mcnabb

Comparing Joffrey to his brother, is like comparing Darth Vader to Jar Jar Binks. That poor kid is going to get played by every person he deals with it.

Loved the Jaime and Bronn scenes!

flashburn

I'd need to go back and watch it, but it looked like it was 6 Unsullied against like 10-12 Harpy's. Between the numbers, being surrounded, and fighting in a somewhat confined space with spears... I wasn't surprised by the outcome.

Tom Banjo

Or biggest red herring ever.

Hiro11

Another way to interpret this is that in Westros all is not what it seems.

Things I liked in this episode:
Stannis's speech about his daughter. Genuinely moving. Stannis isn't so bad, in some ways.
Scene between Bronn and Jaime on the boat. Bronn is no fool and rightly smells something off in this whole adventure.
Tyrion expertly and immediately deducing who has captured him and why. Tyrion is also no fool.
Cersei's continued arrogance in the face of dwindling power.
Qyburn's continued hilarious reaction shots. The actor playing him is a genius of a sort.
The genuinely disturbing morphing of the Sparrows into the Faith Militant and their summary dismissal of Tommen. Expertly handled montage.

Things I didn't like in this episode (these are all pretty minor):
Melisandre's ham-handed attempt to seduce Jon. WTF.
Littlefinger / Sansa. Maybe this will all become clear once the overall story arc is revealed but Littlefinger is just sort of bumbling around here, he's not the operator we saw revealed in "The Climb".
Bronn / Jaime in Dorne. A boring action scene without much context.
Selmy dying (?) in a random street battle. This guy can't go out like that.
Tommen / Margeary was a little over the top this week for my taste.
The Sand Snakes looking like hold-overs from Xena in a clumsy scene. At least that woman from The Whale Rider is in there as Obara, she's great.

Overall, a great episode. I liked last week a bit more but this was damned good.

dhmac

Cersei is not very smart if she thinks bring back the Faith Militants is a good idea. Arming religious fanatics is a recipe for disaster because they tend to see anyone who doesn't meet their purity standards as an enemy.

Until this episode, I didn't recognize that the Sons of the Harpy are a lot like the 19th century version of the Ku Klux Klan that formed in the American South after the Civil War ended slavery. The original KKK was like a loose insurgence movement that was killing and terrorizing freed slaves while trying to undermine the new government, all while wearing masks to not be recognized. (That original version of the KKK didn't last very long, while the modern version of the Klan only came about decades later, inspired by the movie "Birth of a Nation").

CRM114

Ham handed? I think that move works 99.9% of the time for her. Snow is crazy.

Loved Jamie's new sword fighting technique.

And Sansa got hot all of a sudden.

MrX

I'm guessing Cersei is unintentionally sending Ser Meryn to his death by sending him with Mace since Arya is also in Bravos.

fumanstan

Disappointed in how Grey Worm and Selmy got attacked. Hope neither of them are already gone, didn't like how that story line has played out at all.

Out of curiosity, when Tommen was trying to enter the temple or whatever you here some people yelling things out in the background. Were they throwing insults at the king?

Osiris3657

Yes, everyone knows Tommen is Cersei and Jaime's son, that's why they were calling him bastard and inbred and whatever else.

fumanstan

Cool, that's what I figured but wasn't quite sure.

superdeluxe

I know I have mentioned this once, but I can't wait to see the Queen of Thorns back.

creekdipper

Just selected these two. Really moving scene when the daughter flung herself into Stannis's arms. Agree that the fight in the sand was pretty boring & not- very-well-filmed or choreographed (the Jaime part, anyway). It was funny (but predictable) when the hand came into play & surely read well on paper, but it was a bit over-the-top (the sword removal especially). We laughed, but it threw the atmosphere a bit. And Jaime using the hand as an excuse to get out of burying their victims had already been used earlier.

