GoT Season 7, Episode 3: The Queen's Justice
Warning: thar be potential spoilers in these here waters; if you're not up to date with GoT, sail with caution.
GoT Season 7, Episode 3: The Queen's Justice
Yet another total barnstormer from GoT Season 7! So far, every episode has been hitting for sixes, but we had a bit of a change of pace this time out. While Episode 1 was very much the trading of jabs in the early rounds and Episode 2 was akin to the final moments of extra time in a cup final, culminating in the bloodbath of a penalty shootout, Episode 3 was full of carefully crafted speeches and posturing, more similar to an Arsene Wenger post match interview. Or some other equally apt sporting comparison.
Let's start where our socks were knocked off and left floating in the ocean least week, with Euron Greyjoy. Fresh from totally knackering the Dornish fleet, he's back in King's Landing, with better gifts than the Three Wise Men (depending on your viewpoint of what makes a good gift). He gleefully marches Yara through the streets, clad all in black like a piratical, Westerosi, Anakin Skywalker. Behind him, the final remnants of Oberyn's [oh how I miss that guy] family, Ellaria and Tyene are lashed to a horse, pelted with food, spit and other muck in much the same way as Cersei was, not two seasons ago.
Euron is just a whole box of oxymorons, he's brilliant but awful, you love him but you hate him, your really want him to marry Cersei (just to see what happens) but you really want Jaime to give him what for. But, by golly does he deliver on his promises; in Episode 1 he promises a great gift and in Episode 3, there he is, delivering the woman the killed Myrcella, top work.
I think we all knew that it wasn't going to be all sunshine and rainbows for Eleria and Tyene once they were in Cersei's wicked clutches. This is a woman who knows how to hold a grudge and plot some serious revenge. So when you see them locked in the dungeon, Cersei all cruel smiles and evil glares, with The Mountain looming ominously behind her, a wealth of horrible scenarios danced across my imagination. Could they both wind up being 'Oberyn-ed'? Or perhaps the Mountain would perform the same atrocities to them as he did to Elia Martell? But no, nothing so sudden or gruesome (at least for the viewer), but equally as wicked. It all clicked mid-soliloquy, when my wife knowingly asked "Does Cersei usually wear lipstick?" Of course, how great, how terrible. Literally giving Tyene a taste of her own medicine and Ellaria quite possibly the cruellest of endings, watching her final daughter slowly die and decay, before being allowed to die herself. Harsh, but perhaps not entirely undeserved. My initial thought was that Cersei was going to be hoist by her own petard, leaving Ellaria alive, I mean, her long game plans haven't exactly been rock-solid previously (getting the Faith Militant on-side, only to fall foul of their witch hunt, and blowing up the Sept of Balor, only for Tommen to go and off himself as a result). But having heard confirmation from Indira Varma this week that she won't be returning to GoT, we can safely assume that this is not going to be one of those time (third time lucky eh Cersei?).
Cersei's joy may have been short lived, as the representative of The Bank of Bravos appear from absolutely nowhere to sort out all of this debt the crown owes them. Previously, these glorified gamblers would have held all the cards [what a turn of phrase, ten points to Gryffindor!], but now it is Cersei who is most assured, with coy answers to every question and the promise of all of their gold back within the fortnight. Obviously this would normally be a setup for later in the season, but Season 7 is moving quicker than Usain Bolt busting for the loo, so there was little waiting about for this promise to come good. But I'll natter about that in a bit.
Away from King's Landing, we finally get the meeting we have always wanted the most out of everything ever, Dany and Jon finally getting to meet. As expected, Dany won the most names competition [although you could argue that "Jon Snow...... he's like a king and that" was only ever going to be underwhelming] and Jon refused to bend the knee. All in all it led to a little more tension than I was expecting, but perhaps I was too absorbed in the romance of the whole thing and had totally forgotten that these are two would-be rulers, pushing for what they deem best for their would-be empires. If not for an impassioned speech from everyone's favourite surrogate uncle, Ser Davos, things could have gone much worse. Although, for all of the words he did say, it was those he almost said that were most important. He was clearly stood like Basil Fawlty, when confronted with Germans, trying not to mention the war: "Don't mention the resurrection, whatever you do, don't mention the resurrection. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it."
