Winter may be coming, but that doesn’t stop the lovebirds from ‘Game of Thrones’ from following suit. The seventh episode of the third season is called ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair,’ which book-readers will recognize as a famous song loved by the realm’s bards. Not only is love blossoming anew, but there are weddings being planned (the count is up to 4 now?), jealous suitors, and bears, oh my!
On the way to the Twins
Downpours of rain slow the Starks’ travels towards Frey lands, which worries Catelyn that the Frey patriarch is going to be even more annoyed with them. Edmure’s pouts once again do nothing to help anyone, and sadly, Blackfish doesn’t promise to punch him in the face.
Robb and Talisa have a sexy moment alone in the tent, after which she informs him she’s to be due a Mother’s Day present! She’s with prince-or-princess! There is much naked rejoicing.
South of the Wall
Ygritte goes all Little Mermaid on Jon Snow when she passes a windmill she took for a castle at first, and upon informing her she’d “swoon” upon seeing Winterfell, she tells him she doesn’t know what that means. Nor does she know what “fainting” is. And why would a girl of her bravery need to? You want thingamabobs? She’s got twenty!
It seems word of their own sexy times is making the rounds of the wildlings, with some “be a gentle lover” advice from Tormund Giantsbane (who knew?) and an even stinkier stink-eye from Orell, who tells Ygritte in private she’d be better off with one of her own. Like, you know, him.
In a moment alone, Jon takes Ygritte aside, and since the jig is privately up between them, Jon tells her the Wildlings will never win an attack against the realm. Wildlings have passion, but there’s no organization, and they’ll be decimated in no time, just as they always have been when they mount an attack. Ygritte gapes like she fell asleep all throughout Wildling History 101, but ultimately decides to adapt the outlook that many millennials have long embraced: yolo. Since Jon’s on their side now, he’ll die with the Wildlings, so they can at least live for a while. (I think that means “keep having a lot of relations with each other.”)
Meanwhile, the Green Dream Team have switched their course. After Jojen’s dream foresaw Jon Snow on the wrong side of the Wall, he and Bran have decided to avoid Castle Black and aim “North of the Wall” to catch the three-eyed raven that’s been haunting his dreams since his fall. Osha warns them with a story of her lover-turned-White-Walker, and angrily recounts the promise she made never to return to Wildling country. Who will the Little Lord side with?
King’s Landing
Sansa beats herself up about being the stupidest girl in the realm, and Margaery tries to make her feel better by finding a silver lining. After all, Tyrion’s reputation precedes him by being quite the lover, a fact which takes Sansa by surprise, because she apparently hadn’t considered the implications of having an arranged royal marriage. Margaery reminds Sansa that he’s far from the worst Lannister, which makes things awkward when Sansa realizes (the one thing she’s likely to realize on her own ever) that Margaery herself is wedding the absolute worst Lannister ever. But again, Margaery makes the situation less awkward by informing her that a caring lover has great benefits, since the act of pleasuring a woman can be quite complicated. Sansa asks Margaery how she knows this, and if she learned it from her mother, and the audience agrees with her initial declaration that Sansa is the stupidest girl in the realm.
Tyrion and Bronn have a quick scene which slightly mirrors the above. Tyrion is feeling sorry for himself for inflicting the innocent girl with the life-sentence of having to marry him. Bronn doesn’t see the problem with marrying a young, beautiful girl, and doesn’t see why Tyrion can’t just make the best of it.
Shae is why Tyrion cannot make the best of it. Jealous that her lover is going to be married to, more or less, Shae’s boss, Tyrion tries to explain to her that they can still, you know, have a family on the side and she’ll live protected for the rest of her days. Shae knows that’s no life and begs him to run away across the Narrow Sea with her, but he asks what he would do there — become a juggler? He has a duty to his family. Shae storms out, upset that she’ll go back to being the nothing she was without him. (Yes, when you don’t want to be left alone, the best thing to do is storm off to be left alone.)
Tywin threatens to make good on his promise to Cersei from a few episodes ago that he will be the one to wrangle Joffrey in, and anticipation builds as his shoes clack along the length of the throne room. We know Joffrey doesn’t respond well to orders, so what’s his game?
