‘Game of Thrones’ Breakdown: “Mockingbird”

WARNING: For the words are dark and full of spoilers…

Season Four, Episode Seven: “Mockingbird”

Written by David Benioff & D.B.Weiss; Directed by Alik Sakharov

This week’s episode of Game of Thrones is heavy, both in tone and in the surprising amount of content packed into the one hour they give us. We don’t spend a great deal of time in any one place, bouncing around through locations in the Known World leaving metaphorical checkmarks by the names of all the characters we haven’t seen for a while, in some cases almost as if just to remind us that they still exist. When we do settle in for a little while, we get some intimate and intensely emotional scenes from more than a few people — Jaime, Sansa, The Hound, Oberyn, Arya, Littlefinger… Tyrion has at least three of these scenes himself. Everyone’s a sap this week, but in a fitting and totally believable way. Let’s talk about it.

Quick Breakdown

First, I’ll start with the bad news: After this week’s episode, Game of Thrones is going to take a short two-week hiatus before airing episode eight of season four. Why? To skip Memorial Day weekend. Two seasons ago, HBO aired season two episode nine (one of the best episodes of the show to date, if you’ll remember) over Memorial Day weekend and received season-low ratings. As a result, they took a two-week break for the holiday last season, and they’re looking to continue the tradition this year. It sucks, but it makes good sense — especially considering what we can expect to unfold in the next episode. Anticipation is already booming, and a two-week break will make that skyrocket.

Speaking of — in my breakdown of last week’s episode, I talked quite a bit about how fired up I was to see the conclusion to Tyrion’s trial by combat; the stakes are high as hell, and it’s sure to be a fight as brutal and surprising as any we’ve seen so far, whomever it may involve. I thought that would come this week, but it didn’t. Instead, this week’s episode took a different path entirely. It traded brutality and high risk for a solemn crescendo of tension, peaking in the last 15 minutes. It was pretty unexpected (at least for me), but it was great nonetheless. From the top…

The episode opens with Tyrion and Jaime sitting together in the dungeon of King’s Landing sometime after the trial. They talk for a while, and each is more open with the other than usual. Jaime tells Tyrion that his outburst was a mistake. “You threw your life away… You threw it away,” he tells him. Tyrion gives Jaime the reason for his soapboxing last episode, and it’s what we all expected to begin with: He felt betrayed over Shae’s testimony. Rightfully so. “I was stupid enough to think she’d fallen in love with me,” he says to his brother.

Tyrion talks to Jaime about the deal that was made with their father Tywin. He tells him that it’s exactly what daddy has always wanted — to have Jaime as his heir in Casterly Rock and to send Tyrion as far away as possible (in this case, to the Wall). “It felt good to take that from him,” Tyrion says. Jaime admits, for the first time to anyone, that he is a terrible fighter using only his left hand. It’s why he cannot serve as Tyrion’s champion in the trial by combat. Tyrion remembers that Bronn fought for him once before (back in season one), and Jaime leaves to summon Bronn to the dungeon.

This is the first of three emotional scenes we get with Tyrion in this episode. Here, it’s clear that Jaime loves his brother, even if nobody else does. His words are sincere, and he shows he’d even be willing to fight as his brother’s champion, if not for the whole hand thing. This is a side of Jaime that, up ‘til now, we’ve only seen glimpses of. He’s got a heart, and he bares the entire thing here for his brother. It’s worth noting that, two seasons ago, this guy was detestable; now he’s one of the more honorable characters left. Crazy how things change, and it reinforces the Game of Thrones standard of truly dynamic characters. No one is exempt, not from death, and not from heroism.

Somewhere else in King’s Landing, we get our first glimpse since season two of The Mountain, and he’s doing what he does best: Killing people. He impales one guy on his sword and hoists him into the air. The next guy he disembowels with one slice to his midsection. The remaining men yield, and he sees this as an opportunity to chop them up like big, human-shaped potatoes. This scene makes it absolutely clear — The Mountain is huge, he is dangerous, and he is merciless.

