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Game of Thrones S04 E10 – Happy Father’s Day!

Previously: We spent an entire episode at The Wall and important stuff happened but also it was The Wall and thus inherently boring.

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The Children

Sweeney: Final magical/lying credits of the season take us through King’s Landing, Moat Cailin, WinterfellFOREVERonfire, The Wall, across The Narrow Sea to a scary game of Mouse Trap Braavos, and finally Meereen.

We resume where we last left Jon Snow, heading north of the wall, swordless, to kill Mance. There’s a lot of weird shaky cam which made me think direwolf cam but no, it’s just Wildling cam. Jon surrenders immediately, explaining to Mance that he’s been sent to negotiate with him.

Lorraine: I thought Jon’s plan involved some amount of being sneaky. It makes sense that he left his sword, now, since his entire plan was just walking right up to the people who were trying to kill him.

Sweeney: Inside Mance’s tent he says it’s not the first time his trusting nature got the better of him. Jon Snow says that he was, in fact, loyal – just not to him. Everything that he did during his time with The Wildlings was about gathering information and staying true to his Night’s Watch vows. Mance doesn’t miss this opportunity for a waggly-eyebrowed, “All your vows?” dig. Jon gives Mance the Cliff’s Notes version of what’s happened to Ygritte: she put three arrows in him and ultimately died at someone else’s hand. They drink to her, and we get yet another subtle dig at poison as a murder weapon. TEAM ARYA CHICKEN BONE. DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO.

Lor: Arya + Chicken Bone = OTP.

Sweeney: With that, they drink to the dead Giants and then talk business. Mance is over Jon’s bluffing. He knows they’ve lost a lot of men and are nearing the end of their supplies. 400 men are climbing the wall about 5 miles down and while many will die, a good chunk will be over by morning. Mance says that he’s being honest, which is more than Jon has ever done for him. Mance is also way over his people dying and that promise of WINTER COMING is really serious up here and not just stuff for the posters. Mance isn’t interested in taking over – they want to hide behind the wall. The bargain Mance is offering is peace in exchange for letting them through the tunnel.

There’s an awkward moment in which Mance realizes why Jon’s really there – to kill him – but he doesn’t do it. Then there’s a horn and Mance holds a knife to Jon’s throat, asking if they’re attacking. Jon concedes that Mance was right before – they don’t have the men for that.

Outside, a super legit army comes riding in and slaughtering the Wildlings who don’t manage to flee.

Lor: I was for real, for real YELLING at my TV all, “WHO IS THIS? WHO ARE YOU, ARMY??” It was the most exciting thing to happen at the wall since Bring Your Wooly Mammoth to Work Day.

Sweeney: I was so impressed with how interesting all this business at The Wall was! I realized that maybe once upon a time I was interested in scenes with Jon Snow and his pretty hair for more reasons than mentally calculating the odds that his younger siblings might come to him.

After the special effects team have had a chance to have their fun, Mance orders everyone to stand down because he was super serious about how his people have bled enough. With that, Stannis and our BFF the Onion Knight come riding up. Mance throws his knives and swords to the ground in surrender. Stannis struts up and smugly mocks the King-beyond-the-wall. I want to root for Stannis and his legitimate claim but even aside from the fact that Melisandre is terrifying and #creepyasshit, Stannis is just such a douchebag. (L: +1. My feelings were confused when the answer to, “who is this,” was “Stannis.”)

Onion Knight introduces Stannis as the One True King of the Seven Kingdoms. Mance refuses to kneel/cave to Stannis’s bullshit. Stannis orders Mance’s men taken away. Onion Knight asks why a man of the Night’s Watch is hanging around there and does more formality grumbling when Jon doesn’t address Stannis as “Your Grace.” Jon drops some realness: “I know he’s the king. My father died for him. My name is Jon Snow, Your Grace. I’m Ned Stark’s son.” Stannis wants to know what Jon thinks Ned Stark would have done with Mance. Everyone needs to stop saying Ned’s name because feelings. Jon says that Mance treated him well when he was a prisoner so he thinks his father would have done the same and listened to what Mance had to say. Stannis is cool with that. Onion Knight takes him away. Jon adds that if his father had seen the things he had, he would also tell him to burn all the dead before nightfall.

King’s Landing. Maester Pycelle and the mad scientist guy who helped cure Jaime (guys, I just don’t care enough to look up his name) (L: Fuck it. It’s episode 10.) are inspecting The Mountain’s wounds while Cersei grumbles about those bloody Martells. (RIP PRINCE SWAGGER. RIP.) (L: HERE’S TO HOPING SWAGGER IS GENETIC AND YOUR FAMILY COMES THROUGH.) The Mountain’s wounds are poisoned because RED VIPER and while Pycelle thinks there’s nothing they can do, Mad Scientist has other ideas. Cersei dismisses Pycelle from his own laboratory and while I hate him for being a big old pervy creep, this scene also has a strong “he was the lesser of two evils” vibe to it. Mad Scientist tells Cersei that his cure will may leave The Mountain profoundly changed but as long as he’s still able to fight, Cersei doesn’t give a shit. There is gross footage of blood being drained from The Mountain’s body. Thanks for that, show!

Cersei goes from there to Tywin to tell him, once again, that she’s not about to get married off again. Tywin continues to be a dick, rubbing her nose in her “great claims about [her] commitment to this family’s future.” Given that Jaime can’t inherit lands and Tyrion is about to die, she’s become a super important pawn. He starts grandstanding about something that happened when she was small and she cuts him off: “I’m not interested in hearing another one of your smug stories about the time you won. This isn’t going to be one of those times.”

She tells a story of her own – the time she was about to kill Tommen before she knew that they won Blackwater. Tommen is all she has left now that Joffrey’s dead and Myrcella shipped off to Dorne. Tywin and Margaery’s fighting over him will rip him apart. “I will burn our house to the ground before I let that happen.” Tywin wants to know how she’d do that and she says she’ll tell everyone the truth. Tywin has no idea what she’s talking about because he’s an arrogant asshole. Or, as Cersei puts it: “How can someone so consumed by the idea of his family have any conception what his actual family was doing? We were right there in front of you and you didn’t see us.” She has to spell it out for him: his grandchildren are the product of incest. “Your legacy is a lie.” She knows he believes (because it’s true) and she takes her victory and walks.



Cersei gives me so many conflicted emotions and most of that is owed to the fact that Lena Headey is a fucking powerhouse.

Lor: Totally. She’s so consistently fantastic that it takes moments like this to make you truly appreciate what she’s done with this character.

Sweeney: I have zero conflicted emotions about what happens next. My feelings are exclusively dedicated to hating it. Cersei goes to tell Jaime about what happened with Tywin. She told him the truth and how she won’t be married off again and she’ll be staying in King’s Landing with Tommen and him. Then they have incesty sexy times which are already gross enough but also remember how Jaime raped Cersei and the show pretended it didn’t happen? Weeee! (L: Episode 10: still not over it!) (S: NOPE!)

Meereen. Missandei is once again wasting hours of her life introducing Dany’s stupidly long name. An old man named Fennesz is there. He’s very well spoken because as a slave he was a tutor to his slave master’s children. He taught them language and history. Unfortunately, now that he’s “free” he had to leave his former home. The barracks outfitted for former slaves are places where the young prey on the old. Dany promises to fix that, but that won’t help him: “Who will I be there? What purpose will I serve?” He wants to be able to sell himself back to his former master. He thinks this new world is all well and good for the young, but a place of fear and squalor for those too old to change. This is not the freedom she took the city to preside over, but she relents that freedom means making your own choices and agrees to allow him to sign a contract not exceeding a year. He thanks her and leaves.

Barristan points out that the masters will definitely take advantage of this, leading to men like Fennesz being slaves in all but name. The process of actually ruling continues to be complicated as hell for Dany. Her story has been so compelling all season and it has entirely made up for how #meh I felt last season.

We’re done yet, though: someone else walks in carrying a sack similar to the sack from the man with the goat. This man is frazzled and teary-eyed. Missandei translates that “he came from the sky – the black one.” He kneels down, sobbing, and opens up the sack revealing the burnt corpse of his little girl.

Later, Missandei tells Dany that the little girl was only three. Grey Worm confirms that nobody knows where Drogon is. She tells them to meet her in the catacombs.

She goes down to the catacombs with the other two dragons following behind her. They go into the catacombs eagerly, finding animal corpses in there for them to nom on. More importantly, the zoomy cameraman shows us big heavy chains. Dany has to stop for a minute to steady herself before she can find it in her to do what she needs to do. She tears up as she places a chain on the neck of each of the two dragons. They don’t seem to register what she’s done until she’s leaving. They look up all, “Hey, mom, wait for us!” and they’re super upset when they realize that they’re chained. Dany cries as the door the catacombs closes behind her.

Lor: I bet they are also thinking, “OMG WE DIDN’T EVEN DO IT. IT WAS TOTALLY DROGON.” I used to hate getting punished for crap my siblings did.

Sweeney: That’s the WORST. Poor little things.

