Game of Thrones – Spoils of War Review
Beware! The night is dark and full of terrors. And this Game of Thrones Spoils of War review has many, many spoilers!
If you haven’t seen this week’s episode……DO NOT READ ON!
This week on Game of Thrones – Spoils of War……are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin….
Last week’s The Queen’s Justice gave us two long-awaited meetings (Jon and Daenerys, and Bran and Sansa), the Lannisters’ strategic advances, and an epic mic drop of an onscreen death (RIP Lady Olenna you’ll be sadly missed). This week Game of Thrones – Spoils of War has delivered an emotional Stark reunion (first lot of tears) and probably the best battle scene ever (more crying and much hyperventilating and shouting at the screen) But before we get to the BBQ finale, lets lay out everything that’s happened, because a lot went down. And we don’t just mean Jaime.
Jaime Lannister and Bronn gather their riches
After taking Highgarden, Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Bronn (Jerome Flynn) see their troops carry out wagons of gold to King’s Landing. This is just what they need to pay off the Lannister’s debts to the Iron Bank “A Lannister always pays their debts”. Jaime is noticeably upset, but he won’t tell Bronn why. (Maybe because he just found out who murdered his son? Just a thought.) Bronn also pushes for a higher reward. Jaime gave him a bag of gold, but that’s not enough; he wants a castle. Jaime promises him that when they win the war, any castle in the Seven Kingdoms could be his.
Meanwhile in King’s Landing, Tycho Nestoris (Mark Gatiss) tells Cersei (Lena Headey) the Iron Bank could invest in her conquest of the Seven Kingdom, if she pays her debt in full.
Littlefinger gives Bran his knife.
Petyr Baelish aka Littlefinger (Aiden Gillan) meets Bran (Issac Hempstead Wright) in his room and gives him his Valyrian steel dagger, the one that was supposed to kill him back in Season 1. Littlefinger gives the youngest surviving Stark some BS about feeling responsible and needing to “protect” Catelyn’s children—but what are is actual intentions? When Bran asks him who owns the dagger, Littlefinger lies and says he doesn’t know. Great protecting skills. Did Littlefinger forget he’s talking to a psychic?
Midway through their conversation, Bran cuts Littlefinger off with a vague saying: “Chaos is a ladder.” The line is a callback to the Season 3 episode, “The Climb.” Littlefinger used the phrase while talking to Varys. They stood by the Iron Throne, and while discussing the many blades that make it a supremely uncomfortable seat, Littlefinger told Varys, “Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder.” Varys advocated for peace and order as the best way to move forward, but Littlefinger saw the disarray of the realm as a chance for men like him to climb upward. The title of the episode referred to Jon Snow and the wildlings ascending the Wall, but it wasn’t the only climb in play.
Littlefinger should be nervous about Bran’s words. By saying, “Chaos is a ladder,” Bran subtly let Littlefinger know he’s aware of everything. Every. Thing. As the Three-Eyed Raven, he may not have an emotional drive to seek revenge, but maybe a part of him wants to see justice. Littlefinger isn’t necessarily aware of the extent Bran’s transformation and separation from who he used to be, so he should be sweating.
Update: Bran finally has a wheelchair. It only took seven seasons.
Meera Reed leaves, and we learn Bran is terrible with goodbyes
Meera (Ellie Kendrick), who’s been traveling with Bran since he went beyond the wall, announces that she’s going home so she can be with her family when Winter comes. All Bran has to say is a stiff “Thank you.” Meera is offended. Her brother, Hodor, and Summer (Bran’s direwolf) all died for him, and this is all he can say in return? But Bran he tells her that he’s not really “Bran” anymore, now that he’s becoming the Three Eyed Raven more and more. “You died in that cave,” Meera tells him. It appears he did.
Arya and Sansa Reunite
Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) finally makes it to the gates of Winterfell, but the guards don’t believe she’s who she says she is, telling her to f*ck off. She finally convinces them to let her in, and they make her sit in the courtyard. Arya takes a moment to look around at her home. She hasn’t been there in so long, she doesn’t even know that Ser Roderick or Maester Luwin are gone.
Arya sneaks off, but when Sansa (Sophie Turner) arrives, she knows where to find her sister: in the crypts, in front of their father’s tombstone. Their reunion is rewarding to watch, but it’s also a bit awkward at times, they have so much to catch up on. They’re making comments like “our stories aren’t over yet,” which makes me nervous for their fates. Sansa tells Arya the way she got home was not pleasant. Arya tells her about her kill list, and Sansa laughs because she has NO IDEA that her baby sister is a trained assassin now. When Sansa tells Arya Bran’s home too, her face falls. She knows it’s not good news.
