Game of Thrones: Wedding Crashers and Saving the Best For (second to) Last

In Game of Thrones, You Win or You Die. But for those of us who don't live in Westeros or Essos, sometimes we win and die. Game of Thrones is truly bittersweet. Sometimes an episode can be so traumatic, that it can ruin your whole week...yet it's so brilliant that we are reminded why we are obsessed with the show. 

'The Rains of Castemere' was just more proof that Game of Thrones is doing what no show has ever done before and thus is why it's the greatest show of our era. Sure, shows like The Sopranos would kill off a character once a season, but it was always somewhat predictable. Most importantly...you also always knew Tony was safe. This wouldn't be the case if Tony had lived in one of the Seven Kingdoms. 

The show has a pattern that the penultimate is always epic. I've talked about this before, but it's always worth noting: In season one, 'Baelor' was the ninth episode and the episode in which Joffrey has Ned's head cut off. In season two, 'Blackwater' was the ninth episode and considered by many to be the best of the series...and until last week it was definitely the most courageous. 

Unlike basic cable shows and Homeland, Game of Thrones refuses to leave a season on a cliffhanger or a shocking note. It's a pretty cheap tactic and one the many reasons, no basic cable network or Showtime will ever have shows like HBO. 

While Robb's death was horrible...Cat's death was the most gut wrenching in the series (this includes a pregnant woman being stabbed to death in her belly....ha get it?...'gut wrenching').

Cat, stuck with arrows, simply has no will to live. She cries and pleads for Walder Frey to let go of her son, and in a total non-Cat-move puts a knife up to Frey's wife's neck in order to persuade him to free Robb. But Frey may be a colder motherfucker than Joffrey and simply replies 'I'll find another". Believing all her other children are dead and Robb being finished off, she adds to the chaos and slits Frey's wife's neck open. She then lets out a haunting scream of anger and disappointment at the world before going completely silent as she awaits her own throat to be cut...

I predicted Robb would die earlier in the season, but I thought it was going to valiantly in some courageous battle on horseback. Not with his pants down at some awkward wedding. I also never would've predicted Cat's death. Why George? Why? Every time a Stark dies, part of my soul dies. But it's also important in understanding one of the themes of the series... 

The old ways day hard and as Robert Zimmerman once said "the times they are a-changin'".

While the Starks are more noble and obviously more badass than say the Lannisters, they (at least Ned and Robb) are simply too arrogant to accept that Westeros no longer lives by these old codes. 

Simply put, the Lannisters are winning the war and controlling the Iron Throne by being cunning and deceitful. They play by their own rules and that's how they're winning and will continue to win for the foreseeable future. They have all the riches in the world to make all the allies they need and until Dany comes flying in on her dragons, I don't see them being stopped any time soon. 

But even in Essos...we are also learning from Dany that 'tradition' and 'the old ways' aren't enough to keep up these days. "A man cannot make love to property"and Dany freeing all slaves she comes across, she is becoming a true pioneer in terms of leadership. Sure, she's a bit crazy. But if she keeps this up, her method of conquering is sure to win her the Iron Throne. Not to mention she has the three most powerful weapons in all the land.



We still have one more episode and that's the great thing about having a penultimate episode that sucks the soul from your body. You have a sort-of recovery episode which more appropriately sets you up for the next season. 

That all being said...The Starks will rise again. Jon, Arya and yes...even Bran will have their revenge. It won't be the full Stark reunion we all hoped for, but I believe it will be a glorious reunion and the path to get their will be epic. 



The Starks have had some shit luck in the show so far. But Winter and the Red Wedding are just like a Chumawumba song to the Starks...you're never going to keep them down.