The high point of the season has arrived. This episode, 'Blackwater' was what the majority of the plot lines had been building up to all season. I'm so glad that it did not disappoint. Well, it was written by George r. r. Martin himself, and was allotted an extra effects budget, so that goes without saying.
Unlike most episodes, we did not jump all about Westeros this week. The entire episode focused on the events of Stannis' assault on king's landing. It was a nice change of pace having to only follow three characters's plots instead of a dozen.
I think Lena Headey really outdid herself this week as Cersei. As the battle rages outside, the Queen gets drunker and drunker. Unfortunately, that means more and more she goes from pretending to be on Sansa's side to openly fucking with her head in front of everyone. Her drunken rants are among the most funny, and, chilling moments of the episode. Oh, and the last scene, pretty intense.
So finally the Hound gets to fight someone for real. All throughout the series we've gotten hints to how much he just loves killing, he really enjoys it. Due to certain events... he loses his shit mid battle. The complete turnaround of his character is rather impressive, going from "kill, kill, killl.' To,. "meh, i don't want to fight anymore". We get to see the culmination of his run in's with Sansa all series long as well. While slightly altered from the book, this is one of my favorite scenes. Oh, and he gets the prize for best line of the week "Any man dies with a clean sword, I'll rape his fucking corpse!". now that's a Moral booster.
Lastly, we see Tyrion coming to grips with what it really means to be the hand of the king, and when the king is Joffrey, that means leading men into battle. This goes much better than it did last time, well until... ya know. I enjoyed this episode especially because it seemed to be written for book readers especially, small nods throughout to things to come, like Tyrion's comment about the horror of weddings. Oh, and i was really, really, happy to see that he was wearing his 'hand' chain instead of the pin. i was concerned about this plot point from the moment Ned donned the pin last season. (this is all book talk, btw)
Of course, I haven't even mentioned the battle. It was quite the epic affair, especially for tv. The 'Pig shit' did not disappoint. There was plenty of gratuitous violence and over the top gore. While the events of the battle were not as protracted nor wild and crazy (no chain) it served as a great tv representation of the greatest battle of the series so far.
Let us not forget the awesome rendition of "The Rains of Castamere" by the National that played over the credits. how cool is that, an altrock band doing a cover of an in-fiction song.
So, as you might have guessed, Seven out of Seven stars this week.
2 comments:
Totally agree, 7 out of 7! Even when reading the book, my imagination didn't do justice to The Onion nights boat rolling into the harbor to 1 empty boat. Actually, it may have played out slightly different in the book, but this version was much better than I imagined! Hands down the best episode yet. Great review and my favorite drawing is of The Hound. You nailed it!
Yeah, the only thing different in the book, was that all the burning ships got caught on the chain and the battle was actually fought on a bridge of burning ships.
oh, and all the coastal fish markets and stuff were set alight, just a lot more fire, Hence the hound's freakout.
As always, Thanks for reading and commenting!
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