Oliver Davis reviews the eighth episode of Game of Thrones Season Three….
Second Sons.
Directed by Michelle MacLaren.
Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
It’s the ante-penultimate episode (the one before the one before last). Episode 8 is usually the build-up for the season’s main event in Episode 9. In series one, it laid the foundation for Eddard’s be-NED-ing. In series two, it preceded the Battle of Blackwater Bay. Series three’s teases the Riverlands’ version of Kate and Wills, Edmure Tully’s wedding to one of Lord Frey’s daughters, and is full of subtle glances and looks before the undoubted spectacle of next week’s installment.
Tyrion
…and what better to way to foreshadow a wedding than…another wedding? Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) wed Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) in a (literally in so many ways) small, awkward ceremony where everyone hated each other. Cersei (Lena Headey) ended a conversation with her future daughter-in-law, Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer), saying, “if you ever call me ‘sister’ again’, I’ll have you strangled in your sleep”. Aww, family. Even when Cersei smiles, it looks like a frown.
Interestingly, Cersei also regales the story behind Westeros chart-topping song The Rains of Castamere (which The National’s Matt Berninger tremendously covered at the end of season 2, episode 9 – The Battle of Blackwater Bay). It’s about an old Lannister victory against the Rains, where Tywin (Charles Dance) didn’t just beat them, he ended their bloodline, “slaughtering man, woman and child”. It has parrallels with what allowed Sandor Clegane to do to the Targaryens all those year’s ago. But two escaped, one of them being Daenerys (Emilia Clarke). The next episode shares the song’s title. This episode 9 stuff is pretty interlinked.
Back to the wedding, Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) was finding new and more cruel ways of being an asshole. Not content with arranging Tyrion and Sansa’s marriage, he also thought it funny to remove a stool from the altar. The stool that his uncle would have used to pin a ceremonial cloak around his bride’s shoulders. Sniggers from the crowd, humiliation for the unhappy couple. Sneering like a sex predator, it’s hard to hate Joff when Gleeson plays him so well.
The sole purpose of the wedding, however, was to make a Lannister child. If Robb Stark should fall, Sansa would become heir to Winterfell. With a Lannister in her belly (in a rare feat of breeding outside the family), Tyrion, and thus Tywin, would have a legitimate claim over the North.
But it’s kind of awkward, with Sansa being repulsed by Tyrion and all. To her great relief, her new husband promises he won’t bed her till she wants to. “What if I never want you to?” she replies, in a rare moment of honesty. Tyrion’s prolonged, pained blink is heartbreaking, and when the bloodless bedsheets are collected in the morning, he’s shown as a man of his word.
Davos
…someone who does get to see some blood, however, is Davos (Liam Cunningham). Melisandre (an especially naked Caprice van Houten) first seduces Robert Baratheon’s bastard, Gendry (Joe Dempsie), then suckers leeches to his body. In particular his penis. It’s the third episode in-a-row of genital torture (see: Joffrey killing a whore and Theon’s bits).
Gendry’s Royal blood is used to fuel some magical assassinations, but there’s a wonderfully tender story within these harsh Dragonstone scenes. Davos learning to read in the island’s salty cells, from a medieval children’s book, sounding out each word and then smiling to himself when right, is a rather touching moment amongst so much horror. Stannis (Stephen Dillane) later frees him, being in dire need of moral counsel. Their duologue between bars is excellent, Stannis playing his own devil’s advocate, Davos acting as his conscience. Dressed in red, always in her Master’s ear, Melisandre is his proverbial bad angel.
Daenerys
…it is to Daenerys’ storyline that the episode title belongs, Second Sons. They are a mercenary group, sellswords, hired by the city of Yunkai to defend them against the Dragon Queen’s forces. Mero (Mark Killeen) is their leader, and not a very nice fellow. His small-business is in dire need of an HR department.
After they refuse Daenerys’ offer to switch sides, Mero and his two lieutenants decide who should assassinate her in a rather bizarre sequence, seemed to have been designed entirely to make a side-boob-bearing prostitute walk from one lap to another. It’s nowhere near as subtle as the power-shift display in last week’s majestic scene between Tywin and Joffrey.
Daario ‘The Dish’ Naharis (Ed Skrein) is the lieutenant chosen to kill Daenerys. Going by the books, he’ll later play a significant role in Daenerys’ evolution as a character, but Skrein has a Sean Connery-esque ‘shound’ on the occasional word. Not that it’s off-putting, but his voice was often described as silky, not ‘shilky’.
Entranced by Daenerys’ beauty, he instead kills his superiors and pledges (importantly, not sells) his sword to her. Daenerys has been treated with considerable luck over this season. George R. R. Martin is never that kind to his characters for long…
Sam
…from Across the Sea to North of the Wall. Second Sons ends on a scene with Sam (John Bradley) and Gilly (Hannah Murray), the girl he rescued from Craster’s Keep. Journeying back to Castle Black, they chance upon a deserted cabin in the middle of the woods (never a good idea). Firstly, the odd symbolic crow (a name for men of the Night’s Watch) lands on a branch. Later, the tree is shrouded in black by a flock of silhouettes. They precede a White Walker nearby, who appears in much more convincing fashion than the CGI at the end of season two, also against Sam. They must like him.
It’s the first real showcase of their power. The Other shatters our coward crow’s sword into ice, and then tosses him through the air (all the more impressive considering Sam’s still considerable size despite months North of the Wall [known as Hurley’s Paradox]). While defending Gilly, Sam discovers a use for that Obsidian (dragonglass) dagger he had lying about. Forcing it into the creature’s back, it stumbled and fell and disintegrated in the wind. Kind of like staked vampires in Buffy. So they do have a weakness.
But it’ll be back South of the Wall for Episode 9, I suspect, for the peak of season three…
…that’s right – Hodor finally raises an army to take the Iron Throne for himself.
HODOR!
Oliver Davis (@OliDavis)
Originally published May 20, 2013. Updated November 28, 2022.
