Directed by: David Benioff
Distributed by: HBO
Written by Anna Harrison
60/100
Overview
In these retrospectives, I will be looking back on “Game of Thrones” through my viewpoint as a fanatical fan of George R. R. Martin’s original book series, “A Song of Ice and Fire.” Mostly, I suspect this will be an exercise in venting my frustration about the adaptation of the books and pointing out where things went wrong in my mind—and I have a lot to work out.
For ease of reference, the show “Game of Thrones” can be abbreviated as “GOT” or “Thrones,” and the books in “A Song of Ice and Fire” can be abbreviated as “ASOIAF.”
The books in the series are “A Game of Thrones,” “A Clash of Kings,” “A Storm of Swords,” “A Feast for Crows,” “A Dance With Dragons,” and the as-yet unpublished “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring.” These can be abbreviated as “AGOT,” “ACOK,” “ASOS,” “AFFC,” “ADWD,” “TWOW,” and “ADOS.”
Chapters within the book will be referred to by their point-of-view character and a Roman numeral indicating what chapter within the POV it is (ex., Catelyn I, Jaime II, Arya III, and so on), as Martin does not number his chapters nor name them besides indicating whose POV we are about to enter.
Well, guys, it didn’t take long for my rosy view of this season (“This was rosy?” some of you are no doubt asking) to turn dour.
You think I was complaining last episode? No, no. That was child’s play. Those were complaints, by and large, about the lackluster choices in adapting source material. “Walk of Punishment,” on the other hand, showcases the kind of bullshit that, left to their own devices, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss think is good television. Did I mention it’s the first episode in the entire series that they directed? Oh, and they wrote it, too. (At some point—probably halfway through all these episodes—I am going to do some math to break down the writers and directors I liked and how their episodes were ranked. This will possibly prove to me that Benioff and Weiss are actually fine writers, and I am overexaggerating their incompetence due to resentment. But today is not that day.)
This bullshit is, of course, to do with poor, sweet, dear Podrick Payne (Daniel Portman). Tyrion’s (Peter Dinklage) thankless squire is no longer so thankless, thanks to the machinations of our favorite comedy duo Tyrion and Bronn (Jerome Flynn). As with Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) last season, Tyrion believes the appropriate solution to every problem or reward to every good deed should be sex. In this case, it’s a proper orgy! This orgy, of course, features a bunch of naked women writhing about, breasts bouncing, and one clothed Podrick Payne.
It is beyond juvenile. This is the type of move that I assume your fraternity brothers at ’Bama might pull if you were on the football team and you beat Auburn and also you were an alcoholic and going to be living out your high school and college fantasies for the rest of your life and you had a girlfriend but you got to cheat on her all the time because bodacious babes love you and you’re a beast at screwing. This belongs in “Porky’s” or “American Pie” (I’m guessing here, I haven’t seen either of those movies and don’t particularly want to, either), not HBO’s big and, by this point, prestige television series. I don’t even care that there’s a reference to the “Meereenese knot,” Martin’s term for the infamous tangle in “A Dance with Dragons” that took years to sort out, eventually solved in part by making Barristan Selmy (Ian McElhinney) a point of view character for four chapters. No! That will not distract me or placate me—in fact, it makes me only more incensed that Benioff and Weiss would dirty such a phrase by using it in such a base way.
A stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid male fantasy. That’s all this scene is. It’s for us to laugh about Pod being so good at sex that the prostitutes actually like him, which has been a popular dream of men since time in memoriam; in fact, it’s exactly what Tyrion is living out right now, and in the show—yes, only the show, what a surprise—they make his fantasy real. It’s for men who like to pretend they are sexual gods, who are enamored of themselves and their big dicks, who clearly don’t give a flying fuck about anything but their own gratification and self-congratulation.
