******SPOILER ALERT*********
Normally we would never recommend you leave a page on HNGN to go elsewhere, but if you haven't watched this Sunday's Game of Thrones you probably don't want to go any further. There be spoilers up ahead, you have been warned.
Catelyn and Robb are looking over a battle map in. On it you can see that all of the Stark soldiers are poised to attack Casterly Rock, home of the Lannisters. Robb asks for Catelyn's advice and at first she is reluctant to give it to him. Robb reminds her that she told him to not trust Theon and of all of the horrible things that have happened to the Starks since that mistake. Catelyn approves of the plan to attack Casterly Rock by telling Robb, "Show them how to lose what they love."
When the Starks and Tullys arrive at The Crossing Walder Frey holds court for them, it is very tense. Robb, who promised to marry one of Frey's daughters when his army first crossed the river, is extremely apologetic for breaking his oath. Frey then makes a point of introducing all of his daughters and granddaughters to Robb. Most of them are homely, some are worse. Edmure Tully, who is about to be wed to a Frey daughter, looks horrified at the lineup. Robb apologizes directly to all of the girls and says that he broke his oath because of love.
Frey calls for Robb's wife, Talisa, to stand before him. Frey then launches into a diatribe filled with creepy double entendres. Talisa is wearing a fairly heavy cloak and Frey asks what Robb is trying to cover up, and then he goes into great detail about what he imagines her body would look like naked. Somehow Robb manages to keep his cool and everyone agrees to put the past behind them.
Daario, the mercenary who swore allegiance to Daenerys at the end of last episode, is explaining to the queen what his plan is to take over Yunkai, flirting with her as he does so. Daario's plan is to sneak in the back gate with two other warriors to fight their way through a few soldiers before opening up the front gates for the rest of the army. Jorah obviously distrusts the flirtatious Daario but agrees to the plan because he serves Daenerys. She orders the attack.
Sam and Gilly are still wandering through the forest. Sam is telling her about a hidden entrance that leads to Castle Black and how he learned about it from reading a very old book. Gilly basically calls him a wizard because he learns things from marks on paper. The wall comes into sight. As they stare at the impressive structure Gilly tells a story about how she was told that there were no wildlings alive who had seen the wall, but here they were looking at the wall and still alive.
The Hound and Arya are riding on horseback on their way to reunite with the Starks. They come across a traveler who has broken a wheel off of his cart. The Hound helps him fix it and then knocks him out. As he is about to kill him Arya steps in and makes him stop. The Hound tries to convince her to allow him to kill the man but finally relents, but not before telling Arya that she is kind and someday that will get her killed. As the old man starts to wake up Arya hits him in the face with a chunk of wood, knocking the old man out once again.
In a very brief scene Brann and his group decide to take shelter in an abandoned windmill as a storm is coming. Hodor does not seem to like the thunder.
The group of wildlings and Jon Snow are getting prepared to attack a horse trader. As they are planning things out Snow is trying to convince them not to kill the trader by saying that if they murder him there is a lot more chance that the guard will be sent after them than if they just steal the horses. Orell calls out Jon Snow for being a crow, as he always does.
The wildlings start out in a dead run to attack the horse trader. As they are running through the field Snow hits a rock with his sword on purpose, which spooks at least a few of the horses giving the trader a chance to see what's coming. As Ygritte draws a bead on the trader as he tries to ride off Snow calls out her name, distracting her so she misses the shot and the trader gets away.
Arya and the Hound have set up camp right near The Crossing and are talking. The Hound is teasing her because she keeps looking at the castle, saying that she looks like she is afraid when they get there her family will be gone. Arya tells The Hound that she knows what he is afraid of, that when he sees fire he looks like a scared little girl. Arya ends the conversation by once again reminding The Hound that she will put a sword through his eye and out the back of his skull.
Brann and his group are in the windmill talking during the storm. Each clap of thunder causes Hodor great fright for Hodor and he reacts by looking petrified and loudly calling out his favorite word in the whole world, "Hodor." One of the Reeds hears the wildlings outside. They try to get Hodor to shut up but he won't, he is out of his mind with terror at the storm. Suddenly Brann's eyes roll into the back of his head and Hodor passes out; it is clear that Brann was able to control Hodor into falling asleep.
Outside the windmill the wildlings have caught the horse trader. As Tormund is about to kill the trader Orell steps in and says that they should make the crow kill him. Snow raises his sword to cut the trader's head off but is unable to do it, much like when he was supposed to execute Ygritte. As the other wildlings goad on Snow it becomes clear he can't do it, Ygritte shoots the trader. The wildlings descend on Snow and a fight breaks out. Ygritte appears to be about to help Snow when Tormund tackles her. Tormund keeps repeating the same thing as he holds down Ygritte: "You're not going to die for one of them."
In the windmill Jojen Reed convinces Brann that he can get in the mind of the wolves who are out side in order to fight off the wildlings. Brann is very skeptical and appears to not understand how he was able to get Hodor to sleep in the first place. Jojen keeps pressing him and it cuts to the wolves attacking wildlings.
Snow is able to fight his way out of the situation, especially after Brann and Rickon's wolves show up to attack the wildlings. Snow hops on a horse and rides off, leaving Ygritte behind him with Tormund. The camera zooms in on her face and it is clear that she is heartbroken that Snow took off without her.
