Game of Thrones 3x03 Walk of Punishment

Dear HBO,
You seem not to realize it, but it's really not that hard to see tits. I'm a woman. If I want to see them, all I have to do is look down. Here they are. Every woman who watches Game of Thrones can do so too. And as for guys, I'm sure if they google it, they'll see it. So why do you have this obsessive need to infest my favorite show with tits?

And they were doing so well last week. Yesterday it's almost as if they had to make up for it. When I read that episode 3 featured "the most pointless sex scene yet" I immediately thought to myself - Good God, Pod will get laid. I hate being right.

So we had pointless and stupid scene where Bronn and Tyrion bring Pod to the brothel and introduce him to the whores, naked whores obviously, doing weird acrobatic stuff. Pod looked like he was about to cry. So did I. Random sluts got more screentime this week than Stannis.
That considerably brought episode down for me, as they are rushing through half of story lines and they use that time to show this. One of the good examples was Jon's scene this week. It was almost as if they only showed him so that his fangirls wouldn't rant about the lack of their squeeze box this week. I'm not even sure Kit Harington managed to say one line. He just stood there, confused. Yeah, it's all he does, but usually there is something going on in the background. But we did get very cool looking circle of dead horses. Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Meanwhile, Sam and the rest of The Night's Watch reached Incest Town, Craster's Keep. Here we get to hear few horrible remarks, see a lot of creepy stuff and we get so much screaming. Gilly was giving birth and gave birth to a boy. As you may remember from season 2, Craster sacrifices male kids to White Walkers. So, Gilly is horrified. Sam, who was watching the whole thing, was horrified too. I was as well, because I remembered that at on point we will get a sex scene between these two.

I must mention this - they are ruining all of my favorite lovely Arya's moment from books. We didn't get "That's the Hand's daughter - Arya Stark of Winterfell" and now we didn't get Hot Pie getting all embarrassed and calling Arya "my lady". We did get a nice little scene where he bakes her a wolf pie, which I'm given to understand the audience really liked, but still, I wish they stayed a bit more faithful to the books in Arya storyline.
This week we finally got to see Catelyn's home - Riverrun. They added it to the main intro, which was a nice touch. In the opening scene we witness the funeral of Catelyn's father and we meet two new characters - Edmure Tully, Cat's brother and Blackfish - her uncle. Edmure was established as a failure here, as he couldn't hit the boat with the flaming arrow and Blackfish took over, succeeding at his first attempt.

I must mention Robb. While Edmure was failing, Robb was laughing. Really? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Robb Stark, in all his fucking nurses and laughing at funerals glory. They really need to improve his character in upcoming episodes or it will have disastrous effects before the season is over. And where the hell is Grey Wind?

We did get few great scenes there, with Blackfish comforting Cat and Robb yelling at Edmure. Blackfish is well cast, though Edmure is not how I imagined him at all. But so far that storyline is shaping up pretty good and we will be getting lots of great scenes after they leave Riverrun.
The most hilarious moment of the episode was the small council scene, where everyone carefully chose the place to sit. Cersei made a big spectacle, moving away from her advisers and sitting next to her father and Tyrion ostensibly sat across the table. We finally got to see Varys in that scene, oh, how I missed him. He is one of my absolute favorite characters in the show and his expressions are hilarious.

This is when Tyrion was made The Master of Coin as Littlefinger has to leave King's Landing and go to Eyrie to court Lysa Arryn.You remember Lysa, no doubt. Batshit Lysa. I'm a bit confused about the fact Littlefinger is already leaving for Eyrie, but maybe he will stick around a little longer until he departs.

We had a nice little scene with Tyrion and Bronn talking about money. I'm amused at the fact the writers chose to leave Strong Belwas and Brave Companions out of the show in order to save non book readers some confusion, yet they have Tyrion mentioning the Bank of Braavos so early.
This week we didn't get any meeting between the girls club - Shae, Sansa, Olenna, Margaery and the biggest girl of them all - Joffrey - were all missing. But we did get to see Ros. Why? How is she important to the storyline? The answers are - who the hell knows and in no way is she important.

I really enjoyed the scene between Melisandre and Stannis. I'm a huge Stephen Dillane fan and he is finally allowed to show some fire in Stannis. That scene was really hot and him and Carice van Houten have great chemistry. Melisandre is leaving Stannis in this scene to bring something for him. This is a big deviation from the book, as they are merging two characters together. I think it may actually work and I can't wait to see Melisandre's upcoming scenes.

