Read the next piece in this series here.
6.8 “No One”
Written by David
Benioff & D.B. Weiss
Directed by Mark
Mylod
Commentary by Mark
Mylod, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime), Essie Davis (Lady Crane)
Let’s just get right to the most utterly ridiculous part of
this whole episode—Arya’s escape from the Terminator-Waif.
It starts out ridiculous because Arya, despite having been
stabbed multiple times in the belly, is somehow alive several hours later. We’ve
seen this exact type of attack before, and it took that character minutes to
bleed out and die. I’m referring, of course, to Talisa at the Red Wedding. Not
that the show has ever been particularly interested in internal consistency, so
let’s move on! Lady Crane finds Arya backstage (after doing her new
blood-and-thunder soliloquy based on Arya’s stunningly astute advice regarding
Cersei’s mindset after Joffrey’s death) and stitches her up, claiming that she knows
how to do this kind of major surgery because of all the times she used to stab
her husbands when they’d fight. Oh-kay. They bond for a bit, and Arya gets some
rest.
Arya’s woken by a thud
because the Waif has murdered Lady Crane by unbalancing a stool and causing her
to fall and impale herself on the legs of her stool. She tells Arya that if she’d
done her job, Lady Crane could have died painlessly, but the Many-Faced God gets
his due one way or the other—and Arya is now his. What follows is the most
unrealistic, ridiculous scene in this show to date, and after Dorne, that’s saying something. Again, this really is
just something you have to see for yourself:
- Someone watched Terminator 2 far too many times when choreographing this scene.
- How did Arya not just pull every single stitch in her belly and then bleed out?
- How in the world is she outrunning the Waif?
- How did she beat the Waif in the dark when the Waif has presumably had the same training she has, and more of it?
Again, Arya’s entire Braavos arc suffers from Benioff and
Weiss thinking that character development isn’t cinematic enough. Or something.
There is no reason for the Waif to be Arya’s enemy, especially if she’s already
Faceless; there shouldn’t be enough ego left there for her to hate Arya. Is it
possible that in the books Arya will decide that becoming a Faceless Man isn’t
what she wants? Sure. There’s some hints of that in the sample chapter for The Winds of Winter when she kills Raff
the Sweetling. She has her own agenda that she hasn’t been able to fully let go
of as she’s been in training, and it’s entirely believable that killing Raff is
what will make her decide she’s ready to go about pursuing that agenda. I very
much doubt, however, that she’ll have to kill another assassin—especially not the Waif—to get free to
do it. Benioff and Weiss’ versions of these characters have very little in the
way of internal lives; anywhere that the book versions show introspection,
Benioff and Weiss replace it with action or cut it back so severely that it
throws off the pacing of the storylines. See: Jaime. Tyrion. Sansa. Arya.
Daenerys. Brienne. Jon.
Speaking of, here’s Sandor stomping through the Riverlands
looking for the people who killed Septon Ray. He’s decided the Brotherhood
Without Banners is at fault and he’s looking for them. He finds the specific
men who murdered his commune just as they’re about to be hanged by Beric and
the rest of the Brotherhood. They bargain over how many of the attackers Sandor’s
allowed to kill in retaliation and settle on two. Sandor kicks the logs out
from under them and steals the boots off of one, then asks if Beric and Thoros
have any food. Beric tries to convince Sandor to join them, and after some
arguing about joining not really being Sandor’s style, he considers it.
Over in Riverrun, Brienne and Pod arrive at the siege camp
and realize Jaime is there, which is their convenient pass through the camp and
into Riverrun proper. While Jaime and Brienne catch up, Bronn talks at Pod
about Brienne’s sex life, because of course he does. He speculates about
whether Brienne and Jaime are sleeping together, claims he’d totally have sex with Brienne, that Pod
totally would, too, and Jaime would, and Brienne would have sex with Jaime, and
it’s really gross and he says “fuck” a lot.
