Game of Thrones recap: season seven, episode four – The Spoils of War

Spoiler alert: this blog is published after Game of Thrones airs on HBO in the US on Sunday night and on Foxtel in Australia on Monday. Do not read unless you have watched season seven, episode four, which airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Monday at 2am and 9pm, and is repeated in Australia on Showcase on Monday at 7.30pm AEST.

‘Men shit themselves when they die. Didn’t they teach you that at fancy lad’s school?’

Over four episodes, season seven of Game of Thrones seems to have set a template for itself: 40-odd minutes of strategy, negotiation, banter and tearful family reunions capped by 10-15 minutes of absolute bloody mayhem. So it was no great surprise when Jaime and Bronn’s wagon train was attacked by a charging horde of Dothraki screamers, however much writers David Benioff and DB Weiss might’ve liked it to be. It was still immensely satisfying, though.

Western movie iconography was all over the Jaime and Bronn storyline, from the carts hauling looted Tyrell grain across the prairie, to our heroes’ loping, sunlit ride-n-talk. And if neither man quite embodies the John Wayne archetype – one’s too pretty, the other too chatty – there’s always Randyll Tarly, whose flinty stare would’ve left Marion Morrison quaking in his cowboy boots. There was also Tarly’s son Dickon (Bronn’s little cackle at the name was priceless) slotting into the familiar role of the junior cavalryman traumatised by his first experience of battle. Tom Hopper lent warmth to a potentially one-note character, suggesting that Dickon may have inherited just a little of his brother’s gentle nature.

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But if these nods to the west were initially fairly subtle, when the grain train pitched camp in the Westerosi equivalent of Monument Valley they became impossible to ignore. The reversal of roles was fun, casting Jaime and co as the embattled settlers facing an onrush of tribal invaders, the Dothraki leaping on horseback and hollering like something from a 1950s Saturday morning serial. The only surprise was that nobody yelled “yippie-ki-yay”, or thought to circle the wagons when the thunder of hoofbeats was heard in the distance.

‘It’s a long story. I imagine yours is, too.’

Game of Thrones superfans love to imagine their ideal character confrontations: what if the Hound fought the Mountain? What if Arya killed Cersei. But it seems fair to say nobody was feverishly penning fan-fic about the meeting of Bran Stark and Petyr Baelish.

This was a peculiar scene, with two clear reasons for existing: to show how far Bran has disappeared into Three-Eyed Raven mysticism, and to allow Littlefinger to hand over the blade given by Joffrey to the catspaw who almost killed Bran, inadvertently starting a war. Indeed, the dagger got so much screen time that it’s clearly being set up for future exploits: will it be used to vanquish the Night King (Valyrian steel kills White Walkers, remember)? Or will Arya stick it into Cersei’s black heart?

The return of the last stray Stark was fairly low-key – or maybe we’re just used to these reunions now. The scene with the guards on the gate was a nice nod back to season one, though it did ramble on a bit (long scenes were another hallmark of the episode, and indeed have been of the season so far). But the meeting with Sansa was nicely judged, both young women trying to assess how much the other has changed. Arya seemed pleased but largely disinterested in Sansa’s rise to power, but Sansa was more wary, hiding her feelings when she learned that her sister has become not just a killer, but a highly skilled one. Perhaps she was wondering how Arya’s newfound strengths might be utilised in the wars to come.

‘I’ve noticed you staring at her good heart.’

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And speaking of long-awaited meetings, Jon and Daenerys continued to grow both closer and further apart. Their flirtation was hard to miss – Davos certainly caught on – but their political positions still seem pretty impossible to reconcile. Jon can’t bend the knee without losing the respect of the North, and Dany can’t give him troops until he swears fealty. It’s probably going to take a major catastrophe, a Gordian event to cut through the posturing and show a clear path forward.

But at least Daenerys is listening to Jon now, appreciating his counsel even as she upbraided Tyrion for his strategic failures (and fair enough). And that scene in the cave was strong, using Westerosi history to make a point about shared responsibility (and offering plenty of pseudo-Celtic inspiration for your next henna tattoo).

One question, though: why did the Children of the Forest fight alongside the humans against the White Walkers, who were created by the former to wipe out the latter? Or was this one of those situations where the weapon became impossible to control, and turned on its creators?

‘Enough with the clever plans. I have three large dragons.’

Which leads us to the grand finale, and our first, giddy vision of dragons fighting on Westerosi soil. Or more specifically, dragon: shouldn’t Rhaegal and Viserion have followed their brother into battle?

That idea of the dragons as an untameable force seems to have been dropped, at least for now: Drogon is happy to do his mother’s bidding, frying fleeing Lannisters while leaving the Dothraki unscorched. But I’d lay odds that the whole nuclear-option debate will come back with a vengeance when one of these wyrms goes rogue and gobbles up a bunch of smallfolk.

The setup for the conflict was clumsy in the extreme: by now we’re used to Game of Thrones playing merry hell with the concepts of time and geography (last week the Unsullied sailed around an entire continent), but the revelation that Dany had shipped an entire Dothraki army to the mainland without anyone noticing felt ridiculous. Benioff and Weiss’s commitment to their gotcha moments is impressive, but it’s resulting in some pretty unforgiveable contortions.

But the battle itself was magnificent, offering the very real possibility that not all of our heroes were going to survive it. As we draw closer to the end Benioff and Weiss are sure to start knocking off key characters, and there was a horrible moment when it seemed like either Bronn or – disturbingly – Drogon weren’t going to make it through. The final shot implied that Jaime could be on the verge of drowning, but that seems unlikely: expect him to start next week’s episode in Targaryen custody, bickering with his little brother – another reunion that’s sure to prove very satisfying indeed.

Additional notes

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• Mercenaries look set to play a major part in Cersei’s battle strategy. At this rate the Golden Company should be in King’s Landing by next week.

• It might be a stretch, but could this mean that Dany and Daario could end up fighting on opposite sides, if he left Meereen and rejoined the Free Companies? It depends how miffed he was at being left behind to guard the shop.

• Meera’s farewell to Bran was a quiet heartbreaker. This seems likely to be Ellie Kendrick’s final scene in the show – though a foggy, swampy Lannisters vs Reeds battle sequence would actually be pretty cool.
  
  

• We were treated to one last largely unanticipated reunion, as Stark outsiders Theon and Jon met on a blustery Dragonstone beach. The stage could’ve been set for a splashy scrap in the shallows, but mercifully Jon has learned some self-control.

Violence count

Could Arya and Brienne’s sparring session be classed as violence? Neither of them seemed inclined to hold back, and it’s hard to know who’d have been the victor in a proper scrap.

That aside, all the destruction was rear-loaded and included plenty of arakh-to-the-neck and spear-to-the-horse, including one mid-canter amputation that’ll have left animal lovers weeping. Countless redcoats were roasted by dragonfire, and all that lovely grain went up in flames. Anyone for popcorn?

Nudity count

Not even a hint of shoulder – it was armour and high collars all the way.

Random Brit of the week

In a neat bit of circular casting, the larger of the two Stark guardsmen who told Arya to fuck off was played by Danny Kirrane, whose character in last year’s surrealist C4 Britcom Wasted was plagued by visions of Sean Bean in costume as Ned Stark.

Play nice in the comments, and remember we welcome all speculation – but no spoilers.