Ep 4.10 "The Children"

QUICKLOOK:  The Night’s Watch gets saved, but Dany must chain her dragons and even the privy is dangerous in a Game of Thrones.

It’s already time for the season finale and I’m sure this episode will leave us clamoring for more during the next year, but that’s why we love it!  This episode was jam-packed with surprises, deaths and the beginnings of new adventures for a few characters.

Jon walks through the destruction from the night before towards the Wildling camp.  I’m really not sure why he didn’t at least take Ghost with him, but if he’s bargaining a huge direwolf could send the wrong message.  When he gets close to the camp, the wildlings surround him, but he shows he is unarmed.  Mance appears and Jon tells him he is there to negotiate with him.  He decides to hear Jon out and they go in his tent.  Mance laments that he had hoped Jon’s oath to him and the wildling army had been real, but Jon tells him he was always loyal to the Night’s Watch and was simply getting information to help his brothers when the war finally came.  Mance asks if Jon ever really loved Ygritte.  He says he did and tells Mance she is dead, but that he did not kill her.  Mance offers him a drink and Jon hesitates at first, but Mance says if he killed him poison would be the last weapon he would use.  They drink to Ygritte as well as Mag (? think that’s the name he said) the giant.  Who was a king among his people and the last living member of a great family.  Mance tells Jon he knows the brothers don’t have much to fight with, but he was impressed by how they fought the night before.  However, he sent 400 men five miles north to climb the wall and they will be over it by nightfall.  He declares that the wildlings are not there to conquer anyone they want refuge from the white walkers just like anyone else.  He warns Jon he will do anything to get his people through the tunnel under the Wall.  Jon pulls a weapon and Mance’s guards pull theirs.  Mance concedes that Jon could probably kill him, but Mance’s men would still take him and give him a slow painful death.  He knows that Jon already knew that and was prepared for it anyway.  Then horns are ringing out of nowhere.  Mance thinks it’s the Night’s Watch, but Jon tells him they don’t have enough men to attack them out if the open.  They leave the tent and go out into the chaos where they are being surrounded on both sides by soldiers.  Stannis Baratheon has come to save the Night’s Watch.  Jon and Mance both seem equally surprised.  Mance tells his men to stand down, as he wants no more wildlings to die.  Stannis demands that Mance bend the knee to him, but he will not because Stannis is not his king and he doesn’t live in the Seven Kingdoms.  He does however surrender his weapons.  Jon introduces himself to Stannis and tells him he is Ed Starks son and that he knows who Stannis is because his father died for him.  Stannis tells Jon his father was an honorable man and asks what Jon thinks he would do with Mance Rayder.  Jon informs Stannis that he was a captive of Mance’s and he treated him with kindness so he thinks (and his dad would too) they should take Mance prisoner.  Jon also tells Stannis that he must burn all of the dead on both sides by nightfall.

Apparently the wounds the Mountain suffered in his fight with Oberyn are substantial.  Maester Pycelle concludes that he has been poisoned with manticore venom.  Score for Oberyn even after death!  Pycelle says the Mountain will die, but Qyburn believes he can be saved.  He wants to bleed him.  Pycelle objects, but Cersei throws him out of his own chambers and tells Qyburn to do it.  Afterwards, Cersei goes to her father and refuses to marry Loras Tyrell.  Tywin argues that Jaime cannot get married and father children and Tyrion is about to die.  The Lannisters need more heirs and she is the only hope of that happening.  She continues to refuse.  She does not want to be shipped off to Highgarden to leave her only remaining son in the clutches of Margaery and her father to manipulate and try to control him to the point of pulling him apart.  I respect Cersei for that, though I think her motives are still to place herself as Queen Regent and really more concerned with losing her own power.  I’ll kind of give her the benefit of the doubt as I’m feeling a little generous this episode.  She confesses that during the Battle of Blackwater she almost gave Tommen essence of nightshade because she thought they were losing and did not want to be killed by their enemies, but then her father came through the door.  She will do anything to protect her son.  If she has to, she will even reveal the truth to the Seven Kingdoms.  Tywin asks her what truth that is and she can’t believe he is so ignorant that she and Jaime have been sleeping together and that the allegations are correct in that all of her children are fathered by Jaime.  He doesn’t want to believe it.  She then goes to Jaime and tells him she wants to be with him and she told their father the truth about their relationship.  She kisses and gives herself to him.  I think she’s manipulating Jaime, because that is really all she knows how to do and she does not love him the way she says she does.

A man comes to see Dany and asks to be sold back to his master.  He lived in better conditions under his master as a tutor to his children and doesn’t want to live in the barracks Dany has made available to the freed slaves.  He informs her that there are other slaves who feel the same way.  She tells him she will not put people back into slavery, but she will accept a contract between he and his master that is no longer than one year.  Ser Barristan tells her the master’s will take advantage of this.  Another supplicant approaches with a bundle in his arms.  He is carrying his dead child who he claims was killed by one of the dragons.  He shows her the burned remnants of the child who was only three years old.  Dany makes a tough choice and decides she must lock up and chain her dragons, but she can only lock up Viscerion and Rhaegal as Drogon is missing.  She lures them into the catacombs and chains them up and leaves.  They are of course upset and cry out as children would.  I did not like that part, though I realize you can’t have dragons going around killing babies.

