After last week’s disappointing since “The Bear and The Maiden Fair” Game of Thrones returned with “Second Sons,” a more focused and balanced episode. “Second Sons” offered some much needed resolution to the tug-of-war Sansa storyline, introduced a possible new love interest – with a chin sculpted from marble – for Dany, and some forward momentum for Stannis and Davos. The heavy focus on these three storylines gave “Second Sons” a much-needed structured approach with a normalized plot arc, which was a glaring omission that ultimately hindered “The Bear and The Maiden Fair.”
The Lannisters were in the spotlight this episode because of the much-dreaded wedding between Sansa and Tyrion. It should be no surprise that an episode featuring many of the show’s best actors, and characters, is so entertaining despite. Whether it was Cersei’s open threat to Margaery in the Great Sept of Baelor, which had Margaery sufficiently spooked, or Tywin’s order for Tyrion to immediately consummate the marriage – which he doesn’t – the Lannisters certainly never disappoint.
Peter Dinklage as Tyrion was excellent in this episode. Tyrion hasn’t had much to do all season but when does get screen time he always shines. Tyrion respects Sansa and is trying to be gentle and sweet to her but he knows that there is almost no way of endearing herself to him. The pained looks across his face throughout the episode because of being rejected by Sansa or humiliated by Joffrey felt genuine and made the viewer sympathize more with Tyrion than with Sansa. And that doesn’t even mention the drunken Tyrion that was still believable despite how ridiculously sloshed he was.
Joffrey was particularly hateful this episode. He lives to ruin the days of others. The pure glee beamed from Joffrey’s face when he is the cause of another’s strife makes the viewer somehow hate him even more than they already did, regardless of what he is doing. When he opts to talk to Sansa instead of going to talk to Margaery at Cersei’s request is particularly evil. It has been clear throughout the entire wedding and ceremony that Sansa is downright dejected by this marriage but to have Joffrey tell her that he will come rape her in the night if he so desires is mortifying. Tyrion’s drunken outburst and Joffrey’s seething reaction were played perfectly by both and allowed for Tywin to step in and soothe the tensions. Cersei’s aforementioned evisceration of Margaery and complete dismissal of Lloris were particularly cold – it seems as though her cordial and regal façade is beginning to disappear.
Unfortunately for Sansa, it is Dany who looks to begin a fairy tale romance. Dany meets with the Yunkai’s hired army in hopes of buying them off to fight for her. She seems deadest on taking Yunkai despite being advised she doesn’t need it. The Second Sons sell swords, for which the episode is named, meet with Dany to tell her they won’t break their contract with Yunkai. The meeting between Dany and the three leaders continued to show Dany’s inflated sense of self while also introducing the fetching and well-mannered Daario. Titan’s Bastard was luridly creepy but also fairly hilarious how ridiculously one-note. Daario ends up killing the other two leaders because he doesn’t want to follow their order to assassinate Dany and reveals this information to a stark naked Dany as he interrupted her bath. Dany and Daario clearly have large egos and Dany seems to be taken aback by Daario’s gesture and belief that she is beautiful. Daario is still very mysterious and his ultimate motivations are unknown so it should be interesting to see how much Dany trusts his help in any future attacks on Yunkai.
In direct contrast with the bright colors and sunny skies of Essos was Dragonstone. Melisandre and Gendry arrive to a doubting Stannis – he is no longer keen on sacrificing Gendry in order to let the Red Witch cast her spell of death to the would-be kings. Melisandre very clearly holds power over Stannis as she makes an analogy of Gendry’s sacrifice to that of slaughtering a lamb for food. Stannis turns to his still imprisoned friend Davos for guidance. This scene was fairly disappointing because Davos had to basically narrate exactly why Stannis had come to see Davos at that moment. While they did have an interesting conversation in regards to religion, with Davos still not believing despite witnessing Melisandre’s shadow baby in season two, it definitely was not one of the stronger scenes.
Melisandre ends up bedding Gendry, lulling him into a false sense of security so that she can tie him up and extract his royal blood in order to perform her spell that promises doom upon his enemies that are vying for the throne. Davos and Stannis witness the de-leeching, apparently because Davos wanted to witness this magic, which ends somewhat anticlimactically with the leeches just exploding over flames. There did not seem to be much to witness for Davos.
In the final scene of the episode, Sam and Gilly continue to make for The Wall in hopes of safety. Sam ends up finding a collapsing shack to hold up in for the night that happens to be right next to a weirwood. After Sam completely blows it when Gilly wants to cuddle up next to him for warmth he is drawn out into the woods due to shrieking ravens. He finds a White Walker slowly making his way towards the hovel to get Gilly’s baby. The special effects here were great as Sam’s sword cracks and then evaporates into thin air as he tries to attack the White Walker. The White Walker shattering because Sam stabs it with the dragonglass is even more sumptuous. Even though this scene felt out of place in context with the rest of the episode it was a nice injection of excitement to finish the episode.
There has been a critical error on your website.<\/p>
Learn more about debugging in WordPress.<\/a><\/p>","data":{"status":500},"additional_errors":[]}