Meanwhile, Jaime and Brienne argue over him being on the
Frey’s side in this, and they agree that Brienne can go in and attempt to
negotiate. She wants the Tully army to go north with her, anyway, so that would
leave Riverrun for the Freys. She tries to give Oathkeeper back to Jaime, but
he refuses it. So she’s wearing it when she talks to Brynden, who says no way is he turning Riverrun over to the
Freys and abandoning it, despite Sansa’s note asking for help. So this whole
thing was pretty much a waste of time; yay!
It gets even more time-wastey when Jaime manages to talk
Edmure into surrendering the castle because he’s the actual lord of Riverrun, not Brynden. Brynden sneaks Brienne and
Pod out the back but refuses to go with her. Instead, he turns and pulls his
sword and a few seconds later a Lannister soldier comes to tell Jaime that
Brynden died fighting. Off screen. Let me guess; showing his death would have
been gratuitous?
So that’s two major fights, two major deaths, in one
episode, offscreen. Surely there’s a good reason, right? There’s something more
important happening that we really need to see instead that took up the time?
Oh.
Nope, just Tyrion being Tyrion. Grey Worm and Missandei again do not want to drink or get drunk,
and Tyrion again practically forces
it on them. Tyrion loves the sound of his own voice, rambling for a bit about
how he’d love to own his own vineyard one day (and only share the wine with his
closest friends), then tries to get Missandei to tell a joke (she tries. It’s
not a very good one). Only the bells ringing to announce incoming hostile
armies stops this incredibly awkward, time-waste of a scene in its tracks.
Because for all Tyrion thinking he’s an incredible political mind, his deal
with the masters of the three cities didn’t work too well. An enormous navy pulls
in and starts bombarding the city with fire catapults. Tyrion tries to come up
with a new plan, and Grey Worm essentially tells him they’ve followed him long
enough, which is convenient because Dany’s just arrived with Drogon and the
Mother of Dragons is decidedly unhappy with the state of her city.
Speaking of mothers who are unhappy, Cersei is forced to
stand in the gallery with the other noble ladies rather than joining Tommen on
the dais while he issues a decree banning trial by combat, essentially condemning
her to whatever punishment she could get for the measly few charges she’s being
brought up on (remember in the books she’s accused of deicide for goodness sakes). I think the writers made a mistake in
framing this from Cersei’s point of view. They keep insisting she’s the villain
of the piece, but stuff like this makes her look reasonable. Unlike in the
books, she’s spent all her time trying to defend her family from legitimate threats. Sure, she was wrong
and unreasonable about Tyrion, but someone did
kill Joffrey. Someone did threaten
Myrcella’s life—and then kill her. Tyrion did
kill Tywin. Unlike in the books, where she’s being completely paranoid and
going way over the top with her reactions to insignificant or imaginary threats
to herself or her children, the show takes away the paranoia aspect and then
expects us to not side with her anyway. She’s about to be tried for things that
she did in defense of her family, that if we take a step back from the “Cersei
is evil” baggage we have from the books and the writers, most of us could
probably understand. This raises all kinds of questions about why we’re supposed to still see Cersei as
evil, and frankly, in my humble opinion, it comes down to a) sexism; and b) bad
storytelling.
It also further demonizes Margaery, because frankly we all
know this wasn’t Tommen’s idea. Margaery’s the one pulling the strings here,
and this decree is targeted at
Cersei. I’ve already ranted pretty thoroughly about the way the show treats
Margaery, so I’ll spare you here.
Quick note, as the new season started last night: there’s
two more episodes in this season, so I’ll just follow on with season seven when
we’re done here. That means my analysis of the new season will be about three
weeks behind, but I think we can all handle that.
RIP:
Brynden Tully
Lady Crane
The Waif
Lem
Steve
Riddell
Gatins
Morgan
A couple of outlaws
Faith Militant brother
Next week: Two big battles. The queens meet. Sansa gets her
revenge.
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