REVIEW - Game Of Thrones - S03E05

Things are heating up in Westeros as we reach the halfway point for Season 3. The battle for political supremacy in Kings’ Landing between the Tyrells and the Lannisters takes in interesting turn. We finally meet Stannis Baratheon’s family, the Lord of Light proves it’s power again and Jon Snow finally gets laid (he’s as shocked as you are).

Cersei gets Littlefinger’s and discovers the Tyrell’s plot to marry Sansa to Loras. Tywin decides that the only way to prevent the Tyrell’s from gaining the key to the North is for Sansa to marry Tyrion instead. Stannis visits his incredibly crazy wife and adorable daughter (Shireen) the latter of which is heartbroken to hear that the Onion Knight (Davos) has been imprisoned for treason. Later that night Shireen sneaks into the dungeons to visit her friend.

The Hound defeats Lord Beric, which naturally upsets Arya, even after The Lord of Light brings Lord Beric back from the dead. The Hound is set free and Arya discovers that the Brotherhood plan to ransom her to her brother. Jaime and Brienne finally receive the treatment befitting political prisoners and Jaime confesses how and why he stabbed the Mad King in the back. At Riverrun Lord Karstark kills the two captive Lannister boys and Robb has him executed despite protests from his mother and his wife.

Also Jon Snow earns the trust of at least one Wildling by showing Ygritte how they do it down south and Daenerys bonds with the Unsullied elected leader, Grey Worm.

Many fans have dubbed this “the episode of the butts” and that’s not an inaccurate description. There is a lot of nudity, and that’s something that I’m pretty okay with. Yes I know Game of Thrones is an intelligent grown up fantasy with an amazingly rich world filled with fascinating characters, but it’s also a HBO show, which means butts.

All right leaving my hormones behind, this episode was fantastic. What it lacked in shock value it made up for emotional dialogue driven scenes that showed new sides to fan favourite characters like Jaime Lannister, Arya Stark and Jon Snow. Jaime’s revelation was particularly well handled. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was brilliant, you could feel the pain in his voice but he still managed to maintain that trademark Jaime charisma.

As someone that is a fan of the books the most interesting part for me is watching Robb Starks world slowly unravel around him. His desperate attempt to live up to his father’s legacy in a world where honourable men do not survive is heartbreaking but I just can’t look away. I might be a sucker for punishment but I can’t wait to watch the rest of his story unfold.

Review by Yvonne Popplewell

More of Yvonne’s work can be found at her blog.