“Breaker of Chains” has some scenes that are certainly among my favorite scenes ever written for the show, some interesting departures from the source material, two different brothel scenes, and one of the most fucked up and infuriating scenes I’ve ever been subjected to by this series. Seriously, I’m fucking furious about it–not to mention appalled and confused and just blown away that this is a choice that the writers and directors made.

On to the recap, though. As always, spoilers below the cut for both the episode and possibly books three through five of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Trigger warning, as well, for discussion of rape.

The episode opens where last week’s episode ended, with Cersei’s rage as she calls for Tyrion, and then Sansa, to be seized. Sansa, however, is fleeing with Dontos through the city, and they make it to a small boat without incident, although we can hear bells ringing furiously throughout their flight down the streets of King’s Landing. It’s late afternoon as Joffrey is choking out his last, and I love the way that Sansa seems at first to be escaping off into the sunset with Dontos. However, by the time they reach the small boat that takes them to a bigger ship, it’s slightly past sunset and they are heading east with what remains of the light behind them. Visually, this works perfectly and subtly to convey that Sansa’s apparent rescue is not as perfect or fortuitous as it seems.

By the time Sansa and Dontos reach the larger ship, it’s fully dark and they’ve been enveloped in some downright ominous and foreboding mists, and when Dontos hands Sansa up the ladder and she’s caught in a slightly too-intimate embrace by none other than Petyr Baelish it becomes clear that Sansa has only escaped to a different sort of danger than she’s just fled from. I love Aidan Gillan as Littlefinger, and he’s delightfully creepy here as always. Every moment of this scene is wonderfully executed, from Dontos’s “reward” to Sansa’s soft remembrance that “we’re all liars here” to Petyr’s assurances Sansa that she’s “safe” with him. I’ve seen some complaints from book readers that Dontos’s death didn’t have the impact in the show that it did in the book, but I disagree. I think the decision to omit the majority of Sansa’s meetings with Dontos in the godswood is a good one, from an adaptive standpoint, and the show is improved by the streamlining of this story, which would have made for a lot of very dull and repetitive scenes if they’d tried to include it as it happened in the books. I’m very much looking forward to the continuance of Sansa’s education with Littlefinger.

Back in King’s Landing, Margaery is quite understandably full of mixed feelings following the death of her second husband. Fortunately, she has a loving grandmother to help her make sense of it all. My one complaint about this scene is Margaery’s assertion that Joffrey was “happiest torturing animals.” It feels very minimizing of Joffrey’s actual depravity and comes close to making no sense at all as we’ve actually never seen Joffrey torturing animals. He’s tortured people quite a lot–Sansa, Ros and her coworker, Tyrion, Dontos, Jaime, his own mother–both physically and emotionally, but the only time we’ve seen Joffrey hurt an animal was when he uses Widow’s Wail to slice open the dove-filled pie at the wedding feast and he didn’t seem to take any particularly special glee in it. Rather, he seemed then to not even notice the harm he’d just caused because he was far more focused on tormenting Tyrion and Sansa. It just seems like a strange way for Joffrey to be described. It’s very “telling” rather than “showing,” and I’m not sure why the writers would feel the need to tell us this sort of information after Joffrey’s death when his character was so well-established beforehand.

In the Sept of Baelor, Cersei and Prince Tommen are knelt in silent contemplation next to Joffrey’s prepared corpse when Tywin comes to speak with Tommen, and I love everything about this conversation. In the guise of a lesson for Tommen on the responsibilities of kingship, Tywin delivers an unambiguous message to the grieving Cersei. It’s clear that Tywin blames her for Joffrey’s unsuitability to the role of king, and by extension places the blame for Joffrey’s death pretty squarely on Cersei’s shoulders as well. It’s also abundantly clear that Tywin intends to remove Tommen from his mother’s influence and immediately. Lena Headey turns in an amazing performance throughout Tywin’s speech, wordlessly giving us every bit of the grief and shame and fear and frustrated rage that Cersei must be feeling as her father kidnaps her son in front of her and delivers some scathing criticism of her parenting. As Tywin and Tommen walk out of the dark sept into the bright sunshine of the new day, it’s obvious that Cersei (and Jaime, who has just come to join her in the sept) are no longer part of the future that Tywin envisions for his family.

