Welcome to Week 2 of the Carter-and-Memorial-Avenue-Block-of-Atlanta’s favorite contest: Shane of Thrones. This week’s episode is once again light on violence, but Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph, it’s heavy on one-liners and promotions. Episode like this are why we’re all hooked on this show. We came for the violence, sex, and chaos, but stayed for these characters we watched this week.
So let’s get to it…
During Jaime’s trial, Dany gets the scoring going with a devastating comment, “I don’t see an army. I see one man… with one hand.” A rare insult that nets Dany +10. “The things we do for love,” later just sort of falls out of Bran’s mouth with no emotion attached. The powerful callback devastates Jaime as he pauses and waits for the other shoe to drop, though it never does. +10 to Bran for the effectual statement. Jamie gets +10 for joining an alliance after Brienne sticks her neck out. We don’t get any more points in this scene, but we get some good motivation for Dany to distrust Tyrion, which furthers her arc towards isolation.
So let’s get to it…
During Jaime’s trial, Dany gets the scoring going with a devastating comment, “I don’t see an army. I see one man… with one hand.” A rare insult that nets Dany +10. “The things we do for love,” later just sort of falls out of Bran’s mouth with no emotion attached. The powerful callback devastates Jaime as he pauses and waits for the other shoe to drop, though it never does. +10 to Bran for the effectual statement. Jamie gets +10 for joining an alliance after Brienne sticks her neck out. We don’t get any more points in this scene, but we get some good motivation for Dany to distrust Tyrion, which furthers her arc towards isolation.
The next scene opens with Arya staring at Gendry working in the forge. Covered in dirt and sweat and flexing as he works, we understand why Arya is staring. Arya proceeds to tell Gendry to get her weapon made ASAP, but it seems like more of an excuse for her to spend time with Gendry. She does her best Arya version of a pick-up line: throwing knives with accuracy. The line works on Gendry and nets Arya +10 points. Had Tormund been her prey, I think they have sex right there.
Tyrion gets +5 while see how shitty Winterfell looks and deadpans, “Well, we’re going to die at Winterfell.” Great directing and timing from Dinklage. He also makes a solid joke about “At least Cersei won’t get to kill me.” +5 again.
When Dany and Jorah meet up, we get a lot of talk about how Tyrion is smart. (He reads books, you see.) Jorah, who isn’t very funny, cracks wise about wanting to throw Tyrion into the sea. +5 for Ser Jorah. Nice work, buddy.
Next up we have two powerful women almost making amends, but the scene mostly a power play for both. Dany wants Sansa to like her so she can get the North to actually like her. Sansa knows she’s the smartest person in the room and doesn’t want to show any sort of weakness.
Sansa strikes the first blow, insulting her queen by saying Dany, “never should have trusted (Cersei) either.” Dany shakes of the jab and uses a compliment with a some blunt truth to get Sansa defenses down. Sansa gets a jab in on men by correctly noting that “men are easily manipulated.” +5 to Sansa. Dany steals a mock trial move and says, “Well actually, I was the one who was manipulated.” +10 to Dany as it gets Sansa skating backwards. Dany gets in a quick +5 joke at the expense of Jon and his height.
Theon shows up in an emotional scene and declares he wants to fight for The Lady of Winterfell and earns +10 for joining an alliance.
Our next points come when Tormund, Edd, and Berric get back to Winterfell. Tormund earns +5 for his tackle and calling Jon “his little crow.” He gets another +5 for asking where the big woman is. Edd gets +10 for joining the alliance at Winterfell. He also gets -5 for half a demotion not even being invited to the war council meeting. The Karstark girl got invited even! (She gets a +15 for a wildly undeserved promotion.)
Jon gives us a half of an Emmy speech that was played over the trailers when they’re planning for the battle. +5. Theon earns a +15 for promotion to Official Bran Guard. Dany nabs another +5 for shitting on Tyrion and saying “Davos can hold a torch by himself.” Tormund gives us a heartfelt, “At least we get to die together” and earns himself a +5 for just being so damn positive and charismatic. He’s a perfect glue guy.
And I’m giving a +10 to Tyrion for showing some damn intellectual curiosity and actually asking Bran WTF happened to him. THANK YOU! JFC, it’s about time.
