Game of Thrones: "Dark Wings, Dark Words" Review User_image Matt Fowler

Due to the fact that "Dark Wings, Dark Words," the second episode of Season 3, was still under the obligation to catch us up with main characters we didn't get to see back in the premiere, there was a definite undercurrent of "Premiere Pt. 2" in place. Arya, Bran, Jamie and Brienne all took the stage for the first time this season, while those characters we already saw in "Valar Dohaeris" popped in to slightly continue the threads they began last week. Except for Sansa and Margaery over in King's Landing, who made some big important strides involving Jofferey.
Despite a rather crowd pleasing sword battle at the end, this episode didn't have many big dangerous moments like last week's Wight attack on Sam or Warlock attack on Dany. What it did have however was a bunch of new characters to throw at us; The Reeds, Lady Olenna, and the Brotherhood without Banners all made their debut. That's a friggin' lot for one episode. And by the look of the hunters who showed up right at the end, under the Bolton banner, the Bloody Mummers from the books have been replaced/morphed.
Daenerys was gone, which was a little frustrating since she closed out the episode last week with a big moment that I sort of wanted an immediate follow up to. Jon Snow could have been the one who was left out this week, but his scene was needed to introduce the audience to the concept of a "warg" before it was mentioned in Bran's storyline. So, a lot of shuffling about, but still great stuff.
I'll start things off with Bran who actually, through his dreams, got to cheat and have scenes with other Starks! It must have been cool for actors Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Richard Madden and Kit Harington to play a scene years later after only being together in the pilot. Plus, these wacky Three-Eyed Raven dreams allow Hempstead-Wright to use his legs, which must be a small blessing since he has to be so dormant all the time. It's also worth noting that Bran's still a crap shot with an arrow in his dreamscape. But him missing the bird was a good thing since it prompted a Ned Stark voice-over ripped from the pilot scene Bran was dreaming about.
Enter Jojen and Meera Reed, played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Love Actually, Ferb!) and Ellie Kendrick. The Reeds, from a swampland castle in the North called Greywater Watch, were led to Bran via Jojen's similar abilities. Not a lot of straight information is given though, save for Jojen informing Bran that he's a warg (and has actually been entering the mind of Summer) and that the raven stands for some kind of extra sensory perception ("The raven is you"). Osha doesn't much care for all this talk of magic, but she's still sticking by Bran's side.

Doofenshmirtz is Coming.

Again, Jon's scene, featuring a glimpse of a Wildling named Orell entering the body of a hawk in order to scout ahead, was there to break the "warg" ice. And Sam's story was pretty much just continuing the trek through the snow that the Night's Watch started last week, except now Sam's being harassed by a co-Crow named Rast - who I don't recall seeing last year. He was in Season 1 though because I remember him being trounced by Jon during sword training.
The actual "Dark Wings, Dark Words" element of the episode came when Catelyn and Robb received the news that her father, Hoster Tully, had died and...oh yeah, WINTERFELL IS BURNED TO THE GROUND AND EVERYONE WHO WAS THERE HAS BEEN EXECUTED. I do question Robb's tactics in delivering news to his mother. Because we enter the scene and Cat's crying her eyes out, and we assume it's about Bran and Rickon. But it's about her father, who we, as an audience, have never met. Then Robb breaks the news about everyone else in the world she loves being dead. Strange structure. But, I suppose there's no easy way to saddle up to two horrific shocks to the system. It's just that we only really care about one of them.
The later scene with Cat though, featuring her story about praying for Jon Snow's death and then praying for his recovery, made up for the earlier wonkiness. It was a very revealing tale, and one that addresses one of the problems that many readers and viewers had with Cat right at the outset of the entire sage: her irrational loathing of Jon. But here she heaps all the blame for her family's misery, and the death of her own kids, onto herself because of the fact that she couldn't "love a motherless child." Very powerful stuff.
All the talk of Winterfell getting obliterated led us directly to...THEON! Who was still alive and receiving a kind of exquisite torture we'd all probably would love to see Joffrey go through. No word on where he is or who the people holding him are. The last we saw of him, his own Ironborn soldiers turned on him and knocked him out cold. There is a light at the end of his horrific foot-screw tunnel though after a young man told him he'd help him escape. Meanwhile, Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie (who we still don't see until halfway through the episode) are bickering about being lost, with Gendry even giving Arya a bit of crap about the names she chose to give to Jaqen seeing as how none of them were even on her nighttime "prayer for death" list. "You could have picked King Joffrey."

The trio are then set upon by Thoros, Anguy and the Brotherhood Without Banners, a sort of ragtag Merry Men-style crew of jovial warriors who we previously heard of only through Tywin's desire to burn villages to the ground in order to find them. They don't seem to like Robb's army either, showing allegiance to only themselves. Through meeting them, Arya got to be typically, and wonderfully snarky, and was almost out of their "care" when she got tagged as a "Stark" by The Hound, who didn't make it all that far after fleeing King's Landing. So at least one name on Arya's list is close by, and is being held captive.

"You came to the wrong neighborhood, motherf***er."

Over at King's Landing, Tyrion had a small scene with Shae, mostly played for laughs, where they squabbled about Ros and Sansa, but the real good stuff involved Margaery and her outspoken grandmother, Olenna (played by Diana Rigg), asking Sansa to tell them all about Joffrey. It was an amazing scene because Sansa played it dead serious, fearing for her life, still traumatized, while Margaery and Olenna were totally calm and pragmatic. Sansa's "He's a monster" was met with a sort of "oh great" eye roll from Margaery! That was fantastic. And Olenna's spunky manner (She'll have her cheese when she wants it!) was coupled with maternal reassurance. Her downplaying of Sansa's fear helped make Sansa, and us, feel safe from the evils of the King.

Then Margaery, with a little bit of soft-shoeing, once again was able to wrap Joffrey around her Highgarden finger, acting the victim to Renly's devilish gay-sex having ways. Which only helped Joffrey feel more masculine, and extra enamored with Margaery since she hadn't been had first by a competitor for the throne. Like last week, this is a tamed Joffrey. It's not without a bit of work, but all Margaery had to do was act like everything he says was fascinating. Instead of pointing his crossbow at her like he did with Sansa, they held it together. She's a true political animal who doesn't resent getting paired up with a monster, or a stranger like Cersei was, in order to become Queen.
Man, I hope all my future reviews won't be as long as this one, but there were just too many new folks to write about. I've also sort of led us through the episode chronologically, which I also don't care to repeat going forward. So we'll end it with Jaime and Brienne, my absolute favorite pairing from the pages of A Storm of Swords. Still on their long-cut way to King's Landing, with Jaimie rubbing it in that he, truthfully, knew Renly better than Brienne ("It's a shame the throne wasn't made out of c***, they'd have never got him off it"). Just constantly pushing her buttons while she remained a stone. Well, it all culminated with an escape attempt and a sword battle that saw Brienne pretty much best Jaime in strength and skill. The ultimate shut down! Schooled him. Very fun.

While still totally satisfying, "Dark Wings, Dark Words" was a beast of an episode. The new characters easily fit into the realm, but we still have a lot of questions about them; particularly the Reed siblings and the Brotherhood. At least the Brotherhood was mentioned several times in Season 2. And as sad as I am to see the Mummers get dropped, it's probably best for TV viewers if there weren't two new gangs of fighters out there roaming the forests.

Source:http://www.ign.com