<em>Game of Thrones</em> Is Just Getting Bloodier—and Better
Spencer Kornhaber, Christopher Orr, and Amy Sullivan discuss the latest episode of Game of Thrones.
Orr: Another week, another extremely satisfying Game of Thrones episode. “Breaker of Chains” was written by showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and was directed, like last week’s episode, by Alex Graves. So it’s perhaps fitting that the action picks up directly where it left off, with Cersei cradling her dead son Joffrey and screaming at her brother Tyrion, in grief and rage, “You did this! You did this!”
From that point, the episode follows a simple yet elegant structure, with less jumping back and forth between storylines than we often see. First, the episode offers its (moderately) Big Reveal of Littlefinger as the principal plotter behind the show’s latest nuptial assassination. Next, we eavesdrop on a few family discussions scattered across King’s Landing—between Margaery and Lady Olenna, Tywin and Tommen, and Jaime and Cersei (who, yes, do considerably more than “discuss”). Then we head northward for another installment of On the Road with Arya and the Hound, followed by scenes at the Wall and Dragonstone. We return to the capital for exchanges between Tywin and Oberyn and then Tyrion and Pod. And, finally, the episode concludes with two sets of invaders: the wildlings approaching Castle Black and Daenerys’s army outside the gates of Meereen.
Not a great deal of consequence happens this week, but that seems appropriate in the immediate aftermath of the Purple Wedding. Just as the final episodes of seasons one through three were largely about rearranging the game board following penultimate episodes that upended it (Ned’s beheading, the reversal on the Blackwater, the