Game of Thrones - "Mhysa" - Review

The Red Wedding is a monumental moment in the book series of A Song of Fire and Ice. It’s such a big, devastating moment and such an unexpected, emotionally impactful twist that it’s come to hold a special psychological place in the hearts of readers of the books. It was a similarly powerful moment in last week’s penultimate episode “The Rains of Castamere”. The development abruptly disrupts one of the core, important foundations to its very basic makeup. It’s hard to imagine where the show goes from here without Robb and Catelynn (no matter your feelings towards them).

However, the Red Wedding is also a climactic and not a conclusive moment. It occurs about two thirds of the way through A Storm of Swords. It’s essentially a dividing point in the middle of the book that logically was chosen to close off this season which is adapting the first half of the book. But as a climactic moment it doesn’t speak of endings but possibilities. After the initial shock wears off our thoughts turn to wondering where the series will go from here. How can it possibly keep going after something like that? Obviously it does, but the show can’t quite get to some of those other tantalizing moments just yet because this is a finite season of television. And so the show is forced to figure out how to close out a story that’s not complete. Ned’s death logically marks the end of one chapter of this story, and Blackwater marks another end to yet another chapter. But the Red Wedding does not. 

“Mhysa” has some great moments in it but it doesn’t feel like a very good season finale, and it’s also jumpy (at times it’s at an “A”-level and others it’s barely scraping above the “C”-range) in that Game of Thrones way where the show can’t seem to pin down what the heck the show is supposed to be for this week’s hour in Westeros (and Essos). It’s not entirely like this. For a good while the episode takes stock of the Red Wedding and plays out the rippling effects with some great dramatic moments. But about half way through the episode becomes like a grab bag of ideas that the writers just seem to be tossing out there hoping they stick with us.  And some do and others don’t, but it comes off as if the writers don’t know how to end the season. In that way the episode feels like two very different episodes stitched together. Too much of the episode feels like a bridge; at times it’s like an episode that ought to have been in the middle of a season. And this just gives it, particularly the back-half of the episode, an awkward quality (it doesn't help that some of the less compelling moments occur in this part of the episode).

Game of Thrones has always had trouble with finales. Season two's "Valar Morghulis" pops in on everyone to tell us where they'll be for the following season and in the process it feels like an episode where the writers have too much story to neatly tell. It doesn't help that the finales have all followed episodes that are the best episodes of the season (and also some of the best episodes aired on television for that given tv season). The penultimate episodes focus in more and feature big, earthshattering moments that are typically visceral and deeply emotionally felt. Since this is an adaptation of a book series though (and a book series that is technically one giant story broken up at convenient dividing points) the finales have, to one extent or another, felt like the writers are just dicking around until they can get back the next season; it's a constraint of the medium this is being told in. It doesn't help that there's so much expectation about what a finale ought to be. We've come to expect certain things of a finale (and there's some of that in here - with different levels of success), but there's also just a lot of stories reaching logical conclusions that may make sense on a narrative level but don't necessarily come off as satisfying in this given medium. And then there are those stories that just don't reach logical conclusions but merely stop in on a character.   

For much of the episode, I was of the opinion that this was one of the best episodes of the season as well as one of the best finales the show had managed. It was tightly constructed; there were lots of nice transitions stringing it all together (including an excellent one where Bran talks of the evils of breaking hospitality before cutting to Walder Frey). And the scenes came off as the next logical place to head into: the Lannisters considering their new found power in the war, Arya escaping the Twins by the skins of her teeth, the Boltons being pleased with their new found (or continuing) power, Jon reaching Castle Black. 

And then about halfway through, the episode lost its tightness and started just tossing out things that didn't always land.

So let’s take a moment to consider what was good. The episode starts immediately after the deaths of Robb and Catelynn where we see that the Red Wedding still drags on to excruciate brutal effect (Director David Nutter really lets the dark chaos of this drag on for a while to allow this to sink in). It’s here we get a sense of just how thoroughly fucked the Stark bannermen are. The Hound barely escapes with Arya, but not before she has to witness the gruesome scene of Greywind’s head attached to the now decapitated body of her dead brother (this should be hokey but they don't linger on it for too long and Arya's reaction is all too powerful it to not be affecting). The Arya-Hound scenes are some of the episode’s best. A later scene where Arya repeatedly stabs to death a Frey soldier is disturbing for what it says about the mental state of everyone’s favorite tomboy and compellingly acted by Maisie Williams.   

Tyrion is called to a small council meeting* where he learns of the news from the Twins; the best part of this are the moments involving Tywin. Joffrey keeps excitedly talking about the Stark deaths which leads Tywin to amusingly school his grandson. And when Joffrey snipes back, everyone in the room looks around nervously aware that the little shithead has just talked down to the most powerful man in all the Seven Kingdoms. It’s followed by an equally excellent scene where Tyrion and Tywin have one of their world famous awful father-son relationship talks.  

