Westeros is a huge continent, but it's also a pretty small world in the hands of David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. The show's characters fit together almost seamlessly during the episode. If you mention Sansa, the next scene will have Sansa. If you mention the Night's Watch, cut to Jon Snow almost immediately. It's a clever way to balance the cast and the competiting stories, as well as allowing the viewer to focus on shared themes rather than keeping (for example) Dany off on her own doing her owh thing. Connecting characters in such a progression is an older idea, but still one of the most successful ideas. Director Michelle MacLaren is probably the best visual director in the Game of Thrones stable now that Alan Taylor has (for now) left the program. (You could also say the same thing about MacLaren's work on The Walking Dead for that matter.) There's some really clever visuals this week, mostly centered around the siege of Meereen. From the claustrophobic scenes in the beginning when the Unsullied sneak into Meereen to sneak weapons into the hands of the slaves of that city to the inevitable death and crucifiction of the city's masters, it's a really impressive bit of storytelling. This visual flair is more than matched by the script from Bryan Cogman, who did the excellent Cripples, and Broken Things from Thrones' first season, as well as a couple of great episodes from last season, What Is Dead May Never Die and Kissed By Fire. Back at the keyboard for this episode, Cogman has turned in a brilliant script full of great moments for pretty much every character. Jamie and Brienne come to an understanding about the recovery and safety of Sansa Stark, while Cersei wants her (and Tyrion, and lots of other people) dead for the role she played in Joffrey's death. This early in the season, Game of Thrones is still preparing to drop the hammer on the audience. Granted, they already killed off Joffrey, but I have no doubt that the show has more craziness in store for the home viewer. After all, we finally got to see what happened to all those unlucky children of Craster once the white walkers have taken them off to their secret ice-Mordor alters. In a beautiful sequence, Michelle MacLaren does a wonderful job of turning something suspenseful into something beautiful, then expertly making it creepy again with a final shot of the last son of Craster's eyes turning white walker blue. Cleverly, Maclaren uses the ice of the setting to leave the white walker - or whatever it is - blurry and out of focus. It's a figure of dread, but it's a subtle figure of dread. When the face is revealed to look like a flash-frozen Darth Maul, it'd even more effective for the teasing.
Review of Oathkeeper
