GAME OF THRONES (S3) EPISODE 10 REVIEW

SPOILERS AHEAD

The mutilated corpse of the King in the North, Robb Stark, is paraded outside of The Twins.  If betraying your house guest rights and conspiring to kill your King wasn’t bad enough, Lord Walder Frey has his men sew Grey Wind’s head to Robb’s body.  In the book, they also sew Robb’s crown to the wolf’s head and hang him outside the castle.  They also, in savage mockery of Riverrun and House Tully funeral customs, strip Catelyn naked and throw her in the river.  Somebody HAS to fucking pay for this.

In the show, Arya sees her dead brother and his wolf as she makes her way out of the Twins with The Hound.  In the book, she wakes up on the outskirts of The Twins.  While she was out cold, (book spoilers ahead) she “dreams” that she’s become her lost direwolf Nymeria (who she drove away in season 1).  Arya is essentially warging her direwolf, though she doesn’t have the knowledge that she’s actually doing it like Bran does.  The wolf Nymeria pulls Catelyn out of the river and then fends off other wolves from feasting on her dead mother.  This is a pretty important scene in the book as it sets up a few storylines.  The following day, Arya prison shanks a dude who was talking about The Red Wedding, while The Hound provides some backup and gets all killy with his longsword.  He quips that next time she wants to do that, at least give him a heads up.

Back in King’s Landing, news of The Red Wedding reaches the capital and King Joffrey ecstatically shares his enthusiasm over the Young Wolf’s death.  He goes so far to even promise that he’s going to make a gift of Robb Stark’s head to Sansa, though Tyrion and Tywin have none of it.  Tywin sharply reminds his King grandson that he’s acting like a fool, then orders for him to be put to bed with some dreamwine.  The Queen tries to calm her son to no avail.  Let’s face it, even though Joffrey has the most punchable face in all Seven Kingdoms (Handsome Guy is across the Narrow Sea), he’s “defeated” every one of his foes that has stepped up to the plate, including Ned and Robb Stark.  Can you blame the boy for being cocky?  With Robb Stark out of the way, Sansa is now the heir to Winterfell, so Lord Tywin commands his son, once again, to knock that bitch up.

Lord Bolton, Robb’s bannerman who conspired with Lord Frey (and Tywin Lannister), to bring the Young Wolf down, hashes out the aftermath with his new comrade.  Bolton’s reward is that he now becomes Warden of the North, and mentions that his Bastard is holding Winterfell, so everything should be easy peasy as far as a secure stronghold goes.  Oh really, how about the Bastard of Bolton eating Theon Greyjoy’s cock with some mustard?  Seriously, what the fuck does Alfie Allen, who plays Theon, have on the producers to have them put how legendary his cock is in the script?  Hey, if you can get it, get it.  The cock I mean.   Ramsay Snow (the Bastard) has a bone (ha, I can’t stop) to pick with the Greyjoy’s and wants to ransom him over to his family, to which Theon’s father responds with indifference and his sister (who he tried to fuck) responds that she’ll defy her father in order to save her brother.  I like Asha Greyjoy a lot.  She’s one of the few strong female characters who can hold her own in battle.

Sam and Gilly run into Bran and Co when they happen upon the same holdfast as the crew.  This storyline is missing one pretty major character that Sam introduces to the group, and who helps them cross The Wall via a “secret” tunnel.  Doesn’t look like this is going to happen though, which is a bummer because I dig the character.  Sam gives them some obsidian daggers and arrowheads just in case they come across a wight.  Davos has a heart to heart with Gendry, eventually smuggling him out of Dragonstone and away from Melisandre, and Varys the Eunuch tries to convince Shae the Funny Whore to leave the Seven Kingdoms for her safety.  She drops the pouch of coin and tells him to go fuck himself.  Then they both have a laugh because he doesn’t have a cock.  I’d be horrible at writing storylines.

As Jon Snow heals from his face being attacked by a goddamn eagle, Ygritte catches up with him and has him dead to rights with her bow and arrow.  We’ve seen that she’s a pretty good shot, so this looks serious.  Jon Snow, on the other hand, calls her bluff in the name of love and gets three fucking arrows for it too.  Jon Snow doesn’t know shit, but he can take a fucking arrow like a champ.  His tired horse barely makes it back to Castle Black, dropping Snow to the ground.  He greets Pyp and Sam at the gate before passing out.  He then drinks a flagon of water and it fountains out of his body like old school cartoons.

Jaime Lannister and the Brienne finally make it to the capital where Jaime is met with pity and crippling indifference (wah wah) by the city inhabitants.  Jaime and Cersei exchanging wordless expressions are even better than I thought it’d be.  Lena Headley continues to portray the Queen as a class A twat but Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays Jaime Lannister’s redeeming humility perfectly.

Across the Narrow Sea, Dany frees the slave city of Yunkhai, letting them all know that they do not owe her their freedom.  That they are free people because, like, it’s basic human rights shit.  They all praise her as “Mhysa” (meaning Mother), Dany lets the dragons fly, then she crowd surfs for a bit.  Handsome guy surveys the scene looking punchable, while the rest of her court looks satisfied.  There’s still one pretty big turn to come for Dany, but looks like they’ll leave that storyline until next year.

While I think Season 3 was a successful season overall, there were still quite a few missteps.  It looks like the producers are still working with the same formula (epic or “shocking” moment in second to last episode, attempt to wrap up all storylines in the finale, final shot is of Dany and her dragons).  I think the formula is making the show’s better moments not have as big of an impact as they have the potential to be.  Unfortunately, as the story gets bigger, it’s going to be harder to give certain storylines proper attention that makes the viewers still interested in the show, despite the Starks (the “good guys”) getting dicked over time and time again.  There’s still a lot of story to tell in Book 3, but it looks like the show is including Book 4 and 5 into this fourth season.  So let’s see where this goes when the show comes back in about a year.