Hate the players

“A Man Without Honor” largely steps away from the many brewing wars in Westeros, steps away from Tyrion Lannister as a protagonist, and — but for one storyline — steps away from the game to look at the players. It even steps away from female nudity.

The titular man without honor is Jamie Lannister, but the Kingslayer disagrees. When honor is defined by sticking to all of society’s many contradictory codes, how do you maintain it?

Xaro Xhoan Daxos makes the episode’s only big political play. Elsewhere, Jon Snow has the chance to get laid but instead gets captured, Queen Cersei takes the blame for her son’s evilness, Sansa Stark (unfortunately) becomes a woman and Arya gets dangerously comfortable around Tywin Lannister.

This episode, like many in the series, suffers from trying to fit a large number of storylines within the single hour of the show, some of which stick and some of which fall short.

Daenerys, who has always been incredibly sympathetic, was turned into a strange, phony and distrustful cynic. The episode really belonged to Theon and Jamie, whose respective evils were excellently acted.

By Luke Morgan