GOT Review: Episode 26 – The Climb
January 10, 2019Summary – Jon and Ygritte have a climb, Melisandra wants a young man’s body, Tywin and Olenna have a chat, Varys and Littlefinger has a chat, Bran watched a seizure happen and does nothing, Tyrion and Sansa are screwed, Ros is a coat rack, Theon is somehow in worse shape.
Scaling the wall – I know this is stating the obvious, but scaling the wall looked dangerous as hell. The filming of the scene has some obvious green screens that can’t be ignored, but it’s still kind of cool. Jon almost gets knocked to his death by a stray shard of ice and is accused of staring at Ygritte’s ass. These people still joke in the face of death. This team would be good for an A Team reboot. Except for Orell, cause he sucks.
Later, as Ygritte starts climbing, an avalanche occurs, taking Ygritte and Jon off the wall, and focuing Orell and Tormund to hang on for dear life. Orell is ready to cut them lose, with Tormund does not want to do. Orell might be the worst cutter in the world, taking nearly 37 minutes to try and cut the rope. Jon grabs hold of the ledge just before Orell finishes his blade work, and grabs on to Ygrittes rope, saving her. Jon stares down Orell afterwards.
At the end of the episode, Ygritte and Jon make it to the top of the mountain, Orell looks guilty but doesn’t say a word. The two look over the wall and what they see is beautiful.
Then they start making out. You’d think they’d be dead tired, but I guess that’s what happens instead. Sure, I’ll allow it. Though I’m sure the altitude would kill them after about 15 seconds.
Although you knew only Tormund and Orell were in any real danger, there was still some good, tense scenes here, even if you could make out the green screen, especially on the first wall climb scene. We can forgive this. There’s a lot more to complain about.
Melisandra prediction -Arya attempts to prevent Melisandra from taking Gendry. She runs up to to stop her, and Meli looks into her eyes, and sees a bunch of different colors. She tells Arya she will shut many eyes and that they will meet again. This isn’t so much of a foreshadow as it is saying that she’ll become a killer. It’s a short scene, but it’s pretty cool to be so on the nose about Arya’s future. She will wear a lot of different eye colors, and certainly shut a lot of eyes. And it’s not the way you’d think at first.
Tywin and Olenna – Here’s a battle of two titans of the game duking it out, and it’s magical.
We open with Olenna shooting down the Loras and Cersei proposal. Her argument? Cersei is far too old and Loras is the prime bachelor in the kingdom. Tywin’s counter is that Loras is gay, which Olenna doesn’t deny, and outright confirms, calling him a “sword swallower”. Not the most tolerant convo, but these are grandparents. They’re from a different time.
Also, that’s not an excuse.
Tywin points out that if the rumors were true, the Tyrell’s gain nothing with Margarey as king. Olenna counters that Cersei may be too old to have children. The two are at a stalemate until Tywin puts his big old balls on the table. And they sure are old.
Tywin decides if Loras does not marry Cersei, he will become a member of the kingsguard. That means Loras forfeits all titles AND has to serve Joffrey directly. It’s a similar move that the Mad King pulled on Tywin with Jaime. Tywin is ready to sign the paperwork, but Olenna stands up, impressed that Tywin lives up to his reputation. She breaks the quill so I think that’s a marriage pact. What a good scene that was. We don’t often get evenly matched characters but here we definitely had it. While Tywin won the battle, Olenna has her next few moves marked on the board.
They’re super bloody.
Littlefinger and Varys – Speaking I’m evenly matched men, here’s another Littlefinger and Varys scene. This is actually an extension of the Tywin and Olenna scene, with Varys on team Tyrell and Littlefinger on team Lannister… for now. Varys’ plot to get Sansa hitched to Loras has been hard countered and Littlefinger admires the throne, gloating in his own way. Littlefinger starts the convo by saying he’s counting the swords in the throne and it’s less than 200. It’s something he thought about before.
Littlefinger gloats that he sniffed out the Loras Sansa marriage, killing Varys spy in the interim. Varys defends his own actions, saying he did what he did what he did for the realm. Littlefinger doesn’t believe in the realm, saying it’s a lie. Varys says the lie prevents all from falling into chaos. This leads to today’s quote and probably the only real insight on Littlefinger. He intends to create as much chaos as possible to achieve more power.
