In-depth analysis and an ultimate rating out of ten, as you’ll find in my review of the latest Game of Thrones, is all very well, but can a single number rating really convey everything you need to know? At times like this one must envy sportswriters – not that it’s not a skilled profession, but they have the final score provided for them, and then the rest is basically colour.
TV shows don’t work on a single axis like that, it’s not a binary state where they have or haven’t scored a goal. Insofar as they have goals, it’s to entertain, and each show will have its specific charms to that end. The Walking Dead has dead people walking around, That ‘70s Show took place in the 1970s, and Game of Thrones is full of violence, nudity, and dragons – so it seems only fair to judge it on that basis.
Killings
Six of Euron’s crewmen – one being a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo from Rob McElhenney, aka Mac from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia – bite it in Theon’s daring commando raid to rescue Yara. Several, including McElhenney, are shot through the eyes, which earns them the ‘Moe Green special’ bonus, even if this is with arrows rather than bullets.
Little Lord Umber chalks up an impressive x2 modifier by getting done in by the army of the dead, then killed again when he comes back as a wight – and surely earns extra points for the jumpscare of reanimating when Tormund’s got his back turned.
Depending on your feelings on animal rights, you can also count the dragons scoffing their way through most of the North’s remaining livestock (“Eighteen goats and eleven sheep”/“The dragons have barely eaten!”). Here’s hoping for their sake that frozen zombie is palatable.
Honestly, not an overly bloody episode – by Thrones standards, it’s practically pacifistic. It’s very likely the calm before the storm, but if you don’t count the animals, this is a single-figure bodycount. Very surprising both from Thrones, and from HBO in general.
Gratuitous sex
We meet back up with Bronn while he’s having a go on three prostitutes at once, but he only gets halfway in before being rudely interrupted, so half a point. This seems mainly to be fulfilling HBO’s quota of naked women per episode – good, reliable work for naked women everywhere – and all this lurid flesh can only do so much to quiet the voice at the back of your mind insisting ‘wait, isn’t he married or something?’
In fact, cock-blocking appears to be the order of the day: Jon and Daenerys’s makeout session out in the snow, which could so easily have moved downtown, is kept in check by Jon having the dragons looking right at him. If you can perform adequately while being stared down by a bloody great fire-breathing lizard, you’re a better man than I.
Offscreen but undeniably there, Euron manages to seal the deal with Cersei – but seems more concerned with how he compares with Robert and Jaime. Cersei seems to have a unique appeal to jolly, roguish, piratey types, since if you’ll remember, back in season 2 Salladhor Saan was mainly invested in besieging King’s Landing in order to get a go on her. (“We’re not attacking King’s Landing so you can rape the Queen!”/”I’m not going to rape her, I’m going to fuck her.”) Is it simply that being the Queen carries a certain sex appeal? I’ve lived my life as a subject of Elizabeth II Regina, and for all Big Liz’s good qualities, I fear not.
Dragons
More gratuitous than the sex this week – and really, why not? TV, film, and of course the internet are all chock-a-block with people having sex, whereas dragons are a great deal rarer.
Daenerys takes Jon for the other sort of ride, in a scene which I described as a lot like the Game of Thrones ride at Alton Towers, and does drag on a bit – alarmingly so when you consider they’ve only got six or seven hours of runtime left and need to fit several set-piece battles in there. Still, the sheer grandiose spectacle of it somehow cuts through all the horrible cynical parts of the brain and strikes at that childlike wonder that all right-minded people feel when it comes to either dragons or flying.
The dragons also get plenty of flybys of Winterfell, to the point everyone’s already getting used to them being there. A couple of people look around, but most just carry on with what they’re doing. Arya’s look of delight at first seeing them is – well, again, it’s the childlike wonder writ large, isn’t it?
No sign, however, of the late Viserion – brought down by an icicle last season and then revivified by the Night’s King, now with the power of ice. For this reason I must rate the dragons at a 2 out of 3, although this is a proportion that famously ain’t bad.
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
