Not to get too intimate with you, friends, but Sunday night’s Game of Thrones was so fucking crazy I had elaborate nuclear war dreams all night, which also involved me stabbing a bunch of dudes with a serrated dagger. Call it ARYA’S REVENGE.
Other than wreaking havoc on my neuroses, this show is back to the operative level of savage we have come to expect, finally weaving in decent dialogue with its festival of gleeful horrors. Aside from the scene in which Drogon teaches us how to make toast, the best part of Episode 4, “The Spoils of War,” was the clear deployment of Benioff & Weiss’s DISGUSTING senses of humor. That scene where Jaime looks forlornly at the horses racing into the mountains, a cart full of flaming Tyrell gold in tow? Hilarious! These boys are sickos, and they’re getting into a groove!
But first things first: Dany and Jon are gonna FUQ. The moment we’ve all been waiting for—except for the people in my mentions who are somehow grossed out that she is his aunt even though it’s Game of Thrones and also it’s a fictional fantasy universe—inched ever closer with their little tour into the spoils of the dragonglass mine. At first it was extremely anticlimactic, despite the dramatic music—it’s a fucking cave, people—but apparently it was nothing the Children of the Forest’s SARK wall scribblings and a little torchlight couldn’t fix, because the sexual tension was massive! (DICKON, more like THICCON amirite!) When Jon suggested that he had “something else to show” Daenerys, was your initial reaction “heh heh... his wang”? But then it was only hieroglyphics of the White Walkers, boring. Good thing the Children could throw fireballs with their hands and make frozen man-soldiers, because they truly sucked at art! The foreshadowing of the fuq: Ser Davos was like “Jon, I can tell you are horny for the Mother of Dragons,” and then he was like, “It’s fine, I’m as horny as a frat boy for Missandei of Naath.” Another hilarious one-liner in this highly comedic television program about sexing your relatives.
Another point of foreshadowing: the Iron Bank guy would not commit their support of Cersei’s war until their repayment made it to the Iron Bank, which as we know from the epic end scene, it did NOT. Gold melts at 1,948 degrees fahrenheit; humans cremate at a range of 1400-1800 degrees fahrenheit; I’m going to just posit that the gold bars didn’t survive the flames of the dragon, and the Iron Bank isn’t going to accept a big dirty glob as a deposit.
Were you fucking SCREAMING when Daenerys was riding Drogon and commanding “Dracarys”! I was in my apartment like, “YES BITCH!!!!!!” effectively interrupting a civilized garden party my neighbors were hosting in our shared yard. (I am not sorry; what kind of miscreant has a garden party during Game of Thrones?) As the first show of Dany’s army’s strength that Jaime was around to witness, it simply have not been more devastating. Drogon was torching those fools, literally cooking them inside their armor like brisket wrapped in tinfoil. No one loves to fight like a Dothraki horde, so Jaime ordering his army to get their shields up was utterly quaint, Dothraki horses pounding through them, scythes wielded. Even dirtbag Bronn was like “we are utterly fucked,” and that was before the dragon shit went down. That said, given the choice, would it be better to get your throat slit by a Dothraki than burn alive via dragonfire? At first I thought so because of the immediacy of the death, but then they showed the way dragonfire turns men to dust, so maybe that’s more instantaneous. Here is a poll:
We’ve had fight scenes since last season’s utterly devastating “Battle of the Bastards”—for which director Miguel Sapochnik was robbed of an Emmy—but none since then has been as fully envisioned as this firefight, which actually turned my sympathies towards the Lannisters for just one second. Bronn losing his gold in the fight seemed particularly tragic, the evisceration of all his dreams—at that moment, Cersei was not likely to win the war and Bronn was not likely to inherit a castle—yet the complexity of watching him grin as he tried to blast Drogon with that stupid weapon was confusing. It wasn’t a fair fight at all, and the chaos that was portrayed really drove home the savagery of all war. Also, the existential despair of being a Thrones fan; frankly I don’t care if Jaime dies, but these guys cannot kill fucking Bronn! He’s just a fun dirtbag who loves to party! Long may he live out his days chugging ale in a brothel.
Meanwhile, Sansa is just starting to figure out that not only has Bran come back a total fuckin’ weirdo, her sister Arya is a homicidal maniac. (Still, their reunion: go ahead and admit you cried.) More foreshadowing: Arya is maybe a better fighter than Brienne of Tarth, and she now possesses a weapon of Valyrian steel. Freaky Bran the Seer knows his sister is going to shatter some muhfuckin’ White Walkers at some point in the future. I cannot wait.
Boners: Jon’s, for Daenerys, and probably vice versa. Ser Davos’s, for “MISSAndei of NAATH,” the old perv! Missandei, for “many things” with Greyworm, no technical boner though.
Deaths: The soul of Bran Stark, in the cave, in deference to the Three-Eyed Raven. Hella many Lannisters and like, a total of five Dothraki. Not Jaime or Bronn. Daenerys is probably going to take them hostage (perhaps to be used for leverage with Yara and Ellaria) and he’ll reunite with Tyrion who will call him a fucking idiot to his face, and Jaime will apologize for thinking anyone but Olenna poisoned Joffrey and we’ll all cry and hug. It will be beautiful, and then probably someone else will die. LIFE IS CRUEL, GET USED TO IT.