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Game of Thrones S04 E08 – New Challenger Approaching

Previously: Littlefinger pushed Lysa Arryn through the moon door and Prince Oberyn Swagger Martell volunteered to be Tyrion’s champion against The Hound.
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The Mountain and The Viper

Sweeney: For reasons I cannot articulate, the will to write this recap has evaded me this week. That’s my way of saying, “I’m sorry this is late and I have zero good excuses prepped for why it’s so late.”

Lorraine: I disagree, dearest friend. The reason The Mountain and the Viper is late is because it’s The Mountain and The Viper. There. Done.

Sweeney: I stand corrected.

My old nemesis, the lying liar credits, kick us off: King’s Landing. Moat Cailin! That’s new, yeah? Sadly, it’s because Ramsay is in this episode, but we’ll concentrate on WOO NEW PLACE! for now. Winterfellinperpetualflames, The Wall, Braavos, and finally Meereen with that sweet temple designed by that probably-innocent guy Dany had killed.

We start in a grungy looking place where people are fucking outside with people walking by. Oh, Westeros! Inside a bar, a woman is belching The Bear and the Maiden Fair for some dudes. This grungy place, I know realize, is where Sam ditched Gilly. Klassy. The Belching Songbird stumbles back to where Gilly is doing laundry to harass her about her annoying baby does annoying baby stuff like cry. Gilly tells her to shut her whore mouth when she hears an owl because, as a former Wildling, she knows it means serious trouble.

Lor: The real wonder is that she can hear the owl with all the drunken shenanigans going on. Rock on, Gilly.

Sweeney: Outside, the raiding party of Wildlings and their cannibal companions lays waste to the place quite easily. Gilly did manage to hide, mostly successfully. The fussy baby (surprisingly calm, given the noisy slaughter happening a few feet a way) is overheard by Ygritte, who hesitates but simply presses her finger to her lips, cautioning Gilly to keep quiet. As she rushes off, my closed captioning informs me that I’m hearing the sound of “blood pouring” from the roof. Yes, indeed, much safer there Sam!

At The Wall, Sam is appropriately freaking the fuck out, having just heard the news that the place where he left Gilly was raided. Jon Snow’s Night’s Watch friends lament the awful shit situation they’re in right now, but they cheer Sam up by reminding him of the on-going tour of shit that has been their lives. One guy, in particular, gets a high five from me when he points out that Gilly survived Craster and a White Walker. I mentioned this on Twitter, but Sam and Gilly’s whole story always bored me to tears and so I kind of overlooked this really important bit about how they’re actually kind of badass. Only kind of, though, because they’re still boring. I won’t be taking that back.

Lor: They can be both. Congratulations on surviving, you two, but it was not compelling TV.

Sweeney: Anyway, this band of bros realize the epic levels of FUCKED that they are, with 100,000 men fast approaching their 102. They agree that the last man dead will have to burn the corpses and they drink to that because there’s not a whole lot else to do at that point.

Across the Narrow Sea, The Unsullied are bathing in pants while the ladies are bathing naked. Granted, there’s a whole additional job for the prosthetics people if The Unsullied have to bathe naked and they’ve got enough to do in this episode. Remember in Fifty Shades when we’d point out all the times that Ana was not working? We didn’t want to actually read about her working but it had to be noted that she never did this job she was so good at. This blatant, shirtless dudes = naked ladies is sort of similar. The real point of this scene, though, is that Grey Worm is PERVING hardcore. He stares at naked Missandei and she catches him and it’s awkward and he hides his head underwater with appropriate levels of shame. I want to see that gif become on par with the Homer-backing-into-the-bushes gif as an internet catch-all for hiding from unpleasantness. (L: A+)



For comparison:

homer-bushes

Later, Missandei’s getting her hair braided by Dany and telling her what happened. Dany gives her this annoyingly pretentious speech about how the Dothraki are all free love, like a college freshman from the mid-west who was just cast in an east cost college production of Hair. She catches herself, though, and notes that this isn’t really relevant to Missandei, as she is not Dothraki. She doesn’t think any of it matters, though, because the Unsullied can’t possibly be interested in her sexually. Missandei’s not buying that, though. He may not be able to act on it, but she’s confident he was interested. Dany asks if Missandei knows if the castration was total – “the pillar and the stones,” which is an amazing line. Missandei doesn’t know but yes, she’s definitely wondered.

