![]() It also emphasized a truth about Tyrion that’s been developing all season. Tyrion also got a big loverman moment in this episode, which was surely a dear happiness to the many viewers who have been crushing on him hard since episode one. I fear this new relationship does not bode well, though it was a refreshing change of pace to see a hot-n-sweaty sex scene in GoT that was driven by passion and love as opposed to some kind of power play. Catelyn, of course, saw this coming, because she is very wise. Robb has always drawn strength from Catelyn’s staunchness, and it’s clearly that quality, as demonstrated by Talisa’s speech about the slave who saved her younger brother from drowning (which in turn echoed Yara’s story about mewling baby Theon), that clinched the attraction for him. Let’s just get all Freudian about it and note that in “Prince of Winterfell,” Robb switches his allegiance and identification from his mother to his new lover. Robb’s relationship with Catelyn has been the one constant in his long journey from lord’s son to King in the North, and when he names her a traitor and puts her under house arrest, that bond is severed. Just as Robb is telling Talisa what an amazing leader and man his father was, news comes that his mother has released Jaime Lannister - Robb’s most important bargaining chip - in the hopes that it will save Sansa and Arya, whom she believes are both being held at King’s Landing. But even more striking is the way it represents a definitive break with Robb’s childhood. This could prove a less-than-savvy political move that will weaken Robb’s standing with his allies. Practically speaking, the love affair may mean breaking the betrothal between Robb and Walder Frey’s daughter, which was set last season when Walder allowed Robb’s forces to cross a bridge on Frey territory. Robb and Talisa’s long-teased smooshfest in his war tent provided the biggest swoon and also holds the greatest disruptive potential. ![]() But sweeping romance is one of the great pleasures high fantasy can offer, and if I’m a sucker for feeling like we haven’t had nearly enough of it so far, so be it. Yes, there was quite a bit of manipulatively swelling music as, one by one, the tough men of Westeros swore their devotion to their lady loves - or their onion knights, as the case may be. (One can only pray for a DVD extra.) But we did get a number of great scenes, most of them two-handers, that deepened the characters’ emotional lives as well as their core relationships. This week, we didn’t quite get an hour of undiluted Arya-Tywin time. As a viewer, you often get caught between a plot rock and a narrative hard place, either dawdling on a picaresque journey through B-plots that seem to digress ever further from the show’s center (pouty Jon Snow beyond the Wall, poor Daenerys in Qarth) or else waiting for the chess pieces to arrange themselves ahead of next week’s big, breathlessly anticipated Battle of Blackwater, an episode important enough that George R.R. The things that make the series so impressive as a screen adaptation - its geographic sprawl and huge cast of characters - are precisely what can make it tedious at times. Ever since James Poniewozik wrote in a Game of Thrones recap that he’d love to see a bottle episode starring just Arya and Twyin Lannister, I’ve been thinking about structure on the show. ![]()
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