When it comes to the fourth episode of ’s sophomore season, it truly is the best of times and the worst of times—by which I mean it’s the greatest chapter in the series so far of the fact that we had to bid goodbye to one of my very favorite characters. Events were set in motion by Ser Criston Cole (boo, hiss), who’s been busily dashing around Westeros, covering himself in glory, and having an absolute blast raising armies for Team Green—or, rather, straight-up murdering anyone who doesn’t immediately renounce the “Whore of Dragonstone.” When he announces to his troops that they’ll be marching on Rook’s Rest, though, it quickly becomes apparent that he has a co-conspirator back at King’s Landing: Aemond.
Fully dressed once more, and looking more like Legolas than ever, it seems our one-eyed dragon rider has been...
well, for want of a better word, he’s been behind Aegon’s back. And, when his brother challenges him over this in front of his council, Aemond slips easily into High Valyrian, something which Aemond cannot do, thus shaming him in front of everyone. It’s awkward, it’s painful, and it’s obviously payback for what happened at the brothel in .
It also means that everyone is fully in favor of Aemond and Criston’s plan to take Rook’s Rest rather than, say, Harrenhal. Speaking of that moldering wreck of a castle, it seems as if the so-called ghosts of Harrenhal might just have driven Daemon mad. He’s haunted by visions of the women he .
