Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 3: “The Queen’s Justice”

By Zane Bixby

Overall Grade: B

Does anybody have a working time-line for Game of Thrones anymore? Cause if you do than you must have watched a completely different episode than me. Yes, if there’s one thing The Queen’s Justice does perfectly, it’s completely mess up your sense of time for the show. This has been a reoccurring theme in these first three episodes of the season and in a way for this starting arc has been nothing but catastrophic for Daenerys Stormborn of Too Many Names. While this episode certainly slowed down a tad bit from the breakneck pace of last episode, it still moved in such a way that piecing together when things happened is next to impossible. Either way, let’s dive in to the plot.

Varys and Melisandre

Seriously, what is going on with Melisandre this season? While last season she had some very remarkable moments (the first episode of season six was largely unimpressive but her unspoken closing scene was pretty strong), each time she has shown up this season so far has left me completely unimpressed. Last week I was anticipating conflict to arise between her and Davos but she sidesteps this by avoiding their arrival and leaving Dragonstone for unspecified reasons. The only interesting thing that can really be gleamed from this scene is her final little declaration. Both her and Varys are destined to die in Westeros, and only time will tell what that cryptic warning will mean for the rest of us.

Euron and King’s Landings

While I could have joined this and the other King’s Landing scene that I’ll be talking about in this review together. I feel like the two scenes are so different in quality that I needed to keep them separate. This is coming up a lot in this review, but I mentioned last week that Euron’s actor truly excelled in the ship battle scene and not so much when he was in a Throne Room. This week backs up my belief. While his scene wasn’t terrible, it just felt so out of place once again. They returned to their premise of trying to make his character seem like a dick, ostensibly by asking Jaime for advice on sex with his sister (granted that did made me laugh a little bit.) Otherwise his present to Cersei was Ellaria and Tyene and the fear in Ellaria’s eyes at seeing a still living Mountain in Cersei’s employ.

Winterfell

Sansa apparently knows how to rule, something I wouldn’t have exactly guessed based on her limited experience doing so. But in a way, she has been watching from the sidelines as people rule poorly or with unjust cruelty. This leads to her trying to prepare for a war on three fronts and surprisingly a very small amount of scheming on Littlefinger’s behalf. True, he does get into his whispery almost annoying voice for a little bit, but it becomes quickly pushed to the side as soon as Sansa gets word that she is needed at the gate. Last week, Arya began heading North while there was no mention of Bran at all. So, in a way, this becomes a bait and switch for those who were expecting to see Arya finally arrive home. Arya and Sansa had a much larger connection in terms of the series than Bran and Sansa, mainly due to just how much of the show they had already shared together.

But Bran is still her sibling, and unfortunately, we don’t get this hugely emotionally resonate scene from them just because of how distant he has become as he delves further into his role as the Three-Eyed Raven. The worst part of this entire scene is how unnecessarily cryptic he decides to act as they come back together and his words bring Sansa back to her fateful wedding night with Ramsay. I can’t be entirely certain, and as I have mentioned the timeline for all of this has become so muddled it’s hard to tell just how long has passed since that night. But if they were trying to imply that that is still with her in any way other than emotionally I’m going to be slightly worried, the last thing we need is a ‘pregnancy scare’ for her character arc.

Jon and Daenerys (Cliffside Scene)

With everything that happened in this episode, he would be wrong of me to clump all of Dragonstone together in one massive section as the different moments have different weights that we can associate to them. Unfortunately though, I just can’t see all the scenes being equal in quality. While their first scene had its moments, the second scene felt like a bunch more posturing and the two trying to simply come together to an uneasy agreement/alliance if you can even call it that. This all comes back to the time line issue. We can assume that this all happens before the destruction of her fleet at Casterly Rock and the loss of her allies in the Reach, but her suddenly agreeing to supply forces to Jon (who still hadn’t bent the knee) seemed like such a massive 180 from her character’s stance in the first scene.

The other problem that became apparent in this second scene? Clarke and Harrington seem to have very little chemistry overall. While it was very evident they weren’t trying to set this up into any romantic sense (probably to the disappointment of many) they simply seemed a bit too out of place as they tried to work their way through the scene. I can’t tell if they were trying to keep the focal point off of them or not, but I’m hoping for any future scenes between these two to have a better flow.

Sam and Jorah/ Oldtown

Yeah! Apparently, Sam is literate enough to read and follow instructions…. Okay so why can’t other TRAINED Maesters do the same? Yes, we’ve been told that the procedure for curing Greyscale is incredibly risky, and we saw just how disgusting it was. But why was someone with absolutely no medical experience capable of just doing it then? Honestly, it feels like the writers had written themselves into a corner with Jorah and decided to deus ex machina a fix to get Jorah back into the game and heading for Dragonstone. It’s interesting to note however that all of Daenerys’ recent failures have occurred without her faithful bear beside her, whereas a lot of the good things that did happen last season (bringing the Dothraki into her thrall for example) happened while he had a part in it. This may be completely coincidental, but everything seems to line up too perfectly for Dany’s entire end game to be torn down just in time for him to be healed and heading back her way to “magically fix it.”

Otherwise, Sam’s conversation with the Archmaester had a lot of humor to it, surprisingly. I was glad that they didn’t try and make Sam going behind his back a big deal, instead leaving him curious to how he succeeded in the procedure and then immediately giving him a menial task as a sort of penance. True, Sam’s not in trouble, but his hand will definitely be cramping when this is all over.

