Game Of Thrones S05E01 – The Wars To Come

It seems like every break between seasons of Game Of Thrones is far too long, or the seasons are too short. But here we are and the best show on television returned triumphantly to the small screen, although a ton of people (like, damn near half the internet) got up on those leaks early. Good on ya, but I’m not doing it. I’m tryna make this season last as long as possible. Let’s go….

-We open with two little girls walking through a forest that obviously looks creepy, and come up on a hut that they just walk into like they own the place. The lead little girl is in search of a witch and she has a nasty attitude, which she punctuates with a threat to the witch as this is her father’s land, which means it’s her land. She asks the witch, who can see the future, if she’ll be queen, and if she’ll have children and the witch says she will be queen and she’ll have three children, but her husband, the king will have 20; which makes me laugh that Robb tried to marry for love and well, “The Red Wedding” happened. Anyway, we realize by the end of this scene that it is a young Cersei before jumping to the present and shoutout to Nell Williams, the young lady who played young Cersei, because she channeled Lena Headey’s cold entitlement extremely well. And also, I see that her friend’s name is Melara Heatherspoon. I wonder if we ever see her again?

-Cersei rolls up to her father’s funeral and gets a moment alone with Jaime, who is guarding Tywin’s body, and Cersei goes off on him for letting Tyrion free, which ended up getting Tywin killed. Now, she says, the Lannisters’ enemies are going to have a field day and what’s worse, Tywin loved Jaime more than anyone. And Jaime just stood there and took it because while it was mean (because Cersei doesn’t know any other way), it was all true. Cersei stays treating Jaime like dogshit, but much of it, he brought on himself because incest doesn’t pay, kids.

-Next, we’re inside of a box that is being carried, so we know we’re with Tyrion now and he spills out of the box in front of Varys, looking like he smells like actual feces (which he says he had to push out through small holes on the side of the box). Varys says that they’re in Pentos, where they are hiding out as the plan to get the Targaryens (via Daenerys) back in power completely backfired. Tyrion isn’t really tryna hear anything that Varys is saying right now, and drinks until he throws up. Yet, he keeps going. I have friends like that, I’m not a puke-and-rally guy, I puke and go straight to bed.

-Next, we’re in Meereen where the giant statue is being pulled off the Great Pyramid by the Unsullied. The soldier overseeing this, named White Rat, then goes to a brothel and it’s about 13 minutes before the first sign of nudity, which is a sign of maturity for Game Of Thrones. Then you wonder, hey, why does a guy with no private parts need to go to a brothel? Sometimes, a fella just wants his head (the one on the shoulders) stroked as you’re hummed to sleep….but sometimes, that ends in you getting your throat slit, which is what happens to White Rat. The person was masked and he was a part of the Sons of the Harpy, a group who isn’t happy with the way Dany has been doing things in Slaver’s Bay (getting rid of the slaves is probably a big part of it). She orders a public burial for White Rat, which will piss the Sons off and draw them out, and Dany is still tryna figure out how to rule, which is what she said she would do at the end of last season. Everything is so black and white with her.

-Grey Worm and Missandei have a brief chat about why an Unsullied would be at a brothel, and Grey Worm looks ashamed and scurries away. Their little relationship is cute and all, but let’s keep this way, like, one minute per episode.

-Jon Snow is at the Wall, training people that have no business fighting, while Sam and Gilly are there as well. Melisandre summons Jon to go to the top of the Wall to see Stannis, taking that same rickety-ass elevator that looks like a death trap waiting to happen. Anyway, Stannis tells him that he has to persuade Mance Rayder, leader of the Wildlings and self-professed King of the North, to bow to him and have the Wildlings join his army, or be burned at the stake. Stannis is the worst out of all the kings because he isn’t going to bully Mance into doing what he wants, and he won’t listen to anyone but Melisandre, the most dangerous sidechick in the history of television.

-Sansa and Littlefinger are watching Robin spar with another boy, who almost looks ashamed be kicking Robin’s ass so thoroughly as Robin, says Lord Yohn Royce, swings his sword like a girl with palsy. DAMN. Royce says he’ll take Robin as his ward, hence the training, but he isn’t promising anything, while Littlefinger gets a note that he hides from Sansa, who looks sadder than usual and wondering what the hell she has gotten herself into.

