Game of Boners: A Different Kind of Pie

Well, what do you know! Last night we had a full episode of Game of Thrones with nary a glimpse of nip or butt! Sure, there was a flash of side labia at the Royal Wedding, but these body parts are gonna have to do a whole lot better than a flash if they want to be included in our count. You hear that gratuitous nudity? YOU’RE SLACKING.

And yet wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles! It was actually a pretty active episode — even with the decided lack of nameless prostitutes languorously fingering themselves in the background of scenes that have nothing to do with them. In fact, major shit happened that had nothing to do with nudity, but before we get to the incident that everyone wants to talk about, let’s quickly sum up the rest.

Bran is still having visions. Hodor is Hodor. Shae has been put on a ship out of King’s Landing. Theon, who I was not eager to catch up with, is now a tortured shell of a man who goes by the name of Reek. The fire lady and Stannis are still — I don’t know, doing whatever dumb fire shit it is that they always do. Sorry, but their storyline has always been the most boring and no amount of little girls with crocodile faces is ever going to change that.

But now onto the Royal/Purple Wedding, or, as it should have been called, the Purple Wed-ZING! thanks to the high number of well crafted insults being thrown around by party guests. It was almost like watching a roast on comedy central, the only difference being that the Purple Wedding was actually funny.

Of course, Olenna Tyrell, queen of witty repartee, had her share of good lines (like this foreshadowing remark made to Sansa: “War is war, but killing a man at a wedding. Horrid. What sort of monster would do such a thing? As if men need more reasons to fear marriage.”), but her offspring didn’t fare to poorly either. When Jaime confronts Ser Loras about his engagement to Cersei, tauntingly telling him that he will never end up marrying her, Loras responds with a cool “And neither will you.” Those Tyrells! Always so quick to get on the Lannisters’ backs about a little brother/sister incest.

Then there was Oberyn Martell’s excellent dig at the Lannisters after Cersei and Tywin dare to step to him with some bullshit about bringing his low-birth lover to the wedding (in a gold, gaucho jumpsuit, no less!). “In some places, the high-born frown upon those of low birth,” Oberyn remarks, before going on to reference the Lannisters’ history of brutality. “In other places, the rape and murder of children is considered distasteful. What a fortunate thing for you, former Queen Regent, that your daughter Myrcella has been sent to live in the latter sort of place.”

Cersei’s son/nephew Joffrey is not so fortunate. If you thought that the Bieber of Westeros would take a break from his sociopathy for his own wedding, you’d be wrong. If anything, his loathsome personality is magnified by all the oppulence and attention, to the point where even his new wife Margaery — an expert at pretending to like Joffrey — has a hard time keeping her game face on.

Joffrey’s bullying of Tyrion (and, by proxy, Sansa) gets so bad during the wedding feast that it was hard not to fear for the lives of Tyrion’s loved-ones. In fact, when the king announces the event’s surprise entertainment, I was fully expecting to see Shae brought out, drawn and quartered.

What Joffrey actually has planned isn’t nearly so violent, but is still entirely vulgar. It’s a comedic reenactment of his winning of the recent war (which we all know is far from over) and the murder of the dreamy King in the North, Robb Stark. The only people who seem to be enjoying the spectacle are Joffrey and Cersei. Everyone else is barely able to conceal their horror, but Joffrey keeps going — he spills wine on Tyrion’s head, forces him to be his cup bearer and demands that his uncle kneels at his feet.

Margaery, a master of manipulation, distracts Joffrey away from what could have been a disastrous moment for Tyrion by bringing out their wedding pie. He only takes a few bites (and chops up a couple doves) before his focus is back on Tyrion again, demanding from him even more wine to wash down his dessert. He only manages a few gulps before everything gets fucking REAL. All of the sudden, Joffrey is coughing, sputtering, collapsing and vomiting up blood as his parents and subjects look on helplessly.

It’s a gruesome scene. Not only does Joffrey end up dead, he ends up looking dead and like this:

Cute, right? Anyway, rest in the OPPOSITE of peace, Joffrey. I can genuinely say that I’ll miss hating you. (And a round of applause to actor Jack Gleeson and what was likely a delightfully fun death scene to perform.)

The death of her first born makes Cersei — whose always been a few wine barrels short of a full order — lose her goddamn mind and accuse Tyrion of poisoning the king. From the outside, it seems far more likely that the poison was hidden in the pie (maybe by the Tyrells or Oberyn), but, hey — if I had just watched my son/nephew die violently at his own wedding, I probably wouldn’t be thinking too clearly either.

In closing, I feel really bad for that girl who had to go to, like, six weddings in Westeros this summer, only to keep having the groom get murdered before she even gets served a fucking piece of cake.

Nudity count: Nothing to see here. Instead, let’s watch last week’s Gay of Thrones: