With most of season five’s place-setting out of the way, Game of Thrones finally has time to catch its breath and start telling the stories that it’s hear to tell. “High Sparrow” does a good job, for the most part, of pushing the narrative forward, and it introduces a major theme, but I won’t lie and say that I’m not sick of waiting to see the Sand Snakes. There’s an element of “When are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?” at play here, and GoT would be wise to address it soon. Hey, I know I’m one of those dickhead book readers, but I’m not the guy on HBO’s marketing team that made sure all the promo material talked about or mentioned the Snakes. Anyway, let’s talk about “High Sparrow.”
Arya is training to be a Faceless Man, by which I mean she’s sweeping a lot of floors. She’s becoming impatient, which is understandable, but Jaqen H’ghar was never incredibly forthcoming with her to begin with, so I don’t know where this entitlement comes from. He tells her to let go of the last vestiges of Arya Stark and truly become no one. She does so, in a nice silent scene of her throwing her belongings into the water – with the exception of Needle, which she can’t bear to part with. The House of Black and White looks fantastic, and Ramin Djawadi’s music is appropriately ominous and weirdly mournful. The show is doing a great job so far of introducing its new locales; there’s always a bit of whiplash involved in doing so, but by allowing this storyline to breathe and move at its own pace, we can better absorb what’s happening to Arya. Remember when she used to smile? Yeah, me neither.
Cersei is having a rough go of it in King’s Landing. The city hates her, and is embracing Margaery with all their hearts. Margaery marries Tommen and proceeds to go full-on Regina George on Cersei’s ass, pointedly asking her what to call her now that she’s no longer the queen. Cersei, like all Lannisters, is at her best when backed into a corner, so she decides to make nice with the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) as a way of consolidating power. A lot of season five – and it’s source material(s), A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons – will focus on the power of religion in the seven kingdoms, and in Pryce’s one scene opposite Cersei he makes his presence known, through smiles and charity, but when Cersei tries (none too subtly) to curry favor by telling him that she’s imprisoned the deviant former High Septon, she doesn’t seem to realize that she’s already bowing to his wishes. The High Sparrow never quite becomes a villain, so it’ll be interesting to see how Pryce, an actor I haven’t really liked in the past, plays him.
Natalie Dormer continues to be one of the most charming actresses on TV, and weirdly enough you can’t help but root for her even though you know she’s manipulating everyone around her. She and Dean-Charles Chapman, as Tommen, have good chemistry together, so I’ll be looking forward to their scenes.
Jon Snow is finally becoming interesting. He turns down Stannis’s offer of legitimization, and even though Stannis is disappointed and a little insulted – every time someone denies him something, he feels like less of a king – he can’t help but admire Jon. The newly appointed Lord Commander is making friends and enemies elsewhere, too. He wisely appoints Ser Alliser as First Ranger, swiftly making a friend out of an enemy. The same cannot be said of Janos Slynt, who defies Jon in public and loses his head despite his pleading. Good! Fuck Janos Slynt!
The buddy comedy that is Game of Thrones‘ fifth season continues in the North, where Littlefinger tells Sansa that he’s arranged for her to marry Ramsay Bolton. I’m on record as being a fan of Littlefinger’s insidious machinations, but this was too far even for me. Just before the character loses any chance of redemption, though, he convinces Sansa to go through with it by alluding to getting revenge for her family’s deaths. I never put it past Littlefinger to run the long con – remember that him convincing Lysa Arryn to kill Jon Arryn started the whole series – and he loves Catelyn too much to turn Sansa over to the son of the man who betrayed the Starks. Long story short, I like where this is going.
And finally we come to Tyrion. There’s no huge revelations here, other than that prostitutes in Volantis are cosplaying as Daenerys, and after killing Shae, Tyrion seems to have lost his interest in brothels. (Peter Dinklage’s face as he realizes this is wonderful.) Tyrion gets kidnapped by Jorah – GoT‘s world is contracting even as it expands, which could be problematic moving forward – who says he’s taking Tyrion to the queen. But which one?
A Few Thoughts
- I know I typically give scores that are either .0 or .5, but I’m trying new things out. “High Sparrow” is a great example of an episode that’s better than four stars but not quite four and a half
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That priestess in Volantis was Rika Fukushima, aka Katana on Arrow
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Anybody else think it’s weird that we’ve yet to see Casterly Rock?
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“It’s even better luck to suck a dwarf’s cock”
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What a lovely scene with Brienne and Podrick. Pod is one of the last genuinely decent people in Westeros, so it’s nice to see the gruff Brienne warming up to him. And her monologue about the ball was absolutely devastating, delivered perfectly by Gwendoline Christie
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That being said, it’s as though the show discovered how Brienne should spend season five in the middle of a scene. She and Podrick follow Sansa and Littlefinger to Moat Cailin, only for her to decide that she actually wants to kill Stannis? It’s very obvious in moments like that when a show doesn’t know what to do with a character, but it really wants to keep them around.
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