The long and short of all of this chatter is that, with her fleet knackered, Dany needs Jon to team up with her. Jon needs Danys army, dragons and dragonglass. Despite not initially seeing eye-to eye, they have formed an uneasy alliance for now, with Dany allowing Jon to mine the dragonglass, a huge win for The North, which will likely go a long way to form a lasting relationship with The Mother of Dragons.
Tyrion's sequence of grand plans continued to play out, with the Unsullied assault on Casterly Rock. The home of the Lannister's has never fallen, but who better to conduct the first successful assault on it than the fallen Lannister himself? I thought this scene was put together beautifully, with Tyrion narrating the various options as they played out on the screen for us. His final plan of course, was to use his own secret passageway in to sack the city. It was all a bit like the siege on Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, only we were cheering on the Uruk Hai.
But how underwhelming the attack turned out to be. After the spectacle of Episode 2, we could easily expect there to be another huge battle in Episode 3, but alas, it was not to be. Because, although the Unsullied were successful in their assault, they only overpowered a skeleton force. Again, Tyrion had completely misjudged his sister's prowess. Now the Iron Fleet is sunk and the Unsullied are stranded at Casterly Rock, with Euron having stuffed their fleet as they were moored up.
I've long held the belief that if you are posed with a difficult conundrum, which nobody will know the answer to, just say something, anything, and say it with absolute confidence. Execute it properly and everyone will be hanging on your word as an oracle.
It seems to be a strategy that Tyrion has been employing in Dany's company. Pretty much all he has done is talk a good game and quote "wise men", who frequently transpire to be himself. Dany has seen right through it now and is tired of his "clever plans". Tyrion is clearly not quite the advisor that we (or he) thought he was and he is now beginning to look culpable and weak. It's a fragile position that we haven't seen him in for a good while, so it will be interesting to see how he deals with this and wins back Danys trust.
Back up North, we had another Stark reunion, although after Arya's decision to head to Winterfell, it was Bran who was knocking at the door. He's back and he's acting like any teenager, freshly back from their first holiday without their parents, he's seen things and knows stuff and doesn't have the spare time or facial muscles to show any discernible emotions. Since we last really spent any time with him, it's clear his time travelling skills have improved and he can now basically see everything that is, was or will be [like a sullen version of The Oracle from The Matrix]. Perhaps, having seen everything, he is completely disassociated from the mortal world now, but he does just come across as a ruddy sulker. And talking to Sansa about how beautiful her wedding night was, really? There's being disassociated and then there's just being a bit of a prat. He's duly been left propped against the magic tree in Winterfell's grounds, where I'd imagine he will spend most of his screen time now.
Sansa might well find herself actively hunting out Littlefinger to just avoid her creepy brother now, in the hope he might be a little less overbearing an peculiar. Although, based on the small amount of screen time he had this episode he has clearly taken too many drugs and is just letting strings of words fall out of his gurning face. I'm sure his speech was meant to be deep and meaningful, but it just came out as nonsense gibberish. Try harder next time Petyr.
Before I swing back to my hanging tangent from earlier, I want to quickly talk about Sam. His treatment for Jorah was (unsurprisingly) successful and our explorer is to be set free. He's planning on heading for Dany post haste, although given that last time he saw her she hadn't crossed the sea, you'd think he's either in for a tough time of things, or his stalker level has reached nigh-on psychic levels. Archmaester Slughorn [or whatever name Jim Broadbent and his beard are going by] has obviously cottoned on to what Sam did, but hasn't kicked him out of the Citadel. Why? Well, what Sam did was phenomenal and deem impossible. His reward though is to remain in their scholarship. Back to his normal daily tasks it is then, like transcribing old scrolls. Given the success he's had with old texts already, I wouldn't be surprised if he stumbled on the secrets to winning the war against the dead, Jon's parentage, or something even more mysterious [like where on earth Littlefinger's accent came from].
