Game of Thrones: Season Three

 Before the final two episodes, we checked in where everyone sat in Westeros, or across the sea:

• Jaime, adjusting to being a southpaw, coming off his recent heel-face-turn is at Harrenhal, but not as a prisoner.  Likely to return to Kings Landing
• Returned to Kings Landing.  Mistaken for country bumpkin before finding his sister
• Tyrion, married to Sansa Stark.  Growing tension between him and the oft-slapee, Joffrey
• Was getting along with Sansa until his family killed her family.  Threatening Joffrey at Small Council Meeting
• Cersei, brooding about the Tyrells and her upcoming betrothal to them
• Has no real responsibility besides tucking her son into bed.
• Tywin, de facto king who sure is pissing off his kids a lot lately though
• Making it clear to everyone who is in charge.  Joffrey is apparently the only one who didn't know.  Sent the king to bed without dinner.

• Bran, Rickon and the Reeds, making their way to The Wall to see Jon
• Through the wall, with a pile of dragonglass
• Jon, making his way over The Wall and through the North, undercover, with the wildlings
• Cover blown, he's back at The Wall, though half a pin cushion as he's filled with arrows
• Sam, making his way back to The Wall with Craster's daughter and her son, killing Others
• Sam's back at The Wall too

• Arya and the Hound, on their way to the Twins
• Abrubt about face as Arya sees the head of her family without a head for the second time.  Goes stabby stabby on some Freys they happen by, the only sense of justice for what took place last week.  
• You have to love the Hound's only objection to her stabbing the guy a billion times was that she didn't tell him she was going to do it
• Brotherhood without Banners, in the Riverlands doing their thing 
• Nothing from them.

•  Stannis, cursing the other kings.  Seeing visions in the fire
• One king down.  Melisandre's next vision in the fire tells them to go north to The Wall, following Davos' relaying the raven
• Davos, let out of jail finally
• Almost back in jail, AGAIN.  Saved by the above mentioned fire.

• Theon, weiner-less, getting tortured by, apparently, Roose Bolton's men 
• Yep, Bolton's men.  Essentially disowned by his father once he got a package from the Lonely Island crew.  Yara's coming though, little brother

• Robb, making babies, on his way to the Twins for his uncle's wedding and to secure the Freys, then to attack Casterly Rock
• This Wolf is no more.  It has ceased to be.
• Catelyn, concerned that the delay in reaching the Twins will further insult the Freys and risk their tenuous relationship 
• She is expired and gone to meet her maker.  She is late, stiff and bereft of life  

Season Three had the difficult task of finding a natural end point for a story that has 400 more pages to tell.  It is astonishing the crew has been able to adapt the material as well as they have, expediting storylines and combining characters, but still getting the same effects as the source material.  While Season's One and Two capped off their own stories, the time between Season Three and Four willfeel more intermission-like.

So that's it for Season Three.  It's been thirty hours of television of the highest quality, on a show where we are still waiting for something good to happen.  But we hope for next season, which is to begin filming next month.

Watching for casting news for this show is more fun than with any other show, and I may even set a Google alert for "Oberyn Martell". 

Hodor.