Game of Thrones: “Mockingbird”
(Episode 4.07)
Shane Ryan and Josh Jackson review Game of Thrones each week in a series of letters.
Josh,
I have a new favorite Game of Thrones episode.
I was going to preface that with disclaimers about how I know it’s going to sound extreme, and reactionary, and how I’m probably inflicted with the immediacy bias since I just finished watching, but I feel like I’m pretty certain about this and wanted to come out strong. I’ll include this “postface” instead (hey, it turns out that’s a real word! Do you pronounce it post-fiss?), because who knows, maybe I’ll feel different in a couple days … or hours. Right now, though, I consider it one of the most exciting, flawless, and poetic episodes in the show’s entire run, with more goosebump-inducing moments packed into an hour than should be possible.
The only missteps were the “HBO moments” that are basically network requirements, and which I think we have to separate from the show entirely. You know the ones—Melisandre strutting around naked, the Mountain brutally murdering people for no real reason (speaking of which, that was apparently the third actor to play Gregor Clegane). Aside from that? Incredible. So let me hit some of my favorite moments, and then you can tell me if I’m going too crazy here.
1. How about that scene with the dying man in the smoldering village? I wish I could find the actor’s name, and I swear I recognize him, but anyway, he was terrific. The dialogue in this episode was so strong, and it started here, when they asked him who burned down his hut: “I stopped asking a while ago.” And then, tackling the age-old question of whether a life of suffering is better than the uncertainty of death: “Maybe nothing is worse than this.” The line is interesting on its own, but Arya’s response exposes her growing atheism. The tragedies she’s suffered haven’t just made her vengeful; they’ve erased her faith in the old gods and the new.
2. Staying with Arya and the Hound, I have to give credit to Rory McCann (Sandor Clegane) for the incredible vulnerability he showed while telling Arya about his brother. Even though we’ve sensed the Hound’s heart, and the sadness in it, we’ve never seen it displayed so nakedly, and I thought it was a truly stunning scene. It also felt like the first time Arya could get past her own rage and see the Hound as someone who had been a child once, and who was hurt just like she’d been hurt. So much happened in this episode, but McCann’s performance is the one that will stay with me the longest, I think.
3. GOODBYE LYSA! I’ve been waiting for that forever since reading it in the books.
4. To get back to not cheering for character deaths, I thought this was a HUGE episode for Littlefinger. I haven’t loved Aidan Gillen’s acting lately, but man, did he kill it last night. Speaking of great lines, how about this: “In a better world, one where love could overcome strength and duty, you might have been my child. But we don’t live in that world.” Again, as with the Hound, we’re seeing the origin behind Petyr Baelish and the person he’s become, the loving part of him that was broken and hardened by unrequited love.
5. EVERY FRIGGIN’ SCENE WITH TYRION. I know his accent is basically a hodgepodge of everything, but Peter Dinklage just continues to be spectacular, and he makes everyone around him better. He had three epic scenes this time—one each with Jaime, Bronn, and Oberyn—and I can’t decide which one I liked best. Each was terrific in its own way—Jaime as the hurt brother, Bronn as the sellsword who cared just enough to stop by and tell Tyrion why he didn’t care enough, and then Oberyn … hell, of course that was my favorite! The raw emotion running between the two of them, hinging on the story about Cersei’s cruelty to Tyrion as a child, just killed me. I WILL BE YOUR CHAMPION.
6. Jorah with the classic thunderbolt of perspective—if Ned Stark had treated him like Daenerys is treating the masters, he’d be dead.
7. Hot Pie! Still making those hot pies!
I could go on. What did you think? Are you buying what I’m selling? Are you buying even half of what I’m selling?
—Shane
Shane,
When I read “postface,” I assumed I’d missed the basketball meme version of this.
I’ll buy more than half of what you’re selling. It was a great episode, but the thought “best episode ever!” didn’t cross my mind until I read your letter. But other than the Game of Thrones producers’ penchant for just swapping out actors, there weren’t many flaws. The Mountain, Gregor Clegane, came across like a CGI character and looked little like the two different actors we saw in Seasons 1 and 2. He’s now played by 24-year-old Icelandic actor Hafpór Björnsson, who, of course, goes by the nickname “Thor.” This makes him a full two decades younger than Rory McCann, though he plays the Hound’s older brother.
But that’s just a quibble. There was much to praise in “Mockingbird,” especially the scenes with Arya and the Hound. This combination continues to win because their growing compassion for each other feels completely earned. They’re the cynical and justice-seeking sides to the same the coin, both shaped by the cruelty of their childhoods. If we saw the tenderness and vulnerability of the Hound as he recounted the horrors of his childhood, we also saw the ruthlessness of Arya who stabs the outlaw through the heart the second she learns his name and can put him on her vengeance list.
And yes, Oberyn’s visit to Tyrion in prison was also powerful. Peter Dinklage is great even when he’s just speechless listening to what he thinks is just one more person heaping misery upon his head. But Dorne is not King’s Landing, and Oberyn is not just another sociopathic nobleman. Cersei didn’t believe him when he told her, “We don’t hurt little girls in Dorne,” but she’s been rotten since she was little herself.
