Joel Fry: Game of Thrones: Season 4, Episode 6 – “The Laws of Gods and Men” (2014)

*Spoilers up through episode 5*

This is Joel Fry’s only other season 4 appearance—the rest of his episodes are all in season 5. This episode is another good one overall, and we get a proper introduction to Fry’s character instead of just a glimpse.

In need of gold to fund their military campaign, Stannis and Ser Davos travel to Braavos to make their case to the Iron Bank. In the North, Yara leads a mission to rescue Theon from the Boltons. Having now conquered Meereen, Daenerys has decided to stay and rule it, holding court to hear the pleas of her new subjects. In King’s Landing, Tyrion is brought to trial, with Tywin presiding.

The first half of the episode is the same “quick check-in on various plots” structure as episode 3, while the second half is entirely devoted to the King’s Landing stuff, with Tyrion’s trial taking pride of place. Let’s get into the highlights!

• In Braavos, Ser Davos shows why he’s a great Hand for Stannis. In addition to his fierce loyalty, he’s able to get a read on the heads of the Iron Bank after only a short meeting. This allows him to make Stannis’s case in a way that specifically appeals to the Iron Bank and their interests. As far as Hands go, Davos is one of the better ones of the bunch!
• I like Yara’s determination to rescue Theon. The Greyjoy siblings were separated for many years when Theon was a ward of the Starks, and they didn’t exactly have a warm reunion. In light of all that—and how much Theon has suffered under the Boltons—I’m glad to see Yara going to bat for him.
• Before we get to all the trial stuff, I love the whole conversation between Varys and Oberyn in the throne room. We’ve got Varys telling Oberyn, “No one is under obligation to call me ‘lord,’” with Oberyn replying, “And yet everyone does.” We’ve got Oberyn correctly guessing that Varys is from Lys, citing his ear for accents, and when Varys argues, “I’ve lost my accent entirely,” Oberyn says, “I have an ear for that as well.” The entire scene is so good!
• Best of all, though, this is the episode where it’s stated that Varys is asexual! I remember being so surprised and excited by this when I watched it for the first time back in the day. Understandably, “asexual” isn’t a word that exists in Westeros, but Varys’s meaning is clear. I also love that Oberyn is the one on the receiving end of this reveal—ace/bi solidarity forever!
• But again, nearly half of the episode is devoted to Tyrion’s trial. Admittedly, I quibble at all the witnesses being able to repeat Tyrion’s exact words—some of them from years ago! It’s almost like they peeked at the old scripts to refresh their memories!
• Other than that, the trial is excellent. Despite only occasionally resorting to outright lies, it’s a blatant frame job, with Tyrion’s past words and actions repeatedly stripped of any context. No surprise, Tywin is largely unwilling to let Tyrion say anything in his defense.
• Peter Dinklage is so, so good in all of this! There’s the subtler stuff, like his reaction to Tommen declaring, “And if found guilty, may the gods punish the accused,” or the way he lounges in the box while Grand Maester Pycelle is testifying. And then, of course, there’s his magnificent final speech! I especially love, “I wish I was the monster you think I am.”

After conquering the slavers in Astapor and Yunkai during season 3, Dany moved on to Meereen, then learned that those other city-states haven’t flourished under their new liberation: one was taken by a war lord while the masters reasserted control in the other. As such, she decides to stay in Meereen, protecting the city’s newfound freedom while also learning how to rule her subjects. That’s where Hizdahr zo Loraq/Joel Fry comes in.

Although hundreds of supplicants come before Daenerys, Hizdahr is one of the only two we see onscreen. The first, a poor goatherd, bows and scrapes and practically apologizes to Dany for having lost his livelihood at the hands of her dragons. By contrast, Hizdahr’s entrance is announced by a servant, and he looks directly at Dany as he begins to speak. While the goatherd shuffles backward out of Dany’s presence at the end of his audience, Hizdahr backs down the steps of the dais then turns around, straightening up as he strides out of the throne room.