Stark family reunion! Aka The ‘Second Scariest Stark Sibling’ Award Goes To Bran
They find Bran in the Godswood, and Arya gives him a hug. He tells her that he saw her at the crossroads, and that he knows Cersei is on her list, even though she hasn’t told him any of those things. (Sansa explains he has visions now. Fantastic delivery of the line by Sophie Turner about that, like a sister telling another that their brother is into fidget spinners in a big way) He takes out Littlefinger’s dagger and Sansa warns that Littlefinger wouldn’t give him anything freely if he didn’t want him in return. Bran gives the weapon to Arya; it’s more useful to her now anyway. Could that theory about her using Littlefinger’s dagger be true?
There are many fan theories about the dagger, which I think i will cover in another post.
Seeing the Stark kids reunited is a real treat, and it throws their various evolution into a stark (yeah, we went there) light. But we should enjoy it while it lasts. (This is Game of Thrones, after all.) “Catelyn Stark would be proud,” Pod says as he watches the siblings walk across the way. Meanwhile Littlefinger looks creepily from the balcony of Winterfell. Littlefinger is totally the creepy uncle who you avoid being alone with at family gathering, he totally gives me the heebie jeebies.
Daenerys agrees to fight for Jon and The North—under one condition – On your knee!!
Daenerys (Emelia Clarke) goes with Jon (Kit Harrington) into the cave where the dragonglass is. There’s so much of it lining the caves, but there’s something else Jon wants to show her. They reach one inlet of the cave where the walls are covered with ancient carvings made by The Children of the Forest, depicting them with mankind fighting together against the White Walkers. Jon uses it as the perfect platform for Daenerys to join his cause. This is his proof that the White Walkers are real and always have been. Daenerys finally agrees.
“I will fight for you. I will fight for the North,” Daenerys tells him. But there’s a catch: “When you bend the knee.” Jon still hesitates. How will his Northern subjects react to a southern leader? But Daenerys insists that if he shows his fealty, his followers will too. “Isn’t their survival more important than your pride?” she asks. Burn.
Jon and Daenerys sitting in a tree
Now Jon allegedly finds the Mother of Dragons pleasing on the eye. But none of that was signalled by Kit Harrington’s performance. Instead crusty cupid Ser Davos (Liam Cunningham) had to spell it out in a later seen.
Daenerys was admittedly impressed when he showed her those White Walker cave paintings beneath her new fortress (admit it Jon, you crept in the night before and etched them with chalk). But if romance is in the air, Game of Thrones is having a hard time getting the point across. Those holding out for the predicted boat-based entanglement between Jon and Daenerys – the entire user base of Reddit, for instance – might want to brace for disappointment.
Side note: Before entering the cave, Daenerys and Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel) have a little bit of girl talk about Grey Worm while approaching Jon at the beach. Missandei tells her queen that “many things” happened between her and the Unsullied warrior before he left.
Jon advises Daenerys to not go dragon crazy on Westeros.
When they leave the cave, Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and Varys (Conleth Hill) inform Daenerys that they conquered Casterly Rock, but they lost Highgarden and Lady Olenna. Daenerys realises how much at a disadvantage she is. She’s lost Dorne, the Iron Islands, and now The Reach. Convinced Tyrion is just making up fake plans to protect his siblings, Daenerys threatens to take her dragons and fly to the Red Keep herself. But she takes a moment and asks Jon what to do.
He reminds her that her followers have seen her make the impossible happen, but burning down cities with her dragons makes her no different from her ill-tempered ancestors.
Arya Stark, Westeros answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator
Arya walks in on Brienne’s (Gwendoline Christie) daily training with Podrick (Daniel Portman) in the Winterfell courtyard. She tells her she wants Brienne to train her, because she was able to defeat the Hound. (He’s on her kill list.) They fight, and Arya shows her stuff, she whips quickly back and forth, she even dodges Brienne’s swings with Needle behind her back, and there are even a few flips here and there. It’s so nice to see her wield a sword in a scene that doesn’t end in death for once. Finally Arya wins, holding the dagger right below Brienne’s chin.
“Who taught you how to do that?” Brienne asks her. “No one,” Arya answers. Well, she’s not lying.
Meanwhile, Sansa looks down on the sparring and appears freaked out over what her little sister has become. She’s never seen her fight before. After she leaves, Littlefinger and Arya exchange a weird glance.