Jaime sends the High Septon and his attendants away so that he can be alone with Cersei, who reiterates her accusations against Tyrion and begs Jaime to avenge Joffrey by killing Tyrion. Jaime refuses, insisting that a trial will get to the truth of the matter, which angers Cersei, who believes that Tyrion will only “squirm his way free if given a chance.” Cersei begs Jaime to just kill Tyrion and begins to cry. When Jaime embraces her comfortingly, Cersei kisses him passionately, but then recoils either in anger with his refusal to kill Tyrion or out of her lingering disgust with Jaime’s disability (or possibly both). Either way, what happens next is chilling.

“You’re a hateful woman,” Jaime pronounces and asks, “Why have the gods made me love a hateful woman?” He grabs Cersei by the hair, twists her around, and proceeds to rape her right next to the bier on which Joffrey’s body rests. “I don’t care,” he repeats as she struggles, cries, and begs him to stop.

This is incredibly fucked up. So fucked up that I hardly know where to begin with discussing it.

In A Storm of Swords, Jaime doesn’t make it back to King’s Landing until after Joffrey’s death, and the encounter next to Joffrey’s corpse is Jaime’s first interaction with Cersei. They haven’t set eyes on each other in over a year, and he returns to find her overcome with grief. In the text, Jaime is also forceful with her, but it seems clear that it’s out of passion and relief to be home, and while Cersei is initially resistant and doesn’t want to fuck in the Sept, she also responds eagerly to Jaime’s advances. I wouldn’t say that the scene in the book represents anything resembling a healthy dynamic, but I wouldn’t call it rape and I even think that some readers’ claims of it being “questionable consent” are exaggerating Cersei’s resistance and minimizing her enjoyment of the encounter and her relief at having her brother returned to her. HOWEVER, in the book, Cersei does almost immediately (almost as soon as he climbs off of her) begin the rejection of Jaime that we’ve already seen some of in the show.

I think the out of order portrayal of these events is what makes last night’s scene in the Sept impossible for me to interpret as anything other than rape.

In the ASOS scene, Cersei’s protests to Jaime’s advances are almost entirely about their location and the propriety and wisdom of having sex where they might be discovered while their father is in town, but she quickly responds with passion and even joy to the actual sex because she is so happy that her brother has returned during what is probably her darkest time and most dire need of him in the books so far. It’s only when Jaime proposes marriage and suggests abandoning any royal ambitions that Cersei recoils as she realizes that his time away has changed him in some profound way that both confuses and frightens her–probably because it threatens to make worthless all of her scheming and sacrifices and years of suffering marriage to Robert Baratheon right as it’s finally paying off. It’s only after this encounter in the Sept that we start to see the twins’ relationship unravel, and it’s mostly because Cersei’s ambitions are more important to her than Jaime’s love. Indeed, Cersei in the books comes to mistrust Jaime and eventually sends him away from the capital.

In the show, we’ve already seen a great deal of the deterioration of the Jaime/Cersei relationship. Cersei has refused to have sex with Jaime since he’s been back in King’s Landing. She’s disgusted by his stump, she’s resentful (albeit unreasonably) that he was away for so long, and even jealous of Brienne. She’s also spent over a year without him, during which time she’s had to learn to do without his support and companionship, and I think Cersei has come to feel that the only person she can truly rely upon is herself. When they finally make it to the Sept, Joffrey is dead, Jaime was unable to protect or save him, and he doesn’t share Cersei’s conviction that Tyrion is the killer.

It’s incredibly important to Cersei that Jaime always be on her side, as it reinforces her belief that they are one person in two bodies. As long as they were together and of one mind, Cersei believed in their incestuous relationship, but their time apart has left them both irrevocably changed and they’ve done little but quarrel since Jaime’s return. In terms of what we have seen in the show so far, I think this scene in the Sept played out in probably the only way it could have–outside of Jaime, you know, taking “no” for an answer and respecting Cersei’s basic humanity.

The questions regarding this scene, then, are these:

1. Should the scene have been included at all?
2. What is the scene actually communicating? What was it intended to communicate?
3. Is it in character for Jaime, at this point in his journey on the show, to rape his sister?
4. What could have, or should have, been done differently by the writers and director?

I’ll take these one at a time.

