Game of Thrones, Season 7

There was actually a lot of plot development relative to previous episodes.

 

I think the scene between Olenna Tyrell and Jaime was one of the most epic of the season so far. The revelation to Jaime that Tyrion didn't kill Joffery but it was at her behest was powerful.

Of course everyone was creaming over the meeting of Daeny and Jon Snow which was 20 years coming, but really it was the closing scene that left a mark on me.

 

See, I thought it was the daughter poisoning scene.

 

I was about to bring that up too. Really the thing that was supposed to be the biggest moment got relegated to the third biggest moment of the episode.

 

I'm no acting critic. Yeah, the actor who plays Bran can be wooden.

But I've got no issues with the actors who play Jon Snow and Dany.

Perhaps they're not Streep, but they never take me out of the story.

I thought the scene where they first meet was great. Though Dinklage had a lot to offer.

 

Agreed. I was a little surprised that multiple people on here were going after their acting. I don't think they are going to win any awards, but I've always felt like they do a good job of representing two pretty dynamic characters. Perhaps in comparison to some of the other outstanding performances on the show (I'm thinking Dinklage and Rigg here) they don't look as strong, but they've never ruined an episode for me.

Bran, on the other hand ... dammit I hate that he isn't lost on the other side of the wall anymore. That was one loose end I was content to see remain loose.

 

Yeah, Bran is just a different level of "not interesting" right now. I'm sure he has a big role to play in the endgame, but any time with him feels wasted right now.

I'd add Lena Headey to your list of MVP performances. Coster-Waldau is up there, too. Between those two, Dinklage and Charles Dance, the show really hit it out of the park with the Lannisters.

 

Here's a detail I didn't pick up on, from The Ringer's "Ask the Maester:"

Emily asks, “Is Petyr Baelish going to try to kill Sansa? Baelish did a double-take when the maester was like, ‘Maester Luwin kept detailed records and copies of every raven scroll,’ so that has to mean … something.”

I loved this moment. I doubt that Baelish would try to out-and-out murder Sansa. He does love her, in his own hideous way. More than that, though, he values her as a potential piece in the great game. When Jon placed the North under Sansa’s command, Ned Stark’s once naive, star-struck daughter became, at a stroke, one of the most powerful people in Westeros. The Northern houses will take their lead from her, as will the knights of the Vale. The Free Folk are a wild card, it’s true. But they’re also the smallest and least disciplined fighting force in the region. It’s been an incredible rise for Sansa.

So what could Luwin have made a copy of that might make Baelish nervous? Luwin was long deceased by the time Littlefinger struck the deal that handed Sansa over to the Boltons, so it can’t be that. I have an idea that kind of ties in with some out-of-show speculation we’ve seen recently. It’s kind of a spoiler, so be warned.

So many murders and betrayals and plots have been unfurled over the course of the series that it’s easy to lose track of them. One of the earliest unanswered questions: Who ordered the Season 1 hit on Bran Stark’s life? Gods, that was so many lifetimes ago:

Recall that the unnamed assassin was wielding a Valyrian steel dagger, commonly referred to by fans as “the catspaw blade.” It is, obviously, a ridiculously expensive, rare, and high-profile weapon for a simple knifeman to be carrying. (This raises the interesting question of leverage — what did whoever hired the catspaw have over him? Why didn’t the button man simply forget about the hit and sell the dagger?) Whoever ordered the hit wanted ownership of the blade to be easily traceable. Catelyn, who already believed the Lannisters had something to do with Bran’s fall from the tower, traveled, with the blade, to King’s Landing to warn Ned that something nefarious was afoot. When Littlefinger sees it, he says that it once belonged to him … but that he lost it in a wager to Tyrion Lannister. Knowing Baelish’s strategy — create chaos, climb the ladder — it’s possible to infer that he was continuing his efforts to set the Starks and the Lannisters at each other’s throats. Now, in the books, it’s suggested that Joffrey ordered the murder because he thought it would impress Robert. This may or may not be the case. But I’ll bet that the theoretical scroll in question (Sansa can be seen reading a scroll with a cryptic look on her face in the trailer for the next episode) links Littlefinger to the assassin. I’d further wage my full stack of silver stags that Arya, who’s seen carrying the dagger on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, is how Baelish gets paid back in kind.

Ask the Maester: Where Did Euron Greyjoy Come From?

 

The level of detail that the two of them have on the Ringer's Binge Mode podcast is crazy.

 

I'll occasionally read a baseball or football story on The Ringer, but Jason Concepcion's "Ask the Maester" is the only thing I seek out on that site.

 

That is excellent. It makes a lot of sense and I really do hope it plays out that way.