‘Game of Thrones’ season 4, episode 6 review: Tyrion, Shae, and a trial by combat

You knew that “Game of Thrones” Sunday night was going to be a difficult one for Tyrion Lannister, mostly because he was involved in what has to be one of the worst trials of all time. From the moment that he arrived to court, Tywin was ready to sentence him to a variety of terrible, horrible things.

For Tyrion, we imagine that it was the emotional damage that took a toll on him more than the physical damage. Namely, we are talking about that testimony from Shae, which was one of the saddest things to date as we saw her spew out all sorts of lies. This may have be one of the ways in which he was truly condemned. Prior to this, Jaime and Tywin seemingly worked out a relationship that would send him to the Wall as one of the Night’s Watch.

This was a strictly insane scene to play out, since it eventually led to Tyrion demanding that he wanted a trial by combat, mostly because he knew that this was the only way that he was going to get anything close to justice. He didn’t know about Jaime’s deal, but he wouldn’t have wanted that anyway. This speech may have very well been the most epic thing ever done by Peter Dinklage on the show to date.

As for some other stories, there were not that many of them. We had Yara basically giving up on her brother, who goes by the name Reek now and is completely suffering and miserable. Meanwhile, Danaerys Targeryan is learning more than ever before that she needs to realize that there are serious consequences for her actions as a ruler, including killing some men who may actually be innocent.

Then, you had the story of Stannis and the Iron Bank, which can be summed up by a passionate plea from Davos for funding, even though there was no other reason to have it be so. This was even entertaining, which is something that we haven’t always said about this story in the past.

Overall, we have to say that this was the best episode of the season by a longshot, and it wasn’t even close. Grade: A.

What did you think about tonight’s episode? Share your thoughts with a comment below.