Lor: I like that Dany is the one taking the lead in this birds, bees, stones and pillars talk but Missandei is the one who better knows what’s going on. I mean, it’d be hard not to, considering how hard Greyworm was PERVING. But still.

Sweeney: Missandei goes to the temple alone and Grey Worm comes to apologize. He adds that the Common Tongue lessons are precious to him – he learned the word “precious” from Jorah, though. Missandei asks him questions about life before The Unsullied, but he remembers none of it. She’s sorry all of that was done to him. Grey Worm takes up a similar line to explaining his love of his Unsullied name, saying that if all the shit that happened to him hadn’t happened, he wouldn’t be where he is now, a fact that includes having met her. She tears up and they exchange loaded, “We have feels but this world is fuuuuucked up, so…” looks.

As he leaves, Missandei says she’s glad he saw her. He is too. I don’t know how to take that, Grey Worm. This was a lovely little scene, though. I think the show is often needlessly gratuitous with its depictions of sex (which I care a lot less about then all the violence –  I’d take a 100% increase in nudity in exchange for less blood and flaying and skull shattering) but I give it a lot of credit for displaying a really broad spectrum of human sexuality. I spoiled my sister a bit on the Varys/Oberyn scene and how much I appreciated that tandem presentation of bisexuality and asexuality on this show. She lamented that it was unfortunate that castration had to be tied to asexuality. I corrected my explanation because I really don’t think the show did that in that scene and I think this little bit is a good companion to clarify that.

Moat Cailin. Ramsay is putting family armor on Theon, and mocking the Kraken. Theon recites his whole “I’m Theon Greyjoy” routine and it’s got the usual PTSD, shell of a man vibe we’ve seen from him for so long. Ramsay confirms that Theon is still broken and identifies as Reek, telling him to remember what he is and what he’s not, before sending him off to collect Moat Cailin.





Theon, carrying a white flag, rides up to the gate. He hesitates when asked who he is – long enough that the editor was all, “Ugh, ain’t got time for this, let’s just cut to the part where we’re inside.” MIRACULOUSLY, Theon’s suddenly able to hold his shit together well enough to explain who he is without sounding like he’s been utterly destroyed. Theon promises, on behalf of the Boltons, that if this band of sickly men surrenders Moat Cailin, Lord Bolton will “be as just and fair with you as he was with me.” (L: He’s not lying.) I’m entirely not buying the fact that Theon could be this together, and the guy who received the terms is also not having any of this surrender nonsense. “Only a whipped dog would speak this way.” Womp. This sense-talking man gets stabbed, though, because everybody else is all, “Fuck this, let’s go home,” and believes the promise that if they yield they’ll live.

We cut to a bit later when that same man has been flayed. Ramsay tells Theon that it’s unfortunate that flaying has gone out of style, because tradition is important. Theon just wants to go home. That’s how watching scenes with these two makes me feel except that I am, in fact, at home. So maybe it just makes me want to go back to the beginning of the series when Winterfell wasn’t on fire and the whole Stark family was alive and together and running around with direwolves and shit. BUT YOU HELPED THROW ALL THAT AWAY THEON, so there’s that.

