The Bear and the Maiden Fair

The plot of the episode advances the storylines of Daenerys's arrival to the city of Yunkai, the repercussions of the upcoming marriage of Tyrion Lannister and Sansa Stark, and Brienne's fate at the ruined castle of Harrenhal.

Heading north, Osha continues to grow suspicious of the Reeds, calling Jojen's visions "black magic".

Osha refuses to allow them to go north of the Wall, relating to them the story of her husband's disappearance, his return as a wight and her having to burn their home down with him inside.

At Harrenhal, Jaime visits Brienne in her cell and before he leaves, she makes him swear to uphold his oath to Catelyn and return the Stark girls to their mother.

The episode was written by George R. R. Martin, author of the novels of the A Song of Ice and Fire saga that the show adapts.

"The Bear and the Maiden Fair" is based on material from the third book of his series, A Storm of Swords, adapting chapters 42 to 46 (Jon V, Daenerys IV, Arya VIII, Jaime VI and Catelyn V).

When he was forced to change it because most of the rains had been cut from his script in pre-production, he came up with the title "Chains," that worked both in a literal and metaphorical level.

[5] Due to the legal restrictions and the difficulties involved in the transport of large animals, the scenes with the bear Little Bart had to be filmed in the USA.

The website's critical consensus reads, "'The Bear and the Maiden Fair" feels like a bit of a holding pattern as Game of Thrones moves its pieces into place for the final three episodes.

Club's David Sims found that the interactions felt more natural,[10] and Elio Garcia from Westeros.org suggested that the characters "oozed a richer version of themselves".

Many reviews signaled the lack of focus as the main flaw of the episode, although they agreed that the story required preparing the stage for the final part of the season: Emily VanDerWerff wrote at The A.V.

[13] According to Myles McNutt from Cultural Learnings, the episode "never evolves into a particularly exciting hour of television, content mostly to sketch out the boundaries of the season’s storylines in preparation for the oncoming climax.

"[14] The final scene, where Brienne is forced to fight a bear, was very well received: IGN's Matt Fowler called it "a spectacular moment",[15] HitFix's Alan Sepinwall deemed it "gorgeously staged and executed",[12] and David Sims found it "tense, thrilling television".

In contrast, the scene featuring Theon's torture was criticized for what was seen as its gratuitous violence and nudity, and for the repetitiveness of the storyline over the season.

[10] VanDerWerff concluded: "Endless torture sequences don’t make for terribly exciting fiction, and that’s more or less bearing out here.