Oh yeah, and Ros is super dead. Joffrey shot her with like 800 arrows. Chekov’s crossbow and the like. For a character not in the books given some importance, that was anti climatic.
What didn’t work:
Sam’s lover boy ways – I understand Sam has no clue how to act around women, but boy does he suck at this.
Running from the rebel Night Watch, Sam tries to make a fire for Gilly, but fails miserably until Gilly advises him what to do. There’s strike one.
Sam accidentally reveals that he was highborn, which seems to impress Gilly. Perhaps we can revoke that strike. He also shows off his glass dagger, but doesn’t know what it does. Sam is taking Gilly back to the wall, which seems to be a mistake based on how the Night Watch is doing. Sam talks about how big the wall is.
I really hope he’s talking about how big the wall is.
Sam talks about the highlights of the wall – a large fire and venison stew. Is that what women like? I played it so wrong in my younger years. He makes the mistake of saying people sometimes sing at Castle Black, and Gilly forces him to sing. It’s not the best, but he’s trying. Good lord is he trying.
Passed gas – I’m just going to say it. Whenever the baby cries, it sounds like a fart. I thought Gilly was dropping bombs in this scene until I read the caption. Seriously, you should watch it and see if I’m crazy, but I don’t think I am.
Jojen’s casual seizures- As Meera and Osha have a cat fight nobody asked for, Mera leaves to focus of Jojen, who’s having some sort of evil, terrifying seizure. It’s so intense, even Rickon gets a line. Wow, imagine that. Meera mutters that visions take their toll. Not a good sign for Bran. But again, great promise for the audience. Let’s hope this scene leads to a payoff.
Ygritte laying it on thick – Before the wall climb, Ygritte lets Jon know that Tormund has scaled the wall a bunch of times, which seems wrong. That seems to go against everything we know about the wall. Ygritte is scared, but excited to climb it. She gives Jon a pair of climbing boots for safety, and then things get weird.
Ygritte mocks Jon again for being new to sex. She’s seriously a broken record. Ygritte says she also know that Jon hasn’t stopped being a crow, but now that Ygritte’s in his life, he’s going to be loyal to her and not the Night’s Watch. She says their respected factions don’t care if they live or die – but they need to care about each other. She threatens to kill him if he does. So, Jons a dead man no matter what he does. Can’t he switch roles with Bran?
To break the scene up, Tormund gives Jon a tool and tells him not to scream if he falls as she should remember something more pleasant. Thank God Tormund ended this scene before he got more awkward.
Brotherhood is straight evil -As Arya is practicing her arrow abilities with Anguy, Melisandra arrives. If you remember, and you might not because the write up was early in December, Meli left Stannis to fulfill some royal duties. Sadly for Stannis, this wasn’t a euphemism.
Thoros greets her and they speak in High Valyrian. We learn here that Thoros was giving a mission to convert Robert but failed, or quit as Melisandra puts it. Thoros doesn’t take it too serious, shrugging at the conversation. Figuring out what she wants, Melisandra goes with Thoros and meets Beric.
Melisandra is taken aback by Beric, and we assume Thoros explained the revivals. You can see the scars all over him. Meli doesn’t believe that someone could have the power to bring back the dead. Thoros admits he was a bad priest, spending his time drinking and whoring. He actually admits for a time he didn’t believe in God. However, after Beric died, he said the prayers to try and bring back his friend, and for whatever reason, the lord of light let it happen. Thoros says the Red God is the one true god, and I mean, we knew that based on the last episode. Also, Beric low key confirms there’s no afterlife, so that’s uber disappointing. We’re going to rot in the ground. Melisandra tells the two she is here because the Lord of Light has something she needs.
When Beric and Thoros arrive, it’s to allow Melisandra to take Gendry. The two serve the Lord of Light and get paid for it. Thoros tells Arya they needed the gold to buy weapons, horses and food. Arya doesn’t believe it.
It makes the brotherhood into more evil men then they truly were, though the religion excuse does help. This did not occur in the books, where the Brotherhood are vague but at least mostly good.
