Episode: Game of Thrones 1.10 – “Fire and Blood”
Original Air Date: June 19, 2011
As the first season comes to a close, a new king rises in the North as Westeros seemingly starts to fracture back into seven separate kingdoms, a Khaleesi finds new hope after everything is taken from her, the Night’s Watch take it to the streets beyond the Wall to find out what exactly is making its way towards them, and I died from sheer nerd excitement at finally seeing the number one scene I’ve been waiting for since episode one.
Dude. Dude. This is what I’ve been waiting to see since I finished listening to Book One at work and was silently screaming from a total nerdgasm because I didn’t have anyone to share my “HOLY CRAP DID HE JUST GO THERE” out loud with. Some of the stuff that happened didn’t really work for me too well, some of the stuff that happened I had to explain the best I could without giving spoilers to the people I’ve been watching the show with because they didn’t get what was happening, but simply for getting that end scene done near perfect to what I imagined from the book this episode got the biggest reaction out of me.
Bran continues to have his three-eyed crow dreams, but the one he has in this episode leads him to the family crypt where he finds his father. He gets Osha to take him down there to check, and interestingly enough we meet up with a character we haven’t seen forever, the youngest Stark. Turns out, Rickon had a similar dream as Bran (he saw Ned in the crypt also). One of the things that suffered from not showing the direwolves with the Stark children more was how the wolves are basically mirrors of their owners. Unfortunately for viewers who haven’t read Book One, Rickon and Shaggydog just popping in and popping out while Osha and Bran are in the crypt doesn’t really make sense. One, because you haven’t seen Rickon since episode one. Two, Osha makes reference that Shaggydog is supposed to be chained up and he tries to attack her and Bran. Three, he’s supposed to be about three years old (in the book, obviously older for the series) and he’s just wandering around by himself. For lack of time I assume, they can’t show how he’s been neglected while everything we’re watching is going down; however, if they had used the direwolves more with the other characters (like Summer really should have been down there with Bran and Osha) it would have been an easy way to illustrate the character of the children more. Shaggydog is aggressive and more feral than the other direwolves because that’s how Rickon is. No one is supervising this kid and he’s basically pulling a Mowgli here. But you don’t get that from this scene, and you don’t get how Ghost is a silent outcast because that’s how Jon sees himself, or how Lady was well behaved and proper like Sansa. Just my opinion, and I could be biased because I really wanted to see those direwolves the way they were written.
Robb and Catelyn find out about Ned while in the middle of battle, so they both have to make their way out of camp to grieve because you don’t want your bannermen to know you have feelings and stuff. They find each other and console each other, with Robb vowing to kill them (the Lannisters) all and Catelyn reminding him they first need to get Sansa and Arya back and THEN they can kill them all. Joffrey really did do a stupid thing in killing Ned because that pretty much gets the Greatjon to declare Robb King of the North and gets all the other lords to back him up. It looks like it’s turning out exactly like Cersei warned him back when they had that talk about how you don’t want to go to war with the North. However, with Renly and Stannis making bids for the Iron Throne, it also looks like it could be turning out exactly like Robert warned Cersei when they were talking about which is stronger, one or five armies. With everyone becoming a king and building armies, Westeros is set up to tear itself back into seven separate kingdoms. Nerd moment of this scene, though, was that I think I saw Maege Mormont! Love me a warrior lady who wields a spiked mace.
Joffrey. What a jerk. Jack Gleeson is just brilliant at playing this character in the most despicable way possible. He’s great at creating a character people love to hate. So, that hate train continues to gain speed as he drags Sansa out to see her father’s head on a spike. And when she’s mouthy with him, he has one of his knights smack her around. This is where you start to feel bad for her because she wasn’t a bad person before, just spoiled and teenager-ish, and no one deserves to be treated like this. We see Sandor subtly moving to keep Sansa from causing herself more pain, and it kinda feels out of nowhere for him to react that way towards her. It makes more sense the way it plays out in the book, so hopefully that’ll be expanded more next season. Things just don’t seem like they’re going to be very fun and romantic for Sansa like she had always imagined.
When Tywin finds out that Robb has captured Jaime, he decides that everyone back off and regroup with the exception of Tyrion. Not surprisingly, Tywin doesn’t seem to have realized until this moment that Tyrion has the smarts to play the Game. He decides that Tyrion will go back to King’s Landing and be the Hand. He is to curb Joffrey and Cersei and make sure nothing like The Ned Stark Incident happens again to make the situation they’re all in even worse. Tywin makes it a point to tell Tyrion that Shay cannot go to court with him. Of course, Tyrion will bring her anyway.
Many may have guessed it, but Jon tries to desert and join Robb in the war to get revenge for their father. He doesn’t get too far before Samwell and the others stop him and get him to come back. The next morning, Mormont tells him they’re gathering up to go beyond the Wall to find out if the White Walkers really are back and that Jon needs to decide if he’s a Brother of the Night’s Watch or a bastard that wants to play at war. Jon stays true to his oath.
Yoren smuggles Arya out of King’s Landing by disguising her as a boy and plopping her in with the rest of his Night’s Watch recruits. He hacks off her hair and sternly tells her that she is a boy, her name is Arry now, and she needs to play the part if she wants to get back home to Winterfell. She has an altercation with two boys, and befriends Gendry (if you remember back, he’s Robert’s bastard) before they head out of town and towards the Wall.
Finally, we have Daenerys because she’s the one who ends the episode. She wakes up to find out her son was born dead and deformed and that Drogo is a complete vegetable. It’s not explicitly said, but Mirri Maz Duur set the whole thing up to be this way. She wanted to take out the guy who leveled her people/village and the child that would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World so that he never has the chance to do what Drogo has done. Dany doesn’t understand why she would do this to her when she saved her, and this is because Dany is still a bit naïve and doesn’t realize that Mirri Maz Duur had been raped by four different guys before Dany showed up and what it’s like to see your entire world burned and killed. She asks if Drogo will ever be returned to her, and Mirri Maz Duur basically says that’s never going to happen. So, Dany does the humane thing in this case and smothers her husband.
Then the most epic sequence of events ever happen. Dany has her people put Drogo on a funeral pyre to sent him off to the Dothraki afterlife. She also has them put the dragon eggs on there with him and has Mirri Maz Duur tied up onto it to burn her alive. The fire is lit and she walks into it. The next morning, Jorah finds her naked with three baby dragons crawling around her and when everyone else sees this, she has their loyalty. This ending was so epic for me for a few reasons. First, DRAGONS! I thought they did the dragons really well and if this is where the budget that would have gone to the battles went, well worth not having the battles. Second, the complete transformation that Dany has taken from when we meet her up to this point is amazing. She starts as this meek girl who has no power and is beat down by her abusive brother. She ends here as a strong woman who has found power and determination to make things happen through the immersion in a strength-driven culture and the loss of her husband and son. Third, it’s not a cliffhanger of an ending but it leaves you ready for more. If they had put the red comet in the sky (there was supposed to be one) when they pulled back the camera in the final shot, I think I would have cried out of total geekiness. With a whole year until the next season airs, I would highly recommend picking up the books either in paperback or audio to satisfy your jones for Game of Thrones.
Rating: 4.5 / 5 Stars
