Game of Thrones S7E3 – Review

Episode 3 of Season 7 is here and it definitely helped ramp up the story-line further and produced catastrophic endings for a few key characters. We had deaths, we had reunions and we had character introductions. So let’s in into it!

We start at Dragonstone where John Snow and his entourage, including Ser Davos are greeted by Hand of the Queen, Tyrion and translator, Missandei. John and Tyrion have met before and seemed to get on well, as some will remember, Tyrion actually travelled all the way to the Wall with John, keen to see it himself. Both in the books and in the show they do bond and it’s a really nice reunion, one I was personally excited for. They seem to trust each other, which is a rare thing when it comes to Starks and Lannisters and their lighthearted jibes to each other are refreshing and a good throwback to when they met way back in Season 1. Tyrion confessed that he and John were the same and “all dwarves are bastards in their father’s eyes”, so they really connected well, John seemingly being a Ned’s bastard son. In light of this, it was no surprise to me that Tyrion wanted to help John in his quest to win Dany’s trust and access to her dragonglass (ooerrr).
Tyrion leads John and his men up the long winding steps to the keep, which is amazing in itself. Dragonstone is such a stunning place and typical of a Targaryen setting. En route Drogon sweeps past, sending John to the ground. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that most people have never even seen a dragon, so it’s a shock to him and Davos when the largest of the three flies past.
We then get a scene that everybody has waited for, for a very long time. Aunt and Nephew come face to face and don’t even know it. Dany hosts John in her throne room and the two continue to battle with words over the importance of each other’s conquests. It’s quite a long drawn out conversation, but let’s pick up on the key elements of it…
John tries to convince Dany of the Walkers, Dany doesn’t believe him (despite having three dragons herself and literally being reborn multiple times in fire), but either way she is focused on Cersei and will not help somebody she doesn’t even know. She then pretty much takes John prisoner whilst she figures out what to do with him, but Tyrion comes to the rescue and gives John and option. He convinces Dany to allow John to mine the dragonglass, giving him purpose for being there and also a bit of trust from Dany’s side. It’s definitely the best option for both parties, whilst Dany waits to see how the battle at Casterly Rock plays out.
I had a bit of apprehension around these two meeting, but I do think they paid it off quite well. It’s definitely understandable that Dany wouldn’t drop everything for John and him spending some time at Dragonstone, mining Dragonglass will be a good opportunity for the two to get to know each other and for the show to build a bond between them. This bond is later enhanced slightly as the two come to an agreement on what Tyrion brokered for each of them. Dany mentions the death of her two brothers, something they both have in common and you feel a sense of common-ground building and there’s an excellent shot of John approaching Dany with the dragons flying in the background. This dramatic irony of them both being Targaryens but not knowing it is something I feel will be addressed very soon. Bran is back in Winterfell as we see later in the episode and surely will open up about what he’s seen in the past, at the Tower of Joy.

Finally, ice and fire meet, Targaryen and Targaryen.

Meanwhile, Melisandre is missing all of this and has taken herself away from the meeting, having been banished by John before. I mentioned it in my Season 6 overview, but remember, Mel was actually banished by John for the murder of Princess Shireen and Davos actually told her he’d kill her if he ever saw her again, so it’s understandable. Melisandre is a great character though, she’s in it purely for her God. Why else would she help the person who banished her and the man who threatened to kill her? After all, she brokered this meeting between Dany and John.
Anyway, Varys creepily follows Mel up the cliff and they have a sort of altercation. Varys as a character has been slightly strange this season, often lost for words and not quite ahead of the game like in the past, and this is scene is no different. He doesn’t believe in any God and specifically has beef with Lord of Light followers. You may recall in Season 6, Tyrion rallies Fire Priests and Priestesses to vouch for Dany to the common people of Meereen, and when they call Kinvara to Dany’s throne room, Varys tests her with words. She tells him that when he was younger he was taken by a mad man who proceeded to chop of his man bits and throw them into a fire in some weird ritual. We know this to be true as Varys has told others before, but what we don’t know is what Varys heard in the fire that night, as he’s never told anybody. Kinvara whispers something in his ear and Varys seems shocked (probably because she got it right). The bottom line is, Varys doesn’t like Lord of Light worshippers and he tests Mel, like he did Kinvara, passively aggressively telling her she should leave Westeros and never return. Mel proceeds to tell him she is leaving for Volantis but will be back, as she has seen her end met in Westeros and also seen his. She says “I have to die this is strange country, just like you”. This leaves Varys once again lost for words. Did Mel just predict both their fates? Either way, Varys is left pretty creeped out.

