GAME OF THRONES - TV GUIDE: Matt's TV Week in Review - June 10, 2011
Jun 10, 2011
by Matt Roush
... AUTHOR, AUTHOR: The guiding creative force behind two of cable's most distinctive series — George R.R. Martin, whose sprawling books inspired HBO's wondrous Game of Thrones; and Veena Sud, executive producer of AMC's uneven but moodily intriguing The Killing — penned episodes of their shows this week, which is usually a sign that we should sit up and take notice. Especially with each show nearing its climax, with only two episodes left to air before their June 19 finales...
... Whereas Game of Thrones has never been more on its game than in the mercilessly taut episode written by Martin, setting up the major events to come in the season's final two chapters. Mercy is much on everyone's mind. While Ned Stark sweats it out in prison, visited by the "spider" Verys ("Why is it no one ever trusts the eunuch?"), the rest of the Stark retinue in King's Landing is slaughtered. Scrappy daughter Arya flees for her life, as her dueling instructor heroically holds back assassins with his wooden sword. Big sis Sansa, thwarted from marrying horrible King Joffrey because of Ned's "treason," pleads with the king's court for mercy for her father. Not much luck there yet. Ned's son Robb asserts his authority over the Stark family's bannermen, leading a host into battle against the Lannisters, although allowing a captured enemy scout to go free and raise the war cry. Tough mom Catelyn tells Robb their only hope is to win in the field, because they've lost the game of thrones for now. "If you lose, your father dies. Your sisters die. We die."
Across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys proves to be a most progressive Queen of the Warriors, forbidding the Dothraki horde to rape during their pillage of the lamb people. As she rescues the slave women, Khal Drogo is challenged for showing mercy at the orders of his "foreign whore." Those are fighting words, and Drogo takes the upstart's head off — but not before sustaining a troubling chest wound that Dani insists gets some instant treatment. Things are just as violent up North at the Wall, as Jon Snow (further disgraced as a "traitor's bastard") redeems himself by saving the Lord Commander from an attack by the reanimated zombie corpse brought back from the woods where Uncle Benjen remains MIA. Fire is the weapon of choice here. Fitting enough, because Game of Thrones is on fire...
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