“Sit down, Podrick,” Tyrion says. “We’re going to need details. Copious details.” Never mind that this is his squire and a really weird thing to ask, never mind that there is no point to anything in these scenes; the women are only repositories, waiting to be filled with a dick and whatever fantasy you (a man) like, and to be screwed so well that all their issues go away. Poor Pod is a substitute for the male viewer, who can now go and imagine himself virile and powerful, who can go get high-fives from his fellow men for having sex, because in the end that’s all it’s about, right, who gives a fig what the women think, they just need a good fuck and they’ll be alright, they’ll calm down, what really matters is being able to swagger about full of machismo and talk about what huge jugs they had with your buddies and you can all ogle and talk about how great tits and pussies—not women, just their sex organs—are.
It is clear that someone looked at Pod and asked, “Wouldn’t it be funny if this loser was really good at sex?,” which is what all loser men want to be true. This is the same flawless logic that will go on to ask questions like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if Cersei [Lena Headey] blew up the Sept of Baelor and we won’t think about consequences because that doesn’t sound epic?” and “Wouldn’t it be epic if someone totally unexpected and who was totally unconnected to this plot killed the Night King?” In other words, it is the logic of a fifteen-year-old boy. Should “Thrones” not be made of sterner stuff?
Tyrion gets at least one good scene this episode, thank goodness, as he goes to meet with Tywin (Charles Dance) and the small council. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss may not know how to read, but they—in their first directorial effort in the series, though due to DGA rules only Benioff is credited—apparently know how to block a scene. Tywin sits at the head of the table, awaiting his councilors; Tyrion walks up behind Varys (Conleth Hill), Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen), and Pycelle (Julian Glover), his height difference never more conspicuous. The other three shuffle about and take their seats, Littlefinger practically dashing to sit closest to Tywin. Cersei (Lena Headey) shows up and smoothly takes a chair and places it at Tywin’s right hand; Tyrion, of course, drags his, scraping and thumping across the floor, to sit opposite Tywin at the table’s other head.
It’s the kind of scene that could work on page, but is much stronger in a visual format (that is, until the characters begin to talk and the cuts happen so quickly that I briefly thought I was watching “The Bourne Identity”). Without a single word, we understand every character’s relationship to Tywin and what they think of him. This scene a) is wholly original and b) utilizes the medium to its advantage. The same cannot be said of Pod’s brothel visit, unless you think that seeing naked women lolling about is a good use of your time—which I suppose is what Benioff and Weiss are counting on. As with Littlefinger’s famous sexposition in season one, that is an insult to the audience’s intelligence.
It is not just the audience’s intelligence insulted in this episode, but poor Edmure Tully’s (Tobias Menzies) as well. We finally get introduced to Riverrun, Catelyn Stark’s (Michelle Fairley) childhood home. If the show followed George R. R. Martin’s books exactly as they are written… well, a lot of things would be different, and Riverrun would have been introduced sometime towards the end of season one, when the Stark bannermen declare Robb (Richard Madden) the King in the North. Hoster, Edmure, and Brynden (Clive Russell) Tully all make appearances long before we see them in the show, and some of Cat’s most introspective scenes are at the bedside of her sick father as she grapples with what following her duty has cost her.
Likely for the same reason Tyrion gets knocked out for the Battle of the Green Fork (i.e., budgetary constraints), Riverrun has so far been avoided in “Thrones,” replaced instead by a nondescript Stark camp. Edmure and Brynden “Blackfish” Tully feature largely in the background, and with the show’s split focus between Robb and Cat—as opposed to the books’ Cat-centric approach, as Robb is not a point of view character—it becomes harder to justify hiring actors for what would be brief scenes indeed. Hoster even dies offscreen. There are no gaping plot holes because the three don’t appear, only sadness on my part that Cat’s rich family dynamics go unexplored until season three, but the general audience doesn’t care about that.
There is a nod to this when Cat says that “I wish to the gods I had been” with her father when he died, which she was in the books. She even gives part of her inner monologue from “A Game of Thrones,” which I highlighted in season one; here, she links it to her (presumably) lost children, and how they were waiting, waiting, waiting, and will never see her again. It is a great scene—now imagine how great it would have been to plumb these depths from season one.