Should the scene have been included? I don’t know. It’s an important moment in the book, as it acts as a reintroduction of Jaime and Cersei to each other and also immediately establishes the basis for the fracturing of their relationship. In the show, as I’ve said, most of this work has already been done. Certainly, being raped by Jaime would seem likely to (and here I’m limited to speculation) drive a final wedge between the siblings. If Cersei recognizes it as rape, I can’t imagine her forgiving Jaime, and I could see this contributing to the circumstances that make her send him away from King’s Landing later on. However, if it’s not recognized as rape in the show (which would be terrible in every way) and is instead portrayed as some kind of weird moment of closeness between the twins, I think it will harm the narrative–mostly because the majority of viewers seem to consider the scene a rape scene. As far as whether or not rape should be portrayed at all, I tend to be of the opinion that there are good and bad ways to do it. Unfortunately, we just don’t know yet if this portrayal is correct or not, and while we wait until future episodes to find out, a lot of analysis of the scene is going to be based on comparisons to the scene in ASOS, which is substantially different from what occurred in the show.

I think this is a situation where it’s also important to examine what the intent of the writers, actors, and director was in crafting this scene the way they did. What did they want to communicate here, and what did they actually communicate? With the exception of some truly terrifying comments from viewers who don’t seem to actually know what rape is or understand why it’s wrong, most people seem to have read the scene as a rape. However, remarks on the scene from Alex Graves, the director, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime, seem to indicate that they intended the scene to be disturbing, but perhaps a little more ambiguous than it came across. While both men at times used the word rape, and neither objected to that characterization of the scene, they also both insisted that it’s somehow more complex than that.

Sadly, I feel like this is basically some Rape Culture 101 stuff here. They filmed a rape scene, and most viewers agree that what we watched last night was indisputably rape and were appalled by the brutality of it. The director and the male actor in the scene, on the other hand, don’t seem to be so sure about what exactly they created. Meanwhile, there is a small but vocal contingent of fans who seemed to find the scene sexually titillating, not rape at all (because Cersei “really wanted it”), and/or a fitting punishment for Cersei, who many sickos seem to think deserves whatever she gets. The saddest part about this is that by insisting on an intent of ambiguity, while creating a scene that any reasonable person would agree is not ambiguous at all, Graves and Coster-Waldau are supporting the opinions of all these people who seem to be confused about what rape is and why (or in some cases whether) it’s wrong. By insisting on that intent, they are creating a confusing message about rape in general, which becomes part of what is being communicated by the scene. It’s a worrisome situation, and a glance through the comments section of anything written so far about the episode is enough to make most women’s blood run cold at the thought that some of these commenters are writing from anywhere but prison.

Which of course leads back to the first question: Should this scene have been included at all? If the writers, director, and actors are not committed to presenting rape in a responsible manner, then probably not. And part of portraying rape in a responsible manner, to me, means being very certain about what you are communicating and being willing to clarify that in no uncertain terms if your message is misunderstood.

If the Sept scene is intended to be a rape, then it’s important that it’s understood to be bad. It’s important that it’s understood that Cersei didn’t “really want it” and that she didn’t “deserve it.” It’s important that it’s treated seriously, and it’s important that those involved in the creation of the scene be able to talk about it seriously. So far, I’m unconvinced that this is the case.

If the scene was intended to be somewhat ambiguous (but definitely not rape), as the book scene was, then it’s a failure on every single level, and I don’t think we should even entertain this interpretation of it. While the creators’ intent matters, we are under no obligation to treat such a spectacular failure as a success.

Aside from the politics of rape and discussion of the advisability of portraying a rape scene at all, I feel like I have to deal with the fact that the creators of the show did decide to include a rape scene and that they presented it the way they did. So what does this mean for Jaime’s character?

Some reviewers consider Jaime’s rape of Cersei to be blatant character assassination, while others seem to see it as a culmination of Jaime’s weeks of frustration (both sexual and emotional) since his return to King’s Landing. I think I actually fall sort of in the middle here.

