Episode Title: “The Climb”
Writers: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss
Director: Alik Sakharov
Previously on “Game of Thrones”:
Episode 3.05: “Kissed by Fire”
With this episode, “Game of Thrones” officially began the second half of its third season. And “The Climb” jumped around to various stories and characters as the series almost always does. But the focus kept coming back to Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Ygritte (Rose Leslie) as the episode attempted to make their relationship even more important to the overall story.
This episode succeeded in bringing Jon and Ygritte even closer together while calling his loyalties into question. It’s refreshing that Ygritte isn’t naive enough to think that Jon has forsaken his Night’s Watch brothers. Nor is Ygritte particularly loyal to Mance Rayder and the Wildings. Instead, Ygritte proposes that the only thing that she and Jon should care about is each other and she tells him not to betray her or else she’ll do something horrible to his penis.
It’s difficult to read just how deeply Jon’s feelings for Ygritte go, but he does prove his love for her in a spectacular sequence during the episode. Jon may be torn by his twin vows of loyalty, but it’s not clear if there’s even a Night’s Watch to go back to after last week’s episode.
From this point on there are full spoilers ahead for “The Climb,” so if you haven’t seen the most recent episode of “Game of Thrones” then you should probably skip this review or else Tywin Lannister will name you to the Kingsguard.
The Wildings’ ascent up the Wall was unexpectedly compelling, especially when the Wall breaks and kills most of their raiding party. Orell (Mackenzie Crook) almost kills Jon and Ygritte as well, but Jon manages to save them both before they continue climbing. That was a very exciting sequence, pulled off with skill by director Alik Sakharov and through the performances of Harington and Leslie. When Jon and Ygritte finally made it to the top, their passionate kiss felt like an earned moment even if I was hoping that they would immediately confront Orell. But there’s always next week for that.
Continuing an unconventional partnership this week are Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Brienne (Gwendoline Christie), both of whom dine with Lord Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton) as Jaime “fails at dinner” and negotiates his return to King’s Landing. The wordless interplay between Jaime and Brienne was very funny and true to their characters. She holds his meat for him and he keeps her from murdering Bolton when negotiations go south.
More tellingly, Jaime tries to insist that Brienne go with him to spare her trial and torment at the hands of Bolton’s men. Bolton’s line about Jaime overplaying his… “position” was also quite funny. Brienne was also forced to wear a dress to the dinner, which she looked extremely unhappy about. I’m not sure what Bolton’s game is. He’s appeasing the Lannisters by releasing Jaime, but he’s either going to turn Brienne over to Robb Stark (Richard Madden) or he’ll simply have her silenced to hide his betrayal of Robb. Either way, things don’t look good for her.
Back in the Riverlands, Arya (Maisie Williams) was just starting to like the Brotherhood when Melisandre (Carice van Houten) rode in and took Gendry (Joe Dempsie) into custody… undoubtedly for the Baratheon blood in his veins. Or perhaps she wants another shadow demon offspring since she said that Stannis (Stephen Dillane) wasn’t strong enough to do so.
Either way, Arya feels the sting of betrayal and she angrily confronts Melisandre herself in great scene that leaves the audience in Arya’s position as we wonder what Melisandre’s apparent prophecy means or where they will meet again. Left unanswered is how Melisandre knew who Gendry was and how to find him.
Before Melisandre’s departure, she shares an interesting scene with Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer) and Thoros (Paul Kaye) in which she is amazed that Thoros has resurrected Beric six times. From Thoros’ account, he has no power and he never expected his prayers to be answered… until they were. “Game of Thrones” has the Old Gods and the New, but only the Lord of Light seems to have followers with genuine powers. That certainly makes a stronger argument that their God is the one true God, but it’s hard to trust a deity with its own shadow demons. Or a religion that demands the execution of non-believers, as Melisandre arranged at Dragonstone.
Meanwhile, Robb learns the price of breaking his oath to Lord Frey: a formal apology, Harrenhal and a hasty marriage between Robb’s uncle, Edmure (Tobias Menzies) and one of Frey’s lovely daughters. Edmure may be a screw-up as a warrior, but he’s right to call out Robb and say that he only wants the chance to pick his own wife like Robb did. Robb manages to get Edmure to agree to the match, but only after pointing out that the war is lost if he refuses.
Arranged marriages were in the air at King’s Landing as well, when Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) finally met with Lady Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg) as he essentially blackmailed her into allowing Ser Loras (Finn Jones) to marry his daughter, Queen Regent Cersei (Lena Headey). The verbal sparring match between Tywin and Olenna was everything we could have hoped for as they tossed the open secrets of Loras and Cersei’s true sexual preferences back at each other.
Olenna had no problem admitting that Loras was a “sword swallower,” but Tywin can’t quite acknowledge that his daughter and son were in an incestuous relationship. Even so, Tywin gets his way by threatening to name Loras to the Kingsguard; which would strip him of his inheritance and end the Tyrell family line. Olenna may be upset at being outmaneuvered, but she is clearly impressed by Tywin’s ruthlessness. They might be a better match than their children!
Elsewhere in King’s Landing, Loras barely remembers to include Sansa (Sophie Turner) in his wedding fantasy as they try to get to know one another. Sansa must be the only person in the royal court who doesn’t know the truth about Loras. And she’s not even bothered by their complete lack of chemistry. The only thing that they agree about is what a terrible place King’s Landing is.
But it falls to Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) to break the news to Sansa that he is being forced to marry her… in front of his real love, Shae (Sibel Kekilli)! I hated the cut away from that scene as we were robbed of seeing Sansa and Shae react to the wedding. Instead we later see Sansa sobbing as she watches Littlefinger’s ship sail away without her.
However, the biggest gut punch of the episode was the fate of Ros (Esme Bianco); whom Lord Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (Aiden Gillen) sold to King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) after he figured out that she was working with Lord Varys (Conleth Hill). At first, it seemed as if Littlefinger was just fishing to see if Varys would accidentally “out” his spy. But then we saw Ros with arrows in her body, courtesy of Joffrey’s sick games. It’s a sad end for Ros, as I thought she would be around a lot longer.
Varys turns out to have been completely right about Littlefinger’s ambitions, as he openly craves the Iron Throne in front of him. Aiden Gillen is so deliciously malevolent, that his voiceover at the end underscored Littlefinger’s continuing rise to power. Somehow, a man without an army or a family name is on the verge of becoming Lord of the Vale. And as Littlefinger himself noted, he has far bigger dreams than that.
Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and Davos (Liam Cunningham) were missing from this episode, but “The Climb” didn’t need them and the episode served all of its characters well. And next week, George R. R. Martin checks in with his annual “Game of Thrones” script. Considering that the last two episodes written by Martin were among the series’ best hours, that may bring us yet another high point in just a few days.
