GAME OF THRONES Season 4 Episode 5
Episode Title: “First of His Name”
Writers: David Benioff & D. B. Weiss
Director: Michelle MacLaren
Previously on “Game of Thrones”:
There’s a new King in King’s Landing, and even some bitter rivals feel that King Tommen Baratheon (Dean-Charles Chapman), the titular “First of His Name,” may be the best king that the seven kingdoms have seen in 50 years.
To paraphrase Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), “let’s go kill him.”
The late King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) was insane, but he didn’t project the weakness that Tommen radiates. Tommen is just too young to be anything more than a puppet ruler for his grandfather, Tywin (Charles Dance). Everyone recognizes this, but not everyone is willing to act on it. When word of Joffrey’s death reaches Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), she knows that it’s her best chance at striking while the Lannisters are down. But she actually does have a good reason for staying across the Narrow Sea… for now.
More impressively, “First of His Name” reveals that the real villain of “Game of Thrones” has been hiding in plain sight from the very beginning. The death of Jon Arryn kicked off this series and led to the conflict between the Starks and the Lannisters. When Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) was nearly assassinated, one man led the Starks to believe that Tyrion was behind it. The same man orchestrated the murder of Joffrey and destabilized the seven kingdoms for his own ends.
That man is Lord Petyr Baelish (Aidan Gillen). Suddenly, Littlefinger isn’t just one of the major players, he may be THE major player. No one even realizes that Littlefinger is working against them; which only makes him more dangerous.
From this point on, there are full spoilers ahead for “First of His Name.” So if you missed last night’s episode of “Game of Thrones” then you should probably skip this review or else Lord Robin will make the bad man fly.
It was a little sloppy to reveal that Littlefinger arranged for Jon Arryn’s death by having Lysa Arryn (Kate Dickie) admit to her part in the plot while trying to get Littlefinger to marry her on the spot. But the reveal was chilling. It’s been so long since the mystery of Jon Arryn’s murder was important to the show that I just assumed it was done by the Lannisters and moved on. Knowing that Littlefinger has been behind it all along changes everything. Looking back at the first season, it’s now clear that Littlefinger has been encouraging the chaos and the conflict all along.
Littlefinger’s endgame isn’t entirely clear, but we know how Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) fits in. As expected, Littlefinger’s interest in Sansa is because she is thought to be the last surviving child of the Starks and “the key to the North.” Littlefinger may be stuck with Lysa, but he can marry Sansa off to her first cousin, Robin (Lino Facioli) and stake his claim to her family’s territory.
For Sansa, this means that she is once again a prisoner against her will. But that doesn’t fully come through to Sansa until Lysa demonstrates just how crazy and jealous that she is while accusing Sansa of seducing Littlefinger. Obviously, Sansa needs to escape… but where would she go? She’s wanted for Joffrey’s murder and her crazy aunt is the only family member who still has a slice of the seven kingdoms to rule over.
Back in King’s Landing, Cersei (Lena Headey) is surprisingly cordial with Margaery (Natalie Dormer) about guiding Tommen and acting in his best interests. Obviously that won’t last, as Margaery’s attempts to seem reluctant about marrying the new king don’t fool Cersei at all. The real meat in King’s Landing is the revelation that Tywin (Charles Dance) and House Lannister badly need the Tyrells because the Lannisters have run out of gold and the Iron Bank of Braavos will be coming for their money.
For one of the show’s relentlessly inhuman characters, Cersei gets a much needed human moment with Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal) where she gets to hear how her daughter, Myrcella is doing as a “guest” of the Martells. Even Tyrion always said that Cersei loves her children; which seems to resonate with Oberyn, who agrees to have a ship sailed back to Sunspear as a gift for Myrcella.
While Tyrion was the topic of conversation at King’s Landing, this was one of the rare episodes that Peter Dinklage didn’t appear in. In his place, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau received top billing. But it was somewhat undeserving because Jaime Lannister had such a small role in this episode. Kit Harington should have gotten that honor because Jon Snow’s assault on Craster’s Keep was the centerpiece of this episode.