If I didn't hate Theon so much I'd feel bad for him. A lot of people were complaining about how Winterfell storyline was handled last season, but I think they are really making up for it here. It's all brilliantly written and Iwan Rheon is doing a terrific job. If I wasn't so horrified about what is going to happen, I'd laugh about a lot of people saying things like "oh, this cute guy rescued Theon!".
The scene where he rescued him had the episode's best line. Even though Jorah's There's a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand was featured here, You little bastard was genius. The moment when the Boy took Theon's hand sent chills down my spine.

In Astapor Daenerys is bringing in her girl power politics. Unfortunately for Jorah and Barristan, it means following her around like two insignificant shadows. While Dany certainly needs to appear strong after last season's events I was disappointed. In the books ser Barristan and Dany bond a lot and he tells her stories about her family.

They kept a bit of thar with Barristan talking about Rhaegar and Daenerys saying she wishes she got to know him, but seeing how it was only the second scene between her and Barristan they couldn't keep the best part of the scene - him responding I wish he knew you. That was disappointing.
I remember how horrified I was when I was reading the book and Dany offered one of her dragons in exchange for Unsullied. I was mortified. How can she do this? They are her children. Fortunately, in the next few chapters my horror was swept away with the awesomeness you will get to see this Sunday.

Calling it now - Missandai is going to take Irri's place in one particular scene which I'm sure HBO is going to feature. She is actually more interesting in the show than she was in the books, but I really wish they spent more time on Daenerys interacting with Jorah and Barristan.

In this episode we saw the horrors of the slavery with Daenerys walking next to crucified men. She is clearly appalled by everything that is going on there and I was grateful we didn't see some of the things that were happening in the books, though HBO may still throw a lot of gore at us regarding the awful lives of slaves.
Once again the best parts of the episode were in Jaime and Brienne storyline. They were only in two scenes but they were both fantastic - in the first one Jaime was advising Brienne not to fight off their captors as they will inevitably rape her as soon as they reach the camp. Brienne wouldn't hear any of that and responded she will fight back.

I noticed a lot of whining about Jaime/Brienne duel scene from last week - it was a good call to feature Jaime explaining his poor condition to Brienne in new episode as some of those saying they didn't like the scene apparently forgot all about it.

And then, the ending sequence. That was amazing. I have nothing but praise for Gwendoline Christie and Nikolaj Coster Waldau. Her agonizing screams in this scene actually made me yell "Jaime! Talk about sapphires!". He did. But before he did that, there was a quick little moment that was my favorite part of the episode.
We get to read about the events in that particular scene from Jaime's point of view in the books. He is having an internal battle - he is an indifferent jerk but at the same time he doesn't want Brienne to be raped. He mentions how the wench deserves better than that. It's hard for the actors in the show to show the internal conflicts we read about in books in great detail, and even if there are several better performances in the show, Waldau really is the only person who manages to accomplish that. Here it was something so simple as a quick moment of Jaime looking down, clearly being affected by Brienne's screams and coming up with the plan to save her.

So he leads Locke to believe that Brienne's father will pay for her as Tarth is called Sapphire Isle and he is wealthy. He is lying - sapphire refers to the blue water that surrounds the isle, not actual wealth. But Locke buys it and Brienne is saved. The calm matter in which Jaime spoke to Locke reminded me of the scene with his cousin in last season, where he also manipulated someone by using reasoning and deceit.

But...then the first truly shocking event of the season happened. Jaime Lannister, one of the finest swordsman in all of Westeros. That is who he is - someone who is great with the sword. His smugness, self-confidence and wit all stem from this talent. He feels unbreakable, undefeated with his sword. And what happens? Locke cuts off his sword hand with a knife.
In the book the chapter ended with the quote from the beginning of this recap - "And Jaime screamed". His next chapter was after 100 pages or more and I rushed through them because I wasn't sure it actually happened. I didn't think they would do that, cut off his hand clean off. But the next chapter started with graphic description of Jaime's festering wound.

This is the thing about Martin's writing - just as someone is not only a villain anymore and we start to genuinely like this person, something awful happens. I cannot wait for the upcoming scenes between Brienne and Jaime. And the most heroic act (at least for me) in the series to come in episode 7.

One last thing - I don't know what they were high on when they decided to use that rock song over end credits. As cool as it was, it was horribly misplaced. Something horrible happened and we hear a fucking rock song? That was awful. Never mind that the song should be played in episode 7.

Here is the promo for next episode And Now his Watch has Ended. I think this will be the best in the season so far. I have one word for you all:
DRACARYS
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