Joffrey has summoned his grandfather to ask him why he holds Small Council Meetings in the Chamber of the Hand, rather than the Small Council Room. And also why the king is not given a special invite to the meetings, when the king should be informed. And also if he’s read Mindy Kaling’s new book ‘Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?’ and speaking of, are they? Tywin towers over Joffrey, dwarfing him even in the Iron Throne, and tells Joffrey he’s welcome to attend. He’s being informed right now, and if there are too many stairs to the Hand’s Chamber, perhaps he can be carried. Joffrey counters with a question about the dragons across the sea that everyone keeps talking about and Tywin swats the nonsense away. Next he’ll be spouting off tales of the dead come to life! With…blue eyes…
Right outside the castle, in Blackwater Bay, Melisandre sails away with Gendry in tow. He can’t get over the fact that after all this time, he’s back where he started, outside the slums of King’s Landing, when the red woman tells him his true lineage — Robert Baratheon’s bastard son. Gendry’s mind is blown.
Outside Yunkai
Riding the high of sticking it to the Slave Man in Astapoor, Daenerys grants the leaders of neighboring Yunkai an audience with her. Presenting her with a gift of gold and ships, the leader asks only for peace and for their town to be spared. Gold and ships? That’s everything Dany wanted when she set out on this crazy adventure of rightly claiming the throne!
Daenerys doesn’t accept. Her gift to Yunkai will be for the leaders to keep their lives, with a request on top that they free all their slaves. The liaison doesn’t take too kindly to this spit-in-the-face counter offer, and he threatens that she will have to deal with Yunkai’s powerful friends before storming off. Dany sends Jorah to do some recon on who these powerful friends are and audiences tug their collars wondering if she’s bitten off more than she can chew this time.
In Places Unknown
Two beautiful women emerge from the shadows, untie Theon from his torture X, and bring him to the ground for some sweet, sweet lovin’, and just about everyone watching is waiting for him to wake from a dream or one of the women to take off her mask, revealing it’s Theon’s mystery torturer or something. Sure enough, his captor announces himself at a very climactic moment by blasting on the horn he loves so much. He then informs Theon that he’d like to take away his favorite body part, and the guards descend on him to take his manhood. That escalated quickly.
In the Brotherhood WIthout Banners Hideout
With a pack of Lannister soldiers less than a day’s ride away, there’s a change of plans, and the Brothers plan an attack on them instead of heading towards Riverrun as promised, where Arya’s family is. Arya’s had just about enough of their lies, and narrowly escapes their hideout into the surrounding forest. But it’s not easy to see your surroundings in the dead of night, and she runs right into the arms of the most recent person to slip through the Brotherhood’s hands — the Hound.
At Harrenhal
Unsure of her fate, Brienne is about to see Jaime off, who’s leaving for King’s Landing. She begs him to at least keep up his end of the bargain and free the Stark girls. He vows he will, and she bids goodbye to “Ser Jaime.” Not “Kingslayer”! Tear!
After a quick ride and some interesting info about why Qyburn was stripped of his Maester’s chains — hint: in lieu of having bodies donated to science, he just experiments on living poor people — Jaime learns that Brienne’s father has offered a small reward for his daughter’s safe return, but nothing like the sapphires Jaime had made up when Locke’s men had set out to rape her.
Sure that those left behind would do anything they want with her, Jaime demands that they head back to Harrenhal, and upon doing so, he finds a cagematch between Brienne and a huge frigging bear! Locke and his ilk cheer on the fight, which seems a bit unbalanced, since Brienne is only armed with a wooden sword.
Jaime dives into the fray to distract the bear, and just before having his face swiped off, the guard who brought Jaime back hits the bear with his crossbow, shouting to the others that Lord Bolton had charged him with returning Jaime to King’s Landing and that’s what he intends to do. The bear isn’t too swayed by a mere crossbow bolt and descends upon the two just as Jaime boosts Brienne to safety. Once there, she has the guards grab her legs, and dives back down to pull Jaime from near death.
Not letting a little bear fight come between him and his swagger, Jaime turns to Locke and says “Sorry about the sapphires” before heading back on his way.
That wraps up the seventh episode of season three of ‘Game of Thrones.’ Will love continue to waft in the air? Will this series have a happy ending? Is the bear actually the one, true king? Sadly, the last option is the most likely.
‘Game of Thrones’ airs on HBO for three more Sundays.