And now (finally), to the little tangent I teased earlier and hav gently caressed a few times since, Cersei's plan to gather gold. Conveniently it marries perfectly with the Unsullied's successful assault on Casterly Rock because, as they realised all too late, they never really took it. Instead it was gifted to them. You see Cersei doesn't care much for her sentimental home any more, with no children to pass it on to and the Iron Throne holed up with her in King's Landing. She's more than happy to sacrifice some old brick by the sea if it will help her strengthen her grip on the most sought after seat in Westeros? She saw Dany's attack coming miles off and masterfully relocated her troops from her ancestral home to trap the Unsullied there.
But where had she moved her garrison to? When they weren't at The Rock, I honestly had no idea where they might be. I didn't expect to see us cut to High Garden and I certainly didn't expect to see us cut to a ransacked High Garden. But Lannister troops were marching through there, the Tyrell force killed to a man. Of course, High Garden was the traditional source of food and grain for the Crown and the Tyrell's had very much turned their backs on them. Perhaps we were given a little hint as to what was coming when Jaime promised High Garden to House Tully in Episode 2, but I sure didn't telegraph what happened.
The death of the Tyrell force was only going to lead to one conclusion; with the roots of the plant killed, the final flower would inevitably die. What a final scene Olenna had though. From the first moment she came onto the screen, through to her very final seconds, I have adored her. Straight talking, sharp wit, taking no prisoners and looking to make no friends, she was a phenomenal character. Her devotion to her family was probably second only to Cersei's and she wasn't afraid to get the dirty stuff done (although she didn't actually hold the proverbial blade herself). In the end Cersei left this final task down to the one person she could truth to do it properly, Jaime.
With an absolute world of options to perform the deed available to him, Jaime opted not to pick an outright violent method. Clearly Cersei had wanted Olenna to suffer, wanting to use some of the more vicious and brutal poisons available, but ultimately, Jaime showed he has mellowed over the years and convinced her instead to settle for merely ending House Tyrell. A quick and painless poison, in Olenna's drink, taken in her own time. Perhaps though, her final speech left him regretting that choice, as she openly confessed to him how she had masterminded the murder of Joffrey. Jaime's face was a wonderful picture of disbelief and rage, taking in what, to him, was brand new information. While he will surely regret having not punished the woman who responsible for the death of is only son, he now knows that his brother is innocent of the crime he was found guilty for.
Will he now return to Cersei with the "good" news that Tyrion's crimes have been expunged (well, the ones before he went and snuffed out Shae and Tywin)? I'm sure he'll mention it. I'm also sure that Cersei won't care. Despite all of her maniacal behaviour, I honestly don't think that she would try to kill off anyone so maliciously if only for strategic gain. She knew Olenna was at least involved in Joffrey's death, Tyrion was just a convenient fall-guy. Will this new revelation cause a rift between the faved incestuous twins? Ooh I hope so.
Two final thoughts before my ramblings conclude.
Cersei has suddenly gained a savant level of strategic ability, from almost nowhere. Has she been keeping this in the bag until now? Or does she have help from elsewhere? All of her successes are stemming from Tyrion's failures after all. What if, just perhaps, someone in Team Dany was actually on Team Cersei, feeding her all of Tyrion's brilliant plans in advance. There's certainly a member or to with shady pasts and flitting loyalties [I'm looking at you Varys]. It's just a thought, but it would be very very interesting if it were true.
Every season so far we have seen a monarch die (Robert, Renly, Robb, Joffrey, Stannis and Tommen), so obviously we should be expecting one this season. The obvious choice was with Dany, Cersei or Jon, but have we overlooked someone? Had we forgotten that Olenna Tyrell's nickname was the Queen of Thorns? Now that she's met her maker, are our three major royals looking safe for the season?
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