Sons of the Harpy: Episode 5:04 Review

No real spoilers if you are caught up on the show

Faith Militant 

Cersei, Cersei, Cersei. Oh, the things you aren’t grasping… How wise is it for an incestuous mother of the king who was complicit in her husband the king’s death to ARM people who are going to go after sinners? Can you REALLY believe that isn’t going to come back to bite you?

Lancel, newly branded as a zealot

That said, this religious war in Westeros is very promising for being HUGE. We’ve already had R’hollor and his thirst for burning people. Melissandre has been everyone’s favorite naked zealot. Now the seven are being armed. The drowned god wants everyone drowned because what is dead may never die… The god, Death, has his own team of assassins and Arya is becoming one. All we need now is for the Old Gods to rise (or is that the white walkers?). Seriously, hard as it is to watch poor Loras dragged off, I am loving this line because it suggests so strongly that Cersei is biting off more than she can chew. Sidenote: sending Mace Tyrell to Bravos with Meryn Trant. Gee… who ELSE is in Bravos? Somebody who maybe has Meryn Trant on a certain list…

Stumpy and Grumpy Take Dorne… or Something 

Jaime and Bronn arrive and I thought their interactions were great. I loved the spear through the snake right next to Jaime’s head and the battle right off the bat with the excellent save Jaime makes catching the sword with his golden hand. The sand snakes however, are coming up short for me. I feel like 1) they are trying too hard and 2) they aren’t clearly enough distinguished. I think I would have preferred to meet them one at a time. This isn’t really spoilery to say in the books they are all badass but they are very distinct.

C’mon Jon, Let’s Make a Shadow Baby 

Erm… yeahnothanks. I sort of figured this was coming, Mel’s none-too-subtle offer. Glad Jon resisted. What I LOVED at the wall was the Stannis/Shireen interaction. That poor little girl. I’ve always liked her—love the actress who portrays her. But the brilliant surprise was learning Stannis feels responsible for the Greyscale and fought for her when she got it. Also… erm… greyscale has been mentioned EVERY episode. Something BIG is going to happen regarding greyscale this season. There is no way it’s not. I predict a primary character is going to get it.

 War in Mireen

Oh, man, things just got really ugly, eh? And two deaths I didn’t expect… well one I sort of did from trailers, but poor Dany is now ALONE other than Daario (and how reliable IS Daario?). Thank goodness Jorah and Tyrion are on their way back to her! (LOVED how Tyrion totally filled in all the blanks about Jorah—too accurately for Jorah’s comfort).

Lyanna Stark as depicted by Riavel

My FAVORITE BIT

We got two versions of the Rhaegar/Lyanna story. Petyr Baelish tells Sansa of the Tournament at Harrenhall where Rhaegar won, bypassed his wife and crowned Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty with a crown of blue roses. (really pissed off Robert to whom she was promised and set off the war that overthrew Mad Aerys). Hint: this backstory would NOT have been hit so heavily if it were not important to future story. I’m just sayin… I’m thrilled they are bringing this out so explicitly.


Overall I thought the episode lacked some of the umph of the last one. Maybe because it was about 8 minutes short and I felt temporally cheated, because looking at recaps it had some good stuff, but when it ended last night all I could think was "was that it?" I DO tend to feel cheated when I don't get any Arya...

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