Home > Game of Thrones > Season 4 > Episode 8
Episode Info
Cast & Crew
Tyrion Lannister
Queen Cersei Lannister
Ser Jaime Lannister
Petyr Baelish
Ser Jorah Mormont
The Mountain and the Viper Videos
The Mountain and the Viper Photos
Critic Reviews for The Mountain and the Viper
For such an overall boring episode, it sure ended with a ... squish.
This episode ranks easily among the series' top five.
Game of Thrones has often punched me in the heart, but it's rarely had it fluttering so mightily in my throat.
But then Oberyn is also something of a showman and a show-off. It is there in the way he dresses, in his in-your-face PDA with Ellaria, in his ostentatious, capoeira-inflected fighting style... of course he is going to milk it for all it is worth.
If this sounds like a book-reader's quibble, well, it is. But as great as tonight's climax was, I think it could have been greater still.
Of course, as soon as the attention shifts to King's Landing, "The Mountain and the Viper" begins to deliver on its hype.
The eighth episode, "The Mountain and The Viper" delivered exactly what the audience wanted: an incredibly intense- and gory- trial by combat.
There are a bunch of moments in "The Mountain and the Viper" where a long-hidden truth gets used as a weapon or twisted around.
This episode - one of the best in all four seasons of Game Of Thrones - will be remembered for its gruesome conclusion. And rightly so.
The fight itself is stunning, and even knowing its outcome, I found my breath caught in my throat.
Of all the numerous deaths on the show, this one has to go down as one of the most disheartening and shocking.
I don't want to say nothing good happened in this episode, but I didn't find a lot to cheer about.