-At the same time, Brienne and Pod da Gawd are still wandering around, and Brienne is feeling sorry for herself because Arya didn’t wanna roll with her and when Pod tries to encourage her, she snaps at him. She gotta go easier on the Gawd. He’s just tryna help and Brienne tells him he is free to go, but where in the fuck is he going to go? Anyway, they notice a caravan of carriages roll by that just happen to have Sansa and Littlefinger inside, and he tells her he is taking her to a place where the Lannisters will never find her. Remember, Cersei thinks she was in on the plot to kill Joffrey, so Sansa ain’t safe in these streets.

-Cersei is at the after-funeral party, getting drunk of course, so you know this will end well. People are tryna offer their condolences and she can’t be bothered to even fake like she cares, just wandering through the crowd, grabbing glasses of whatever it is they drink in King’s Landing, might be Stark Blood for all we know. Anyway, she is approached by her cousin Lancel, who we haven’t seen for a couple of seasons now, and his father (Kevan) says he is a part of the Sparrows, which is basically a religious cult. She sneaks away and Lancel finds her to apologize as he was a squire for Robert Baratheon, Cersei’s late husband and even though Robert was kind of a dick to him, he kept feeding him wine, which slowed Robert down enough to be killed by a boar (Varys thinks this was on purpose). Also, he and Cersei had a mini-affair because why the hell not? Keep it in the family, I guess. But he has found God now, so he’s all good. Cersei is like, whatever, gimme another glass of the good stuff. Something tells me we’ll see him again.

-Loras Tyrell is in bed with another guy as he has been known to do, even though he was supposed to be married to Cersei at some point. Margaery walks in because fuck knocking, and tries to hurry him up as they’re supposed to meet Tommen, Cersei’s son and the new king. She also warns him to be discreet about his sexuality, but he’s like, everyone is talking anyway, what’s the point? And he doesn’t think he has to even marry Cersei anymore because Tywin isn’t around, while Margaery is stuck with Cersei as her mother-in-law if she marries Tommen. However, Margaery says, “perhaps” and nothing else. Is she plotting to kill Cersei? She’s plotting to do something, her and her grandmother, Lady Olenna, who I’m waiting to see. She’s great.

-Back to Tyrion and Varys, and Tyrion is still drinking. Varys gives Tyrion an option: either drink himself here in Pentos, or go with him to continue his mission to give Westeros their best chance of survival, which is a new ruler. That ruler? Daenerys Stormborn. Can you imagine Dany and Tyrion on the same team? He can talk to people reasonably and be rather witty when he wants to be, and if mufuckas don’t get in line, they can talk to her giant army and, oh yeah, the dragons…..well, if she can get them in line (more on that in a minute). Anyway, he says he’ll go, but only if he can drink along the way. All these Lannisters need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous.

-In Meereen, this guy is tryna explain to Dany that the people of Yunkai have at least agreed to have a council of sorts to run the city so she doesn’t have to keep going back there, but they want the fighting pits to be re-opened. The fighting pits are where slaves used to fight each other to the death, so Dany obviously isn’t ready to do that. But she gets persuaded by Daario as the two are now lovers in the worst-kept secret in Meereen, if it’s even a secret. He says that the pits are where he learned to fight, which led him to the Second Sons, which led him to her, and it would respect their traditions. He also says to her that she has to get those dragons in line because if she is the mother of dragons, but has no dragons, people will run right over her and he’s right.

-So Dany goes down into the basement where she locked up the two dragons she can even find while the other one is still out wildin’ out in the streets. She goes down into the dark with no torch or nothing, but she eventually hears the clinking of the chain and then these dragons appear, and they’re PISSED. This was the equivalent of a kid throwing a tantrum, only these kids can breathe fire and fuck up your entire life; you could see the words “FUCK YOU MOM” in the fire (which would never happen if Dany was a Black mother, but that’s another post altogether). Dany is like, NOAP, and runs out of the basement. They’re setting this up well. We’ve had three-plus seasons of hearing that Dany is the Mother of Dragons, I have confidence that she’ll sort it out. I think if she finds Drogon, the biggest one, and gets him in line, the other two will. But like Jorah said before he was exiled, they ARE dragons and listening isn’t their strong suit.

