he doesn't want to kill her. she asks what his bros had to say, and he dumps their heads out of the sack he's holding.
just like the book! yay!
she says he's a complicated man, and he declares he's the simplest she'll ever meet. he only does what he wants.
she makes him swear fealty to her, rising from the bath in one of the amazing shows of strength through nudity that dany occasionally is afforded (but moments later, it becomes clear the camera never got the message). obviously, he does.
9:49 - happy hangover, tyrion! here's a completely pissed off shae with breakfast for the two of you!
she'll have noticed the lack of blood on the sheets as she carried them out - she exchanged a look with tyrion about it perhaps?
9:50 - finally, samwell and gilly!
oh right, and that baby.
and also some ravens.
sam struggles to build a fire, and gilly tells him "it doesn't matter. come under the furs and we'll keep each other warm."
sam has an awkward moment of making gilly feel stupid, and she confronts him by asking if sometimes he talks fancy for that purpose. he explains that this is just how he speaks, and i...yeah, i relate to that.
sam reiterates his desire for the baby to have a name. this leads to some suggestions, such as craster (which samwell cringes from), and mormont - which leads into a discussion of the naming traditions in westeros.
he explains his father's name, and she says that she likes the name randyl. (spelling?)
"Please don't name him Randyl."
"Is your father cruel like mine?"
"Different type of cruel."
they share a moment.
"Not Randyl, then."
the ravens start going apeshit. weird image!
sam says he'll check it out.
"sam - don't go out there."
he thinks he'll be fine.
oh dear.
the crows have coated the branches of the weirwood, shrieking all the while.
then they go silent, and we see something terrible approaching.
it's a White Walker!! possibly the one from the finale way back?
it's going after gilly and the baby - it shatters sam's sword by closing its fist around it!
sam runs up behind it and stabs it in the scapula with his dragonglass blade, and the White Walker screams, and freezes into regular ice before shattering.
sam and gilly run screaming into the night.
YESSSSSSS SAM THE SLAYERRRRRRR
Prendahl (maybe?) is pretty gross, and sticks closely to his book dialogue, alleging he fucked Dany (or her double) in a pleasure house in Lys.
"she licked my ass like she was born to do it."
9:09 - ooh, Daario! He's not a captain, he's a lieutenant.
I gueeeeesss he's an acceptable replacement for Jaqen H'gar. Wait, i take that back - there's no substitute.
no substitute!
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i have lost count of how many fucking rape threats occurred in this scene. Dany takes it all in stride, but when he threatens Missandei, her eyes grow steely.
after he leaves, she tells Ser Barristan that when the fighting starts, he is to kill that man first. Barristan replies "Gladly."
9:12 - eep! Dragonstone! Guess I was wrong about the geography (thanks, books! jeez!)
Stannis and Melisandre are disagreeing about how best to slaughter Gendry.
9:13 - Melisandre's comparison to slaughtering a lamb is totally creepy, and appropriately dripping in religious significance.
Ser Davos!!!!
He's learning to read!
He's one of our favourite book characters, and only better on the screen. Holy shit.
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9:15 - so stannis seems to be having some major guilt here - he's gone down to the dungeon to talk to davos, and is unloading on him about his evil plans.
"I never asked for this!"
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9:17 - plot twist! Stannis came down here to free Davos, on the condition he never raises a hand to Melisandre again. Davos asks if he may speak against her.
"you have little regard for your own life."
"quite little. on the verge of none."
9:17 - they have an amazing discourse on the existence of god(s). very powerful and creepy.
9:18 - a scene between the three slave dudes? weird.
hey, Daario is explicitly not into rape in this scene. that's...something rare for this show.
prendahl: blah blah cock blah cock rape yay
they use coins to decide who'll kill dany in the night. a nice explicit tie in to jaqen, sort of! ha.
9:20 - it's so interesting how Sansa has actually had time to emotionally prepare for her wedding, as opposed to in the books.
her dress is so beautiful, i can't stand it. tyrion attempts levity, but it's lost on sansa's moderately concealed misery.
tyrion shooes everyone out, including shae - who GLARES as she leaves.
"you won't be my prisoner anymore, you'll be my wife. i...suppose that's a different kind of prison. i'm just trying to say, and i'm saying it very badly, but i just want to say that i know how you feel."
"i doubt that very much, my lord."
tyrion acquiesces that they each have no knowledge of the other's feelings, and takes sansa's hands (much to her disgust) to ask her an essential question.
"do you drink wine?"
"when i have to."
"today, you will have to."
9:23 - in the sept of baelor (with a great establishing shot to remind us of ned's execution), cersei and margaery have an extremely loaded question about the story behind the rains of castamere. i have opinions about this that i shall withhold, save for the brilliance of the hairstyles and thhe acting. oh, these ladies! just run away together and hatefuck.
cersei parts with the chilling remark,
"if you ever call me sister again, i'll have you strangled in your sleep."
9:25 - back to the wedding of sansa and tyrion.
oh no.
as the "father of the realm," joffrey is the one to give away sansa.
how terrible this is. beautifully shot, with gentle but very sad music. we follow the duo as they walk through the sept, towards the groom.
Joffrey sneers and smirks at tyrion, before leaving - along with the stool that tyrion needs in order to affix the bridal cloak.
he doesn't know what to do, and sansa is also humiliated, refusing to turn. people are laughing. she kneels, and receives the cloak. they are wed.
9:28 - back to dragonstone and gendry.
