New Ninja Gaiden 3 DLC offers some bloody good times

    This week’s episode of Game of Thrones ended with a bang, but took it’s time getting there.  Spending most of it’s time catching up with characters that it neglected in last week’s premier, we checked in with Jaime and Brienne, Bran and his crew (Hodor!), Theon, and a whole mess of others.  The episode is a talky one, barring one exciting action sequence, but my concern is that the talk didn’t feel as vital as it often does.  Several scenes in ‘Dark Wings, Dark Words’ feel as though they are there primarily to serve as filler, a way to ease the audience back into the world and check in with all of the familiar faces.  I feel like the show has now accomplished this, and can hopefully start moving things forward a little bit faster starting next week.  Many of the storylines feel like they are about to jump off into crazy-town, and it’s worth a kinda-slow episode to get all of the pieces in place.

    Let’s start where the episode did, with Bran, Rickon, Hodor, and Osha.  Bran is having another dream, which is immediately apparent when we see him walking around on his own two feet.  It was a cool and jarring way to start the episode, and I liked the way that they first introduced Jojen as a magic dream-ghost so that when he popped up later for real we weren’t sure if it was actually happening.

    Bran’s storyline isn’t the most exciting thing in the world necessarily, but it was pretty enjoyable this week.  It’s nice to see the group dynamic shifting with the addition of the Reeds, and both of them seem to be rather well cast.  The stand-off at the campsite was fun, and it was nice to see Osha be a badass rather than a babysitter.  As for the newcomers, it’s cool to meet someone who can shed a little light on what Bran’s going through.

    Since we’re already up near the Wall, lets head past it into the far North, where we only got two scenes this week.  John meets Orrell, a Warg in the employ of Mance Rayder, and learns the word for what Bran and he are.  Then Ygritte makes fun of him, which she’s really starting to make a habit of.  It’s nice to see the rapport developing between Mance and Jon, who’s still trying to figure this whole ‘being a wildling’ thing out.

    The only other bit up there involved Jon’s good buddy Samwell, who struggles to keep marching this week, and that’s pretty much it.  His (and Jon’s) friends help him keep going, but not before the Lord Commander sees what’s going on and orders some douchebag to take care of Sam.  It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, and if it was foreshadowing of something or just a little character moment.

    Theon makes an appearance this week, as a victim of torture at the hands of mysterious captors.  Some guy shows up and says that he was sent by Theon’s sister to rescue him, and then leaves him in the torture chamber. I’m curious to see how this bit plays out, because it’s a fairly radical departure from the books, where Theon isn’t even seen in books three and four.

    The thing that probably made the most people happy in this week’s episode though was the return of Arya, who is still on the run with her friends Gendry and Hot Pie.  She and her pals immediately run into the Brotherhood Without Banners, who you may remember hearing about last season.  They inform Arya and her crew that they will be coming with them, but don’t really make it clear whether it’s a demand or a request or something in between.  All told, Thoros of Myr treats the kids pretty kindly, and is even about to let them go when the Hound shows up and immediately outs Arya as a Stark.  Whoops.

    It’s exciting to see the Hound again, and I can’t wait to see his interactions with Arya.  Her storyline this week served pretty much only to introduce us to some new characters, and to establish an inciting incident for her storyline for the season.  Based around what we saw tonight, I’m pretty eager to see more.

    Things develop considerably on the Northern front, in the sense that Robb has heard not only about his Grandfather’s death, but also the burning of Winterfell and the absence of Rickon and Bran, who for all he knows died in the fire.  The first scene with Robb and Talisa was basically just to get us re-acquainted with the idea of that marriage.  We also get to spend a little bit of time with both of Robb’s primary bannermen, Roose Bolton and Arnolf Karstark; one of them cool and icy, the other a big beardy pot of rage and regret.  The scene from this chunk that didn’t really work for me was Cat’s teary confession to Talisa about her mistreating of Jon years earlier.  Not only did it seem unnecessary, but it kind of just felt like a random thing to bring up in that moment.  Michelle Fairly did a nice job selling it though.

    As is often the case, a decent amount of time was spent in King’s Landing this week.  There were a couple of King’s Landing scenes that gave me that sense of filler I was talking about earlier, like the one in which Shae and Tyrion argue about Roz for what feels like a really long time.  I like Shae and Tyrion, and I get that this scene is about selling their relationship even more, but I think that’s already been accomplished as well as it’s going to be.  The other scene that seemed a bit superfluous was Cersei and Joffrey, whose relationship I also feel has been established well enough by now to make this scene unnecessary.  We didn’t really learn anything new here, but it was definitely fun to watch Joffrey be a dick while trying on clothes.

    I thought that Joffrey and Margaery’s weird crossbow date was a bit bizarre, but definitely effective, especially in the wake of Margaery’s and Sansa’s meeting with Lady Olenna Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns.  Coupled together it makes it clear how skilled Maraery is at playing Joffrey, who she is well on her way to having wrapped around her finger.  The meeting with Lady Olenna was pretty hilarious, and Diana Rigg is a great addition to the show.  It was great watching her and Margaery coax the truth about Joffrey from Sansa with Herculean effort, and when she eventually cracked, Sophie Turner’s acting was better than it’s been in a long time.

   The last (and most successful) storyline of the episode involves Jaime and Brienne on their quest to King’s Landing.  Jaime spends pretty much the entire time belittling and bating Brienne, and the banter here is excellent, largely because Brienne has absolutely no desire to banter at all.  Jaime doesn’t care, though, and continues goading her, likely in an effort to make her mad and therefore careless, which he eventually succeeds at.

   The fight on the bridge was the highlight of the episode for sure, excitingly staged and emotionally cathartic from both ends.  Brienne takes Jaime on pretty easily, but it’s unclear who the winner would have been if he were armored and unshackled like his opponent.  This is the only storyline this week that really builds to something, and the fight offers a nice sense of closure on their story for the week.

   And now that we’ve caught up with everyone, things are sure to start taking off.  The dragons are growing, wars are brewing, and remember, winter is coming.
  
THREE STARS

READERS CORNER: (Book spoilers)
-Was anyone else sad about the loss of The Bear and the Maiden fair during Olenna Tyrell's scenes?

-A lot of new characters popped up this week: The Queen of Thorns, Thoros, Meera and Jojen.  Who would you like to see pop up next week.  Ramsay? Or do thing think we already met him in this episode?

Ninja Gaiden 3 has been recieving a rather mixed reception from critics, and though our own Robert Workman scored it a solid 8/10, other outlets have gone as low as 3/10! That being said, if you're already in for this crazy ninja action, then the upcoming Ninja Pack 3 DLC seems like a decent buy. The exact specifics of the pack are unknown, but Tecmo Koei says:

"Players can download a wide array of new DLC items such as the Ultimate Ninja difficulty, Ninja Trials packs, additional equipment items and a new shadow rule for Clan Battles. Not for the faint of heart, the new Ultimate Ninja difficulty level available for the single player campaign aims to challenge even the most advanced ninjas and is available for free download for a month, starting April 24th and ending on May 24th."

Until we get those specifics, we'll have to examine the trailer closely. We're spotting giant tiger claws and a big ol' scythe of doom. Not a bad start!