-Back at the Wall, Jon Snow goes to talk to Mance, who is still be stubborn, but he won’t kneel to Stannis, even if it means burning to death. There are a couple of times during the speech where Mance is seriously thinking about it, but he’s like, nah, I’m good. Jon is like, what about your people and Mance is like, I’m doing this for them because they respect me. Jon answers back with, what about when the White Walkers come and kill everyone that respected you, and Mance won’t back down. So what are ya gon’ do?

-Mance is led out to the pyre, where he is given one final chance by Stannis to bend his knee, but he reneges and wishes him good luck. Melisandre gives some speech about Mance being the king of lies, and she can’t wait to burn a mufucka. They tie Mance to the stake and we see Stannis’ wife and daughter watching from a balcony like it is the opera, and the burning starts. Sam and Gilly turn away, even the Wildlings are like, DAMN and you can kinda see Mance thinking, do I REALLY wanna do this? But it’s too late and shit is starting to get hot, but before it gets too much and his people see him in agony, Jon shoots him through the heart with an arrow to put him out of his misery, which will surely piss off Stannis and friends. However, Jon is one of the best fighters they have, so he’ll be fine.

That was a fantastic way to return to the Game Of Thrones world. We still need to catch up with Arya, who I think was the only major character we didn’t see. We need a little more from Jaime as he struggles with Tywin’s death and Cersei hating him. I wanna see Cersei drunkenly cuss someone out, and see what Margaery is up to. And of course, we’re just killin’ time until the incredible tag team of Dany and Tyrion get it poppin’. I’m sure there is stuff that I’m forgetting like the Theon/Ramsey stuff, too. Dem Thrones back, y’all.

Game Of Thrones S04E10 – The Children

So, here we are, the season finale of Game Of Thrones. I’ve been waiting for this all season, and they gave us like, 10 extra minutes? No introduction needed. Let’s go…..

-Jon Snow has a lot of trust in Mance’s people. Just walking up with no sword, no knives, no wolves, like shit is sweet in these Northern snowy streets, but he gets his sitdown with Don Rayder.

-They drink to Ygritte because apparently Mance has some sort of heart under there, but Jon can’t handle what Mance is drinking on. At least Mance says straight up he wouldn’t poison him, and he gives Jon’s man props for killing the last giant. There is some respect among warriors.

-Mance just wants to hide behind the Wall, and dammit, winter is coming….Mance knows all about these white walkers. Just then, a sound is made and the calvary is coming. Who is it?

-Stannis comes through with a whole bunch of mufuckas from both sides, and they are not playing games. Looks like he got the money for his army from the Iron Bank. The aerial view of them rushing Mance’s spot is amazing. I wonder what that looked like on the big screens at the movie theatres this was airing at?

-Stannis and Davos roll up on some gangsta shit like, what up Mance? And what the fuck was that one dude thinking rollin’ up on Stannis like he was gon’ do something?

-Mance doesn’t kneel for anyone, we discover. Tough guy.

-Jon introduces himself to Stannis…..he gets some mercy for Mance, who gets taken away and tells Stannis to burn all the bodies of the dead before winter comes.

-The Mountain is being kept alive by some new maester as Cersei watches, and the old maester, Pycelle, is seemingly gettin’ thrown in the bushes. Is the Mountain even worth saving? Cersei seems to think so because I’m sure she has some evil doing for him to do when he gets better. He says the process may change him; it won’t weaken him. Are we getting Robo-Mountain?

-Cersei goes to holla at Tywin about marrying Loras and she isn’t having it, but Tywin gives no fucks about what she wants. Cersei has some balls about her though. She has already lost Joffrey, her daughter has long been gone (I forgot she was even a thing) and she is getting shipped off while Tywin and Margaery fight over Tommen. Then she threatens him with the shit between her and Jaime. He has always had to know, hasn’t he? It is almost like he wants her to say it, but she does and he still denies it. This is the first time we’ve ever seen Tywin shook, that I can remember anyway.

