Jaime Lannister is still stuck in Riverrun. Ordered by annoying King Tommen "The Pushover" to keep at it until Brynden "BlackFish" Tully surrenders the castle. Enters Lady Brienne of Tarth with Podrick Payne carrying Sansa Stark's letter to her uncle. Brienne travels all the way to Riverrun to try and secure The BlackFish's support in her cause of freeing Winterfell from Ramsey Bolton. When she meets Jaime there is an awkward moment. It is obvious Jaime is proud of her and frankly looks surprised she is alive and well. He is in love with his own sister, a woman who will never keep a promise unless it serves her own personal interest, and before him there's this knight-lady who kicks ass and is doing the knighting thing so much better than him, he even consents to let her try her luck with the BlackFish. Brienne, like the true do-gooder she is, tries to return her Valyrian steel sword "Oathkeeper" to Jaime, but he refuses. So just a mental note there - Brienne is well armed against the incoming army of the White Walkers. She is ready for the zombie apocalypse.
Last time Jaime tried to talk to The Blackfish, he got verbally defecated on, so now he needs to step aside and let a real honor-bound knight give it her best shot. So, Lady Brienne goes ahead with Sansa's letter into the keep. Unfortunately, Brynden says he cannot help. He is a bit tied up with the siege and stuff. If he will go away to help his niece, his castle will fall into the hands of those moronic Frey people and Jaime Lannister, so it is a resounding no and yet another Quixotic failure on Brienne's list. Brienne also fails to convince the Blackfish to end the siege on top of everything else.
Jaime has to muster his Lannister charms and get this done; he is tired of socializing with the Freys. So instead of making nice with Brynden, he threatens Edmure Tully.
He wants to clarify that his only goal is to get back to Cersei and currently the stupid siege thing is stopping him
from accomplishing that. He is not interested in being stuck in
the Riverlands when he can be back at King's Landing making incest
babies. To guarantee that Edmure takes his point seriously, he threatens
to have his wife and kid, which he never met, being a prisoner of the Freys ever since his unhappy wedding, killed. So Edmure relents and is sent into the keep as an envoy. Since he is the rightful master of Riverrun, the knights choose his side over The Blackfish, who is then killed off screen by Frey idiots when Riverrun surrenders.
Brienne and her Sancho Pansa Podrick, escape with a little boat to carry them back to where they may be more useful.
Is that the old "bad boy" Jaime? Has he turned back to his season 1 character when he dropped Bran Stark casually from the tower at Winterfell
while proclaiming that he does it for Cersei's love? It is both good
and a bit disappointing to his him back at where he started as a
character. He has had sooo many things happen since then - he lost his
hand, lost his dad and brother, lost his daughter Myrcella (at Dorne, remember Dorne? It seems the creator of the show don't want you to), met with Brienne of Tarth and
yet, here he is, still fixated on his sister. The full circle Jaime does
here is a little bit forced in terms of character arc.
Next, let's talk about Arya Stark. Little Miss "No One" has been seen wandering the streets of Braavos bleeding, after The Waif delivered some well placed stabbings to Arya's midriff. She is in dire need of aid and wanders to Lady Crane's place. Lady Crane, let me remind you, is the same actress she was supposed to assassinate given her mission from the Faceless Men. That's right! How the tables have turned...but have they really? Arya recovers from her wounds and wakes up looking slightly better. Lady Crane tends to her and goes to fetch some milk of the poppy from a shelf at her place. A young man appears behind her. It is The Waif. Arya sees Lady Crane gruesomely murdered and The Waif has come to finish the job and take Arya out. An epic chase happens throughout the streets of Braavos. Carts are overturned. Oranges everywhere. Arya runs, jumps, and ducks but The Waif just keeps on coming. The chase is very well executed and so is The Waif eventually. Arya lures the Waif into a room lit by a single candle and then takes out Needle, her sword from a hiding place and slashes the candle in half. Total darkness. Next time we see The Waif's face it is decorating the Hall of Faces as its bloody new addition. Jaqen Ha'ghar is surprised to see Arya. He says to her - "Finally a girl is No One" and she retorts, quite epically "A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell, and I’m going home.” Finally, we can all conclude the incoherent, somewhat monotone episode in Arya's training. She is a ninja and she is going home to finish off those who hurt her family. A few more names left on that list of hers...Let's hope for a better and more accommodating character arc for Arya in future episodes.
In Meereen, Tyrion Lannister is hopelessly trying to make Missandei and Grey Worm into his drinking buddies. He tries to make them tell jokes and the scene is awfully forced. Until we are relieved of the awkwardness by the Slaver Cities Maesters who start bombarding Meereen from the sea. All three immediately neglect their lighthearted antiques to argue over the best course of action. When a loud thud is heard - that's Drogon landing on the top of the pyramid and enters Daenerys to sort the mess. Varys leaves before all the action starts, to travel back to Westeros and try to secure alliances for Daenerys when she finally gets there. We are left to wander how long that will take, as up until now, it has been 6 seasons of Slave freeing, Dothraki socializing and dragon raising for Daenerys with Meereen being the hopefully, final stepping stone before we see her land in Westeros.
No comments:
Post a Comment