For the second episode of the season, we had quite a bit of plot to digest. We finally see Bran Stark once again, beyond The Wall, training with the Three-Eyed Raven. We’re even treated to a nice flashback of everyone’s favorite giant, Hodor. Apparently at one point Hodor could speak in more than just iterations of his name and was called Wylis.
Our sighting of one of the few surviving Starks is cut short when we turn our attention back to King’s Landing and to my new favorite knight, Ser Gregor. He confronts a drunkard who was telling a scandalous story about Cersei in a tavern and without so much as an explanation grunt, he crushes his head into a nearby wall. That’s what you get when you gossip about the Queen! (Sorry Margaery, she’s still got Queen status to me).
Next is Myrcella’s funeral. When Cersei tries to leave her chambers to attend her daughter’s funeral, she’s stopped by the royal guards who were apparently under Tommen’s orders. Tommen later explains to Jaime that he barred his mother from attending because he’s afraid if she tries to enter the church, she’ll be taken by the Sparrows again. Not to fear, there’s plenty of Lannister/Sparrow drama. While Jaime is saying his final goodbyes to his daughter, he is confronted by the High Sparrow himself. Jaime sends Tommen to see his mother, but stays behind to threaten the High Sparrow who he doesn’t seem all that worried about dying; instead, the High Sparrow claims his movement is too strong to be stopped with a single death.
Back in Meereen, we find Tyrion back at it with the highly questionable actions. Not only does he go to visit Daenerys’ dragons, he unchains them and lets them go. Though, it seems, the dragons seem to have just retreated deeper into the caves where they’ve been kept instead of escaping. The assumption, however, is that once given the right to fly, a dragon will fly, and eat a few herds of sheep along the way. I for one accept our new dragon overlords. We check in on Arya, who is once again attacked by the blonde girl from the last episode. By the end of the fight, it is revealed that Arya’s young adversary is actually Jaqen H’ghar. He offers her shelter, food, and finally her eyesight if she’ll just tell him who she is, and thankfully Arya is strong. She maintains that she is no one and blindly follows him along the streets of Meereen. Go Arya!
At Winterfell, Ramsay is very much the psycho we all love to hate. He starts his story killing his father, stepmother and brand new baby half-brother in an effort to keep control of the North and presumably feed his dogs. This ultimately solidifies his position as the hatred-lightning rod in lieu of the deceased Joffrey.
Still in the North, we find Sansa and Theon finally parting ways. Poor Theon wants to go back to his home in the Iron Islands. Please, Theon, you know you’re only going to get more abuse, there; please just go be happy somewhere else now. Speaking of the Iron Islands, Balon is thrown off of the world’s worst room connector by his long lost brother Euron Greyjoy, who apparently went mad at sea and has returned to the Iron Islands to be mad on bridges. I’m not sure what’s going to happen there, but I think we’re all guessing it’s not going to be great for anyone involved since Euron is under the impression he’s the Drowned God now… and a Storm.
Finally, we conclude with The Wall; Melisandre gives John’s cadaver a bath, haircut, and beard trim, chants over him a bit, and finally manages to bring a Stark back to life. All cynicism aside, though, I’m glad Ghost gets to have his owner's back. Sad puppies are much worse than sad people.
Once again, the acting and script work for this show are impeccable. What stood out to me, this time, was the Lannister on Lannister scene, but this time with Tommen and his father Jaime. (Does Tommen know about that? I mean, we know he’s heard the rumors, but does he know??) We’re finally getting a little taste of Tommen’s personality. So far, we know he can be easily swayed by a pretty girl (lookin’ at you Margaery) and we know he loves his mother and is generally a good boy, but other than that, we’ve never gotten much character development for him. He’s been thrust into a very odd situation. He was never supposed to be king, let alone the king at around 15 years old. We finally see him lose his temper when he’s talking Jaime, expressing his anger at not being able to protect his mother and wife. Even with his new status as King, he has a lot of frustration with his feelings of powerlessness even though he is supposed to be the most powerful man in Westeros. If his uncle Tyrion where they're serving as Hand, we have to wonder how very different things would be going.
This leads me to the theme of choices. In Game of Thrones no character is born ‘Evil’. Not even Joffrey with his…everything. I tried to come up with a single example and I’m just…I cannot choose. Let’s just go with the first one I can remember and that’s got to be Joffrey having the two prostitutes beat each other for his birthday. Joffrey is arguably the worst character in Game of Thrones, and this is a cast of adulterers, rapists, and murders, so the bar is not set low. And yet his mother remembers him as a happy baby. He wasn’t born a selfish sadist, he chose to grow up to become one, just as Ramsay probably did. Yes Ramsay is a bastard and yes he’s been spurned by his father, but even when his father reassures him that he’ll ‘always be his first born’, he still manages to stab him right in the gut and then feed his stepmother and baby brother to the dogs. On the other hand, you have another bastard, John Snow, who turns out to be a lovely human being. He’s kind and courteous of others, even though he experienced similar hardships. Yes, he had Ned Stark brings him up, but there’s no denying that he had just as many chances to decide to be a selfish jerk instead of the leader he did grow into. Tommen is being given his chance to turn to the dark side. He can either use this anger that’s been kindled in him to lash out and attack the Sparrows for making him feel ineffective and weak as a king, or he can somehow broker peace. While I don’t see much of a way to do things peacefully, I really hope Tommen will, otherwise King’s Landing will be fighting too many enemies and one of them will swoop up the Iron Throne.