Both Menzies and Russell are good gets and the casting department remains as reliable as ever. However, their late arrivals mean that there is no time to get to know them before we see them here, at Hoster’s funeral and then, later, as Robb berates Edmure for acting impulsively. Thus our only impression of Edmure is him failing to aim a flaming arrow at his father’s funeral boat properly and acting like a child when Robb confronts him.
Now, Edmure has plenty of faults, but this childish presentation is not, perhaps, an accurate one; in the books, Brynden says, “‘It is no disgrace to miss your shot’” and Cat thinks with sympathy of how Edmure spent the night before drinking from guilt (Catelyn IV, “ASOS”). He’s still a bit of a loser, but one with a heart of gold; besides, with Cat as an older sister, he had much to live up to. Similarly, with no time to build up the Blackfish as a no-nonsense kind of man, the quickest way to do that is to have him unceremoniously rip Edmure’s bow away and quickly set Hoster’s boat afire with nary a sympathetic word.
This kind of truncated introduction still gets across that a) Edmure can often bite off more than he can chew and b) Brynden gets shit done, and even though it comes at the cost of Edmure’s dignity and Brynden’s softer side, it’s the kind of thing you must do to quickly and effectively get your audience up to speed with these characters and their relationships. Effective from a television standpoint, annoying from that of a book reader.
The next scene presents a thornier problem as Robb berates Edmure for running off and winning a battle without permission. It is vital to this season as it shows the further crumbling of the Stark alliance; everything is falling apart at the seams even as Robb keeps winning battles, and a feeling of doom settles over everything as we begin our inevitable march to the Red Wedding. It also looks great, with Robb silhouetted against an open window, staring out at the Trident, looking half in prison with the spiky bars blocking his view. He is alone as Edmure and the Blackfish squabble behind him. As a scene in a television show, it is a good one.
And, yes, much of it comes directly from Martin’s source material. However, in neglecting to include Riverrun and thus Edmure earlier in the show—and doing whatever the hell they are with Cat’s characterization—we miss many of Edmure’s good qualities. When Cat comes home to Riverrun from parlaying with Renly (Gethin Anthony) and Stannis (Stephen Dillane) Baratheon, she finds a startling scene awaiting her:
As they rode out into the bustle of Riverrun’s upper bailey, a naked toddler ran in front of the horses. Catelyn jerked her reins hard to avoid him, glancing about in dismay. Hundreds of smallfolk had been admitted to the castle, and allowed to erect crude shelters against the walls. Their children were everywhere underfoot, and the yard teemed with their cows, sheep, and chickens. “Who are all these folk?”
“My people,” Edmure answered. “They were afraid.”
Catelyn V, A Clash of Kings
As Tywin ravages the Riverlands, Edmure thinks of his people. Though nearly every other lord in Westeros would scoff at the thought of letting the smallfolk invade their castle, Edmure does it without a second thought. To judge him from his introductory scenes in the show, however, you would believe that Edmure too would bar his doors to the common people, so petulant is he.
What’s more, in the books, Edmure’s scolding comes on the heels of Robb (off-page for most of “ACOK”) introducing his new bride, Jeyne Westerling, to his mother. Of the two blunders—Edmure seizing Stone Mill and Robb breaking his marriage pact—the latter is by far the worst, and serves as a harsh reminder that Robb is no longer winning this war, if he ever was. “‘I’ve made a botch of everything but the battles, haven’t I? I thought the battles would be the hard part,’” he tells his mother (Catelyn II, “ASOS”). The outrage at Edmure’s folly thus feels like misplaced anger; the fact that alliances are now crumbling is not the fault of poor Edmure, but it is much easier to blame him.