We see a brief shot of the Greyjoys saving Theon from the water. He’s pretty lucky that these are Yara’s Greyjoy men, who seem to see through his bullshit that he tried to save her and leave him on deck. I won’t linger on Theon too much, but I am interested to see how his character arc goes. He was once captive himself and Yara risked her life to save him from Ramsay, only to be denied by Theon, too scared in his “Reek state”. I wonder if Theon will now do the same and infiltrate Euron’s fleet to save Yara. It would be quite a nice moment and a bit of reconciliation for his character, but we will see.

Speaking of Euron, back a King’s Landing he arrives lapping up applaud from the common-folk in the capture of Ellaria and Tyene, his gift for Cersei. He also has Yara but she looks to be his captive. He drags them to the throne room and honours his potential bride with his gift, which she promises he will have when the war is done. Euron proceeds to taunt Jaime in a bizarre but quite funny way, asking for Jaime’s advice of “…how his sister likes it, perhaps a finger up the bum”. Jaime surprisingly keeps great restraint (and has done multiple times over the last season). Later in the episode, Jaime even shows restraint to Olenna’s admissions (which we’ll get to) and I’m starting to wonder how long this will last. He’s bound to break at some point.
Down in the cells, Cersei has Ellaria and her daughter Tyene chained to the walls and gives her usual Cersei death speech. She explains how it felt to lose her only daughter and even asks why Ellaria would do that to her. Of course Ellaria is gagged and can’t reply, but I think that’s the point, Cersei doesn’t even want to hear it. She speaks of all the ways she’s dreamt of killing her enemies and flirts the options on the table, but instead opts for the same dirty trick Ellaria played on Myrcella. She kisses Tyene and ultimately poisons her, before taking the antidote given to her by Qyburn. Left to rot and die, she leaves Tyene opposite her mother to watch as her daughter dies in pain over a long period of time. It’s a powerful scene, Cersei playing somebody at their own game and I very much think this will be the last we ever see of Ellaria, assuming Cersei will leave her to rot with her thoughts for her remaining days. Grim!

A little time later Cersei has a visit from Tycho Nestoris, of the Bank of Braavos. Now this is an important scene as, it hints at what is to come. Tycho explains that the Crown owes a considerable amount of gold to them and that he wants it back, with interest. However the Lannisters are skint, and with the Tyrells allied with Dany, have no way to pay it back. The Iron Bank are interesting. It is a place built of from slavers hundreds of years ago and have a very vast and rich amount of gold to invest. They tend to back the Crown but occasionally whomever they think is more likely to pay them back. Right now they feel Dany is much more likely and Cersei’s words and slander of Dany isn’t enough to convince them not to jump ship. After much deliberation, Cersei informs Tycho that he is invited to stay as her honoured guest and in a fortnight he will have his gold. She clearly has a plan and as we see at the end of the episode, it looks like Tycho and the Iron Bank will get their gold back in full.

Euron taunts Jaime with his finger in bum comment. Haha.