I know things are building and that Dan & David are merging disparate storylines from two books by incorporating major existing characters into storylines written for others or putting them in new non-book situations...and the pacing is improved, but there still is a lot of random stagnation despite their efforts to pump up the volume with newly-created action scenes. Some big events need to break free in episode five. We're almost halfway through the season & this is what has happened so far:

The Wall: Jon Snow made Lord Commander. Mance & Slynt executed.

Winterfell: Sansa arrives & is engaged to Ramsey Bolton. Littlefinger prepares to depart for King's Landing. Brienne & Pod are hanging around.

Bravos: Arya is sweeping the floor.

King's Landing: Tommen marries Margaery. Cersei tries to recapture her lost power by reducing the Small Council & enlisting the High Sparrow's help to mobilize the Faith Militant. Ser Lorys is arrested.

Dorne: Oberon's mistress, seeking revenge, enlists the aid of the Sand Snakes. Jaime & Bronn land & dispatch a few riders.

Meereen: The Sons of the Harpy are conducting a campaign of sabotage & terror. Dany risks losing the support of the freed slaves. Ser Barriston is (apparently) killed. Ser Jorah abducts Tyrion & is taking a boat ride to meet Dany.

While I love the characters & can be patient waiting for events to develop (and to be surprised by the new events), it just seems that there is room for the criticism heard from some about all of the maneuvering/politicking in Season 2 that kept the story from gelling (although book readers knew where the events were heading). I found some events (Robb's courtship of his wife, whose name I never can remember since I still want to call her Jeyne) to be padding, and some of the events this season still seem that way even though so much extraneous material HAS been cut along with distracting subplots.

I have faith in D & D's ability to ramp up the tension in the next few episodes (and know that supposedly the biggest battles yet are ahead later this season), but still feel that the story has bogged down a little (very true to the spirit of Books 4 & 5)! Considering the sprawl of those books, I'm not complaining overly much since I expect things to get better once characters get together in same locations. Have to remember that the events of two huge books are taking place in this season & that the sprawl is being funneled into these early episodes and will undoubtedly result in a much more focused second half. It's still the must-see event of the week.

More dragons, please.

Good review of the episode: http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/05/...e-harpy-review

lysander

Good call. I didn't make this connection.

Hiro11

Not the move itself, just how it was handled in the story. It seemed like generic fan service.

davidh777

I was OK with it.

superdeluxe

I didn't quite mind it, I just liked it showed how true to his oath Jon is. Its like he is Ned Stark 2.0

Hopefully it doesn't end up killing him.

CRM114

Me too. Melisandre apparently is the only one getting naked any more.

"You know nothing, John Snow." Ain't that the truth.

Josh-da-man

Well, if those spoilers I read pan out, people are going to surprised.

(Vague spoilers)

islandclaws

I thought the Sand Snakes were, you know, actual snakes

Josh-da-man

Did anyone notice that in the title sequence Sunspear was labeled "Dorne?" Dorne is the name of the kingdom; the capital city is called Sunspear. All of the other cities we've been shown are labeled as cities (Winterfell, King's Landing, Pyke, etc.)

B.A.

Best chest in the west.




Too quickly.

I am tired of any and all bullshit dealing w/ Cersei. Just cut her balls off already.

B.A.

Damn straight.

Eric F

The Unsullied are lifelong trained fighters. There's no way they would have been taken down so easily like that by untrained slaves. That made no sense whatsoever.

dhmac

Ever since the Red Wedding had green never-been-in-a-battle Frey men wipe out Robb Stark's war-experienced men who had never lost a battle (even attacked by surprise in their camp, they would've still have a good chance just based on their stronger level of experience), I've decided that the show will depict some confrontations not realistically in order to get the story developed as quickly as possible. (I expect these fight scenes were more believable in the books, but took a lot longer to get to the same outcome.)

DeputyDave

The red wedding battle never bothered me. The Northerners were made very drunk first, while I assumed the Freys were ordered not to drink. Add to that part of the Northern army turning one them (Bolton's men) and complete surprise by a armored and armed foe it made sense.