Recap: After the Thrones, HBO’s “Epic Weekly Recap Show,” Episode 8

The eighth episode of After the Thrones, HBO’s in-house “Epic Weekly Recap Show,” has arrived. You can watch it on HBO Go, HBO Now, HBO on Demand, and HBO.

Hosts Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald lead off the show discussing Jaime Lannister, the character “with the best jackets in Westeros,” who dominated this episode and thus hands-down WON THE WEEK.

Jaime is Chris’ favorite character, and the hosts discuss how difficult it still is, after all these years, to identify just what kind of a person Jaime really is:

"Chris: “For the entire series, different characters have been asking Jaime Lannister to be the person he was always supposed to be, to take the head of the Lannister family. The question is, who is that person? Is Jaime part of the Kingsguard or is he a king slayer? Is he a loving father, as he shows with Myrcella before her untimely passing or is he an incestuous brother and some kind of deviant?”Andy: “I think it’s interesting that we’re still asking this question this deep into the show. The more time we spend with him, particularly this season, the more I’m starting to think of Jaime as a tragic figure. Now I know he’s done some bad stuff but with Jaime . . . no matter what he does he still seems to be defining himself through what other people see of him . . . He wants to live in the (honorable) world Brienne imagines.”"

After viewing a clip of “No One” where Jaime threatens Edmure Tully in the tent, Andy notes that, “It’s interesting. We watch this scene, and it’s Jaime at potentially his most villainous.”

"The thing that Game of Thrones does, that is unlike any other show on television, is this sense of perspective that it gives you. We watch that scene and we’re like ‘Jaime is a sociopath, he is a villain;’ that is a terrible thing to say to a man about his baby . . . but, if you strip that scene of its context, what Jaime is saying, is that ‘I love this person (Cersei) and I will burn the rest of the world to save this person. This is almost verbatim what our friend, the most gentle person on the show, Samwell Tarly, says to Gilly two weeks ago, where he basically says “I’m going to the Citadel to save the world but I don’t really care about the world—I care about you.”"

The discussion moves to Arya, and the boys discuss how her goals have constantly shifted and where she stands now. They also discuss Tyrion and his stand-up comedy routine. To be honest, I’ve had some difficulty with Tyrion’s drinking games in Meereen because, even though they’re enjoyable, I feel the show’s narrative drive always comes to a crashing halt despite Peter Dinklage being fun to watch. But Andy makes an interesting point about what these scenes mean to our overall experience of the show.

"Andy: “I understand why some people would find that (the drinking scenes) so frustrating, with so many giant existential threats looming, so many battles still to be fought and characters like Bran and Ramsay we haven’t see in weeks. But here’s the thing: the biggest dramas I think should always be judged by their quietest moments, and the best dramas are, secretly, the funniest. And is we have a show, which, for the rest of its run, is going to be about the potential destruction of the world, we need scenes like this to prove the world is worth saving to begin with.”"

Now that Dany the action girl has entered stage left in Meereen, it’s likely that Tyrion’s dawdling drinking days are over anyway. Next, the discussion turns to the Hound’s return and the surviving Brotherhood Without Banners members, Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr, whose reappearance kicks off the WHO THE F&!K WAS THAT conversation. Chris and Andy offer a quick and lighthearted refresher on the history of these characters.

Mallory “Awesome T-shirt” Rubin arrives for the ASK THE EXPERT segment, where the discussion immediately turns to question regarding the current major conflicts on the show, including the Edmure/Blackfish dynamic operating during the siege of Riverrun, the trial by combat question in King’s Landing, and the potential for a Faith Militant-based “trial by seven.” For THE BIG IDEA, Chris offers up the topic of true believers vs. fanatics, and how such conflicts are viewed by the upper and lower strata of society.

Episode eight is a good installment of the the show. The producers have broken away from the format-driven structure where the rushed discussions were cramped into specific slots framed by introductions and swooping graphics; they now allow more room for the conversations and let the graphics/map/segment headings support the flow rather than chop it into pieces. Freed by the looser requirements, Andy, Chris and Mallory have found their groove.