GAME OF THRONES The Mountain And The Viper review - Warped Factor - Words in the Key of Geek.

Home Top Ad

Post Top Ad

GAME OF THRONES The Mountain And The Viper review

Raff gets ready to rumble and brings us her review of Game of Thrones season 4 episode 8, The Mountain and the Viper.


So, after a long 2-week wait, we finally got a new episode of Game of Thrones last night. It was a very long wait indeed. At one point I resorted to staring at the listing in the newspaper lovingly, just in case it disappeared and it wasn’t on.

As fate would have it, this morning had to be the day that I slept through my 8am alarm, only to open my eyes at mid-day. This had nothing to do with watching Arrow until 4am, nothing, at all.

So, I had missed breakfast. I was devastated because I bought some limited edition Banana Sugar Puffs yesterday and was looking forward to them. I had to settle for watching the episode with lunch, which consisted of a Tuna Mayo sandwich. As I pushed play, I thought this might have been a blessing in disguise. How much mess could I make with a sandwich? Famous last words since I was about to watch the epic fight that we have all been waiting for.

Jon Snow
The episode opened with a nice lady having a burping competition in a bar with some rowdy blokes. Don’t judge, we have all done it. I used to be able to burp the tune to Let’s Get Ready to Rumble by PJ and Duncan.

Anyway, I did wonder what I was seeing. Then I noticed Ginny and knew that we were in Mole’s Town. However, that did not last long as Ygritte and The Wildlings arrived and massacred everyone. I did think that it was a nice touch for Ygritte to essentially save Ginny. But, this scene was brutal. This was the first point that nearly put me off my sandwich.

I think we will have a war on our hands in the next few episodes, because as Jon Snow says, “If they hit Mole’s Town, then we are next.” I'm worried that the Wildlings were able to take Mole's Town with a small army, think what they are going to do with the 10,000 men they supposedly have. Oh, my god, that is not even mentioning the giants.

Theon GreyJoy/ Reek
Then we cut to Theon Greyjoy being told by Ramsey Snow that he has to talk to the men at Moat Cailin, to surrender so that they can live. There was one brave bloke who tried to stand up to Theon, who looked terrified, but he got an axe to the head for his troubles.

I don’t even know why I thought that they would live once they surrendered, because once they had agreed to give up it cut straight to the aftermath, and the same poor man that was giving up was now skinned and his eyes were gone. My sandwich was swiftly put away and I think we were only 20 minutes in.

Then we see Ramsey’s illegitimate Dad, Roose, giving him the family name because he massacred everyone at Moat Cailin. I’m sorry, but at this point, I felt like this was the same as giving a serial killer the key to the city, because Ramsey is heir to the Warden of the North.


Sansa Stark
This is where things get a little hazy for me because Sansa has to stand up for Littlefinger so that he can prove that he never murdered crazy Aunt Lysa. In the books, I don’t remember Sansa telling the court who she was, so I think this is a change. I might be wrong though.

So, to sum it all up, Sansa admits who she is, says that Littlefinger saved her life and both are set free. Littlefinger persuades the Lords to back Robert as Lord of the Vale and then he goes to see Sansa.

This is the gross bit because Sansa says that she knows what Peter wants and he says, “do you?” in the same way that the dirty old man on the corner says things, and then the next time we see Sansa, she has dyed her hair and she is dressed like the Maleficent. It reminded me of the first time we saw Anakin Skywalker in the Darth Vader suit. It gave me the creeps but I am anxious to see where they are going with this, because I don’t remember that transformation in the book.


Arya Stark
In the most ironic scene from the whole books, The Hound arrives at the Vale with Arya a few days after Lysa has been killed, which means no-one is going to pay the Hound. I am sure if someone went to tell Baelish and moody Sansa that Arya was there, then they would pay him odd, but the scene finished there.


Daenerys Targaryan
I have been looking forward to this part of the story for weeks – when Daenerys finds out that Jorah Mormont has been spying on he all along, in exchange for a pardon. When will they learn that you should never face a woman scorned, especially when she has dragons. I really did want Drogon to Kentucky fry Jorah, but alas that was not to be the case. He has until nightfall to be on his way.

I know some people don’t know how to feel about Messandei and Grey Worm falling for each other, but I love it! I totally want them to get together. Plus, I loved that Daenery’s was doing Messandei’s hair instead of the other way around. I found it refreshing.

The Mountain Vs The Viper
Then we got to the part that we were all waiting for. Before that though we saw Jamie and Tyrion having a conversation about Beetle killing, which I thought was pointless until Tyrion asked Jamie why did the cousin stamp on beetles and then I thought it was a clever way of letting Jamie work out that there was no good enough reason for him to kill Joffrey. This is all just conjecture on my part and I could be wrong.

Then we got to the fight, which took about 10 minutes. The Viper seemed to have the upper hand until he got a bit too big for his boots and then The Mountain crushed his skull like he was a giant standing on an egg, I haven’t eaten since! That skull implosion will be the reason that I don’t have a snack for quite some time. I don’t even know where my sandwich is because I couldn’t even look at food.

Before this, the last thing to disgust me this much was an episode of The X-Files which had a baddie sucking the fat out of a lonely heart women, but I would gladly watch that on repeat so that I never have to see Oberyn Martell’s head exploding ever again.

Conclusion
In conclusion, despite the epic level of grossness, I loved this episode. For me, it was a marked improvement on some of the others from this season that I have been disappointed with. Even though the gore made me feel a bit sick, I find myself strangely looking forward to finding out how they are going to top the head explosion.

Rating: 9/10


Read more from Raff on nerdasylumonline.com and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & YouTube.

Post Top Ad