Cersei approaches The Mountain during his training to remind him that he will serve as the Crown’s champion in Tyrion’s trial by combat. Oh, damn. This is not good for Tyrion. “Who am I fighting?” he asks the Queen Regent. “Does it matter?” she responds. The Mountain shakes his head no and goes back to killing things. For members of Team Tyrion, this is bad news.

Meanwhile, Arya and the Hound are still making their way to the Eyrie, and it’s taking them a long damn time. They stumble upon a small village that’s been pillaged. There’s a lone man left alive, and he’s not in good shape. Arya and the Hound talk to him for a bit, and they end up on the subject of death. The Hound asks him why he’s still fighting to stay alive. “Nothing could be worse than this,” the Hound says to him. “Nothing is worse than this,” he retorts. Arya looks at him for a moment before getting really existential with the guy. “Nothing isn’t better or worse than anything. Nothing is just… Nothing.” The Hound ends the man’s suffering with a dagger to the heart, and they exchange a thank-you glance.

Soon after, The Hound is ambushed by bounty hunters. One man jumps on the Hound’s back and bites him before being thrown off and having his neck snapped. The other stands back awkwardly wielding a sword. He tells the two of King Joffrey’s death and the bounty on the Hound’s head for killing Lannister soldiers. Ayra recognizes him as one of the men she freed from a cage on her way to the wall in season two. Back then, he had some… ahem… choice words for her. They’re not friends.

“He on your little list?” The Hound asks her. He can’t be, she says, because she doesn’t know his name. He tells her (that’s a mistake). “Thank you,” she says, quickly pulling Needle from its sheath and stabbing him in the heart, just as the Hound had done to the dying man before. Together, these two scenes provide an interesting juxtaposition. Two kills in a short time frame, using the same method, but with totally different motives. One is merciful; the other is revenge.

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Later, the Hound rests to tend to his wound. Arya recommends cleansing it with fire, but the Hound refuses. He tells her the story of his burn marks, how his brother pushed his face into a fire when they were younger because he was using his brother’s toy. He told her about how his father protected his brother, the older son, and how betrayed he felt by that. It’s a tender moment for a character with a pretty bleak worldview. With all he does to survive, it’s easy to forget that the Hound is still human. He takes this scene to remind Arya, and all of us, of that.

The next of Tyrion’s scenes comes when Bronn decides to visit him in the dungeon. He’s dressed differently than we’re used to. Tyrion asks about his new clothes, and Bronn responds that he is getting married soon. He’s been arranged to marry a Stokeworth daughter at the hand of Cersei, who no doubt wants to keep him from fighting as Tyrion’s champion. Not surprisingly, it works. “You and my sister deserve each other,” Tyrion tells him.

It’s clear though that Bronn, despite being a sellsword, still cares for Tyrion, even if he won’t fight for him. “I’m your friend,” he tells Tyrion. “And when have you ever risked your life for me?” Tyrion handles this news with a lot of courage. He shakes Bronn’s hand and wishes him well. “I suppose I’ll have to kill the Mountain myself,” he jokes with Bronn. “Won’t that make for a great song?”

“I hope to hear them sing it one day,” Bronn responds.

Over in Meereen, Daario continues trying to charm Daenerys. He sneaks into her private chambers with some more flowers. The bouquet worked the first time around, but it isn’t as successful in this episode. She dismisses his flowers promptly. He takes the time, then, to ask Dany for a reassignment of duties for he and his Second Sons. Currently, they’re patrolling the streets of Meereen, looking for betrayers of Dany’s cause. Glorified security guards, really. Daario argues that his gift is killing, and begs that he be send somewhere that allows him to do what he does best. She’s impressed by this, apparently, and instructs him to undress. “Do what you do best,” she says. “Take off your clothes.”

Jorah visits Dany the next morning. He learns there that Daario and his men are being sent to Yunkai to retake the city and execute the slave masters. He begs her to reconsider, hoping that the masters may be able to rehabilitate themselves. He too once sold people into slavery, and, had he been executed instead of fleeing Westeros, he wouldn’t be at her disposal now. She understands his stance and sends word to Daario that the masters be given a chance to live new lives under her reign. “They can live in my new world or they can die in their old one,” she tells Jorah.