Torture for no reason, part 1 – Well, I don’t need to use any codes anymore – the savior in Theron’s story is Ramsay Bolton, known psychopath. In this scene, Ramsay begins by pouring out a full pitcher of water when Thoen begs for some and makes Theon choose a body part to be removed. He also intends to find the Stark boys after Theon told them he’s still alive.
For fun, Theon is forced to guess where he is being tortured, getting stabbed in his pinky finger during the process. After two stabs, he guesses “correctly”, even though he’s very wrong. Theon deduces that he is being tortured for betraying Robb, and Ramsay goes along with it, saying that he is right. But then, after it seems that the scene will stop, Ramsay admits to being a liar, and makes Theon beg to have his pinky cut off by doing god knows what. Ramsay still hasn’t revealed his identiy, but tells Theon the only reason this is happening is because he enjoys it.
So yeah, strap in for this season. We’re getting all sorts of torture. If you’re into snuff films, you have a favorite story line.
Red Wedding Flags – Robb takes a meeting with a few of Walder Frey’s sons. I think they are sons. I mean, who could really know?
Walder Frey will continue his allience with Robb, but under his terms. He wants a formal apology for breaking the marriage (fair), he demands Harrenhall and the lands surrounding it (seems suspcious due to the curse, but ok). Robb promises both of these things quickly. Walder Frey also wants Lord Edmure to marry one of Frey’s daughters. They must be married within a fortnight. Considering, these terms seem pretty easy.
But who picks Edmure? He’s freaking terrible and has only failed this far. That was the first red flag. I don’t think Robb had a choice, but sounds like this is a trap to me.
Lord Edmure refuses the marriage, but the blackfish threatens to punch some sense into him. However, Robb demands that he make amends for Stone Mill. Robb says he’s won every battle but he is losing the war. Edmure agrees, reluctantly, but boy is he a bitch about it. Considering how poor of showing he’s had, that’s the least he could do.
Roose all over the place – Roose plays his hand, so to speak, with Jaime, who struggles to eat a piece of meat one handed. Bolton says he wants to send Jaime to Robb, but Jaime knows this is isn’t true as he’s still in Harrenhall. Roose wants money which the Lannisters will gladly give. This seems to add up, until Bolton threatens to kill Jaime for some odd reason, finally talking himself out of it. I mean, why was he debating this? That was the worst move he could make. He’s either going to Robb or to Tywin. Roose agrees to let Jaime go to King’s Landing without any resistance, as long as he tells Tywin that Roose was innocent on the maiming.
However, he doesn’t allow Brienne to go. Jaime insists, but Botlon shuts him down, mocking him for losing his hand the first time he didn’t listen. Hopefully this is the last time we’ll see Bolton do something for a while.
I know, I know.
Loras is a bad actor – Sansa and Loras have a conversion, probably their last as a “couple” and it’s painfully awkward. Sansa feels like she’s in a dream, and Loras seems to miss the point – that he’s marrying a woman. After a few minutes, Loras snaps out of it and starts complementing her, but it’s way too late. Even after the two bond over hating King’s Landing, there was nothing there. Boy would Sansa have had a rough wedding night.
Tyrion’s Bad Deal – Immediately after the above conversation, Cersei and Tyrion are shown looking at Sansa and Loras from afar. Tyrion says he’s not sure who of the four of them get the worst of the deal. Cersei says that she ended the Sansa, Loras marriage to protect her family. Tyrion reminds Cersei that he is a member of her family.
Tyrion calls out Cersei for Joffrey giving an order to have her killed. She does not respond, which says it all. Tyrion says the murder attempt is not a surpirse – Tyrion is the only person who doesn’t hold back toward Joffrey. But he points out trying to murder the hand in front of everyone is a poor move. Cersei says that Joffrey probably won’t try anything not that Tywin is here. That’s not really comforting.
Tyrion points out that Jaime may come back and save Cersei, but Tyrion is screwed. He wonders who will tell Sansa. Guess who’s catching all the breaks today?
While Sansa gets her dress measured for the royal wedding and gushes about Loras, Tyrion enters. He ends up having to give the news in front of Shea no less. This is going to be painful wedding We don’t end up seeing it but later, Sansa is seen crying. Tyrion doesn’t feel much better.
They both probably feel better than Ros though.
Boobs – 0
Death – Ros
Needlessly Graphic sex – 0