*A scene so perfectly contrasted with a prior scene of Tyrion and Sansa warmly, sweetly chitchatting and plotting pranks on those people who make fun of Tyrion. It’s so great for how it draws the parallel between the similarities of these two newly reluctantly betrothed.  And it's likely the last we'll see Sansa like this *sigh*

Outside of the Twins and King’s Landing (which have some other yet mentioned great scenes) though, the episode is messy. The ending with Dany feels incredibly tacked on and somewhat false note to end the episode on. Freed Yunkai slaves start crying out “mother” (the titular “mhysa”) in a foreign language to show their appreciation of Dany’s efforts to save them. But it’s a scene that comes out of nowhere and feels as if the writers wanted to end the episode on an uplifting, triumphant moment. But there is so much going on elsewhere (frantically so) that the episode seems to sputter out to this point, shifting from one location to the next without a complete sense of direction. Jaimie and Brienne returns to King’s Landing, because loose ends. Yara (who we haven’t heard from since way back in season two) heads out to save her brother Theon, who we finally learn the fate of (but more on that later). A questionable, somewhat excessive amount of time is spent on Dragonstone where the show burns through enough plots for Davos, Stannis, and Melisandre to fill out a couple episodes worth of story.**

**Some of this story could have possibly been used at points in the season where these characters looked as if they had nothing to do. But on the whole I thought the show handled these character much better than last season. 

If I might get a little too intellectual here for a moment, the show is at its best when it's in conversation with itself (this is true of many shows). Yara heading out to save Theon or Bran getting past the Wall with the help of Sam is all setup for the future of the show. They don’t make the show feel like it’s saying “Hey, this is where we’ve been! This is where we’re headed”. This is what a finale ought to do more so than any other episode. Tyrion talking to Tywin, or Varys talking to Shae, or Roose Bolton talking to Walder Frey, all refer back to the show’s history and reflect it upon the present to suggest something about the future. Dany’s triumph doesn’t and thus it feels a bit empty and that makes the ending and a number of moments in this episode empty. They’re killing time in an episode that has no business doing that.

Game of Thrones finales rely too heavily on "It's going to be good ... Trust us!". But I would have liked more showing and less telling.

The show remains as messy as ever. But that's the fire the writers play with when adapting this source material. I still feel like this is the best adaptation the show could have hoped for and they have continued to nail the moments they need to nail (i.e. The Red Wedding). As long as they're pulling off those moments they need to land, I will give them a pass when the moments that aren't as important don't. And there's plenty of both of these types of moments in this episode.

Stray Thoughts:

-Lots and lots of great Hodor moments. I laughed so hard when Sam said, “And of course everyone knows Hodor!”

-The emotional sentiment of the Jon-Ygritte scene remains as potent and powerful as ever, but this scene still comes off as far too contrived. Where the hell are they?

-In case Roose describing his bastard son’s role in Winterfell’s demise didn’t make it clear enough who was torturing Theon (with a very effective and subtle cut away to the Dreadfort), Balon Greyjoy states the truth far more bluntly when he receives a particularly sensitive body part of his son from Ramsay Bolton.

-I love how Maester Aemon assumes Sam broke his oath sleeping with Gilly. I’m a sucker for humor drawn from this kind of mistaken assumption.

-I really liked the Davos-Gendry scene. The writers found a connection that you wouldn’t have really considered but brought out a lot from both of these chracters, and it was a nice moment for Liam Cunningham and Joe Dempsie to play.

-Even Roose Bolton, traitor that he may be, is sort of disgusted by Walder Frey.

-For a moment there I actually thought Ramsay might have been actually eating Theon’s dick; it would fit with what we know of his character. But it’s kind of a relief to find that this is not the case. We do come across his genitalia elsewhere though in one of the more interesting (and by which I mean I’m not sure it makes sense to have it in the episode) scenes with the lesser known Greyjoys.

-I like how Varys acknowledges that Tyrion would make a good ruler and one he’d back. It really adds to our sense of just what his political aims are.

-I like even more the scene that piece of information comes from which is a great scene between Conleth Hill and Sibel Kekilli that addresses one of the more pressing unaddressed issues of the season (yet, of course, doesn't resolve it).
-I'm always pleased when Tyrion and Cersei remember their siblings and hash things out. It doesn't say anything new here but the pairing of Lena Headley and Peter Dinklage just doesn't get old. They barb words at eachother delectably (and they even get to discuss Joffrey's god-awfulness and the never-ending war).
-The deaths of Robb and Catelynn do open up room for the remaining regulars. If there's an upside to be taken away from that. 
-Sam and Bran meeting up is a moment of unexpected connection in a series that so often chooses to break apart connections than to form them.

Grade: B
Season Grade: A

What did everyone else think?