Game of Thrones and the Women of Westeros 4/9

The Watchers on the Wall

Previously…

I went into The Mountain and The Viper here.

The credits take us everywhere and, now that I’ve seen this episode, I’m wondering why they didn’t just have one lingering shot of The Wall.

That would have been hilarious.

In a nutshell…

Well! This is going to be the easiest episode ever. I think I might even be able to avoid the word “meanwhile.” We start and end at The Wall.

Sam is quizzing Jon about Ygritte, wishing he’d experienced love once and also sex. He analyzes the Night’s Watch vow and believes he’s found a loophole for the sex, but is still miserable with Gilly’s apparent death. Meanwh… Somewhere else around the same basic time, The Wildlings are plotting around the campfire. Apparently, Tormund likes to brag about bestiality (okay) and Ygritte’s not having it. She only cares about killing Crows and, more specifically, killing Jon Snow. She warns the others that Jon Snow is hers to kill. There’s also some talk about how bitter they are about The Wall planted on their land and The Night’s Watch hunting them down. I’d feel more sympathetic if they weren’t straight up murdering scores of innocent people.

Oh! And Gilly sneaks by in the dark just as Sam is making himself more miserable about Gilly to Maester Aemon. Sam still thinks she died horribly. Aemon assures him that it may not be that bad, and that “love is the death of duty.” Aemon reminds us he could have been king and that he’d been in love once, but Aemon doesn’t want to dwell on it just because they might die. Sam leaves him to find Gilly at the gates with Pyp denying her entrance. Sam makes him let her in and swears to Gilly they’ll never be apart again. He takes her to a meat locker and starts to leave. She protests, thinking he’ll die if he leaves. He’s all “I’m a man, manly man man, must fight because MAN” and kisses her before he goes, promising not to die.

Jon and Alliser Thorne reaffirm their mutual hatred at the top of The Wall, but agree to put it aside for the fight. Sam and Pyp bond over being… not the best fighters. The Wildlings march on The Wall with flaming torches and mammoths (which are awesome) and giants (which are less awesome). I won’t go into every bit of fighting as I’ll be sure to fangasm below if something was especially cool.

Here are the main events: Thorne goes down to fight at the gate, Slint proves himself an idiot and a coward and refuses to believe giants exist even when seeing them, so Grenn lies to get him out of the way and Jon takes over commanding the men at The Wall to fight off the climbers and the giants pounding at the gate. Pyp and Sam fight through all their worrying as Little Olly mans the elevator (which I’ve taken to calling the wall-a-vator). Thorne gives a battle speech that almost makes me like him for a second (which is how we know he’s soon to die). The Wildlings get into the courtyard and it’s all fighty, fighty, fight, fight. Ygritte kills everything she can (which is a lot).

Fight, fight, fight. Slint hides in the meat locker with Gilly and Little Sam. Thorne and Tormund battle, and Tormund gets the upper hand. Pyp gets one kill before Ygritte gets him with an arrow through the neck. Sam stays with him until he dies, then rushes to get to the wall-a-vator. That survival instinct of his kicks in, and he kills a Thenn that’s rushing at him. He gets Olly to get him to the top of the wall and encourages the kid to jump into the battle.

Jon sends Grenn to hold the tunnel’s gate as he works to kill the giants and mammoth weakening it far below. They send the mammoth running, but one giant stays to work at the gate. Sam comes up to tell Jon that Thorne is fallen and Jon goes down, leaving Edd in charge with instructions to drop the scythe if they have to (YES!). Grenn is down in the tunnel, propping up his panicking men and preparing them to stop the giant that got in. Jon and Sam get down below and it’s all fighty, fighty, fight. And there’s a 360 crane shot that… that… Just see below on that.

Anyway, Jon tells Sam to release Ghost, and Ghost is, as we know, an awesome battle asset. So is Jon, hacking his way through till he gets to Styr, who in turn brutalizes him. Ygritte sees them and has a chance to finish Jon off, but doesn’t take it. Styr seems likely to win, anyway, but Jon gives him a hammer in the skull. Then Jon stumbles away to find Ygritte, waiting for him with an arrow notched to kill. He smiles at her and she hesitates long enough for Little Olly to shoot her through the chest. Well… She did kill the kid’s father. She tells Jon she wishes they’d stayed in that cave and that he “knows nothing” one more time before dying.

