Game of Thrones: "Two Swords"

 Spoilers Below:

“I want things my way” -Oberyn Martell

By this point in Game of Thrones we know largely what to expect. Its sprawling cast of characters and narrative are always going to be both a blessing and a curse, and its episodes will rarely feel like a conventional episode of television (or really like anything else on television). But that’s part of its pleasure. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, and, of course, George R.R. Martin, have given a world fascinating enough and worthy enough of being explored and filled with characters who we want to follow through thick and thin, even if it can be brutal to sit through. 

Last season felt like it had two premieres where the show had so much narrative and so many characters to stop in on that it couldn’t achieve it in one hour of television. But “Two Swords” suffers far less from excess. Clearing the board, so to speak, last season with the deaths of a Catelyn and Robb has opened up the writing and storytelling to feel leaner and less cluttered. 

The focus is very heavily on King’s Landing but all of the scenes feel, to differing extents, necessary. Tyrion is still the most prominently featured character (because the show is still trying to pretend he’s the show’s main character without Ned around), but all of his scenes lack a sense of stalling or filler. 

Tyrion is sent to greet the arrival of the latest addition to the cast Oberyn Martel (played by Pedro Pascal), the brother of the King of Dorne. Tyrion is set up to do this because there is bad blood between the Tyrells, the Lannisters and the Martels (which is, of course, the way it would have to be as these three major houses are together wielding power in Westeros), and being a “lesser” Lannister he, at face, seems like less of a threat. Oberyn is pissed because he believes that Tywin ordered the Mountain to murder his sister and her children during the last days of Robert’s Rebellion. 

Oberyn receives an interesting scene where he and his lover Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma) pick out courtesans to have some erotic wiles with. Now, Game of Thrones has always been pretty lousy when it comes to handling nudity. This scene isn’t the most offensive example of sexposition, but it certainly does feel like: “Let’s fill our boob quota!”.  But, at the same time, I’m fascinated by how the show uses this scene to suggest some things about Oberyn, his mistress and Dornish culture. They come off as the closest things Westeros has to swingers. Yet they’re not all about free love; when Lannister bannermen insult Oberyn he’s quick to step in and show them who’s boss. Again, the show reminds us power often hides in plain sight or comes in places that, on the surface, we might not expect.  

Take Arya who continues to lose the moral center her father and family initially provided her. Having seen the horrors of war lead to the death of three of her family members, she’s turned cynical and filled with hatred. Given a chance opportunity to kill Polliver, one of the men on her death list of people responsible for her family’s terrible circumstances, she pushes ahead to force a situation which will inevitably end ugly. How great is the odd couple pairing of the Hound and Arya? These two were made for eachother, and they’re more alike than either of them fully realizes or admits. These are individuals with honor codes and warrior’s hearts, but whose views have been tempered by life and circumstances.

If one of the goals of serialized television in this age of great television is to slowly strip back and chip away at the surfaces of a previously well-worn subject and peel back to reveal some of that subject’s shortcomings (The Sopranos: Gangsters, Mad Men: 1960’s, Deadwood: the Western, The Shield: Cop dramas, Buffy: Horror) than Game of Thrones frequently tries to take to task fantasy. The Oberyn quote that opens this post stuck with me throughout the hour. Ned had to die for Game of Thrones to work, and Robb and Catelyn had to die as well. Because in a medieval feudal society doing the right thing might be noble, but there’s a difference between right and necessary. So character may want things, but they probably aren’t going to get them because they live in a deeply unfair and unforgiving system. 

Shae may want Tyrion to be with her, but that will likely end badly for both of them. Jaimie might think it’s right for him to be near the woman he loves and the son that’s technically his, but though they’re connected by blood, his interests are probably best served elsewhere. Dany might be self-assured in her abilities and her power because she successfully conquered two cities and released their slaves, but her powerlessness over her three dragons implies she’s slowly getting out of her depth. 

Then there are the characters who have no say in dictating what they want. Sansa is still a hopeless, broken person. She’s hit rock bottom, going to the Godswood because it’s the only place where she won’t have to interact with other people. Arya gets a lot of the attention from critics and fans of the series, in part, because her story is dynamic and action-packed and, in part, because Maisie Williams has no business being as talented as she is. But Sophie Turner is consistently and increasingly turning out one of the best, most understated (and often under-appreciated) performances of the whole show as Sansa. See how her face sinks and sinks and sinks, and how she lets us understand the depths of her despair without actually saying very much. 

