I was a fan of just about every decision in this week's episode.
We were introduced to The Blackfish this weekend, and he was awesome.
It's only the third episode of Game of Thrones this season, but already things are moving along at a breakneck pace. After the last two episodes spent a good amount of time reuniting us with all of our favorite characters, this week's episode, "Walk of Punishment," wasted no time officially getting the ball rolling. What followed was a disarmingly innocent episode that ended on an extremely shocking note.
It's important to look at how the rest of the episode set up, or intentionally failed to set up, the final moments. Starting with the darkly comic funeral of Lord Hoster Tully, Cat's (Michelle Fairley) father, in which the archer, his son, Edmure (Tobias Menzies) failed to hit the raft carrying his father's body, which would set it on fire. It was a rare, awkward moment in the series that was a great introduction to the many follies of Edmure Tully, as well as giving us our first look at Bryndyn "The Blackfish" Tully (Clive Russell). I found Cat's extended family to be a welcome addition to the growing list of characters on the show, though it's getting difficult to keep track of every new character we've seen this year. This also gave us our only good look this week that Robb (Richard Madden) was losing the war, in the stressed way he berated Edmure for screwing up a plan to capture The Mountain (Conan Stevens), who we have yet to see this season.
We briefly checked in with the Night's Watch this week, as well as Jon (Kit Harington). From the good guys' side, we saw Gilly (Hannah Murray) for the first time since early last season, just in time for Sam (John Bradley) to see her give birth. This will no doubt fuel a decent conflict next week, especially considering what we saw in the preview, though for now it was just a small moment in a loaded episode. The same can be said for Jon's brief scene, which basically served to inform us that Mance Rayder (Ciarán Hinds) has decided that now is the perfect time for his men to climb The Wall, while the Night's Watch is vulnerable. Jon is going on this trip, so we'll be sure to see some exciting moments surrounding this plan later on this season.
Theon (Alfie Allen) got a good few minutes in this week, as well, as he was finally given the chance to escape from captivity. I don't fully understand how he stopped long enough for his captors to catch up with him, but it worked out for the best, because we got a decent action scene once they caught up with him. It seemed like things were going to get a lot worse for Theon, as one of the men was determined to ruin him in a whole new way, before his mysterious new friend appeared and dispatched the attackers with impressive skill. It's unclear for now what, exactly, is going on with Theon, but the confusion has me interested to see this story unfold.
Dany (Emilia Clarke) and her companions got similarly underserved this week, as we visited them in Astapor for only a short moment. We did get to see another scene in which she negotiated with the slave owner, who once again spoke much differently than his translator would let Dany believe. At the end of the day, when it didn't seem like she was going to even get a solid force of more than a handful of Unsullied, she offered up a dragon to buy the entire army. Finally, something Barristan (Ian McElhinney) and Jorah (Iain Glen) can agree upon! It somehow always manages to be sad when Dany offers once of these dragons up in a trade, though we know she's very good at planning quite a few steps ahead, so I wouldn't count that dragon out quite yet.
The most important parts of this episode, though, were the scenes in King's Landing and at the Inn with the Brotherhood Without Banners. This isn't because either sequence gave us much to work with in terms of plot, though. Quite the contrary; we learned in King's Landing that Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) is going to become the new Master of Coin, and that his squire, Podrick (Daniel Portman) has exceptional skill with the ladies, and at the Inn we got a touching moment between Arya (Maisie Williams), Gendry (Joe Dempsie) and Hot Pie (Ben Hawkey) that wasn't anything more than a good character moment. What these scenes lacked in true substance, though, they made up for in their ability to set up a major game-changing episode that felt more like an episode typical of this point in any season of a television show. This all came down to Jaime Lannister, and Brienne (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Gwendoline Christie).
Jaime has been slowly reforming his character ever since we met him. We've seen him bullied, beaten, and disrespected at every opportunity. I don't know if our initial hatred for the man who pushed a child out of a window had ever started to subside until this week, though, as he genuinely tried to save Brienne from getting raped by their captors. For a while, there, it seemed to work. Then, WHAM! Just like that, Jaime paid dearly for his first genuinely heroic decision. Not only did he lose a hand, he lost his most important hand; his sword hand. The dismemberment was immediately followed by an outstanding cover of "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" by The Hold Steady, which confirmed that this was, indeed, a strange episode for the series. Rest assured, though, this did really happen, and Jaime will never be the same.
I was a fan of just about every decision in this week's episode of Game of Thrones. Even knowing that this was going to happen to Jaime this season couldn't prepare me for how shocked I was that it happened so early, and in an episode with so much humor. It was a perfectly written episode that ended on a necessary note to remind us that no one is ever safe in this show, no matter who they are, or when in the season it may be.
That's it for this week's episode of Game of Thrones. As always, feel free to leave a comment below with your thoughts on the episode (spoilers will be deleted, but still be aware of their existance). See you all next week!