I don’t tend to watch episodic television on a weekly basis, but the timing of “Game of Thrones” on Sunday nights makes it easy to stay up to date as I wind down the weekend. However, ever since the world rejoiced in Joffrey’s death in episode two of this fourth season not a damned thing has happened that I care about… until last night.
Sure, the late scenes with Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) in the third episode were decent, but I’ve watched Daenerys do the same thing over and over again for two seasons now to the point I hope her dragons roast her instead of unsuspecting goats. And seeing Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) plow a massive sword through the back of a man’s head and out his mouth is wonderful, but not worth an hour of my time.
Of course, this is the first season of “Game of Thrones” I’ve actually watched on a week-by-week basis, previously opting to either wait for the Blu-ray or until the season was built up on my DVR. In that respect I’d argue it’s not necessarily a series best viewed one episode at a time. It’s a series probably best watched all at once, but they don’t release it as such and so here we are.
Now to the headline and last night’s episode where, once again, little was taking place, but you could start seeing the pieces being put into place even from the opening teaser as Tyrion’s fate was soon to be decided, which brings me to the show’s number one asset… Peter Dinklage.
At the end of last night’s episode, “The Laws of Gods and Men“, Tyrion stands before his “judges” and wishes to “confess” and we are witness to a moment one thousand times better than Joffrey’s death. For two-and-a-half-minutes Dinklage has us on edge as he snarls out a monologue, saying everything we as the audience want to hear and he does it with such power and vengeance we almost want to cheer. We want to cheer because 1.) it’s one more example of how great Dinklage is in this role and 2.) something of consequence took place as all the cards were placed on the table and not skirted around in private, hush-hush conversations.
Tyrion, as a character, is also the only one left to care about as this season has even managed to cause me to lose interest in Arya (Maisie Williams) and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) and Jon Snow didn’t come together after said sword-stabbing, a scenario that continually leads me to believe Bran will be sitting on the iron throne (or whatever is left) by the series’ end. Oh, and the whole Theon Greyjoy plotline got tired after we had to watch him be tortured one episode after another last season and now he’s going to “pretend” to be Theon? Ugh, enough already.
The show remains one of the most well-produced, acted and directed television series I’ve ever seen, but I’m growing tired of what feels like the same-old, same-old from one episode to the next. That said, after Tyrion’s speech last night, they’ve lifted my spirits once again, but that’s because it meant something. It wasn’t just another act of violence or another bath house filled with naked women. And don’t get me wrong, violence and nudity I have no problem with, they are welcomed in fact, but let’s have it be about something and when your characters speak, make sure they are written with the same quality as Tyrion’s speech last night. Cool?
