Game of Thrones ‘The Prince of Winterfell’: Playing The Game

‘The Prince of Winterfell’ might’ve been the first episode of Game of Thrones without multiple nude scenes and/or a high body count, but with the season’s tensions beginning to rise, last night’s episode gave viewers a breather in the hours between the craziness of ‘A Man Without Honor’ and next week’s George R.R. Martin-scribed ‘Blackwater’. Shit is about to explode all over the fan, and tonight’s episode does a lot to shape the events to follow by checking in with nearly all of the characters in Westeros. Whipping around the GoT world for an hour straight – without certain connective devices in the story like the meteor in the season premiere – can be a little confusing, but with the number of quietly poignant scenes in ‘Winterfell’, it still made for a captivating – if largely uneventful – hour.

Back in Winterfell, where Theon gets to feel what everybody else in the Seven Kingdoms feels when their supposed plans work to perfect. He’s killed all the ravens to keep work of Bran and Rickon’s death from leaving Winterfell (though as we all know, those boys are not the young Stark children), and when Yara arrives with no warriors and a leash to drag him home by, it’s clear his plan to make Daddy happy didn’t work out too well – though I’d imagine neither Yara nor Theon have seen their father happy at any point in their lives. It was nice to see some nuance to Yara, who reveals a sympathetic side for the idiot brother who got shipped off to be forgotten by his own family, giving her a scene without the eldest, cagiest living Greyjoy.

Theon’s mistakes are large and obvious, and for the first time, ‘Winterfell’ shows us that he’s not the only one making massive blunders. Robb Stark, what the fuck are you thinking? It’s bad enough your mother is out making reckless, selfish decisions, but some of his own are starting to come back and bite him. Trusting Theon certainly didn’t work out, and now banging someone on the low when promised to a cranky but important man in his war campaign, is going to make life real difficult real soon for Robb – something that might be hard to realize when being seduced by a very attractive, very naked noble girl with a touching story. I did appreciate the romance of the scene, moving a little away from many of the tit bouncing, ball slapping sex scenes we’re subjected to on a weekly basis.

The episode’s other great scene obviously goes to the conversation between Davos and Stannis. Much of it is a simple reminder to why Stannis is marching on King’s Landing to kill someone who essentially is his nephew (even if not by blood). He’s been a man slighted his whole life, and while his conquest methods are ruthless and unforgiving, there are still feelings underneath all the Lord of Light, angry man bullshit. Big props to Stephen Dillane, who is right up there with Maisie Williams in terms of their performances this season.

There is another importance to their scene: they’re only a day or two away from King’s Landing, and the people holding onto the realm for dear life are certainly aware of it. Tyrion gets a lot of screen time tonight between his scathing scene with Cersei, the hilarious conversation with Bronn, and of course, his weekly vocal chess matches with Varys. Trying to protect Shae and the capital are proving to be difficult, especially with Joffrey all dressed up, talking about how he’s going to cut Stannis from ear to ear, clearly not understanding anything that has to do with war. Attack Winterfell, carve up Uncle Stannis, beat up some whores…. If there’s one thing Joffrey isn’t, it’s intelligent, and the lack of that is starting to make Tyrion consider ways for him to end up underground (a fact that Cersei is well aware of).

(by the way, poor red-headed Ros. Baby killing, beating her employee to death at arrow point, now being beaten and raped on the reg… she is getting tossed around like a rag doll in every episode this season, and I’m sure she’s far from the woman that used to give Theon’s prick the occasional tickle.)

Up in Harrenhal, Tywin’s on his way out, and Arya realizes pretty quickly its about time she got out herself. She does so in cunning fashion, telling Jareq he either has to kill himself or let them go. I doubt it’s the last we’ll see of him or the ‘Brotherhood’ that Tywin keeps mentioning, but I was getting tired of all the torturing going down in the half-burnt castle, and am glad to see Arya, Gendry, and the fat kid whose name I can’t remember out of that dire place (though I am sad that we’ll no longer have Arya/Tywin scenes to enjoy).

If there’s one weak link in this episode (or this season) it’s been the battle in Qarth for Daenerys’s vagina, something both Double X (as I will call Xanos from now on) and Jorah are trying to get into, for a number of good reasons. Problem is, she’s already got some winged children, and is not trying to spit out any living iteration of the demon spawn she stillbirthed back in her Khaleesi days. It’s been clear for three or four episodes things in Qarth are weird and the House of the Undying is important in that weirdness, but I haven’t been drawn into their struggle for power in the ‘best city in the world’, when there’s hundreds of thousands of men in Westeros fighting over the Iron Throne.

Like I said, ‘The Prince of Winterfell’ is all about setting up for the final two hours, which are obviously going to turn the heat up to about 14,000 degrees (literally, if that flaming pigshit gets put to use). A slow episode, but serves it purpose perfectly as a table setter for the feast to come.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

– isn’t it interesting how much weight Ned Stark’s name carries on both sides of the Wall?

– speaking of beyond the wall, I didn’t get into Jon or the rest of the Night’s Watch out in the cold. In a nutshell, Jon’s still got blue balls, and Sam finds dragonglass a in a Crow’s cloak.

– even checking in with 90% of the cast means some people get shorted. Nothing from Sansa, the Tyrells, or Melisandre to report on this week.

– the reveal of Bran and Rickon at the end wasn’t really needed, although Bran’s face hearing about the news of the farmer’s boys being killed in their place was a very somber close for the episode.

– loved the final shot of Tyrion and Varys talking about the dragons, and the fire ever so slightly peeking into the bottom of the frame. Those dragons are going to grow up one day…

What did you think of ‘The Prince of Winterfell’? Feel free to leave your thoughts/comments/predictions below, but if you’ve read the books, no obvious spoilers please!