"i've never seen anything like any of it. not in my life."
he and melisandre bond a bit over their shared experiences of poverty.
he hesitates to take wine from her, and she is "shocked" that he might think she'd try to poison him. she takes a sip from the goblet first - and astute fans will recall how the maester of dragonstone died!
this is unsettling. things are getting far too erotic for comfort! though gendry is pretty ripped. and now she's naked too, and i'm...a little too buzzed to be critical about this.
whoa! did i just see the base of his dick?
this is one of the more explicit scenes they've done, yeah?
on an unrelated note, these actors are really fucking hot.
9:33 - ugh! leeches!
no no no not there! not there!
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9:34 - she takes three leeches full of gendry's blood and stannis burns them individually on a brazier, naming off robb stark, balon greyjoy, and joffrey baratheon.
HOOOOOOLY SHIT.
9:35 - at the wedding reception, and tyrion is riiiiiiiiiipped.
lady olenna is having a hilarious time discussing the convoluted family connections to-be.
9:36 - now tywin is telling tyrion to stop getting drunk so he can put a baby in sansa. sexual coercion at best, hooray! the lannisters sure know how to throw a wedding.
"I am the god of tits and wine!"
tyrion is amazing. and so too, is charles dance - for being able to pull the scene back around so sharply to something very awful.
lady olenna is having a hilarious time discussing the convoluted family connections to-be.
9:36 - now tywin is telling tyrion to stop getting drunk so he can put a baby in sansa. sexual coercion at best, hooray! the lannisters sure know how to throw a wedding.
"I am the god of tits and wine!"
tyrion is amazing. and so too, is charles dance - for being able to pull the scene back around so sharply to something very awful.
and she interrupts "nobody cares what your father once told you."
and then she leaves.
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9:39 - JOFFREY IS HORRIBLE.
tyrion insists that there will be no bedding ceremony (which is clearly something joffrey is deriving intensely masochistic sexual pleasure from), and joffrey insists that it will happen.
"then you'll be fucking your wife with a wooden cock."
tyrion has never been more serious.
somehow tywin talks the situation down, and dinklage does some of his most inspired acting yet, as a drunken buffoon leading sansa away to the merriment of all who watch.
"come, wife!"
9:41 - they arrive at the bedchamber, where tyrion pours more wine. sansa asks him "is that wise, my lord?"
"tyrion. my name is tyrion."
"is that wise, tyrion?"
a pause.
"astoundingly long."
"what?"
"neck. you have one. how old are you now, exactly?"
"fourteen."
nooooooo
"my lord father has commanded me to consummate this marriage."
sansa pours and downs a goblet of wine before mounting the stairs to the bed and removing her clothing.
this is so sad.
she gets to her underdress and tyrion stops her.
"but your father -"
"if my father wants someone to get fucked, i know where he can start!" then more quietly, "i won't share your bed. not until you want me to."
she takes a step towards him.
"what if i never want you to?"
after a moment, tyrion toasts the air.
"and so, my watch begins."
he departs.
shiiiiiiit
9:45 - daario's sneaking in to dany's camp!
9:45 - oh, and dany's being bathed by missandei. that's...fine...it's...i'm going to drink now.
omg misssandei is correcting dany on her dothraki and disrupting her ego! this is wonderful.
oh no! daario has taken missandei by the throat!
"what do you want?"
"you."
he unmasks for dany, telling her not to move, or he'll kill missandei.
she orders him to let missandei go, and he does. she runs to dany's side.
he tells her he doesn't want to kill her. she asks what his bros had to say, and he dumps their heads out of the sack he's holding.
just like the book! yay!
she says he's a complicated man, and he declares he's the simplest she'll ever meet. he only does what he wants.
she makes him swear fealty to her, rising from the bath in one of the amazing shows of strength through nudity that dany occasionally is afforded (but moments later, it becomes clear the camera never got the message). obviously, he does.
9:49 - happy hangover, tyrion! here's a completely pissed off shae with breakfast for the two of you!
she'll have noticed the lack of blood on the sheets as she carried them out - she exchanged a look with tyrion about it perhaps?
9:50 - finally, samwell and gilly!
oh right, and that baby.
kate beaton is amazing.
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and also some ravens.
sam struggles to build a fire, and gilly tells him "it doesn't matter. come under the furs and we'll keep each other warm."
sam has an awkward moment of making gilly feel stupid, and she confronts him by asking if sometimes he talks fancy for that purpose. he explains that this is just how he speaks, and i...yeah, i relate to that.
sam reiterates his desire for the baby to have a name. this leads to some suggestions, such as craster (which samwell cringes from), and mormont - which leads into a discussion of the naming traditions in westeros.
he explains his father's name, and she says that she likes the name randyl. (spelling?)
"Please don't name him Randyl."
"Is your father cruel like mine?"
"Different type of cruel."
they share a moment.
"Not Randyl, then."
the ravens start going apeshit. weird image!
sam says he'll check it out.
"sam - don't go out there."
he thinks he'll be fine.
oh dear.
the crows have coated the branches of the weirwood, shrieking all the while.
then they go silent, and we see something terrible approaching.
it's a White Walker!! possibly the one from the finale way back?
it's going after gilly and the baby - it shatters sam's sword by closing its fist around it!
sam runs up behind it and stabs it in the scapula with his dragonglass blade, and the White Walker screams, and freezes into regular ice before shattering.
sam and gilly run screaming into the night.
YESSSSSSS SAM THE SLAYERRRRRRR
!!!
well! this was a good episode! things started, y'know, developing... that's always good. Daario is pretty cool too, right?
alright then.
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