Back at The Wall, Maester Aemon is saying prayers and goodbyes for the fallen men of The Night’s Watch. “And now their watch has ended,” chant the survivors. With that, the massive pyre is lit. We see Stannis and the Onion Knight looking on. His family is also there and I remember that Creepy Red insisted that it was super important that his adorable sweet daughter be brought along. Creepy Red also stares at Jon Snow through the flames. Are they going to try to marry them off and take Winterfell? I know Jon’s a bastard, but they could probably get some of the remaining men of the north to rally around that. Mostly I’m just desperately hoping that Melissandre’s plan doesn’t involve hurting that little girl.

Jon goes to Ginger Not Mance to ask if he wants to say some words for his dead. Ginger Not Mance tries to make small talk about how Jon’s time with Wildlings gave him an identity crisis. Ginger Not Mance says that the dead can’t hear them, so it’s whatever. He also stops Jon to say that he knew Ygritte loved him because all she ever talked about was killing him. How sweet! He adds that she belongs in the north – “the real north.”

With that, Jon takes her body just north of the wall and builds a pyre for her all by himself. They only show a bit of it, but I assume that was really time consuming. Zoomy cameraman shows us Ygritte’s face and I’m half expecting her to wake up a zombie. She does not. Jon walks away as the pyre burns but stops so that the he can get his extended, “Look at all the feelings I am having,” shot. Basically every segment in this finale ends that way. “Here are my emotions. You won’t hear of them for another year, so I’m going to brood a little extra for you now.”

Lor: It’s helpful, too, so that we can look back and just remember that in the end, everyone was sad.

Sweeney: Further off in this miserable tundra, Bran and his companions are fighting their way through a blizzard. Jojen is clearly not doing well and Meera is trying to get him to rest, but he’s not having that. He collapses and realizes that they’ve reached their destination. Sure enough, Bran is just ahead and can see the magic tree they’ve been looking for. I’m confused because this is totes Grandmother Willow, but like super boss Grandmother Willow, rather than just the Grandmother Willow Jr. that Jon and his buddies said their vows by. This is confusing mostly because I had assumed the latter was where they were headed all this time.

They make their way across the ice to Grandmother Willow, but a zombie hand reaches through the ice and grabs Jojen. Meera goes back for him and Hodor stands there confused. Bran’s sled is just off the edge of the ice. Another zombie crawls up on him and he’s saved by his DIREBOSS. Hodor is being attacked and Bran decides this is a time where he’d be using his powers for good. He wargs out as Hodor and fights damn near everybody. Jojen sees that Bran’s actual body is about to be attacked and calls out for him to save himself shortly before getting stabbed, repeatedly, by another zombie.

Lor: This whole scene had a kind of dream like, otherworldly quality that it took me a moment to realize that this was real life, and Jojen was being stabbed.

Sweeney: Same! You’d think they’d stop being able to shock us when people die, but there it was. Kid’s not only been dying for a while now but also has been dropping weirdly morbid comments in for longer than that. AND YET, it still required a double take. Or a double peek or something because I’m a wimp.

A strange little girl appears, shooting fireballs and telling Bran to come with her. It would have been great if you could have shown up a little sooner, girl. Jojen tells Meera to go and she has all the feelings but she goes. The others go into the little girl’s cave and she throws more fireballs at the zombies that continue chasing them. We see one shatter as it tries to follow them in. The little girl explains that the Grandmother Willow Cave is magic and their magic can’t sit with it. She says that The First men called them “the children” but they’re way older. In addition to being old and magic, you also get the gold star! Congratulations!
title star
Lor: I know you’ve got fireballs, girl, but look at that star shine!

Sweeney: She then skips off down a branchy corridor, saying that “he” waits for Bran. I think if you’re old as shit and living in a tree, you might just be weird like that for the fun of it. Maybe just me. (L: Probably passes the hours.)

They reach the end of the corridor and Hodor has to set Bran down so that he can drag himself up some branches to the mysterious “he.” It looks really uncomfortable. Bran realizes that this old man is the Three-Eyed Raven. Meera frantically explains about her brother, perhaps hoping they can bring him back? I mean, they’re clearly magic. Regardless, Raven Man says that he’s been watching these children forever (buddy, I know you’ve been living in a tree for a while now, but that’s a creepy thing to say to children FYI) and he knows that Jojen always knew – from the moment he left – how this was going to end. That’s heartbreaking.
Raven Man says that Brandon has come at last to collect what he’s lost. Bran excitedly thinks its the ability to walk. Poor baby, no, that’s not it. “You’ll never walk again, but you will fly.” Weird. This is the most interesting thing that has happened to Bran in a really long time and now I have to wait a year to figure out what it means. COOL.

