Game of Thrones - "And Now His Watch Is Ended" - Review

When Game of Thrones is excelling, it’s mesmerizing. The series is addictive and when it’s firing on all cylinders, the show propels forward with such intensity that it becomes incredibly thrilling. And I wish I had more insightful or thoughtful words to give you, but all I can say is hot damn that was awesome! There are arguably better shows than Game of Thrones but there are few that have such a huge momentum to them where every story picks up at exactly the same time and the holy shit moments are pulled out in such large numbers that all you can do is stare in awe at how exciting, intense, and fun it all is.

It helps that this episode actually has some thematic unity. “I resolved to live,” Varys tells Tyrion early in the episode, and it’s something that we find to be true of almost every character’s story. Now this is a theme that’s arguably inherent in every episode, but it’s particularly true in “And Now His Watch Is Ended”. 

The first character we see is Jaimie, a character who has lost all the will to live. With his swordfighting hand cut off he knows that the one valuable asset he had is gone. Besides his wealth, he’s pretty useless now. Jaimie has become a hot mess; Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is fantastic in these scenes. He’s so completely dour that it’s easy to almost instantly forget that this character a short while ago was tossing a ten year old out of a tower. He’s come a long way, and he’s lost his center entirely. If it weren’t for how he has unintentionally sparked a new resolve for life in his companion, who recognizes how much she currently owes him for saving her own life (she likely would have fought to the death for her chastity if Jaimie hadn’t lied about her family’s supposed wealth) Jaimie would remain wallowing in self-pity and resigning himself to die. 

Resolving to live means staying alive, and when someone’s desperate enough to live, they’ll do just about anything. Take our beleaguered Night’s Watch members for example. “If we’re going to live, we’re going to have to look out for ourselves,” one crow says. Crastor continues to strive for the award of Worst Person in Westeros, and eventually it leads to a breaking point. The members of the Watch are underfed, freezing, and scared for their lives. Commander Mormont can only do so much to hold back their thinly veiled rage.  “All Hell breaks loose,” I wrote in my notes and it’s an apt description of the scene (and yet oddly enough this isn’t even the most explosive moment of the episode – more on that later). Everyone starts killing left and right and Mormont is stabbed in the back. Sam recognizes that shit is going down and resolves that he’s not going to die. More importantly he’s going to save his beloved Gilly and her son. 

However, resolving to live often means much more than just merely choosing to live. Tyrion barely survived the Battle of the Blackwater and yet he can’t be content with this fact. He has to immediately try to discover proof that Cersei is behind the gruesome assassination attempt on him. He wants revenge but has no power to achieve this. Tyrion has little reason to live if he finds himself useless (he was given a taste of power after being looked down upon his whole life and seeing his whole life as a joke). However, as Varys explains to Tyrion, gaining “influence” takes time and Varys only managed to accumulate power after years and years of hard work. Most people in the world of Game of Thrones don’t desire to live solely for the sake of living; they always have some angle. Usually it’s to vie for power or position. 

Cersei tries to convince her father to take her seriously. In Cersei’s eyes she’s Tywin’s perfect child. But Tywin doesn’t lack respect for her due to her sex but because Cersei isn’t as smart as she thinks she is. Tywin, on the other hands, has power; his reason for living is to rule the kingdom and keep power in the hands of his family (a task undermined by his children who keep screwing up constantly at every turn). 

Margaery is almost a cracked mirror image of Cersei. She’s a beautiful girl with an eye for the political maneuvering in King’s Landing. But she’s also an astute manipulator; she has Joffrey wrapped around her finger, and she puts on the visage of a giggly teeny bopper for the sake of Sansa. Cersei lets her emotions get in the way; she’s too maternal towards Joffrey and too jealous of Margaery to effectively make any power plays at the moment. 

Which leads us to that conclusion; Dany starts the series as a meek, subordinate individual. She had loss all will to take action for herself. And now, she’s sacking cities like it’s no big deal. Did anyone really think Dany would give up one of her dragons? Of course not! Dany is already playing the “game of thrones” despite being a continent away from King’s Landing. The whole scene where she gives over Drogon, we can see the gears shifting in her mind; she’s calculating whether the risk she’s taken is working. And HOLY SHIT did it ever! Dany resolved to live back in the Khalasar; she decided she wasn’t going to live for her brother. She resolved to live in the Red Desert. She has strived to keep going through constant setbacks (and less than great storylines). When you resolve to live and then you resolve how you’re going to live, and you succeed at both: well, you can walk away with an 8,000 man army and three dragons.

"Storm of Swords" (the book being adapted) when it hits it stride is a book that is near impossible to put down, and the show, similarly, when it's doing what it does best feels like something you can't stop watching. This episode captures that feeling. It's like being a junkie needing the next fix. And when we get such well-earned, wonderful moments as Dany's sack of Astapor or the breakdown of order at Craster's, nothing else really matters. The show pulls off these moments better than almost any other series and they're so cool, intense, and engrossing that little else matters. Next Sunday can not come soon enough.   

Stray Observations:

-Some excellent Varys scenes in this episode. Conleth Hill has been underutilized prior to this episode, but he gets a number of wonderful moments. The best of these is possibly the monologue where Varys describes just how he became the eunuch he is and how the incident led him to the particular life he’s chosen. It’s a powerful scene that fills in so much information about this character. Just as telling is Varys talk with Lady Olenna. When he describes Littlefinger as the “Most dangerous man” in all of Westeros; Varys reminds us just how aware he is of the political machinations taking place and where he stands in the midst of it.   

-Jaimie is forced to wear his rotting hand around his neck (as if his circumstances weren’t bad enough). This opening scene is deeply painful. Watching Jaimie sink down in the mud and flail with his nonfighting hand is  sad and pathetic. If you’re not sympathetic about Jaimie by this point (I am), than Brienne’s opinion is certainly changing. This pairing = too good for words.

-Bran has another effectively creepy dream vision in which Catelynn (in her only appearance in the episode – Robb makes no appearance) pushes him off the top of a tree while yelling “No climbing!” in a call back to the very first episode. Bran's story is one of the less interesting stories, but it's been better handled this season than in the past.

-Ros continues to get much more screen time and it’s intriguing how the character is being used. She’s playing off both Varys and Littlefinger and it’s hard to say where she stands in all of this. However, she picks up Littlefinger’s eye towards Sansa where Varys doesn’t.

-Joffrey’s small talk: dragon’s killing people.

-“Sometimes severity is the price we pay for greatness” – Margaery, your way with words is awesome! Natalie Dormer gets some other choice lines but this one resonated with me (especially for how it works on multiple levels).

-Theon’s supposed helper returns him back to the torture chamber he left in the first place and claims that Theon killed the men that he was responsible for murdering. Theon's story is probably taking up more story time than it needs to.

-Alfie Allen is given a great monologue where he acknowledges his failures and how he screwed over his actual kin, the Starks. I know we should hate Theon, but in that moment, Theon is so vulnerable and Allen plays it so well, that it’s hard not to be slightly sympathetic (especially after what comes next).

-“Porridge Plague”? Sansa, you really are clueless. 

-Margaery suggests that Sansa be betrothed to Loras (at the behest of Olenna who is scheming with Varys)

-Arya’s story is left on a cliffhanger: The Hound is sentenced to trial by combat by Beric Dondarrion (Eric Dormer).  Because apparently there were just too many awesome moments for one episode as is.

-Maisie Williams’ delivery of “You murdered Micah” was just all kinds of awesome.
-I set aside the power rankings model from last week but I may return to it in the future. 

Grade: A