Jaime’s storyline throughout season three of the show seemed to be about redemption and his desire to be seen truly for what he is–a flawed, but in many ways deeply ethical man with a strong personal code of honor. This is much at odds with what we saw of Jaime in season one, when he threw Bran Stark from a tower and viciously attacked Ned Stark in King’s Landing, but we also learn that Jaime’s greatest supposed sin, that of kingslaying, is almost certainly entirely justified. The attempted murder of Bran can be understood (though not excused) as due to his desire to protect Cersei, their relationship, and their children. Jaime’s attack on Ned Stark can be somewhat justified as retaliation for Catelyn’s imprisonment and threatening of Tyrion, and Jaime refuses to kill Ned when Ned is injured, preferring to fight an equal rather than murder a helpless man, which is consistent with an internal code of behavior. In season three, we got to see the growth of understanding and even a sort of friendship between Jaime and Brienne, and Jaime has the opportunity for actual heroics. The loss of Jaime’s hand was a direct result of his intervening to save Brienne from being raped, and he returns to Harrenhal to rescue her from the same, even if he does find her instead fighting a bear with a wooden sword. We also learn in the course of the show that, while Jaime has engaged in an incestuous relationship with his sister, he’s never been with another woman at all, which would presumably mean that he’s never engaged in the sort of weaponized rape that so many other martial types in the world of Westeros practice (or any other sort of rape).

All of this may seem to make Jaime Lannister seem a very unlikely rapist, but is that actually the case? Certainly, Jaime has felt rejected by Cersei since his return to King’s Landing. He’s also lost his sword hand, the part of him that is most central to his identity and manhood. After insisting to his father, in the first episode of the season, that he was still capable of serving in the Kingsguard one-handed, by this third episode, Joffrey is dead and Jaime was unable to protect him. Jaime’s grief, such as it is, for Joffrey must also necessarily remain private so as to avoid fueling any suspicions about the parentage of Cersei’s children. In the Sept, then, we see Jaime reaching out to Cersei for comfort, as she is the only person with whom he can share the pain he’s feeling. Cersei is also seeking comfort, but not the sort (sexual) that Jaime desires. She wants revenge of a type that he’s both incapable of due to his new disability and unwilling to provide because he’s unconvinced of Tyrion’s guilt. When he refuses to offer her what she needs, she also refuses to give him what he wants from her.

And so he takes it by force, but not before calling her hateful in a way that makes it feel as if he knows that what he is doing is rape and makes it seem punitive–for her coldness, for her contribution to his current crisis of identity, for her refusal to choose him over her own political ambitions, for her hatred of Tyrion (whom Jaime loves). In short, for everything and nothing. Like most, if not all, rape, Jaime’s rape of Cersei is entirely about Jaime and his feelings of inadequacy and disempowerment. Indeed, he’s seemingly incapable of sensing or empathizing with Cersei’s own feelings of disempowerment (remember, their father intends to force Cersei to marry again and has literally just walked out of the room with her younger son after making it clear that Cersei is to have no more hand in the raising of the boy). While both Jaime and Cersei may be feeling disempowered, Jaime still has the power to force himself sexually upon Cersei, completing her complete degradation at the hands of the men of her family–bartered away by her father twice over, her son murdered (she believes) by her brother Tyrion, and now raped by her once-beloved twin. Jaime may feel powerless, but we see Cersei in this episode at indisputably her lowest point so far. In any case, I think that a compelling case can be made that, under the circumstances in which we find the characters in this episode, Jaime would be capable of raping his sister, to punish her, to assert his own authority, and to try and recapture in a very twisted way something of the relationship that seems to be slipping farther and farther away.

A lot of the complaints that Jaime’s rape of Cersei is out of character seem to be based on the notion that his character arc has been one of redemption. I question, though, in a show like Game of Thrones, and in the ASOIAF source material, where ordinary fantasy tropes are subverted, challenged, and upended over and over again, can we even reliably consider this to be the case? Before this episode, it could already be said that Jaime’s status as a fan favorite character was out of proportion to his actual merits. In the midst of all the warm, fuzzy moments and wonderful character development going on, one could almost forget that Jaime is still the guy who tried to murder a child in the first episode of the series. Should we as viewers ever even allow him to be redeemed? I’d argue that we should not and that, like all characters in this series, Jaime is a mix of good and bad parts, a complex character whose actions are explicable and ripe for deep analysis even when they are abhorrent. I’d argue that the reading of Jaime’s character development as a redemption arc is shallow and simplistic, perhaps even naive, and that those who feel betrayed by the show for “destroying” that character development are maybe not paying close enough attention.

