Episode Report Card Monty Ashley: B+ | 11 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Creepy Zombies Are Coming
By Monty Ashley | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Aired on 03.31.2013
Once he's on board the main ship, Davos is getting some food from Salladhor Saan. He's the cool pirate who Davos convinced to join Stannis's navy. I'm pleased to see him again because he is an entertaining character. And now that Davos has some food in him, he has time to catch us up on what's been going on with him. Remember his son? The one who was really into Melisandre and weird fire religion? Yeah, he's dead. It was that giant explosion that did it. There's probably a GIF somewhere on the Internet that shows it happening. Salladhor says he also lost a son, but he's not an important enough character for his children to get lines.
Getting back to the plot, Salladhor says that Stannis also lived, and he's back at Dragonstone. Davos is eager to go there, but Salladhor doesn't see why he should be involved in going there. Sure, he participated in the attack, but that was a business transaction: thirty ships in return for riches and glory. And he received neither the riches nor the glory that Davos promised. And besides, they say Stannis sees no one but the red-haired lady, who has been burning men alive. It's good to have a hobby, I guess. She says that everyone who speaks against her is a "servant of darkness." Salladhor points out that since he's a pirate and Davos is a smuggler, maybe they should avoid places that have it out for servants of darkness. Davos wants to go to Dragonstone to cut out her heart, but Salladhor figures he'll get burned alive whether or not he'll succeed. Finally, he shrugs and says, "When you're dead, I'll gather your bones in a little sack, and let your widow wear them round her neck." That's weird. And also impractical because the sack would be pretty big. He might just mean Davos's finger bones, I guess, since Davos currently carries his finger bones around in a sack around his neck. But then why would Salladhor need to gather them? They're already in a sack! Just wait for Davos to die, then pick the bag up and give it to his widow.
Horses. Banners. Robb Stark's army! I think of this as the main plotline, since we started with the Starks. A bunch of other things are going on, but basically this is Robb Stark trying to get revenge on Joffrey for killing his father. Simple. Robb is planning to set a siege on Harrenhal, but he'd rather have a fight.
Actually, it looks like he gets neither because the very next shot is the inside of Harrenhal, where Robb and his men are looking at the dead bodies strewn everywhere. I like the sounds of buzzing flies in the background. It's understated and it helps set the scene nicely. There are apparently "two hundred Northmen slaughtered like sheep." They vow that the Kingslayer allegedly won't remain free for long, although I don't think he had anything to do with this. Catelyn looks at the body of Ser Jaremy Mallister, her father's bannerman. Robb looks up at all his men watching him and tells them to find his mother a chamber that will serve as a cell. He explains the backstory to Talisa that Catelyn freed Jaime even though he'd killed a bunch of her son's men, including Torrhen Karstark. Talisa is that battlefield medic whom he fell in love with and married. Got all that? Good! Because something's happening in the show: one of the corpses has started coughing. She gives him some water. He's named Qyburn (which is a weird way to spell that) and does not feel lucky to be alive.