The Vale. Littlefinger is sitting very poised by also kind of, “Shit, shit, shit,” as he’s being interrogated by highborn people who find the sequence of events between Littlefinger’s arrival and Lysa Arryn’s “suicide” a bit tricky. They all knew that Lady Arryn was “an odd fish,” but don’t buy that she would willingly leave her creepy child (L: without his milk). Littlefinger insists that she was always prone to melancholy. They’re interested in hearing from another witness to the suicide, though – Littlefinger’s “neice.” Then he amps up to, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” as he tries to talk them out of it, but they’ve already called Sansa up to speak without letting him interfere with her testimony.

Sansa walks in and Littlefinger’s face falls some more as we see the face of the girl who is a self-professed “terrible liar.” A fact we already watched her play to her advantage once before. Sansa apologizes to him and says that she must tell these people the whole truth. Sansa confesses her true identity and explains that Littlefinger – with Lady Arryn’s help – rescued her from her extended torture in King’s Landing. (It was hard to watch, but much like the summary of Gilly, there’s something about hearing it all summed up so succinctly.) When one member of this little committee – a Lord Royce who met little Sansa back at not-on-fire Winterfell – gets ragey with Littlefinger for lying to their face Sansa says that, “Lord Baelish has told many lies – all to protect me.”

Sansa tells of Lady Arryn’s deep love of Littlefinger, appealing to the woman on the committee by pointing out that she married Lord Arryn as her father ordered, “as so many of us have.” Her confession includes the kiss and Lady Arryn’s distress at seeing it and after working herself up to the bit of hysteria needed she finds it in her to tell a lie, spinning the scene of Lady Arryn’s end into the suicide Littlefinger said it was. The lady consoles her with a hug and Sansa steals a, “SEE WHAT I DID THERE!” look at Littlefinger.


This whole scene is fantastic because it’s Sansa doing as Littlefinger encouraged and turning that “terrible liar” weakness into a strength. It’s also great because Sansa’s story is often accused of being boring (by people whose opinions are worthless) (also my brothers) because of the fact that she’s largely been a pawn, but this moment drives home that Sansa always knew that letting herself be manipulated as pawn is why she’s still alive. And, in this very moment, she exerts power by playing to the assumption that she’s forever a pawn. It reminds me of the beginning of the series (in part because I keep talking about it) when Lorraine’s first observation of Sansa and Arya was that the represented opposing visions of femininity and strength. As much as I love that this show gives us figures like Daenerys, Sansa’s character is important because she brings a sort of completion to that portrait. The cool thing about this story is that there are so many unique, distinct characters, each representing unique, distinct brands of strength and weakness.

tl;dr TEAM SANSA FOREVER.

Lor: Nicely said. It kind of guts me to see her lying so professionally, but at the same time, LIE GIRL. LIE AND LIVE. It’s not only playing to the assumption that she’s a pawn, but that she’s a girl in this world, a little girl. If people think she’s weak and emotional or whatever else, she’s going to use that. Just coming full circle, Arya is out there learning to fight, changing the role she was born to play (according to the social system she belongs to); Sansa is USING that role to her advantage.

I love her too.

Sweeney: Later, Lord Royce tells Littlefinger that he’s not surprised by Lady Arryn’s suicide because letting your 10-year-old son suck your tit is weird shit. A discomforting conflation of ideas about mental health, particularly since we, the audience, know she didn’t commit suicide. Littlefinger thinks that they need to get justice for her son and part of that entails taking up arms against the Lannisters, implying that it was downright cowardly for Lysa to refuse Catelyn Stark’s request for help. Baelish says that sickly little boys can become powerful men and that it’s time for Robin to go out and become a ruler. Also to probably die in the process, leaving Baelish to take over as Lord of the Vale.

Back across The Narrow Sea, Ser Barristan is stopped by a little boy with a message from The Hand. That message, as we learn when he confronts Jorah, is a copy of Jorah’s pardon. Jorah begs Barristan to let him tell Dany himself, but Barristan only warned him as a courtesy and says he’ll never be allowed to be alone with Dany again.