There were still major players who were off the board. Davos and Stannis, Bran and Hodor, Theon and Ramsay. But the great thing about this show is how little we notice a character’s absence until the episode has finished. Plus these are all characters who are currently at crossroads: Stannis and Bran, in different capacities, are headed to the Wall (or beyond it), and I think we can all agree we’ve had enough Theon torture porn for a lifetime. And Littlefinger and Varys are doubtless off scheming up something sinister. 

“Two Swords” like a lot of Game of Thrones premieres has a lot of table-setting, but it’s great to see how confident and certain it has become at making this feel somewhat effortless. To be sure, this is far from a perfect episode, but Game of Thrones rarely is ever perfect. It’s messy and has way too much going on, and it sometimes fails to tell long arcs as thoroughly as it should (minus Ned’s whole story arc). But it’s also one of the most compulsive pieces of television. Its' a show that can be deeply visceral and gut-wrenching and also quiet and intimate, and neither of those moments need be an either/or proposition or mutually exclusive. That Arya and Hound scene is placed at episode’s end to goose things up, but it’s also quietly devastating in how it makes us really feel the physicality of the fighting and the decay of Arya’s innocence. That’s the true greatness of Game of Thrones. There’s always a price. 

Stray Thoughts:

-Diana Riggs remains to be an utter delight as the Lady of Thorns. The fact she immediately adores Brienne makes her even better and a total winner in my book. 

-Cersei is slowly losing it. Cersei, like a lot of characters, likes having control of her life and she doesn’t have that right now.  Then again, very few do. 

-In the scene that opens the episode and gives the episode its title, Tywin turns Ned’s Valyrian sword (read “special sword” for all you non-readers) into two swords, one he tries to give to Jaimie, but Jaimie sours the moment by refusing to give into Tywin’s demands that he leave the Kingsguard. 

-Jon returns to the Wall where he finds most people incapable of buying his story of pretending to become a wildling in order to infiltrate their ranks. He finds support from Maester Aemon but he’s about as safe at Castle Black as he was undercover. 

-Ygritte does not take being betrayed by Jon kindly, and is revved up to attack the Wall. Also, we meet one segment of the wildling population, the Thenn, who are cannibals, which is disgusting to most everybody else, as it rightly should be. 

-Bronn gets in some excellent one-liners because Bronn is awesome, and also understands quite well the way this world works. 

-Joffrey ignores strategic defense plans for making him safe at his wedding. Instead, he indulges his well-known inner sadist by gazing up at some swords on the wall. 

-The symbolism of Tywin throwing that the wolf into the flames of the smelting swords was a tad blunt but I also think it set the tone and got across the point that we’ve reached a new era for the show. 

-"Tell him the Lannisters aren't the only ones who pay their debts."

-Daario Naharis providing Dany with flowers gets us into rom-com-esque territory I’m not sure the show wants to dabble in. Also, Daario was re-cast with Michiel Huisman replacing Ed Skrein. Somewhat distracting like that time the Mountain was replaced between season one and two. 

-Ser Dontos approaches Sansa in the Godswood where he thanks her for saving his life at the hands of Joffrey way back in the season two premiere “The North Remembers”. There was also another far reaching call back from Arya in her comments to Polliver before she cold-bloodedly killed him.

-This is the first time that the show has really dealt with Dorne and how it fits into this world. The show kind of just dives in whole hog, which may have been confusing for some. It reminds me slightly of the introduction of Stannis, Davos and Melisandre on Dragonstone in the season two premiere. There's very little hand holding and the show hopes that you're already invested enough at this point that you'll be willing to fill in the gaps as the story moves along.

-Is it just me or was this one of the single most fun and funny episodes of the series thus far? Sometimes the sheer brutality of the story overwhelms this series and threatens to consume it. It’s still present and we’re helpfully reminded about it in the final few minutes, but there’s a spring in the show’s step as well here. 

-The nudity in the Oberyn scene is questionable in its necessity. But for anyone who doubts that Game of Thrones deep down is concerned about saying meaningful things about gender and the role of women in this society, I urge you to take note of the Arya scene. We see a helpless woman sexually abused by a bunch of powerful creeps. Weiss’ direction and Weiss and Benioff’s script make sure that we really understand that what’s happening is terrible and also sadly normal for this society.

-Welcome back to the Game of Thrones reviews. It's been far too long since I've over-thought about this show.

Grade: A-