Davos thinks Jon has a crush on Daenerys
Davos plays buddy to Jon Snow and asks him what he thinks of Daenerys. When he says he thinks she has a good heart, he quips, “I noticed you staring at her good heart.” Oh Davos, you jokester. Jon brushes it off (“I don’t have time for that”) before they run into Missandei. The advisor to Daenerys explains that in her hometown of Naath, there is no marriage and hence, no concept of bastards. She tells them Daenerys freed her from slavery, but Davos challenges her, doesn’t she still work for Daenerys now? But Missandei assures him that Daenerys is the queen she (and all her followers) chose. They see a Greyjoy ship approach from the distance.
Jon Snow and Theon Greyjoy reunite…….#awkward
Jon is there to receive Theon (Alfie Allen) when he lands on the Dragonstone shore. This is their first time seeing each other since Season 1, and Jon is not happy. They grew up together (Theon was Ned’s ward) and Greyjoy betrayed the Stark family. Theon asks how Sansa is, but Jon grabs him by the collar. “What you did for her is the only reason I’m not killing you,” he says, alluding to how Theon helped her escape Ramsay in Winterfell. Theon says he wants to ask Daenerys to help him get Yara back from Euron, but Jon tells him she’s gone.
SHOWDOWN: Jaime and the Lannister army vs. Daenerys, a dragon, and the Dothraki
Hand back your trophy, Battle of the Bastards. Take a hike, Blackwater Bay. Hard luck Hardhome. This is THE battle! In my opinion probably the best in Game of Thrones history, even if there were some sad horse deaths.
Jaime and the Lannister army are just about to get the gold they plundered within the gates of King’s Landing when they hear a thunder of hooves approaching. Jaime, Bronn, and Randyl order the Lannister solders to get in line and form a barricade in front of the wagons holding gold. The Lannisters are holding barricade for what seems like an eternity. The Lannister soldiers are clearly worried about whats going to happing, to coin a British phase “they were bricking it”. The Dothraki charge in from around the valley, shrieking as they come down. AND DAENERYS RIDES IN ON A DRAGON LIKE A F*CKING BADASS. Forget the Lannister barricade, they charge right through the line of soldiers and even over the path of fire the dragon lays down. The Lannister Soldiers also find out that their armour make for good roasting dishes.
Daenerys and Drogon strategically aim for the line of men marching and, more importantly, wagons carrying gold. Jaime actually has Qyburn’s “Scorpion” dragon-killing weapon, which Bronn handles because he has two working hands.
Tyrion looks over the battlefield as Bronn shoots the scorpion. He misses the first time but hits the dragon the second time. Drogon lands on the ground and breaks the machine with his tail. As Daenerys tries to get the spear out of his side, Jaime decides to charge her with his own spear. Tyrion, watching from above mutters to himself, “Flee, you idiot,” at his brother. Before Jaime gets to Daenerys, her dragon turns to him and bares its teeth, and just as it breathes fire, Bronn pushes him out of the way, and they both fall into the water. Though both conscious, they keep sinking and we have no idea if they made it out alive. The final shot was of Jaime’s pallid face sinking into the depths.
So it still isn’t beyond the bounds that he has joined the not very exclusive club of dead Game of Thrones characters (in heavy armour swimming to the surface is going to be a chore). On the other hand, if the series was going to kill him at this relatively premature stage, HBO would in all likelihood have honoured him with Death by Drogon.
Is it Jaime’s final splashdown? Come on you totally sung that.
Summary
The Spoils Of War represented the show firing (pun intended) on all cylinders, both emotionally and on the action front. Daenerys got to fly Drogon into battle and try and cremate someone we actually care about (poor Jaime), there was significant (and well-written) plot movement on several fronts and the quality of the show’s effects and choreography remains sky high.
This is the first episode in a very long time that I found myself crying, shouting and losing it at the screen. I love the dragons and it was very exciting finally seeing them unleashed on the Lannisters, not so great seeing Drogon get shot by Bronn. This episode was a pure Brongasm for fan’s of Jerome Flynn (we Brits are strange with our love of Jerome), and does he save Jaime or do they both perish into the sea as punishment for shooting a dragon. There potentially could be a nice death dream sequence when Bronn and Jaime sing “Unchained Melody” (Please look it up Robson and Jerome). With just three episodes left this season, things are really heating up. Sorry, Lannisters. Too soon.
Highlight: The final battle.
Lowlight: Creepy Littlefinger.
Quote of the week: “Flee you idiot” Tyrion to Jaime
Game Of Thrones airs Sunday evenings on HBO in the States, with a simulcast on Sky Atlantic and Now TV in the early hours of Monday and a repeat Monday evenings at 9pm.
How did you like Game of Thrones – Spoils of War? We want to hear from you in the comments below.
