Well the second half of season 4 has gotten off to a great start, and honestly this might be my favorite episode so far this season. This episode and some really interesting moments, and we caught up with some characters we haven’t seen for quite a while. Namely Theon Greyjoy’s sister, Yara.

This gives us the only real action in the episode as we see Yara and her men attempt to rescue Theon from the Dreadfort, but Theon is so far gone that he refuses to leave as he fears its another trick by Ramsey.

We also got to see the Braavos and the Iron Bank for the first time on the show. I feel like the Iron Bank might become a major player as the show continues considering its increasing prevalence on the show, and its nce to finally be able to put an image with the name that has been increasingly mentioned over the last few episodes. 

We’re getting more of Daenerys now and we got to see her coming to terms with some of the realities of ruling and what it means as well as some of the consequences from her harsh treatment of the defeated masters. I think it might have been a bit of wake up call to her on exactly her ambitions will entail.

However this episode’s main focus was o the trial of Tyrion Lannister for the murder of King Joffrey. As anticipated the trial was mostly a farce manipulated by Cersei Lannister to deliver a guilty verdict. However thanks to some deal making between Tywin and Jaime it appeared he would be spared death, and sent to the Night’s Watch. There was a lot of strong material here including a few more callbacks to previous seasons. But what really stood out was Peter Dinklage’s performance for the entirety of the trial as he became increasingly angry at whole thing and eventually erupted into rage.

This was a fantastic way to start the second half of the season, and I’m finally getting that rabid need to see more that I’ve been looking for this season.

4.5/5