-Cersei goes to find Jaime, who gets pissed because of the whole Tyrion thing because trying to kill your brother for causing your mother’s death isn’t a big deal, even though it wasn’t really his fault. She kisses him, so we’re about to get some incest lovin’. Hopefully it isn’t rape this time. Alex Graves directed the first rapey episode, the third joint of the season (“Breaker Of Chains“) and he gets this one as well (the fourth of the season for Mr. Graves), so maybe this is him making up for that fuckery. Damn, this is creepy.

-She tells Jaime that he told Tywin about them and Jaime is like, “the fuck?”. Her love for Jaime would be so much less disturbing if they weren’t brother and sister and he wasn’t railing her on a table.

-Dany is still getting through the list of 200-something people who want to talk to her. Some old man rolls up on her like, “Um, can I be a slave again?”. Turns out being free isn’t all it is cracked up to be for the older people. Dany is much better at conquering a city than actually ruling it. She does eventually agree to it. Then another dude rolls up with his dead baby, which was burned by one of the dragons. Dany has been so busy trying to figure out how to be a ruler that the dragons have gotten out of hand. That dragon burned the holy shit outta that three-year-old baby. She doesn’t even know where one of the dragons is. Child services about to roll up on Dany, jeez.

-She goes down to the catacombs where the other two dragons are and puts them in chains, ironically for someone who calls herself the “Breaker of Chains”. But Jorah’s bitch ass called it earlier: you can’t tame a dragon, much less three dragons. When they realize what is going on, those dragons are PISSED. Can you put dragons on timeout? How does that even work?

-They do end up burning the bodies of the Night’s Watch like Jon suggested, and we see a few faces from the battle. While the flames are burning, Jon looks through them to see Melisandre, who has some sort of sinister plans on the go, obviously. She does love her some fire.

-Jon goes to visit Thormund, who is locked up on some Akon shit. Thormund asks Jon if he loved Ygritte, who loved her because all she talked about was killing him. That’s some mufuckin’ true love right there. He also says she belongs in the north, so Jon takes Ygritte’s body there to burn her. RIP Ygritte….I’ll miss your redheaded crazy ass.

-Bran and company are walking through the snow, and Jojen looks like he is about to pass out. He eventually falls, but they make it to that damn tree they keep seeing. But that tree has some protection in the form of crazy skeleton-ass mufuckas coming up out of the ground as they approach said tree. I have no idea if this happens in the book, but I don’t care because this is fucking cool. Bran gets saved by his wolf, then goes into Hodor’s body and Hodor goes into Hodor mode, straight stylin’ on mufuckas. Meera (who I kept wanting to call Osha, who is somewhere with Rickon) is holding her own as well. One of the skeleton dudes stabs the shit outta Jojen, while two skeletons are running after Bran, but some little girl starts throwing some firebombs at mufuckas and tells them to follow her. I think we have seen her before. Meera slits Jojen’s throat so he doesn’t feel any pain and the crew follow the little girl into some cave where the skeleton things can’t pass through.

-The little girl says she is part of the Children; simple enough, right? She tells Bran that some “he” waits for him, and it turns out that he is the three-eyed raven Bran has been looking for this entire time. Jojen knew everything that was going to happen, including his death. Bran asks if he will walk again and dude is like, “Yeah, nah, but you will fly”. That seems like it’ll be something to look forward to next season. Hodor will be happy that he doesn’t have to drag around this giant kid anymore.

-Brienne wakes Pod da Gawd up to find their horses gone, and Pod just can’t get this squire thing down pat. She wanders around to find Arya practicing her sword skills, and Arya tells the Hound to stop shitting (nah, he was actually poopin’ tho) and see what is up. The Hound is like, “This better be important, I was busy”, and Brienne figures out who Arya is. She tells her the story of how she swore to Catelyn that she would bring Arya home, and the Hound thinks she is there for the bounty on him. He knows right away that the sword she has was given to her by a Lannister.

-The Hound is actually trying to protect her, which is endearing considering that they both hate each other on the low. The fight is on and I know one of my favorite characters is going to die either way because the way these two get down, someone gotta die. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t happen in the book, but again, no fucks are given. This fight ends up being a top-ten moment in Game of Thrones history to date. They fuck each other up, the Hound fights dirty, and squeezes her sword to show he is insane. He kicks her in the ass and headbutts her, and she bites his ear off. This is one of the most brutal TV fights ever, but Brienne eventually gets the upper hand and throws him off a cliff.

