The Red Wedding is widely agreed to be (and rightfully so) the greatest thing George R.R. Martin has ever, and probably will ever, write. Good as the books after A Storm of Swords (which is, for the most part, what was being adapted this season) are, they pale in comparison and they seem desperate to try re-create the breathless set of developments that made their predecessors so good.
Yet a post-Red Wedding Game
of Thrones has felt oddly invigorated in some ways. I’m of the opinion that
creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were being incredibly delicate towards
their adaptation of the books pre-Red Wedding, and now they’ve been freed up to
be much more fast and loose with telling the story. Fans are far less concerned
with how some of this later material is handled, and we’ve seen much more
liberties taken this season than in any other season.
This hasn’t always worked. There have been loose plot
threads and wheel spinning – the show still isn’t entirely comfortable being
centerless and some characters it doesn’t have a clue how to handle. But more
often than not it’s felt like we’re Arya setting off onto the horizon. The
future is uncertain but it sure looks pretty darn good.
I gave a fair amount of praise to last week’s episode, and I
seemed to be critically in the minority. Yes, it was an episode that was pretty
low on good storytelling. But it was peerless technical craft and spectacle.
Sure I should be knocking it a few grades down, but then I think of how this
show is first and foremost a delivery system for entertainment and it was way
too much sheer pleasure to get too cranky.
That being said, this finale “The Children” is a reminder of
the ways in which Game of Thrones’
unique weekly storytelling modes can be really advantageous.
For all its lack of colossal battles, “The Children” nicely
wrapped up a number of ongoing stories while looking ahead to the future. It
was also a reminder that sometimes limiting our exposure to some characters and
locations can be highly dissatisfying and restricting. (Oh, how I’ve missed so many of these familiar
faces in the one week’s absence).
It’s a busy episode that manages to never feel overcrowded.
A few characters are missing (Sansa, Theon) but we end up stopping in on mostly
everyone. And not only that, but the episode also ties together these stories
with precision and cohesion.
The theme is subtle and just beneath the surface (suggested, but not overstated), and hinted
at by the episode’s title. It could easily be referring to so many different
things. The most obvious place is the place it appears literally in the
episode; Bran, Meera and Hodor (RIP Jojen) meet a small individual who says
that men used to call them “children”. This is one of the Children of the
Forest, a group of people who were the first of inhabitants of Westeros before
men arrived. It’s a part of the evermore complicated mythology of the show.
Children could just as easily refer to the Starks who have
been scattered to the winds, and here we see accomplish major goals long in the
making. Jon (who even brings up his father at one point) goes to negotiate with Mance Rayder only for Stannis to arrive with
his army and eliminate the remaining threat of the wildlings. It plays
unexpectedly despite how much it’s been hinted at. With Stannis, Davos and (an
eerily shot through flames) Melisandre at the Wall, the status quo has been uplifted
in one of many places (but more on that in a bit).
Bran finally meets the Three-Eyed Raven he’s been having weird
visions of since season one. Meanwhile, Arya has one of the most eventful
storylines (in a very eventful episode). Brienne and Poderick come across the
Hound and Arya. Brienne recognizes her, and the Hound and Brienne battle over
Arya and the safety they claim to give her (in an intense and draining fight
for both viewers and fighters). It’s a testament to the relationship the show
has developed between Arya and the Hound that our feelings are so complicated
during this sequence. We believe in the Hound’s real investment in Arya beyond
a desire for a payment and we know Brienne’s sincere about her intentions even
if she has difficulty proving it.
I don’t know what’s more devastating: the fight or the long,
slow, painful death scene of the Hound. The Hound loses the fight (but only
barely), and as he bleeds out he begs Arya to put him out of his misery. Maisie
Williams has rarely been as good as she in this moment as she contemplates her
next action and her mixed feelings towards this man who she claims she wants to
kill but who she has also made a real connection with.
Children could also refer to Dany’s dragons, which she has increasingly
lost any control over. One of her dragons has gone awol and has killed a three
year old girl (a child); this causes Dany to chain-up and lock away the other
two dragons. Dany looks crushed as she walks away (in a wonderfully shot scene
by director Alex Graves, who makes such great use of light). These are the closest
things to children Dany will have (now that as was suggested in the first
season that she is incapable of bearing children). Game of Thrones loves taking a typical fantasy scenario and then
flipping it on its head, and so it shouldn’t be too surprising that Dany isn’t
immediately and always a master over a trio of full-grown dragons.
Outside of the Stark child trio and dragon child trio, we
had the three Lannister children. Cersei refuses to stay under the thumb of her
father Tywin, openly flaunting the truth of her incestuous relationship with
Jaimie. (As the Stark kids continue to do right by their parents in death, the
Lannisters at first in life and then in death actively flout their parent’s
memory). Cersei goes to Jaimie with this news which appears to rekindle their
relationship (We’ll see how long that lasts with Tyrion freed and Cersei on a
downward spiral).
