Seven Kingdoms Scoop: ‘Game of Thrones’ recap of ‘Kissed by Fire’

If there was one recurring theme for last night’s Game of Thrones episode, it was butts, am I right? I mean, or emotional honesty. But also … butts.

Jaime’s butt! Brienne’s butt! Oliver the prostitute’s butt! Jon Snow’s butt! Ygritte’s butt! Butts, butts, butts.

Yes, I’m being childish here, but perhaps it’s because this week of Game of Thrones was otherwise quite sobering, no? You have Jaime spilling his guts about being a Kingslayer; Robb making a very kingly—and deadly—decision regarding some of his men; Tywin laying down the law to his children about what they will do to protect the legacy of the Lannister name. There wasn’t a single scene as bad-ass as last week’s Dany-led smackdown of Astapor, but I could certainly see this week’s episode being the one Nikolaj Coster-Waldau sends in for an Emmy nomination.

If last season’s breakout character was Tyrion, being a hardcore Hand of the King, playing the game, working all the angles, yearning to slap Joffrey in the face again, then this season is turning out to be Jaime’s, no? Stripped of his hand and of himself, Jaime is forced to figure out who he really is. Dany is having some standout moments this season, too—don’t get me wrong; I will forever love the Mother of Dragons—but Jaime is pulling on my heartstrings. That magnificently handsome bastard.

So for this week’s five best moments, click through! (Oh, and of course: SPOILERS ahead!)

1. That fight between Beric Dondarrion and the Hound—pretty much amazing, no? Yes, we had Jaime and Brienne sparring a few weeks ago, but Beric’s sword being on fire and Thoros of Myr bringing him back from the dead after the duel basically took the cake for “best use of swordplay and necromancy ever.” Sadly for Arya, the fact that the Hound won the duel means the Lord of Light doesn’t consider him guilty of killing Arya’s friend Micah—a judgment that drives Arya to try and kill the Hound herself (especially after he gloats, “Looks like God likes me more than your butcher’s boy”). Gendry pulls her back, but Arya’s “Burn in hell!” scream was pretty heartbreaking. Also tragic, though? That Gendry has decided to stay behind and smith for the Brotherhood Without Banners, a reminder to Arya that although she wants him to be her family, “You wouldn’t be my family; you'd be my lady.” That’s some tough shit, especially because all I want in my life is so for Arya and Gendry to end up together. ALL I WANT IN MY LIFE.

2. But, do not fret! I am also a fan of more age-appropriate pairings, like Ygritte and Jon Snow, who finally get it on this episode in a hidden cave, complete with waterfall! Ygritte supposedly instigates the encounter as a way to test Jon Snow’s loyalty to the Free Folk’s cause—since Crows take a vow of celibacy when they take the black—but come on, their sexual tension has been building for weeks now. Plus, their pairing gives us another utterance of Ygritte’s favorite line—“You know nothing, Jon Snow”—and provides us with the info that Jon Snow was a virgin, or a “maid,” before getting it on with the wildling, who admits, “I don’t ever want to leave this cave, Jon Snow. Not ever.” Yes, they are falling in love with each other. No, this can’t end well. This is Game of Thrones, remember? Nothing ends well.

3. Speaking of nothing ending well, we have Robb making some big-boy moves this week, killing Lord Karstark for murdering the two Lannister boys Robb was keeping as hostages (Karstark’s son died during a battle with the Lannister troops). Note that before Robb cuts off his head, Karstark curses him: “I want it to haunt you till the end of your days. … You are no king of mine,” he says. Anyway, by rejecting the advice of his mother, wife, and uncle, Robb squarely places the responsibility for Karstark’s punishment solely on himself—much like his father, Ned Stark, would have done. We all know what happened to Ned Stark though, right? And so with trepidation I view Robb’s plan to get Walder Frey on his side for an offensive against the Lannisters at their home, Casterly Rock … when Robb has already slighted Frey by failing to marry one of his daughters, is it really a good idea to ask him to contribute men and money and weapons? Robb is certainly noble—and, looking hotter than ever—but nobility doesn’t get you very far in the Seven Kingdoms. Not at all.

4. And now to check in with those damn Lannisters: Let’s start first with the scene that ends the episode, which is Lord Tywin commanding Tyrion to marry Sansa Stark and Cersei to marry Loras Tyrell—the two people Margaery Tyrell and her grandmother were plotting to join together, which Littlefinger’s whore Oliver learns from Loras after seducing him. Phew, that’s a lot of context. Anyway, what works perfectly in this scene is Cersei’s smugness turned into shock—she thought Tywin was just going to rip Tyrion a new asshole by saddling him with a useless marriage, but then she’s terrified to realize she’s being thrown to the family with the rose sigil as some kind of saving-face move from Daddy, who is very concerned about the “disgusting” rumors swirling around his daughter. (At no point does he bring Jaime into this conversation about Cersei’s behavior, which is telling in and of itself.) Cersei is a vapid, awful, petty woman, but it’s very hard not to feel bad for her in this moment, as he tells her, “You’re my daughter. You will do as I command.” He has harsh words for Tyrion, too: “The girl’s happiness is not my concern; neither should it be yours. … You will wed her, bed her, and put a child in her. Certainly you’re capable of that.” Ultimately the episode ends with Tywin storming out and Tyrion and Cersei sitting on opposite ends of the table, with their father’s words ringing in their ears: “My children. You disgrace the Lannister name for far too long.”

