My cousin once commented that every time he finished watching an episode of Game of Thrones, he had this urge to stand up and start slow clapping. Like, romantic-comedy-right-after-a-huge-confession-from-the-hero-or-heroine-and-the-crowd-just-eats-it-up slow clapping. That’s the thing about Thrones, it’s a fucking slow clapping smorgasbord. The penultimate episode of this season is no exception. Some might say it deserves at least two additional slow claps, and I was thinking that as well, but let’s not forget the Ned decapitation episode ’cause that still ranks somewhere in the best episode in like evah!!!1!! category.
But let’s focus on this one, shall we?
Season 2 episode 9 of Game of Thrones starts with the calm before the everloving Battle of Blackwater Bay storm. A conversation between the Onion Knight and his son, a Tyrion-Shae quickie, and the woman who holds my heart — and Jamie’s as well — taking poison from Pycelle. We later find out that the poison was meant for Cersei’s youngest son – she was planning a mass suicide should King’s Landing fall. My girl does not want the indignity of Stannis ordering her death. So the plan was for Ser Ilyn — Ned’s executioner — to “take care” of her, Joffrey, and Sansa, and her youngest son to take the poison.
A lot of people say that the best part of this episode was the Wildfire and the huge explosion it caused as well as the succeeding battle, but my highlight is Cersei being all shrewish and drunk. Lena Headey has been acting her ass off in this role and she should win every award they have available. Same goes for the actors playing Joffrey, Tyrion, Tywin, Theon, Bronn, Varys, Jorah, and our girl Arya. I don’t even understand why only Peter Dinklage has been recognized when the entire cast is brilliant. Brilliant, I tell you.
Anyway, instead of an episode of only Cersei and Sansa in that holdfast talking and receiving updates of the battle (which was the initial plan before HBO upped the budget), we got to see Wildfire, The Hound splitting a man in twain and delivering the best line of the season (“Fuck the king.”), Bronn being all cool and shit, Tyrion speechifying and cutting people’s legs off, and Stannis being a bad ass. All the bad assity was not enough, however, since Tywin went and made a deal with the Tyrells — made easier I think due to Loras being all pissed with Stannis for murdering Renly using that night and full of terrors that came out of Melisandre. The Tyrells’ and Tywin’s armies decimated what was left of Stannis’ men and Joffrey lives to be an asshole another day.
Dammit, thinking about Joffrey and that arrogant swagger made me lose my train of thought.
There. That’s better. Thank you, Lafayette.
So, yeah. Epic episode ended with Tywin declaring they’ve won, Sansa stuck in King’s Landing despite being offered a way out by The Hound, The Hound going AWOL, Tyrion severely wounded due to a blow from Joffrey’s guard, Joffrey’s guard dead due to a blow from Podrick Payne (boy has more balls than his king), Cersei still my girl, and Stannis in God knows where after losing a battle he already took for granted he’d win.
Final episode of the season next week and it’s going to be so sweet and bitter at the same time. It would be nice to get the strings tied. Are Arya, Gendry, and Hot Pie having fun in their road trip? Can we measure the awesomeness of Jaqen’s third person lines? What’s Bran and Rickon’s plan? Do we start a countdown on how long Theon can hold on to his sanity? Will Jaime and Brienne have grand adventures together? Is another bitch slap in Joffrey’s future? What are the repercussions of our boy Robb risking Mr. Filch’s ire due to the finest ass in all of Westeros? Is the night dark and full of terrors for Stannis now? When will Catelyn stop irritating the shit out of me? Will we hear “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” one more time before the season ends? And if Osha is a reincarnation of Tonks, does that mean Hodor used to be Lupin?
These are burning questions, people.
Here’s a preview of the final epi while you ponder.
Tiya Rosa 