On the other side of the wall, Brienne wakes up and is pissed because apparently Pod didn’t tie the horses up right. That’s a really shitty way to wake up. She figures they’ve now got to walk the remaining 30ish miles to The Eyrie.

A bit later, she comes upon Arya doing her river dancing. She tells The Hound that he can shit later because there are people coming.

Arya informs Brienne that they’re about 10 miles to the gate. Arya’s curious about Brienne being a lady with a sword. Brienne says that she is not a knight but does, in fact, know how to use the sword because her father taught her. They bond over their sword’s names. More Ned Stark feels when Arya remembers that Ned told her that fighting was for boys. Brienne said that she fought anyway and kept losing so he decided that if she was going to do it, she might as well do it right.

Lor: Man, I had never put together how much these two ladies would have in common but it was touching to see them bond about breaking out of their predetermined roles. Lovely.

Sweeney: The Hound appears and Pod knows who he is instantly. With that, Brienne realizes that the girl is Arya. She explains that she swore a vow to Catelyn to bring Arya home. She knows that Catelyn’s dead, but still made that promise. Arya asks why Brienne wasn’t there to protect her mother. She explains that she was sent to take Jaime Lannister back to King’s Landing, but insists that she’s not on their payroll. The Hound calls her out on wearing armor paid for with Lannister gold. This misunderstanding gives me so many feelings. SHE’S TELLING YOU THE TRUTH. WHY CAN’T YOU SEEEE!?


Arya reiterates that the gate is 10 miles away, as a way of sending Brienne along. Brienne insists that she needs Arya to come with her to safety. The Hound laughs at that idea, rattling off a list of Arya’s dead family members, one-by-one, including her home in rubble. Brienne calls bullshit on the idea that The Hound is watching over her. His insistence that he is, in fact, doing that also gives me lots of feelings.

Lor: And who truly is the best person to look after Arya, when there is no safety for her? I think that The Hound’s form of ruthlessness was what she needed to keep her alive for a while.

Sweeney: Absolutely. Unfortunately, Brienne does not know all of that, so she and The Hound fight. You should know by now that I don’t really know how to recap fight scenes. Swords! Clanging noises! Grunting! CLANG CLANG CLANG!

Lor: LORRAINE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT TO ROOT FOR!How about:


Sweeney: Brienne has The Mountain on his knees and she says she has no wish to kill him and on first watch I lost my fucking mind at the idea that yet another character was about to die for decency. He grips the sword, telling her he’s not a knight and then the fighting gets really gnarly. Hand to hand, stones, biting. Just grossness that I vaguely remember and won’t watch again. The CLANG CLANG noises are replaced with gross squishing noises. Brienne finally tosses The Hound down the mountain. In the end, I was only half wrong: Brienne doesn’t die for her attempt at handling the situation honorably – she lives because she gets down into the muck that is this world.

We’ve talked about this a fair bit this season, but that’s part of what unsettles me about this show. I don’t have a problem with darkness or dark themes. I do, however, have a problem with the DARKNESS ONLY FOREVER! tone of this universe. There’s a basic message that only the shitty survive, but that because they survive, we should forgive them for being shitty. It doesn’t always advance that point – plenty of characters do struggle with that as a moral dilemma, and I appreciate those moments. But in the increasing darkness of the series, this, “Every man for himself, who gives a shit what kind of terrible things you have to do get what you want!” undercurrent grows ever stronger. This episode has a lot of that (and plenty of reminders of Ned Stark to go along with it) and I’m still trying to process how I feel about it. I guess have a whole year to do that now. I think it’s a good thing that the seasons only have 10 episodes. As the intensity ramps up, I think we could all use these extended breathers. I know I’m due for it, at least. (L: Me too. Friendly reminder that the hardest thing about watching this show, for me, is that I have no hope for any of the characters I like. Or hate. Or any characters at all.)

After the fight, Brienne starts crying out for Arya, but she’s gone. Pod didn’t see which way she went because he was more concerned about her. We see Arya hiding behind a rock.

She goes down to The Hound. He’s dying but still alive. Arya points out that he’s dying. Thanks for that info! The Hound grumbles about being killed by a woman. (Ladies and poison and chicken bones can kill you just as dead, y’all.)  The Hound is ready to die. He asks if Arya remembers where the heart is and starts baiting her. He talks of the butcher’s boy and how he wishes he’d raped Sansa. Arya just stares at him blankly. He asks if he has to beg and still she doesn’t speak. He does, in fact, beg. Arya kneels beside him, steals his coins, and walks off, never answering his pleas that she come back to kill him.