All this said, however, I remain deeply skeptical of the inclusion of this scene, and given the past history of the show and the way that it handles rape and the treatment of women I have little hope that I will be happy with the way this plays out over the rest of the season. What could they have done differently? They could have a) created a sex scene for Jaime and Cersei in episode one of the season that followed the spirit of the ASOS scene, which would have made their estrangement more firmly established by this point in the show so that they could have written a similar scene in the Sept but without the rape, perhaps with the siblings simply parting ways in anger, or b) minimized Jaime and Cersei’s contact prior to the wedding, with just a short scene or two of them being happy to be together again, filmed the scene in the Sept more faithfully to what was described in ASOS, and proceeded with the collapse of the Jaime/Cersei relationship from there. Since we can’t go back in time, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with Jaime and Cersei over the coming weeks.

From Jaime and Cersei in the Sept, we cut to another troubled relationship. Arya and the Hound are working their way toward the Vale of Arryn, and Arya isn’t even sure they’re going the right direction. I think we’re actually starting to see her get attached to Sandor in a weird way as he’s become a bizarre and unpleasant source of stability in her world. No matter how nasty to each other they are, Arya no longer seems so bent on murdering the Hound, and he’s proven that he’s not going to abandon her and that he’s committed, in his way, to keeping her as safe as it’s possible for her to be these days.

They’re watering their horses when they encounter the man and his daughter whose land they have stopped on. I was almost astounded to hear the lie that Sandor is her father trip so naturally from Arya’s tongue. The change in their relationship by this point is truly striking, and definitely has a familial feel to it–at least the sort of dysfunctional familial feel that one can expect in Game of Thrones.

Arya’s fledgling affection for her companion makes his betrayal of her faith in him truly heartbreaking. After spending the night with the kind farmer and his daughter, Arya is woken by the daughter’s scream and runs out to find that Sandor has robbed the man. “You said you weren’t a thief!” Arya screams at Sandor, who replies that the man and his daughter will be dead by winter anyway. This feels like the beginning of the end of the alliance between Arya and the Hound, which is sad, but necessary for Arya to move on to the next stage in her journey, which I expect will happen by mid-season.

At Castle Black, the very diminished Night’s Watch is assessing their strength after the grievous losses of last season. We finally hear the first “Sam the Slayer,” mockingly, from Alliser Thorne, and then we see Sam complaining to Gilly that no one believes him about killing the White Walker. I’m still really disappointed in Sam’s character development on the show, but I was glad to at least see this mentioned.

The big event for Sam in this episode, though, was his removal of Gilly from Castle Black to Mole’s Town. I’m honestly confused by this development. It’s not something that happens in the book, where Mole’s Town is largely known for being home to the brothel that services members of the Night’s Watch. And yet this is where Sam, concerned for Gilly’s safety at Castle Black, deposits her and her baby on the condition that she only cook and clean and provide childcare for the whores. I really don’t understand in what universe Sam thinks this is going to be an improvement in Gilly’s circumstances, and the whole thing seems, frankly, contrived by the writers to try and insert some extra drama and as a way to extend the Night’s Watch storyline for longer in the season. It feels like a weird choice, and it’s frustrating since I’d like to see Sam and Jon’s stories move along a little faster.

Meanwhile, speaking of stories that seem to be being senselessly dragged out, Stannis and Davos are still at Dragonstone. With the agreement between Stannis, Davos, and Melisandre at the end of last season, I expected them to be well on their way to the North by this time. Instead, Davos has still been working to win petty lords to Stannis’s cause while Melisandre burns people and Stannis pouts and grumbles. Here, the news of Joffrey’s death has convinced Stannis of the value of Melisandre’s magic with the leeches and he complains again about Davos having freed Gendry. Davos points out that it’s soldiers who win wars, not magic, and suggests hiring a sellsword company, to which Stannis objects because they have no ready money to pay with.

We’re then treated to a lovely scene with Davos and Shireen, who has been tutoring Davos in reading. Davos delivers some humorous remarks about the distinction between pirates and smugglers and the finer points of bad behavior, and then Shireen says something that gives Davos the idea of approaching the Iron Bank of Braavos to solve Stannis’s lack of gold problem.

In this episode’s obligatory brothel scene, we find Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand enjoying a rather sexy fivesome at Littlefinger’s place, which is apparently the only brothel in town, when Tywin Lannister shows up to ruin their fun. I make light of it, but this conversation between Tywin and Oberyn is great and really solidifies “Breaker of Chains” as Tywin’s episode. Oberyn succeeds in ruffling Tywin a little by offering him a seat on the very mussed (and probably full of sex juices) bed, but after that Tywin is clearly in control of the conversation. Tywin asks Oberyn to serve as the third judge in Tyrion’s trial and offers him both a seat on the Small Council and justice for his murdered sister. It’s an offer that Oberyn really can’t refuse at this point. I also liked that this conversation makes it clear that Tywin, of all the Lannisters, is at least aware of and wary of Daenerys and her dragons.