Jorah and Greyworm, the commander of the Unsullied, are sneaking into the gates of Yukai after hearing the signal from Daario. They find him sitting in a courtyard cleaning blood off his sword. The three are immediately surrounded by about 15 soldiers. They manage to fight them all off when twice as many soldiers show up.
At the Frey wedding the bride is led down the aisle under a veil. It is a very low key occasion. When Walder Frey pulls off the veil we see that the bride is actually quite beautiful. Edmure looks relieved. Robb and Walder exchange a glance and Walder kind of shrugs.
Safe from the attack the group in the windmill is talking about what Brann was able to do. Brann says that he saw Jon Snow with the wildlings through the eyes of the wolf. Brann decides that he and Rickon need to separate. Osha is not happy about this in the slightest but agrees. Rickon takes it very hard and Brann has to talk him into it. Osha and Rickon are headed to the Last Half, who are banner men of the Starks. Before leaving Osha talks about how the Starks were good to her when they had no need or reason to be. Osha tells the Reeds to take good care of Brann because he means the world to her.
Jorah and Greyworm are covered in blood and meet with Daenerys. They tell Daenerys that she was right and the slave soldiers of Yunkai gave up very easily. She is visibly worried about why Daario isn't with them and asks. Then Daario makes a grand entrance, also covered in blood, with the flag of Yunkai. He kneels in front of her and presents it.
The wedding reception appears to be a rollicking good time. Robb is laughing heartily for the first time since season one. Walder Frey makes an announcement full of his usual creepiness that it's time for the bedding ceremony. The bride and groom get carried out of the room by the crowd who attempts to undress them while doing so. Robb and Talisa talk about the child she is carrying and how they should name it Eddard.
The Hound and Arya's wagon pulls up for the feast and they are denied entry into The Crossing and told that the wedding is over. As The Hound is arguing to be allowed in Arya disappears from the back of the wagon.
Back in the reception hall someone bolts the door. Catelyn lifts up Lord Bolton's sleeve and sees that he has armor on underneath. She yells out to Robb to run, it's too late. Frey announces that he needs to give Robb's wife a nice wedding present and a soldier starts to stab her repeatedly in the stomach. Soldiers appear on the balcony with crossbows and start shooting everyone, including Robb. Most of the Stark banner men are killed immediately.
Arya is hiding near a pen where she can hear Robb's wolf crying to get out. She watches as soldiers shoot the wolf with their crossbows. The Hound comes up behind her and tells her it's too late, there's nothing she can do. Before she can protest he knocks her out and carries her away.
In the reception hall Robb crawls to a dying Talisa and holds her as she passes out. Catelyn grabs Frey's wife and holds a knife to her throat. Catelyn begs Lord Frey to spare the life of her son, to let Robb get up and leave, to hold her as prisoner instead. Robb staggers to his feet. Catelyn says if Frey doesn't let Robb she'll slit his wife's throat. Frey: "I'll get another."
Lord Bolton walks up to Robb who is barely on his feet with a dagger and tells him that the Lannisters send their regards, stabs and kills him. Catelyn screams the kind of wail that only a mother who has just watched her son get killed can and proceeds to slice the throat of Lord Frey's wife. A soldier comes up behind Catelyn and slices her throat open. The screen goes black and the credits roll.
Wow. Can things get any worse for the Starks? This seems to be a question that gets asked two to three times a season and sadly the answer always proves to be the same: Yes. Back in the premier episode Brann gets paralyzed and an unaware viewer might think that might be the worst thing to happen to the Stark family for the whole season. In the majority of television shows that have ever been on the air a child getting paralyzed would be the low point. For the Starks those were the salad days.
Winterfell: Burned to the ground. Ned Stark: dead. Catelyn: dead. Robb: dead. Robb's wife, Talisa: dead. Sansa: alive but married to the family that killed the rest of her family members. Jon Snow: Alive but on the run from wildlings who want to kill him and probably the Night's Watch also wants to kill him. Arya: Alive but a prisoner of The Hound. Brann: Alive, still paralyzed, on the adventure with the Reed kids.
This leaves us with Rickon, the youngest Stark who is almost never on screen. Even though it is unclear what will happen when he and Osha reach their destination Rickon is the only Stark that hasn't gone through immense tragedy. Well, besides being a very young child who was forced to witness everything that has happened to his family. So, in a way Rickon has had it worse than all of them.
HBO programs tend to follow a formula that is a bit different than most programs in that they don't save all of the major action for the finale of the season. "The Wire" started this trend of unleashing all of the craziness in the second to last episode of the season. It appears that Game of Thrones is doing the same thing. Last season everyone was prepared for the Battle of the Blackwater to finish the season, it showed up one episode early. The same with season three. After all that has happened it's hard to imagine next week's episode delivering anywhere near the same kind of punch. I'm sure some storylines will get wrapped up and there will still be a mild cliffhanger to titillate viewers for the next season but there is no way they will bombard us with the same hard hitting stuff as this week.
For next week the main thing to ponder is the fate of Jaime Lannister. If Brienne hears of what has happened to Catelyn she is bound to want to exact revenge, even if it is against the man who we last saw saving her life. Also expect Melisandre and Stannis to be up to something ominous next week, the season won't end without at least something bad happening to the Lannisters, right? Only one episode left!