Back at Winterfell, Sansa is preparing for the long winter. She seems to have picked up a few tricks along the way, knowing how much provisions they may need and having the insight to see leather added to the armour for when the cold comes. She’s strutting her stuff with Littlefinger and again, I really am not sure why she’s keeping him around, but she is. They definitely have a bond and I worry it may be the downfall for Sansa in episodes to come. Littlefinger is an extremely intelligent man and he always tends to be a few steps ahead of everybody else, so if we see something coming, chances are he knows what it is.
Anyway, he gives Sansa some advice, which is actually quite good advice to be fair. He warns her that she needs to start seeing every eventuality at the same time. Anything bad or good could happen at any time and she needs to prepare herself for it either way. Cersei may attack, the Walkers may attack, she may be betrayed, she may get some luck. The point is, she needs to be ahead of the game. In the books this is even more prominent, where Littlefinger tends to even entice Sansa to tell him why he’s done a particular thing, or why he spoke to somebody in a certain way. Almost teaching her his trade and lies and deceptiveness.
Of course all of this is probably some elaborate plan of his and I personally think he’s starting to lay the foundations of a manipulation against John. “Everybody is your enemy, everybody is your friend”. Is he going to attempt convince her that John isn’t the right person to lead the North? It’s definitely possible, especially if Bran let’s it out that John isn’t a Stark.
After her conversation with Littlefinger, Sansa is called to the gate where we see another reunion this episode, Bran is back. Sansa is genuinely happy to see him but Bran seems different, much more sombre. They chat by the Weirwood Tree and Bran tries to explain what happened to him and struggles doing it. After all, how easy can it be to explain you travelled North of the Wall, met the Children of the Forest, met the Three-eyed Raven who is some dude who can see into the past and the future, lost your Direwolf to Wights, was marked in a greensight dream by the Night King and found out John is Rhaegar Targaryen and their Aunt Lyanna Stark’s son! Not easy right?
He tries to prove to Sansa that he knows by telling her something he couldn’t possibly know and describes to her how she looked on her wedding night. Now I don’t think Bran is working with all the facts here and if he is, it was a pretty cold thing to bring up. We know that Sansa was raped by Ramsay Bolton on her wedding night and it was probably the worst night of her entire life, but Bran is still learning to use the greensight and it’s not out of the realms of possibility that he doesn’t know the full extent of that night; as he continues to master this gift he has. None-the-less, Sansa is pretty upset by it and understandably leaves.
Bran being back is key, he is living “proof” that John is a Targaryen, or at least he’s part of the proof anyway. This could lead to serious changes in John’s attitude. It would give John virtually no claim to the North but could bring him closer to Dany.

Lyanna Stark just before she reveals to her brother Ned that John is her and Rhaegar Targaryen’s baby.

Back at the Citadel, Jorah the Explorer is cured of Greyscale. Sam did it and even Archmaester Embrose is impressed by this. For me it seems a little far-fetched that Sam, not a maester himself, nailed what loads of fully-fledged maesters themselves have tried in the past and failed, but anyway, we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. Jorah is back and free to leave when he wants, so we’ll expect to see him at Dragonstone and back in the friendzone before we know it.
It’ll be interesting to see how Tyrion and Jorah get on. They’ve had little interaction and I wonder how Jorah will feel about the decisions and advice Tyrion is making and giving to his beloved Queen. Meanwhile Sam is rewarded by not being expelled and continues his quest to find out more about the enemy North of the Wall.