Next up we get some old school Night’s Watch banter. Edd is bringing the pain, possibly angry from his earlier snub. He corrects Samwell reminding him he only killed 1 Thenn (+5) and mentions how they’re all fucked if Sam is who is protecting them all. Sam gets a dig on Edd about how Edd really isn’t the one getting fucked. You know. Because Sam gets to have sex and Edd hasn’t. +5 to Sam.
Next up is one of the best scenes in the entire series with the Fireside Chat. First, everyone gets a +10 for drinking wine. Pod, Tyrion, Jaime, Brienne, Davos and Tormund. God bless everyone for making the rest of us feel better about drinking our own anxieties away instead of dealing with our problems in a healthy manner.
Jaime jokes that life maybe wasn’t so normal back then because he was, you know, sleeping with his sister. +5 And later tells Tyrion that he still has a future in whoremongering for another +5.
Tyrion gets +5 for hooking Pod up and Pod gets another +5 for not being a narc.
Davos rolls in and jokes about how he’d rather be warm and worrying about his impending death instead of cold outside to earn +5.
And then Tormund shows up. Holy shit, what a gutty performance right here. I haven’t seen anyone dominate a short amount of time since I was in person to see Ugueth Urbina destroy Randall Simon forever in Game 7 of the 2003 NLCS. Or Reggie Miller’s 8 points in 9 seconds. Or this guy playing Tecmo Bowl.
First he comes on to Brienne by staring deeply into her eyes and says, “It could be our last night in this world, you know.” +10. He announces he’s brought his own booze , which earns him +10 for being a polite guest. Tormund then surveys the land and sees Jaime next to Brienne and begins his challenge, noting they call Jaime “King Killer.” +5 (Jaime gets a quick quip in here saying I’m sure someone does for +5) Then Tormund pulls up a chair and flexes perhaps the wierdest flex that's ever been flexed. Tormund announces he once killed a giant (+10), then stole the giant’s wife (+10) and then bragged about suckling at the teat of a giantess for 3 months, which is incredibly braggable. (+10) To top it off, he chugs what I think is probably sour milk in everyone’s faces. (+10) Davos notes he’s actually going to drink now for a +5 one-liner.
Later in finishing the Fireside chat, Tormund is still on fire. Confused that women can’t be knights, he bellows, “fuck tradition!” That’s a statement that is near and dear to my heart and nets him +10. Then he lays on some more of that Giantsbane charm and tells Brienne that he’d knight her ten times over. +10. So either swayed by Tormund or feeling challenged, Jaime knights Brienne and get earns +15 for a promotion. +5 to Jaime for providing one of the most pure and positive emotional scenes in the entire show. Not to be outdone, Tormund gives us an over-the-top clap for a final +5.
Now it’s Arya’s turn to strut a bit. She runs into The Hound and they share a drink (+10 to both). The Hound jokes that Arya used to not be able to stop talking but now she’s just sitting there like a mute. +5. And for as much shit as we give Bran for being weird, is Arya that much less weird these days. Thank you, The Hound.
Berric joins them for a drink and +10 for himself. The Hound stops Berric from proselytizing by threatening to throw him over a wall. (+5) Arya parts ways and tells them she’s not spending her final hours with those two miserable shits. (+10)
Arya then heads to finish what she started earlier with Gendry. They both sleep their way to +10 points for sex with a draftable character. Arya gets another +5 for telling Gendry to take his own bloody pants off pre-coitus. I’m giving Arya another +5 for butt and then +5 for side-boob. Respect.
Jorah gets a partial promotion to back to being a member of the Mormont family (+7.5). Then he gets some Valaryian steal. We don’t have a weapons category, so I’m giving Jorah a partial promotion and another 7.5 points. If you think this is unfair, remember CHAOS REIGNS SUPREME.
To finish our Fireside Chat, Pod belts out Jenny of Oldstones, giving us another another wonderful emotional scene. +10 to Pod for that.
Episode MVP:
I really thought hard and long about going with our guy Tormund Giantsbane. He comes in and wrecks the place. He’s the guy at the party who you don’t want there, but the next day all you can talk about his how gloriously awkward he was. My good friend Geoff once told me about a biker that showed up to his house=party in rural Illinois once. He was an awful guest and ended up headbutting everyone at the party. The next day, Geoff called me and laughed about it for an hour on the phone. That’s Tormund.