Inside the Temple of Queens Being Queens, Dany is hurt and fuming. You know, I still don’t think Emilia Clarke is an actress worthy of this role (and there are several moments in this scene that I’d point to) but I do have to give her credit for having truly improved as the series progressed. (Unlike, say, Kit Harrington who was marginally better than her in the early days but has shown 0% improvement.) Jorah tries to say that he can explain, and notes that Tywin sent this in order to divide them, but Dany wants him to cut the crap and explain why he was pardoned. He confesses that he spied on her. Dany’s real sticking point is that the spying lasted long enough that he told them about Dany being pregnant with Drogo’s child. It’s a heartbreaking little reminder that Dany still remembers and suffers for what she lost. And now, she’s losing all over again because her oldest friend has betrayed her to her oldest enemy. It’s only for their history that she spares his life; she tells him to GTFO before dusk or lose that courtesy. We watch Ser Friendzoned ride off into permanent exile.

Lor: I get it, but also it’s a blow to Dany’s cause. Jorah was a voice of reason and we’ve seen Dany act rashly. Tywin is good.

Sweeney: Precisely. This move was downright brilliant. He has been an asset to her and even though she’s coming into her own, we’ve seen, this season, that she can still benefit from his counsel.

Out in the vast expanse of northern grass, Ramsay presents his father with confirmation that Moat Cailin is his. Lord Bolton and Ramsay take a walk up a hill so that Ramsay can point out that The North is fucking huge – bigger than the other six kingdoms combined – and he is its warden. He asks Ramsay to say his name and he seems a bit humiliated as he says it is Ramsay Snow. Bolton corrects that he is now Ramsay Bolton from this day until his last, presenting him with a piece of paper to that effect. Ramsay takes a knee to thank him. It’s an oddly humanizing moment, which is quickly corrected by watching him ride off with “Reek,” so that we can remember what a sick little fuck he is.

Lor: I mentioned this on Twitter, but it’s fucking terrifying that Ramsay is ONE DEAD PERSON AWAY FROM BEING WARDEN OF THE NORTH. Or, I don’t know if Bolton has more kids but Ramsay’s closer than ever and I’m not entirely confident stupid Roose will last much longer.

Sweeney: It’s not entirely clear, but the show definitely seems to be suggesting that Ramsay was just made Bolton’s heir and yeah, that observation is legit. You should have thought real hard about that move, daddy dearest.

The Vale. Sansa is sewing something in her room (guys, it’s not just me – this episode is filled with Winterfell feels) when Littlefinger comes to ask why she helped him. She says that he’d have been executed if she didn’t help and if they did that, what would they have done with her? Little finger muses that she gambled on the man she knew rather than the strangers she didn’t, but asks if she really thinks she knows him. “I know what you want,” she says without meeting his eyes. She asks if she really does and she gives him a loaded, “YEAH, I DO, PERV,” look. It fills me with so many emotions because I still find his lust for her a little gross and I’m a little bit sad for her but mostly proud of her for both recognizing this fact and figuring out how to exploit it.

Buddy Cop Road Trip! The Hound and Arya discuss Joffrey’s death and his dislike for him having died of poison because that’s a woman’s tool. Arya calls it foolish pride, saying that she’d kill him with a chicken bone if she had to. (L: LOVE. Stop with poison being a woman’s tool shit. Poison is for people who would kill anyway they could…) They’re finally arriving at The Vale, though, and The Hound is certain that family and honor are enough to guarantee that Lady Arryn would, in fact, pay for her. At the gate, they announce who they are and the guard offers his condolences because they arrived a mere three days after her death. There’s a pause and then Arya bursts out laughing. That reaction is priceless.

I saw some discussion of this on Tumblr, namely someone trying to posit that this laughter is masking some deep hurt on Arya’s part, having just lost yet another member of her crumbling family. I disagree with that read. I think that any of her remaining siblings might have felt that way, but Arya’s too far gone. I have a soft spot for her forever and ever, but this kid is truly fucked up. I’m curious to hear what you all have to say (and maybe book readers can add some bonus insight here) but I just don’t buy that level of compassion and concern for that sort of thing from Arya. Her entire existence, at this point, is fueled by her quest for vengeance.