Cersei and Ellaria

While not a terribly long scene, it’s hard to ignore how poetically perfect the scene as a whole is. Last week I was afraid that Cersei was going to have The Mountain do something vile to kill Tyene in front of her mother, but having Qyburn magically CSI-Reverse Engineer the poison that was used to kill Myrcella (did the poison somehow survive in her system all the way from Dorne?) was a really interesting way to do it. And with that one kiss Cersei effectively wipes Dorne off the map in the conflict and leaves Daenerys with one fewer ally in the war to come.

Jon and Daenerys (Throne Room scene)

This was definitely not the introduction scene I was hoping for. But I was hoping that Ghost would have been by Jon’s side when he met with the Dragon Queen. But Davos is a strong contender for second best choice. In typical Davos fashion, he was quick to provide a helpful speech as to why Dany should trust Jon’s word and to work with him. But that wasn’t the highlight of the scene. No, the highlight was the introduction. After Missandei rattles off all of Daenerys’ thousand names, Davos comes with what had to be my favorite line of the last few episodes. “This is Jon Snow…… he’s King in the North.” It was so simple, but so perfectly placed and delivered that is elevated the rest of the scene.

The other highlight of this scene is the cinematography. Everything about how the shots were framed was meant to invoke how the characters should be seen. Anytime Jon was in a scene, the shot was framed to include Davos in it, showing he’s there but he works best with someone backing him up, whereas when the camera was focused on Dany, the shots almost always focused solely on her. It’s an interesting choice but it goes with the shows direction of continuing to push Dany as this strong character. I’m still not buying it, but that’s a personal issue I have with the character herself. In fact it brings me back to something Tywin Lannister once said that I feel embodies my issue perfectly, “Any man who says ‘I am the king’ is no true king.” While she’s not directly trying to say she’s the queen (well she is but not for the point I am making) the shots are trying to frame her as this character that should be respected as such and it’s not something I necessarily agree works.

Jon and Tyrion

Of all the interactions at Dragonstone, this is the one that stands out the most to me. While there’s not much to say about their reunion, the chemistry between these two actors actually works and their back and forth banter works well to really settle the stakes of what is happening. While Jon searches for validation that Tyrion believes him, the two go over their past encounters and how they left things. Jon’s continued struggle making people believe in what they all think is only a fairytale is not any easy task. As Tyrion says, it’s easier for people to fear something they know exists than something they don’t. Luckily for Jon, Tyrion does believe him, even if in earlier seasons he brushed off the mystical elements beyond the wall as tales to scare children.

Casterly Rock and The Reach

These two scenes sort of have to be talked about at the same time. What started as this sort of hopeful scene for Dany with Tyrion’s voiceover explaining how he knew Casterly Rock turned into a devastating loss for her. It also backs up my beliefs that something is going to happen to Grey Worm before the seasons end. I don’t see them sticking around the Rock with no stock of food and with the Greyjoy armada sitting at the coast, so Jaime was right that they will have to march across Westeros to return to their queen. A lot can happen during that march, and seeing that they are a foreign army, only bad things can happen.

The other part of this is The Reach. Let’s ignore the fact that Jaime couldn’t possibly have known about any secret sewer entrance into the castle and just assume they someone busted their way in without a long drawn out siege. That part would just unravel what becomes a really powerful scene overall. No, the real star of this episode is the Queen of Thorns. She didn’t receive that title for no reason, and I think she deserves a new title after this episode. Master of the Last Word. After Jaime seems to give her mercy by killing her painlessly, and offering her that easy out, she still goes out of her way to turn it around and announce that she was the one to kill Joffrey. It was an amazing delivery and a well put together final scene for Olenna that highlights the episode so perfectly.

But that’s not all it does. In a way, it might be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back for Jaime’s blind love and trust of Cersei. With Tyrion now exonerated for the murder of Joffrey (though I’d be surprised if Cersei doesn’t try to still say he had a part in it) I am left to wonder just how long Jaime might last before he realizes that both his sister and father’s constant demonization of the brother he did care for twisted his own views of him. Will he stand by Cersei as she continues to try and blame him? Or will he stand up for his brother and hold out hope for a better outcome? The Queen of Thorns final proclamation should have some burst back, and next week’s episode is sure to have some fire behind it.

Side-Notes

-Not that it deserved his own section because of how minute the scene was, but Theon got pulled from the water by a seemingly friendly Greyjoy ship…. That then proclaims him a coward…. But lets him stay on the ship anyway? I don’t know, it was kind of a shitty scene.

-Daenerys is becoming more and more foolish as the episodes roll on. Her desire to try and do this without bloodshed, while counteracting my claim that she’s a warmonger, might be what tears her down in the end. Had she just launched an attack on King’s Landing from the start, she could have torn Cersei from her seat of power and stopped all the scheming that is slowly tearing her army apart. This rolls back to my belief that with Jorah on the way back she might stop being so foolish, but it’s still a constant strike to her and might just be the end of her.

-Thankfully there weren’t any disgusting scene changes this week.  

-I think it’s odd that the Iron Bank was so easily swayed back to the Lannisters. Not enough that it required more note than this. They must have really feared a religious coup though and seeing Cersei handle it somehow restored faith to them (I know it’s kind of ironic.)

-Jaime’s character development continues to impress me. Having him admit that he took a page from Robb Stark’s playbook was both refreshing and enjoyable to show that he is capable of learning strategy from those that have bested him.

-Also on Jaime’s surprise move, using Bronn in the background without letting him speak was a huge waste of Bronn. Just saying.  

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