I’m distracted from the tragedy by how awesome it is when Edd has the men on top of the wall drop a giant scythe on the wildlings still climbing up. It doesn’t do much more than end the night’s battle as there are still way more Wildlings than Crows. In the courtyard, Tormund is a pin cushion and still fighting. Jon has him taken for questioning. Sam finds Gilly, who tries to clobber him with a bone until she realizes it’s him. Slint is also there, cowering in a corner.

The next morning, Jon points out how much power Mance Rayder and his Wildling army still have over them. He wants to go off and kill Mance, hoping getting rid of their leader will make the army disband. Sam can’t dissuade him and they go through the tunnels. They find Grenn and his gang dead there. He leaves his sword, Longclaw, with Sam in case he doesn’t come back. Sam pleads with him to come back. Jon doesn’t make any promises, just moves through the outer gate.

The Women of Westeros…

Only two women tonight, with Castle Black being such a frat house. So this should be the shortest WoW yet…

I did enjoy Gilly in this episode, being so bossy with Pyp in her resolve to get back in and so adamant about Sam staying with her, “You won’t matter up there. You will down here!” She showed more moxie than we’ve seen from her to date. She and Sam were equal in their resolve to keep the other alive and it was a sweet sight to see. I did have a moment of worry when Janos Slint showed up in the meat locker, like he’d victimize Gilly or that he had in some way and she’d fought him off with how aggressively she greeted Sam before she knew it was him. But he was still hiding away. I found that gratifying, knowing Gilly was ready to fight back. Considering the life she led under her fatherhusband, any second of autonomy from Gilly makes me insanely happy.

I do feel for Ygritte. She did love Jon Snow (it was mutual), but they were on opposing sides and neither of them would bend. I can’t blame her for killing Pyp. My beef with Ygritte is not her slaughtering Crows. I can see the reasoning behind it. I just don’t get the wildlings (and her, with no qualms) also murdering innocent villagers and prostitutes (Seriously, don’t prostitutes have it hard enough in this show? Must they be killed violently, too?). I don’t know if, if Olly hadn’t killed her first, she’d have killed Jon. And I seriously don’t know if I’d have wanted her to switch sides for loooove and all that. The Wildlings and The Night’s Watch have legitimate reasons to fight each other. It’s just a tough position to be in and I have sympathy for her… when she’s not slaughtering poor farmers.

Failing The Bechdel Test….

I knew this day would come. I hated the idea that a show I admired so much with so many strong and fully realized female characters would fail. But the criteria is for two named female characters to talk about anything that isn’t a man and our measly two females were never in the same general area. So you FAIL, Show. You’ve broken my heart!

Other Notes…

I saw a few complaints about this episode staying locked in the North, but I think it was necessary for such an involved battle. It would lose the feeling of immediacy if the episode were to break up the battle to travel all over Westeros.

LOVED the mammoths, hated the giants. It’s a shame as they do a great job with the dragons and the other fantasy CGI elements are usually so understated. But the giants looked so obviously animated that it pulled me out of the moment.

I really do enjoy what little we see of Aemon Targaryen. There’s this part of me that responds to humility in a person. The fact that he could have been king and refused the privilege and chose to serve as a Maester at The Wall has me predisposed to like him. Also I might have a thing for Magical Old People. As a child, I decided that the elderly were all good and just and damned near psychic in their wisdom. Despite most of the elderly I meet defying that description, I still desperately want them all to be magically wise in TV and Movies. So I just sit up a little straighter and listen a little closer when Measter Aemon has a line, and he doesn’t disappoint.

Fangasms…

RIP Grenn. You were second only to Sam in my affections, among the Jon Snow posse. Book Grenn is still alive and kicking, but I have to think it won’t be for long or his role can’t be pivotal if they were able to off Show Grenn with without GRRM protesting. At least he got a crowning moment of awesome before the end. Also Pyp died. I wasn’t quite as heartbroken about that.

I might think the giants looked phony, but I squealed in bloodthirsty glee at that one giant’s arrow smashing the wood and spearing the guard. Damn!

I liked the Night’s Watch kitchen staff fighting back, too. Stew in the face is no sword through the mouth, but I’ll take it!

That 360 shot, the upper levels, lower levels, the way every bit of screen had a fight of its own was just… If I could marry a moment and have its perfectly choreographed babies, I would choose this moment. It was so cool, you guys!

Next up: The Children

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