**SPOILER ALERT** This article contains spoilers, including character deaths, for “Game of Thrones” up to episode 4×07.
Episode 7, “Mockingbird,” meandered at the beginning, not really getting to the meat of things until the second half, but after that dramatic previous episode a breather was justified.
Tyrion experienced another severe personal blow, this time from Bronn. I don’t think the show handled his and Shae’s betrayals well. In the books it was different – Shae was probably never loyal to Tyrion and Bronn was always more practical and less affectionate in their friendship. Their actions still hurt, but they weren’t very surprising.
The show amped up both characters’ warmth for Tyrion and developed their personalities more, which made for better viewing but hurt the believability of their treacheries. It’s too big a leap in personality with too little explanation. Bronn’s was better done than Shae’s, though – that farewell was touching and went out of its way to emphasize that Bronn still cares. And Tyrion’s hurt but graceful acceptance only made it more heartbreaking.
Fortunately for Tyrion, he’s found an unlikely champion in Oberyn. That scene was just what we needed to get the episode moving, after a little too much idle conversation from the other characters. This was also just a conversation, but it was electrifying. Peter Dinklage maintained his Emmy-worthy performance and Pedro Pascal easily kept up with him.
Sansa’s behavior during the snow castle scene puzzled me. I thought it was out-of-character. It’s not just that the scene was slightly different from the book. There Robin, younger but more deliberately unkind (in the show he comes off as more misguided and developmentally challenged than truly mean-spirited), tramples her castle on purpose. Here he messes up a piece of it by accident and she gets snappy about it. When he throws a bratty but not unprovoked tantrum and destroys the castle, she slaps him across the face. Wow. In the books all she did was rip his doll.
Slapping a child over a snow castle is not Sansa. The point of her character is that even with all the pain, torment and heartbreak she endures, she never loses her softness. She retains the ability to be warm and kind to everyone. That’s her strength – and it’s no less powerful than Arya’s callous violence. This scene with Robin tainted that strength. Her actions weren’t unjustified (she’s earned a bit of an outburst), but they didn’t fit with her character. Are the writers trying to send her down a darker path, like everyone else? That creepy way she agrees with Robin about making people they don’t like “fly” supports that theory. With a mentor like Littlefinger it would be hard to not get a little darkness in her.
Speaking of Littlefinger: the last scene. Littlefinger has always pulled strings, made threats and set violent actions into motion, but we’ve never seen him get his hands dirty. Now he has. His face when he shoved Lysa out the Moon Door was terrifying. We saw the mask slip, revealing a feral snarl. Littlefinger may get by with smarmy smiles and unflappable calm, but never forget it’s an act. He’s selfish, cruel, pitiless, always in control, and dangerous. There’s wrath in him to match Cersei Lannister’s. I hate the guy, but he’s an extraordinary character, and Aidan Gillen is perfect in the role.
It’ll be interesting to see how Littlefinger explains Lysa’s death. In the books, he makes sure there’s an expendable singer in the room to pin it on. Here, there was no one but him and Sansa. Is he going to tell the Vale’s bannermen that Lysa just tripped and fell? He’ll need all his smooth-talking skills to pull this off.
There’s no episode next week, sadly. Memorial Day. Episode 8 will air on June 1 and will feature the trial by combat between Oberyn and the Mountain. It’s going to be really traumatic so maybe it’s a good thing we have an extra week to steel ourselves. See you then.
