On <em>Game of Thrones</em>, Two Savage, Spectacular Game Changers
Kornhaber: Talk about captive audience: In this good but often hard-to-watch episode, it was almost too easy to relate to the many literally and figuratively shackled characters. Take Brienne, squirming at the horrors inflicted upon a guy she didn't even like. Or Arya, hauled blindly into the middle of a verbal battle full of proper nouns and backstory. Or Margaery, forced to look upon the macabre by a juvenile tyrant who expects her to find it entertaining.
All microcosms of the Thrones-watching experience, no?
Sorry—that sounds harsh. It's just this installment focused on the agony of imprisonment and the ecstasy of freedom... and, as is typical for Thrones, agony got more screen time. For starters: Jaime's interminable piss-soaked mud bath, during which the writers demonstrated, for the zillionth time, that humans are cruel and good guys/bad guys distinctions mean nothing. Fine goals, but executed with a little too much relish for my taste.
Then again, that over-the-topness could make whatever comeuppance that may eventually befall House Bolton all the more sweet. Because if this episode made anything clear, it's that