But Game of Thrones is more about cunning than compassion, and no one is better at playing the long game than Petyr Baelish. Every single move is calculated, even a first kiss. He made sure Lysa was watching—he needed her to terrify Sansa before coming to her rescue. Murdering Lysa without revealing what she was would have only made Sansa scared. Now he’s the Lord Regent of the Eyrie wooing the heir of Winterfell.
Plus, HOT PIE! So yes, I can see how you’d call this the best episode yet, though mine is still “Blackwater,” which felt like an hour-long feature film.
By the way, I don’t ever want to live anywhere with a moondoor. Both Lysa and Robin seemed obsessed with making others fly. But in all the horrible deaths that we’ve seen on Game of Thrones, only getting burned alive by the Red Witch seems like a worse way to go than flying through the moon door. I can only say that because Theon still lives. Am I missing any others?
—Josh
Josh,
I’m with you—in terms of Game of Thrones deaths—the moon door is as bad as it gets, though getting crucified by Daenerys or burned by a dragon or ice-touched by a Wight or cross-bowed by Joffrey or side-swiped by climbing the wall or rock-dashed as a child by the Mountain are all pretty bad. Still, the Eyrie has had a creepy vibe since the beginning, and all you can think about, every time we visit, is that fucking moon door. It overshadows everything else, to the point that I wonder why anyone even cares that the fortress is so “impregnable.” I think I’ve made this observation before, but does anyone really want to invade the Eyrie? Like, what’s the end game there? Giving yourself vertigo? That’s why Baelish is so brilliant to use it as a stepping stone in his power play—it legitimizes him to be Lord Regent, but it has to be the easiest of all the cities to conquer. Even the Crossing with Walder Frey, or Balon Greyjoy’s Iron Islands, have more joy in them. The Eyrie is just an acrophobic creep factory.
One line I loved before Lysa flew out the moon door was her hysterical insistence that Sansa was just like Catelyn, and would never love Baelish like she did. It’s completely true: if Littlefinger has one weakness in the brilliance of his scheming, it’s that he keeps falling for Stark girls that are out of his league. He plays the hardened cynic, and there was definitely strategy to that kiss, but I think there’s real feeling at the bottom of it, and like all love, it makes him vulnerable. Which, of course, doesn’t stop him from using Sansa as a chess piece, but I still wonder if it’s going to hurt him in the end.
Personally, I don’t like the new Gregor. It seems like they’re turning him into a giant freak, which, okay, is fair enough, but there doesn’t seem to be any cunning or meanness in him. He’s more just like a fighting oaf. With all due respect to Bjornsson, would it have been that hard to get somebody who looked a bit more battle-scarred, a bit realer, and, as you pointed out, believably older than the Hound? I still feel like this is one where HBO reached their grubby fingers in to be like, “GUYS, WE HAVE TO MAKE HIM HUGE! SO HUGE IT’S CRAZY! NOW QUICK, SHOW SOME BOOBS!”
Also, Twitter came through for me last night after writing that first email, and I’m happy to report that the actor playing the dying man with Arya and the Hound is Barry McGovern, Irish star of stage and film, who most of us Americans probably know best from his roles in Braveheart and Far and Away in the ‘90s. He’s also renowned for performing in Samuel Beckett plays, and there’s a definite Waiting for Godot-esque despair to his death scene last night. Mystery solved!
So, now that we’re approaching the final installments of Season 4, should we begin talking about where it stands compared to other seasons? You won’t be surprised to learn it’s near the top for me, and I’m expecting big things for the pay-off: the duel for Tyrion’s life, Petyr trying to pass off Lysa’s death as an accident, Jon continuing to grow in prestige at The Wall while Alliser Thorne thinks up new ways to try to have him executed, Arya and the Hound continuing to kill their way through the war-ravaged north, and Brienne and Pod finally becoming lovers.
Just kidding on that last one. I think.
—Shane
Shane,
Okay, maybe seeing Lysa plummeting from the moon door terrified me enough to forget all the other horrible ways to die in Game of Thrones. There’s not a lot of quietly succumbing to old age. Still … moon door. [Shudder]. If I’m Baelish, my first move as Lord Regent is close up the giant hole in the floor of my throne room.
And I’m glad you solved the mystery of Barry McGovern. Part of the reason the show is so good is that the acting is superb top to bottom, no matter how minor the character. Unless, of course, they just need some Icelandic colossus to look like the giants north of the wall.
I definitely think this season is as good as any of the others, but I really don’t think there’s been a lull since Season 1, Episode 1. If anything, it’s better because we’ve had more time to get to know all 684 of these characters. There’s still three episodes to go and so much more to happen. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the same writing pair that gave us “Mockingbird” and “Breaker of Chains,” wrote the final three, so I can’t imagine the quality will wane.
Don’t die, George R.R. Martin.
—Josh
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