Back at the Wall, Maester Aemon performs funeral rites for the fallen brothers and they burn the bodies.  Jon sees Melisandre through the flames.  He goes to visit Tormund and tells him they are going to burn the dead wildlings so they don’t come back as white walkers.  Tormund asks if Jon loved Ygritte and says she definitely love him.  Tormund asks that Jon take her north of the Wall to burn her because she belongs in the “real north”.  Jon takes Ygritte into the forrest and sets her funeral pyre on fire and grieves.

Bran and his band of merry men/women are still heading north through a blizzard.  Jojen is very ill and Meera thinks he will not make it, but he tells her they are already there.  Bran calls out and they see the tree they have been looking for.  As they approach, hands come up out of the snow and attack Jojen and Meera.  Then more skeletal creatures come up from the ground to attack.  The didn’t seem like white walkers so I’m not sure exactly what they were.  Bran yells at Hodor to help the Reeds, but Hodor is flipping out.  One of the creatures almost gets Bran, but Summer saves him.  Hodor is overrun with attackers so Bran wargs and becomes Hodor to fight them off.  Of course, now he has left his body unguarded. Jojen gets stabbed a bunch and suddenly fireballs appear along with a little girl who tells them Jojen is lost.  They can come with her or die there.  Meera regretfully finishes Jojen off and they run with the little girl.  She takes them down to the roots of the tree where they see a man who is part of tree.  He tells Bran he has watched him his whole life and the he is there to get back what he lost.  He asks if he will ever walk again and the man tells Bran he will never walk again, but he will fly!!! (Perhaps a dragon…)

Brienne and Pod wake up to discover the horses are missing or have been stolen.  Brienne spots Arya practicing with her sword.  Of course neither knows who the other one is.  They discuss their sword names and Arya is of course, impressed by Brienne.  The Hound comes from wherever he was using the bathroom and Pod recognizes him.  Brienne realizes the little girl is Arya Stark and tells her she promised her mother that she would get her back to her safely.  She apologized for not being there to help her mother live. The Hound thinks Brienne is there to catch him for the bounty on his head or for the Lannisters.  She tells him she does not work for the Lannisters, but the Hound notices her sword is made of Lannister gold.  She tries to persuade Arya to come with her and she will get her to safety, but the Hound doesn’t trust her.  They fight.  Brienne gets him down and she tells him she doesn’t wish to kill him.  He grabs her sword and he beats the shit out of her.  Then she gets the upper hand and goes crazy on him until he falls over a cliff.  Arya has disappeared.  She climbs down to see Sandor Clegane as he is dying.  He tells Arya to go after Brienne, that she will help her.  He asks if she remembers where the heart is so she can put him out of his misery.  She doesn’t want to do it, but he reminds her about Micah the butcher’s boy and talks about how he should’ve raped Sansa and taken her.  She knows what he’s doing so he finally begs her to kill him., but she only takes his water and leaves him there.

Tyrion hears someone coming in his cell.  It is Jaime.  He says Varys has secured a ship for him to get out of Kings Landing.  He leads him to a tunnel under the Red Keep and they hug and say goodbye.  Tyrion thanks him.  Tyrion realizes he can get to the Hands chambers from the tunnels so he goes in and finds Shae in his father’s bed.  She sees him and tries to grab a knife, but they fight.  Tyrion chokes her to death and says he’s sorry.  He sees a crossbow and finds his father in the privy sitting down.  Tywin is a bit surprised and figures out Jaime released him.  He wants to go talk, but Tyrion isn’t having it.  Tyrion says that Tywin has always wanted him dead.  Tywin admits that it’s true, but calls Tyrion a survivor.  He promises he was never going to let Tyrion die and wants Tyrion to trust him.  Tyrion tells his father that he loved Shae, but he also just murdered her.  His father says it doesn’t matter, as she was only a whore.  Tyrion shoots him in the chest with the crossbow.

Tywin gets enraged and says he is no son of his, but Tyrion says he has always his son and shoots him again and leaves the body in the privy.  He then finds Varys who asks what he has done.  Varys puts Tyrion in a crate and tells him to trust him.  Then the crate is put on a boat.  Varys hears the bells from the Red Keep ringing and knows something bad has happened. 

Arya makes it to a port, maybe White Harbor?  She tells one of the captains she wants to go north to the Wall, but he tells her no.  He is going to Braavos.  She gives him the coin that J’haqen Hogor gave her and tells him Valar Morghulis so he gives her a cabin and she is on her way to Braavos.

End credits…

I have been waiting for this episode for so long.  I think we had a pretty good season and are finally starting to see some of the villains on GOT get their dues.  We lost Joffrey (sociopath) , Lysa (plain crazy), and it seems as the the Mountain and the Hound are not for this earth too much longer.  Then we get Tywin, who is all about family name and honor who now has a dead whore in his room and was shot on the privy while taking care of business.  Probably not the best decision to be caught dead in.  It will make a good joke for the poor people of King’s Landing, though he was actually a smart ruler.  I’m not sure Cersei is up for the job mysef.  And what will Dany do with her dragons?  Keep them locked up continuously as they will grow and get bigger.  I have to say that part really got to me with the screeches of “mommy why are you locking us up and abandoning us?”  That’s it for this season.  I may post a thing or two every once in a while if it strikes my fancy.  Other than that, I’ll see you in 2015!

#gameofthrones