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
Check out the trailer for next week's episode The Watchers On The Wall
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