Lor: Kick to the gut. Remember when we were all kind of hoping that Arya would take The Hound off her Bed Time Kill List? Right, well, leave it to this show to take that wish and make something even more ruthless. She didn’t kill him, and it was worse.

Sweeney: King’s Landing. Tyrion is lying in his cell when Jaime arrives to free him. As Jaime leads the way he says that Varys is helping them – “You have more friends than you thought.” Jaime leads Tyrion to a door where he’s to give a special knock. As he goes, Tyrion stops him: “I suppose this is goodbye then.” Jaime stops and they hug goodbye. Tyrion thanks him and Jaime tells him to hurry.

Tyrion stands at the bottom of the stairs, but hesitates. He’s got unfinished business to tend to first.

We see him appear from a hatch in the floor in the Tower of the Hand. It’s night and Tyrion makes his way through the halls, ending at Tywin’s bedroom where a naked Shae is waking up, asking for Tywin, “My lion.” She realizes that it’s Tyrion and grabs a knife. He jumps on the bed and they fight. He gets his hands around a gold chain she’s wearing and chokes her with it. Who the fuck sleeps with necklaces on? DON’T SLEEP WITH NECKLACES ON, GUYS.

Lor: Or if you really want to, do be a lying liar who lies so no one will want to late night murder you.

Sweeney: But this is Westeros where people have no choice to but to be terrible people! So don’t wear necklaces. Snark Lady advice saving lives as far away as The Seven Kingdoms.

Tyrion cries and apologizes and gets his dramatic, “Here’s some brood for the road,” shot.

Then he switches to murder face. He spies Joffrey’s prostitute-torturing crossbow and carries it down the hall, ending at the bathroom where Tywin is sitting. LITTLEFINGER’S PROPHECY ABOUT DEATH ON CHAMBER POTS WILL SOON BE FULFILLED!

Tywin tries to get Tyrion to calm down and go talk somewhere else, by Tyrion’s not having that. “All my life you’ve wanted me dead.” Tywin agrees, but says he respected and admired him for refusing to die. Tywin tries to insist that he’d never let them execute him. MMHMM. Tyrion says that he loved Shae and adds that he murdered her with his own hands. Tywin says it doesn’t matter because she was a whore and Tyrion raises the crossbow, threatening him to say that word – whore – again. Tyrion wants to know why Tywin would sentence his son to death for a crime he didn’t commit. Tywin wants to go back to his chambers, asking if Tyrion’s “afraid of a dead whore.” He takes an arrow for that. Tyrion reloads, telling Tywin that he has always been his son and fires the final death shot. Tywin is incredulous about it up to the end.



Tyrion goes to the door at the top of the stairs to meet Varys. Varys knows Tyrion’s done something, but he doesn’t yet know what because Tyrion’s not in a chatty mood. Varys watches as the crate he put Tyrion in is loaded onto a ship. He hears bells tolling behind him, all through King’s Landing – Tywin’s body has been found. Varys is all, “Fuck this,” and takes a seat on the boat beside Tyrion’s crate.

varys_fuckthis

Lor: Excellent. Varys has given us a number of great reaction shots, and this whole, “nah, I’m leaving too,” thing is right up there with the best.

Sweeney: Indeed. It’s a solid, “Fuck this,” expression.

Although, this is still the S4 Varys-reaction-gif winner for me:

varys_shrug

I’ll miss your snarky faces, my friend.

Arya, having left The Hound to die, got her hands on a horse and rode to the coast. She tries to buy passage on a boat to The Wall, but the captain isn’t planning on going there. He’s headed home to Braavos. Arya says she has something else and it’s not silver but iron. She hands him the coin from her pretty assassin friend and says the magic words, “Valar morghulis.” With that, the captain promises her a cabin on board the ship, no further questions asked. I’m excited for her adventures in Braavos but also bummed because I let myself experience a fleeting moment of false hope when she suggested going to The Wall. My heart will never stop wishing for that Starkunion, however impossible I know it to be.

(Speaking of, what the hell is Rickon even up to these days?)

The episode ends with Arya running from one end of the ship to the other and a wide shot of the ship sailing off. Until next year, friends.

But first, here’s some final #gameofsnark fun:

I failed at our own hashtag, but since I’m embedding the tweets, I get to do what I want:

Nicole Sweeney (all posts)

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.





Marines (all posts)

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.





Written by

Nicole Sweeney

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.