I remember a few facts about Hizdahr’s role on the show but not much about his personality—I don’t think I ever paid close enough attention to him on previous watches for me to get an impression of him. As such, his characterization is a bit new to me. A former Master, Hizdahr is accustomed to his old status but cognizant of his precarious place in Dany’s new world. During his audience with her, he changes tactics more than once, knowing when the time has come to lower his head and get on his knees.

Hizdahr is shrewd. He begins with flowery compliments that don’t impress Dany, then lulls her with talk of his father’s good works before revealing that she’d had him crucified with over 150 of the other Masters. He describes her eye-for-an-eye style executions using words like “cruel” and “crime,” which is bold, considering he’s part of the same class of men who got crucified. At the same time, he sidesteps her rebuttals about the Masters’ own cruelty, keeping the focus on himself as merely “a son who loved his father.” 

It’s a tightrope of a scene, and Fry navigates it well, showing us how Hizdahr is prepared for whatever Dany throws back at him. While Fry’s physicality often comes through in the way his characters fidget or the inventive choices he makes, he uses it here in an entirely different way. All of Hizdahr’s gestures are precise and elegant. Whether he’s expressing his grief, challenging his new queen’s methods of justice, or reorienting himself firmly within her new world order, his body language carefully affirms that.

I have to mention—as with a lot of Daenerys’s storylines, the racial dynamics get weird. Most of the countries Dany has made her way through in Essos are majority people of color, and that means slaves and masters alike are largely played by Black and brown actors. They’re the ones responding to Dany, “Breaker of Chains” and quite possibly the whitest woman. We’ve seen Black and brown slaves treat her like a savior, and here, we have a Black man playing a former slaveowner, kneeling before Dany as he asks her to consider that she may have ignored some of the nuance in this whole slavery issue. Anything involving Dany in Essos is going to have issues like this, while also being just about the only storylines where talented BIPOC actors like Joel Fry (or Jacob Anderson and Nathalie Emmanuel, for example) can appear.

Accent Watch

A light RP.

Y tu Luna también: Narcos: Mexico: Season 1, Episode 4 – “Rafa, Rafa, Rafa!” (2018)

*Episode premise spoilers.*

This is an exciting episode. There’s some wild stuff going on, along with some pretty high-stakes drama. As we approach the middle of season 1, the story takes turns that I certainly didn’t see coming my first time through the show.

Rafa has been circling around Sofía, the wealthy daughter of the Minister of Education. Stupid with love, the two conspire to be together by faking Sofía’s kidnapping. Of course, abducting the daughter of a politician is a grade A bad move, and it brings all sort of police to the doorstep of the cartel. As the DEA plots how they might use Rafa’s lovesick crime to their advantage, Félix considers how to make this shitstorm disappear.

The episode earns its title, because when you see how inevitably disastrous the fallout will be from Rafa and Sofía’s plan, you want to shake your head and say, “Oh, Rafa, Rafa, Rafa!” The kidnapping is a mess and the next phase of their scheme—roleplaying Bonnie and Clyde while they hide out—is childishly short-sighted. Also, there’s a ridiculous scene of Rafa and Don Neto listening to “Karma Chameleon” and blowing their own minds with the realizing that an eight-track doesn’t skip like a record would.

It’s no wonder the DEA sees Rafa as a goldmine. With the DFS blocking their investigation from getting anywhere near Félix, the narrator sums it up when he says, “Best way to catch the smart ones: get an idiot working for ‘em.” The Minister of Education is on the warpath, which means everybody is looking for Rafa, and Kiki and co. hope they can apprehend and then flip him. This storyline brings in Calderoni, a character who doesn’t pop up often in the series but is always interesting when he does. In a sea of corrupt cops and obstructive bureaucrats, Calderoni appears to be a bastion of down-to-earth integrity, and with him leading the search for Rafa, Kiki can see a tangible path open to the DEA for the first time.