Yet Jaimie still is pro-Tyrion and helps free him from
prison with the help of Varys. But Tyrion can’t help but take one last opportunity
to see his dear father. What he discovers is Shae in his father’s bed, and he
proceeds to strangle her. He then finds his father on the privy. Tywin tries to
talk him down from it but he’s insensitive as always, failing to acknowledge
his son as, well, his son. Tywin ends up with two crossbows to the chest, and,
while I will dearly miss the great Charles Dance, Tywin had it coming. He
thought he was getting his house in order but failed to accept the reality of
his children as anything but an extension of himself and the family name.
We end the episode with two people on ships. Tyrion and
Arya, in different ways and for different reasons, lacking other choices, set
out across the Narrow Sea. Arya to Braavos, and Tyrion to parts unknown. The
show ties together their respective bottoming outs while suggesting it’s
ultimately for not only these characters but the show as a whole.
Game of Thrones,
for the most part, has been pretty lousy at finales. Outside of the first
season finale, the series hasn’t really had a clue how to set up the new season
while crafting an episode that doesn’t play like a giant recap. We stop in a
lot of places in “The Children” but it largely feels well integrated while also
being forward looking. The final shot of Arya reads like a mission statement:
there are good things to come.
Stray Thoughts:
-Other children business: Brienne and Arya discuss their
fathers’ different approaches to their interest in swordfighting. Cersei talks about
the situation with her own children.
-The theme also ties nicely to the show’s interest in how
children survive in a medieval world where there’s no real conception of a
transitionary period between childhood and adulthood. This is especially
fitting for Arya, who keeps sliding into darkness. That whole death scene with
the Hound is so fucking stone-cold and disheartening. (It also ties nicely with
Sansa’s transition from two episodes ago – which is further neat because of the
two sisters’ shared relationship with the Hound)
-The first appearance of Stannis and Davos through the mist
is so well shot. The overhead shots of the assault on the wildlings were also
pretty nifty. The episode held out the reveal of Stannis for a long time in
clever little ways.
-Qyburn (the sort-of-maester Jaimie met on his way back to
King’s Landing) is ordered by Cersei to revive the dying Mountain; he says, “He
may not be the same”. Pycelle doesn’t approve (but who really cares about that
untrustworthy dude). Lots of ominousness hinted at here folks. But then again,
most things feel ominous these days on this show.
-Dany Learns to Rule
a City: Dany has more troubles with freeing the slaves of Mereen. A former
slave wishes to be reinstated as a slave because his lot in life was better.
-That skeleton warrior fight before Bran’s arrival at the
Three-Eyed Raven was cool, but it still has nothing on Brienne and the Hound’s
fight which was weighted with so much emotion and was so brutal and bloody. I didn’t expect the show to
actually have their paths cross and especially not like this, but it ended up
being a really smart, effective decision.
-Arya thinks first to try to get passage north, presumably
to Jon at the Wall. In her mind, that’s probably the last of her familial connections.
-Jon helps Mance’s life get spared. He claims it’s what his
father would have done but I think he also has too much of a personal bond with
Mance at this point to see him get killed.
-I mentioned the shot of Melisandre already, but I wanted to
also note how she stares weirdly and suggestively at Jon. There’s an implied connection
of sorts there. I also like, during the same scene, the glance given between Jon and Stannis who
already have an almost immediate understanding of their obligations to one
another.
-Tyrion shoots the crossbow after Tywin calls Shae a “whore”,
a very big sticking point for him ever since (as discussed in season one) he
once married a prostitute who then Tywin had Lannister guardsmen all pay to
have sex with.
-The Three-Eyed Raven is pretty creepy looking, and this is
helped by how he’s shot, which has an almost Guillermo del Toro vibe (I’m
thinking Pan’s Labyrinth).
-Jojen’s death didn’t really affect me. There just wasn’t
enough build-up. But I do like the notion that he gave himself up in order for
Bran to make it; that’s something hopefully Bran will have to come to terms
with. (God, Bran really fucking needs a good storyline; here’s hoping for next
year).
-According to an interview Maisie Williams gave, the script direction for Brienne and Arya's discussion of swords and fighting read: "Arya smiles. She likes this weirdo. Brienne smiles. She likes this weirdo." I loved the meeting of these two very similar women with very similar aspirations, and it only makes the ensuing conflict all the sadder and more heart-wrenching.
-Well, it’s been fun guys. Here’s hoping that I see you guys
here in a year’s time when more of Game
of Thrones will be had.
Grade: A
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