And then we’re given the finale of the episode, which was definitely the best bit and gave us the most story progression this season. At Dragonstone, Dany talks about attacking Euron’s fleet head on. She even suggests going herself with her dragons, but her council convince her otherwise knowing how dangerous that would be. Instead Tyrion talks us through the sack of Casterly Rock, he admits that Cersei will know they’re coming but he has a plan to outsmart his sister. Giving the job of building and maintaining the sewers when he was younger, Tyrion built himself a weak spot in a cliffside not far from the Rock. Here he would smuggle in whores for himself behind his father Tywin’s back, but interestingly can now use this to his advantage. The Unsullied use this passage to enter the Rock and destroy the Lannister army from the inside. It’s a fantastic plan and something Cersei definitely wouldn’t have seen coming. The Lannister army is massive and there’s much more of them than the Unsullied. That and the fact the Rock has never been taken before.
Despite the odds, Greyworm and the Unsullied managed to liberate the keep but something seems off, it almost seems too easy. Greyworm quickly realises that there should be much more Lannisters, but where are they? Suddenly the Unsullied ships are destroyed by Euron’s fleet, leaving Greyworm and the Unsullied not only confused to the whereabouts of the Lannister army, but with no easy way back to Dragonstone.
We then realise quite quickly where the Lannisters are as the next shot shows Jaime leading his men to none other than Highgarden, the home of Lady Olenna and House Tyrell. Jaime is flanked by sellsword Bronn and interestingly Randyll Tarly, who has clearly opted to join the Lannister cause. This is a massive betrayal, as the Tarly’s have been Tyrell bannermen for years. For Randyll Tarly to go up against Highgarden is a massive win for Cersei but an even bigger loss for Olenna and the Tyrells.
Needless to say the Lannisters storm Highgarden and destroy the Tyrell army in minutes. It’s no surprise really, the Tyrells are not fighters, and don’t have a great army. They rely on their bannermen and their riches, generally backing whoever is sitting the Crown or winning at war. Olenna, losing most of her family when Cersei blew up the Sept in Season 6, clearly backed the wrong horse in Dany this time.
We see a shot of Jaime walking past dead Tyrell soldiers and Lannisters packing gold away to take back to King’s Landing; and so we see Cersei’s plan finally come together. This is what she meant, by “…you will have your gold in a fortnight” when speaking to Tycho of the Iron Bank. She allowed Casterly Rock to be taken, emptying the larders and taking the provisions and whilst her enemies thought she’d be guarding her ancestral home, she had Jaime destroy one of Dany’s most powerful allies and rob them blind whilst she’s at it. Such a shrewd move, one Tyrion will be devastated by. I imagine we’ll see quite a distraught Tyrion in episode 4 when he realises he’s once again been outplayed by his sister.
Jaime ascends the long stairs to the highest point of Highgarden where he finds the Queen of Thorns herself sitting, awaiting her demise. She realises when the Lannisters are marching on Highgarden, that they have lost and her only saving grace is to ask if they fought well; to which Jaime is almost embarrassed to answer. She asks Jaime how it will be done (her death) to which he explains all the ideas Cersei had; marched through the streets and beheaded, or skinned alive, but Jaime convinced her otherwise. The Tyrell’s being wiped out is enough punishment for Olenna, as Jaime puts poison into her wine.
Knowing the game is up, Olenna drinks the poisoned wine instantly sealing her fate, before having one last move to play. Now we know that it was Olenna and the Tyrells who conspired with Littlefinger to poision Joffrey at his own wedding; after all it was Olenna who actually dropped the poison in Joff’s chalice, on the day. But nobody else actually knows that, least of all Cersei who is convinced it was Tyrion and hellbent on revenge against her brother. The last clever and perfect trick Olenna plays is to confess to Jaime that it was her and tells her she wants Cersei to know it. Cersei just has spared Olenna of a horrible, painful and hideous death and it will really cut deep that she has died peacefully after these fresh admissions of guilt. It really is a bitter sweet moment as Jaime once again has to restrain himself from lashing out as he leaves Olenna for dead atop the tower to die in her chair.
We don’t often get dignified deaths in Game of Thrones, but this one was certainly befitting of a fantastic character and even better actress. The portrayal of Lady Olenna by Dame Diana Rigg was perfect and a pleasure to watch her in every scene. She will be sorely missed and lauded for having one last laugh at Cersei, a true winner in defeat.

This episode was called The Queen’s Justice and we certainly saw just that. Cersei got revenge from her daughter Myrcella’s death by murdering Ellaria Sand’s last daughter and leaving her to rot in the dungeons; and also revenge for her son Joffrey’s death at the hands of Olenna and the Tyrells. Cersei won this episode and continues to win the game of thrones with Dany down to just three dragons, a Dothraki horde and all her hopes pinned on a man she barely knows in John Snow. Meanwhile Cersei has secured funding from the Bank of Braavos, retained her Lannister army, secured the Tarlys, destroyed the leader of Dorne and crushed Dany’s Greyjoy fleet. Not bad for a couple of weeks work, aye Cersei?

What will happen next remains to be seen, but again the players playing the game of thrones refuse to realise to real threat from the North.

I’ll sign off this review with one of my favourite quotes in all of Game of Thrones. From the late Queen of Thorns herself.

“I’d hate to die like your son. Clawing at my neck. Foam and bile spilling from my mouth. Eyes blood red. Skin purple. Must have been horrible for you as a kings guard as a father, it was horrible enough for me, a shocking scene, not at all what I intended. You see I’d never seen the poison work before.
Tell Cersei, I want her to know it was me.”