In the (surprisingly well-lit) dungeons of King’s Landing, Tyrion is visited by his squire, Podrick Payne, who is full of bad news. Tyrion learns that Sansa has vanished, Varys is testifying on Cersei’s behalf, Bronn is prohibited from visiting, and the line-up of judges for the trial is not favorable. Even Podrick has been approached with an offer of knighthood if only he testifies against Tyrion in court. Tyrion asks Podrick to send him Jaime and then orders Podrick to leave King’s Landing.

Back in the North, the combined force of wildlings led by Tormund and Styr is busy attacking a village in an attempt to draw out the Night’s Watch and weaken the forces left on the Wall. Styr even sends a little boy to the Wall with a message intended to goad the Night’s Watch into action. Like the scenes with Sam and Gilly in Mole’s Town, this seems like an attempt to expand the story of what’s going on with the Night’s Watch, and I don’t really understand why this is happening. My concern about these story lines going into this season was that it was going to be a struggle to cover all the material that is actually in the books in the time available, so it just doesn’t make sense to me that the writers would want to unnecessarily complicate things. It’s not an improvement on the books.

Also, the characterization of the Thenns on the show as cannibals and monsters bothers me more and more as time goes by. It ratchets up the violence level of the show, but it also makes the wildlings seem much less sympathetic than they were in the books.

In this episode as well, I was really disappointed to see Ygritte participating so wholeheartedly in the atrocities being committed. Knowing what is going to happen to her later on, I can’t help but feel like we’re being encouraged to think as badly as possible of her in preparation for future events, and it pisses me off. Judging from the number of comments I saw today where people were wishing death and rape on Ygritte, even if this isn’t the goal of the writers, it’s what they’re achieving.

At the Wall, some of the brothers are in favor of riding out to meet the wildling forces, but Alliser Thorne isn’t foolish enough to rise to the bait set by Styr and company. He even calls upon Jon Snow, albeit mockingly, for support, and Jon supports the determination to remain at the Wall and conserve their strength as there are only about a hundred men left at Castle Black.

Their numbers increase by two with the return of Grenn and Dolorous Edd from Craster’s Keep, where Karl and the other mutineers have set up house. Now Jon insists that they must ride out to kill the men at Craster’s, not for justice, but for practical reasons: Jon told Mance Rayder that Castle Black held a thousand men, and he doesn’t want Mance to find out the truth from the men still north of the Wall. Probably this means that we’re going to see a small ranging and a battle at Craster’s in the next episode or two. Again, this is not how things happened in the book, and I’m annoyed and confused by the changes.

Finally, we end the episode outside the walls of Meereen with Daenerys and her army. The Meereenese send out a champion and Daenerys agrees to allow Daario to stand as her own champion in single combat against the champion of Meereen. The discussion of who is actually going to fight was straight out of the book, but I think it worked far better on the page then in the show, where it felt a little too scripted and theatrical to feel natural. The fight itself was anticlimactic, as Daario defeated the Meereenese champion in about ten seconds. However, Daario’s wink at Dany marked the first time that I really bought this new actor in the role.

After the single combat, Daenerys gives a great speech in Valyrian and uses catapults to sling barrels over the city walls. When the barrels smash open, we see that they are filled with the shackles and collars of all the slaves that Dany has already freed, and the episode ends with the slaves of Meereen looking thoughtfully at all the broken shackles and collars while the leaders of the city probably shit their robes. I know that Dany’s story on the show has been and continues to be a pretty shameless exploitation of (rather than, as in the books, fairly critical of) the white savior trope, but it worked here to be a really compelling scene with which to end the episode.

Earlier today, I compared this episode to “The Climb” from season three, in which a disturbing scene of senseless and sexualized violence really tainted the whole episode for me. After doing a lot of reading and thinking (and writing) on “Breaker of Chains,” I don’t think it’s that bad. I’m going to be watching the show like a hawk for the rest of this season, though, and I’ll definitely be paying especially close attention to how things unfold between Jaime and Cersei over the next few weeks. I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but I’m not holding my breath.