This is an excellent episode for Diego Luna. Félix is a character who likes to keep everything in order, and Rafa has just thrown a grenade into his tidy operation. Throughout the episode, he’s unspeakably aggravated with Rafa while at the same time worrying about his impulsive friend and trying to figure out how they can find their way out of this calamity.

I love the scene where Félix confronts Rafa about his actions. Luna’s performance is less irate drug lord and more disappointed dad, with a strong air of, “You dummy, why can’t you just think?” As he contends with his competing instincts to protect the cartel/himself and protect Rafa, you can tell how angry Félix is, but for the most part, he speaks rationally. The most he lets loose is when Rafa is ignoring him and he slaps the cigarette out of Rafa’s mouth! Great moment, no notes.

Later in the episode, Félix is going through it in a serious way, on a personal level as well as a very tangible one. Although he pays Nava enough for the DFS head to be at his beck and call, Nava continually needs to throw his weight around, and now with Félix searching for a solution to his Rafa problem, Nava has the decided upper hand. I love how subtly Félix gets his back up when he comes home to find Nava waiting for him, casually menacing as his daughter plays nearby. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but it’s fascinating to watch how this carefully controlled man reacts to being in a situation where he’s entirely without control. Even when he’s pushed to the absolute brink, you can still see him putting things together and making connections in his head, which is damned impressive!

Train Dreams (2025)

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this Best Picture nominee. I didn’t know much of anything about it, and while I wasn’t particularly excited for it, I tried to go in with an open mind. On the whole, though, I enjoyed it.

Train Dreams follows the life of Robert Granier, an Idaho logger in the early 1900s. We touch a little on his childhood, sent west on the train as an orphan, and glimpse into his later years, but for the most part, we focus on his prime working years. Robert lives for his wife Gladys and their young daughter Katie, but his hard, dangerous work takes him far away from their idyllic cabin in the woods. Every year, he ride the train to a different logging site, where he spends months chopping, felling, and dreaming of home.

That summary makes the film sound kind of simplistic, but while it is fairly slow-moving, it’s not without momentum or plot development. Some major things do happen in the story, and Robert gets put through the wringer. But throughout, matters are depicted with a quiet, contemplative air. The movie is bleak and beautiful, filled with dreams, regret, and fragile connections. There’s Robert’s loving relationship with his wife and daughter, but every time he’s home, he’s haunted by how much Katie has grown up since he last saw her. There are the men who drift in and out of his life, fellow loggers who pass the time with him, who might be there one year and gone the next. There’s his friend Ignatius Jack, who steps in to be a reassuring unobtrusive presence after Robert is dealt a heavy blow.

The film got four Oscar nominations in total. In addition to Best Picture, it’s up for Best Adapted Screenplay (it’s based on a novella of the same name,) Best Cinematography, and Best Original Song. The cinematography nod definitely makes sense to me! In some ways, it’s a bit of a freebie, since movies that show off beautiful landscapes tend to get accolades for their camera work, hehe. And to be sure, the landscapes in this movie are gorgeous—every time they show a lake or a river, it’s the purest, clearest water you’ve ever seen in your life—but it is genuinely wonderfully shot. The camera does its part to convey that beauty and bleakness, in capturing both how tiny Robert is within this wide wild land and the up-close immediacy of his heartache.

Joel Edgerton is effective as Robert. He’s a solid, plain-spoken man who isn’t hugely demonstrative but often shows his emotions in subtler ways. He, and some of the other characters in the film, show that limited education doesn’t limit depth of thought. I’m always happy to see Felicity Jones, and she’s very good as Gladys. She manages to feel very modern while still fitting well into the period setting. (I have to say, though, it seems like every time Jones appears in an Oscar movie, her role is “Wife of the Guy,” which is a bit of a bummer.) The film also features strong performances from William H. Macy and Kerry Condon.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, violence, language, drinking/smoking, and sexual content.