What’s more, even before all of this, she recoiled at a lot of traditional ideas about honor and roles and unlike some other players, her desire for vengeance has very little to do with shit like family honor. For Arya it’s straightforward: there were people that I loved and these are the people that killed them. Vengeance for the baker’s boy is no more or less significant than vengeance for her father. I find it hard to buy that Arya gave any shits about the aunt she never met. To me, that laughter was entirely about the insane fact that The Hound has been on this epic journey with Arya and this is the second time that he arrived at a possible payout only to find the people in question deceased. I suppose that, in that sense, I might buy that it’s masking some hurt for the realization that her situation is super fucked up, but I think Arya resigned herself to that truth a long time ago and is mostly laughing at him for not seeing what “a little girl” finds so obvious.

Lor: I agree with your read as well. She’s both laughing at the Hound and at this freakin’ show. Something like that.

Sweeney: But the most important takeaway here: ONCE AGAIN TWO STARK CHILDREN WERE THISCLOSE TO A REUNION AND IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. I just want to see two Stark kids hug it out more than pretty much anything else in the whole TV world. That would be like TV Christmas. Maybe if I’m really good and I ask Santa real nice…GRRM looks kind of like Santa. Sick, twisted, soul-crushing Santa.

Inside The Vale, Littlefinger is giving Robin a pep-talk about going out to “take charge of your life – for as long as it lasts.” You know, because of how Littlefinger is setting that life up to be very short. The music gets real serious, then, and Sansa emerges, now sporting black hair and a really intense black dress with feathers and looking like a total fucking BAMF. She struts down the stairs asking Littlefinger if it’s time to go and this moment is perfection.

So is this Tumblr post:


King’s Landing. Jaime and Tyrion are having their final bro moment. Tyrion asks if Oberyn really has a chance, trying to say that you don’t get a name like “The Red Viper of Dorne” without being deadly. This scene is as perfect as all of the brotherly scenes have been this season. Tyrion alternates between blatant acknowledgments of his impending demise and joking memories – the stuff he’d like to think about in his final moments. He tells a story of their mentally handicapped cousin who used to smash beetles. Jaime offers up the brilliant line, “Who gives a dusty fuck about a bunch of beetles?” We Snark Ladies always appreciate new uses of swear words. Anyway, Tyrion tried to find out why that happened because he was the smartest person he knew, but never succeeded. He pleads with Jaime to give him an answer. “What was it all about?” Jaime doesn’t know. The subtext here being that this is his last change to find out the answer to that question. I just want to hug him. All the more when the bells begin tolling and it’s time for Jaime to see himself out.

Lor: There are lots of #deepthoughts hidden behind the beetle story, but mostly I can’t help but think that GRRM (and the writers) is the cousin and these characters are the beetles. “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?” we the audience (Tyrion) ask. (And we’ll be screaming that shortly….) (#spoilers) but there is no why. We are victims of this story as much as anyone else, man.

Sweeney: Agreed! I had the same thought while watching initially but that got lost in my rush to get this thing up before the new episode. That conversation felt very meta.

We watch as Jaime is escorted to the scene of the trial-by-combat. He finds Oberyn, cocky and swagger-filled as ever. He’s helping himself to wine and wearing no armor. Tyrion wishes he would at least wear a helmet to keep them both from getting killed. Ellaria’s all love and support until she finally sees The Mountain. She’s not a fan of the idea of Oberyn fighting “that.” Prince Swagger swaggers some more about how, “Today is not the day I die.” In a show whose posters read, “ALL MEN MUST DIE,” that’s the most hardcore telegraphing of a scene they could have done. Anyone who didn’t immediately know where this is going is a little slow on the uptake.

