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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Game of Thrones Season 2 Episode 5 - "The Ghost of Harrenhal"


If you plan to watch this episode, do not read the following article until you have watched it. Ok realistically I can’t stop you, but there are SPOILERS below. You have been warned.

This episode wastes no time getting right into the action. Renly is found talking to Catelyn and out of nowhere the shadow child that Melisandre produced creeps up behind him and stabs him. I almost paused the scene to take in what just happened. This is a huge death that will cause Stannis to control all of Renly’s army (the largest army) and have the upper hand to gain the crown. This shadow that Melisandre (maybe Stannis too) controls is basically like cheating, since I see no way of it ever being destroyed, thus there being no way for Stannis to lose. From here on out I think Stannis will be leading his army to King’s Landing and will take over the throne. After that, one of two things can happen, either he becomes king (hopefully this is good for our friends from Winterfell) or Melisandre instructs the shadow to kill Stannis and she becomes the leader and attempts to convert everyone to witchism. Then again this is the Game of Thrones so I likely have no idea what I’m talking about. The CGI for the shadow is very well done, but I don’t like that fact that we know very little about this shadow. Hopefully the show will give us some background in the next few episodes. As a cause of this death, Brienne (who completely destroys two guards) and Catelyn runaway from Renyl’s people and Brienne offers to serve Carelyn. I thought this scene was really well done, as you could feel the emotions of both characters. Brienne is becoming a very cool character and may help out the northerners, who are under attack from the Greyjoy family.

The news travels to King’s Landing where the Lannister family tension continues. Cersei claims that Joffrey has a plan against the future attack, so Tyrion decides to keep black-mailing Loras to find out what the plan is. Apparently, the plan is to throw bowls of wildfire, which can burn through almost anything, at the intruders. Tyrion commands the Pyromancer to stop making the wildfire for Cersei (over 7000 jars already made) and starts making it for him. I don’t really know what Tyrion could be planning here. Could he be using it as a threat against Joffrey? I mean even the whole plan of using wildfire seems like, as Bronn put it, “a shit idea” to me, especially when they see that they’re dealing with a shadow. However, there is no need to ever doubt Tyrion, since he always knows what he’s doing.

The story with Daenerys progresses much more this episode. Last we left the Dothraki and their Khaleesi they were welcomed (not so kindly) to the city of Qarth. We finally get a look inside Qarth and it really is a beautiful and wealthy place. She gets invited to a welcome party hosted by Xaro (the guy who let her into Qarth) which causes many events to happen. First we see the dragons (maybe they heard that we wanted to see them!), then her Dothraki crew tried to steal a golden statue (hilarious scene), a weird old man pulled of Tien Shinhan’s (from dragon ball z) multi-form move, a woman who’s face is covered in gold (very creepy) tells Ser Jorah to watch for Daenerys, and Xaro asks Daenerys to marry him. Wait, he’s already proposing and they’ve just met, I mean it’s ok because he’s offering her some gold right? Anyways he says that she can keep half the gold in this secret vault and that he will help her regain power to the throne if they marry. He also claims that Ser Jorah is in love with her, which Daenerys denies. Later on Daenerys talks about the new plan with Ser Jorah, but he rejects it and says he will get her a ship and a captain. What would you do in this situation if you were Daenerys? On one hand, Xaro will probably help you a lot in your quest to the throne, but the downside is the marriage, since she never gets to choose who she marries and someone who has power and beauty like her should be able to choose whoever she wants. Ser Jorah might be telling you the best advice, but maybe Xaro is right and Ser Jorah is actually in love with Daenerys and is only doing this to keep her from marrying Xaro. Difficult situation the mother of dragons has gotten herself into, but hopefully she makes the correct choice.

In other areas of the world, the Knight’s Watch has progressed further beyond the wall and Jon Snow has become a temporary ranger. Bran’s dreams might actually be an ability to see into the future. Arya has started serving under Tywin, which set up some good dialogue between the two. She encounters one of the prisoners she freed in the previous episode (Jaqen H'ghar) and he promises to kill any three people who she names, because she “stole” three deaths from the Red God by letting the three prisoners go. She first names the torturer (who gets killed at the end of the episode) and my guess for the next two names would be Cersei and Joffrey.

I’m going to be adding a new segment to my articles called…the Tyrion Quote of the Episode! This week’s quote:
“Being repeatedly humiliated by Robb Stark is time consuming”

And that ends this week’s review. Hope you enjoyed the episode (I really did) and my review, until next time.

Episode Rating: 9.2/10

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