There are a few characters that we visit throughout the course of the episode very briefly and seemingly only to remind us that they exist. These scenes are OK on their own, but in the scope of an episode that is otherwise very solemn and emotional, they feel like filler.

One of those characters is Jon Snow, who is usually pretty compelling. We spend next to no time with him, in this case. He returns to Castle Black from Craster’s Keep where, if you’ll remember, he and his men killed the mutineers a couple episodes ago. Jon is alive, much to the dismay of Ser Allister, and he’s brought his direwolf Ghost with him. Ser Allister doesn’t like this, so he commands Jon to take Ghost somewhere else and cage him.

Later, Jon suggests before the council that they barricade the tunnel leading north of the Wall and cease their ranging efforts. Jon seems to be the only one who recognizes the danger of the Wildling army, as no one seems to agree with him. Instead, they decide against his advice, which leaves the Wall more exposed to an inevitable attack in the coming episodes. Good job, everyone but Jon Snow.

These short and mostly uneventful scenes serve only one purpose: to jog our memory. Something is about to happen at the Wall (it’s been building throughout the last two seasons), and before it does, we obviously need to be reminded that Jon is at Castle Black, that he’s got major beef with Ser Allister, and that he had a little vacation with the Wildlings for a while last season. Those things are all likely to play a part in whatever happens at the Wall before the season’s end.

Another character that we seemingly visit for no other reason than just to remind us that she’s there: Melisandre, the red woman that birthed a creepy smoke monster in a cave a while back. She’s taking a bath alone, until she’s interrupted by Selyse, Stannis’ wife. They have a brief conversation about Stannis’ daughter, who Selyse insists should not go with them when they travel North. Melisandre says that it is in the Lord of Light’s plan and that she must travel with them, no matter how dangerous. Selyse begrudgingly agrees, as she is clearly trying very hard to submit herself to this whole Lord of Light business.

Stannis’ story arc has been mostly neglected this season, but what we’ve seen has been rather compelling. He’s an intriguing person with a legitimate case for the Iron Throne, and Ser Davos serves as a great complementary character to his austere attitude. Melisandre, however, has never seemed all that appealing. She’s trouble. Expect her short appearance this episode and her short conversation with Selyse to precede a larger role in the last three episodes of the season.

Tyrion’s third and final visit this episode is by far the most emotional. It’s from Prince Oberyn. The two exchange pleasantries (turns out the share common interests — mainly brothels) and eventually turn to the subject of Cersei. Oberyn admits that she had spoken to him earlier in an effort to turn him against Tyrion, and that her deceit seemed particularly sincere. “Making honest feelings do dishonest work is one of her many gifts,” Tyrion tells him.

It’s then that Oberyn reveals that he had met Tyrion once before, when Tyrion was a baby. Oberyn paid a visit to Casterly Rock once when he was younger. There he participated in a lot of the area’s customs, and met many of its people — especially the Lannisters. He confesses to hearing many rumors about Tyrion — that his head was twice as big as his body, that he had a tail, and claws… He’d been made to believe that Tyrion was a monster. Oberyn then reveals that he was disappointed to finally see Tyrion who, aside from a few differences, looks mostly like a normal child. “That’s not a monster… That’s just a baby,” he recalls saying.

He remembers a lot of what Cersei said then, too. That Tyrion had killed her mother, whom she adored, during childbirth. That she hoped he would die soon. Throughout their conversation, it becomes more and more clear that Cersei’s hatred for Tyrion isn’t a recent development — it’s been around since he was born, and it’s no fault of his. It’s an incredibly powerful scene and, by the end of it all, both men are teary-eyed.

Eventually, Oberyn offers himself as Tyrion’s champion in his trial by combat, using it as both an opportunity to honor this person seen as a monster and at the same time seek revenge against the Mountain, who raped and killed his sister during the Sack of King’s Landing. Just like that, the battle is set — Prince Oberyn against the Mountain. Clearly, there are no weight classes in Westeros.

