Game of Thrones S4 Ep2 Recap
Season four of Game of Thrones has had me on the edge of my seat and has blown my mind with this week’s episode! Before I start off with this week’s recap, I will warn my readers that there are spoilers. Trust me when I say, this is one episode of Game of Thrones that you do not want spoiled!
The episode started off with what I can only describe as a nightmarish mix of what I would expect to come out of mixing the plots of “The Hunger Games” and “The Devil’s Rejects” together; it sounds like a crazy combination so allow me to rationalize my thoughts. The opening scene is an unknown girl running through the woods terrorized as she is being chased by hounds and hunters. Two of the three hunters include the familiar faces of Ramsay Snow and Reek, the cracked shell of the former Theon Greyjoy. In short, the girl basically goes through every classic horror movie chase cliché and ends up being shot through the leg with an arrow and becomes dog chow for the hounds. Good start to the episode, right? – It gets better.
As I mentioned in my last recap, there is a rising suspicion in Kings Landing of Tyrion Lannister’s relationship with ‘Lady Stark’s servant,’ Shae. Tyrion is no fool and realizes that he needs to make moves before his beyond-evil-sister Cersei does. So Tyrion ends up making the difficult decision of sending Shae away from Kings Landing where she will be safe; to up the dramatics and assure that Shae will leave and not come back for Tyrion, he calls her a whore and tells her that she is not fit to have his children as his wife, Sansa, is. It was harsh but seemed effective as she stormed out of his room after giving Bronn, Tyrion’s comrade, a nice hard slap to the face when he tries to escort her out.
Finally, the part we have all been waiting for, the royal wedding! King Joffrey and Margaery are finally wed in this episode, and where there is a wedding in “Game of Thrones,” there is drama. I think I will take this last section of the episode by character, starting with Cersei.
Cersei was being a bitch, plain and simple. First she makes sure that Margaery’s good deed of announcing that the left-over wedding food would go to the poor was short lived when she made sure that the left-overs went to feeding the hounds 10 minutes after Margaery’s announcement. Then she goes after Brienne and calls her out on being in love with Cersei’s brother/lover Jaime. Don’t worry, though, Cersei will learn a lesson in karma before the episode is over.
Then there is the awkwardness of the wedding party festivities, brought to you by King Joffrey with his victim of the evening, Tryion. After Joffrey brings out his sick idea of party entertainment in the form of an offensive skit, he makes sure that he tries to act like an alpha male by calling out his uncle to fight with the subjects who performed the skit. Well Tyrion makes some brilliantly passive aggressive remarks and gets demoted to Joffrey’s cup-bearer in a matter of minutes.
This brings me to the pinnacle of the episode, I am smiling as a write this! After some more back-and-forth between Joffrey and Tyrion, Joffrey starts eating some of the wedding pie and makes sure that his new cup-bearer brings him his wine to wash it down… and then it happens. Joffrey starts choking and I’m sure every viewer knew where this was going; Joffrey was poisoned! The King is dead and we don’t know who did it! To be honest, I’m not even sure if I care at the moment because I am just so satisfied that Joffrey, son of Cersei and Jamie Lannister, is dead. Of course, Cersei is quick to place the blame for the murder on her other brother, Tyrion, but I suppose we will just have to wait to find out the identity of the hero who knocked off Joffrey from the throne.