-Meanwhile, no one knows where Arya is, Pod has lost her because well, Pod is a terrible squire, but she hides and eventually goes to the Hound, who is asking her in a roundabout way to kill him because he is going to die anyway. He does everything he can to goad her into killing him, but Arya won’t, which is more heartless than if she had done it. He does tell her to go find Brienne because she can protect Arya’s stubborn ass. Arya says, “Nah, I’ma just rob you and be out”, but she does like she feels just a little bad for him. The stone-cold look on her face is pretty good; Arya about to be on some Kill Bill shit and I’m okay with that. I’m very conflicted about this. She should have shown him some mercy. He saved her more than a few times. But she’s well on her way to being a badass.

-Am I wrong for having the smallest inkling that the Hound survives? We don’t see him actually die, and I’ve watched enough TV to know that no one is dead until you see them die. Look at his friggin’ brother who is about to be turned into Franken-Mountain. I mean, he probably is, but I don’t think I am being crazy.

-Finally, we arrive at Tyrion’s cell, where Jaime is breaking him out with Varys’ help. The two say some quick farewells and share a hug, and Tyrion looks up the stairs, but he decides he has something to do first. He sneaks into where he thinks Tywin is, and we see his bed, but who is in it? Oh, that would be Shea. Apparently she is going to become the first hoe in history to become a housewife, by hook or by crook (that needs to be a thesis or a study of some sort). The two wrestle over a knife, which eventually gets thrown and he ends up strangling the shit outta her through his tears, and he manages to say, “I’m sorry” a couple times. Yeah, I had a good little chuckle about that. Tyrion, ever so polite…..until he sees the crossbow anyway.

-He finds Tywin in the bathroom (which seems to be a theme of this episode: if you shit, you die). Tywin tries to talk Tyrion down and guesses that it was Jaime that released him. Tywin admits he wanted Tyrion dead, but he admires that he wouldn’t die and says he wasn’t gon’ let them execute him, which is some of the biggest bullshit we’ve heard on Game of Thrones to date. Tyrion tells him that he loved Shea, but he just killed her and Tywin is like, “whatever, she was a whore”, which is the wrong thing to say to someone with a crossbow.  You gotta admire Tywin’s arrogance, he absolutely thinks that Tyrion wouldn’t kill him and all he had to do was NOT call ol’ girl a whore. But Tywin calls Shea a whore again and catches an arrow to the chest, and now he is like, “Oh shit, this is real now”. Tyrion hits him with another arrow and walks away. He gets to Varys, who is like, “The fuck did you do?”. He puts Tyrion on a box which is going on a ship to God knows where, as long as it isn’t King’s Landing, I guess. Varys hears bells ringing, which seems to be some sort of alarm because people have probably found Tywin and Shea’s bodies. He’s like, “yeah, fuck going back there, I’ma just stay on this ship, b”.

-Arya is walking along with her horse, chillin’, and she sees a ship going somewhere, but it isn’t the same shit Tyrion is on. She talks her way onto the ship finds out the ship is going to Braavos. So she is on her way again, this time by herself. Let’s see what you got, girl.

And thus wraps up the best season to date of Game Of Thrones, by a wide, wide margin. People we loved and hated (often, at the same damn time) died viciously, we got some incredible acting performances from basically the entire cast (I honestly can’t decide on an MVP, but I’m leaning towards Peter Dinklage for that speech at the trial and the finale), we still have enough to leaving asking questions about next season and many things to speculate on. I stopped reading after the third book, so I’m back to not knowing what is going on like the rest of y’all (or most of y’all). All I know is that there are some new people coming and we’ll be missing a few old faces, but they left out Sansa and Littlefinger over the last two episodes, so I figure they’ll play a major role in season 5. I assume Cersei won’t be happy about Tyrion being released by Jaime, but with Tywin out of the picture, she can do what she wants now, in theory.

Man, that was fun. I’ma miss doing this every week. Until next season, folks. Thank you so much for reading my rambles, and I’ll try to do better for season 5 of Game Of Thrones.