However, Brienne is our episode MVP. She bookends the episode with two emotional scenes. First, she stands up for Jaime and saves him. Her reputation is enough to sway a room. Virtue is rewarded in this shit world. In the end, she’s rewarded with something she never thought she was worthy of. Something she hadn’t even bothered to dream about. It’s a powerful scene and drives this episode home into an A grade. +25 for Brienne of Tarth.
Episode Analysis:
Grade: A+
This will stand out as one of the all-timers. One of the ones we’ll remember the most. We get some character development and we get some characters arcs more or less wound up. We get more plot development for Jon and Dany as well as Bran.
We also get to know we’re going to have three areas of battle even if the characters don’t know it. We have the battlefield and the weirwood. But the show is clearly alluding to something afoot that is going to happen in the crypts since they kept mentioning that there was no place safer.
With the foreshadowing and talks of Naath, we know we’re going to lose some characters next week. I’m glad we got to spend a final peaceful 55 minutes with them. I don’t think I could have asked for more. Except maybe involve the Lord of the Night’s Watch at the war council. Come on, guys.
Tyrion gets +5 while see how shitty Winterfell looks and deadpans, “Well, we’re going to die at Winterfell.” Great directing and timing from Dinklage. He also makes a solid joke about “At least Cersei won’t get to kill me.” +5 again.
When Dany and Jorah meet up, we get a lot of talk about how Tyrion is smart. (He reads books, you see.) Jorah, who isn’t very funny, cracks wise about wanting to throw Tyrion into the sea. +5 for Ser Jorah. Nice work, buddy.
Next up we have two powerful women almost making amends, but the scene mostly a power play for both. Dany wants Sansa to like her so she can get the North to actually like her. Sansa knows she’s the smartest person in the room and doesn’t want to show any sort of weakness.
Sansa strikes the first blow, insulting her queen by saying Dany, “never should have trusted (Cersei) either.” Dany shakes of the jab and uses a compliment with a some blunt truth to get Sansa defenses down. Sansa gets a jab in on men by correctly noting that “men are easily manipulated.” +5 to Sansa. Dany steals a mock trial move and says, “Well actually, I was the one who was manipulated.” +10 to Dany as it gets Sansa skating backwards. Dany gets in a quick +5 joke at the expense of Jon and his height.
Theon shows up in an emotional scene and declares he wants to fight for The Lady of Winterfell and earns +10 for joining an alliance.
Our next points come when Tormund, Edd, and Berric get back to Winterfell. Tormund earns +5 for his tackle and calling Jon “his little crow.” He gets another +5 for asking where the big woman is. Edd gets +10 for joining the alliance at Winterfell. He also gets -5 for half a demotion not even being invited to the war council meeting. The Karstark girl got invited even! (She gets a +15 for a wildly undeserved promotion.)
Jon gives us a half of an Emmy speech that was played over the trailers when they’re planning for the battle. +5. Theon earns a +15 for promotion to Official Bran Guard. Dany nabs another +5 for shitting on Tyrion and saying “Davos can hold a torch by himself.” Tormund gives us a heartfelt, “At least we get to die together” and earns himself a +5 for just being so damn positive and charismatic. He’s a perfect glue guy.
And I’m giving a +10 to Tyrion for showing some damn intellectual curiosity and actually asking Bran WTF happened to him. THANK YOU! JFC, it’s about time.
Next up we get some old school Night’s Watch banter. Edd is bringing the pain, possibly angry from his earlier snub. He corrects Samwell reminding him he only killed 1 Thenn (+5) and mentions how they’re all fucked if Sam is who is protecting them all. Sam gets a dig on Edd about how Edd really isn’t the one getting fucked. You know. Because Sam gets to have sex and Edd hasn’t. +5 to Sam.
Next up is one of the best scenes in the entire series with the Fireside Chat. First, everyone gets a +10 for drinking wine. Pod, Tyrion, Jaime, Brienne, Davos and Tormund. God bless everyone for making the rest of us feel better about drinking our own anxieties away instead of dealing with our problems in a healthy manner.
Jaime jokes that life maybe wasn’t so normal back then because he was, you know, sleeping with his sister. +5 And later tells Tyrion that he still has a future in whoremongering for another +5.
Tyrion gets +5 for hooking Pod up and Pod gets another +5 for not being a narc.
Davos rolls in and jokes about how he’d rather be warm and worrying about his impending death instead of cold outside to earn +5.
