Game of Thrones – Episode 2-5 Review – “Ghost Murderer”

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Oh Game of Thrones, you’re certainly not getting easier to understand as the season progresses, are you? Sometimes I think I’d enjoy the show more if I weren’t blogging about it, since it then wouldn’t matter as much if I didn’t understand something. Luckily, I have my lovely readers to explain things to me in the comments section! And I’m going to be needing y’all this week.

 

Storm’s End

Remember that smoke monster that Melisandre gave birth to at the end of last week’s episode? Well, it came and killed Renly Baratheon while he was discussing a possible alliance with Robb with Catelyn. So I guess that’s one less person laying claim to the Iron Throne. Everything happened very fast – Brienne was there, I think she was a suspect (I guess it never occurred to anyone to accuse a puff of smoke), and next thing you know she had killed everyone in the room other than Catelyn.

I love the alliance that has developed between Catelyn and Brienne. They fled together after Renly’s death. Brienne wants to guard Catelyn, on the only condition that when the time comes Catelyn won’t stop her from killing Stannis. Their scene together was fantastic.

Since Renly was murdered, his wife Margaery and her brother, his lover Loras, are in a dangerous predicament. Littlefinger instructed them to escape before Renly’s people aligned themselves with Stannis and turned on them. Margaery is obviously ambitious – she doesn’t want to be a queen, she wants to be the Queen, so Littlefinger knows he can work with them. Uh oh, Sansa, someone might be moving in on your man.

King’s Landing

Tyrion is still using his cousin Lancel, who’s being bedded by Cersei, as a source of information on Joffrey’s plans in the war. But when he was out strolling the streets, Tyrion discovered that the people think he’s pulling the strings for the king and blame him for all the city’s problems. They call him the “demon monkey”. It also seems to be public knowledge that Joffrey is the result of incest. Hello, sparks of rebellion!

There was also something about a weapon called wildfire that Cersei is secretly having developed,  which Tyrion now knows about.

Dragonstone

Stannis is getting the smuggler Davos to lead his attack. We’ll see how that pans out for him.

Clearly, I misunderstood something last week – I thought Stannis was present when Melisandre gave birth to the scary smoke monster, but I guess that was Davos? I must have been distracted by literally everything else on screen. Anyway, Davos wanted to tell Stannis about it, but it was falling on deaf ears.

Pyke

We saw Pyke for, like, thirty seconds it seemed. Theon and his sister still don’t get along, Theon’s crew on his one ship, The Sea Bitch, don’t respect him. Time to prove himself, I think by attacking Westeros?

Harenhaal

Arya is now working as a servant and pretending not to be a Stark. These scenes were great, because Tywin is smart enough that Arya really has to be on her toes. Tywin has figured out that his new cup bearer is a Northerner, but she’s managed to keep her noble heritage a secret still. There was a great moment dripping with subtext when Tywin asked her what the rumors in the North were about Robb, and she said “Anyone can be killed.” Indeed.

One of the three prisoners she saved the night they were all attacked, Jaqen, offered her three murders as repayment. She can name any three people, and he’ll kill them. I was kind of hoping her first selection would be Joffrey, but perhaps that would have been risky. I hope that’s her third choice, though. (Or perhaps she wants him for herself? I’d love to see Arya take the little snot out.) Instead she selected the guy who’d been torturing the prisoners. At the end of the episode, the murder was successfully executed.

Beyond The Wall

I didn’t understand a lot of what happened in this storyline, but I do understand that Iceland is very, very pretty. All I could gather was that Jon Snow is going on a secret mission. Feel free to elaborate in the comments!

Quarth

Dragons! Quarth is a strange new place. It’s lavish and beautiful, in a way that sort of reminded me of The Capitol in The Hunger Games. There’s magic and creepy bald dudes, and it’s interesting to see their culture clash with the Dothraki culture. Now that Daeny and her people are out of the red desert, this storyline has gotten infinitely more entertaining.

Xaro, the man who got Daeny and her people in Quarth, proposed marriage to her. It was a tempting, since he seems nice and offered to use his wealth to buy her an army. He also drove a wedge between Daeny and her closest advisor, Jorah, by suggesting that Jorah is in love with her. He could be right, but that doesn’t mean Jorah’s advice isn’t sound.

Daeny found out that the seven kingdoms are at war, so she decided that it was time for her to act, but Jorah doesn’t think it’s a good idea to invade with a purchased army. Loyalty, and all that. He said she only needed one ship and a good captain. The sexual tension is growing there, but Daeny is ambitious and focused on her mission to take back the Iron Throne.

You can follow Jill at her blog, couchtimewithjill.com, or on Twitter @jillemader Jill has been an avid fan of TV since the age of two, when she was so obsessed with Zoobilee Zoo that her mother lied and told her it had been canceled. Despite that setback, she grew up to be a television aficionado and pop culture addict.