Before I go, I wanted to shout out the four Game Of Thrones recaps I listened to on a weekly basis: Fiyastarter, The Black Guy Who Tips, A Cast Of Kings and The Bald Move Game Of Thrones Podcast (they do have a site, I need to remember to update this link). They all do other non-GoT stuff as well and you would make your life better by checking them out.

Game Of Thrones S04E08 – The Mountain And The Viper

After the Memorial Day break, Game Of Thrones returns for their homestretch with “The Mountain And The Viper”, which is pretty self-explanatory, but it is safe to say that a lot of other stuff happens. This might be the most packed 54 minutes of the season, which has been, I gotta say, just superb. Let’s go……….

-We open with a prostitute who can burp songs like “The Rains Of Castamere” and “The Bear And The Maiden Fair”. How much does she go for? And are they the only songs we ever hear in this show?

-Then she goes to harass Gilly for no reason, and Gilly hears something coming. The wildlings and the cannibals are here. Ygritte is going so damn hard, but she does let Gilly live and tells her to keep quiet. At least she got to kill that mean prostitute. The blood pouring through the cracks in the floor was fuckin’ cool.

-At Castle Black, Sam is worried that Gilly is dead because he took her there, but what did he expect? Dogg, you took her to a brothel. She did survive a buncha shit (Craster, a walk to the Wall, etc), so she might have made it. Jon figures out that they’re next. 102 people against 100,000….the odds don’t look good for the Night’s Watch.

-The Unsullied are in a river bathing, but so is Missandei and some other girls. It was wonderful. He gets caught staring, but Dany’s girl kinda likes it. But he has no junk though, so……I guess I’m equating the idea of having the sex with the emotions he obviously feels for her (go back to the episode when she was teaching him to read), but don’t we all?

-Dany is apparently a hairdresser as well as she is helping Missandei; a woman of many hats. They try to figure out how/why Grey Worm was interested in seeing the goods, then they wonder if the whole package (“the pillar and the stones”, says Dany) are gone. Missandei wants the Unsullied D, or the lack of D. She wants something, dammit. His mouth does work….I’m just sayin’ (side note: this is the first time in the history of life I’ve used the phrase, “just sayin'”. I generally think it’s friggin’ stupid).

-Grey Worm is putting in some extra work, learning some new words like “precious”, and he says he doesn’t mind getting cut, because he wouldn’t be Unsullied and he wouldn’t have met her. He’ll be face deep in her by the end of the season.

-Ramsey gets Theon ready to go to Moat Cailin and Theon/Reek does a terrible Theon impression as the Ironborn dude doesn’t buy it. The whole place looks like malaria.

-The Ironborn guy calls Theon a woman and a whipped dog. Son spits blood in his face. Someone gotta die after that, don’t they?

-YUP. The fellow Ironborn dude with the ax is like, “We gon’ live, right? Cool. Just keep that crazy mufucka away from us”. Was Theon gon tell him the truth before he got his wig split?

-Yeah, Ramsey killed and burned ALL those mufuckas, b.

-Littlefinger is standing before a jury of people who are tryna figure out what happened to Lysa, and they are straight shittin’ on dude, saying he was licking Tywin Lannister’s boots. They absolutely think he was in on Lysa dying, and they bring in Sansa, who has every opportunity to tell the real truth about Littlefinger, but she finally decides to play the game. Whether she is doing it right or wrong is a different story, but at least Sansa is playing the game after being a pawn for so damn long. Sophie Turner overacts the shit outta this scene, but you know what? It works because it seems like something Sansa would do when she finally decides to step into the game of thrones.

-Littlefinger now wants to use Robin’s power at the Vale to fight the Lannisters, much like Tywin with Joffrey and Tommen. It goes along with the whole “you don’t want to be sitting on the throne” theory. It doesn’t pay to be the King in this show.

-Barrister receives a letter from the Hand of the King (RIP Robert Baratheon), a pardon for Jorah. He has been spying on Dany.  He was the one giving Varys the information to take back to Tywin and ‘em.