Jon’s duel with Karl (Burn Gorman) was exciting to watch and one of the few times that Jon has been badly outmatched. Jon looked a little weak for not being able to beat Karl without some unexpected help from one of Craster’s wives, but she deserved her revenge on Karl just as much as anyone else. And Jon did get the killing blow.
Throughout the episode, I was sure that Jojen (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) was going to die in Craster’s Keep, especially when he saw his hand on fire in one of his visions. We don’t really know too much about Jojen or his sister, Meera (Ellie Kendrick), but this was an intriguing glimpse of what Jojen can do. But the way that Jojen phrased his message to Bran led me to believe that he was saying goodbye.
As expected, Locke (Noah Taylor) used the battle as an opportunity to grab Bran and take him off to kill him. However, Bran warged into Hodor’s (Kristian Nairn) brain and used the big man to save himself and kill Locke. Note the horrified look on Hodor’s face when he realizes that he’s killed Loche. I don’t know if Hodor can comprehend that Bran used him as a weapon, but he’s clearly not capable of that kind of violence without someone else in his head.
It was disappointing that Bran and his party never made direct contact with Jon, which leaves Bran free to continue his quest to find the three eyed raven. In the meantime, Jon offered Craster’s wives/daughters sanctuary at Castle Black and they spit the offer back in his face and tell him to burn the place to the ground. Amusingly, Jon and the other Night’s Watch brothers think that Locke died as one of their own and burn his body with the others.
Across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys and her advisers learn about the latest developments in King’s Landing and they’re practically salivating at the idea of striking while the Lannisters are at their weakest. Only Jorah (Iain Glen) throws cold water on their ambitions by pointing out that their forces aren’t strong enough to take the seven kingdoms if they can’t even hold the lands that they’ve taken already. Faced with the news that both Astapor and Yunkai have been retaken by slavers and would-be kings, Daenerys decides to stay and tackle the problem head on. This is actually a very good reason for Daenerys to put off her invasion of Westros, but I do think that the audience is getting restless for Daenerys to finally make that next step.
The smaller subplots of the week deal with the unlikely pairs of Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) and Podrick Payne (Daniel Portman), as well as Arya (Maisie Williams) and Sandor “the Hound” Clegane (Rory McCann). Pod and Brienne’s interactions were largely played for laughs as they have no natural connection with each other at this point. And in all honesty, Pod is kind of a flop as Brienne’s squire because he can barely ride a horse and he badly burns their rabbit dinner.
In Brienne’s eyes, Pod’s one redeeming feature is that he’s willing to kill in defense of his master. Brienne wasn’t moved by Pod’s refusal to abandon her on the road, but she’s at least impressed enough by his account of the Battle of Blackwater that she allows him to help her remove her armor. It’s far from a smooth partnership between them, but Brienne and Pod are two of the most sympathetic characters on the show. I think they’ll get a handle on their relationship.
Meanwhile, Arya and the Hound are backsliding in their relationship. These two have never really had much love for each other, but what little affection there was seems to have dissipated after the Hound robbed the farmer and his daughter the last time we saw them. As a “screw you!” to the Hound, Arya explains the significance of her nightly death list and pointedly keeps the Hound on the list of people that she intends to murder.
In turn, the Hound mocks Arya’s attempts to practice her sword training and belittles her beloved teacher, Syrio Forel. When Arya dares to poke the Hound with her sword (at the Hound’s invitation), he strikes her before telling her that she can’t fight armored opponents with the little training that she’s received.
It’s a teachable moment, but the Hound is only teaching Arya a new reason to hate him. I’ve been invested in the Hound and Arya partnership because he could be a great teacher for her when it comes to dealing out death. They’re also a lot of fun to watch together. But it’s hard to see how they can rebuild any trust between them after this.
As the midway point for the season, “First of His Name” seemed like it had less to offer than previous episodes this year. But the end of Craster’s keep and Karl’s rebellion pushed forward Jon’s story just enough to set the stage for the larger conflict to come with Mance Rayder (Ciarán Hinds). Likewise, the revelations of Littlefinger’s larger plans and Tywin’s financial struggles offered some intriguing twists in the overall story.