On the flipside, in Stannis we have a character who gets far more screentime than he does in “ASOS,” and yet he too finds his characterization suffering at the hands of “Thrones.” Damned if you do, damned if you don’t (it really should be “damned if you fundamentally misunderstand large swathes of your source material”). His scene doesn’t even half the decency to be good in a vacuum, it’s just cringe-inducing across the board: he strokes Melisandre’s arm (Carice van Houten) as she prepares to depart, saying that she is abandoning him, says she should “make me another son,” and ends with the classic, “I want you.” Once again, this episode seems to have been written by prepubescent boys as opposed to adult men. Who is this? Surely this is not Stannis Baratheon? The show, it seems, cannot handle all of Stannis’s internal contradictions and opts instead to have his character ping-pong about: one moment stern and unforgiving, the next a horny teenager begging for his hookup to stay and say she loves him, really.
Thankfully, as is often the case for season three, there is a bright, shining light in this episode: Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Brienne (Gwendoline Christie), who up till now have been on their own buddy cop adventure. “Walk of Punishment” changes that.
In seasons past, the moments of shocking violence—Jory’s (Jamie Sives) death, Stannis’s shadow baby—have come in episode five. Here, it’s in episode three, which can only mean one thing: this season isn’t here to fuck around. Shit is hitting the fan early, and the rest of the season will kick into high gear from here on out; Jaime’s hand is only the first casualty, lopped off because he couldn’t stop running his mouth. Well, that and a fit of heroism on his part as he prevents Brienne’s rape at the hands of their captors.
This entire scene plays out very differently in the books; for one, instead of Locke (Noah Taylor), one of Roose Bolton’s (Michael McElhatton) men who looks like just about every other northman we’ve come across, Brienne and Jaime are captured by the Brave Companions. The Brave Companions, led by the slobbering and lisping Vargo Hoat, are a ragtag bunch of psychopaths who change their allegiance as easily as they kill innocent passersby—they begin sworn to Tywin Lannister, then happily jump to Roose once the latter takes Harrenhal. Members include a pedophilic septon, a deranged jester, one of the criminals bound for the Night’s Watch that Arya (Maisie Williams) freed, a Dothraki, and, of course, Qyburn (Anton Lesser), though as the Bloody Mummers (as the Brave Companions are also called) do not appear in the show, Qyburn’s past with them is unmentioned. The environment in which Jaime and Brienne find themselves is far more chaotic and colorful than that in the show—perhaps even too chaotic and colorful to successfully translate to screen, though Michele Clapton’s costumes could have done a little something to separate Locke from literally every other guy. Yes, yes, it’s because he’s supposed to seem reasonable at first, but you can seem reasonable and not blend into the extras!
The show combines two scenes into one here, as Jaime’s hand debacle and the “sapphires” incident are two separate scenes (sort of). Jaime does tell Hoat that first night that they are worth a high ransom because of his father and the sapphires of Tarth, and for his cheek, his hand is cut off:
They mean to scare me. The fool hopped on Jaime’s back, giggling, as the Dothraki swaggered toward him. The goat wants me to piss my breeches and beg his mercy, but he’ll never have that pleasure. He was a Lannister of Casterly Rock, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard; no sellsword would make him scream.
Sunlight ran silver along the edge of the arakh as it came shivering down, almost too fast to see. And Jaime screamed. (Jaime III, “ASOS”)
The second incident comes later, when several of the companions try to sneak off with Brienne and rape her out of Vargo Hoat’s earshot:
Jaime chuckled. “There’s a funny fool. I have a riddle for you, Shagwell. Why do you care if she screams? Oh, wait, I know.” He shouted, “SAPPHIRES,” as loudly as he could.
Cursing, Rorge kicked at his stump again. Jaime howled. I never knew there was such agony in the world, was the last thing he remembered thinking. It was hard to say how long he was gone, but when the pain spit him out, Urswyck was there, and Vargo Hoat himself. “Thee’th not to be touched,” the goat screamed, spraying spittle all over Zollo. “Thee hath to be a maid, you foolth! Thee’th worth a bag of thapphireth!” And from then on, every night Hoat put guards on them, to protect them from his own.