5. But a name is exactly what Jaime wants. Brought before Roose Bolton by Locke and his men, Jaime is treated by that maester from Harrenhaal, Qyburn, who shares that he was kicked out of the Citadel because his “experiments” were “too bold.” Yeah, that’s a clue for some insanity that will happen later on in this universe. But again we get a close-up of Jaime’s stump, and you have to begrudgingly respect him for refusing milk of the poppy for the pain while Qyburn tends to the wound: Jaime doesn’t want to mask any part of this. Jaime needs to claim that injury as his own. And so then we get that scene in the bath he and Brienne share, as he—exhausted, beaten, incomplete—opens up to the female knight about how he received the nickname the Kingslayer. I’ve excerpted much of his monologue below, because it’s just so, so good, amazing acting from Coster-Waldau and a perfect moment of humanizing for this character that we should hate for throwing Bran out the window. But … he also saved countless people from the Mad King’s (who, remember, was Aerys Targaryen, Dany’s father) insanity. So … who’s to say whether he deserves all the hatred heaped upon him?

“I urged him to surrender peacefully. … Lannisters have always been true friends of the crown, so he opened the gates and my father sacked the city. Once again I came to the king, begging him to surrender. He told me to bring him my father’s head. Then he turned to his pyromancer—‘Burn them all,’ he said. ‘Burn them in their homes, burn them in their beds.’ Tell me: If your precious Renly commanded you to kill your own father and stand by while thousands of men, women, and children burned alive, would you have done it? Would you have kept your oath then? First I killed the pyromancer, and then when the king turned to flee, I drove my sword into his back. ‘Burn them all,’ he kept saying, ‘Burn them all.’ I don’t think he expected to die; he meant to burn with the rest of us and rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn his enemies to ash. I slit his throat to make sure that didn’t happen. That’s where Ned Stark found me…. You think the honorable Ned Stark wanted to hear my side? He judged me guilty the moment he set eyes on me. By what right does the wolf judge the lion? Jaime. My name is Jaime.”

Cue up the moment when Marlo, in the season five episode of The Wire, “Late Editions,” snaps at his second-in-command Chris Partlow, “My name is my name!” Agreed, Jaime Lannister. Your name is your name. We won’t forget it. 

+ Some other quick tidbits:

+ We get some of Stannis’ personal life in this episode, meeting his zealot wife Selyse, who is even more committed to the Lord of Light and already knows about his affair with Melisandre: “When she told me, I wept with joy.” Oh, OK, you crazy person. Selyse also keeps the stillborn sons she bore Stannis in creepy green jars, and is very anti him spending time with his daughter Shireen, who has greyscale, a disease that causes her body to be covered in scale-like rot. But jeez, Shireen is adorable, and her sadness over her father telling her Davos Seaworth is now a traitor is so depressing: “The Onion Knight is my friend.” So when she goes to the dungeons to see Davos, bringing him a book and deciding to teach him how to read, I just wanted to give her a hug. All the hugs. 

+ We get a brief check-in with Dany and the Unsullied, who have now left Astapor behind and are marching on to another slave city, Yunkai. She allows the men to pick their own leader and they nominate Grey Worm, who chooses to keep his slave name because it “is the name this one had the day Daenerys Stormborn set him free.” It’s a pretty touching moment for Dany, furthering her savior complex, but is presented at the same time as a twitchy Jorah Mormont, who is trying to figure out if Barristan Selmy knows that Jorah was spying on Dany for Robert Baratheon as a way to get his past as a slaver forgiven so he could return to Westeros. It’s easy to forget that Jorah initially joined Dany’s company on less-than-chivalrous terms because he’s so clearly in love with her now, but yeah, the dude isn’t that awesome—no matter how many times he wants to sass Barristan with lines like: “You’re not Lord Commander here. You’re just another exile. And I take my orders from the queen.” Let’s see how much longer that lasts, Jorah.

+ And, finally, we see Sansa outmatched yet again, this time when she tries to lie her way out of going away with Littlefinger because she thinks she’s going to be married off to Loras. “I’d feel terrible if anything happened to you,” she tells Littlefinger, but really she just wants to be married to the pretty boy who she has no idea is absolutely disinterested in members of her gender. Littlefinger, however, is more apt when he says, “It doesn’t matter what we want. When we get it, we only want something else.” Remember how Varys said Littlefinger would burn all of the Seven Kingdoms down if he could rule over the ashes? We see that kind of megalomaniac manipulation at play when he’s dealing with Sansa, who is just so, so out of her depth. You can’t play this game, girl. You just can’t.