'Game of Thrones' recap - "Oathkeeper"

Coming off Daenerys’ rousing speech to the slaves of Mereen, and the launching of all the collars back into the city, you had to figure this time, she was going to let the slaves do the work themselves. In goes Grey Worm, dressed in Mareen slave attire, to rally the troops, so to speak, and provide the slaves with weapons. From there, the Masters didn’t stand a chance. Dany, against Ser Barristan’s urges, took the remaining 163 Masters and strung them up just as they had done to the children that served as mile markers. Justice, according to the Mother of Dragons, is what this is all about. She’s sacked three very large slave cities so far, has the Unsullied and the Second Sons at her back. She’s got to be thinking about heading to Westeros soon, right?

Speaking of Westeros, a lot’s been going on since the death of King Joffery. Sansa is being whisked away by Littlefinger to the Vale of Arryn, where Baelish is to wed Sansa’s aunt. He also flat out admits to being behind the death of Joffery, which was pretty safe to assume after his appearance in the last episode. He does drop some veiled hints to Sansa that he wasn’t alone, though he does know for a fact that Tyrion had nothing to do with Joffery’s death. In the very next scene, Lady Olenna also flat out admits to Margaery that she had a hand in Joffery’s death as well. As she put it, she wasn’t going to let her granddaughter marry that monster. Grandma Tyrell encourages Margaery to bond with Tommen before Cersei can turn him against her. Margaery does just that later that evening. She sneaks into Tommen’s chambers and has a nice little chat with him. Not only does she confirm that Tommen is not going to be a cruel king for the viewing audience, but they both give us another reason to hate Joffery. After meeting Ser Pounce, Tommen’s pet cat (which has to be the best name for a cat of all time), Tommen tells his soon-to-be-future-wife that Joffery hated the cat and wanted to skin it alive and feed his insides to Tommen. Gross.

A lot going on the Jaime this week as well. After the creepy forced sex he had with Cersei right next to their dead son’s body in the last episode, Jaime seemed to be back to his regular self this week. He deflects Cersei’s attempts to belittle him, as she more or less chastises him for failing to protect Joffery, and even breaking his oath to Catelyn Stark to return her daughters. Jaime tries to tell her that Tyrion had nothing to do with their son’s death (I don’t know if he’d said that out loud before, had he?) Cersei tells him to leave by dropping a “that will be all, Lord Commander.” Cold blooded.

Jaime and Tyrion’s scene in the cell was one of the best in my opinion. It showed that despite all Jaime is ordered to do by those he’s sworn to listen to (like his sister, the queen), he won’t do anything to break up his family. Jaime admits to Tyrion that he was given the order to kill him, but he won’t do it. “Are you really asking if I killed your son?” “Are you really asking if I’d kill my brother?” As much as these two might disagree on just about everything, they are still family. And despite Jaime having children with his sister, it does seem that he’s closer with Tyrion at times.

I’ve liked all the scenes between Brienne and Jaime so far. The scene with them in the bath at Harranhall is still one of my favorites of the entire series. Their weird dynamic (two soldiers with different honor codes, but still kind of fighting for the same thing) has been fun to watch develop. That’s why seeing them part ways in this episode was tough. Jaime tasked Brienne with finding Sansa and keeping her safe. He also gives her the Valaryian steel sword that Tywin had given him once he got back to King’s Landing. Jaime tells her that the sword originally belonged to Ned Stark, and he hopes she finds the Stark girl with it, which Brienne names “Oathkeeper.” Jaime also sends Podrick along with Brienne as her squire, at the request of Tyrion. Pod starts things off great, calling Brienne “ser” at the end of his first sentence toward her.

This week also brought us a nice chunk of story centered around the Night’s Watch. Jon is helping to train the new recruits, one of which happens to be Locke, Roose Bolton’s man that had cut off Jaime’s hand last season, who’s at Castle Black on Bolton’s orders to kill Jon Snow. After Thorne reminds Jon that he’s still just a steward, Slynt warns Thorne that Lord Commanders are voted in. Slynt suggests that they let Jon go north of the Wall to stop the mutineers at Craster’s Keep. Throne tells Jon he can go north, but only with volunteers. Jon rallies a few of his brothers to go with him, with Locke being one of the few that volunteers.

At Craster’s Keep, Karl has more or less declared himself king of the mutineers, even going as far as drinking wine out of Mormont’s hollowed skull. They have Ghost caged up, and none of the mutineers seem to have stopped having sex with Craster’s former wives/daughters. One of the wives enters the Keep with Craster’s last son. All the girls call for it to be given to the gods, which we know, and Karl puts together, means to give it to the White Walkers. After Rast brings the baby out to the forest and it starts crying, we find out Bran, Jojen, Mira and Hodor aren’t too far off. Bran wargs himself into Summer to go check it out. Through his wolf’s eyes, he sees Ghost caged up, but then Summer falls into a trap, bringing Bran back to his own body. The three children go and investigate the Keep, but are found upon by the mutineers. Bran, Mira and Jojen are doing a pretty good job holding out and not telling Karl anything, but Jojen starts having one of his seizures. Mira can’t get to him, so Bran yells out who he really is. Karl releases his knife and Rast tells Karl that Bran is Jon’s brother.

The final scene of the episode finally shows us what happens to all these baby boys that Craster had always left out in the woods. A White Walker brings the baby out into the frozen wilderness north of the Wall. From the zoomed out shot, it kind of looks like a really messed up version of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude is the Walker’s destination. It places the baby on an alter, and then another White Walker walks up to the baby and picks him up. The Walker touches it’s face and the baby’s eyes slowly change to an icy blue. I don't really know what this is going to have to do with the remainder of the story this season, but it was a pretty cool way to end the episode. Any time they end with White Walkers is a-OK in my book.