And then Tormund shows up. Holy shit, what a gutty performance right here. I haven’t seen anyone dominate a short amount of time since I was in person to see Ugueth Urbina destroy Randall Simon forever in Game 7 of the 2003 NLCS. Or Reggie Miller’s 8 points in 9 seconds. Or this guy playing Tecmo Bowl.
First he comes on to Brienne by staring deeply into her eyes and says, “It could be our last night in this world, you know.” +10. He announces he’s brought his own booze , which earns him +10 for being a polite guest. Tormund then surveys the land and sees Jaime next to Brienne and begins his challenge, noting they call Jaime “King Killer.” +5 (Jaime gets a quick quip in here saying I’m sure someone does for +5) Then Tormund pulls up a chair and flexes perhaps the wierdest flex that's ever been flexed. Tormund announces he once killed a giant (+10), then stole the giant’s wife (+10) and then bragged about suckling at the teat of a giantess for 3 months, which is incredibly braggable. (+10) To top it off, he chugs what I think is probably sour milk in everyone’s faces. (+10) Davos notes he’s actually going to drink now for a +5 one-liner.
Later in finishing the Fireside chat, Tormund is still on fire. Confused that women can’t be knights, he bellows, “fuck tradition!” That’s a statement that is near and dear to my heart and nets him +10. Then he lays on some more of that Giantsbane charm and tells Brienne that he’d knight her ten times over. +10. So either swayed by Tormund or feeling challenged, Jaime knights Brienne and get earns +15 for a promotion. +5 to Jaime for providing one of the most pure and positive emotional scenes in the entire show. Not to be outdone, Tormund gives us an over-the-top clap for a final +5.
Now it’s Arya’s turn to strut a bit. She runs into The Hound and they share a drink (+10 to both). The Hound jokes that Arya used to not be able to stop talking but now she’s just sitting there like a mute. +5. And for as much shit as we give Bran for being weird, is Arya that much less weird these days. Thank you, The Hound.
Berric joins them for a drink and +10 for himself. The Hound stops Berric from proselytizing by threatening to throw him over a wall. (+5) Arya parts ways and tells them she’s not spending her final hours with those two miserable shits. (+10)
Arya then heads to finish what she started earlier with Gendry. They both sleep their way to +10 points for sex with a draftable character. Arya gets another +5 for telling Gendry to take his own bloody pants off pre-coitus. I’m giving Arya another +5 for butt and then +5 for side-boob. Respect.
Jorah gets a partial promotion to back to being a member of the Mormont family (+7.5). Then he gets some Valaryian steal. We don’t have a weapons category, so I’m giving Jorah a partial promotion and another 7.5 points. If you think this is unfair, remember CHAOS REIGNS SUPREME.
To finish our Fireside Chat, Pod belts out Jenny of Oldstones, giving us another another wonderful emotional scene. +10 to Pod for that.
Episode MVP:
I really thought hard and long about going with our guy Tormund Giantsbane. He comes in and wrecks the place. He’s the guy at the party who you don’t want there, but the next day all you can talk about his how gloriously awkward he was. My good friend Geoff once told me about a biker that showed up to his house=party in rural Illinois once. He was an awful guest and ended up headbutting everyone at the party. The next day, Geoff called me and laughed about it for an hour on the phone. That’s Tormund.
However, Brienne is our episode MVP. She bookends the episode with two emotional scenes. First, she stands up for Jaime and saves him. Her reputation is enough to sway a room. Virtue is rewarded in this shit world. In the end, she’s rewarded with something she never thought she was worthy of. Something she hadn’t even bothered to dream about. It’s a powerful scene and drives this episode home into an A grade. +25 for Brienne of Tarth.
Episode Analysis:
Grade: A+
This will stand out as one of the all-timers. One of the ones we’ll remember the most. We get some character development and we get some characters arcs more or less wound up. We get more plot development for Jon and Dany as well as Bran.
We also get to know we’re going to have three areas of battle even if the characters don’t know it. We have the battlefield and the weirwood. But the show is clearly alluding to something afoot that is going to happen in the crypts since they kept mentioning that there was no place safer.
With the foreshadowing and talks of Naath, we know we’re going to lose some characters next week. I’m glad we got to spend a final peaceful 55 minutes with them. I don’t think I could have asked for more. Except maybe involve the Lord of the Night’s Watch at the war council. Come on, guys.