-Dany can’t even look at him, she is absolutely livid when he enters her chambers. This is Emilia Clarke’s Emmy scene. She gives off that authority, but she also emotes the hurt when someone close to you betrays you. Remember, Jorah just helped the Usurper, the person that killed her entire family, including her uncle “The Mad King”, this is a betrayal that cuts deep. If he doesn’t leave right now, his head goes in Slaver’s Bay. Those Khaleesi bars. much like the Wu-Tang Clan, ain’t nuthin’ to fuck with.

-Ramsey reports to his father that he got Moat Cailin, and Roose tells him that he is a legit Bolton now, which means Ramsey knows he will eventually succeed his father as they head towards Winterfell. Is there even anything left of Winterfell at this point? Apparently there is because we see it, but that place has to be in all kinds of rough shape now.

-Awwwwwwwwwww, all Ramsey wants is his father’s love, or at least to know that he is now in the succession list. Even though Theon was the one that actually did all the work. This dude has to snap the fuck outta this.

-Littlefinger visits Sansa to see why she lied for him. She has no idea what they would have done with her if he was gone; she gambled on the man she knows, not the strangers she doesn’t, Littlefinger. She also knows that he wants a piece, and she is going to use that now. Cersei told her she would figure it out someday, and she is. To be a woman in the world of Game Of Thrones, you aren’t given many weapons, but there is one that works 11 times outta 10.

-Arya and the Hound approach the Vale. Arya tells the guards who she is, and they learn Lysa is dead. She laughs and laughs and laughs. The Hound did all this for nothing. He is about to be so damn mad. All the people will die, and all the chickens will be eaten.

-Robin doesn’t seem very broken up about his mother dying at all as he walks and talks with Littlefinger. Then Sansa comes downstairs, looking strangely like either Catelyn or Lysa (basically, a grown-up Stark woman) to butter up Robin so she can take over the Vale with Littlefinger. Chips are on the table now, says Sansa: let’s play. FINALLY.

-Tyrion and Jaime are in a cell having a drink, and Tyrion goes on about some “slow” cousin of theirs. That sound they say he makes as he kills beetles is PRETTY damn good. This story goes on way too long, but I think he equates his life with that of a beetle. I’m sure there is more here, but really, I don’t care.

-It’s time for the fight. Oberyn is drinking and wearing no armor, while the Mountain comes in with full armor and a sword as big as Oberyn. Tyrion and Ellaria are both like, “the fuck are you doing?”. Oberyn is cocky as shit. His motivations in this fight are far different than Tyrion’s, who just wants to live. He wants a confession and his revenge for his sister and her children, and he is actually doing very well. He also calls King’s Landing a stinking shitpile of a city, which is pretty good. But still, something isn’t adding up.

-He has the Mountain down and out, but his petty ass wants a confession and you can tell this isn’t going to end well. Basically, he wants the Mountain to implicate Tywin in his sister’s death as well, which has Tywin looking pretty uncomfortable. The Mountain trips him and gets on top of him, digging his thumbs into his eyes and crushes his skull while confessing to everything. The whole damn thing. Tyrion and Jaime are like, WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? Tywin and Cersei are partyin’ like shit.

-It was even more brutal watching it the second time. But I am seeing people say this is the most brutal thing we’ve seen on Game Of Thrones. I beg to differ. For me, personally, it was the start of the Red Wedding when ol’ boy stabbed a pregnant Talisa in the stomach to get the shit kicked off. There are a couple of other incidents as well, but maybe I’m just so desensitized to shit now that nothing shocks me. I might make a list when this season is done.

So, “The Mountain and the Viper” lived up to the hype and then some, and I’m kinda thinking now, even though I cursed HBO out for the entire two weeks it was missing, we NEEDED that break. That was a lot of Game Of Thrones to take in. My biggest question about this episode is, did the Mountain actually die? He did take a spear to the chest pretty damn good, and if that’s the case, does Tyrion get to survive? Is there a “who dies first” clause in the whole trial-by-combat thing? Is Oberyn happy now? He got his confession, and he might have actually killed the Mountain.

Two episodes left in Game Of Thrones, and we know the ninth episode is usually when something MAJOR happens. Next week, we know we have the battle at the Wall, but that can’t be all. Get ya shit ready.