Somewhere in the Riverlands, Brienne and Podrick continue their search for Sansa Stark. They stop for a meal at an inn, where they’re served kidney pie by fan-favorite Hot Pie. He’s a talker. He yaps for a long time about how to make the perfect pie. Brienne, sufficiently annoyed, decides to see if his constant talking could prove useful — she asks him if he’s seen Sansa Stark. He gets real awkward real quick; he starts sweating (even more than he was already), stammers something, and excuses himself. Real subtle, Hot Pie.

Later, as Brienne and Pod are leaving, Hot Pie catches up with them. He tells them that Arya is still alive, and that she’s with the Hound, and he even gives them some more wolf-shaped bread to give to Arya in case they find her. Podrick uses his extensive knowledge of Westeros history and family lineages to deduce that the Hound will be taking Arya to the Eryie, and that Sansa might be there too. With some hesitation, they reroute their destination to the Vale.

Speaking of — The Vale is where we spend the last 15 or so minutes of this week’s episode. We catch up with Sansa, who is build a snow castle in the shape of Winterfell. She’s nearly finished (and it is surprisingly accurate, and very detailed) when she’s interrupted by Robin, who still can’t stop talking about the Moon Door. He decides to add a Moon Door to Sansa’s version of Winterfell and, in doing so, knocks over a couple of her buildings. Sansa gets mad, and he gets defensive, which ultimately results in Robin kicking over the entirely of Sansa’s work, both physically and metaphorically breaking down her remaining memories of what used to be home. In a fit of rage, she slaps him, and he gets even angrier and runs off, presumably to tell his mother Lysa.

Suddenly, here comes Petyr Baelish to the rescue. He assures her that she won’t be in trouble, saying that she did what Robin’s mother should’ve done years ago. Eventually, Sansa asks Petyr why he killed Joffrey. Without hesitation, he references Catelyn (who he is obsessed with) and her death at the Red Wedding, saying, “Given the opportunity, what do we do to those who’ve hurt the ones we love?” For the first time in a while, Sansa seems to smile.

That smile fades quickly, though, when he follows that up with this: “In a better world, one where love can overcome strength and duty, you might’ve been my child.” Petyr Baelish, turning the creepy-dial up to eleven. After that, in what must be an audition for an episode on the next running of To Catch a Predator, Petyr leans in to passionately kiss — yes, kiss — Sansa, saying, “you’re more beautiful than she ever was,” again in reference to Catelyn. This poor girl cannot catch a break. Lysa, watching from the balcony sees this smooch and, as you might imagine, she isn’t happy.

Later, Lysa calls Sansa into the Eyrie’s throne room for a meeting. When she arrives, Lysa is standing alone looking through the open Moon Door. I know I’m a little late in saying it, but this woman has issues. Sansa approaches her immediately, which is admittedly a dumb thing to do. Lysa tells her she saw the kiss, calls her a “little whore,” and grabs Sansa, hanging her violently over the Moon Door. “My father, my husband, my sister, they all stood between us and now they’re all dead,” Lysa says. “That’s what happens to people who stand between Petyr and me.” Yeah… She needs help.

Petyr comes in, yet again, to save Sansa and provide Lysa some relief. His methods this time, however, are totally unexpected. After a while, he convinces the woman to let Sansa go. He then embraces his wife, reassuring her of his dedication. Trouble is, that dedication isn’t to her. “I have only loved one woman… One my entire life,” he tells her. “Your sister.” Her face contorts into the shape of heartbreak, and he, without a bit of pause, pushes Lysa through the Moon Door. And, with that, the episode ends, Lysa finally gets some relief from her mental sufferings, and Petyr Baelish proves — yet again — just how far he’s willing to go to get what he wants.

Rating

A-

What we got with this week’s episode was not at all what I expected to see, but in many ways it was better. After the intense episode from last week that sent emotions surging, we needed a moment to rest, regroup with our thoughts, and come back for episode eight’s incredible showdown. This week gave us that, and it did it with an offering that was darker in tone, but still fit within the various story arcs that we’re accustomed to visiting. This episode focused more on slower, subtle character development. Two weeks from now, maybe we’ll watch some of them die.

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