“A Man Without Honour” (Season 2 | Episode 7)

Game of Thrones took a different approach to it’s storytelling this week, leaving battles, riots and fights in the back seat and choosing to focus on some great individual scenes between characters instead. From Jon & Ygritte up in the North to Daenerys & Jorah over in Qarth, this episode was glistening with some amazing one-on-one conversations.

Tywin and Arya were once again a cut above the rest, despite the stiff competition. There’s something about the contrast and chemistry between these two on screen that makes their situation so enthralling to watch. Arya is now pushing the boundaries as Tywin’s servant, revealing more and more about her fictional past is a risky game to play, especially with someone so perceptive.

Like Tywin said “You’re too clever for your own good”, he’s not wrong and every time Arya displays a knowledge of history or other cultures she takes a step closer to revealing her true identity. It’s almost as if Tywin is playing a subtle game of guess who, narrowing down the field of possible answers with every question he challenges Arya with. Sooner or later she’s going to run out of red herrings to feed her intellectual master, will that be the moment she cashes in her third target for Jaqen H’ghar?

Meanwhile the search for Daenaery’s dragons has gained her an invitation to the, aptly named by its god-knows-how-old leader, House of the Undying. It’s not all bad news for Dany though, at least she has Jorah back at her side and it seems she has an ally hiding behind that sequined mask. We saw the only real bit of bloodshed when Qarth’s leaders went from 13 to 2. It was a big surprise to see these leaders being executed so swiftly and without any sense of remorse, Pyat Pree has gone from magician to murderer in a matter of days.

We didn’t see too much of Tyrion this week, which is always a shame, but what we did see was filled with class from start to finish. Cersei was incredibly open when talking about Jaime and her love for him since a young age, knowing that Tyrion is more than intelligent enough to figure out what’s going on must have been her reasoning for being so open. It was quite a touching moment for the two siblings and both actors performed well. Something must have gotten into Cersei because she was quite honest and open with Sansa as well. Poor Sansa, now she’s old enough to bare children her future is going to get even uglier – especially if a few Joffrey juniors start popping out of her, the horror. It’s probably going to rip through her like the creature bursting out of that guy’s chest in Alien.

The other half of the Lannister ‘twincest’ made a return to our screens; I’d forgotten just how dominating Jaime is when vocally duelling with his enemies. He commands each scene with so much charisma, humour and harsh logic, he’s relentless in alienating those around him and loves to stir up trouble wherever possible. His comments about Brienne were both cruel and hilarious. How much longer he’s going to stay alive is questionable, there’s a big queue of knights and warriors waiting to slay him and they’re growing impatient.

Ygritte is fast becoming one of my favourite characters. Dragging Jon around the mountains whilst mocking him was brilliant, the majority of it was an immature taunt about his “experiences” but she did make a good point about the wildlings and the history of the North. Snow looked lost for words when she said “why are you fighting us then?”, Ygritte has clearly planted a seed of doubt in his mind about his role beyond the wall, will this grow into anything more now that he’s been captured?

What let the episode down slightly for me was it’s final scene. Theon presenting the burn carcases of what were supposedly Bran and the other boy was pretty pointless. It’s beyond obvious that they’re not dead; no important character is ever dead unless you see it happen. This was quite clearly a stunt by Theon to shock the people of Winterfell into truly fearing him and not just taking him for the brat with a battalion that he’s become.

9/10

Scene of the Episode | Mutten – An amazing week of one-on-one interactions across the map but yet again Arya and Tywin were setting the pace. There’s something amazing about this pair up, they are opposite in every way – age, sex, status, yet they manage to interact on an equal playing field.

Reviewed by Rich Jepson, cult TV enthusiast and author of 24: Terrorism Through Television.