Lor: YEP. The last guy to say something similar was Syrio Forel and though he told the god of death, “not today,” the god of death was all, “actually yes. I penciled you in for right now.”

Sweeney: A+, friend.

Pycelle announces the impending battle to the crowd. Cersei sits there looking very smug but also like she hates the sound of Pycelle’s voice as much as the rest of us. I laughed when the music played him out. A tiny but perfect moment. Oberyn promises Ellaria that he won’t leave her alone in this world, you know, to remind the audience that he’s totally about to do that.

In spite of everything I said about the obviousness of this scene, the show still manages to build suspense quite well. Oberyn does a lot of really cool jumping – showing the crowd that in spite of his size, he’s got tricks. And also reminding the audience that he’s the coolest dude in Westeros, which is why he has to die. It’s also a callback to what fellow Really Cool Dude suggested to Tyrion as the only way to defeat The Mountain – move around a lot and tire him out.

Oberyn explains that he came all the way to “this stinking shit pile of a city” to see him. He wants to hear The Mountain confess to the rape and murder of his sister and her children and the sooner The Mountain does that, the sooner this can all be over. “You raped her! You murdered her! You killed her children!” becomes his mantra throughout out the battle.



 

It’s a really intense fight and Oberyn keeps doing cool flippy shit while The Mountain lumbers around. At first, things are going well for him and people are all like:

 

 

Oberyn makes first stabby contact. He eventually manages to get his spear into The Mountain’s calf, bringing him down. Oberyn stabs him in the chest, but then laments that The Mountain is dying before confessing and, more importantly, confessing that Tywin is the one who ordered the kill. Tyrion was looking really confident until Oberyn starts crazily stomping around screaming. He gets just a little too close to The Mountain’s body, though, allowing him the opportunity to grab his leg and take him down.

The Hound climbs on top of Oberyn and confesses, as ordered, before smashing Oberyn’s skull in and showing some Emmy-worthy work from the prosthetics team. I only saw it the once, though. No fucking chance was I going to sit through that twice. Then people are all like:

 

 

Ellaria’s scream is basically the feeling deep down in my soul at watching one of the best TV Boyfriends die. (Maybe one day when Lor and I are together we can do a Segue Magic about our favorite TV Boyfriends. Ideally we will be drunk for this.) (L: We might end up in a “The Boy is Mine” Brandy & Monica style screaming match. It’ll be great.) (S: Dream a little dream!)

Tywin announces that the gods have made their will known and Tyrion processes that little bit of information. Cersei looks smug as fuck. Of course. End credits.

My brother texted me about this, arguing that this should have been a tie-goes-to-the-runner scenario, since both men died. Not that I think anyone reading this blog needs this clarification, but since I have filled this post with all outside information I’ve gathered this week, I’ll note that in this insane version of justice, it seems pretty obvious that died-first is an important detail.

And with that, we’ve got two episodes left until the finale. I’m pretty heartsick about the loss of Oberyn, mostly because this show just keeps getting darker and darker and he was such a bright spot in all of that. Beyond the fact that Pedro Pascal is a pretty man, Oberyn was a super fun character.

Otherwise, interesting things are brewing everywhere. Sansa just upped her game, the most deranged individual in all of Westeros has just become a lot more powerful, Dany’s now out one of her best advisors (and Barristan is now a questionable dude, since he knew full well that the message came from Tywin), and Tyrion’s situation continues to get worse. A lot of awesome plot set-up, but it was all done in a way that made everything significant on its own and not just as set up, which is cool. Each of these scenes had their own weight independent of what they’ll inevitably mean in the remaining two episodes of the season.

ONWARD!

But first, some #gameofsnark Tweets. There were more than ever this week, and we did our best to grab a nice sampling of them all. Check out the full tag, though, because Traumateers are the best people on the Internet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

  And even though we swear we’re friends, every woman for her recapping self:

 

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.