GAME OF THRONES Season 4 Episode 10
Episode Title: “The Children”
Writers: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss
Director: Alex Graves
Previously on “Game of Thrones”:
Someday this will all be over. George R.R. Martin will finish his A Song of Ice and Fire novels and the conclusion of “Game of Thrones” will be broadcast on HBO… or transformed into a blockbuster movie as Martin has recently suggested. Someday there will be an ending and the year won’t be divided into the 10 weeks that we have “Game of Thrones” and the 42 weeks that we don’t.
This is not that day.
“The Children” closes out our two season journey through the adaptation of A Storm of Swords. Some of the more vocal book readers are already complaining about things that were left out, but 20 episodes to bring this novel to life seems like the right amount of time to spend on it. “The Children” brought several long running plotlines to a close and left at least four major characters dead. As season finales go, this may be the biggest one that “Game of Thrones” has ever attempted.
From this point on, there are full spoilers ahead for “The Children,” so if you missed last night’s fourth season finale of “Game of Thrones” then you should probably skip this review or else Arya will let you suffer.
“The Children” literally picks up moments after episode nine, as Jon Snow (Kit Harington) walks through the carnage on the other side of the Wall before approaching Mance Rayder (Ciarán Hinds) with terms for peace. Surprisingly, Mance’s offer of peace terms appears to be genuine while Jon’s desperate plan to kill Mance and splinter his army makes him look bad by comparison.
Mance even seems to care about his people who died during the battle, as he leads Jon to drink a toast to Ygritte (Rose Leslie) and to the giant who invaded the tunnel as well as Jon’s friend, Grenn. Out of nowhere, Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) arrives with a massive army that quickly cuts through the Wildling army and he takes Mance prisoner while freeing Jon.
In retrospect, I’m glad that Stannis’ arrival was held back for this episode. If Stannis had come riding in at the end of last week’s episode, it would have been almost the same finish that “Blackwater”used two seasons ago. I had almost forgotten that Stannis planned to go to the Wall, since he didn’t really mention it this season. But this is a potential game changer for the Night’s Watch. With Stannis’ army supporting them, now they have a chance against the advancing White Walkers.
The transformation of Jon is brought home in his brief scene with the captured Tormund (Kristofer Hivju). Despite showing Stannis all due courtesy as king, Jon declares that he has no king and he continues to call the Wildlings the Free Folk. It almost feels like there could have been a version of the story in which Jon remained on the Wildlings’ side while still heroically fighting the White Walkers. But that would have allowed Jon to stay with Ygritte and that’s far too kind for George R.R. Martin. Instead, we get a moment where Jon honors Ygritte’s death by burning her body on her side of the Wall.
Back in King’s Landing, the Lannister family comes apart in spectacular fashion. Cersei (Lena Headey) finally plays her trump card against her father, Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance). She doesn’t want to marry Ser Loras (Finn Jones), so she threatens to tell everyone that her children are the result of her incestuous affair with Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).
Amazingly, Tywin appears to be blindsided by this. Cersei mocks Tywin for never seeing the obvious signs, but he seems to be deeply in denial as he tries to shoot down her claims as a lie. Almost as if to make a point, Cersei goes on to seduce Jaime and state that she doesn’t care who walks in on them.
But no matter what Cersei tells Jaime about choosing him over the rest of their family, he was never going to let Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) die. Weirdly enough, Jaime’s generosity leads to three deaths in this episode… all because he’s trying to be a better man. Rather than follow his brother’s plan and escape, Tyrion decides that he needs to confront his father before he leaves King’s Landing behind.
This is where the episode becomes a tragedy, as Tyrion encounters his ex-lover, Shae (Sibel Kekilli) warming the bed of his father. Note that it’s Shae who grabs a knife and moves to attack Tyrion first, but the second son of Tywin Lannister still manages to strangle his one-time love. For me, this was the most shocking turn in the episode. I expected Tywin and Tyrion to have some kind of confrontation. But I didn’t know that this was coming.
Shae’s fate was even crueler when you consider that Tyrion lost her by trying to save her life. Ultimately, Shae never seemed to realize that Tyrion’s cruel words were only meant to push her away and protect her. Shae’s cruelty was meant to destroy Tyrion because she felt that she had been wronged.
Losing Joffrey earlier this season robbed “Game of Thrones” of one of its best villains. “The Children” goes even further by giving us the final appearance of Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister. Even more so than Joffrey, Tywin was the most formidable of the show’s adversaries. Yet it’s somehow fitting that it should be Tyrion who kills his father… while he’s trying to push one out over the Hand’s toilet.
Dinklage and Dance have always had great scenes together, but this was on another level. Tywin assumes that he can talk Tyrion out of killing him by offering him the praise that Tyrion may have waited his entire life to hear. Tywin even claims that he would never have allowed Tyrion to be executed… which we know is a lie, from his earlier conversation with Cersei. But it doesn’t matter. Tyrion is there to deal with his father, who takes back his praise of Tyrion after the first crossbow strikes his chest.
It could be argued that Tyrion was defending Shae’s honor when he shot Tywin for calling her a whore. But it’s less gallant when Tyrion already killed the woman he loved. Tyrion is so shaken by what he’s done that he tells Tywin that he can’t go back into the Hand’s bedroom because “she’s there.”
After Tywin is dead, Tyrion says nothing at all to his shocked savior, Lord Varys (Conleth Hill). It was darkly hilarious to see Varys reluctantly deciding to go on the ship with a hidden Tyrion after hearing the bells from the castle. Tywin’s murder has been discovered and even the Spider himself wouldn’t be able to evade justice if he stuck around.