Jaime III, A Storm of Swords
Shockingly, the show demonstrates a great deal of restraint by making this one scene, as they deprive themselves of two instances to show sexual violence against women. Perhaps I should be thankful for the scene with Pod, for it may have spared us something worse here; a “Game of Thrones” episode must have breasts, after all, but better to be consenting (even if dubiously so) ones.
The removal of Jaime’s hand is another strong instance of blocking and camera placement this episode: first we fear for his eye, then the camera follows Locke as he removes his knife from Jaime’s face, swings it up, and then hurls it down—the camera moving in sync—and neatly lops off the Kingslayer’s sword hand. It takes a split second for both Jaime and the viewer to realize what has happened, as there is no great spurt of blood, nor does Jaime yank back his arm to show us the exposed stump. It is such a random and horrific act that it does not register straight away; even the way Jaime’s arm is placed makes the viewer work to discern that, yes, his hand is no longer attached. Then, of course, Jaime’s scream gets replaced by a rock cover of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” by rock band The Hold Steady as the credits begin to roll.
Were it not for the Podrick scene, this might even be an excellent episode. From a directing standpoint, it is certainly a solid debut for Benioff and Weiss as they demonstrate a good grasp on blocking, the use of mise en scene, and camera placement. But the writing. The writing. God above, that Podrick scene is so horrific that this episode only gets above a fifty because my love for Jaime and Brienne is that strong.
Stray Observations:
- Talisa (Oona Chaplin), remarkably, gets a scene entirely to herself this episode, without the specter of Robb or Cat in the background. She tends to Edmure’s captives, two young Lannister boys, amongst them Dean-Charles Chapman, who will go on to play an older Tommen Baratheon. If we had had more scenes of Talisa without Robb, I might be more forgiving of her as a character (this, to be clear, is an indictment of the show’s writing).
- Jaime says, “If I was a woman, I’d make them kill me.” He says this in the books, too… right after thinking, “If I was a woman, I’d be Cersei” (Jaime II, “ASOS”). He does this with very little self-reflection about what it means to be a woman, unlike Cersei, who constantly rages in her inner monologue about how she wished to be Jaime as a child, with all the privileges that would afford her. As time goes on, Jaime will distance himself from his twin and realize that they are, in fact, two very different people.
- Jaime also tells Brienne to “close your eyes, pretend they’re [the rapists] Renly.” Jaime is a big fan of advice like this, and will later tell baby Tommen to “go away inside” when faced with trauma (Jaime I, “AFFC”). Clearly, he has processed everything very well.
- Over in Astapor, Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) continues her negotiations with the slavers. She also “buys” Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel), who tells her valar morghulis—“All men must die,” to which Dany replies, “Yes, but we are not men.” Admittedly, it kind of rocks. I do genuinely believe that Benioff and Weiss envisioned themselves as empowering women in this show.
- Also in Astapor, Jorah (Iain Glen) drops another one of his banger quotes straight from the book: “Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died.” Whenever book-Jorah drops a pearl like that, it’s very frustrating because book-Jorah is awful and should not be saying cool things, but when it comes from Iain Glen, I don’t mind.
- Arya and Gendry (Joe Dempsie) continue riding along with the Brotherhood Without Banners, this time without Hot Pie (Ben Hawkey), who has decided to stay on and bake hot pies at an inn. I’m glad that he gets to have a semi-trauma-free life now. His attempt to make wolf-shaped bread for Arya is very endearing.
- Why does Thoros of Myr (Paul Kaye) have such a noticeably British accent? Could we not have tried something a little different?
- Littlefinger gets betrothed to Lysa Arryn (Kate Dickie) this episode, which surely bodes well for Lysa. He also gets named Lord of Harrenhal, despite Roose Bolton currently occupying the castle, which perhaps implies something…
- Peep Burn Gorman in the background… Owen Harper… light of my life, I miss you…
Episode Ranking:
- “Dark Wings, Dark Words”
- “Valar Dohaeris”
- “Walk of Punishment”
“Game of Thrones” Season Three Trailer
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