#GoT Episode 3- The Price of Power

Spoilers!

Do not read this if you haven't seen this week's episodes. Do not blame me if you keep reading and see something you don't want to know.

 

I have to admit I was not held spellbound this week. This week's episode seemed like a placeholder. We check in with lots of characters and see them in transition.

• Arya and Gendry head off with the Brotherhood; Hot Pie stays behind but he bakes a mean wolf-shaped roll for Arya. Sweet. He should get a job at the Boudin Bakery making things out of sourdough, but he's stuck in Westeros, poor thing.
• Tooljoy "escapes" or is let go or something and ends up with someone who may be something to do with the Starks. "Winter is coming." Whatever. When is someone going to put him out of his misery? He tries to be Cartman (Respect mah authoritay!) but I think he's like the Jimmy Wichard of Westeros. I'm the boss man!!
• Tyrion gets a new job as Master of the Coin, basically a glorified bookkeeper for the royal household. But this job could yield some interesting assets. Follow the money, as they always say. Where will the money lead? 
• We get some comic relief via Bron and Podrick, Tyrion's bros. Ha ha.
• More boring hand-writing from Catelyn and unmemorable fuming from Robb. Robb is supposed to be the hero at this point but since Peter Dinklage stole the show, all the guy who plays Robb has going for him is... nothing. My husband tells me Robb made a bigger impression in the book. It's hard to see how a character could make less of one than this milquetoast.
• Daenerys bought her slave army, including a potentially interesting character, a young woman who may have some hidden depths. Or not. Time will tell!
• The best part of the show is once again the scenes with Jaime Lannister, who shows some real personal growth this week with his protection of Brienne at the hands of their brutal Stark-aligned captors. Unfortunately as his conscience grew, another part of Jaime got smaller. Ouch.

So I was not thrilled with this week. Everyone's on their way to somewhere else; this week is just a way station. I should have known we were in for a whole lot of nothing when whole seconds were taken up with Tyrion sliding a chair across the floor in the opening minutes. Like, okay, so we have nothing better to do? And the silliness with Podrick was just an excuse for this week's T&A, because it's HBO and heaven forfend we skip the nudity.

Last week I got an email pointing me towards The King's Roadmap, an online resource connected to HBO that shows a map of the Game of Thrones world with some fun interactive features. I had a little trouble using it but it seemed like a fun way to spend some spare time.

If you know of any Game of Thrones resources, either fan-made or official, I'm happy to share them so let me know.

What did you think of this week's episode? Boring filler or thrilling storytelling? Leave a comment!